The Iran talks: Where are we now?

Is Iran’s long waiting game ending?

Even with the extension of the Iran interim nuclear accord until July 7, and negotiations still ongoing, it is clear the Iranians have long known — looking at the actions of the Obama administration — that Iran would not risk much by sticking to its ultimate goals.

There has been a long history of warnings, followed by inaction, with regard to Iran. Six months before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist, an enemy of peace, the Israeli prime minister was in America to attend the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, where he spoke about other “enemies of peace” — “the extreme Islamic radical movements.” 

“Which country gives assistance to these enemies of peace?” Rabin pointedly asked in his speech — and then answered his own question: “Iran.” Iran encourages terrorism, undermines efforts for peace, and “in addition” it attempts to develop its “nonconventional” military capabilities. This, Rabin warned, “can really bring about terrible developments, not only in the Middle East.” 

More than 20 years have passed since May 1995, when Rabin gave that speech. Even earlier, at his first meetings with then-President Bill Clinton in 1993, Rabin warned Clinton of the danger of a nuclear Iran. But the world and America were busy with other problems — notably, the former Yugoslavia and Iraq. And Israel was busy, too, in its attempts to find peace with the Palestinians. More than 20 years have passed, and today, Israel — along with most of its Arab neighbors — is still alarmed by Iran’s nuclear advances and its hegemonic ambitions. 

The story of these past 20 years is quite simple. There were few surprises in Iran’s road to the bomb. Tactical, technical surprises perhaps, but no strategic surprises. Amid all the noise, and all the disruptions and glitches, it was clear early on that Iran wanted nuclear weaponry, and it was clear early on that the world, while concerned, could be easily distracted and slow to react. This week, the world seemed ready to put the final nail in the coffin in which the effort to eliminate Iran’s military nuclear program would be buried. 

In his 2005 book, “The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America,” Kenneth Pollack opined that all solutions to the Iranian nuclear problem depend on collective international cooperation. When he wrote, the American administration had to depend on such cooperation from hesitant allies, such as France and Germany, reluctant rivals, such as Russia and China, and other countries that for many years had habitually wavered in regard to action against Iran, such as India. By the time an effective coalition finally came together, a half-decade later, the Americans had already lowered the bar of their expectations. Or maybe they raised it — depending upon one’s point of view. On the one hand, the United States’ insistence on rolling back Iran’s nuclear program was no longer convincing. On the other hand, the U.S. was toying with reconciliation with the Iranian regime and ending a 35-year-old animosity. 

When Rabin was murdered, Iran celebrated, and when Rabin’s successor, Shimon Peres, entered office, Iran doubled its efforts to sabotage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. “Peres was more devoted to the cause of peace than Rabin had been, and this did not suit Iran at all,” Pollack wrote in his book. 

Iran also was angry with Israel and its American allies for pushing to ramp up covert action by the CIA against Iran’s nuclear program. Newt Gingrich, then the speaker of the House, made the fight against Iran a seminal cause, insisting on adding funds to the budget to cover the cost of that necessary action. Obviously, the funds were not enough to make Iran stop. More than 15 years later, when Gingrich was running for president, he yet again declared that the time for action is now. “In a Gingrich administration,” he told the AIPAC convention in 2012, “we would not keep talking while the Iranians keep building.” 

But as with the weak follow-up to Rabin’s AIPAC speech of 1995, Gingrich’s did not have much impact on Middle East realities. There was no Gingrich administration, and the Obama administration decided to keep talking while the Iranians kept building.

The tides of reluctance and fervor, of hope and frustration, keep coming and going with each round of attempts to deal with the problem of Iran. Administrations shift from one policy to another, politicians say one thing, then the next day or the next year, they say something else because the politics have changed, or the situation has changed, or their understanding of Iran has changed. 

Eight years ago, I wrote a two-part series for Slate magazine about the way Republican and Democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential election were talking about Iran. In those two articles, I demonstrated how most candidates — really, all candidates — pretend to have a better solution for Iran than all the others, while they pretty much propose the same course of action. “For the leading candidates from both parties, the Iran question isn’t a policy debate,” I wrote, “it’s a beauty contest. It’s not about what the candidates say they want; it’s about who you believe really means what they say. It’s not about engagement versus the military option; it’s about voters’ — and the Iranians’ — perception of the candidate’s character.” 

Iran, ultimately, was not impressed by the threats or enamored with the calls for reconciliation. Iran did not change course, and it did not alter its ultimate goals. It just waited for America and the world to change their own course, to get tired of this issue, or become occupied by other issues, or to make political calculations that would lead to a different approach. 

Thus, nothing in Iran’s behavior explains the change from the 2004 Barack Obama, who said that “launching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position … on the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse,” to the 2009 Obama, who said — in the so-called Cairo speech — that “no single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons,” to the 2015 Obama, who seems ready to sign an agreement that “will not prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapons capability,” as a bipartisan group of experts, including several former advisers to Obama, concluded last week.

