The Approaching Deadline for Reaching an Agreement With Iran

I sometimes wonder what it is with the Obama Administration and self-imposed deadlines. Do they ever work in our favor? At any rate the deadline for reaching an agreement with Iran is tomorrow. What are the prospects for arriving at an agreement all of the parties will accept?

Iran’s foreign minister met his counterparts from America and five other world powers on Monday as the opposing sides struggled to secure a nuclear deal by Tuesday’s deadline.
The first full negotiating session between Mohammad Javad Zarif and the “P5 plus 1” group of countries began shortly after 9am in the Swiss town of Lausanne. This meeting ended after a little over an hour.
At stake is a final agreement that would settle the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, is pressing for a deal to guarantee that Iranian scientists would need at least a year to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear bomb, in return for sanctions being lifted.

That the Iranian foreign minister has announced that Iran will not export its nuclear fuel which would seem to me to be a fundamental component of a workable agreement, that the Iranians are insisting that all sanctions be lifted immediately, and that they’re insisting on a Security Council resolution recognizing Iran’s right to enrich do not seem to me to bode particularly well for an agreement.

I think that the Iranians are reading President Obama very well. The president has a history of upping the ante in negotiations at the last minute so they’ve preempted that by changing their own demands. In the trade that’s referred to as “negotiating in bad faith”. I think they’ve also pegged the president as desperate enough for any agreement that they can pretty well name their terms.

14 comments… add one
  • Guarneri Link

    I read a list of whats on the table and what positioning is being taken. Iran appears to be pulling the classic pre-emptively give what you want to so as to appear conciliatory while holding the line on what you really care about. Its the age old tactic.

    It will most assuredly work because – “I think they’ve also pegged the president as desperate enough for any agreement that they can pretty well name their terms.” – is spot on.

  • jan Link

    I thought Obama’s tactic of upping the ante at the end was applied mainly here at home — primarily when negotiating with some Republican nemesis. It seems to me, though, that his negotiations abroad, with shrewd, untrustworthy leaders, is much more congenial and less hard line, especially when it comes to imposing consequences on crossing his own self-imposed lines or deadlines.

    It’s also interesting to note that the past SOD, Panetta, underlines his distrust of the Iranians in keeping any deal they might make, as well as the former director of the DIA, General Michael Flynn, who has a dour assessment of our overall foreign policy — seeing our actions/non-actions as only increasing the playing field of terrorism rather than crushing it.

  • ... Link

    In games without perfect information over-reliance on one strategy is an exploitable weakness. One can only presume that the president & his advisers must not play poker, or that if they do they play it badly. And seemingly none of them have studied game theory. Oh well, not critical for winning elections – not as important as well-creased trousers in any event.

  • Andy Link

    I’m still taking a wait-and-see approach and will reserve judgment until a deal comes out (or not).

  • steve Link

    “I think they’ve also pegged the president as desperate enough for any agreement that they can pretty well name their terms.”

    Since that is based upon zero evidence, I will also wait and see. However, it appears that you also see this as a bilateral negotiation. Odd.

    Steve

  • jan Link

    Again, any deal the Iranians might agree too, where’s the proof or history that they are principled enough to keep it?

    Words in agreements are wonderful devises. But, if the people signing said agreements see them as breakable pieces of paper, what is their worth?

  • Andy Link

    “Again, any deal the Iranians might agree too, where’s the proof or history that they are principled enough to keep it?”

    We had no proof that the Soviets would keep their agreements, yet we somehow managed to make a lot agreements with them. If “trust, but verify” is possible with the USSR, why isn’t it possible with Iran or any other country?

    As to what it’s worth, if the agreement is good, then it’s win-win for us. If they stick to the agreement then we win. If they don’t stick to the agreement then we have actual evidence of duplicity that we can use. We are a lot more powerful and have a lot more leverage, so breaking an agreement would hurt them a lot more than us.

  • jan Link

    Andy, I think a consistantly strong, believable leader is needed to oversee this deal, so that if the Iranians don’t keep their end of the bargain the U.S. president has the will to subject them to appropriate consequences.

    However, I truly don’t see our current president having such a will. He has fabricated so many untruths in both domestic and foreign policy making, that I have little confidence in his ability to husband the courage required to see that any deal struck between Iran and the US stays within the guidelines of the agreement.

    In fact in the latest Washington Post Poll, although a majority of people want this deal to go through, a big majority, 62% in a recent Pew poll feel that Iran won’t follow though with their end of the agreement. I totally understand such apprehension, as it mirrors my own. Also, in this same Pew poll most people think that Congress should have final approval of any agreement made with Iran.

  • If they don’t stick to the agreement then we have actual evidence of duplicity that we can use.

