Tag: Iran

Essays, Publications

Future of US-Iran Relations

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Abstract: The election of Hassan Rouhani has been the start of a new path for Iran’s foreign policy, including its relationship with Washington. This paper discusses three schools of thought prevalent in Iran’s regime towards the US, ranging from those who believe America is addicted to hegemony, to those who believe there is inherent antagonism between Iran’s Islamic system and the West to those who represent a more moderate stance, including current President Hassan Rouhani. The paper concludes that if relations between Iran and the US improve, there will likely be pressure from the US on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its other allies in the region to minimize tension with Iran, particularly in order to solve conflicts in the region from Lebanon to Afghanistan without losing Saudi or Iran as allies.

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“Future of US-Iran Relations,” Hossein Mousavian, Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Dossier: Iran-US Rapprochement: Iran’s Future Role, Published by Al Jazeera, April 2014.

Articles, Publications

Ukraine crisis could strengthen Russia-Iran-China ties

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Tensions between Russia and the West have simmered since Ukraine’s Russian-leaning president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted on Feb. 21. The crisis culminated when the Crimean Peninsula’s local government, with 60% of its inhabitants identifying themselves as ethnic Russians, called for a referendum on seceding the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. While observers view the current Ukraine standoff as the gravest post-Cold War between the West and Moscow, the impasse over Iran’s nuclear crisis is also considered the greatest challenge to Iran-West relations.

Iran will remain neutral in this conflict, despite that the crisis in Ukraine may result in a favorable outcome to its future including the standoff with the West over its nuclear program. A senior Iranian official said, “Iran would surely stay out of this dispute [over Ukraine].” However, the crisis in Ukraine could have possible impacts on Russia-Iran relations.

The Russian military intervention in Ukraine could result in NATO forces moving closer to Ukraine’s western borders. However, Russia is concerned that its withdrawal from Crimea may result in the West’s crawling of military forces toward the borders of Russia, thus jeopardizing its security and weakening its strategic depth. In the last two decades, Russia and Iran have been carefully watching the United States and NATO expanding their reach eastward by erecting military bases around the borders of the two countries, with near-total disregard for Moscow’s and Tehran’s legitimate security interests. In recent years, under Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule, both states have been resisting Western hegemony, seeking to mend their wounded pride and prestige and attempting to extricate themselves from what they perceived as a lack of international respect and influence. In 2005, Putin said that the fall of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. To give up on Ukraine and allow it to slip out of Russia’s orbit would be a monumental blow to Putin’s efforts for restoring Russia’s position in the international arena.

Since 2006, the United States has successfully amassed consensus among world powers with regard to Iran’s nuclear program, the outcome of which were UN sanction resolutions, followed by unilateral US and EU sanctions. Now, a persistent Ukrainian crisis may bring to bear a number of scenarios.

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“Ukraine crisis could strengthen Russia-Iran-China ties,” Hossein Mousavian, Al Monitor, March 17, 2014.

Articles, Publications

Four scenarios to strike a final nuclear deal with Iran

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The world powers are seeking a consensus that allows Iran to retain only a small and indigenousuranium enrichment program.Therefore they want to impose significant physical limits on the heavy water facilities, the number and type of centrifuges, the level of enrichment, the amount of stockpiled enriched uranium and the number of Tehran’s nuclear enrichment facilities — as well as install enhanced monitoring and verification measures.

However, these are demands that go beyond existing international nonproliferation commitments, and Iran is unlikely to accept.

The world powers’ limiting strategy poses a risk of pushing Iran to abandon its agreement with the P5+1, expel the IAEA inspectors, disable the IAEA’s monitoring equipment and ultimately build bombs. The bottom line is, the possibility of military confrontation with Iran is real if negotiators cannot agree on a final deal. Such confrontation could unleash terrible regional and international consequences. The world powers and Iran consider the following four scenarios in order to secure a final deal.

First, making Iran’s fatwa, or edict, operational. Iran is committed to a religious decree issued by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei that bans the production, stockpiling and use of all weapons of mass destruction. Respecting its rights to peaceful nuclear technology means that Iran would have no reason to leave the NPT. This eliminates fears of an abrupt shutdown of monitoring the country’s nuclear program, because Iran would not withdraw from the NPT. In such eventuality, Iran and the world powers would forgo the limiting issues and discuss only transparency measures in the final deal.

Second, cooperating on a broad range of issues, including Iran’s enormous energy demands and potential. Such engagement and cooperation would remove all anxieties, not least Iran’s security concerns and the world powers’ fear that the Iranian nuclear program will be diverted toward weaponization.

Third, setting a realistic scope on limits to Iran’s nuclear program. Instead of making impossible demands, such as the closure of Iran’s enrichment site in Fordow or heavy water facilities in Arak, Iran and the P5+1 should agree on realistic limits guaranteeing nonproliferation for a specific confidence-building period. This would enable the IAEA enough time to address all technical ambiguities on the Iranian nuclear program.

Finally, considering a comprehensive vision for a nuclear-free Persian Gulf and Middle East. To actualize such a broad agenda, the world powers should first seek an agreement with Iran acceptable to other regional countries and then use the final deal with Iran as a model for the entire region.

Toward that end, the International Panel for Fissile Material, a team of independent nuclear experts from 15 countries, has proposed sensible measures: a ban on the separation or use of plutonium and uranium-233, restrictions on the use of high enriched uranium as a reactor fuel, limitations on uranium enrichment to less than 6 percent and agreement to a just-in-time system of uranium production rather than stockpiling enriched uranium. Both sides should agree to Iran’s adopting these courses of action.

