BICOM

BICOM’s senior visiting fellow, Brig. Gen. (res.) Michael Herzog spoke with BICOM Director of Research Dr. Toby Greene about the decision to extend nuclear talks with Iran for seven months and why Israel is so concerned by the direction of the negotiations. A podcast of this interview is available at www.bicom.org.uk/podcasts.

TG: On Monday night the P5+1 Powers and Iran decided to extend for seven months their negotiations to resolve international concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear programme. We obviously have limited information on what was discussed. John Kerry said that new ideas were proposed but the gaps have not yet been closed. Can you give us a quick overview of the major stumbling blocks and what is likely to have prevented the parties reaching a deal within the original deadline?

MH: While we don’t have a clear picture of what developed over the weekend, leading to the decision to extend the talks, we do have a good picture of what were the main sticking points ahead of this last round.

The first issue has to do with Iran’s enrichment capacity and its breakout time based on number and quality of centrifuges and stockpiles. The West essentially set the goal of distancing Iran by at least one year from breakout to one bomb’s worth of enriched uranium. But calculating one year’s breakout time is a complicated formula involving the number of available centrifuges, the quality of centrifuges, the stockpile of enriched uranium in Iran itself and what happens to those centrifuges which are going to be taken out of the arsenal. The P5+1 originally proposed 1,500 centrifuges and then agreed to scale up the number to 4,500, on condition that Iran ship out most, if not all, its low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it will be processed and then shipped back to Iran as fuel for the nuclear reactor in Bushehr.

As we understand it, this issue was not agreed between the parties. There are all sorts of technical proposals to bridge the gaps, including some creative ideas like disconnecting cascade pipes, but this does not necessarily solve the problem and obviously requires more time to work out. In addition, the Iranians, while appearing to agree to somewhat decrease the number of centrifuges, wanted a commitment that within several years they would be able to increase the number to an industrial scale, which of course was not accepted.

The second issue has to do with the lifting of sanctions. The Iranians demanded that the sanctions be lifted immediately upon signing the agreement, whereas the P5+1 wanted to phase out the relaxation of sanctions over years, linked to Iranian compliance with the agreements. As I understand it, based on reports from the talks, this gap was also not bridged.

The third issue is the timeframe for the comprehensive deal. According to the interim agreement, once the timeframe for the comprehensive deal expires then Iran will be treated as any other normal state adherent to the NPT, which would mean no sanctions, no special treatment, no special inspections and so forth. While the P5+1 were talking about a two digit timeframe, closer to twenty years, Iran wanted no more than seven years, citing the fact that they have an agreement with Russia to provide fuel to the Bushehr reactor, which expires in seven years, and then they want to become independent.

It seems that going to Vienna, each of the parties expected the other to provide new ideas to enable a breakthrough, and each of the parties was disappointed.

TG: So the parties have now agreed to try and reach a political agreement in four months and a comprehensive agreement in seven months. What do you make of that decision and do you think anything significant will change to make a deal possible?

MH: It is not surprising that they agreed to extend. Neither the P5+1 nor Iran want a confrontation, and no one wants to admit to the failure of these talks, so of all the available options, extending the talks was the logical outcome for both.

It’s very hard to tell whether a comprehensive deal will be reached within the next seven months or even a framework agreement in four months. If I had to guess, I would say that I am rather sceptical that the Iranian Supreme Leader, Khamenei, who is the one calling the shots, has really made a decision that he wants a deal or that he’s willing to bend his red lines to reach a deal. It seems to me that while he allowed Zarif and others to negotiate he’s not under enough pressure to reach a deal if he doesn’t get what he wants, and that is still far from the P5+1 positions.

TG: Israel, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, has obviously taken a very firm line on these talks and Netanyahu was apparently pleased to see that no bad deal was reached. Can you try and convey why Israel is so concerned that the US and the other P5+1 powers might get to what it considers a bad deal?

