On the Eve of an Uncertain Negotiation (Lobelog, December 31, 2013)

From recent declarations of President Barack Obama, echoed by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and various American and French officials, one can foresee the initial bargaining position of the Western members of the P5+1 group in the upcoming negotiation with Iran aimed at “a long-term comprehensive solution” to the nuclear crisis.

“We know they don’t need to have an underground, fortified facility like Fordow in order to have a peaceful nuclear program, they certainly don’t need a heavy-water reactor at Arak in order to have a peaceful nuclear program, they don’t need some of the advanced centrifuges that they currently possess in order to have a limited, peaceful nuclear program” stated President Obama on Dec. 7.

“…So the question ultimately is going to be, are they prepared to roll back some of the advancements that they’ve made that could not be justified by simply wanting some modest, peaceful nuclear power, but, frankly, hint at a desire to have breakout capacity.”

In the same vein, Laurent Fabius wrote about one week later: “It is unclear if the Iranians will accept to definitively abandon any capacity of getting a weapon or only agree to interrupt the nuclear program… What is at stake is to ensure that there is no breakout capacity”.

Addressing the two routes to the bomb

It is certainly a legitimate goal to try to erect around the Iranian nuclear program a tight barrier on the two ways that could lead to acquiring a bomb: the enrichment of uranium at the highest levels at Natanz and Fordow, and the production of weapons-grade plutonium by running a research reactor such as the one presently under construction at Arak. But the formulas put forward by President Obama and Foreign Minister Fabius have little chance of persuading the Iranian government. Significantly, they are not reflected in the Nov. 24 agreement that laid the groundwork for the negotiation to come. The final part of the agreement addresses these two points, but in a different way. Regarding enrichment, it asserts the necessity of defining an enrichment program “consistent with practical needs, with agreed limits on scope and level of enrichment activities, capacity… and stocks of enriched uranium.” Concerning the production of weapons-grade plutonium, it affirms the will to “fully resolve concerns related to the reactor at Arak”.

The route to the uranium bomb

What is really at stake? Starting with enrichment, it has been estimated by some that the Iranian enrichment program, with its 19,000 centrifuges, its stock of around seven tons of uranium enriched up to 5% plus a few hundred kilograms of uranium enriched up to 20%, would be able to produce the fissile material necessary for a bomb in just a few weeks; that is, 20 to 25 kilograms of 90% enriched uranium. That would be too short a time for inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to detect such a breakout and for the international community to react effectively. To be on the safe side, according to these estimates, it would be necessary to roll back Tehran’s program. Iran should not possess more than a few thousand centrifuges of its current prevalent model, the IR1, and should not be permitted to produce more efficient models. And it should not retain more than a minimal stockpile of low-enriched uranium available for further enrichment.

But what is the practical value of such estimates? First, having the material for the bomb does not mean having the bomb. Several months, possibly a good year or more, would still be necessary to manufacture and test a first nuclear explosive device. Second, to maintain a minimal deterrent effect after an initial test, at least two or three bombs should be kept in stock. To obtain such a deterrent, however, would significantly add to the time needed for enrichment to 90%. Some argue that as soon as this highly enriched uranium would be produced, and subsequently diverted, it would escape the safeguards of the IAEA, making it much more difficult for the international community to react. But why? The whole country would still be there, both as a possible target for increased sanctions and more. And if a few weeks are theoretically enough for a successful breakout, a few days should be enough to deploy and deliver an adequate response.

Forbidding Iran to develop more efficient models of centrifuges than its first-generation, low-yield, IR1s does not seem realistic either. Such a ban on research can be imposed on a defeated nation. In 1945, Germany, for example, was required to abandon all of its R&D in the field of aircraft engines. But Iran is not in such a position. The limitation of Iran’s enrichment capacities should be addressed, not in terms of numbers and models of centrifuges, but rather in terms of total enrichment capacity (calculated in the nuclear jargon, in separative work units). Once such a ceiling is fixed by mutual consent between Tehran and the P5+1, Iranians scientists and engineers should be left free to make their own technological choices.

