The Iran Deal, and the Skeptics

The prospect of a nuclear deal with Iran is in the air. Members of Congress and friends of the United States on multiple continents are pouncing on it.

Attention was drawn last week to the failure of negotiations to produce a breakthrough on Iran’s nuclear program. As in the past, the talks included Iran and the P5+1, that is, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States) plus Germany. (The earliest negotiations—a European Union initiative—involved only Britain, France, and Germany; hence, the Europeans refer to the P5+1 as the EU3+3.) The goal of the talks had been a first-stage agreement under which Iran would freeze its nuclear program and the international community would moderate some of its sanctions on Iran while further negotiations proceeded. That interim agreement would have been the first concrete result from years of talks and talks about talks. The deal failed to come to fruition when the Iranian foreign minister returned home for consultations. The parties will meet again after 10 days, albeit at a lower level of diplomatic representation.

On the other hand, that failure was immediately followed by an agreement in separate negotiations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.-related organization that conducts inspections of nuclear facilities. This agreement opens two facilities—a uranium mine and a heavy-water reactor still under construction—that had previously been closed to inspection and calls for “all present and past issues” between the two to be resolved in the coming months. Iran’s refusal to answer the IAEA’s questions about some of its past activities and future plans has been a concern in many capitals. The agreement does not provide for inspections of the Parchin site, where Western powers believe Iran may have conducted weapons-related research and development about ten years ago. The timing of the agreement, however, may reflect eagerness on Iran’s side to show evidence of progress in its negotiations, either to gain the confidence of foreign powers or to undermine the criticism of skeptical factions at home.

Describing the outcome of the P5+1 talks as a failure may be a bit harsh. Although there have been conflicting stories as to what happened, both sides described the session in positive terms and negotiations are set to resume shortly. The disappointing outcome has been attributed to differences with the Iranians over “details,” such as recognition of a right to enrich uranium (Iran’s interpretation of the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty’s right “to develop research, production, and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”), but also to possible differences within the P5+1 bloc. France was said to consider the terms under discussion insufficient to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment or to prevent its development of a plutonium-production capacity. At the same time, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel—not a party to the negotiations—publicly rejected the terms, despite his not really knowing what the final terms were. (This is not unusual for Netanyahu, whose personal view of the Iranian threat seems to be far direr than that of the Israeli military or intelligence agencies.) Beyond that, we can surely assume that Saudi Arabia, which lies across the Persian Gulf from Iran and views it as a direct threat to its security, also had objections, even if it kept quiet about them. Both countries fear that outside powers might cut a deal that leaves them exposed to an essentially unrestrained Iran. That, however, is jumping to conclusions, and it seems to assume that “negotiated settlement” is the functional equivalent of “capitulation.”

This turn of events highlights the complex, multilayered nature of the negotiations. Potential spoilers abound. There are obviously differences to be negotiated between Iran and the P5+1. There may also be differences within the P5+1, and there are the valid interests of countries not party to the talks, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. There is also the domestic politics within each of these countries. Some in Congress have been skeptical, to say the least, and have been pressing a bill for enhanced sanctions even as the two sides engage in negotiations. They assure that the bill would only enhance the United States’ bargaining position, but such an action could easily be taken as a sign of bad faith, scuttle the talks, and undermine the position of those Iranians who would rather see an improvement in relations. At the same time, hard-liners in Iran have organized public protests against the talks. Beyond the domestic politics is the transnational politics, the ties that link the domestic politics of certain countries to each other. (Netanyahu’s views, as promoted by groups such as the Likud-oriented American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, may have more followers in the U.S. Congress than they do in the Knesset.) Skeptics in various countries are likely to organize internal opposition, and the longer the negotiations take, the more time they will have to do so.

There are, no doubt, many reasons behind the opposition to this potential deal, ranging from efforts to gain short-term political advantages to a sincere belief that reliable security must be rooted in an inflexible posture of deterrence. Yet the requirements for security depend on the nature of the threat; not all threats are the same, and the same threat may evolve over time.

