Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has been personally engaged in the nuclear talks along with Secretary of State John Kerry and their counterparts from five other nations.
Iran and the six nations trying to come to terms over Iran's nuclear program and easing of economic sanctions on the Islamic state have agreed to extend the talks that have been going on since last November for another seven months, until the end of June 2015. That's good news given the alternative. In a piece in the Daily Beast, Christopher Dickey
wrote late Sunday before the extension was announced:
Only a few hours are left before time runs out on negotiations with Iran to contain its nuclear program, and everyone’s asking, “Deal or no deal?” But the real question is, “War or peace?”
“People forget where we were two years ago,” says Rouzbeh Parsi, a Swedish academic who visited Vienna last week and talked to officials from both sides. In those days, the world faced the very real threat that Israel would launch a military strike against Iran that would, almost inevitably, suck the United States into another massive war in the Middle East.
That assessment ignores the fact that a cyberwar has been underway for several years. Somebody, and most fingers point at the United States, developed a computer virus—called Stuxnet—which, until it was discovered, messed up the operations of the centrifuges Iran uses to concentrate a form of uranium to make it usable as nuclear fuel. And somebody, fingers point at the United States, Israel and Iranian foes of the regime, has been killing Iran's nuclear scientists with car and motorcycle bombs.
The negotiations have been going on for a year since the signing of the Geneva interim agreement. Formally known as the Joint Plan of Action, the pact froze part of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for easing of economic sanctions. Iran and Russia, China, the United States, France, Great Britain plus Germany—known as the P5+1—have since sought to hammer out a long-time agreement that would curtail some aspects of Iran's nuclear program in return for a further reduction and possible eventual elimination of economic sanctions. But finalizing details of such a pact has eluded negotiators.
More on this below the fold.
The talks were first extended in July when a more permanent pact could not be reached. It's likely that U.S. congressional hawks—both Republicans and Democrats—will bristle at the latest extension and, at the least, call for additional sanctions to put more pressure on Iran to make a deal that sharply limits its nuclear program. If no breakthroughs come in the next seven months, it is hard to imagine talks being extended for a third time.
The Washington Post reported that the latest extension was met with "relief" in Israel. That is, according to a "senior Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity." The official said, "There was real concern that a bad deal was in the cards.”
It's likely that any deal with Iran that comes out of the talks would be considered bad by Israeli leaders. The question is whether it would be bad enough that Israel would refuse to accept it and act militarily, which it has often threatened to do over the past dozen years.
Like other nations, Israel claims the nuclear program Iran says is entirely peaceful includes efforts to build a nuclear weapon, either by diverting material from the civilian program or by means of secret facilities. If Iran doesn't agree to dismantle key elements of its nuclear program, Israeli officials have threatened to deploy the Begin Doctrine.
That "preventive war" doctrine was announced by Prime Minister Menachem Begin after Israel blew up Iraq's French-made Osirak nuclear reactor 10 miles from Baghdad in 1981. The raid knocked out the reactor before it was turned on because Israel believed it would be used by Saddam Hussein to build a nuclear weapon. Begin said three days after the raid:
"On no account shall we permit an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against the people of Israel. We shall defend the citizens of Israel in good time and with all the means at our disposal."
Since then Israel has employed the doctrine as justification for taking out what it said was a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted in a Sunday interview it's still an option with regard to Iran. “But of course Israel is watching very carefully what is happening here, and Israel always—always—reserves the right to defend itself," he said.
While every nation reserves the right of self-defense, when Israeli leaders say it regarding Iran, it means striking that country's nuclear facilities. Whether Israel would actually do so given the difficult military logistics and international political fall-out has been speculated about with trepidation for years.
Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders aren't the only ones who have said Iran must not be allowed to build the nuclear weapon its leaders—and some U.S. intelligence officials—say it is not trying to develop. President Barack Obama has also said it will not be allowed to build a nuke. Many prominent Americans, including Sen. John McCain and neo-conservative Bill Kristol, go further. They have for years called for bombing Iran's nuclear facilities without further ado.
Even before the election earlier this month, the majority of the Senate membership—including Democrats like Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee until January when Republican senators become the majority—have been counted among the hawks on Iran. They opposed the temporary easing of some sanctions the Obama administration agreed to for the duration of the interim agreement. Iranian officials said doing so would wreck the talks.
The most important details of what a long-term agreement will look like are still far from concluded, according to various sources. These include exactly what is meant by "long term." Iran says 10 years. The United States wants 20. While that might seem an obvious place for a split-the-difference arrangement, it hasn't been done, and other elements have proved to be obstacles as well.
Iran has some 19,000 centrifuges that concentrate nuclear fuel. Too many, according to Iran's milder critics. The more it has, the easier it would be to quickly generate enough highly enriched uranium to make a bomb. Israel wants all of them dismantled. Its view is that without such an agreement, Iran would still have "breakout" ability, that is, the capacity to build a nuclear bomb.
There is also the timing of the easing of sanctions. Naturally, Iran wants them removed immediately upon signing any agreement or soon thereafter. The United States wants to take a slower approach.
All this points to rough sailing ahead.
Christopher Dickey writes:
But, really, the situation is worse than that. Many of those demanding new and tougher sanctions and a much more dramatic dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program are, in fact, hopeful that such measures and such demands will lead to the collapse of the current regime in Iran. And many members of that regime think that is precisely the intent of the United States and Israel, no matter what happens in Vienna.
If no deal is reached, then the Iranian government certainly will look for something else to guarantee its survival, like, say, nuclear weapons. And Israel will look for a way to stop it, like, war.