Israel watches the show beyond Almaty
By Victor Kotsev
The nuclear talks Friday and Saturday between Iran and six representatives of the international community were not a success, but, given that few people expected much from negotiators in Almaty, Kazakhstan, they were no failure either.
"It became clear that our positions remain far apart," said Catherine Ashton, the European Union's senior diplomat and the international community's lead nuclear negotiator, after the two days were over. "We proposed our plan of action, and the other
party was not ready and they asked for some time to study the idea," her Iranian counterpart Saeed Jalili countered.
An anonymous US official summed it up best in an interview with Reuters: "There may not have been a breakthrough but there also was not a breakdown."
Indeed, hopes that Iran would suspend enrichment of uranium to 20% purity of uranium-235 for a period of time in exchange for a loosening of the sanctions [1] - or would accept any other formula for the immediate deescalation of the conflict - were dashed.
Instead, the Iranians kept insisting that the West recognizes their "right to enrichment". This is a red herring. Nations' rights to peaceful enrichment are recognized by default by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the United Nations Security Council only demanded that Iran halt its program after years of Tehran's failure to answer significant suspicions about its nature and a referral by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In other words, if Iran were to shut down the suspicious parts of its nuclear program and come clean about it, it would only be a matter of time - let's call it time to establish trust - before it receives its enrichment rights back. If their peaceful enrichment rights were really the Iranians' primary concern, they would have every incentive to act in precisely the opposite way from the way they are acting.
However, the Iranian demands make some sense in light of the upcoming Iranian presidential elections. The narrative that the Iranian people suffers because it has been denied basic rights by America or Israel (or various other shapes and sizes of international Satans) is an old populist ploy of the Iranian clerical regime.
And even though the president does not hold as much power, including over the nuclear program and negotiations, as the unelected Iranian supreme leader, few experts doubt that the Iranian elite would find it hard to make major concessions in the crucial final stretch of the election campaign.
This is, in part, because the nuclear program, the wide-ranging sanctions and the recent collapse of the Iranian currency have already extracted a heavy price from the voters. According to a report published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "the program's cost - measured in lost foreign investment and oil revenue - has been well over $100 billion." [2]
Also, the showdown between Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his conservative opponents has reached a critical point. Ahmadinejad, who is barred constitutionally from running again, has been trying to promote a relative to succeed him, and though Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will most likely be able to assert his authority in the end, there is considerable social tension and a danger of a political destabilization in the country.
While this showdown plays out, most analysts believe that even just continuing the talks would constitute a success. And while there may not be much time left for negotiations beyond this year, Iran's arch-enemy Israel has given some indications recently that it would wait at least until the election before acting on its own.
Save for a few dissenting voices - such Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, who called Sunday on the international community to set a deadline of "weeks" and to threaten Iran with military action - Israel has substantially reduced its rhetoric against the Iranian nuclear program in the last months. The predominant view is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to give American diplomacy another serious chance to resolve the crisis peacefully.
It is true that the recent Israeli election removed several opponents of a strike on Iran (such as Dan Meridor and Benny Begin) from the Israeli security cabinet, but it also weakened the hawkish Netanyahu and removed his main ally, Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Internationally, the Israeli government is feeling pressure from several sides - most notably, related to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process - and any rash move on Iran could lead to negative repercussions across the board. Conversely, rewards for waiting longer could include concessions from the Palestinians.
Not to mention the stiff opposition in Israeli defense and political circles against an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. A good publicly available approximation of how the Israeli intelligence agencies evaluate the situation can be gleaned from the recent words of former Israeli army intelligence chief Amos Yadin at the presentation of the annual report of the Institute for National Security Studies, which he currently heads.
According to the Times of Israel,
Yadlin said that if forced to choose between allowing Iran to attain the bomb and bombing Iran, he would recommend the latter, but argued that the choices had not yet been that whittled down to such extremes. Instead he called for a middle road that might force an agreement that would "turn the Iranian clock back 2-3 years," and allow for "face-saving, symbolic uranium enrichment in Iran." [3]
Two or three years can be a very long time in the Middle East, particularly while the Arab Spring revolutions are running their course. So conventional wisdom has it that Israel will wait.
There remains the odd chance that the Israeli leaders may be lowering their rhetoric intentionally in order to prepare for a surprise attack on the Iranian nuclear installations. Israeli military doctrine relies heavily on surprise, and many experts believe that the less Israeli leaders speak, the more likely they are to attack.
Barring such a development, it looks like there may be several more rounds of nuclear meetings before we can even hope for results.
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