Security Council Resolutions : Barrier to Iran Nuclear Deal?

This is not the first time that we may have trapped ourselves when drafting UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions that were intended to trap another country—in this case, Iran. The present situation recalls in some respects the period around 1997 when most Security Council members would have liked to rescind, or at least amend, the sanctions adopted against the regime of Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War, as their effects were obviously getting out of hand: widespread corruption, and the dramatic deterioration of the Iraqi population’s state of health, to name a couple. But any change in the sanctions would have required unanimity from the five permanent members of the Council, and that was definitely out of reach. The situation led French President Jacques Chirac to express his frustration. “We want to convince, not coerce,” he said. “I have never observed that the policy of sanctions can produce positive effects.”
We have not yet reached such a dramatic juncture with Iran. But should it become useful to rapidly lift the sanctions imposed by the four UNSC resolutions between 2006 and 2010 in order to secure a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the Western negotiators may find themselves incapable of delivering and may instead try to kick the can down the road to some point in the distant future.
Aimed at halting Iran’s military, nuclear and ballistic activities, these UNSC resolutions are not the ones that hurt the most. More destructive are those unilateral measures imposed by the United States and the European Union, since they were designed essentially to destabilize the Iranian economy. But the UNSC sanctions carry with them a “pillory effect” that the Iranians perceive, quite correctly, as deeply humiliating. They also provide the legal bedrock upon which the European sanctions, in particular, have been constructed. The Iranians are therefore anxious to see them lifted as soon as possible through a decision by the Security Council to close the file it opened in 2006 and return it to the forum from which it should never have been taken: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The conditions for terminating these resolutions, however, are also overwhelming. In fact, the people who drafted them seem to have been pursuing two not necessarily compatible goals at the same time.
The first goal was to pile up all the preconditions that the authors believed were necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a deliverable nuclear device, including:
-       suspending all activities related to enrichment and reprocessing, including research, development, and construction of new facilities;
-       suspending all activities related to the construction of a heavy-water research reactor;
-       providing immediate access to all sites, equipment, persons and documents requested by the IAEA in order to verify Iran’s compliance with the Security Council decisions and to resolve all outstanding issues related to the possible military dimensions (PMD) of the Iranian nuclear program;
-       promptly ratifying the Additional Protocol to Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA; and
-       suspending all efforts to develop ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Considering the context in which these resolutions were adopted, there was little chance that the Iranians would comply with such an elaborate and comprehensive set of so-called “confidence-building measures,” which would have forced Tehran to abandon virtually all of its nuclear and ballistic-missile ambitions.
The second goal was substantively quite different from the first and indeed somehow contradictory. It aimed to push Iran into negotiations, as illustrated by the formula that was included in all the UNSC sanctions resolutions, which ritually expressed the “conviction” that Iran’s compliance “would contribute to a diplomatic, negotiated solution.” Moreover, if Iran suspended its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the Council declared its willingness in return to suspend at least some of its sanctions in order “to allow for negotiations in good faith” and “reach an early and mutually acceptable outcome.”
As we now know, a negotiation process ultimately was initiated, albeit through a radically different path, as the West dropped its demand that Iran fully suspend all its sensitive nuclear activities before entering into substantive talks. One can therefore assume that the second goal will be accomplished as soon as a comprehensive agreement, which will hopefully emerge from the current round of talks in Vienna, enters into force, thus rendering this dimension of the UNSC’s resolutions totally obsolete.
But of course, the resolutions’ first dimension—the exhaustive inventory of “confidence-building measures”—remains in place. Because confidence is essentially an elusive and subjective feeling, taking this path involves embarking on a long-term, winding and always reversible road, the end of which is only faintly discernible now. Such a process is also hardly compatible with the “on-off” mechanism of the Security Council: there is no chance that its resolutions, once cancelled, could be reintroduced. Hence the strong reluctance of the Western powers to commit themselves to such an outcome.
We also all know that the sanctions are much easier to adopt than to rescind, as they tend to create, in the meantime, their own logic and dynamics. They develop new balances of power and vested interests, if only among those in authority who have dedicated themselves so thoroughly to the sanctions’ implementation and enforcement. One has only to recall the notorious example of the general embargo imposed by the Allies against Germany during the First World War whose continuation for several months after the 1918 Armistice unnecessarily prolonged the suffering of the German people and deepened the bitterness of their defeat.
Are Iran’s negotiating partners ready to learn the lessons of history? The Gordian knot that the UNSC sanctions represent should be slashed asunder, if not immediately upon the signing of a comprehensive agreement with Iran, then at least after a moderately short period in which Iran’s determination to comply with its terms could be confirmed. Such a gesture could also be linked appropriately to the formal ratification by Iran’s parliament of the Additional Protocol that Tehran had signed during an unsuccessful round of talks back in 2003—the two moves being equally irreversible.