Brandon Valeriano of the University of Glasgow recently commented that political science has spent quite a lot of time and effort studying why wars start and some studying how they end, but there has been very little effort devoted to understanding how threats fade. Hence, we are unlikely to recognize a security situation that is improving, in the absence of overt conflict, owing to changing political circumstances. We could be facing such a situation right now. We could have an opportunity to change the very nature of the U.S. relationship with Iran, with the nuclear deal being the first step. If it does not work out that way, we could still get a nuclear deal in the process.

Many opponents of a deal—or rather, the opponents of the idea of a deal, since no actual deal has been finalized yet—consider regime change the only appropriate goal, and they seem to believe that this can be brought about through economic sanctions. In their view, an agreement with Iran regarding any lesser goal implies acceptance of the Iranian political system. It will probably also require allowing Iran to process uranium to at least low levels of enrichment, if Iran is to find the settlement acceptable. Regarding the acceptance of regimes that we find objectionable, that is something that we have done before. Few people are aware of it anymore, but when the United States established a relationship with the rogue Communist regime of Yugoslavia in the late 1940s, Marshal Josip Broz Tito was considered to the left of Stalin. When Nixon went to China in the early 1970s, the country was still ruled by the revolutionary Mao Zedong and was still in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. Yet both undertakings worked out well in geopolitical terms. Moreover, in both cases the regime ultimately moderated to the point of observers thinking of them as “not really Communist anymore.”

The geopolitical circumstances, of course, are very different today. Iran is not turning to the United States to counter a perceived threat from the Soviet Union, as both Yugoslavia and China did. Tehran is most likely motivated by the need to get out from under oppressive economic sanctions. Unlike the Soviet Union, which remained lurking in the background for decades, sanctions will probably have to go away, or be substantially reduced, as part of a long-term deal. The direct pressure to abide by the agreement would thus be reduced over time. Still, the reduction of sanctions could be stretched out for a considerable period, and even though sanctions cannot be turned on and off like a light switch, the possibility of a return to sanctions would still be lurking in the background (and the second time around we would have a good idea of what the most effective sanctions regime looks like).

With respect to the goal of regime change through sanctions, Daniel Drezner of Tufts University has pointed out that there are limits to what you can achieve with sanctions. It is possible to press a country hard enough to bring it to negotiations on a specific program, even a program its leaders consider highly important. It is quite another thing to press them into suicide. They are not going to agree to give up their regime under pressure. So the only mechanism for achieving regime change would be by stoking economic, and then political, chaos. Thus, if we actually did succeed in bringing down the Iranian regime, then (a) we would be introducing chaos into the largest country of the Middle East and (b) we would still not be in a position to influence who gained power. We think we liked the people behind Iran’s Green Revolution, but we really do not know them (other than that they also favored continuing the nuclear program) and we have no assurance that they would lead a new government. (In Egypt, where we had more influence, we liked the liberal, Western-oriented demonstrators of Tahrir Square, but all liberal and moderate parties combined won only 28 percent of the seats in parliament in open elections.)

With respect to allowing Iran to engage in low-level uranium enrichment, the question is what exactly do the opponents propose instead? They can demand that the negotiations allow for no concessions to the other side, but that is simply a demand for the negotiations to end quickly and unsuccessfully. They can tell themselves that Iran’s nuclear facilities can be taken out with surgical air strikes—the U.S. Air Force is certainly capable of hitting the targets—but it would only set the operations back for a certain period of time and the attempt would convince all Iranian factions that they really do need nuclear arms to defend themselves from the United States. As for military action capable of seizing and holding the facilities to prevent their use, the American people are not exactly in the mood for a new long-term war in the Middle East on a scale that would dwarf the previous ones.

The simple fact is there is no likely way to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon that does not involve Tehran’s voluntary agreement. The options are: (a) negotiate a mutually agreeable settlement, (b) hope Iran decides it doesn’t really want a bomb after all, or (c) prepare for life with a nuclear Iran. Most of the suggested military options are actually subsets of option c. That, however, does not mean capitulation. After all, the outcome has to be agreeable to us as well, and a settlement can include an imposition of obstacles that would make cheating harder than it is now. The new Iranian president has expressed an interest in coming to a settlement, and the ayatollah has backed him up on it. This is an opportunity that may not present itself again. Not to try, not to test Iran on this would be practically criminal.