In the hands of a president that was tough enough to mean what he said when he threatened to walk away from nuclear talks with Iran if it didn’t get what it wanted, a negotiating deadline would be an effective tool to obtain the West’s objectives. But over the course of the last two years, the Obama administration has realized that when a deadline loomed they were the only players in the diplomatic standoff that started to sweat. The Iranians quickly learned that faced with the prospect of President Obama’s cherished dream of a new détente with their regime, the West preferred concessions to walkouts and accordingly stiffened their stands on outstanding issues. That’s why the U.S. has treated every such recent deadline as a flexible rather than a rigid concept, a decision that was repeated when first the June 30 date for an end to the talks and then the July 7th date that was regarded as the true end point passed without either an agreement or the U.S. team packing their bags and leaving Vienna. Even many of the administration’s critics see this as not an altogether bad thing since more talking is to be preferred to another Western collapse. But with their hotel reservations now extended until Saturday, the question arises as to who will benefit from the seemingly endless Iran negotiations?
There are good reasons why everyone from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker to many Israelis seem unperturbed by the latest extension of the talks. They are sure that if President Obama thought either the June 30 or the July 7 dates were his last chance for signing an agreement with Iran, Tehran’s intransigence on a number of key points would have been rewarded with American surrenders. They think that because the last two years of negotiations with Iran have been largely characterized by a series of U.S. retreats on uranium enrichment, the retention of the regime’s nuclear infrastructure in the form of thousands of centrifuges, and the drafting of a deal that expired after ten years rather than one that created permanent restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program were largely the result of the administration’s panic. Faced with the choice between no deal and one that favored Iran, the president has always chosen the latter.
So it’s no surprise that critics prefer that the Americans stay in Vienna and stick to their demands for an agreement that would provide a rigorous inspection process, full access to Iran’s past military nuclear research, as well as provisions for sanctions to be lifted gradually and to be able to be snapped back immediately in the event of a violation.
But as we learned from the New York Times today, a “senior administration official” that briefed reporters in Vienna on the talks made it clear that plenty of “progress” was being made to justify the continued discussions. But in this case, the meaning of “progress” ought not to encourage those hoping that the administration is actually digging in its heels and insisting that any deal live up to the promises the president made about the nuclear framework when it was first announced in April. According to the official, the U.S. is negotiating a system of “managed access” to Iranian nuclear sites that will allow Iran to “shield conventional, secret military facilities” from inspections. According to the Americans, that’s reasonable since the right of all nations to protect their military secrets must be respected.
But such a formulation speaks more to the administration’s belief in the future of an entente with Iran more than a devotion to ferreting out the truth about its nuclear activities. In this case, “managed access” seems to allow Iran the ability to keep the West guessing rather than the achievement of genuine transparency. Once certain places become off-limits to United Nations inspectors, what’s to stop Tehran from conducting illicit research or other nuclear activity at these facilities? More to the point, no matter you define it, “managed access” falls far short of the anywhere, anytime standard that the administration seemed to promise when it announced the framework.
The official also seemed to indicate that discussions that would also deal with the problem of Iran’s ongoing nuclear research might not be made public making it impossible to gauge whether Iran would be in a position to race to a bomb once the deal expired. That’s a sure sign that the result of the negotiations would embarrass the administration and please Iran.
Similarly, Iran’s latest demands about lifting the embargo on their ability to import arms were also on the table instead of being kept in place.
So while it is true that the administration has acquitted itself of the charge of “rushing” to conclude an agreement because of its willing to keep the negotiations going into overtime, the results of their continued stay in Vienna is hardly encouraging.
Thanks to the intrepid reporters on the scene, we know how many Twizzlers and Rice Krispie Treats the diplomats have consumed in the course of their discussions. We also know that they are suffering from the heat because the air conditioning in their Viennese hotel is failing due to the unusual heat in Austria this summer. But we also know that, despite the consensus that the U.S. staying at the table was preferable to a collapse at the end of last month, their intake of snacks hasn’t stiffened the spines of Secretary of State John Kerry or top negotiator Wendy Sherman.
If this administration were truly willing to walk away from a bad deal, their tactics wouldn’t be a matter of concern. But the relief about their flexibility about deadlines has been entirely premature. Whether they stay another two days, a week or a month, Iran knows that the Americans will cave in sooner or later. Whether the deadlines are respected or the talks are allowed to drag out endlessly, the Iranians seem to benefit either way. Congress, which will apparently be given an extra month to consider the deal due to the extended deadline, should be paying attention to this depressing spectacle and draw the right conclusions about their duty to vote it down.