MH: First of all it is important to say that whilst Israel preferred the extension to a bad deal, it is nonetheless very concerned about the current interim reality. Today Iran is about three months away from enough enriched uranium for one bomb, and therefore effectively a threshold state.

When it comes to the proposed comprehensive deal, Israel has a long list of concerns. A lot of these have to do with the details of the negotiated deal. But even more importantly, a lot has to do with the context.

As for the details of the negotiations, Israel believes that the interim deal, which is a basis for the comprehensive deal now being negotiated, was flawed, first and foremost because it allowed Iran to enrich uranium on its own soil. Secondly, it promised Iran that ultimately international relations will be normalised once the comprehensive deal expires.

Israel also identified some other potential loopholes or weaknesses in the negotiation of the comprehensive deal. First Israel questions whether distancing Iran’s breakout time to a year should be the right goal and would want a longer timeframe, for reasons I will explain. Second, Israel is concerned that the agreement will allow Iran to continue research and development of modern, more sophisticated, centrifuges. Thirdly, Israel is concerned that the deal will not properly address the potential nuclear aspect of Iran’s ballistic missile programme. One Israeli minister also publicly raised the concern that the deal will not block Iranian co-operation with North Korea, for example, in order to bypass limitations imposed by the agreement. And Israel is also concerned that the sanctions will be lifted too early and the timeframe will be too short.

All these details have to do with the agreement itself, but the deeper context of Israeli concerns is about what’s happening outside the deal. Nobody I know in Israel believes that Iran is approaching negotiations with a strategic decision to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Therefore the basic assumption here is that Iran will do whatever it can in order to erode the agreement or bypass it. Rather than focus on the breakout time, one should focus on the more realistic possibilities that Iran will try to ‘sneak-out’ or a ‘creep-out’ towards a nuclear weapon.

Israel’s concern is that there will be insufficient monitoring and verification systems – even if Iran signs the additional protocol – coupled with insufficient deterrence, especially US deterrence, when it comes to Iran incrementally breaching the agreement. Israel fears that Iran will try to do this either through covert activities, i.e. sneak-out, or through incremental measures to push the boundaries of the agreement, i.e. ‘creep-out’. The combination of these vulnerabilities could allow Iran, in time, to erode the agreement and improve its position. If the agreement establishes that the breakout timeframe is one year, the way Israelis view it, it will not remain one year, but will be eroded over time.

This stems also from an assessment in Israel that the West is more eager than Iran for a deal; that the West has no appetite for any kind of confrontation with Iran, as can be seen by the fact that it essentially took off the table the military option, American or Israeli. But even beyond that, there is a huge concern here that the US and its Western allies have stopped regarding Iran as a rival and started regarding it as a potential regional partner, especially against the background of fighting ISIS (Islamic State).

From an Israeli standpoint, this is profoundly flawed – it is a nightmare. While people are aware of the extreme danger presented by ISIS and support the US-led coalition, for Israel the most serious and immediate threat remains the Iranian-led axis, including a regional power with nuclear aspirations and the most potent non-state actor, Hezbollah, which has over 100,000 rockets. There is a great concern here that the West will be tempted to foster a new kind of relationship with Iran and give it a pass on its problematic regional policies, including support for terrorism.

That’s the way people here interpret the fact that the US notified Iran and Syria that their airstrikes in Syria will not target regime targets. In another example, before the recent war in Gaza, the Iranians sent a ship loaded with weapons to Gaza. The US administration considered whether or not to seize the ship, and decided not to do so for fear that they would undermine the nuclear talks with Iran. Ultimately Israel intercepted the ship.

There are quite a few people in Israel who also criticise the Israeli government for taking a maximalist position, and for not being ready to discuss anything other than a good deal that leaves Iran with no centrifuges, no enrichment, no stockpiling – implying that anything short of that is a bad deal. But in order to understand that Israeli position, even if one disagrees with it, you have to understand the way Israel contextualises the problem.