Europeans look to temper US
pressure By Trita Parsi
WASHINGTON - As world powers gather in
Berlin this week to discuss new punitive measures
against Iran's nuclear program, Europe is faced
with a daunting task.
On the one hand, it
must remain tough and steadfast against Iran's
defiance of two United Nations Security Council
resolutions that Tehran stop enriching uranium. On
the other hand, it must redefine suspension of
enrichment to kick-start much-needed negotiations
and end the current lose-lose game being played
between the West and Iran.
On Wednesday, US Under Secretary of State
Nicholas Burns said Iran would face further
sanctions next month if it continued to defy the
UN demands.
"If Iran doesn't say yes to
negotiations ... they're going to find a third
Security Council [sanctions] resolution in the
month of June," Burns said. Possible new sanctions
include an increase in the number of Iranian banks
to be blacklisted by the UN.
Last summer,
European diplomats feared that escalation in the
Security Council would aggravate the Iranian
nuclear standoff and render a solution more
difficult. These fears have now been realized, as
Iran has defied two Chapter VII resolutions
demanding that it suspend its uranium-enrichment
program, and retaliated by scaling down its
cooperation with the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA).
Thus far, pressure from the
Security Council and financial sanctions imposed
unilaterally by the United States have not
softened Iran's position. On the contrary, both
sides have dug in their heels and limited the
space for compromise. Despite the cost of US
financial sanctions on the Iranian economy, Deputy
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared this week
that Tehran is prepared to "pay the price" for
continuing its nuclear program.
"What has
been the result of three Security Council
resolutions, two introducing sanctions?" he asked.
"Iran has quickened the pace of its peaceful
activities and reduced its cooperation with the
IAEA ... This can go on, but the result is an
escalation of the crisis."
The
difficulties of Washington and Brussels have also
increased since Iran has created new facts on the
ground through the expansion of its nuclear
program. Every new centrifuge it installs
strengthens - at least in theory - its negotiating
position. Moreover, non-proliferation experts warn
that Iran sooner or later will master the
technology, after which a compromise limiting its
nuclear activities may be out of reach.
Ironically, the lose-lose situation has
created balanced incentives on all sides to seek a
face-saving way out of the standoff. With the two
key states in the equation standing so far from
each other - Iran refusing to give up enrichment
and the US seeing zero enrichment as the only
acceptable outcome - significant out-of-the box
thinking is required from the Europeans to bridge
these seemingly incompatible positions.
Lately, Europe has emboldened its
diplomatic efforts. Javier Solana, the European
Union's foreign-policy chief, has publicly called
for direct US-Iran talks, a message the Europeans
preferred to make in private only until recently.
Furthermore, Solana has acknowledged that reform
of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is
needed and that the Iranian case cannot be seen in
isolation from that larger issue.
Furthermore, the Europeans have floated
several ideas to get Iran to agree to the
suspension precondition for negotiations,
including an international enrichment consortium
on Iranian soil.
The question is whether
the promise of including such ideas in the
framework of the negotiations - but not committing
to them - is sufficient to entice Tehran to agree
to a suspension. Tehran's conclusion from earlier
negotiations with Europe - where Iran suspended
its enrichment activities - is that suspension
becomes a trap unless the West at the outset
commits to solutions that wouldn't result in the
suspension becoming permanent.
In earlier
negotiations with Europe, Iran entered the talks
with the impression that the parties would
identify "objective criteria" that would enable
Iran to exercise its rights under the NPT while
providing the international community with
guarantees that the Iranian nuclear program would
remain strictly civilian. As the negotiations
progressed, however, Europe gravitated toward the
US view that the only acceptable criterion would
be for Iran not to engage in uranium enrichment in
the first place.
As a result, Tehran felt
trapped in the talks, since the EU wasn't pursuing
solutions that would ensure that Iran's enrichment
activities would remain peaceful; rather, the
objective was to eliminate Iran's enrichment
program altogether.
Consequently, Tehran
may continue to reject the call for suspension
unless the framework for the negotiations does not
just include solutions that would permit
enrichment on Iranian soil but, more important,
excludes any potential solution that would deprive
Tehran of that activity.
Agreeing to such
a framework would create another headache for
Europe, though - Washington has thus far shown no
appetite for any negotiations that wouldn't have
the explicit aim of ending all Iranian enrichment.
An alternative path may be to revamp an
old idea that was floated around last summer in
various meetings. The idea, termed "freeze for
freeze", would require both sides to freeze their
activities from further advancement, but not
require that these activities to be halted. This
would enable talks to begin while evading the
suspension requirement, yet still prevent both
sides from enhancing their positions by creating
new facts on the ground.
Under this idea,
Iran would continue its current nuclear
activities, but it would be prohibited from
expanding the program or adding new centrifuges.
That is, Iran would freeze its program, not
suspend it. The upside for the West is that a
freeze would in essence delay the Iranian program
and provide the US and EU with much-needed time.
Western powers, on the other hand, would
not have to roll back the UN sanctions against
Iran - a step that Washington seems to appreciate,
mindful of the difficulties it faced in getting
the Security Council to impose them in the first
place. By keeping the sanctions intact, the US
would avoid a scenario in which Russia and China
would resist efforts to reimpose sanctions after a
failed negotiations attempt.
The "freeze
for freeze" concept would, however, prohibit
Washington from seeking to enhance the sanctions
regime during the negotiations. Much like the
Iranian program, the Security Council track would
be frozen, but not suspended.
Political
support for this concept remains weak, but as all
sides start to feel the pain of the continuation
of the current stalemate, the idea may pick up
steam and provide the parties with a face-saving
way out of the current lose-lose game.
Dr Trita Parsi is the author of
Treacherous Alliances: The Secret Dealings of
Israel, Iran and the United States (Yale
University Press, 2007). He is also president of
the National Iranian American Council.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
