Takeyh: Long-Term Agreement to Curb Iran's Nuclear Weapons Plans Will Require U.S.

Takeyh: Long-Term Agreement to Curb Iran's Nuclear Weapons Plans Will Require U.S. Involvement
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor
Interviewee: Ray Takeyh, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies

November 17, 2004

Ray Takeyh, the Council’s top Iran expert, says the agreement brokered by Britain, France, and Germany to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program is a short-term solution that will probably head off any punitive action by the United Nations Security Council.
But Takeyh, a senior fellow in Middle Eastern studies, says any long-term solution to the Iranian nuclear issue will require U.S. involvement, even though the Bush administration so far has shown no interest in direct talks. By shunning face-to-face talks with Iran, the United States has provided an impetus to the Europeans to work out their deal with the Iranians, in order to foreclose unilateral American intervention. But Takeyh adds that for the agreement’s “concessions to be permanent, for the program to be peaceful, the strategic factor that propels that program has to be addressed. That is the tense relationship [the Iranians] have with the United States.”
He says that the Iranians are willing to negotiate with Washington but, so far, there is no change in the administration’s thinking.
Takeyh was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor of cfr.org, on November 17, 2004.

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What do you make of the agreement reached this week to curb Iran’s apparent nuclear weapons ambitions?
If the Iranians comply with this agreement, it essentially brings their nuclear research program to a standstill. It is essentially the October 2003 agreement, which Iran later was accused of breaking, but the ambiguities of that agreement have been clarified, in that [the new agreement] goes through the specific technological steps that Iran is prohibited from taking.
The October 2003 agreement merely referred to a suspension of Iranian enrichment [of nuclear materials]. This week’s agreement actually spells out the technological things that are prohibited: no completion of the centrifuge machines, no processing of yellow gas, and all the antecedents to uranium enrichment. It also has a plutonium component to it in the sense that it stipulates that Iran cannot separate plutonium. So it deals with both nuclear proliferation and potential construction of a bomb. It is a fairly intrusive, comprehensive agreement.
I gather we should welcome this development?
Yes, but the issue with this, and the problem with many of these agreements, has always been that at some point they fall apart. This agreement stipulates that there will be a number of working groups to discuss how to deal with the long-term challenge of Iran’s nuclear issue, the trade cooperation agreements, what sort of economic and political concessions Iran is going to get. If those things don’t come about, [the agreement] could fall apart, for a number of reasons. Most people anticipate that this is yet another attempt to kick the can down the road and to essentially escape another cycle of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) meetings, on November 25, and maybe revisit this issue in the spring. This may also be the Iranian calculation as well.
When the IAEA meets next week, what will they say about this agreement?
They will say that Iran is attempting to comply, it has made the necessary concessions, it is time for those concessions to be implemented, and there is no need for this particular portfolio to be sent to the Security Council for deliberation of sanctions.
The National Council for Resistance, an anti-Iranian exile group, has reported that Iran is hiding a uranium enrichment facility near Tehran. What do you make of this?
If there is a covert program, it is certainly covert, because the IAEA and other inspection organizations have not made that claim. These claims may be credible, because almost any industrial plant can be converted to have a uranium enrichment aspect to it and you can put centrifuge machinery in it. But I can’t affirm or rebut that claim.
Has the United States enunciated a policy on Iran?
As I understand it, during the first four years of the Bush administration, officials were deadlocked on the issue of Iran in the sense that you had hawkish and more pragmatic views competing. Some officials wanted to press for discussions with Iran while others were pressing for more of a regime change. That deadlock has produced paralysis. Maybe that deadlock will be resolved now, given the fact that this is an administration with, evidently, more conservative coloration. So they may actually arrive at some sort of consensus policy on Iran.
This month is the 25th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis. U.S.-Iranian relations have been rocky for most of the time since that crisis. How would you describe relations right now?
I don’t believe that there is any direct contact, at least official direct contact, and I don’t think we have any ongoing discussions on issues with Iranians. Now I know that there will be a meeting in Cairo [next week] to discuss the future of Iraq, and there could be discussion between American and Iranian representatives during that forum. Throughout the war in Afghanistan, the diplomats from the United States and Iran did interact with each other in international forums, but the last set of bilateral discussions broke down in May 2003 over credible allegations of Iranian husbanding of al Qaeda members, and there has been no direct negotiation since then.
