BICOM

Key Points

• The United States announced at the end of last week that it was ready to begin direct dialogue with Iran on the issue of the Iranian nuclear programme, despite Iran’s disappointing five page letter responding to the offer of engagement.
• There is a broad concern in Israel, and elsewhere, that the renewed international dialogue with Iran is likely to fail. Iranian officials are suspected of engaging in talks only to buy time.
• If and when the period of dialogue is deemed to have failed, the prospect of renewed sanctions will come squarely onto the agenda. It is unlikely that a sufficiently tough UN Security Council resolution for increased sanctions can be passed because of a lack of support from Russia and China.
• It is therefore likely that the US, along with other willing states, will adopt tougher sanctions outside of the UN framework.

Introduction

On October 1 officials from the US, along with the other permanent Security Council members and Germany, are scheduled to meet Iranian negotiators for the first time in over a year. The announcement by the US that it wishes to engage promptly in talks comes despite international disappointment at the nature of the Iranian response to the offer of dialogue. 

There are deep US misgivings regarding ongoing Iranian obfuscation in all matters relating to its nuclear programme. Glyn Davies, US Ambassador to the IAEA, said at the meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors last week that Iran may already have enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb.[i] This analysis assesses the prospects for renewed dialogue, the latest evidence about the status of Iran’s nuclear programme, and the further measures likely to be taken by the international community.

Can dialogue change Iran’s nuclear policy?

There is little optimism among US officials regarding the likelihood that Iran will agree to abandon its nuclear ambitions as a result of the upcoming dialogue. Officials were dismayed by the five page letter, entitled ‘Cooperation, peace and justice,’ by which the Iranians responded to the offer of dialogue last week. The letter ignored the demand from the UN Security Council for a freeze on uranium enrichment. Instead, the Iranians tried to shift the focus of discussions to a host of largely unrelated international issues, including reform of the United Nations. The Iranians have since made clear that they do not intend to discuss their nuclear programme as part of the dialogue with the US. 

Given the nature of the Iranian response to the offer of the dialogue, and more broadly the emergence of a very hard-line government in Teheran, there is deep scepticism in the international community regarding the upcoming talks. US officials quoted in the New York Times said that they had little expectation that the talks will be successful. [ii] The French Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that the Iranian letter did not constitute a response to the offer of talks. Behind the scenes, Israeli officials characterized the Iranian response as constituting a ‘slap in the face’ from Iran to the US and the world. Rather than attempting to address concerns regarding its nuclear programme, the Iranian response simply seeks to change the subject. 

The first round of dialogue is expected to last until December. Israeli officials predict much grandstanding from the new Iranian government in the talks. Tehran is expected to make use of the global attention the talks will attract in order to present itself as the voice of the developing world, and the rising power in the Middle East. Ahmedinejad struck a similar pose in his speech at the UN anti-racism conference, during which many western diplomats walked out in protest. There appears no reason to expect a major turnaround in the key area of uranium enrichment.  Instead, the Iranians are simply expected to make use of the opportunity to buy time. 

Is time running out?

As reflected in Ambassador Glyn Davies’s remarks to the IAEA conference, the US believes that Iran is approaching the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. Davies told the conference that Iran has now amassed 1.4 tonnes of low enriched uranium at Natanz. Should Iran expel international inspectors and remove IAEA safeguards it would have the ‘breakout capacity’ to convert this stockpile into enough high grade uranium for one nuclear weapon.

However, this fact does not yet mean that the race to prevent a nuclear Iran has been lost.  The process of converting the stockpiled uranium into a bomb would take months, and Iran would obviously be rendered extremely vulnerable to attack in the intervening period.  Tehran is likely to want to further develop its technology and its stockpiles of fissile material before taking action that could trigger an immediate and direct confrontation. This means the international community still has some time, but the situation is pressing and urgent. 