The report by this bipartisan group, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is a must-read for everyone interested in understanding why the negotiated agreement currently on the table seems flawed to so many people. “The agreement does not purport to be a comprehensive strategy towards Iran,” the authors of the bipartisan statement say. They are being polite. The president and his team had maneuvered themselves into a corner from which they could emerge with an understanding that “may fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a ‘good’ agreement.” 

Ah — the “good” agreement. 

One of the problems with having a serious debate about Iran is that the technical nature of such discussion makes definitions of “good” and “bad” blurry to most of the public. The public cannot be expected to differentiate between agreements that give Iran the right to enrich uranium to this or that level. It cannot be expected to differentiate the regular from the “advanced” centrifuges. The public — in other words — can be easily manipulated by the administration and, understandably, it would prefer a positive promise of calm and closure over a negative prediction of doom and a call for costly action.

According to the Pew Research Center report of global public opinion released on June 24, eight in 10 Israelis disapprove of the way Obama deals with Iran’s nuclear program. Most Americans (53 percent) also disapprove of his dealings with Iran and continue to view Iran in an unfavorable light — Iran’s unfavorable rating by U.S. voters is at 84 percent, with only 11 percent viewing Iran favorably, and 77 percent of Americans believe (according to Gallup) that the “development of a nuclear weapon by Iran” is a “critical” threat to the “vital interests” of the U.S. 

And yet, in recent polls, Americans say they favor an agreement with Iran over no agreement. They say this because of the way poll questions are framed — a way that almost guarantees public support. “As you may know,” one question in a CNN poll begins, “the U.S. and other countries have imposed strict economic sanctions against Iran while that country has nuclear facilities which could eventually allow it to produce its own nuclear weapons. Do you favor or oppose an agreement that would ease some of those economic sanctions and in exchange require Iran to accept major restrictions on its nuclear program but not end it completely and submit to greater international inspection of its nuclear facilities?”

Another question (from USA Today) was framed this way: “Recently President Obama, working with other countries, reached a deal with Iran to limit Iran’s nuclear program. Do you approve or disapprove of this agreement?” 

Yet another (Washington Post, ABC News) asked: “Would you support or oppose an agreement in which the United States and other countries would lift major economic sanctions against Iran, in exchange for Iran restricting its nuclear program in a way that makes it harder for it to produce nuclear weapons?”

Fifty-three percent of Americans responded “favor” to the first question, 46 percent “approve” to the second, 59 percent “support” to the third. Whenever a dilemma is posed to Americans in such fashion — would you support a compromise that would limit Iran in exchange for the easing of sanctions? — they are going to vote yes. To get to a possible no, one has to present to the public the version that Israelis have in mind when they think about Iran: Would you support the easing of sanctions in exchange for getting little now and ensuring an Iranian nuclear bomb in the future? 

Thus far, I’ve yet to see this version of the question in any survey.

As I write, the July 7 deadline is near, and final details of the deal — if there is ever a deal — are still unknown. But there are things that we already know for sure, based on the understandings reached in the interim agreement back in April. 

If the original ultimate goal was to eliminate Iran’s military nuclear program, the deal made clear that this is no longer a goal. If a later idea was to roll back Iran’s nuclear capacity, it is currently no longer the case. The interim agreement with Iran effectively accepted a reality of Iran as a threshold nuclear state — namely, it legitimized the new status of Iran as a country that would be allowed to get very close to having a nuclear bomb. The only ambition that the international community still believed — or pretended to believe — may be viable is stopping Iran from crossing that threshold. 

It is hard to imagine Iran remaining the sole threshold state in the region. So preventing proliferation, as a cause of the Obama administration, would become much harder. It is hard to imagine Iran complying with any agreement that limits its advancement to the bomb — it never has before, and the rationale for it to begin now is quite weak. It is hard to imagine Iran becoming less aggressive in its pursuit of regional influence, as this (according to what we know) was not a precondition for an agreement on the nuclear issue. 

All these goals could have been met had the U.S. still projected an effective image of deterrence to make Iran think twice about the potential risk of rejecting a deal. Alas, in recent years, the region has had growing doubts about the U.S.’ power of deterrence, and Iran could see that it is not risking much by sticking to its ultimate goals. In the last rounds of talks, the Obama administration — preoccupied with addressing public opinion more than with achieving its declared strategic goals — insisted that the choice is between a prompt deal and a dangerous and costly war. 

Under such circumstances, it is no wonder the Obama administration favors a deal, that the U.S. public seems to accept the idea of a deal, that the Iranians are ready to make a deal and that Iran’s neighbors are nervous. Very possibly, a 20-year battle to peacefully convince Iran to tame its actions seems to be coming to a mediocre close. If it does, a new battle, one that could last even longer and prove to be much more dangerous to all parties involved, will be just beginning.