This would not mean that pending requests made to Iran, such as the ancient issue of the “possible military dimensions” (PMD) of its nuclear program, would have to be abandoned. But it would mean that these requests would thenceforward be dealt with exclusively by the IAEA. It would also mean that the Council, in light of the progress achieved after the signing of a final deal, would no longer consider the Iranian situation a “threat to the peace” under the terms of the UN Charter’s Chapter VII, the only chapter that authorizes the use of coercive measures against a Member State in order “to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

Iran Nuclear Talks : Reading the Tea Leaves

published on the Lobelog website on November 8, 2014
Secretary of State John Kerry has a hectic traveling schedule, and this month’s itinerary has been particularly focused on doing everything to ensure a good deal with Iran over its nuclear program is achieved by the deadline of November 24. A series of meetings between Kerry and some members of the P5+1 (France, Germany, UK, China, Russia, US) give us an idea of the extent of the last minute scrambling occurring behind the scenes to ensure all bases are covered prior to the official resumption of talks in Vienna on November 18.

Kerry met with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Paris on Nov. 5 for a number of reasons, including answering France’s questions about the “framework” the US has presented to the Iranians in order “to meet their peaceful energy needs.” Two days earlier, this document was alluded to by President Obama in a news conference, and could be centered on an Iran-Russia deal, but there has been no confirmation of the details. While Kerry also likely asked for Fabius’ help in suspending or lifting (in due time) European sanctions against Iran, his main purpose for the meeting was to ensure that the French minister would not repeat his public tantrum from around this time last year when Fabius declared that the draft provisional agreement negotiated between the US and Iran in Geneva—and discovered at the last moment by other members of the P5+1—was some kind of a “sucker’s deal.” This time Kerry is taking no risks and Fabius is being kept carefully abreast of the latest developments between Washington and Tehran.

Meanwhile, Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, met in Vienna Nov. 7 with the P5+1’s political directors. Again, the main purpose of the meeting was clearly aimed at making sure that everybody is informed and agrees with the recent turn of events.

Today, John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a bilateral meeting in Beijing on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Kerry was probably keen to verify, one last time, that Russia is ready to accept on its soil the bulk of the low-enriched uranium (LEU) produced by the Iranians to reprocess it into nuclear fuel elements for Iran’s Bushehr plant. This operation would extend the “breakout time” necessary for the Iranians to accumulate the quantity of highly enriched uranium necessary for a bomb, and therefore make an Iranian enrichment program with a few thousand centrifuges more acceptable to the American Congress and the Israeli government. Kerry is well aware that Russia’s full collaboration on this point is essential for the completion of an agreement and wants no last minute surprises.

Thus protected on his flanks by these two sessions, Kerry will meet his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in the company of Ashton, for two days in Oman, which hosted the initial US-Iran meetings that got us to this point, from Nov 9-10. This meeting will be aimed at narrowing the parameters of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name of the final agreement.
Following Lavrov’s guarantee on the removal and processing of Iranian LEU, the number of authorized operating Iranian centrifuges should not be a major sticking point anymore. But one last big hurdle remains: the timetable for the suspension and lifting of sanctions. After his conversation with Fabius, and with the support of Ashton, Kerry is likely to confirm Europe’s readiness to lift or suspend a significant amount of its own sanctions at an early stage. As for the American sanctions, it must not have been difficult for him to convince his interlocutor that the only realistic solution is to strike a deal that would not need the formal approval of Congress. President Obama would then act through executive orders and, when necessary, waive Congress-approved sanctions as long as he is in office, leaving to his successor the responsibility of asking Congress to remove them for good. Kerry could also make the credible argument that—if the agreement was faithfully followed by both sides for the remainder of Obama’s term—it would be practically impossible for any future president and Congress to destroy the positive results that would have been achieved.

Following the trilateral meeting, a session at the political directors’ level will also occur in the friendly Sultanate of Oman, on Nov. 10. It will likely be devoted to drawing the conclusions of the just-completed ministerial session, and putting together all the elements of the final agreement. After a lapse of about a week, allowing for consultations in the capitals and the informing of the most interested observers (the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN secretariat, Saudi Arabia, Israel…) Iran and the P5+1 are scheduled to meet in Vienna on Nov. 18 for a marathon round just one week before the deadline for a final deal. This should be enough time to iron out the last details of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and call upon the seven Foreign Ministers representing the parties to the agreement, as well as Catherine Ashton as the EU’s representative, to proceed together to the signing ceremony.

http://www.lobelog.com/iran-nuclear-talks-reading-the-tea-leaves