Nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) failed to meet their self-imposed November 24th deadline to reach a final deal over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. Key contentious issues remain: the United States would only tolerate a much smaller Iranian nuclear program with far fewer centrifuges. Iran would like to see a much faster sanctions relief program for every concession it is going to make.
Failing to reach a final agreement or agree to a comprehensive accord, the two sides left Vienna last week only to set another self-imposed deadline. This time, the two sides will have five months to hash out their differences and find a peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But if twelve months of intense negotiations did not bridge the gap between the sides, can another five months bring the two sides to an agreement? Would Israel and Saudi Arabia, America’s key allies in the Middle East and staunch opponents of a nuclear deal with Iran, tolerate yet another extension only to buy more time for the Iranian nuclear program?
If nuclear negotiations were an uphill battle so far, the two sides will now have a mountain to climb. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has gambled almost all of his administration’s political capital at home on the success of these talks. And according to both his supporters and critics, success is measured by how effectively Rouhani and his U.S.-educated Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif can relieve Iran from backbreaking international and U.S. sanctions. They have not been very successful.
Hardliners in Iran, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are not satisfied. For one, Khamenei and a group of key hardliners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) have a deep sense of distrust for the West in general and the United States in particular. They believe that any Iranian concession or compromise will eventually weaken the Islamic Republic and would only embolden their American enemy (whom they believe will be satisfied with nothing short of regime change in Tehran). Furthermore, these hardliners believe that the nuclear weapons are the only guarantors of regime survival—they point to the fates of Kim Jong Il’s North Korea and Saddam’s Iraq as two examples of countries with and without vast WMD programs.
Pressure is mounting inside Iran as the hardliners demand answers for what they perceive to be over a year of futile concessions and a temporary pause of the country’s enrichment program. Last week, the Editor in Chief of Iran’s hardliner newspaper Kayhan, who is appointed by the Supreme Leader, wrote in an op-ed that the nuclear talks were doomed to fail. A number of key IRGC generals including Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naqdi, the commander of the paramilitary Basij forces, accused the Iranian negotiators of making too many concessions. In many words, he warned them to think twice about meeting Western demands.
What they fail to realize, however, is that they have lost their best chance for reaching a deal with the United States given President Obama’s remarkable, and at times frustrating, flexibility and patience for the Iranian side.
But that is not all. President Obama will now have to deal with a Republican-led Senate and a much larger Republican majority in the House. In order to derail the talks, the new Congress can bring forth new sanctions legislation (this would certainly infuriate the Iranian side) and unlike Harry Reid, new Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would bring such a bill to the floor guaranteeing its passage. To add to Obama’s Congressional problems, his presidential veto can be simply overridden given the enthusiasm among many Democrats to get tough with Iran. Iran seems to be the only issue that could unite a Tea Party conservative like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and a liberal Democrat such as Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey to co-sign a bill in the United States Senate. For instance, Bob Menendez, the outgoing Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and its next Ranking Member, is the co-author of the so-called Kirk-Menendez Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 that was never brought to the Senate floor—only because Harry Reid refused to present the bill for a up or down vote. McConnell would do no such favors for the Obama Administration.
The West cannot and should not accept a bad nuclear deal. A bad nuclear deal for the West would ultimately lead to an Islamic Republic armed with nuclear weapons and would further destabilize the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. But a bad deal for Iran, at least one perceived as bad by the hardliners, would relieve sanctions and normalize relations with the cash-strapped and isolated Islamic Republic in exchange for nuclear transparency. Iran should seize this historic opportunity, return to the table before January 3rd and take the deal of the century—which no other American president will be willing or able to offer. The ball is in Iran’s court now.
Arash Aramesh is a National Security Analyst based in Washington, DC and California. He has published in the International Herald Tribune, The Huffington Post, The Majalla, the Stanford Lawyer blog, and The Diplomatic Courier, among others. He appears frequently on BBC, AlJazeera English, Sky World News, Voice of America, ABC News Australia, and others. He can be found on Twitter at @ArameshArash.
