by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright March 25, 2015
All Rights Reserved.

                   President Barack Obama overreacted to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepting House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) invite to speak March 3 to a joint session of Congress.  Whatever the delicate state the Geneva negotiations with Iran, there’s nothing Netanyahu could say to change the outcome.  Faced with crippling economic sanctions making Iran a pariah state in the world community, Ayatollah Ali Khemenei wants the sanctions lifted.  While there are limits to what Iran will do to placate the West, Secretary of State John Kerry deserves credit for hanging in there with Iran’s 55-year-old balding, white-haired, U.S.-educated Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.  Whether it’s known or not, Zarif and Kerry, with the background help of Britain, France, Russia, China and German, are trying to end the 36-year diplomatic breakdown.

             Since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei’s Islamic Revolution, where Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran Nov. 4, 1979 holding 52 American hostages 444 days, the U.S. has had no diplomatic relations.  Housing the world’s largest ex-patriot community in the U.S., it only makes sense that the Geneva Iranian nuke deal would help normalize relations.  Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani wants more than a nuke deal with the U.S., hoping to start normalizing relations.  Whatever Netanyahu’s issues, including his fears of Iran dropping an A-bomb on Tel Aviv, Kerry and Zarif are trying to turn a new page in U.S.-Iranian relations.  While the U.S. generally had good relations under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from 1941 to 1979, Iran watched the socialist regime of Mohammad Mosaddegh toppled by the CIA with the Shah’s blessings.

             Iran’s current mullahs, led by Khamenei, has no interest in yielding power to any group, especially a socialist like Mosaddegh.  While railed against by Netanyahu and other skeptics for not doing enough to contain Iran’s nuclear ambition, the Geneva accord at least agrees in principle to resuming International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and suspending ongoing uranium enrichment programs.  Skeptics, like Netanyahu, don’t like Iran’s cat-and-mouse game, not trusting Iran to comply with unfettered IAEA inspections.  “[Saying that] and agreement has to be reached by the end of March is a bad tactic,” said French Ambassador to the U.S. Gerard Araud, raising objections to Kerry’s rush to complete a deal by the end of March.  “We believe we can get a political framework done by the end of March,” said an unnamed senior U.S. official, hoping to nail down the nuke deal.

             Skeptics outside the P5+1 believe that, despite the denials, Iran continues to work on military applications, maybe only one year from a nuclear weapon.  Kerry believes getting Iran to sign onto a framework helps all parties, especially Israelis that believe Iran continues to purse an A-bomb.  “It doesn’t mean we’ll get there, but we’re not working for anything else,” said the unnamed U.S. official.  With differences still great, French officials think the best Kerry can get by March 31 is a “memorandum of understanding,” not an actual nuke deal.  “It is very like that they sign a join statement in Lausanne, and no an agreement,” the official said, tamping down expectations before the Sunday deadline.  French officials complain that the current format does not insist on Iran stopping advanced centrifuge research that could lead eventually to Iran spinning weapons grade uranium.

             IAEA Secretary-General Yukiya Amano confirmed that there’s little progress on monitoring PMD [possible military dimensions] activity because of a lack of unfettered inspections.  “The PMD is important and has always been part of the package,” said a senior European Union official.  Amano can’t confirm that PMD is not going on because the IAEA has limited access to Iran’s suspected PMD sites.  While the White House wants Congress to butt out of Geneva talks, the GOP-dominated Congress is ready to vote in new sanctions if Iran doesn’t accept the U.S. deal.  Without guaranteed inspections by the IAEA, no U.S. deal with Iran would be verifiable.  Some of the P5+1 get the impression Kerry pushes for the deal to get the Obama administration a foreign policy success   If a legitimate deal doesn’t emerge from Geneva, the GOP congress is ready to vote in more U.S. sanctions.

             White House officials have tried to reassure the P5+1 that whatever deal comes out of Geneva, it will postpone indefinitely Iran’s capacity to build a nuclear weapon.  “It’s a question of Obama’s legacy at this point,” said an unnamed EU official, seeing “Mideast peace as unachievable.  Iran is achievable.”  Whatever the deadlines, it’s better to get it right than sign onto a deal without teeth.  Letting Kerry and Zarif continue to hammer out a deal shows that the rest of the P5+1 has taken a backseat to the negotiations.  Rouhani and Zarif want the deal to help Iran crawl back into the international community.  Facing off with Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Syria, the U.S. is already at war with Iran.  While there’s little chance of cooperating in battlefield operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Rouhani and Zarif still want a deal to start a clean slate with the U.S.

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