As for the small underground enrichment facility of Fordow, it will be hard to convince Iran to close it. Fordow is placed under the same IAEA safeguards as any other Iranian nuclear facility, and being buried 70 yards deep makes no difference. It would make a difference in case of air strikes, but Iran, which is party to the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), has no reason to facilitate the destruction of its nuclear facilities, especially by a non-signatory of the NPT, or by any of the five members of the NPT authorized to keep their nuclear arsenals.

On the other hand, it is Iran’s urgent duty to address the widespread suspicions raised by the vagueness of its ambitions when it comes to its nuclear power and research program. Professor Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, recently announced that Iran should produce 150 tons of nuclear fuel to supply five nuclear power plants. Would it be possible to know how exactly, in what time-frame, through which procedures and on what budget such projects are to be implemented? When one knows that 150 tons of idle low-enriched uranium, through further enrichment, is theoretically capable of producing about 150 bombs, the international community is entitled to have access to and thoroughly assess Iran’s plans in this regard.

The route to the plutonium bomb

A word about the plutonium route. The Arak reactor has a design similar to various existing reactors used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, be it in Israel, India or Pakistan. Even if this reactor has little chance to be operational for another three or four years, the concerns about it are legitimate. Furthermore, to recoup the plutonium generated in the reactor’s core, the Iranians would have to build and operate a dedicated side facility. Until now, they have foregone such a possibility. All in all, even with the worst intentions, Iran could hardly produce the first six or seven kilograms of plutonium necessary to build one bomb before the end of the decade. And even so, because of the specific challenges presented by the plutonium route, the time span between the beginning of a possible breakout and the acquisition of a first batch of plutonium would be significantly greater than that of the uranium route.

True, the Arak reactor, once in operation, could not be destroyed without incurring unacceptable nuclear-related damage to the surrounding populations. But this cannot justify a legally indefensible preventive strike on a construction site that has been placed under IAEA safeguards. All in all, the proliferation risk raised by the Arak reactor looks much less pressing than the one generated through uranium enrichment. But it is also true that the best way to permanently alleviate this risk would be to modify, while there is still time, the design of the reactor in order to reduce its capacity to produce weapons-grade plutonium without affecting its other capacities. This is possible with international cooperation, and money.

Suspicion against suspicion

Let us go back to basics. In 1968, the newly signed NPT drew a clear line between licit and illicit nuclear activities for those countries willing to renounce the acquisition of a bomb. For better or worse, that line was drawn at the point before the actual manufacture of a nuclear explosive device. But this was not enough to dispel suspicions of possible breakouts by unruly countries. It has therefore been tried repeatedly — and now again with Iran – to prevent countries from developing the capacities that could theoretically lead to the construction of a bomb. But nations in the forefront of such endeavors have often been among the same ones authorized by the same NPT to retain their nuclear arsenals. It has thus been tempting to interpret their efforts to limit the development of nuclear programs of other nations as an attempt to consolidate their own strategic advantage, especially as they have shown limited enthusiasm for following through on their own NPT commitments to nuclear disarmament. Still another source of suspicion has arisen from the fact that the six members of the P5+1 together comprise the world’s major source of enriched uranium. Their efforts to limit the enrichment capacities of other nations may thus come across as an effort to preserve their own commercial interests.

Even putting aside sources of contention between Iran and the great powers and its regional rivals beyond the nuclear realm, one can see why mutual suspicion still looms so large, even after the breakthrough of the Nov. 24 agreement. To overcome it, vision, restraint, and steady diplomatic work will be critical on both sides in the months to come.

Lessons from Geneva (LobeLog, November 18, 2013)

Had the foreign ministers of the seven countries involved in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program remained at home, the last round that were held in Geneva would have been presented as a success. At the end of that session, the two lead negotiators — Catherine Ashton for the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), and Abbas Araqchi for Iran — would have issued a joint communiqué expressing their satisfaction with the important progress achieved and their hope to reach, with some more hard work, a complete agreement in one or two more meetings.

Ministers don’t usually join a complex negotiating process unless the agreement under discussion is all but finalized. One or two points of contention can be left to their discretion if they correspond to their level of responsibility, which is political, certainly not technical. This was not the case in Geneva’s last meeting. Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian Foreign Minister, was already there from the outset. One day later, the US Secretary of State John Kerry abruptly modified his Middle East agenda so he could rush to Geneva. But, at that time, the text of the draft agreement still bore square brackets around language touching upon crucial points.