    And if they bamboozle us, as they have in the past and as the North Koreans did, they get the sanctions removed and they continue whatever nuclear development program they have.

  • CStanley Link

    Don’t we already have evidence of duplicity since they haven’t fully met the terms of the Nov 2013 agreement? But instead of holding them accountable we seem to keep acquiescing to more demands that keep the breakout time to months instead the one year minimum we’d set out for.

    And domestically the administration is putting pressure on Congress by painting it as a choice between making this deal or choosing war- but isn’t Israel far more likely to initiate the war if we make a deal that doesn’t protect them?

  • Guarneri Link

    Wait and see, eh? How about ignore historical patterns. I don’t know what kind of world some live in. I get paid to assess future probabilities, not wait until the walls are splattered brown and the fan blades must be cleaned while mumbling ” who knew?”

  • Don’t we already have evidence of duplicity since they haven’t fully met the terms of the Nov 2013 agreement? But instead of holding them accountable we seem to keep acquiescing to more demands that keep the breakout time to months instead the one year minimum we’d set out for.

    That’s the evidence that steve is looking for that the Administration is desperate for a deal. The proof doesn’t need to be beyond reasonable doubt. All that’s needed is credible evidence and that’s credible enough. What’s the alternative explanation for going for a weaker agreement than the one reached in the past? Or for abandoning the terms that the president himself laid out two years ago?

  • Andy Link

    Perhaps I’ve missed something, but I’m unaware that Iran violated the Nov 2013 interim agreement. Looking over last two IAEA reports, there isn’t anything I can see which suggests Iran is not complying with the agreement. Of note, agreement was extended late last year and Iran had to bring more to the table in terms of concessions in order to secure the extension and they’ve complied with those stricter requirements.

    “And domestically the administration is putting pressure on Congress by painting it as a choice between making this deal or choosing war- but isn’t Israel far more likely to initiate the war if we make a deal that doesn’t protect them?”

    Ok, what’s the alternative to a deal?

    – We have the status quo where Iran remains under sanctions and continues to make significant nuclear progress – basically a continuation of the last 10 years. Iran began with crude IR-1 and IR-2 centrifuges and now they are ready to test IR-5 centrifuges with much higher work capacity which they developed while under sanctions. If there’s a proposal short of war that can stop their progress, let’s hear it.

    – The other alternative is war. Israel is not going to do it – if they could they would have a decade ago. They tried to get the Bush Administration to do it and Bush overruled Cheney and said no. It’s obvious that Obama won’t do it absent a casus belli. Israel does not possess the military capability to do more than set Iran’s program back by a few months or a maybe a couple of years. The US could do better with an extended air campaign which would also require the destruction of most of Iran’s Air Defenses, but that would only buy time, even if Iran sat by and let it happen, which they wouldn’t.

    So, what’s the alternative? Serious question.

    “And if they bamboozle us, as they have in the past and as the North Koreans did, they get the sanctions removed and they continue whatever nuclear development program they have.”

    If they bamboozle us. Sure, that could happen which is why I’m waiting to see the actual agreement (assuming there is one) before I make a judgment. Personally, I don’t possibility of being bamboozled (something that would be our own fault) so serious that we can’t trust ourselves to negotiate at all.

    Also, you say they bamboozled us in the past – when? I haven’t done the research, but I can’t think of a single negotiated agreement between the US and Iran since 1979 except the ICC brokered settlement over the Vincennes shootdown.

    In short, I really don’t understand why so many want to strangle this deal while it’s still in the womb. Let’s see if an agreement can be reached and then look at the proposed details. As with any agreement of this nature, the details matter, particularly the monitoring and verification regime, which must be adequate to the task. It’s not like any of this is unfamiliar territory as we’ve made nuclear and arms control deals with other countries and they all include significant verification measures. If, at the end of the day, such measures are lacking, then I will vigorously oppose the proposal. But I’m not going to prejudge and predetermine the outcome simply because Iran is bad and not trustworthy. Most important agreement we make are with countries that are bad that we don’t trust. Iran isn’t any different.

  • CStanley Link

    @Andy: I was referring to the two points on which IAEA reports insufficient disclosure- explaining their weaponization program and allowing access to inspect throughout the country instead of just the declared sites.

    I don’t have an alternate proposal to these negotiations but I’m having trouble seeing the point if they are refusing verification on those points and now also demanding that they keep the stockpile of enriched uranium instead of sending it to Russia to be made into fuel rods. Our goal was supposed to be to keep Iran to a one year breakout period and I don’t see how we could possibly get there from here. My impression is that our other negotiating partners don’t see it either, unless they are playing bad cop to our good cop.

    Can you describe what an agreement at this point could look like that would allow verification? And what do you think the alternative is, if we really can’t get a good deal?

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