Iran and the nuclear negotiations: Not there yet

AFTER three days of talks in Geneva that concluded in the early hours of November 10th, six world powers and Iran came tantalisingly close. They almost reached agreement on interim measures which should have paved the way to a comprehensive settlement—constraining Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon in exchange for relief on sanctions. America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, even flew in to clinch the deal. This alone was extraordinary, given the impasse of the past three decades. Talks between lower-level officials are due to resume on November 20th. The question now is whether failure to agree was just a stumble, or whether it was a missed opportunity that may now fatally prevent a diplomatic solution.

One moderately hopeful sign was that, despite the Geneva outcome, Iran reached agreement the next day with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, to “resolve all outstanding issues” with it. Among its provisions is “managed access” for inspectors to two sites that have been largely off-limits—a uranium mine near Bandar Abbas, opposite the Strait of Hormuz, and a heavy-water nuclear reactor being built at Arak, south-west of Tehran, the capital.

Iran also apparently committed itself to answering questions about “all present and past issues”, a euphemism for the military dimensions of its programme that it has previously sought to hide. However, inspectors will apparently still not be allowed inside a military facility at Parchin, where Iran is thought to have staged tests for a nuclear weapon’s detonation system. Though welcoming Iran’s initiative, the IAEA’s director-general, Yukio Amano, said there was still a long way to go. Until Iran signs up to the Additional Protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which allows for the most intrusive inspections—likely to be agreed upon in the final stage of any overall deal—concerns will linger over its ability and desire to conceal some of its activities.

The details of the interim deal nearly done in Geneva have not been made public, but included a six-month freeze on Iran’s uranium-enrichment capacity that would have delayed the activation of thousands of new centrifuges which have either been, or are waiting to be, installed. The Iranians also undertook, for the time being, not to enrich beyond the 3.5% level needed to fuel civil nuclear reactors. Iran’s existing stockpile of 20%-enriched uranium, just a short step from being turned into the weapons-grade stuff, would have been put under some sort of intrusive monitoring while awaiting conversion into relatively harmless oxide.

Lastly, although Iran would have been allowed to continue work on Arak, where a facility is due to be completed late next year, it would have promised not to begin loading fuel into the new reactor. In return, Iran would have received “limited but reversible” relief from some of the sanctions throttling its economy. Iranian foreign-exchange reserves in the West would have been partially unfrozen and restrictions on Iran’s petrochemical, motor and precious-metals industries eased.

This, or something very like it, appears to have been what Mr Kerry, supported by Britain, Germany, Russia and China, was prepared to sign up to. But France, which has been the toughest of the Western powers on Iran, had other ideas. Its foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, broke ranks, possibly after a discussion between his president, François Hollande, and Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who is said to have called all six world leaders to urge them to take a stronger line. For three reasons, said Mr Fabius, France would not be taken for a ride.

First, he objected to what he saw as a de facto recognition that Iran had a right to continue enrichment. Second, he was unhappy with the provisions for Iran’s 20%-enriched stockpile, believing that it should be shipped out of the country for conversion. Third, and most decisively, he refused to accept that Iran could continue work at Arak. Mr Kerry subsequently—and unconvincingly—suggested that all six powers were still on the same page and that it was the Iranians who had balked at the last moment, needing to consult back home.

None of France’s objections is trivial. Iran is adamant that it must have a right to enrich—though this will need to be dressed up in language that does not give a similar uncontestable right to every other NPT signatory. The question of the 20% stockpile might also be fudged by gradually removing parts of it or converting it under international supervision. But Arak is in a category of its own, and many people who fervently hope for a deal believe it could make or break the negotiations.

Experts reckon that when Arak becomes operational it will be able to generate up to 10kg of weapons-grade plutonium from spent fuel every year—enough for two bombs. What makes it especially threatening is that, from the moment it is loaded with nuclear fuel, it becomes almost inconceivable that it would be attacked militarily because that could spread radiation on the scale of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. This is why Israel struck similar Iraqi and Syrian reactors while they were still under construction.

What next? Opposition to any deal that lets Iran continue to enrich is strong both in Israel and among America’s allies in the Gulf, which Mr Kerry visited after the Geneva blockage. Mr Netanyahu and other Israeli ministers are vigorously lobbying Jewish-American leaders and a Congress that is a lot more hawkish on Iran than the administration. Anything that falls short of Iran giving way in full to their demands must, they argue, be rejected. Now that sanctions have put Iran on the ropes, yet more pressure should be applied. The White House, however, has just warned the Senate Banking Committee not to slap new sanctions on Iran that have already been passed by the House, saying such an action could trigger “a march to war”.

That is hyperbole. America has little appetite for going into battle again in the Middle East. But sanctions could make a deal harder to achieve, because they would undermine the position at home of President Hassan Rohani and his foreign minister, Muhammad Javad Zarif—the most credible and constructive negotiators that the Islamic Republic is likely to produce. The idea that Iran will make concessions if it comes under more pressure may also be mistaken. Some experts believe that the country is willing to forgo an agreement if the terms for getting one are humiliating, in the belief that America and its partners would be blamed for the breakdown and that the international sanctions regime would then quickly begin to erode.

Don’t dilly-dally, though

The idea that the West can bide its time is also questionable. Without an agreement, Iran would probably within a few months reach “critical capability”: the moment at which it could move quickly to produce a few nuclear devices before the rest of the world had time to react. Although Iran may not decide to go down that route even if negotiations fail, those opposing an agreement must allow for that possibility. Israel, in particular, would find itself facing the worst of all strategic situations: Iran as a threshold nuclear power; an America highly averse to military action; and little confidence that on its own it could do more than delay Iran’s nuclear plans for a trivial amount of time.

A perfect deal with Iran is not possible. But just enough momentum remains for one that is better than the alternatives.