In this regard, there has been considerable frustration among Israeli, French and other western officials regarding the actions taken by IAEA Head Mohammed ElBaradei in recent weeks. The IAEA, as the international organization tasked with monitoring the Iranian nuclear programme, has a crucial agenda-setting role to play in determining the international response. France and Israel maintain that the latest IAEA reports on the Iranian nuclear programme have deliberately omitted evidence the agency was given concerning a clandestine Iranian weaponisation plan. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that French officials had attended a briefing in which this material was presented, and he was therefore surprised that it did not appear in the final report. The evidence, according to Kouchner, consisted of ‘elements which enable us to ask about the reality of an atomic bomb…There are issues of warheads, of transport.’[iii] 

These allegations, coupled with Dr. ElBaradei’s much publicized remark about the Iranian nuclear threat being ‘hyped’ have served to undermine confidence in the IAEA.  Many Israeli and US officials privately fear that in parts of the international community, apathy to the threat represented by a nuclear Iran pertains, which makes an adequate international response more difficult. Nevertheless, Israel believes that a small window of opportunity remains in which determined action could prevent the emergence of a nuclear Iran. 

What will happen if dialogue fails?

There is a consensus in Israel that Iranian officials are engaging in dialogue only as a tactic to buy time. Former chief of Military Intelligence, Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, told Haaretz that the Iranians are ‘at such an advanced stage in their plans, all they need to do is to waste time while pushing hard for their immediate goal, which is to produce sufficient quantities of fissile material for two or three atomic bombs.’[iv]

If and when dialogue is deemed to have failed, the prospect of renewed sanctions will then come squarely onto the agenda. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that a fourth UN Security Council resolution for increased sanctions against Iran can be passed.  The two countries with veto power in the UN Security Council, Russia and China, are unlikely to support a resolution sufficiently potent to force the Iranians to think again. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have made clear that they see no reason to doubt Iran’s assertion that it is not seeking to build a nuclear weapon.[v]

What is therefore likely is that the US, along with other willing states will adopt tougher sanctions outside of the UN framework. Such sanctions could extend to the energy sector including the export of refined petroleum products to Iran[vi]. Iran imports 40% of its refined petroleum, because the country has failed to develop the technology for refining its own supplies of oil.

However, some observers in Israel and elsewhere have expressed scepticism as to whether any conceivable sanctions package will now be sufficient to induce the Iranians to abandon their nuclear ambitions. This scepticism also exists within the Administration.

Conclusion

Informed sources believe that President Obama and those around him have no illusions regarding the chances that dialogue will succeed. However, the US government is determined to act as far as possible within an international consensus, in contrast to the approach of the Bush administration. This explains their persistence in exploring the possibility of dialogue to the end before moving on to further sanctions.

The view is also growing in some quarters that sanctions of any type would be unlikely to force the hardliners now in charge in Iran to change direction. This would particularly be the case if Iran received help from China and Russia, who would be unlikely to participate in the sanctions regime. According to this view, the options now facing the international community are finding ways to live with and contain a nuclear Iran, or considering a military option to prevent its emergence. These voices notwithstanding, the current prospect is for renewed dialogue. If unsuccessful, this is likely to lead to increased sanctions undertaken by a ‘coalition of the willing’ towards the end of the year.     

 

 

---

[i] Iran ‘moving closer’ to nuclear breakout capacity: US , AFP, 10 September 2009

[ii] U.S. to Accept Iran’s Proposal to Hold Face-to-Face Talks, Mark Landler and David E. Sanger, New York Times, September 11, 2009

[iii] New Iran sanctions likely after nuclear watchdog says talks at stalemate, Julian Borger, The Guardian, 7 September 2009

[iv] Analysis / Iran is wasting time in nuclear talks with West, Amos Harel, Haaretz, 13 September 2009

[v] Putin: Russia opposes force, sanctions on Iran, by Vladimir Isachenkov, AP, 12 September 2009

[vi] See BICOM Analysis: Next steps in addressing the Iranian nuclear programme, 25 August 2009