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Missing Another Chance for Engagement and Negotiation
on Iranian Nuclear Development.
By mickielynn on 2010-05-23 13:37:02
Blizzard of Words, But no Change in Policy
Yesterday during his speech to the West Point graduates President Obama stressed the need for both a strong military
capability and the tools of negotiation, coalition building and diplomacy to deal with the problems in today’s world. As a
Senator running for the Presidency, he quoted President Kennedy’s statement: "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us
never fear to negotiate." This was part of his call for a change from George W. Bush’s policies of unilateral, military-based
ways of dealing with "enemies."
As a believer in true diplomacy, shared international responsibility, and regional negotiations I was very heartened to hear
these words (the first several times.) But now it seems that they are just words and not the underpinning of a robust change
in our policies towards Iran. At this very moment, after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been traveling the globe for
the past eight months, pressuring other nations to impose sanctions on Iran we are spurning a key chance to engage in
negotiation with Iran over its nuclear development.
Why Ignore A Significant Breakthrough?
Just this past week Turkey and Brazil negotiated a confidence building deal in which Iran agreed to send 2,640 pounds
(1,200 kilograms) of low enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for medical grade uranium for one of its medical reactors.
But instead of welcoming this international cooperation to move a nuclear settlement with Iran forward the Obama
Administration dismissed the deal as "just words" and went on with its plan for sanctions.
This is dismaying because in an article in Wired, titled "Iran's Nuke Fuel Deal: Breakthrough or Bogus?" Ivan Oelrich (vice
president of the Strategic Security Program at the Federation of American Scientists) is quoted as saying that Iran is offering
a key opportunity for engagement. He went on to say that the technical difference between the deal Iran just agreed to and
the deal the Obama administration proposed in October is small. At the moment the Obama Administration now appears to
be insisting that Iran suspend the enrichment of uranium, just like the Bush Administration did. This represents a
contradiction of Obama's promise to negotiate with Iran without preconditions.
How We Could Move Forward
As Stephen Kinzer says in a May 18" article titled UN sanctions risk real progress on Iran:
"... There are at least three good reasons for the U.S. to try responding positively to the new deal, rather than
dismissing it out of hand and pressing ahead with its drive for harsh sanctions on Iran.
First, the sanctions proposal has considerably less global support now than it did before the Tehran deal was
struck on Monday. Second, experience from Belgrade to Baghdad shows that sanctions tend to punish the poor
and enrich a criminal class of smugglers; in Iran they might also help turn a remarkably pro-American
population toward anti-Americanism. Third and most important, the Turkey-Brazil deal holds out a glimmer of
hope for resolution of a crisis that, if left unsolved, could gravely destabilize the world’s most volatile region. It
may be true, as the U.S. insists, that Iran has managed to fool its Turkish and Brazilian interlocutors and has no
real interest in compromise on the nuclear issue. Given the high stakes, though, it is self-defeating for the U.S.
not to seize this chance and see what can be made of it. Not doing so encourages the view that the West does not
really want a deal at all."
In a really concise and brilliant summary of the situation Roger Cohen says in his NY Times Opinion piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/opinion/2 liht-edcohen.html
".,.And what’s the U.S. response? To pursue "strong sanctions" (if no longer "crippling") against Iran at the
United Nations; and insist now on a prior suspension of enrichment that was not in the October deal (indeed this
was a core Obama departure from Bush doctrine). Obama could instead have said: "Pressure works! Iran
blinked on the eve of new U.N. sanctions. It’s come back to our offer. We need to be prudent, given past Iranian
duplicity, but this is progress. Isolation serves Iranian hard-liners." No wonder Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish
foreign minister, is angry. I believe him when he says Obama and U.S. officials encouraged Turkey earlier this
year to revive the deal: "What they wanted us to do was give the confidence to Iran to do the swap. We have
done our duty." Yes, Turkey has. I know, the 1,200 kilograms now represents a smaller proportion of Iran’s LEU
than in October and it’s no longer clear that the fuel rods will come from the conversion of the LEU in escrow.
But that’s small potatoes when you’re trying to build a tenuous bridge between "mendacious" Iranians and
"bullying" Americans in the interests of global security. The French and Chinese reactions — cautious support
— made sense. The American made none, or did only in the light of the strong Congressional push for
"crushing" sanctions. Further sanctions will not change Iran’s nuclear behavior; negotiations might. I can only
hope the U.S. bristling was an opening gambit. Last year, at the United Nations, Obama called for a new era of
shared responsibilities. "Together we must build new coalitions that bridge old divides," he declared. Turkey
and Brazil responded — and got snubbed. Obama has just made his own enlightened words look empty."
Let’s tell President Obama and State Department officials that we want to de-escalate this struggle with Iran, accept the
diplomatic help of emerging nations and have the true courage to pursue negotiations that may lead to a peaceful solution.
