Deal or no deal

Complexity of Iran talks facing pressure from hardliners on both

sides

By Tong Kim

Our Washington correspondent reports on the current issues facing the complexities of the bilateral relations with US and Iran on halting Iran's nuclear program.

WASHINGTON – The State Department has confirmed Wednesday afternoon that Secretary John Kerry is staying another day in the Swiss city of Lausanne, to see if he can pull off a last minute agreement to rein in Iran’s nuclear program.

John Kerry and his ministerial colleagues from the P-5 plus one – the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China plus Germany -- had been negotiating with their Iranian counterpart for more than a year. But, they failed to agree on a preliminary political framework by an arbitrary deadline on March 31.

On Tuesday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest alluded to the extension of talks with Iranians into the following day if ‘the talks continue to be productive, as they have recently been and if an agreement is not reached by the end of the day.”

Even if an agreement is reached tomorrow or even a few days later, it is not sure whether such a deal would survive strong opposition by Republican lawmakers in Washington and by hardliners in Tehran.

It is also opposed by U.S. allies in Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has determined that the Lausanne talks were going to produce a bad deal that would allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon in a year to threaten the security of the Middle East and even that of the United States.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported from Jerusalem that Netanyahu again warned against a bad deal, before he met with the travelling Republican House Speaker John Boehner, who in early March invited the Israeli prime minister to address a joint session of the Congress, without consulting the administration and to disrupt the nuclear talks with Iran.

The U.S. goal of negotiation is clear: to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon through uranium enrichment. Iran denies it seeks to manufacture a nuclear bomb.

Mistrust on both sides, just like suspicions between North Korea and the U.S., makes the negotiation much more difficult. Washington and Tehran had not talked to each other for over four decades.

A roadmap of negotiation was set up early on into two stages: to reach a political agreement by the end of March, outlining broad elements of a framework of political understanding; and to negotiate a detailed follow-up agreement by June 30, stipulating technical details regarding “intrusive inspection,” “level of research,” and easing international and U.S. sanctions.

A formula of agreement would require Iran to scale down its nuclear program verifiably for 10 years in return for lifting UN, EU and U.S. sanctions. BBC listed a set of four sticking points proven difficult to resolve.

After 10 years of restricted nuclear activity, Iran wants all restrictions to be removed, whereas P5+1 want to remove them gradually over the 5 following years.

On sanctions relief, Iran wants UN sanction suspended soon after an agreement is reached. P5+1 want a phased lifting with sanctions remaining on import of nuclear materials and technology for five more years.

If Iran fails to fulfill its commitment under a deal, the U.S. and its European allies would put suspended UN sanctions back into effect.

Iran wants to develop advanced centrifuges for faster enrichment and for greater quantities. Iran says this will be for peaceful use.

The case of Iran’s nuclear negotiation is not much different from any major international negotiation that is opposed by hardliners on both sides. If and when a deal is reached, the administration will have to sell it to the Congress that has said it would legislate more sanctions against Iran.

The White House also says no deal is better than a bad deal, and if the Iranians do not make serious commitments, President Obama will have to consider other alternatives. Josh Earnest said the military option was always there, but the President chose to employ diplomacy as the best way to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday reported that some Republican leaders like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said the talks “apparently failed.” They blamed the administration’s failure to see “Iran’s decades-old pursuit of regional dominance through violence and terror.”

In March, 47 Republican lawmakers signed an open letter to the Iranian leaders that any agreement with the Obama administration would last only as long as President Obama is in office. This kind of a partisan disruption – infringing upon the traditional purview of the executive branch – clearly undermines the negotiating leverage of the U.S. team.

There are some interesting aspects of the Iranian talks: the U.S. and its European allies are closely working with Russia in spite of the Crimean incident and the presently more dangerous North Korean nuclear issue has been put on the backburner, without any plan of what to do about it.