Why, then, was such a decision made? Perhaps it was Kerry’s initiative, or that of Catherine Ashton, or maybe it was the U.S. team in Geneva — or both — who told Mr. Kerry to come since the agreement was close to completion. (In any case, somewhere along the way there was a wrong assessment of the situation, and probably some dose of over-confidence in the American capacity to wrap up an agreement.) In still another hypothesis, perhaps the draft was practically finalized, thus authorizing the arrival of the ministers for signature, but the French unexpectedly reneged on their initial consent. This would have represented a grave breach of rules on France’s part. Until now, no evidence has confirmed such a scenario.

From then on, things could only go from bad to worse. The mere announcement of Kerry’s arrival created a wave of unfounded optimism. Informed of Kerry’s decision, the European ministers felt an obligation to come to Geneva, if only to be part of the game. Pressed by a crowd of journalists, the ministers could not keep silent for long. Most of them confined themselves to general, upbeat statements. But Laurent Fabius went the opposite way. His breaking of the rule of confidentiality and his visible annoyance at the turn of events made him, and France with him, the lightning rod, attracting all the frustrations created by the widening gap between high expectations and the practical hurdles of the negotiation process. And nothing could be changed by the last-minute arrival of the Russian and Chinese ministers. That session was already doomed.

If there was a mistake on Fabius’ side, it was to corner himself in the role of the bad cop. Of course, he could have also made a deliberate choice in favor of French interests in Israel and in the Arabian Peninsula; history will tell. But if it was indeed a matter of commercial interest, France should have positioned itself as the best friend of Iran — where 75 million consumers crave western goods and equipment — and appealed for an early lifting of sanctions. Indeed, Iran is a country where France could almost instantly sell at least one or two nuclear power plants, two or three dozen Airbuses, resume production of hundreds of thousands cars, regain the exploitation of major oil and gas fields, and even substantially upgrade a widely obsolete system of defense.

Coming back to diplomacy, in previous times, when officials empowered by their respective governments had reached an agreement on a common draft, they used to initial the text. This meant that the negotiation was closed. It was then up to the governments to approve or reject the document as it was. If all governments agreed on the text, it could be signed at the political level, usually through a meeting of foreign ministers. This was of course before cell phones, and government airliners that now enable ministers to rush instantly to any corner of the planet. But the participants to the current negotiations would be well advised to keep in mind at least the spirit of such time-proven procedures. This could indeed be useful for the rough ride still ahead of them, as the next round of talks will need to bypass several more difficult and tense stages beyond the first agreement, which will hopefully be signed soon.

François Nicoullaud

It's time to abandon posturing on Iran

HAARETZ november 5, 2013

Seven former European ambassadors to Tehran: With a 10-year delay after Europe's lead, the United States and Iran are finally committed to serious talks. But they must move fast. 

As ambassadors to Tehran, we have all lived in Iran for several years. We are sure that the current nuclear negotiations between Tehran and six countries representing the international community can advance not only the cause of non-proliferation and stability in the Middle-East but also the everyday well-being of all the people in the region.

The direction these negotiations take will determine whether Iran’s situation will become even worse and its behavior more extreme, or whether it will make progress in welfare, civil liberties and human rights.

It is true that over the years the Iranian nuclear imbroglio has been a major impediment to any positive evolution. The most recent round of negotiations in Geneva showed that everyone is conscious of this and that everyone claims an intention to escape from the deadlock, but it showed as well that the hardest work lies ahead. Past experiences have left a deep divide of mutual mistrust between the parties: all should accept that trust is seldom present at the outset of a negotiation, but is a by-product of clear and verifiable agreements, faithfully implemented. If the parties can reach a good agreement and abide scrupulously by it, trust will blossom.

A good agreement is built on compromises. But it must also preserve essentials. For the international community, the critical point of the Iranian issue is that there should be an impassable barrier to weapons proliferation. For Iran, it lies in international recognition of its right to implement the main technologies of a major civil nuclear program. These two goals are legitimate.

If the negotiators were to fail to build an agreement on these bases, they would prejudice the future of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. These two cardinal instruments of world peace hold the keys to the solution of the Iranian nuclear crisis. To be faithful to those who have given them life and shape over the years, today’s negotiators have a duty to succeed.

