by Dore Gold
The reports coming out
of the last round of talks between the P5+1 and Iran, held in
Kazakhstan, were surprisingly positive. The Washington Post headlined
its Feb. 27 report on the subject, "Iran nuclear talks end on upbeat
note." Saeed Jalili, the head Iranian negotiator, told reporters that
the two sides might be getting to a "turning point" in the talks between
them. Was all this optimism warranted?
Jalili, who undoubtedly
wanted to paint himself as a tough negotiator protecting Iranian
interests, explained his optimism by saying that the U.S. was now making
concessions that it did not make before: "It was they [the U.S.] who
tried to get closer to our point of view."
There were some signs
that pointed in this direction. The Wall Street Journal suggested in its
main editorial that Iranian behavior at the negotiating table had been
influenced by Washington's decision to cut the number of aircraft
carriers it deployed in the Persian Gulf from two to one, which the
newspaper implied weakened the West’s diplomatic leverage.
Even The Washington
Post adopted a critical line against the Obama administration in its
main editorial on Feb. 28, which asked provocatively whether the U.S.
was "kowtowing to Iran." It pointed out that during the previous
negotiations held in Baghdad during May 2012, the P5+1 demanded that
Iran shut down completely its Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which
was built underground, inside a mountain. The Western powers also
insisted that the Iranians ship their entire stockpile of 20 per cent
enriched uranium abroad. However, in the Kazakhstan talks, the P5+1 only
called for a suspension of operations at Fordo, without the plant being
closed. According to the new proposals, Iran could retain some of its
20% enriched uranium.
It should be stressed
that the Western powers were pulling in different directions when it
came to their strategy towards Iran. Secretary of State John Kerry
insisted in his public statements that time was running out for a
diplomatic solution. In contrast, EU foreign policy chief Catherine
Ashton, who was also the head negotiator for the P5+1, took a very
different position. At the Munich Security Conference in February, she
refused to speak about diplomatic deadlines with the Iranians: "We shall
never cease to strive to find ways to bring them to the table and to
have that diplomatic solution, and we are very much engaged right now in
trying to move forward on this." The European officials, with a few
exceptions, appeared to be seeking to keep the negotiations going at
almost any cost.
The strongest opponent
of this view, besides Israel, was Saudi Arabia. In remarkably candid
remarks made in a joint press conference in Riyadh with Secretary of
State John Kerry on March 4, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud
al-Faisal stated that the talks with Iran could not go on forever,
adding that "negotiations must end at a specific time." He stressed that
the Iranians were not serious about their talks with the West: "They
continued negotiations just to reach more and more negotiations in the
future. If such negotiations continued, we will see ourselves in front
of a nuclear weapon, but we cannot allow this to happen."
This Saudi realism is
undoubtedly a product of the kingdom's strategic situation. Saudi Arabia
is encircled by Iranian proxies receiving aid directly from Tehran. To
Saudi Arabia's south, Iran is supporting the Shiite rebels in Yemen;
during January 2013 a third weapons ship with Iranian anti-aircraft
missiles and Katyusha rockets was intercepted before it could make its
delivery to the Yemeni Shiites. To the north, Iraq's prime minister,
Nouri al-Maliki, is viewed in Riyadh as no less than an Iranian agent.
Bahraini security just
accused Iran's Revolutionary Guards of being involved in planned
terrorist attacks on the island, which is 25 kilometers away (15.5
miles) from Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. Saudi officials also have
charged that their own Shiite rebellion was being "manipulated from
abroad," meaning from Iran. As a result, it is not surprising that the
Saudis are one of the few who fully understand the Iranians' diplomatic
technique of exploiting nuclear talks with the West to play for time and
further advance their nuclear program.
After he served on
Iran's nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to 2005, Hossein Mousavian
explained Tehran's negotiating strategy during talks held at that time
with the British, French and Germans on Iran's uranium enrichment
program. Speaking on Iranian television he frankly admitted: "Thanks to
the negotiations with Europe, we gained another year, in which we
completed [the uranium conversion facility] in Isfahan."
Until now, many experts
on the Iranian nuclear program generally assumed that Tehran planned to
follow the North Korean example of "breakout" — that is, ejecting the
inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and rushing to
enrich its uranium to the weapons grade level, thereby confronting the
West with a fait accompli. If that was the Iranian plan, then starting
from the 20% enrichment level would cut the time needed to reach weapons
grade uranium in half. That is the reason why Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu set Israel's red line with reference to the accumulation of
enough 20% uranium for one atomic bomb, roughly 225 kilograms (496
pounds).
But in response to the
Israeli red line, over the last year, while continuing to enrich uranium
to the 20% level, the Iranians have been diverting a portion of their
20% stock to other uranium derivatives, like uranium oxide, which cannot
be used in nuclear weapons. Iran should have crossed the red line last
fall, but because it keeps diverting uranium for other uses it has only
accumulated 167 kilograms (368 pounds) instead of the 280 kilograms (617
pounds) which it has produced so far.
Instead, Iran appears
to have adopted a new strategy of massively increasing its enrichment
infrastructure by installing more centrifuges than it has ever added to
its Natanz facility and moving to a new generation of faster
centrifuges. In the aftermath of the Kazakhstan talks with the P5+1,
Iran announced that it was building 3,000 of these advanced centrifuges.
If Iran decides on a strategy of nuclear breakout, it will involve far
more weapons-grade uranium than it needs for one bomb.
As a result of these
trends, while the West is hopeful that the negotiations with Iran might
lead to a breakthrough, it appears that Tehran is only hardening its
position. Iran’s interest, at this point, is to drive a wedge between
the U.S. on the one hand and the Europeans on the other in order to
obtain more concessions from the P5+1. But looking at Iran from the
Middle East, any weakening of Western resolve will only invite further
Iranian aggressive behavior.
Dore Gold
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3723
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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