There is much talk of negotiations with Iran at the moment. But, there are negotiations and there are negotiations…
Therese Delpech, Eli Levite and George Perkovich have identified six questions about how talks with Iran should be conducted. If the Obama administration is serious about pursuing dialogue with Iran (and I think it is) it will need to work through these questions.
I thought it might be interesting to reproduce the questions here so you can mull them over. Once you have finished mulling, check out their answers.
Regardless of whether of not you agree with their answers, I think all should be able to agree that these are important questions and that the way they are answered by the Obama administration could radically affect the nature of any dialogue with Iran.
The questions…
Should the U.S. seek a dialogue with Iran now, or hold back until the Iranian presidential elections?
Should the U.S. approach and seek nuclear talks with Iran alone, or insist [on] conducting nuclear diplomacy in conjunction with the EU-3 plus Russia and China?
If Iran agrees to join talks on the nuclear issue, should the allies put a time limit on progress or leave the nuclear diplomacy open-ended?
Should the U.S. be open to a comprehensive agenda where the nuclear issue does not come necessarily first?
Should the U.S. pursue a dual-track strategy of seeking stronger sanctions against Iran paired with grander offers of cooperation if Iran complies with UNSC resolutions?
Should the U.S. continue to press for Iran to suspend now its fuel-cycle activities?
these are short answers based on common ground interests – as far as I can tell:
1- Iranian presidential election is about internal iranian affairs and won’t affect the course of events on the foreign policy side. Remember, Iran signed off on its promess regarding the AP at the end of the Khatami tenure. It looks better for both Iran and the US to de-couple the two.
2- The relations between US, Iran, EU, Russia, China etc.. as a whole or idividually is not a zero sum game. a bi-lateral and “informal” negociations is in the interests of both countries.
3- Iran has already agreed to join the talks on the nuclear issue and, US has no real “allies” on this issue as perkowitch and co. are implying.
4- Yes for the US, but no for Iran. In 2003 the answer to this question would have been reversed.
5- No, this will weaken US political position more than anything else.
6- Cannot be enforced by the “allies”, therefore non-productive.
I would put question number six at the top of the list in slightly modified form:
1.) Is the ultimate goal of the United States to dissuade the Iranians from producing LEU domestically? That is, will United States officials consider negotiations to be a failure if the Iranians do not agree to suspend domestic uranium enrichment?
If the answer to that is Yes then the USA will be setting itself up to be disappointed. The remaining questions will be somewhat incidental since in my opinion the leadership in Iran will not agree to voluntarily suspend enrichment under any circumstances.
“If the answer to that is Yes then the USA will be setting itself up to be disappointed.” does that mean there is no plan B?
Plan B? A military option? I just finished watching a youtube clip of Iranians jaywalking thru what looked like a game of chicken crossed with a car derby…I’m sure they call it normal traffic for Tehran. Who really want’s a confrontation with these guys?
Iran will have some level of LEU capability, the question only remains can the U.S. offer enough carrots to keep them at <5%. With respect to the sticks…there are none big enough..or to be more accurate none that we are willing to swing.
Thank you about the no sticks.
Why do you think Bush did not attack Iran militarily? It wasn’t because he is a pacifist or because he believes in diplomacy first. It is because his generals told him that an attack would lead to a long assymetric war in which US interests would be damaged as much or more than Iranian interests long term.
Is it a macho thing, that US and Western commentators can’t let go of this “option on the table”?
The deadline for bombing Iran was 9 months away for Bush’s entire second term, and it didn’t happen. Iran was constantly saying we’ve looked at the issue and the US can’t attack us.
Why not admit an attack is not practical?
But then it gets worse, because US/Western commentators hint that Israel may at some point go alone to bomb Iran.
Israel bombing has all of the negative aspects of a US attack – meaning Iran would interpret it as a US attack and start the same counterattacks it would launch if it was a direct attack, but Israel only has a couple of missiles so that bombing, with the same consequences, would be far less effective.
On top of that, even if Israel could travel through US airspace without US permission, which it cannot, just the courtesy of being a junior dependent partner in this strategic relationship would require Israel clearing an attack beforehand, word is that Israel cleared its attack on Gaza beforehand, 1000 times more for an attack on Iran.
And Israel won’t get clearance, so no attack from Israel will happen.
Don’t take a military attack off the table for Iran’s sake, but just as a concession to reality. Just to show that you live in the real world. US/Western commentators seem so loathe to do that.
Is LEU production, but with ratification of the AP, an acceptable fallback position?
I’ve intervened in some of the discussions that I think have veered off topic. In some cases, I have made invisible completely sensible responses that responded to other posts that I found less so.
Please don’t take it personally if you fall into the former category. Appeals can be directed to armscontrolwonk [at] gmail.com
The possibility of Iran being a supply route into Afghanistan kind of puts these questions into a different perspective, doesn’t it?
Iranian Daily: U.S. Backdown on Uranium Enrichment – An Iranian Victory
08 Feb 2009
Responding to the U.S. decision to waive its demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition for talks with it, the Iranian daily Jomhouri-ye Eslami stated that it was a victory for Iran, adding that Iran should now set preconditions for talks with the U.S.
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I was not aware of any such definite concession from the Americans. Can a reader of Parsi please confirm this story? A link to the Jomhouri-ye Eslami website is below. Thanks, Mark
http://www.jomhourieslami.com/j-eslami/index.htm
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I somewhat hesitate to post this since I do not want to come off as spamming, but I’ve posted the “Quiz” as a poll in the Ars Technica ‘Soapbox’ forum, of which I am a regular.
Poll: Framing diplomacy with Iran
The SoapBox is normally a subscription-only forum, but I believe that presently non-subbed participants can post. (Would still need to register though, I guess.)
I’m a Swede, but that forum is predominantly populated by american participants.
Again, if this post is against guidelines I apologize, and would just want to say thank you for a good idea for a discussion thread to liven up our ongoing layman discussions of matters related to this.