Punt and rethink

Having failed to reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program by today’s deadline, the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) and Tehran have decided to punt.  The new deadlines are March 1 for a framework political agreement and July 1 for the definitive agreement. Iran continues to get access to $700 million per month with the current Joint Plan of Action (JPA) extended. That’s a lot of money, but nowhere near enough to compensate for Iran’s loss of oil revenue due to the recent sharp fall in prices.

The interesting question is how this punt will be received politically in the US and in Iran.

With the Republicans taking over control of the Senate, there is a real possibility of new sanctions being passed, whether the Administration wants them or not. My guess is that something along those lines will happen, possibly new sanctions to be triggered if the March 1 deadline is missed. These would likely focus on the Iranian financial system, making transactions with the rest of the world far more difficult than they are today.

In Iran, the JPA restrains the overt nuclear program from dashing towards accumulating the material necessary to build a nuclear weapon, but Tehran has still not clarified the possible military dimensions of some of its past nuclear activity. With the Majlis likely to amplify its belligerence, there will be internal pressures there to accelerate any clandestine activities and to ensure maximum development of enrichment capacity consistent with the JPA. The punt gives Iran time to try to move the goal posts before the game starts again.

Meanwhile, the war against ISIS in Iraq has Iran and the US fighting on the same side, to support the Shia-led government in Baghdad, while it puts them at least nominally at odds in Syria, where Tehran supports Bashar al Asad’s minority Alawite regime while the US supposedly supports the Syrian opposition. But President Obama is doing nothing militarily to harm Assad’s forces and has said that he is not trying now to remove Assad, presumably in order to avoid disrupting the nuclear talks with Iran.

It is high time for Washington to reconsider its position in Syria. Would the nuclear talks go worse if Bashar al Assad were under more immediate threat, or would they go better? If Washington were to accept the Turkish proposal to create a protected area within Syria in which the opposition could govern, would the nuclear talks go worse or better? The answers to these questions are unclear, but it is arguable that a more robust American position in Syria opposing Assad and supporting the opposition would give Tehran something to worry about and increase American leverage on the nuclear issue, not decrease it.

Washington needs also to reconsider whether it is wise to give absolute priority to the nuclear talks in their current configuration. If the JPA is the best the P5+1 are going to get, it might make sense to accept the limited time it puts between Iran and a nuclear weapon (less than six months?) and refocus on possible military dimensions. There really is little precedent for a country using facilities safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency to gain nuclear weapons. Clandestine facilities are the far greater threat.

With the resignation of Secretary of Defense Hagel, President Obama has an opportunity to use the appointment of his replacement as a way of signaling what he plans to do on Iran, the nuclear talks and Syria. Some rethinking is in order. Let’s hope it gets done.