Strategic Comments  – Volume 14, Issue 10 – December 2008   

Can Obama re-engage Iran?

Prospects for new approach on nuclear issue

acquiring a uranium-enrichment capability. In its latest report, on 19 November, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran was operating about 3,800 centrifuges at the underground fuel-enrichment plant at Natanz, and another 2,100 centrifuges would be ready by the end of 2008 (click here for more on Iran's nuclear capability).

Although Iran has produced more than 630 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (LEU), it is an exaggeration to say it has enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. However, by mid 2009 it could stockpile enough LEU to produce the highly enriched uranium (HEU) required. Iran's programme is very near the threshold that Israel repeatedly has said would be unacceptable (click here for what Israel might do).

The diplomatic position

European-led efforts to resume negotiations on the nuclear issue have been deadlocked since August 2005, when Iran broke a temporary agreement on suspension of enrichment activity. Three incentive packages have since been presented to Tehran, with increasing levels of American support, but all to no avail. The last proposal, made in June 2008, is still on offer with a so-called 'double freeze' – no additional sanctions and no additional centrifuges – but there seems no hope of a meaningful response until the Iranians can take Obama's measure. A double freeze would appear to offer advantages to Iran, which could still stockpile LEU, continue R&D on advanced centrifuge designs and perfect centrifuge cascade operations. But since Ahmadinejad's 2005 election, Iran has refused to accept any constraints on its nuclear programme.

Thus, in line with the West's dual-track approach of offering Iran a choice between cooperation and isolation, further sanctions are likely, although not through the UN Security Council. Because of Russian and Chinese unwillingness to impose any more sanctions, the last Iran-related UN resolution of 27 September 2008 merely reaffirmed demands that Iran suspend the enrichment and plutonium-related activity. The US, UK and France instead will focus efforts on informal persuasion of banks, insurance firms and investors to cut off dealings with Iran, particularly in the oil-refining and liquefied natural gas sectors.

Even as he explores opportunities to engage with Iran, Obama can be expected to continue these pressure tactics. In his first post-election press conference on 7 November, he said: 'Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening.' As a Senator, Obama sponsored a bill supporting measures to ban the export of refined petroleum to Iran and to encourage US pension-fund divestment from firms doing business with Iran's energy industries. (The bill did not become law in 2008 but is likely to be retabled in some form in 2009.)

Competing options

Obama will not lack for advice on how to handle Iran, although it may often be contradictory. A statement released on 14 November by 20 regional experts and former US diplomats, co-chaired by former ambassadors Thomas Pickering and James Dobbins, argued that punitive sanctions, or a military strike, probably would be counterproductive. The group instead advocated direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations at a senior level, including a credible prospect of security assurances and lifting of US sanctions in response to positive policy shifts by Iran.

In October, ex-Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns had also called on the next president to drop conditions for engaging with Iran, and lamented that in the three years during which he was America's point person on Iran he was never permitted to meet an Iranian.

   1  |  2  

Next >