And they should move fast, for at least three reasons. First, they would be well advised not to prolong needlessly the hardships inflicted on the Iranian people by international and bilateral sanctions. Second, it would be wise to remove as soon as possible by a good agreement the sincere and deep concerns of neighboring peoples, as in Israel and several Arab countries, about unchecked development of the Iranian nuclear program. Third, it would be good tactics to outpace those who, for various but converging motives, have started to mobilize in order to thwart any agreement with Iran.

Addressing ourselves to the Europeans who have been working on this issue for ten years, to the Americans who have at long last determined to take diplomacy in hand, and to the Iranians who have now set out seriously on the path of negotiation, we ask everyone to abandon posturing and time-wasting once and for all. We encourage you to negotiate firmly, concretely, and with a full intention to succeed. You cannot afford to disappoint the people of the region and beyond: they expect too much from you for that.

Richard Dalton (United Kingdom), Christofer Gyllenstierna (Sweden), Paul von Maltzahn (Germany), Guillaume Metten (Belgium), François Nicoullaud (France), Leopoldo Stampa (Spain), Roberto Toscano (Italy),

We must help Hassan Rouhani (le Figaro, October, 2013)

With the whirlwind of meetings and declarations in which the newly elected Iranian president has embarked during his visit in New York, we have attended a kind of wild week, crowned by the historical telephone call between Obama and Rouhani. But the euphoria created by the visible thaw between Iran and the outer world having now somehow subsided, we have to admit that this whole set of events remained within the realm of declarations of good intentions. There is still to get to the heart of the matters, and therefore to the heart of the nuclear file.

And there, Rouhani needs a quick success. He has been elected on the promise that he would loosen the noose of sanctions which strangles the Iranian population. At this juncture, the Americans and the Europeans hold his fate in their hands. Either one sees good progress in the negotiation, the sanctions are reduced, the economy rebounds. In that case, Rouhani’s popularity strengthens, and he gets the upper hand within the Islamic republic’s system in order to address Iran’s other disputes with the outer world. Or the negotiation drags on, the Iranian economy falls deeper into depression, popular disappointment sets in. Conservative factions, defeated in the presidential election but still powerful in the parliament and in the inner core of the regime, regain courage, and engage in guerilla against the government. Rouhani being weakened, Iran enters anew a course of confrontation against its familiar adversaries: the West, Israel, the Arab kingdoms…

In order to help Rouhani demonstrate that he has made the right choice when betting on openness and engagement, one gesture is needed : to recognize Iran’s right to enrichment. In exchange of what Tehran is ready to give all necessary guarantees to alleviate the world’s worries : enhanced international controls, enrichment capped at 5%. This percentage is sufficient for industrial uses, but at comfortable distance from the 90% necessary for a nuclear explosive device.

We are still far from this point. As Obama himself recalled at the United Nations, Americans and Europeans maintain their demand that Iran comply with the Security Council requirements, which means suspending its enrichment activities. Such a demand is unacceptable for Iran, as we have known since it has been adopted in 2006. Rouhani himself said it a little while after his election. When he was negotiating on the nuclear file between 2003 and 2005, he accepted a first suspension, gaining nothing in exchange. He has been bitterly criticized by his opponents for such a move, and the critics have not subsided. To order again such a suspension would be for him a political suicide.

By convincing the Security Council to adopt a decision of limited interest, except for pressuring Iran into the termination of its enrichment activities, we have fallen into our own trap. In its resolution, the Council expressed the conviction that such a suspension would contribute to a negotiated solution. But this requirement, by hindering the progress of the negotiation, has produced the opposite effect. Time has come to admit it. And more broadly, it is not serious to ask Rouhani, as it has often been heard, to make the “first steps“ without disclosing what we would be willing to offer in exchange. No political leader anywhere in the world would accept to make a significant concession without being able to present to his public the corresponding benefits. Let us hope that this consideration of common sense will be kept in mind during the forthcoming negotiations. To achieve some progress, “first steps” have to come from both sides, and be simultaneous.

