Iran-EU talks again hit a wall – but ignoring past opportunities assured current impasse
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Nuclear Iran
EU foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana and Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani shake hands during thier talks last week.
AT
- US and Israel table military action on Iran – Iran does not flinch
- Russia slashes sanctions against Iran in draft UN resolution
- New European negotiations over Iran to be scrutinized by a sanction-hungry US
- Russia ‘twists the nuclear thorn’ in talks over Iran’s uranium enrichment programme
- Iran ready to talk – but mixed signals remain on its uranium enrichment programme
- Iran Shoots Down EU Diplomacy On Uranium Enrichment Before It Is Even Tabled
- Iran Reports Huge Advances In Uranium Enrichment
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President George Bush meanwhile seemingly passed the diplomatic buck to European Union (EU) officials to continue talks to reach a resolution to the crisis, but warned in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will “make sure that this process (of negotiations) cannot go on forever.”
The US Senate has also passed, since the end of this week’s negotiations, legislation called - in typically ironic US terminology, the “Iranian Freedom Support Act”- that will impose sanctions on countries and industries supporting Iran in its nuclear development. This is a clear shot across the bow of China, which is selling missile technology to Iran, and Russia - which is building and fueling an $800m, 1,000 megawatt reactor in the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr that will come on line in November 2007. Russia plans to pursue even more tenders to build as many as five more reactors in
The legislation package –which is expected to be signed by Bush - will further muddy the diplomatic process and create other problems as well. Russia - a long time oil and nuclear business partner of Iran and a key member of the United Nations Security Council - has grown increasingly frustrated with US demands for sanctions at the expense of diplomacy.
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| The Kremlin, the seat of Russian power. |
| Bellona Archive |
Moscow’s alienation from Washington has even led to increased nuclear weapons deployment against the United States in Moscow’s newly revised military doctrine, essentially reviving the ethic of the Cold War. Just two weeks ago, Russia, in violation of a 1991 bilateral agreement with Washington, sent three attack subs armed with nuclear warheads to sea.
All of this begs the question: Is America’s obstinate stance against Iran - especially amid the bloodletting it nearly unilaterally created in the Middle East and the creation of new enemies - really worth by-passing world opinion for yet again?
Hardliners on both sides have amnesia about past chances to cooperate
The news of this new impasse in the on-going nuclear negotiations comes at a time when it has become increasingly clear that the United States, Iran and other countries have shared several common interests and had several opportunities since 9/11 that could long ago have defused the escalating nuclear crisis – chances that Washington hawks willingly squandered in favor of sending the world a hard line message of “zero tolerance.”
At several points over the past few years, Russia has rejoined the Bush Administration’s concerns that Iran may be pursing the bomb. Moscow’s unique access to Tehran’s corridors of power have helped soften fist-pounding rhetoric from the West, and Moscow has played the role of a key intermediary for European negotiators – even going so far as to suggest that it will take on the burden of enriching uranium for the Islamic Republic.
But the new Congressional legislation package essentially cuts Russia out of the loop by rattling the prospect of Cold War-style sanctions that demolish any hope that the United States can secure Russia as an ally against Iran’s perceived nuclear threat.
During talks this week between EU Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana and Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Berlin, there were brief and vague announcements that the two sides were making slow progress. A suspension at least of a temporary nature is remains key demand of the EU and United States.
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| Iranian uranium technicians at the Isfahan site. |
| AFP |
A verifiable stoppage of the Iranian enrichment programme would, therefore, in the eyes of the West, be a show of good faith on the part of Iran that it does not wish to develop nuclear weapons.
But comments from Iranian officials gave that notions that any progress toward terminating the enrichment programme the lie as they, too, allowed their new generation of entrenched hardliners to speak for the nation.
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| Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. |
| AFP |
Iran ‘will not bend’
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed in a speech Thursday that Iran "will not bend" over its nuclear programme.
"Why are they insisting that we stop it (enrichment) even for one day? Why should we pretend to stop it even for one day?" Ahmadinejad asked a cheering crowd in his televised speech.
Yet, as Iran reiterated that its uranium pursuits are for peaceful purposes only, Mottaki’s comments represent Tehran’s most explicit signal yet since negotiations began that it does not intend to suspend enrichment.
"Iran does not see any reason to suspend nuclear activities," Iranian state television quoted Mottaki as saying a day after the latest talks between Iran and the EU ended. He added that Western countries "have found out that threatening language and a referral to the United Nations Security Council is not efficient and there is no way for them now but to negotiate."
