Checkmate?

Roger Cohen had an op-ed recently discussing the challenges facing the Obama and quoted Henry Kissinger who observed:

“He reminds me of a chess grandmaster who has played his opening in six simultaneous games,” Kissinger said. “But he hasn’t completed a single game and I’d like to see him finish one.”

Iran was one of the many challenges facing the administration mentioned for which there seem to be some opening moves but the light at the end of the tunnel remains quite far off. In the context of the nuclear issue itself, there seem to be three moves at play in the Iranian chess game that have to be analyzed.

What is to be made of the TRR fuel swap pawn?

At this point, it seems too early to tell. Last week, Iran seemed adamant a deal wasn’t going to happen. This week, however, they seem to be more willing to budge based Foreign Ministry spokesman Mehmanparast’s remarks Tuesday:

While saying it was ready to exchange its low-enriched uranium with a higher enriched material, and Iranian official said Tehran would do so only on home soil to guarantee the West follows through with promises to give the fuel. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Iran had sent its response on the proposal to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, saying it wants a simultaneous exchange on Iranian soil. "Iran's answer is given. I think the other side has received it," said Mehmanparast. "The creation of a 100 percent guarantee for delivery of the fuel is important for Iran."

naicINsight evaluated the response favorably by arguing:

While the response is not quite what the p-5+1 had hoped to get, this development still marks progress with Iran. The deal helps by putting time back on the nuclear clock. The more proliferation-resistant fuel rods Iran would receive in exchange for giving up its raw stockpile of LEU would lengthen the time Iran would need to develop a nuclear weapons

But was also quick to caveat this possible forward progress:

Now…before any of us get ahead of ourselves, we should caution: if Iran decides in the coming days to alter its response, waffle back and forth, or vacillate in any way–such as requesting the exchange be made over multiple installments–the West would be absolutely correct to excoriate Iran for going back on its word.

Some of this waffling can probably be chalked up to Iran adroitly playing the cat and mouse game of negotiations. After seemingly big blows recently, such as revelation of the Qom facility or seemingly emphatic albeit not official “no” released last week, the Iranians have responded by budging just enough to allow inspections or toss out a "maybe" so as to give the Russians and Chinese the kernel of doubt they need to justify not supporting stronger punitive measures. That said, it is important to remember that the process for getting substantial progress on Iran, even in an ideal world, will take time and be difficult.  The clock is certainly ticking and the administration knows that but each time a news cycle shows some Iranian intransigence it cannot be automatically chalked up as proof of engagement failure in the same way that any budging by the Iranians cannot be trumpeted as problem solved.

The post TRR move

As the international community dangles the TRR fuel swap in hopes to at least buy time and begin building trust for future negotiations, they are also planning their next move should it fail. Obama’s recent comments in Asia about “the importance of having consequences” and highlighting that Iran has “not shown its willingness to yes to this proposal,” while before Tuesday’s "maybe," do reflect a growing frustration within the administration with what seemed to be a good win win proposal likely to happen just a couple weeks back. As a result, the P5+1 met in Vienna to draft a statement calling on Iran to clarify its intentions and confirm there are no more hidden atomic sites. While the measure is “mostly symbolic,” it could be an indicator that the Russians and Chinese are becoming increasingly willing to entertain the possibility of sanctions. The Financial Times discussion of Iranian frustration with the West’s meddling in their relations with Russia may lend credence to this idea although Russian statements that they expect Iran to agree to the TRR deal could support Deepti Choubey’s idea that Russia and China are persuading Iran to accept the swap so as to avoid having to think seriously about sanctions. As always, there continues to be strong skepticism about the prospects of getting a large enough group of key states unified in favor of sanctions that will be strong enough to cause real economic pain.

Tony Karon helped explained the complexity between these two moves in Time: 

Turning up the heat in order to force a more cooperative attitude from Iran to the Vienna proposal, could actually stiffen Iran's resistance to the idea of shipping its uranium to Russia for reprocessing. More importantly, Iran is caught in a fierce domestic power struggle that militates against a clear and coherent strategy in the nuclear talks . . . The key leaders in Tehran don't appear to feel a wall at their backs on the nuclear issue. Mottaki's insistence that Iran accepts the "framework" of the deal and Ahmadinjead's declaration last weekend that the Islamic Republic is committed to "nuclear cooperation" with the international community suggests that they know they'll have to show flexibility and deal, but they may still believe they can strike a more favorable agreement — or withstand the level of pressure the U.S. and its allies can muster in the months ahead. It's a dangerous game, but it may yet have many months to run — and its outcome is far from settled.

