The Republican Party vs Iran

Since the United States Congress opened for business in January under the singular leadership of the Republican Party, its top foreign policy initiative is to put pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme. The logic is that since sanctions had forced Iran to the negotiating table, more sanctions would force Iran to give up the capability to become nuclear-armed. But economic pressure was only part of the reason that diplomacy resumed, and piling on more pressure while talks are on-going could lose all the progress made so far.

Any imposition of new sanctions would torpedo diplomatic efforts. President Barack Obama and serious statesmen around the world know this. David Cameron opined against new penalties, as did the foreign ministers in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Hillary Clinton, who had been holding her fire on the Iran issue, came out in January against new sanctions, as did Brent Scowcroft, the Republican former National Security Advisor. Even the head of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, agreed that new sanctions now would be “like throwing a grenade into the process,” although he later clarified that stopping the talks would be advisable, so that they could restart on different terms.

Obama’s determination to veto any new congressional sanctions on Iran means that the talks are safe for now. If all 54 Republicans in the Senate held together, they would need 13 Democratic votes as well to override a presidential veto. Neither part of this equation appears likely. Libertarian Republican senators Rand Paul and Jeff Flake have distanced themselves from such legislation and so far few Democratic senators have signalled support. Several of the Democrats who a year ago backed new sanctions have accepted Obama’s call to hold fire. Whether or not they owe loyalty to the president, none of them liked it when the congressional Republican leaders broke protocol by inviting Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, to speak to a joint session of Congress in March without checking with the Democrats or the White House.

The key question is how long the Democrat hawks will wait. Several have suggested the deadline is 24th March. This is the date by which negotiators in November agreed that a framework for a new deal would have to be in place. But the official date of the latest extension of the interim deal runs to the end of June to allow time for the details of a framework to be worked out.

Unfortunately, prospects for reaching a framework deal by the end of March, or even June, are bleak. Rather than accepting the sharp limits on Iran’s enrichment programme that western nations demand, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, continues to insist that Iran must increase enrichment capacity five-fold over the next several years. The Iranians argue that they must be able to produce enriched uranium fuel for the Bushehr reactor when the current Russian supply contract ends in 2021. Yet Russia has promised to extend the contract, and for technical reasons Iran will not be able safely to produce the fuel. One can’t help but wonder what other purpose Iran has for wanting over 100,000 centrifuges.

Advocates of new sanctions are thus not without logic in arguing that something needs to be done to move Iran from its insistence on having what would be a quick path to nuclear weapons. For the large programme Iran seeks, enhanced inspections alone cannot provide sufficient confidence against the possibility of a dash for weapons.

Disrupting the talks now, however, is inadvisable. Under the conditions of the interim deal reached in November 2013 between Iran and the six major powers, the negotiations are being held on conditions akin to a ceasefire: no increase in Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for no increase in sanctions. Even new US legislation that did not immediately impose new penalties would be seen as breaking this rule. As Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Foreign Minister, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, can be expected to respond to new congressional measures with legislation of its own requiring enrichment beyond the 5 per cent level to which Iran now adheres. And unlike Obama, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani does not have the authority to veto Majlis action.

If Iran were to resume enrichment at 20 per cent or higher—some Majlis members have advocated 60 per cent—the Iranian issue would be back in crisis mode, with further escalation on both sides and resumed talk of military options. Far better would be a continuation of the current ceasefire, with Iran’s enrichment and plutonium paths to a bomb both impeded and inspection intensity heightened. In late January, US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress that another extension of the interim agreement beyond July could not be ruled out. Yet two weeks later his boss, John Kerry, said continuing talks beyond even March would not be likely unless the outlines of a deal were agreed. Thereby lives diplomacy and peace, month by month.