Needless to say, hardliners in both capitals oppose direct talks. In Washington, the ‘war party’ does not want to talk to the Mullahs, it wants to bring them down. In Tehran, the instinct is not to give an inch in the belief that the United States is seeking nothing less than Iran’s abject capitulation. Mutual mistrust is so deep that it would require a miracle, or some truly inspired diplomacy, for the United States to strike a bargain with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In the meantime, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the so-called P5+1) are said to be considering holding a new round of high-level negotiations with Iran on the nuclear question — the first since last June. Reports suggest that it might be held in Istanbul in January. But real progress by the P5+1 seems unlikely unless Washington and Tehran give an indication that they are prepared to be more flexible. Without a push from both capitals, a breakthrough seems unlikely.
The prospects are far from bright. The spectre of a war against Iran — waged by Israel with reluctant American tolerance — has overshadowed the region for much of the past two years. To head off the danger of an Israeli strike which might have compelled the United States to join in, President Barack Obama imposed on Iran the most crippling sanctions ever imposed on any country. War was thus averted. But it will again be on the agenda of Israel’s hard-liners and their American supporters in 2013, if no progress is made towards a settlement.
A war against Iran — which could easily spread to the whole region — is the very last thing the turbulent Middle East needs. On the contrary, a lowering of tension is urgently required to create a climate in which compromise is possible – not only in resolving the dispute with Iran but also the many other violent regional disputes, such as the civil war in Syria and the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to claim its victims and spread its poison.
The Iranian case is particularly difficult to resolve because it is more about geopolitics than about nuclear technicalities. In other words, it is less about Iran’s alleged ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons — for which there is as yet no convincing evidence — than about the nature of the region’s political order.
The United States views the Islamic Republic as a challenge to American hegemony over the oil-rich Arab Gulf. Israel, in turn, wants military supremacy over all its neighbours. In 2003, it and its friends put relentless pressure on the United States to destroy Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Once this was achieved, the same pro-Israeli forces turned their attention to the Islamic Republic of Iran, because its nuclear programme was seen as a potential threat to Israel’s nuclear monopoly. Israel has long conspired with Washington to bring down the whole so-called ‘resistance axis’ of Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah, seen as a challenge to U.S.-Israeli dominance. It has made repeated attempts to crush Hizballah and Hamas, and has not hesitated to assassinate Iranian atomic scientists. In league with the United States, it has also waged clandestine cyber-warfare against Iranian industrial facilities.
For their part, Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbours view Shi‘ite Iran as a hostile power which is seeking to challenge Sunni supremacy in the region and undermine the Arab political order.
These are among the underlying geopolitical reasons why a breakthrough in relations with Iran seems unlikely — whether in bilateral talks with the United States or in the wider framework of P5+1 negotiations. And yet it would require only a modicum of goodwill for a deal to be struck.
What is Iran seeking in these discussions? First, it wants recognition of its right to enrich uranium on its own soil for peaceful purposes. Its right to do so is spelled out in Article IV of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it is a signatory. Peaceful purposes include nuclear power generation. Iran is planning to build several nuclear power plants in addition to the one at Bushehr. Iran has, moreover, agreed to regular monitoring of its nuclear activities over the past decade by the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Israel, which has a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, refuses to sign the NPT or allow monitoring of its nuclear plants by IAEA inspectors.)
Secondly, Iran has repeatedly offered to cease 20% enrichment of uranium if it is allowed to purchase fuel rods from abroad for the Tehran Research Reactor, which makes medical isotopes for close to a million Iranian cancer victims. It is prepared to restrict its uranium enrichment to below 5% — thus posing no threat of weapons proliferation — if, in return, it is given relief from the sanctions which have targeted its oil exports, its financial transactions and its nuclear industry, and which are imposing great hardship on its population. Thirdly — and more generally — Iran wants recognition of the legitimacy of its Islamic regime which emerged from its 1979 revolution. It wants to be recognised as an important regional power and not be treated as a pariah state.
Iran’s chances of achieving these goals do not look good. On the contrary, the U.S. Congress is pressing for even stiffer sanctions. Under Israeli pressure, the United States insists that Iran end all uranium enrichment, not merely 20% — and that it must do so before securing any significant concessions in return. In making this extreme demand, the United States has brushed aside Iran’s rights under the NPT and ignored its long compliance with the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Instead, the United States has based itself on politically-motivated UN Security Council resolutions, beginning with Resolution 1696 on July 2006, which demands that Iran halt all uranium enrichment on the grounds that the unproven suspicion that it intends to go nuclear poses a threat to international peace and security.
Is it not time for other members of the P5 — notably Russia and China — to rebel against the American-led punitive sanctions against Iran, and themselves engage in sounding out Iran’s intentions? In May 2010, Brazil and Turkey reached an agreement with Iran to ship out to Turkey 2,500 pounds of low-enriched uranium, but the U.S. shot it down, reverting instead to imposing still more sanctions. If Russia and China were now to take the lead in striking a bargain with Iran, it might induce Washington to think again, and even to follow suit.
But, shackled by a pro-Israeli Congress, how much freedom does President Barack Obama have to break America’s long and dangerous stalemate with Iran?
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).
Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 18 December 2012
Word Count: 1,164
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