The Obama administration's effort to end Iran's nuclear program has focused on punitive measures, with little diplomatic outreach. Critics say this jeopardizesnegotiations.Americas nuclear negotiators withIrangot it all wrong, according to a growing chorus of critics arguing that over-reliance on pressure and sanctions may be jeopardizing a diplomatic deal.
TheObama administrationhasimplementeda host of crippling sanctions on Irantargeting itscentral bank and lifeblood oil exports.The goal has been to pressure Iraninto givingup its most sensitive nuclear work, which could be a pathway to an atomic bomb.
But a year of high-profile talks between Iran and world powers has yielded little progress. Now a number of senior former US officials and analysts say aWhite Houseobsession with the pressure track may be backfiring, and are calling for apivot towardthe diplomatic tracktoreestablishbalance.
I was in the [State] Department when they kept talking about the so-called two-track policy, and it was clear the whole thing was nonsense, there never were two tracks, says John Limbert, the former US deputy assistant secretary of state for Iranfrom 2009to 2010.
The sanctions took all the air out of the room. It was 95 percent sanctions, and that was on a good day.
The US 'knows' sanctions
One reason for the sanctions focus is we know how to do them. Its familiar. And to do them, we dont have to deal with the Iranians; we deal with the British, theUnited Nations,the Russians, the Chinese, says Ambassador Limbert,who was alsoheld captivein Iran during the 1979 to 1981 hostage crisis,and speaks fluent Persian.
Whereas diplomacy with Iran, thats hard. Nobody knows how to do that, and every time weve tried, weve failed, and as soon as we fail weve given up and gone back to doing what we know how to do.
Limbert,whonow teaches at theUS Naval Academy,is among a growing number of people calling for a recalibration of the American strategy on Iran a greater emphasis on diplomacy and real incentives, like substantial sanctions relief in exchange for real concessions by Iran.
It is time for the administration to make the sweat equity investment in negotiations equal to what it has done on sanctions and the potential to use military force, Tom Pickering, the former US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said at the launchlast week in Washingtonofa report by The Iran Project,an independent group of former officials and professionals that seeks to improve official US-Iran ties.
First and foremost we believe the President needs to make that decision I want a deal and instruct his people to get a deal," he said.
Ambassador Pickering and Limbert were among 35 signatories of the report, which included other veteran diplomats and officials likeZbigniew Brzezinski,President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor;Ryan Crocker,former ambassador toAfghanistan,Iraqand other trouble spots;Lee Hamilton, a former congressman and vice chairman of the 9-11 Commission; and formerCentral Intelligence AgencychiefMichael Hayden.
There are signs that message is getting through. Despite a strong desire onCapitol Hilland inIsraelfor more sanctions against Iran,Secretary of State John Kerryasked Congress last Thursday to hold off: We dont need to spin this up at this point in time. You need to leave us the window to try to work the diplomatic channel, he said.
Fewer options
The widening bid for better diplomacycomesafter the latest round of nuclear talks in the Kazakh city ofAlmatyearlier this monthfailed to narrow differencesbetween Iran and the P5+1 group (the US,Russia,China,Britain,FranceandGermany).
Calling for strengthening the diplomatic track in order to seize the opportunity created by the pressure track, The Iran Project notes that while US policies possibly slowed the expansion of Irans nuclear program, they also may have narrowed the options for dealing with Iran by hardening the regimes resistance to pressure.
The report states that it seems doubtful that pressure alone will change the decisions of Irans leaders, though stronger diplomacy that includes the promise of sanctions relief in exchange for verifiable cooperation could lead to a deal. Another risk of current policy, warns the report: Sanctions-related hardships may be sowing the seeds of long-term alienation between the Iranian people and theUnited States.
The current P5+1 offer,which has been seen by The Christian Science Monitor, calls upon Iran to halt enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity which is a few technical steps away from bomb-grade of more than 90 percent and reduce readiness of a deeply buried enrichment facility by disconnecting and removing key equipment.
After those steps, the P5+1 would provide partial sanctions relief on gold transfers and petrochemical exports, but not on far more painful financial or oil sanctions. Iran says the offer is unbalanced, and wants a more reciprocal approach.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneistated in February that pressure and sanctionsare akin to the US pointing a gun at Iranandsay[ing]either negotiate or we will shoot. In March, Khamenei said, if the Americans sincerely want to resolve the nuclear issue they should stop being hostile towards the Iranian nation in words and in action.
Both sides in the nuclear negotiations have staked out positions unacceptable to the other. Iran has signaled repeatedly in the past two years a willingness to cap its 20 percent enrichment, but has balked at the low price on offer.
I think the answer is probably pretty simple. Were going to have to sweeten the offer on sanctions relief, former US assistant secretary of stateunder theGeorge W. Bush administrationand veteran troubleshooterJames Dobbinssaid at the report launch. Sanctions should be suspended, not dropped,he said,until Iran also demonstrates it can hold to its side of any bargain.
Is the level of mistrust so high, that it doesnt matter at the end of the day what we offer? asks Limbert. Anything short of a full surrender and maybe even that the Iranians are going to say, Well, obviously this is some trickwere not sure how youre doing it, but we know you are.
The same applies to US suspicions of Iran, adds Limbert: Thats exactly the way the two sides operate. This nuclear issue has gotten so invested with manhood [that] neither side feels it can back down.
Has Obama already failed?
The Iran Project report isonlythe latest critique of White House handling of Iran that raises questions about missed opportunities and even the desire to make a deal.
TheAtlantic Councilearlier this month called for the US to prepare a roadmap that clarifies a step-by-step reciprocal and proportionate plan to lift sanctions as Irans makes its own moves. To make meaningful concessions, Iran needs to see off-ramps and an endgame,the Washington think tank concluded.
Likewise, theCarnegie Endowment for International PeaceandFederation of American Scientiststhis month determined: Washingtons overwhelming focus on coercion and military threatshas backed US policymakers into a rhetorical corner.
Yet a further report, published by theInternational Crisis Groupin February, noted how Iran and the West view the sanctions through very dissimilar prisms. While the US andEuropecount on a cost-benefit analysis such that Iran will eventually cave in to hardship, the world looks very different fromTehran[where] the one thing considered more perilous than suffering from sanctions is surrendering to them.
That disconnect has bedeviled the Obama White House, writes former administration officialVali Nasrin a book published this month, The Dispensable Nation.
The dual-track policy only gave Iran a reason to dig in deeper and clutch its nuclear ambitions tighter, writes Mr. Nasr, who is now dean of the School of Advanced International Studies atJohns Hopkins University.
In the end, Obamas Iran policy failed. He pushed ahead with sanctions for the same reasonLyndon Johnsonkept up the bombing ofNorth Vietnam neither could think of anything else todo," asserts Nasr. "Obamassanctions-heavy approach did not change Iranian behavior; instead it encouraged Iran to accelerate its race to nuclear capability.
Creating a solution may require a change in approach, say the authors of The Iran Project report.
We have to do something the Iranians arent expecting, that gets them to stop and say, Wait a minute maybe the Americans are serious, saidJames Walsh, a non-proliferation expert at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, at the report launch.
The only way this hard stuff will get done is if the President of the United States makes it his issue, added Walsh. Absent that, were going to continue to do what weve done over and over again, only it will get worse.
By The Christian Science Monitor
The Iran Project is not responsible for the content of quoted articles.
