29 Mar 2024
Sunday 10 November 2013 - 14:54
Story Code : 63548

A history of U.S. missed opportunities with Iran

TEHRAN, Nov. 10 (MNA) As negotiators from Iran and six major world powers convene(d) again in Geneva, prospects for resolving the decade-long impasse over the Iranian nuclear program are better than they have ever been, according to descrier.co.uk website.
The foremost fact about the Iranian nuclear programone that might surprise people who constantly hear about that Iranian nuclear weapons program, or that the Iranians are forever six months away from having the bombis that Iran does not even have a nuclear weapons program.
There has never really been any serious doubt about this either, at least as far as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is concerned. The IAEAs regular reports on Irans nuclear enrichment activities, which it has intensively inspected for nearly 10 years, have never provided any evidence of Iran developing nuclear weapons. Western intelligence agencies too have long maintained that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.

Irans nuclear activities first came to international spotlight in 2002, when the Iranians were allegedly caught red-handed with an illicit nuclear program. However, while Iran was indeed pursing a nuclear program at this time, it was not, as per the tenants of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), required to disclose any of its nuclear facilities until six months before nuclear material would actually be introduced to any of its facilities, a threshold that was never reached.

Regardless, the Iranians arguably went above and beyond their international obligations to ease international concern during this time and, under the reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami, froze all of their nuclear enrichment activities. Additionally, they signed onto the NPTs additional protocol, which required the country to give advance notice of future facilities to the IAEA and to adhere to more intensive inspections.

The Iranians resumed enrichment in 2005 after what they said was the failure of European-led negotiations to build confidence and reach a resolution that would allow for peaceful enrichment on Iranian soila right Iran claimed under the NPT. The Iranians went their own way, dismissing Western red lines and expanding their nuclear enrichment program. This resulted in the first round of UN Security Council sanctions being imposed on Iran in 2006.

Soon after this, an effort was made by then-Secretary General of the IAEA, Mohammad ElBaradei, to resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff. ElBaradei suggested a deal wherein Iran would give up industrial-scale enrichment and limit its enrichment program to a small-scale pilot facility, and agree to import higher enriched nuclear fuel from Russia. Iran actually responded positively to this proposal, but the offer was dismissed by the Bush administration, which vowed not to approve of any deal that allowed enrichment inside Iran.

In 2010, another diplomatic opportunity arose that prominent political scientist Stephen Walt has said could have been a step towards the solution of the whole Iranian nuclear program. Brokered by Turkey and Brazil, rising powers that wanted to enter the world stage by helping to solve the Iranian nuclear dispute, the deal would have seen Iran exchanging large amounts of its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium for small amounts of medium-enriched uranium.

Iran has long argued that it needs medium-enriched uranium (which can be converted to weapons-grade uranium much more easily) to operate a medical research reactor in Tehran that creates vitally needed cancer medicine. To the surprise of many, Iran accepted the deal, and the stage was suddenly set for a potential solution to the Iranian nuclear impasse.

However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quickly poured cold water on the whole affair and condemned the deal, worrying that it would undermine support for new sanctions the United States was pushing for against Iran. These new sanctions were soon ushered through the UN Security Council by the United States, where Turkey and Brazil (then rotating members of the council) voted against them.

The changing landscape

The argument that sanctions have prompted Irans more conciliatory stance today ignores these past overtures. At several junctures in the past 10 yearswell before current sanctions were in placeIran put more concessions on the table than most analysts think it would be willing to offer today. In trying to ascertain what the next diplomatic steps with Iran should be, U.S. diplomats and decision-makers should be cognizant of these previous missed opportunities.

Irans new strategy is more a consequence of the election of Hassan Rouhani than of sanctions. Rouhani ran on a platform stressing international reconciliation and serious diplomacy aimed at resolving concerns over the countrys nuclear program.

There are also a few new geo-strategic factors that make a negotiated settlement with Iran more likely today. Perhaps foremost is that regional power dynamics have drastically changed in the Middle East compared to what they were 10 years ago. Iranian influence now stretches from Afghanistan to Lebanonthanks in no small part to the U.S.-led wars of the past decade and a half.

But the United States and Iran now have more shared interests in the region than differences, particularly in preserving a stable Iraq and Afghanistan, checking the spread of Wahhabi extremism, and ensuring the free flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf, among others.

The United States has long sought to isolate Iran, but it has failed. The Islamic Republic continues to exist more than 30 years after the revolution that created it, and plays a bigger role in the Middle East today than it ever has before.

It is critical for policymakers to understand at this point that sanctionsas a tool to coerce other nations to change their policies against their interestsare rarely effective. While sanctions have hurt Irans economy, the Iranians have adapted accordingly, a process that has been painful but not fatal. Most importantly, sanctions have failed to change Irans nuclear calculus, with the Iranians essentially offering the same thing now that they have been offering for the past decade.

By Mehr News Agency

 

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