NUCLEAR
DIPLOMACY Munich conference breaks Iran-US
ice By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - Iran and the
United States are on the verge of a historical
opportunity to repair their frozen relations and
thus reverse the spiral of conflict spiral that
for years has dominated their interactions. It is
the right thing to do and at the right time, given
the fact that more often than not past
opportunities were lost simply because one side or
the other was not "ready".
Fortunately,
today's situation is different and that is a cause
for cautious optimism in light of positive
statements from US and Iranian officials,
particularly by US Vice-President Joseph Biden
who, while attending the 49th Munich Security
Conference, announced US's readiness to engage in
serious dialogue with Iran, a move that was
immediately reciprocated by Iran's Foreign
Minister Ali Akba Salehi,
who termed Biden's remark as a welcome "step
forward."
"We have no red line for
bilateral negotiations when it comes to
negotiating over a particular subject ...", Salehi
said in Munich. "If the subject is the nuclear
file, yes, we are ready for negotiations but we
have to make sure ... that the other side this
time comes with authentic intention, with a fair
and real intention to resolve the issue."
At the same time, reacting to Biden's
remark that the window for diplomacy is not open
forever and that all options are still on the
table, Salehi rightly branded as "contradictory"
the US's intention to talk "but on the other side
you use this threatening rhetoric that everything
is on the table... these are not compatible with
each other.We are ready for engagement only when
it is on equal footing."
In Tehran,
Salehi's position was backed by, among others,
Alaedin Boroujerdi, a powerful member of
parliament (Majlis) and chairman of the Majlis
Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy,
who reiterated Salehi's concerns about the need
for the US to prove it has "sincere intentions"
and also clarified that the decision to hold talks
with the US is on the shoulder of the Supreme
National Security Council (headed by Saeed
Jalili).
Coinciding with Salehi's Munich
trip, where he met for the first time with the
leader of Syrian opposition, was Jalili's trip to
Damascus and his high-profile meeting with
embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
expressing full support for Bashar and denouncing
Israel's recent air raid on Syria.
In
three weeks, Jalili will be in Kazakhstan for the
next round of nuclear talks with the "P5+1"
nations (the United Nations Security Council's
permanent five members plus Germany), that is,
shortly after President Barack Obama's State of
the Union address (scheduled for February 14). The
big question is, of course, whether or not the
White House is really ready for a new round of
"Iran engagement?"
Questions about US's
strategy toward Iran According to Mehdi
Mohammadi, a former political editor of
conservative daily Kayah, who is advising Jalili
on the nuclear issue, the US must change its
strategy toward Iran if it wants a successful
nuclear negotiation with Iran. But, then again,
what exactly is US's strategy toward Iran?
In a nutshell, US's Iran strategy boils
down to two things: containment of Iranian power
and the deterrence of Iran from acquiring nuclear
weapons. Concerning the latter, outgoing US
secretary of state Hillary Clinton in her final
speech at the Council on Foreign Relations
prioritized the Iran nuclear threat and reiterated
that US is firmly committed to "preventing Iran
from achieving a nuclear weapons capability".
The problem with this statement is that
Iran has already reached the threshold of nuclear
capability by virtue of mastering the complete
nuclear fuel cycle, and this is a fait accompli
that has yet to be factored and fully integrated
into a realistic US strategy toward Iran. (For
more on this see Afrasiabi US
think tank fuels the Iran nuclear crisis, Asia
Times Online, January 25, 2013). Incredibly, the
US's narrative on nuclear Iran consistently fails
to make the crucial distinction between potential
and actual capability and to draw the related
policy ramifications from this necessary
distinction.
As a result, if the US's
intention of talks is to insist on the suspension
of the uranium enrichment program, then it is a
futile effort that is doomed to fail in light of
Iranian leadership's clear signals that they will
not stop the enrichment activity under any
circumstance.
What Tehran may be willing
to consider is a voluntary ceiling on the uranium
enrichment, a temporary suspension of 20%
enrichment, and the like; that is, certain
compromises that do not infringe on Iran's
"inalienable nuclear rights" enshrined in the
articles of Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
These could be complemented with efforts
to enhance Iran's cooperation with the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and,
perhaps, the re-adoption of the intrusive
Additional Protocol. Tehran has also stated its
readiness to register the Supreme Leader's edict
against nuclear weapons at the United Nations, in
order to prove that it is not simply a religious
ruling but rather the national Iranian policy.
Together, these Iranian steps would
provide "objective guarantees" regarding the
peaceful nature and intent of Iran's nuclear
program, the fact that Iran would not misuse its
nuclear capability by crossing the line and
turning actual its present latent or potential
weapons ability. [1]
But will these steps
suffice to lift the Western sanctions on Iran? And
is the US ready to reciprocate Iran's moves by
stepping away from the coercive diplomacy that has
become second nature to Washington? Another
question is what role or influence US allies, such
as Britain or France, will have in the coming
talks?
The reason that last question
matters is that the Conservative government of
British Prime Minister David Cameron is apt to
play a spoiler role, given its close ties with
Israel, and this may explain why the European
Union's foreign policy chief, Cathereine Ashton,
in her Munich speech kept up the emphasis on
"political and economic pressure" so that "Iran
understands".
Ashton and the White House
are somewhat out of sync with each other and this
raises the issue of connection between bilateral
US-Iran talk and multilateral nuclear talks, the
fact that the latter has the distinct potential
and can set back the former. In turn, this raises
the need for the US to insulate its Iran policy
from third-party influence as much as possible,
focusing on its own net of interests - and the
areas of mutual interest and shared concerns with
Iran, such as the future of Afghanistan.
Indeed, this is a litmus test of US
foreign policy in the administration of Barack
Obama's second presidency and it will not be long
before we know the results.
Kaveh
L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After
Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy
(Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating
Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World
Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with
Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's
nuclear potential latent", Harvard International
Review, and is author ofIran's Nuclear Program: Debating
Facts Versus Fiction.
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