MB Civic

Try Patience With Iran

William D. Hartung

July 12, 2006

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute.

To no one’s surprise, yesterday’s deadline for Iran to freeze its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for negotiations over potential economic and technological incentives passed without an agreement. On Monday, Ali Larijani, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, told European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana that any negotiations would be a “long process.”

Considering the fact that Iran had already indicated it has no plans to respond to the proposal before mid-to-late August, the insistence of the six powers involved in the talks on setting deadlines that require Tehran to answer within a matter of weeks seems puzzling, to say the least. Do the six interlocutors—Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the U.S.—really want to give diplomacy time to work? Or are hardliners like the Cheney faction of the Bush administration lurking in the background trying to scuttle serious talks between the U.S. and Tehran before they even get started?

Despite this week’s developments, there are still avenues available for genuine diplomacy, if Washington chooses to pursue them within a reasonable time frame.

The first obstacle that needs to be overcome if talks are to move forward is the U.S. demand that it will engage in talks with Tehran only after the Iranian leadership agrees to freeze all uranium enrichment activities. A more logical and effective way to spur negotiations would be to proceed on a step-by-step basis, beginning with a U.S. agreement to speak directly with Iranian leaders.

Iran has plenty of reasons to resist putting its main bargaining chip on the table before it has any indications of changes in U.S. behavior. As Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials have asserted on numerous occasions, the military option is “still on the table” with respect to Iran’s nuclear program.  It has not been made clear whether military action means conventional air strikes on Iranian facilities, or efforts to overthrow the regime through covert means, or the extreme step of using a tactical nuclear weapon to target Iran’s nuclear installations.

At a minimum, talks must begin with an explicit U.S. pledge to take both regime change and the potential use of nuclear weapons “off the table.”

Mastering nuclear technology has strong nationalist support in Iran, whether or not it leads to the development of nuclear weapons. But Iran is surrounded by states possessing nuclear weapons—Israel, Russia, and Pakistan—and Iranian leaders may view this strategic situation, along with ongoing U.S. threats, as reason enough to either develop a nuclear weapon or keep its intentions in that regard ambiguous. Before any Iranian leader takes the politically risky step of suspending its nuclear program there would have to be some indication that its security would be protected.

Successful anti-nuclear diplomacy also needs to dispense with the unnecessarily rushed deadlines that have been pressed by the Bush administration. President George W. Bush has indicated that the current offer to Iran will only be available for “weeks or months” before it is rescinded and harsher measures are pursued. This practice of setting false deadlines is eerily similar to U.S. behavior in the run-up to the war with Iraq, when distorted intelligence and a willful opposition to letting United Nations weapons inspectors finish their jobs fueled the drive to war.

Somewhere along the way the issue of “nuclear hypocrisy” will also have to be addressed. The United States currently has 10,000 strategic nuclear warheads in its stockpile, including 5,735 on active status. Iran, on the other hand, appears to be seeking the capability to build one or more nuclear weapons, a task that will take it five to 10 years by most estimates. This “do as I say, not as I do” approach to nuclear weapons production undermines U.S. leverage over Iran and other nuclear “wannabes.”

Although the Bush administration’s body language makes it seem as if an Iranian nuclear bomb is an imminent threat, its production won’t happen for years, if ever. This leaves months and years available for diplomacy, not the weeks or months favored by the Bush administration.

A patient approach to negotiating with Iran should be reinforced by the fact that the United States has no viable military options.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff are adamantly opposed to the use of a tactical nuclear weapon targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, and thankfully, their opinions are likely to prevail on this subject. Regime change is unlikely without U.S. “boots on the ground,” an impossibility with U.S. troops bogged down in
Iraq, not to mention the much greater challenge involved in attacking and occupying a country of nearly 70 million people.

The outlines of a deal would have to involve U.S. political recognition and economic assistance to Iran—backed up by the European Union, Russia, and China—in exchange for sharp curbs on Iran’s nuclear activities.  These could include a moratorium on uranium enrichment until U.N. inspectors are allowed to do intensive investigations to locate major Iranian nuclear facilities; and eventual allowance of a focused nuclear power program in Iran under tight and intrusive international inspections. This would call Iran’s bluff by allowing nuclear power—the only thing they claim to want—while clamping down in a way that will make it nearly impossible to pursue nuclear weapons.

Ayatollah Al Khamenei, the true political leader of Iran, while suggesting on the one hand that there is “no use” negotiating with the U.S. over his nation’s nuclear program, has also indicated the “we are willing to negotiate over controls, inspections, and international guarantees . . . The ground for such negotiations has been prepared.”

An Iranian nuclear power program with strict international controls may be the best deal available. It is well worth pursuing.

Ultimately, what is needed is a non-discriminatory approach to nuclear weapons, in which nuclear-armed states like Russia, the U.S., France, China, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, and Israel agree to reduce or eliminate their arsenals in exchange for stricter monitoring of all states, nuclear and non-nuclear. The more countries that develop nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that one will be used in some future conflict. Heading off that catastrophe requires action not just by Iran, but by all nuclear-armed and aspiring nuclear weapons states.