UPDATED Iran's Nukes: Obama's Team Buys Time for Engagement

UPDATE 1110 GMT: Cole also has posted the text of the IAEA resolution, which bears out both his analysis and that of EA.

UPDATE 1050 GMT: Another useful analysis, this time from Juan Cole. Cole first offers a detailed background with his "breakout" thesis on Iran's nuclear programme:

Tehran genuinely does not want to actually construct and detonate a nuclear device....But having a rapid breakout capability --- being able to make a bomb in short order if it is felt absolutely necessary to forestall a foreign attack --- has a deterrent effect. So Iran would have the advantages of deterrence without the disadvantages of a bomb if it could get to the rapid breakout stage.

Cole's immediate reading of the current position is hit-and-miss: he's on shaky ground with his analysis that the Revolutionary Guard has vetoed the Supreme Leader's acceptance of an enrichment deal (I don't think anyone except Ayatollah Khamenei knows what he will do), but Cole is invaluable in reading the non-Iranian politics: don't expect BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) to accept a move towards harsh economic measures agianst Tehran.

And Cole's conclusion hits the bull's-eye:

Bottom line: Friday's vote was likely symbolic and a signal to Iran from the international community that there is discomfort with its secretiveness and lack of transparency, and that many are suspicious of its motives. In China's case, it may have been a warning against actions that could harm the Middle Kingdom's burgeoning economy. What it likely was not was a harbinger of tougher international sanctions against Tehran or a sign that BRIC is softening on that issue

UPDATE 0950 GMT: A ray of journalistic light --- Sharwine Narwani offers an excellent analysis, "Eleventh-hour CPR On Iran Nuclear Talks": "Our core problem is not with Iran's enrichment program or it's recently revealed Fordow nuclear plant buried under a mountainside. The central issue clogging up our hotlines is that we do not trust Iran. And they do not trust us."

Looking once more at yesterday's International Atomic Energy Agency resolution on Iran's nuclear programme, it is a most impressive two-card trick by the US Government.

Impressive initially because the first trick is on the media. So far, every major journalist whom I've read or listened to has been taken in by the magician's display of a united "hard line" against Tehran. CNN headlines, "U.N. watchdog urges suspension of Iran nuclear facility", never realising that the 2nd enrichment facility at Fordoo is now just a distraction. The New York Times, in print and in podcast, follows the same sleight-of-hand, adding the flourish that the "sharp rebuke that bore added weight because it was endorsed by Russia and China".

Iran’s Nukes: IAEA Non-Resolution on Enrichment Means Talks Still Alive

How did the White House pull off this trick?

Easily, with a sustained effort in Washington as well as Vienna, to put out the distracting message. Beyond the official statement trumpeting the "broad consensus" behind the resolution, "a senior administration official" added:

What happened in Vienna today is a significant step, and it’s a sign of the increasing seriousness of the international community [and its] growing international impatience....Time really is running out. We hope that the board of governors [vote] reinforces the message that, you know, we’re committed to putting together a package of consequences if we don’t find a willing partner.

How then to uncover the trick and reveal the real strategy of the Obama Administration? Well, the unnamed official offered a sneak peek in those final words "if we don't find a willing partner". At this point, at least some key members of the Obama Administration are still pursuing "willingness".

To be blunt, because that seems to be necessary to knock professional observers out of their wide-eyed daze: the White House has not closed off the talks for a deal of Iran's nuclear enrichment.

Those officials who want a deal, primarily those in the State Department but also I suspect the President, are not willing to give up on months of effort, and they certainly do not want to face both the diplomatic difficulties of pursuing tough sanctions --- watch how quickly it becomes near-impossible to maintain that line of "broad consensus" --- and facing the consequences. It will no longer be a question of losing possible co-operation with Tehran in areas like Afghanistan but of facing possible Iranian counter-moves in the region, including Iraq.

At the same time, those pro-deal officials are fighting a contest against Administration colleagues who just want to go through the motions of negotiations to set up the increased pressure of harsh economic measures. Those colleagues (to find them, go to the National Security Council and follow the path to a Mr D. Ross' office) are the ones spinning newspapers like The Washiington Post that this IAEA resolution is the symbolic step to a sanctions regime which will include Russia and China. (They also are the ones willing to play up the "Israeli military action" that would follow if sanctions are not adopted.)

So the IAEA magic-show pulls out two tricks: it holds the Obama White House together while setting a very real line on the discussions with Iran. The Ahmadinejad Government and the Supreme Leader are being told publicly that "third-party enrichment" has to occur outside Iran; no swaps of uranium inside the country. This is getting close to a take-it-or-leave-it declaration to the regime.