Photo: European Council (cc)
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Iran’s Best Lost Nuclear Deal
December 5, 2014
Nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) failed to meet their self-imposed November 24th deadline to reach a final deal over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. Key contentious issues remain: the United States would only tolerate a much smaller Iranian nuclear program with far fewer centrifuges. Iran would like to see a much faster sanctions relief program for every concession it is going to make.
Failing to reach a final agreement or agree to a comprehensive accord, the two sides left Vienna last week only to set another self-imposed deadline. This time, the two sides will have five months to hash out their differences and find a peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But if twelve months of intense negotiations did not bridge the gap between the sides, can another five months bring the two sides to an agreement? Would Israel and Saudi Arabia, America’s key allies in the Middle East and staunch opponents of a nuclear deal with Iran, tolerate yet another extension only to buy more time for the Iranian nuclear program?
If nuclear negotiations were an uphill battle so far, the two sides will now have a mountain to climb. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has gambled almost all of his administration’s political capital at home on the success of these talks. And according to both his supporters and critics, success is measured by how effectively Rouhani and his U.S.-educated Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif can relieve Iran from backbreaking international and U.S. sanctions. They have not been very successful.
Hardliners in Iran, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are not satisfied. For one, Khamenei and a group of key hardliners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) have a deep sense of distrust for the West in general and the United States in particular. They believe that any Iranian concession or compromise will eventually weaken the Islamic Republic and would only embolden their American enemy (whom they believe will be satisfied with nothing short of regime change in Tehran). Furthermore, these hardliners believe that the nuclear weapons are the only guarantors of regime survival—they point to the fates of Kim Jong Il’s North Korea and Saddam’s Iraq as two examples of countries with and without vast WMD programs.
Pressure is mounting inside Iran as the hardliners demand answers for what they perceive to be over a year of futile concessions and a temporary pause of the country’s enrichment program. Last week, the Editor in Chief of Iran’s hardliner newspaper Kayhan, who is appointed by the Supreme Leader, wrote in an op-ed that the nuclear talks were doomed to fail. A number of key IRGC generals including Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naqdi, the commander of the paramilitary Basij forces, accused the Iranian negotiators of making too many concessions. In many words, he warned them to think twice about meeting Western demands.
What they fail to realize, however, is that they have lost their best chance for reaching a deal with the United States given President Obama’s remarkable, and at times frustrating, flexibility and patience for the Iranian side.
But that is not all. President Obama will now have to deal with a Republican-led Senate and a much larger Republican majority in the House. In order to derail the talks, the new Congress can bring forth new sanctions legislation (this would certainly infuriate the Iranian side) and unlike Harry Reid, new Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would bring such a bill to the floor guaranteeing its passage. To add to Obama’s Congressional problems, his presidential veto can be simply overridden given the enthusiasm among many Democrats to get tough with Iran. Iran seems to be the only issue that could unite a Tea Party conservative like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and a liberal Democrat such as Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey to co-sign a bill in the United States Senate. For instance, Bob Menendez, the outgoing Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and its next Ranking Member, is the co-author of the so-called Kirk-Menendez Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 that was never brought to the Senate floor—only because Harry Reid refused to present the bill for a up or down vote. McConnell would do no such favors for the Obama Administration.
The West cannot and should not accept a bad nuclear deal. A bad nuclear deal for the West would ultimately lead to an Islamic Republic armed with nuclear weapons and would further destabilize the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. But a bad deal for Iran, at least one perceived as bad by the hardliners, would relieve sanctions and normalize relations with the cash-strapped and isolated Islamic Republic in exchange for nuclear transparency. Iran should seize this historic opportunity, return to the table before January 3rd and take the deal of the century—which no other American president will be willing or able to offer. The ball is in Iran’s court now.
Arash Aramesh is a National Security Analyst based in Washington, DC and California. He has published in the International Herald Tribune, The Huffington Post, The Majalla, the Stanford Lawyer blog, and The Diplomatic Courier, among others. He appears frequently on BBC, AlJazeera English, Sky World News, Voice of America, ABC News Australia, and others. He can be found on Twitter at @ArameshArash.
Photo: European Council (cc)