If I were a betting man, I would bet that we are not going to have any resumed dialogue between the parties. This is because as far as the Bush administration is concerned, for the time being, Iran’s nuclear portfolio is stabilized. Also, Iran’s policy is becoming increasingly mischievous in Iraq. On top of that, the possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process being revived- and Iran is one of the states that has always opposed any peace between Palestinians and Israelis- further compounds the problems of U.S.-Iran relations.
Why are the Iranians so avidly anti-Israel, when they were not particularly pro-Arafat?
Their relationship with Yasir Arafat changed over time. During the initial phase of the Iranian revolution, there was a good relationship between the Islamic Republic and Arafat. That cooled considerably after Arafat backed Iraq in the war with Iran. By the time you get to [the 1993] Oslo [peace accords], the Iranians condemned Oslo as a capitulation of Palestinian and Muslim rights to all of Jerusalem and all of Israel.
And once the intifada began in 2000, there was a vilification of Arafat to some extent. There was always an ebb-and-flow to this relationship; it was a complicated relationship. There is not that much complication about Iran’s opposition to the peace process, which is across the political spectrum of their leadership and predicated on ideology. Israel is seen as an agent of Zionist encroachment, and therefore it is the responsibility of all Islamic states and Muslims to resist that encroachment.
The Shah was a benefactor of Israel, no?
I don’t know if he was a benefactor, but he had a relationship with them. It was a strategic relationship. It was a warm relationship between the two regimes.
Is there any incentive for the United States to negotiate anything with Iran, except to try to keep things on a level basis?
You can make the case that the long-term stabilization of Iraq and the larger Persian Gulf environment necessitates a better relationship between the United States and Iran. A permanent solution to Iran’s nuclear problem would involve a different relationship between the United States and Iran. You may have, under the auspices of European diplomacy, a series of interim measures. Even the latest one, as intrusive as it is, only suspends the program, it does not dismantle it. It suspends it for, ostensibly, only a limited duration of time. That time will be determined by the parties, but a permanent solution necessitates American involvement. The same goes for East Asia and the Korean peninsula. You can make the case that a more pro-active American diplomacy is necessary to deal with the proliferation crisis and stabilization of the Gulf.
Is the Iranian regime willing to talk to the United States?
Yes, they have said that they are willing to negotiate with the United States. I’m not saying that any agreement you get will be durable, and I won’t suggest that it won’t be transgressed.
The United States would be interested in some core agreement, whether secret or public, about Iraq? What about the degree of Iranian subversion in Iraq?
There is a willingness to negotiate, even over the nuclear issue, but at this point, the administration has been dubious of those negotiations and they have allowed the Europeans to negotiate. From the administration’s perspective, the policy has not been unsuccessful in the sense that their hawkish stance has stiffened up the Europeans who have extracted, now, not an insignificant set of concessions from the Iranians. For these concessions to be permanent, for the program to be peaceful, the strategic factor that propels that program has to be addressed. That is the tense relationship [the Iranians] have with the United States.
When we talked in September, you thought that if this issue went to the Security Council, it would be vetoed.
The Security Council could take a number of measures: they could impose sanctions, they could not impose sanctions. They could censure Iran, they could not censure Iran. When the North Korean case went to the Security Council, nothing was done. Neither Iranians nor the Europeans want this to go to the Security Council. And the entire Iranian diplomacy has, starting from the October 2003 agreement, been focused on preventing this from going from Vienna [the home of the IAEA] to New York. The Europeans have been uneasy about going to New York, to the Security Council. To an extent, this issue is being informed by the Iraq situation.
People wonder whether the Security Council’s sanctions or censure on Iran could provide the near-legal legitimacy for American military intervention. The president can make the case that he did with Iraq: this is a country that stands in violation of its international obligations, its Security Council obligations. If the Security Council is unable to redeem its own pledges, then it is our determination the U.N. won’t do anything about it. So we will.
That is why everybody is concerned about going to the Security Council, because of the Iraq situation. You can see this train going in the same direction, and everybody has an interest in stopping that train. You know what could potentially happen after you go to the Security Council.
It would be very difficult for the United States to militarily act against Iran outside the very flexible framework of the Security Council. I’m not saying that [U.S. policy-makers] will require the approbation of the Security Council, but they need something from it that says this country is violating its nuclear treaty obligations.
So the U.S. policy is a wait-and-see approach to the agreement?
The United States’ approach throughout all of these periodic IAEA meetings is that this issue has to be transferred to the Security Council. We haven’t changed on that, and I don’t think we’ll change on it during the next meeting next week. I think that will continue to be our position.
Have U.S. officials issued any statement welcoming this agreement?
No, they are very cautious about it. They have been dubious of it. They have maintained the notion that Iran is developing a covert program. That is why this revelation by this resistance group in Paris may have been leaked by the United States.