But what if Ahmadinejad and/or Khamenei says "Leave It"? Then, I suspect, you'll see the magic evaporate. For while Ross and others wanting a showdown may get it, I'm not sure they have thought through their next tricks.

The Iran Cul-de-Sac: 4 Points on Obama's Embrace of Ahmadinejad (and Rejection of the Green Movement)

The Bomb, The Bomb: Distorting the Latest Report on Iran’s Nuclear Programme
Iran Document: The International Atomic Energy Agency Report on Nuclear Facilities
The Latest from Iran (16 November): Catching Up

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1. IT'S THE NUKES, STUPID

If anyone in the Iranian Government still believes in the
Washington-directed "velvet revolution", rather than using it as a stick to beat the opposition, he/she can breathe easy. The driving force for the Obama Administration's approach to Iran is the quest for an agreement on uranium enrichment.

That ambition is led by the President, and his determination has brought general consensus in an Administration that was arguing over the value of talks earlier in 2009. Broadly speaking, the White House, the National Security Council, and the State Department are all on the same page now.

Any reference to the internal situation in Iran, as in the Obama recent statement calling for recognition of the rights of protesters, is a gloss. The President and his advisors may have a legal and humanitarian interest in what happens to demonstrators, as well to US citizens detained and sentenced to years in prison in Iran, but it is not their top policy priority.

Indeed, Washington's position is now fixed firmly enough to withstand not only the demands of reformists but figures like Hashemi Rafsanjani to go slow on deal with President Ahmadinejad. I suspect we will find that Obama has personally gone farther --- much farther --- than any President since 1979 to get an accommodation with Tehran.

2. GETTING THE GREEN MOVEMENT WRONG

The quest for a nuclear deal has been accompanied by a disturbing if tangential story of how "intelligence" and "analysis" has undermined the Iranian opposition.

Ever since the June election, some US officials, primarily in the intelligence community, have been putting out the line that the Green Movement is insignificant and/or not to be trusted on issues such as nuclear weapons, Israel, and
"anti-Americanism". (The public face of this line is the commentaries of Flynt Leverett, formerly of the National Security Council, and Hillary Mann Leverett, formerly of the State Department.)

This assessment was reinforced by the appearance in October of former Khatami Government official and "Karroubi advisor" Ataollah Mojaherani at the conference of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His strident caution to the audience that a "Green Government" was unlikely to give ground on Iran's nuclear programme or on the position towards Israel apparently sent shock waves through the audience, angering other reformists present in the audience who feared Mohajerani had just damaged their cause.

They were right. It is the Mojaherani incident that is behind the clamour of well-placed Washington columnists like Jackson Diehl and David Ignatius to beware the Greens. More importantly, the speech fuelled the "analysis" within the CIA that the politics of Mousavi-Karroubi-Khatami were not to be trusted, a belief that accompanied (and possibly fed by) sources such as those in Borzou Daragahi's pre-13 Aban article assaulting the Green Movement.

What is intriguing is how a Washington distraction became the foundation for some in the CIA to bury or fear the Greens. It is true that Mohajerani was a prominent member of the Karroubi campaign and wore the badge of a glittering if past political career: youngest deputy of the first post-Revolution Parliament, Vice-President in the Rafsanjani Government, Minister of Culture under Mohammad Khatami.

Still, at the time, we gave almost no space to the Mojaherani speech because it was so disconnected from events and political strategy in Iran. Before and after the Washington episode, I have not seen Mojaherani's name rise up in the movements of the Green Wave. In short, he was one of a number of former officials who have or had connections with a complex network of "reformists".

For many in Washington, however, Mojaherani was thought to be no less than the ambassador for the Green Movement, presenting its manifesto. And when the approach of his speech did not match up to the "revolution" --- in presentation and policy, if not Islamic system --- that they wanted, those officials and commentators reacted like a lover spurned.

(There is a wider point here. The Iranian Government has had success in disrupting communications within Iran
but it is also important that it has limited any dialogue between the reformist opposition and the "outside", in this case the
US Government. With no direct line
established as the Green Movement evolved, American officials have
relied upon a variety of people, usually located outside Iran presenting a wide range of often contradictory advice and speculation rather than solid information.