Calling No Joy

Successfully calibrating the balance between trying cajoling Iran into accepting agreements like the TRR swap while also simultaneously preparing the Plan B sanctions strategy in the event of failure will undoubtedly be a difficult task. That does not mean, however, that if prospects for success are dimmer than some think that the the next move in the game has to be a military one. NPR’s piece yesterday reflected a rather defeatist tone in noting:

This PR ploy has now backfired, with geostrategic implications . . . The alternative, other than letting the Iranian regime build its arsenal, would be a massive bombing campaign against its nuclear sites . . . All of this notwithstanding, if the choice is between a nuclear Iran and a bombing campaign that delays a nuclear Iran’s advent while making it less probable in absolute terms, the latter may be the better alternative . . . Given that leaders of geostrategic wisdom far superior to his, commanding positions of peerless economic and military strength, sat idly for years while the crisis metastasized, we feel no excess of hope.

While Benny Morris took it a step further in the Guardian and explained the issue as a forced choice between acquiescence to an Israeli strike or a nuclear Iran:

But it is not only Israel's leaders who will have to decide. So will Obama, a man who has, in the international arena, shown a proclivity for indecision (except when it comes to Israeli settlements in the West Bank). Will he give the Israelis a green light (and perhaps some additional equipment they have been seeking to facilitate a strike) and a right-of-passage corridor over Iraq for their aircraft? Or will he acquiesce in putting atomic weaponry in the mullahs' hands? It is clear – and should be by then to all but the most supine appeasers – that the diplomatic approach is going nowhere, with the Iranians conning and stonewalling and dragging their feet, all the while enriching more uranium. And Tehran is laughing, as it were, all the way to Armageddon

It is far from clear that these dire assessments should be accepted at this time.

Avoiding checkmates

There no doubt that the United States and the international community could very well lose in their chess match against Iran. The complex web of domestic and international factors the play into Iranian decision-making combined with the fairly limited toolbox available to an international community that differs to a nontrivial degree on how much they are willing to do to stop Iran from going nuclear makes solving this problem quite difficult. That does not mean, however, it is time to close the books on diplomatic and economic efforts and begin focusing on the “nuclear spring.” Statements from Benny Morris like

American conventional might . . . could completely halt Iran's nuclear project and thoroughly destroy its military carapace in a few weeks of intensive bombing; indeed, the regime itself might collapse like a house of cards, as did Saddam's

gloss over the substantial problems that would face even a U.S. military strike and the consequences of opting to do so. The cavalier conclusion that strikes could easily collapse the regime are a dangerous gambit and run contrary Steven Simson’s conclusion that “It is more likely that Iranians of all stripes would rally around the flag.”

While it seems unlikely that the U.S. would opt for a military strike, the key player in the military equation is Israel. There is no doubt they view a nuclear Iran as a very serious, probably existential, threat. Admiral Mullen’s efforts to highlight his understanding of that fact can play an important role in showing the Israelis and others that the U.S is attune to Israeli threat perceptions. As the clock continues to tick, quite possibly faster for the Israelis, it becomes increasingly more vital to calm Israeli nerves to the greatest degree possible. The discussion too often gets reduced to Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map (a contested translation) so they should wipe his nukes off the map. While the risk of a nuclear Iran may be existential, the Israelis also understand that such an effort could very well entail a host of very negative consequences for them and their U.S. ally. As such, the U.S. needs to focus on how they can convince Israel that a strike is in fact not the least bad option. Steven Simson explains :

Assuming that the U.S. continues to assess an Israeli attack to be undesirable, options to forestall or hedge against a strike would have to be geared to negating factors that would lead Israel to assess that the benefits of an attack outweigh the costs. These factors include perceptions that the White House has given at least a yellow light to the strike; that the United States is disengaged either because it has run out of diplomatic options or because an agreement with Iran has met Washington’s security objectives but left Israel exposed; and that the United States has not proffered to Israel convincing security guarantees against a nuclear-capable Iran. This list implies the importance of firm, direct communication of U.S. opposition to a strike from the White House to the Israeli prime minister; continued U.S. engagement that reflects an awareness of Israel’s greater exposure to the Iranian threat relative to that of the United States; and a willingness to consider a palpable tightening of the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship that secures Israeli restraint and, conversely, warns of a rupture should Israel attack Iran despite the U.S. president’s explicit opposition.

In parallel to this strategy, the United States should explore efforts to placate some of the other fears that the Israelis have about a nuclear Iran. The most direct threat would be an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel but there are reasons to believe that Iran would not opt for such a strategy.  Beyond just a direct attack, Ariel Ilan Roth makes a compelling case in Foreign Affairs that two of the primary reasons Israel is worried about a nuclear Iran is the proliferation it could trigger in other unfriendly Middle Eastern states and it would eliminate the qualitative military superiority they enjoy in the region, which could have a restraining effect on Israel and embolden Iran.  Figuring how the U.S. can help work to reassure Israeli security and simultenaous try to convince states like Egypt and Saudi Arbia against going nuclear even if Iran does are tough but important questions to tackle so as to prevent Israel from feeling like they are in a checkmate situation.

wikimedia/Alan Light