Iran had initially been under a Security Council mandate to stop uranium enrichment by August 31st or face sanctions – a deadline Ahmadinejad stridently ignored. During sideline talks at the UN General Assembly two weeks ago, EU diplomats, along with Rice, said they were willing to extend that deadline until next week, but it is unclear whether that deadline is official. Some diplomats have even spoken of extending it until December.
Missed opportunities to defuse crisis
But if Iran and the United States’ schizophrenic relationship since 9/11 is taken into consideration, there have been countless occasions on which Washington and Tehran could have reached accord – if they had only taken the opportunity to talk, analysts and involved diplomats are beginning to tell world media.
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| US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns. |
| state.gov |
"It's the most unusual relationship we have with any country in the world," US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told the BBC.
"It's been 27 years since we've had a normal diplomatic, social and political relationship. And so for instance I am one of the people responsible for Iran in our government and yet I have never met an Iranian government official in my 25-year career."
Could the two sides still sit down face to face?
One opportunity when they could have done so was after the events of 9/11. Iran and America faced - and still face - a common enemy in the Taliban. Taliban troops were at the time arrayed along the Iranian border, and Iran was ready to go to war. Meanwhile, throngs of Iranians turned out on the streets of Tehran and held candlelight vigils for the victims of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Sixty-thousand spectators held a minute’s silence at Tehran’s football stadium.
After the initial US war in Afghanistan, Iranian and US officials found grounds to co-operate and US negotiators worked closely with Tehran to form a new Afghan government. There was the hope that this engagement could lead to an eventual restoration of diplomatic relations.
But back home in Washington and Tehran, hardliners and moderates clashed over whether the other side could be trusted.
Just weeks after Iran and the United States had worked so closely together over Afghanistan, Bush gave his answer in his infamous 2002 State of the Union Address when he lumped Iran into an “axis of evil.” That was all the proof hardliners in Tehran needed as to how far they could trust American. Tension once again ruled American-Iranian relations.
"We were all shocked by the fact that the US had such a short memory and was so ungrateful about what had happened just a month ago," Javad Zarif, now Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, told the BBC.
Despite the humiliating ramifications of Bush’s words, and the selective amnesia of the Washington establishment, another opportunity arose for the nations to become closer when the United States marched on Baghdad, and Tehran feared it may be next - a fear that is even closer to reality now than it was then.
The opportunity came in the form of a little publicized letter in which Iran announced it was willing to put everything on the table, including complete transparency about its nuclear programme, offers to help stabilize Iraq, ending support to Palestinian militant groups, and assistance in disarming Hezbollah. The letter was sent with the support of the highest leaders in Tehran. But it was ignored in Washington - in keeping with the US hardliners’ catch-phrase: “We don’t speak with evil,” Larry Wilkerson, then chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, told the BBC.
"In my mind it was one of those things you throw up in the air and say I can't believe we did this," said Wilkerson.
Why talk to a weak Iran?
The problem was that at the very moment that Iranian vulnerability was at its greatest, thanks to America's march to Baghdad, Washington was at its most triumphal - why talk to Iran when you could simply dictate terms from a position of strength, asked BBC security correspondent Gordon Carera.
America’s rejection of talks had a ripple effect that reached all the way to Tehran, tilting the power framework there in favor of the hardliners like Ahmadinejad. They became entrenched in the ensuing years, and the possibility for direct American-Iranian dialog dwindled to nil.
Meanwhile, America’s victory in Iraq is looking more ambiguous as a brutal insurgency gathers strength. Rising oil prices have solidified the influence of a hard line Iran –which it the world’s fourth biggest oil exporter - both in Iraq and the Middle East in general.
Now, the possibility of successful further talks with Iran seems more remote. The United States is still insisting on that Iran must suspend its enrichment programme before it even puts in an appearance at the negotiating table, and Iran is bluntly rebuffing appeals to cease its nuclear activities. The last chance may have been lost.
"Had it not been for those arbitrary red lines and the pressure that went along with those arbitrary red lines imposed on our negotiating partners, I believe the nuclear issue could have been resolved long time ago," Zarif told the BBC. All Iran wanted, according to Zarif, was a halt in American hostility and a statement that Iran did not belong to the “axis of evil.”
Cooperation between the two opposing states would then have been facilitated and years of tense diplomacy and threats could have been avoided.
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