These kinds of pronouncements stirred up old suspicions: Larijani recalled Blair saying in 2003 that the only reason Iran was cooperating with the IAEA was a result of the war in Iraq—because the Iranians saw that the West was “serious” and the Iraq War had been a “test case.”
These sentiments, Larijani said, undermined every attempt at progress. As long as the West viewed Iran with such distrust, the haggling over suspension was meaningless.
“There are reasons for the distrust,” I said, mentioning Ahmadinejad’s statements about Israel and the Holocaust.
This was now “under control,” according to Larijani. During Iran’s celebrations on February 11, Revolution Day, Ahmadinejad had omitted any proclamations about their nuclear program, he pointed out.
Larijani wanted the Americans to understand as well that Iran hoped the al-Maliki government in Baghdad would succeed: the Iranians were not supporting the Shi’ite al-Mahdi militia led by cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Democracy and stability in Iraq was in Iran’s interest. Larijani asked me to convey these thoughts to Condoleezza Rice. “She seems to be a person who understands,” he said.
The P-5+1 and Solana came back with their response to the time-out idea in late February. John Sawers called to say that they would adopt a statement based on the three principles and the idea of a double timeout, but they intended to pursue a dual-track strategy and push for another Security Council resolution, with additional “limited” sanctions. The news of another Security Council resolution being in the works dismayed Larijani. “If that goes forward,” he said, “it will be the end of the negotiating process.”
A conversation with Rice about the Iran situation gave me the chance to urge her to consider the sequencing of the P-5+1’s strategy. First, I heard her view on the three principles: she was not keen on the word normalization, nor on explicitly spelling out Iran’s right to enrichment. Otherwise, she had no problem with the idea of a “simultaneous timeout.” This was encouraging. But I told her that going directly to the Security Council to push for sanctions would make it hard for Iran to come to the negotiating table. “You would be better served by airing these ideas with Iran first, before resorting to more sanctions,” I said. Otherwise, “you will be empowering the hard-liners and undermining the moderates.”
Rice seemed to be listening carefully. Sometimes the way she asked questions, when I suspected she already knew my answer, gave me the impression that our conversations were being recorded and transcribed. The Bush administration was, from what I could tell, fractured internally on foreign policy matters. Rice needed to marshal every argument if she was going to convince Washington’s skeptics about reaching out to the Iranians. Maybe she wanted them to hear directly what Larijani had said about Iran’s interest in talking to the United States. It was hard for me not to speculate.
Feeling like a broken record, I repeated that she should try to engage Iran directly. “It will help you on Iraq and also on the nuclear issue,” I said. The Iranians were talking to the Saudis about Lebanon and Palestine. “People like Larijani,” I told her, “are sincerely interested in dialogue.” Rice did not disagree but neither did she commit herself.
Two days after we spoke, Washington announced that the United States would participate in a conference on Iraq with “neighboring countries,” including Iran and Syria. The Americans insisted they would talk only about Iraq, not about the Iranian nuclear issue. The hair-splitting sounded a little childish to me; but I wasn’t about to quibble. It was one step forward.
Any optimism I felt was fleeting. The opening of one door was immediately followed by other doors slamming shut. The P-5+1’s march toward another Security Council resolution, however futile, seemed unstoppable, especially since it appeared that neither the Russians nor the Chinese would exercise their veto. Nonetheless, there was a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at halting the advance.
The Swiss prepared a paper that laid out the lines under discussion. Despite signals from American officials indicating they did not want outside interference, Ambühl presented the paper to Larijani in Tehran.[6] I sent word to Larijani that this was likely the last chance for Iran to avoid another provocative Security Council resolution. The Swiss then tried every argument they could come up with to convince Iran of the benefits of going into full suspension. But to no avaiclass="underline" the Iranians would agree only to a two-stage process, in which they would freeze their enrichment activities—that is, not expand them further—for thirty days of “prenegotiation” during which the parties would jointly determine the “scope” of the double time-out to follow. This time-out would then go into effect for six months while the actual negotiations took place. This was a concession on Iran’s part, but it was not enough.
Larijani warned me that if the Security Council passed another resolution, Iran would break off the ongoing IAEA inspections at Natanz. This would be another case of noncompliance, I told him, and could only worsen the standoff. “I know the implications,” Larijani said, but the decision was coming from the Iranian government. He had tried to delay this action for six months but would not be able to do so any longer.
In the midst of all the diplomatic commotion, Iran continued to build its uranium enrichment capacity. When our inspectors visited Natanz on March 20, they saw that Iran had installed a total of one thousand centrifuges. It was both ironic and distressing to recall that just one year earlier the buildup of Iran’s enrichment program could have been halted at thirty to forty centrifuges. The American argument that Iran should be prevented from having enrichment knowledge was water under the bridge: Iranian nuclear specialists had now been running small cascades of centrifuges for more than a year.
Against this background, I prepared my report on Iran for the IAEA’s March Board meeting. Larijani’s deputy, Javad Vaeedi, had recently given an interview in which he claimed, falsely, that a comment in my previous report—that the IAEA was not in a position to verify the peaceful nature of Iran’s program—had been “embedded” by the U.S. ambassador to the Agency. This made me angry: the Agency had gone out of its way to work with the Iranians objectively and professionally. For Iran to question our integrity was unacceptable.
I decided, in my current report, to be quite blunt: Indeed the IAEA could not reach any verdict on the Iranian program. Iran’s position, I wrote, was sui generis; Iran had cheated on their reporting obligations for twenty years. As a result, we had no choice but to reconstruct the full history of their program. Until they responded to our questions and concerns with conclusive and satisfactory explanations, they would remain in the defendant’s box.
The Board meeting took place amid much tension. A draft Security Council resolution with sanctions was in the pipeline. Abdul Minty, South Africa’s governor on the Board, briefed me on the diplomatic efforts they, too, were making in the Security Council. The United States and the EU-3 would have preferred that South Africa and President Thabo Mbeki, with the weight they carried among developing countries, refrain from trying to find a solution on Iran. But South Africa was keen to play a role. Together with Switzerland, South Africa was ready to engage in an effort to resolve the Iran nuclear issue through negotiation and dialogue in accordance with the tenets of the NPT. In addition, South Africa held a seat on the Security Council and was not afraid to use it. Although the P-5+1 tended to dominate the proceedings, the South African ambassador in New York, Dumisani Kumalo, had declared to the council that his country was not there merely as window dressing.
6
The late 2010 WikiLeaks release of cables made clear that Washington was extremely unhappy with the Swiss attempts to work with Iran toward a solution. “U.S. Irked By Over-Eager Swiss Diplomats,” Mathieu van Rohr,