1/20/11 

This week's round of talks on Iran's nuclear program find the regime under increased pressure as a result of sanctions, technical problems and internal political fissures.  The administration's two-pronged approach of both pressure and engagement has created space for diplomacy and given international parties more time to reach a negotiated solution. As has been the case with most diplomatic breakthroughs, dealing with Iran will continue to take both time and patience.  A solution will not come after just two days of talks. The diplomatic "marathon" is proving fruitful and continues to offer the best path forward. 

We have the time for diplomacy-along with technological setbacks, sanctions are working to create time for a negotiated solution.  Earlier this month, the New York Times wrote that, "The departing director of Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, Meir Dagan, said he believed that the Iranians would not be able to make a bomb until 2015, at the earliest, ‘because of measures that have been deployed against them.'" Dagan's estimate followed comments from Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, who also believes Iran's program has been stunted.  As Reuters reported in December, "The United States and its allies have up to three years to curb Iran's nuclear programme, which has been set back by technical difficulties and sanctions, a senior Israeli official said."  The spread of the Stuxnet malware has plagued Iran's nuclear program, causing a large number of centrifuges to crash.  A report by the Institute for Science and International Security concludes, "Such overt and covert disruption activities have had significant effect in slowing Iran's centrifuge program, while causing minimal collateral damage." 

Iranians and outsiders agree that sanctions are having an effect. As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said, "The most recent analysis is that sanctions have been working... They have made it much more difficult for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions."  As Kenneth Pollack recently wrote, "sanctions, both those contained in the [United Nations] resolution itself and those enacted by member states (particularly the EU, Japan and South Korea) in conformity with the provisions of the resolution, go far beyond what most believed possible... they have gotten Tehran's attention, with no less a figure than former-President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani warning his countrymen that the sanctions are no joke and that the country's situation is dire."  [New York Times, 1/10/11. ISIS, 12/22/10. CNN, 1/10/11. Kenneth Pollack, National Interest,10/20/10]

Solving the Iran challenge will "more likely be a marathon than a sprint."  Diplomatic successes, from dismantling Libya's nuclear program to ending war in the Balkans, show that effective diplomacy is a long game, one that takes patience and perspective.  Former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nick Burns explained, "As Americans ponder this complex foreign policy challenge, we would do well to remember two essential truths about our struggle with Iran. The first is that it is more likely to be a marathon than a sprint. The second is that the U.S. is now and shall remain much more influential, purposeful, and powerful than the insular and cynical gang of retrogrades that make up the Ahmadinejad government. In my view, Obama's patient, careful, and sophisticated policy makes much more sense for our country, as well as for Israelis, than an early resort to war by Israel that risks causing more problems than it resolves."

And David Rothkopf of Foreign Policy Magazine notes "the dogged attention to maintaining diplomatic pressure that has been led very effectively by Secretary of State Clinton. Whether it has been the recent public dismissals of the Iranian effort to divide and conquer major powers by inviting a few but not the United States on guided tours of their nuclear facilities or the effort to blunt the effectiveness of third party initiatives such as those of Brazil and Turkey, the U.S. State Department has had to work feverishly to manage the fractious coalition of forces needed to put meaningful pressure on the Iranians." [Amb. Nick Burns, 8/19/10. David Rothkopf, 1/10/11]

Iran's internal politics continue to divide the regime.  Political infighting will complicate Iran's negotiating stance, though the regime's internal divides offer long-term opportunities for the U.S and its partners.  As Barbara Slavin wrote for the Atlantic Council's Iran Task Force, "Short-term prospects for U.S.-Iranian reconciliation and for a resolution of the Iranian nuclear file are poor in large part because of Iran's internal political crisis."  Slavin continues, "Seventeen months after disputed presidential elections, the Iranian government has forced opposition protestors off the streets but continues to face an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy that is undermining its capacity to implement effective domestic and foreign policies. While Iranian politics have long been fractious, the regime elite is increasingly divided as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashes with the parliament, other branches of government, and even, on occasion, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. UN, U.S., and other economic sanctions are compounding internal pressures, inhibiting economic growth, and complicating efforts to phase out unaffordable consumer subsidies." 

As a recent report by the Stimson Center and United States Institute of Peace explains, "This very power grab may well create an opening for US diplomacy. While avoiding any appearance of interfering in Iran's internal politics, US policymakers must consider how the balance of punitive measures and positive inducements in US policy will affect the leverage of those Iranian leaders who are now jockeying to shape Iran's internal and foreign policies."  The report concludes, "If Iran's fractious internal politics and revolutionary ideological heritage represent formidable challenges, they do not preclude a determined, if nuanced, effort by the US to encourage a more forthcoming Iranian diplomacy. While there is no magic formula for overcoming the centrifugal forces of Iranian domestic politics, important parts of Iran's ruling political elite remain receptive to the rationale for pursuing a mutually satisfactory solution to the nuclear issue." [Barbara Slavin, 11/10. Stimson Center and USIP, 11/16/10]

What We're Reading

President Obama gently but pointedly prodded China to make progress on human rights, but he sought to focus most of the attention during a closely watched state visit with President Hu Jintao on expanding economic relationship between the United States and its biggest economic rival. 

Ministers from Turkey and Qatar have suspended efforts to mediate in the political crisis in Lebanon.

A recently completed investigation of the killing of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan nine years ago makes public new evidence that senior al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed executed the Wall Street Journal reporter. 

Spain plans to inject billions more euros into its troubled savings banks and force them to be more open about their lending practices.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shuffled his cabinet in a bid to dampen mounting criticism of a government plagued by corruption scandals and poor performance.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to reinforce the U.N. mission in Ivory Coast with 2,000 additional peacekeepers, escalating an international campaign to pressure the country's longtime ruler to step down from power.

Winning candidates in September's parliamentary elections in Afghanistan vowed to hold their inaugural session next week, setting up a showdown with President Hamid Karzai.

South Korea has agreed to high-level military talks with the North if the agenda includes the two events that have soured relations - the sinking of a southern warship in March and the shelling of a southern island.

The Obama administration is preparing to increase the use of military commissions to prosecute Guantanamo detainees, an acknowledgment that the prison in Cuba remains open for business after Congress imposed steep new impediments to closing the facility.

Tunisia's new interim government is holding its first cabinet meeting, nearly a week after the fall of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen announced that he intends to dissolve parliament and call a general election in March.

Commentary of the Day

Michael O'Hanlon argues that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's decision to postpone the seating of a new parliament may have been the right move-that is, if he and other leaders seriously pursue a course that simultaneously empowers and legitimates the efforts of the millions of voters who went to the polls in September.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. writes American manufacturers, investors and consumers gain far more from China's low-cost solar panels and super-efficient wind turbines than they lose.

Christina Larson explores how Americans should attempt to understand China as a country that presents itself as simultaneously weak and strong.