Rouhani and the Iranian Bomb (International Herald Tribune, July, 2013)

As Hassan Rouhani prepares to become the next president of the Iranian Islamic Republic, it is worth recalling the leading role he played as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in late 2003, when the clandestine program run by the Revolutionary Guards to produce a nuclear weapon was halted.

The halt in the weaponization program  —  as distinct from the program for uranium enrichment, power production and civilian research  —  was acknowledged in November 2007 by American intelligence services in their National Intelligence Estimate, and confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency in November 2011 in a report from the  director general, who wrote: ‘‘work on the AMAD Plan [i.e. the undeclared nuclear weaponization program] was stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a ‘halt order’ instruction issued in late 2003 by senior Iranian officials.’’

Based on conversations that I had at the time, as French ambassador to Tehran, with high Iranian officials close to the matter, I firmly believe that Rouhani was the main actor in the process. Of course, Iranians could not admit to a foreigner that such a program ever existed, and I cannot name the officials I spoke to. But two conversations in particular remain vivid in my mind.

The first one took place a little after Rouhani became Iran’s top nuclear negotiator in October 2003 and had reached an agreement about the suspension of Iranian sensitive enrichment activities with the German, British and French foreign ministers during their joint visit to Tehran.

A high-ranking official confided to me that after this meeting Rouhani  issued a general circular asking all Iranian departments and agencies, civilian and military, to report in detail about their past and ongoing nuclear activities. The official explained to me that the main difficulty Rouhani and his team were encountering was learning exactly what was happening in a system as secretive as Iran’s.

A few weeks after, I heard from another official, a close friend of Rouhani: ‘‘The Rouhani team is having a hard time ... People resist their instructions ... But they will prevail.’’ He went on to complain how difficult it was to convince researchers to abruptly terminate projects they had been conducting for years.

I told him of a similar case in Europe when a country had to implement the freshly signed Chemical Weapons Convention. The researchers were given enough time and funds to archive all the data they had collected in order to protect  their achievements for the future. A while later, my interlocutor happily reported: ‘‘I conveyed your message ...  It worked!’’

My conviction that these officials were talking about the weaponization program was reinforced when the November 2011 I.A.E.A. report about the termination of that program noted that ‘‘staff remained in place to record and document the achievements of their respective projects.’’

Of course, closing down a program run by the powerful Revolutionary Guards required the concurrence of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. There were two strong reasons for such a move:

First, by the end of 2003, Iran’s arch enemy, Saddam Hussein, had been eliminated by the United States, and it had been confirmed that the Iraqi clandestine nuclear program was stopped after Saddam’s defeat in 1991. It was the Iraqi program that had driven the Iranians to launch a similar endeavor in the 1980s, when they were fighting Iraq in the ‘‘War of Sacred Defense.’’ So the main motive behind Iran’s need for a bomb was gone.

Two, in October 2003, during the visit of the German, British and French foreign ministers,  Rouhani had agreed not only to suspend Iranian enrichment activities but also to sign and put into immediate effect the I.A.E.A. Additional Protocol, which opened the whole of Iranian territory to intrusive inspections. The risk of having I.A.E.A. inspectors find nuclear military activities forbidden by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was now too high.

Rouhani cannot claim credit for halting the weaponization program because officially it never existed. But the actions I believe he took in 2003 raise hopes that as president of the Islamic Republic he will be able to find and implement a negotiated solution for the continuing nuclear crisis.

…And what about Ali Khamenei? (Iran Review, June, 2013)

One man in Iran must have slept better since the election of Hassan Rouhani : it is the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

In 2009, when hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Iranians were demonstrating in the streets, the Pasdaran kept for about a fortnight a plane ready to exfiltrate him out of the country, probably towards Syria. The regime vacillated upon its base. Shortly after the hasty proclamation of Ahmadinejad as the winner, Khamenei, hoping to silence the protesters, presented the result as a "Judgment of God". With no avail. Why having thus given all the signals of a blatant and massive fraud?