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“Four scenarios to strike a final nuclear deal with Iran,” Hossein Mousavian, Al Jazeera America, March 15, 2014.

 

Articles, Publications

Diplomacy, not sanctions, key to deal with Iran

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As the American Israel Public Affairs Committee holds its annual policy conference, it would do well to remember that the Obama administration’s diplomacy, not sanctions, has yielded better results, according to a former senior Iranian diplomat.

History shows that coercive US policies toward Iran over the past 35 years have not helped the United States neutralize perceived Iranian threats from any angle. On the contrary, those policies have contributed to creating new dimensions of security concerns and the elevation of those American security concerns that prevously existed.

Despite over three decades of this approach toward Iran, today, the country enjoys an unmatched stability and power in the region while Israel is more isolated than ever. Contrary to the escalation of hostilities, on occasions when the United States has adopted conciliatory tones toward Iran, there has been great success in protecting peace and stability in the region.

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“Diplomacy, not sanctions, key to deal with Iran,” Hossein Mousavian, Al Monitor, March 3, 2014.

Articles, Publications

How much nuclear power does Iran need?

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The new round of Iran nuclear talks concluded on Feb. 20, where the world powers and Iran agreed on a framework, a plan of action and a timetable to conduct negotiations on a comprehensive agreement in the next four months. “We have had three very productive days during which we have identified all of the issues we need to address in reaching a comprehensive and final agreement,” European Union foreign policy head Catherine Ashton said.

One of the major challenges that negotiations would face, however, is to determine Iran’s real domestic demand for nuclear energy. The reason is that according to the Geneva interim agreement, the comprehensive solution should “involve a mutually defined enrichment program with mutually agreed parameters consistent with practical needs, with agreed limits on scope and level of enrichment activities, capacity, where it is carried out, and stocks of enriched uranium, for a period to be agreed upon (emphasis added).”

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“How much nuclear power does Iran need?” Hossein Mousavian, Al Monitor, February 21, 2014.

Articles, Publications

A nuclear deal requires compromise from Iran and the west

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At a meeting in Vienna on Tuesday, negotiators from Iran and six world powers will begin hammering out a long-term agreement that would resolve questions related to Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for respecting Iran’s right to use peaceful nuclear technology and a gradual lifting of sanctions.

American insistence on “zero enrichment in Iran” is one reason for the failure of past talks. Last November’s deal was only possible because the US was prepared to be more realistic. A comprehensive agreement must offer something for both sides. Measures that go beyond the NPT may be required for a time to build confidence. But Iran cannot be expected to agree to them forever.

Any deal will have to involve compromise on four main issues.

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“A nuclear deal requires compromise from Iran and the west,” Hossein Mousavian, Financial Times, February 16, 2014.

Interviews

Negotiating Team Did Not Cross Red Lines

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Excerpts of an exclusive interview with Hossein Mousavian, a former senior member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team.

More than ten years have passed since the beginning of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West.  This dossier, which had once become the most controversial file in the IAEA because of certain technical and legal questions, was gradually transformed into a political affair following its referral from the IAEA Board of Governors to the UN Security Council and this prepared the ground for the presence of new players. On November 24th 2013, a document was finally signed between Iran and the P5+1 as a Joint Plan of Action, giving the two sides six months to maneuver in the first step. During this decade of negotiations, the Iranian nuclear dossier has experienced the presence of numerous experts and diplomats with various political views. Iranian Diplomacy recently spoke with Hossein Mousavian, a former senior member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, about the recent Geneva agreement and the future of the nuclear talks and Iran’s relations with the West, the US, and with countries of the Persian Gulf region. Mr. Mousavian, who is  Princeton University, was Iran’s Ambassador to Germany from 1990-1997 and headed the Foreign Relations Committee of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran during the eight years of Mohammad Khatami’s presidency.

What is your assessment of the signing of the Joint Plan of Action between Iran and the P5+1 after many years of ups and downs in negotiations?

In a realistic view of this agreement, I must say that this agreement is neither desirable and ideal for the Iranian negotiating team nor desirable and ideal for the P5+1 negotiators. Neither of the parties has reached its maximum demands by signing this agreement. But considering the conditions or the situation of the nuclear dossier, I believe that neither the Iranian side nor the other party was able to achieve more than they did. The most important challenge and difference of opinion which exists in this agreement is, in fact, the response to the question of whether Iran’s enrichment program has been recognized or not? John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, stated in an interview that we have not recognized this right but the Iranian party reiterates that this right has been recognized. The critics of this agreement in Iran and the US maneuver over this issue. I believe that in order to understand the issue of uranium enrichment in Iran, we must study 40 years of US policy with regard to enrichment.  Following the adoption of the NPT in the late 1960s and its implementation in the early 1970s, the US has never, up until now, officially recognized enrichment in any country.

The second issue is that the US believes that if Iran’s enrichment is recognized, then there will be an international competition over this issue at the global level which would spread the threat of proliferation of nuclear weapons. Therefore, the US has pursued a dual policy, meaning that it has explicitly and practically accepted enrichment in countries which it trusts like Germany and Japan. Unfortunately this issue has not been well-comprehended inside the country. The fact is that the non-recognition of the right to enrichment by the US is not only implemented for Iran but that it is rather a general and 40-year long policy of the US administration.

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“Negotiating Team Did Not Cross Red Lines,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Sara Massoumi, Iranian Diplomacy, January 30, 2014.