Many international negotiations start with diplomatic dances that involve—ostensibly and/or really—preconditions to the negotiations themselves. Preconditions, or complaints about them, can be used for various purposes. A party that does not really want to negotiate can impose arbitrary conditions that it does not expect the other side to accept. Complaining about preconditions is a way of arguing that the other side doesn't really want to negotiate. Preconditions also might be manipulated to placate domestic constituencies or to try to gain an early advantage in the substance of the negotiations.
What functions as a precondition is not to be equated with what is explicitly labeled as a precondition. And attempts to manipulate the terms of a future agreement should be distinguished from what is necessary to negotiate any agreement at all. Israel, for example, portrays itself as wanting to negotiate without preconditions with the Palestinian Authority and complains about the PA imposing a precondition about ceasing the expansion of settlements in occupied and disputed territory. But the PA understandably sees the continued unilateral colonization of disputed territory through settlements as directly contrary to the whole concept of bilaterally negotiating the future of the disputed territory. Israel's no-conditions posture quickly melts away when the subject is negotiation with Hamas, even though the prior declarations about Israel that are being demanded of Hamas (besides the fact that Israel itself has never made any similar declarations about Hamas) are not needed for those two parties to negotiate agreements on issues that divide them—as demonstrated by the complicated agreements they have already reached on exchanging prisoners.
In the standoff between Iran and the West over the Iranian nuclear program, Iran has been seen in the West as more of an imposer of preconditions because of its insistence on recognition of its right to enrich uranium. But look more closely at the meager stabs at what passes for Western-Iranian diplomacy, and it is apparent that the West is playing this game just as much. Peter Jenkins, a former British permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, has an informative piece at Lobelog.com that explains how the P5+1 (or EU3+3, as the Europeans like to say) is in effect imposing a deal-precluding condition. Jenkins, in addressing why coercion through sanctions ever should have become necessary to get Iran to the negotiating table, quotes a key passage of the letter that EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton sent to Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in October and was made public several days ago:
We remain committed to the practical and specific suggestions which we have put forward in the past. These confidence-building steps should form first elements of a phased approach which would eventually lead to a full settlement between us, involving the full implementation by Iran of UNSC and IAEA Board of Governors’ resolutions.
Jenkins aptly explains the effect of this Western posture:
Dr. Jalili and his advisers could be forgiven for interpreting these sentences to mean that there is no point in turning up for talks unless they are committed to satisfying UN and IAEA demands in full. It looks as though the real goal of sanctions is not to get Iran back to the negotiating table, but to get Iran to give way on the demands that it has spent the last six years declining to concede.
In other words, the West is imposing crippling preconditions, which have centered on suspension of all of Iran's uranium enrichment. The rest of Jenkins's piece is also worth reading, partly for explaining why the no-enrichment demand no longer is useful in supporting nonproliferation objectives.
The Western powers would be well-advised to drop anything that functions as a precondition to negotiations, whether it is labeled as such or not, and to start talking substance in detail with the Iranians. Of course, some argue this would risk letting the Iranians string out negotiations while those centrifuges keep spinning (rather like the Palestinians' concern about the Israelis stringing out negotiations while those settlements keep getting constructed). But the risks, as well as the preconditions game, run in both directions. Amid escalating sanctions and all the talk in the West about regime change, the Iranians have at least as much reason to be worried about the West stringing out negotiations while sanctions cause more damage and Iran grows weaker.
What is needed now are not precondition games but serious, broadly scoped negotiations. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta offered advice about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that certainly applies there but also to the differences between Iran and the West: “Just get to the damn table.”
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It might be noted that something akin to "the preconditions game" is likewise being played by the U.S. with Iran. As Yousaf Butts has reported here, while the U.S. says that the sanctions it has been imposing on Iran (and those who deal with it) are aimed at Iran's nuclear program, in reality the actual text of the sanctions law only allows them to be lifted if Iran does all kinds of utterly non-nuke related things, including releasing unidentified "political prisoners," and remaking its judicial system in some vague way that can always be said to have fallen short. In brief, the sham quotient in what is said today in the West as regards all the various Mideast conflicts is up there at about 98%. Would make an entertaining plot for a Hollywood fantasy movie: A world where nobody ever speaks the truth about anything.
FOR THE WILLING AND THE PRINCIPLED SOLUTION TO IRAN’S NUCLEAR IMPASSE IS SIMPLE: 1- US and Russia create an international bank for Low Enriched Uranium (LEU). 2- Iran is allowed to produce as much LEU as it desires on the condition that it sells its stock of LEU in excess of one ton to the LEU-bank. 3- Iran is guaranteed unlimited purchase of LEU fuel-rods for its nuclear power stations and research reactors. The above formula should satisfy both the West and Iran:Iran will continue its pursuit of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes unhindered; and at no point in time will have enough LEU to enrich further to build a bomb.
Aren, one of the reasons that Iran refuses to hand over any Nuclear material is that in the past it has handed over Uranium Oxide to be enriched to the 20 percentile mark so that it can make Medical isotopes in its experimental reactor built by the Americans. This was given to the French and never given back. Frankly the Iranian Government doesnt trust anyone else to return thier property.The whole idea that the IAEA treaty allows any signatory country to have complete control of the Whole of the Civilian use of the Uranium Cycle is to actually stop individual countries from holding another to ransom. Remember here that the US or Russia has never been backwards in using sanctions and Gun Boat deplomacy to get its own way. Niether country after Iran gives them their LEU stockpiles could be forced to give them back. Further more one of the main reasons that the IAEA treaty originally allowed each member state to control the whole Nuclear cycle was that it is considered unwise to have large amounts of Nuclear material being moved around the world. According to Every US intelligence Agency Iran is NOT doing anything that is in Breach of the IAEA treaties, not one iota of proof has been put forward that there is a diversion of Nuclear materiel from the civilian program to a Military Program. In fact Iran goes beyond what they have to do at least according to the IAEA, to show they are not in breach of IAEA treaty rules.During the Bush Administration VP Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld both made the comment why does Iran need Nuclear Power they have plenty of Gas, how disingenuos they were, during the days of the Shah these two men went to Iran to on behalf of Westinghouse to sell Nuclear Power reactors to Iran, the New Reactor finished by the Russians was originally started construction by another of the 5P+1 Countries, Germany, the company SeimensIran demands the full cycle of Nuclear technology BECAUSE the US has placed sanctions many in fact illegally, they dont have UN permission for them, they are Unilaterally enacted without UN permission by the US Congress and Administration and forced on other nations by threats and cajoling. The Interesting matter here is that Iran is Probably in total compliance with the IAEA treaties however apart from Germany it has no NUKES the other Permanent Members of the UN security council or P5 are in fact in Breach of them for not permanently removing and not Replacing their Nuclear weaponry according to IAEA guidlines!