It seems clear today that the heart of the Regime, Ali Khamenei and his close affiliates, got somehow persuaded that Mousavi's candidacy was supported by a foreign plot, trying to stir a kind of Iranian "Velvet Revolution". Khamenei himself must not have been too difficult to convince, having developed towards Mousavi a solid hatred from the time, in the eighties, when the latter, as Prime Minister, was constantly trying to confine Khamenei, then President of the Republic, to protocolar tasks. But on what grounds could the Council of Guardians eliminate him? He had an impeccable record at the head of the Government during the "Sacred Defense" against Saddam, and had since then maintained a more than discreet presence in public life. His disqualification could only come from the polls. It was then essential that he should not reach the second round, where he could have coalesced all the oppositions against Ahmadinejad. Hence the necessity of a clear victory of Ahmadinejad in a first and last round.

These are the nightmares which must have haunted Khamenei during the four years of Ahmadinejad’s second presidency. In 2013, the heart of the Regime, adopted opposite tactics : eliminate any dangerous candidate at the early stage of the Council of Guardians' selection, before the heat and excitement of the campaign. This is how Rahim Mashaei, the highly visible and controversial Ahmadinejad's crony was disqualified and, even more risky, Rafsandjani, Eminence of the Islamic Republic, on the sole ground, carefully distilled to the public, of his old age. Nobody moved. What a relief!

With selected candidates all perfectly loyal to the Leader, Khamenei had no difficulty to proclaim that he had no favorite. The only remaining problem, with candidates of medium to low visibility, was the question of citizens' participation. This could be easily doctored. But then came the miracle of the campaign, during which the remaining candidates, entering into their roles, adopting more and more contrasting positions, started stirring the public's interest. And in a few days, enthusiasm built up in favor of the only candidate who spoke openly about political freedom, and most of all about the return of prosperity through the easing of international sanctions and the reformation of Ahmadinejad's erratic economic policy. No need, this time, to intervene into the polls' results. To the surprise of all, including Khamenei, Hassan Rouhani, with 50.7% of the votes, wrapped up the election from the first round.

Ali Khamenei has all the reasons to be happy with the election of Hassan Rouhani. He has known him since the beginning of the Revolution, and as soon as elected as Supreme Leader, in 1989, gave him a seat in the Supreme National Security Council. He appointed him for a time as Secretary General of the same body, and even as his personal representative in the Council up to his election as President. Khamenei is not bothered by Rouhani's proximity with his arch rival Rafsandjani, having been able to verify his loyalty when Rouhani was in charge of the delicate nuclear negotiation with the Europeans, from 2003 to 2005. He knows from experience that even in case of diverging points of view, Rouhani will never take him by surprise. He gave him wide margins of negotiation at this time, even when Rouhani’s policy of engagement with the Europeans ran against his own convictions. Rouhani is the man who convinced Khamenei, by the end of 2003, that the time had come to put an end to the clandestine nuclear military program run by the Pasdaran. Not because of the pressure created by the American presence in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but because the most dangerous enemy of Iran, Saddam Hussein, had fallen, and it was finally clear that Iraq had not been trying to get the Bomb. And perhaps most of all because Iran, reciprocating the European demonstration of goodwill, had accepted to implement the IAEA Additional Protocol opening the whole Iranian territory to international inspections. From then on, if such a clandestine program went on, the risk to be caught red-handed was definitely too high.

As we know today from the American Intelligence Community and IAEA reports, this difficult decision was not only taken, but implemented. Rouhani is the man who steered the whole process, never failing, of course, to report to Khamenei. The Supreme Leader saw that he had the capacity to manage tense situations at the highest level. And he can feel assured today that Rouhani, thanks to his long practice of the avenues of power, has the capacity to put together an Administration composed of the best elements available in the country. Khamenei has then all the reasons to leave him ample leeway for bringing in as soon as possible significant results. The most important of these reasons being the fact that the Islamic Republic, after the success of the last election, can expect to be granted a new lease in terms of credibility, and even of legitimacy, if it can demonstrate its capacity to respond to the expectations of the Iranian electorate. Of course, nor the best, nor the worst, is certain. But, in the short run, Khamenei can hope to have finally encountered in Rouhani the ideal associate, able to prepare the country for his own succession.

For one has to remember that the Supreme Leader has occupied his charge for almost 25 years. He will soon be 74 and is not in perfect health. He should have started worrying about the future of Iran beyond him. And if only for preparing his own place in history, he should aspire to leave to his still unknown successor a country a little less depressed economically, better assured of its security, and less at loggerheads with its environment. For such a task, Rouhani could be the right man, in the right place, coming at the right moment.

