The Hardliners in Washington and Tehran

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst based in Washington speaks succinctly, about Obama’s wishes in the Iranian nuclear crisis; in the two last years of his term, the president wants to stop the regime in Tehran from making a bomb, but also does not want to bomb its nuclear installations. Keeping indefinite negotiations is a way to do so, even if the inevitable outcome of success will be to recognize a limited and highly monitored right of Iran to enrich uranium (OK, let’s admit here that Tehran insists its nuclear program has merely pacifistic aims).

On Monday, came the awaited announcement that the deadline for an agreement — self-imposed by Iran — in the negotiations with the international community had been extended to June of the next year. The extension represents the diplomatic failure to restrict the Iranian nuclear program — among other things, the regime in Tehran requires an immediate revocation of international sanctions as part of the agreement. It’s no wonder that the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, had the bravado to say that the West did not bring his country to its “knees.”

The failure is a present to hardline sectors, as much in Tehran as in Washington, as it further undermines the possibility of an accord, which obviously will be unsatisfactory.

And now, arriving in January, a more hardline American Congress — because of the Nov. 4 Republican victory — with pressures for more sanctions (something that violates the first agreement between Iran and the other side, composed of the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China). The argument of the hardliners is that more sanctions will double the pressure on Tehran, while negotiators supporting a more patient approach, say the exact opposite: that it will incentivize Iran to abandon the dialogue.

In Iran, the ultraconservative wing of the Shiite revolution, makes noises against an agreement, against the West, and against the current reformist president, Hassan Rouhani (he is betting his chips on an accord to obtain an end to sanctions and revitalize the economy). However, as expert Suzanne Maloney, of the Brookings Institution in Washington, reminds us, Rouhani’s clash is in fact with only one person, Ayatollah Khamenei. Up to now he has merely allowed the continuation of negotiations, but makes the maximum requirements on highly technical points, such as the annual measures of uranium for the centrifuges.

The hardliners in Washington and our man in Tehran will now have seven months to further impoverish our chances for an unsatisfactory agreement.