While the situation may have been inevitable, given the detentions of many reformists and de facto house arrest of leaders like Mir Hossein Mousavi, it strikes me that the Obama Administration has not worked around these restrictions to read the lines --- and between the lines --- of statements not only of Mousavi, Karroubi, and Khatami but of other activists like Alireza Beheshti and senior clerics from and beyond Qom.)

3. THE MYTH OF THE PLAN B: SANCTIONS

As a case study in internal politics,
the beauty of the Obama nuclear-first, engagement-first approach has been how it has brought consensus amongst differing groups within the Administration. If the talks brought nuclear agreement, that would be a significant result for the unclenched fist (the line often attributed to some State Department officials and envoys like Richard Holbrooke). If they were finally collapsed by Iranian stalling and intransigence, the platform for aggressive sanctions would be laid (the line often
attributed to Dennis Ross, now at the National Security Council).

The only problem comes if, having grasped the hand of the Iranian Government in talks, the Obama Administration then has to slap Ahmadinejad's face in the absence of an agreement.

Washington's current calculation, supported by its diplomatic strategy, turns the Russian key. Moscow's envoys are working on the Iranian Government to accept the uranium enrichment plan, while Russian President Dmitri Medvedev issues unsubtle hints that he will not stand back if Tehran balks.

That is not the same as a Russian commitment to sanctions. Let's assume, however, that Moscow accepts a US-led multilateral effort inside or outside the United Nations. And let's assume that President Obama, who no doubt has mentioned this in Beijing this week, gets a Chinese promise to stand aside.

What next? If there is no nuclear agreement, it will quite likely be because the Supreme Leader has objected, despite Obama's sustained direct efforts. So how does a stricter round of sanctions change Ayatollah Khamenei's position?

It doesn't. So the Obama Administration is presumably counting on a diplomatic and economic containment, indeed isolation, of Iran.

That, however, does nothing to address the issue of President Ahmadinejad, who remains in office. It does nothing to deal with the increasing role of the Revolutionary Guards in matters beyond the nuclear and even military realm. (Indeed, as some analysts have contended, further sanctions may assist the Guard's economic ventures, although this effect may be mitigated if the restrictions can specifically target Guard "investments".)

Sanctions certainly do nothing with respect to the reformists and the Green movement. Even if Washington recants and tries to bring them back into political consideration, it is unclear --- given the perceived snub by Obama's officials in recent weeks --- if the opposition will offer even a cautious welcome.

4. BACK TO THE CUL-DE-SAC

In the Bush years, the cul-de-sac for American policy was the threat that could not be carried out. Whether the vision was a "turn left from Baghdad" intervention, briefly considered in 2003, the military strikes advocated by Vice President Cheney in 2007, or a sledgehammer set of economic sanctions, the Administration could not deliver the blow. The "best" it could manage was the muddled if funded programme of "soft power" in the 2nd term, which was never defined as either a live-and-let-live civic engagement or the cover for "velvet revolution".

The hope of the Obama approach has been to get out of that dead end, opening up space for other initiatives such as Middle Eastern agreements, through engagement. And, considered narrowly in the context of discussions on nuclear programmes and regional politics, that was solid, realist common sense.

But "narrowly" became very narrow after the elections of 12 June. If Obama wanted to dance, he had to dance with an Iranian President who now lacked legitimacy (despite the efforts of engagement advocates like the Leveretts to explain how Ahmadinejad had really won the election and a clear mandate).

That legitimacy, within weeks of the election, was not just a question of a "reformist" challenge. Ahmadinejad has also been in a tenuous position vis-a-vis political rivals like Hashemi Rafsanjani, the conservatives/principlists in the Iranian Parliament, Ayatollahs (and thus bodies such as the Assembly of Experts), and at times the Supreme Leader. That is why the Iranian President, far from breaking off talks to pursue The Bomb, is hugging the nuclear discussions so close --- with no prospect of salvation through an economic miracle, this is his prescription for political longevity.

Now Obama's engagement gamble, re-shaped in this post-June cauldron, may still succeed if the Supreme Leader gives his backing to an agreement on uranium enrichment. (Which is why, just to repeat, this President is going farther than any predecessor in 30 years) A wider US agenda, which may adapt engagement for exchanges on Iran's political and legal issues as well as geopolitical interests, could then be drafted.

But, if the nuclear deal does not go through, Obama and Ahmadinejad now dance in a downward spiral. The Iranian President will struggle to serve out his disputed second term. And the US President will be back in the cul-de-sac: pressed by some advisors and a lot of Congressmen to pursue sanctions which offer no remedy for --- and no exit from --- the political dilemma of his failed engagement.