Iraq, Iran : the lesson of sanctions (CERI, April, 2013)

In 1990, Saddam Hussein did not understand that the world had changed with the fall of the Wall. He thought that the USSR would protect him from America after the invasion of Kuwait, and paid dearly for his mistake. Abandoned by the Soviets, Iraq had to bear the cost, first of a war lost, and second of international sanctions, on a scale and harshness still unmatched today.

On the 6^th of August, 1990, four days after the invasion of Kuwait, the Security Council adopted, with the approval of its five permanent members, Resolution 661 implementing an overall embargo on imports from, and exports to Iraq, and on all financial movements. It envisaged a kind of safety valve for the supply of humanitarian goods, but this provision did not come into effect until 1996, in the form of the “Oil for Food” program, because of Iraq’s initial resistance to further controls. After the liberation of Kuwait, Resolution 687, adopted on the 3^rd of April, 1991, again with the assent of the five Permanent Members, launched the search and destruction of all nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and of missiles over a 150 kilometer range. Two days later, Resolution 688 condemned the repression of civilian populations, especially the Kurds, and opened the way to the famous “right of humanitarian intervention”. Finally, moving beyond the decisions of the Security Council, the United States, Great-Britain and France set up two no-fly zones, one as soon as April 2011 in Northern Iraq, to protect the Kurds, the second in the South on the following year, to protect Shi’a populations.

Over the years, the toll inflicted by the embargo on Iraqis’ health and welfare raised growing questions in the international opinion. Humanitarian NGOs started producing reports detailing how sanctions were entailing hundreds of thousands deaths, especially among children. In 1997, the French president, Jacques Chirac, declared at an international Summit in Hanoi : “Our goal is to convince, not to compel. I have never seen a policy of sanctions producing anything positive.” The year before, France had stopped contributing to the Northern no-fly zone. It withdrew from the Southern one in 1999. In the meantime, Iraq was bearing grudgingly the international inspections set up by Resolution 687. By December, 1998, the United States inflicted on the country a wave of targeted strikes, in principle to degrade its suspected WMD capacities, more likely to help topple Saddam Hussein’s regime. But the Regime held on, and a new war had to be launched in 2003 to finally bring it down.

How do sanctions against Iran compare to such a history? First, Russia, succeeding the USSR, and China, do not look at the world as in 1990, and have developed growing reservations regarding the use of sanctions. And the Iranian case, in its outset, did not carry a violation of international law as blatant as the Iraqi case, which saw the massive aggression of a UN member state by another member state. Russia and China have consequently refused to endorse an embargo expanding beyond the points of contention, i.e. nuclear, military and ballistic. These sanctions having produced but a feeble impression on the Iranian regime, the United States and the European Union have resolved to resort to their own additional sanctions, interrupting all oil-related business, and progressively drying up all financial flows with Iran. And in order to reinforce the efficiency of these sanctions, the United States has set up “secondary sanctions”, compelling third parties to join in. In the past, such a practice had been strongly opposed by the European Union. This time, it has quietly endorsed US pressures on a vast array of countries, especially in Asia, to convince them to reduce their purchases of Iranian oil, and to interrupt their monetary transactions with Tehran, except for trade expressed in their national currencies. In spite of its unwavering support, the European Union has been submitted, like everyone else, to the pressures of the American Administration and Congress, for instance when the question arose to forbid to Iranians banks access to European automated banking services.

But this new architecture of sanctions suffers from a lesser legitimacy than the Iraqi set of sanctions, which was placed entirely under the aegis of the United Nations. The great consumers of Iranian oil : China, Japan, India, South Korea… have reduced their purchases only in the proportion required to avoid punition by the United States. True, Iranian oil exports have been cut by half. But this oil is sold at a price fluctuating between 80 and 100 dollars per barrel, as the price of the barrel seldom went over 30 dollars from the birth of the Islamic Republic, in 1979, to the election of Ahmadinejad as president, in 2005. Furthermore, an unknown share of the Iranian production is, in all likelihood, sold under other pavilions. And quite obviously, some banks exotic enough to be able to dodge American monitoring succeed, at the proper price, in managing exchanges between Iran and the outer world.

