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"I am not sure Iran will accept the 3rd condition"
By William Luers, Thomas Pickering and James Walsh
Monday, March 3, 2008
U.S. policy toward Iran is stuck. It is more a holding game than a policy.
The third sanctions resolution at the UN Security Council, which will probably pass this week, will not add much to the squeeze on Iran and is likely to be the last such resolution the United States can get.
Continuing to try to sanction Iran has made life difficult for some Iranians but will not coerce Iran to change its commitment to a nuclear program.
Nor will sanctions result in regime change. U.S. diplomacy has proven that there is world opposition to Iran having nuclear weapons, but it has not prevented Iran from continuing to build large numbers of centrifuges to enable them to enrich uranium.
While the Security Council has been tightening the screws, Iran has moved from having a single cascade of 164 centrifuges in 2006 to approximately 3,000 centrifuges today, and the number is rising.
The Iranians are having technical problems with their cascades, but every new centrifuge that Iran builds - whether it works or not - creates new facts on the ground. Iran will eventually perfect the technology. We just do not know when they will be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon. The best bet is still 5-10 years.
The U.S.-sponsored Security Council sanctions effort is still alive, but just barely. We have been told that key UN member states negotiating the next round of sanctions are seeking a U.S. commitment to talk directly with Iran.
The Chinese and Russians continue to seek commercial arrangements with Iran and doubt that sanctions will be effective in heading off the Iran nuclear program. Iran continues its diplomatic offensive in the Gulf, is more cooperative in Iraq and is carrying out a constructive dialogue with the International Atomic Energy Agency. All of these developments have weakened the sanctions approach.
Face-to-face U.S.-Iran talks on the nuclear program are blocked because Washington will not agree to talk until Iran suspends nuclear enrichment. Iran says it will never suspend. The U.S. insistence on zero enrichment on Iranian soil grows less viable with every newly constructed Iranian centrifuge.
Within the growing number of American leaders calling for direct talks with Iran, not one has yet made a concrete proposal on what to say to the Iranians other than to tell them to stop enrichment. The United States needs a new strategy soon on how to structure direct talks on the nuclear issue.
In the current issue of The New York Review of Books, we propose that Iran's efforts to produce enriched uranium and related nuclear activities be conducted on a multilateral basis, jointly managed and operated on Iranian soil by a consortium including Iran and other governments.
We propose the institution of a rigorous and broad monitoring regime over Iran's nuclear program. Turning Iran's sensitive nuclear activities into a multinational program will enable the international community to have closer monitoring and inspections as well as joint management and operation of the program.
This approach would reduce the risk of proliferation and create the basis for a broader discussion of our serious disagreements and of our common interests.
But there are risks in such a plan. Negotiating a multilateral arrangement would be an ordeal involving a complex set of financial, legal and technical issues.
Some argue it would increase the risk of proliferation because it would transfer technical knowledge, facilitate the diversion of nuclear material to clandestine operations, or present the possibility that Iran could decide to re-nationalize the consortium and expel the partners - including all monitoring.
The IAEA has demonstrated that it can monitor effectively, thereby reducing significantly the risks of Iranian "break out" to build a nuclear weapon.
We also believe that the deal that would be negotiated would make it extremely costly for Iran to expel inspectors and partners. We propose to include a Security Council resolution sanctifying the new arrangement and specifying that if Iran breaks the agreement, member states would be authorized to take punitive action against Iran.
Offering such talks to Iran without preconditions would give the United States the initiative while putting the burden on the Islamic Republic to demonstrate that it wants to have a truly peaceful nuclear program. Iran would have to agree to the full transparency of the program on Iranian soil.
Conditions that should be negotiated with Iran would include: 1) Iran would be prohibited from producing either highly enriched uranium or reprocessed plutonium; 2) Iran would fully implement the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which places added inspection and transparency requirements on Iran; 3) Iran would commit itself to a program of only light water reactors, which would reduce significantly the opportunities to produce quantities of plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Looking at U.S. policy toward Iran, the best possible outcome would be no enrichment by Iran of any kind. The worst possible outcome would be a purely national program on Iranian soil without inspections, safeguards or Iranian obligations or commitments to the international community.
Unfortunately, the worst outcome today seems more likely than the best. Our proposal offers the best of numerous bad options for dealing with the Iran nuclear issue. We are convinced, after more than five years of track-two diplomacy with a group of Iranians under the auspices of the United Nations Association of the USA, that if the nuclear issue would become a subject of constructive negotiations, Iran and the United States would be able to open up discussions on the broad range of issues.
The National Intelligence Estimate's conclusions on Iran's cessation of its nuclear weapons program and diminishing support of insurgency in Iraq offer a serious opportunity to turn around this long standing mutually paranoid and hostile relationship.
The United States is the only nation that can take on this task directly and achieve the breakthrough that is necessary. The payoff for this difficult task could well be a more stable and manageable Middle East.
William Luers is president of the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA). Thomas Pickering, former U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs, is co-chairman of UNA-USA. Jim Walsh, is a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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