True also, the Iranian riyal has lost about two thirds of its value in dollars, but it was until recently, as a matter of prestige, maintained at a grossly overrated level. Its present value is much closer to the economic truth. This correction has certainly encouraged inflation. But it offers margins of competitiveness quite unheard of to the Iranian industry, which was until now stifled by Asian productions. It offers an opportunity to raise the proportion of non-oil exports in the Iranian trade balance. This devaluation has therefore positive aspects.

Of course, the Iranian population pays dearly for these sanctions, and also for the erratic management of the economy by the Iranian government, as was the case in Saddam’s Iraq. In theory, imports of humanitarian products, like food and medicine, do not fall under the embargo. But the complexity of the system make such imports more or less impracticable, except for exceptional cases as when some giant of the food industry, like Cargill, deems it convenient to sell corn to Iran. All things considered, the shock created by sanctions is not as heavy as it was in Iraq. The sheer size of the Iranian population – 75 million inhabitants versus 20 million Iraqis at the turn of the century – acts as an absorber. And in spite of serious shortcomings, the level of self-sufficiency of the Iranian economy, in agriculture as well as in industry, is clearly higher than in Saddam’s Iraq.

Could the Iranians be less resigned than the Iraqis to be taken as hostages by their government in its quarrel with the outer world? If they were to rise from submission, would the Regime be ready to show itself as merciless as the former master of Baghdad, or the present master of Damascus? The Iranian civil society has already paid a heavy price for the upheavals entailed by the rigged elections of 2009. It is not in a position to challenge again the Regime. On the other hand, this Regime will probably hesitate to rig the upcoming presidential election as grossly as last time. All in all, one does not see coming from the horizon the internal crisis which could undermine the Islamic Republic to a point where it would have no other choice but to give up to the West.

And the present nuclear showdown is here to last quite a while. The last round of negotiation in Almaty, at the beginning of April, has revealed a wide and enduring gap between the parties, even if there has been some progress in the quality of their exchanges. A breakthrough seems for the moment out of reach, all the more as Iran is going to be absorbed in the presidential election and the installation of its new president until the end of summer.

In order to hasten the moment when Iran’s economic collapse and political isolation would drive it to a full surrender, can we envisage to exert on the Regime even higher pressure? François Hollande, the French president, has been declaring at the beginning of March : “France will take its responsibilities in order to maintain pressure, to harden the sanctions, so as the Iranian rulers abide by their international commitments, by the Security Council’s resolutions.” But then, it becomes somehow difficult to see what kind of crushing sanctions could complement the present ones. Such sanctions will not be able to rely on the legitimacy of the United Nations. They will have to take into account the low motivation of most third countries to partake in such an escalation, as well as the growing ingenuity of Iran in dodging the embargo. One cannot therefore exclude that, as in the Iraqi case, sanctions will not be able to bring the desired outcome.

Then, again as in the Iraqi case, comes the temptation to resort to force. But Tehran is taking great care to avoid offering to the United States the opportunity to intervene. It stays cautiously behind the red line defined by President Obama as the beginning of the production of a nuclear explosive device. It stays even behind the red line defined by Prime Minister Netanyahu as the possession of enough 20% enriched uranium to obtain in a matter of weeks, by further enrichment, enough highly enriched uranium for a first atomic bomb. And the US administration will dare no more to build a case like the one which led to the invasion of Iraq. To show how times have changed, the US Intelligence Community, much to the chagrin of the neoconservatives eager to knock heads with Iran, reminds regularly since 2007 that the Islamic Republic has interrupted its clandestine nuclear program by the end of 2003, and has not, since then, taken the decision to produce nuclear weapons.

There should be a third way to come out of the crisis, but it implies a deep change in the parameters of the negotiation. There is one idea, and only one, on which such a change could be built : the recognition of Iran’s right to enrich, but enshrined in a system of controls powerful enough to practically forbid any access to the Bomb. Ali Khamenei, leader of the revolution, has recently supported such a formula in a public speech. Now, if there were an interest in exploring it, the initiative rather belongs to the West. It belongs in reality to Barack Obama, the sole Western leader in a position to boost the negotiation as the European leaders have chosen to stand back, for lack of imagination, lack of cohesion, and lack of political will.