"Can the US & the real architects of Iran’s foreign policy, rebuild a sufficient level of confidence to be able to work together?"

Gary Sick in the Daily Beast/ Blog, here

For nearly two decades, Israel and the U.S. have warned about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the need to “do something” preemptively. With Ahmadinejad at the U.N., Gary Sick argues for a safer response.

.... Officially, both the United States and Israel now agree that Iran is unlikely to be able to produce a bomb until about 2013 or 2014—the same five-year window that was being predicted seventeen years ago in 1992.

For the better part of two decades, there have been cries of alarm that the United States must “do something” or else Iran would have an operational nuclear weapon within a few years. If these warnings of a “ticking clock” had been heeded, there would have been ample reason for the United States or Israel to go to war with Iran at almost any time. In fact, there have been as many serious predictions that a war was imminent and unavoidable as there have been false predictions about the timing of an Iranian bomb. Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker beginning in 2006, quoted many sources inside and outside the U.S. government who claimed that the Bush administration was preparing to attack Iran because of its nuclear policies. It now appears that Vice President Cheney, based on his own words in retirement, was in fact pressing for such an attack, but President Bush vetoed it......

.... These statements are admirably clear in recognizing that the end game in any concerted pressure campaign against Iran is war. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatened “crippling sanctions” to be imposed on Iran ........ A prohibition of Iranian petroleum imports—most likely restricted to the United States and perhaps some of its European allies since Russia, China and even many of Iran’s allies (think Venezuela) and immediate neighbors (think Iraq) are unwilling to cooperate—can only be truly enforced by a blockade, which is an act of war.

The perpetual plea for U.S. foreign policy to “do something” needs to be changed; we would be better served by adopting the physicians creed: “First, do no harm.”....

First, beware of panic cries of ticking time bombs. The world may have more time and more bargaining leverage than is generally supposed. Iran has proceeded very slowly with its nuclear program. If Iran had proceeded at the same speed as Pakistan (which had far fewer resources than Iran), it would have had a bomb test and a deliverable nuclear weapon more than decade ago. Iran has chosen to remain in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to accept International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, over the objections of its own hardliners—the only proto-nuclear state to have done so. Iran has repeatedly and formally declared at the highest levels that the production, storage or use of a nuclear weapon was contrary to Islam and not in Iran’s national interest—most recently earlier this week by Supreme Leader Khamenei.

These facts do not solve the problem—countries can change their minds or their timetables—but these often neglected realities do provide something to work with in serious negotiations. A senior U.S. diplomat recently put the problem to me in the form of three hard questions:

• What if Iran gets a full nuclear fuel cycle? 

• What if they get a nuclear weapon? 

• Is it possible that Iran and the United States could ever again develop a level of trust that would permit them to become partners rather than antagonists?

For all practical purposes, much as we may dislike it, Iran has already answered the first question.... It is highly unlikely that any Iranian leader would give up the current nuclear capability. That was an objective of the shah, and it would no doubt be pursued even by opposition leaders such as Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi.... 

If Iran has a known capacity to be able to build a bomb, its negotiating leverage is nearly as great as if it actually had one or two crude bombs in its possession. That calculation, we now know, was the shah’s strategy before the 1979 revolution; it is very likely the strategy of his successors. It maximizes influence and minimizes risk.

What if Iran got a bomb? Well, unless they buy one intact, the process of actually moving to weaponization is likely to be noticed, so one must ask what happens between the moment when they decide to proceed to a bomb and when they actually have it. That period, which is apt to be several years, would be the true case of the ticking time bomb, and that would be the moment for consideration of extreme pressure tactics, probably with very wide support in the international community. Iran knows this, and that is itself a disincentive for them to proceed.

The real purpose of negotiations, in my view, is to build a system of monitoring and inspections that will (1) provide maximum early warning of a potential future Iranian decision to “break out;” and (2) insure the maximum possible interval between that moment and the moment where Iran could actually have a bomb. Iran has said on several occasions that it is willing to accept such an enhanced inspection regime, but it will no doubt insist on a price. That, I think, is what the negotiations should be about.

Can the United States and Iran ever rebuild a sufficient level of confidence to be able to work together effectively on nuclear, regional or other issues? With the present regime in power, that is probably asking too much. The one bright spot, however, is that Ahmadinejad, despite all his swagger and bluster, is a secondary figure at best in the actual decision-making on major security policy. Any Iranian decisions taken in real negotiations will be taken by consensus. Based on everything we know, Ahmadinejad’s voice, however shrill, will be drowned out by the real architects of Iran’s foreign policy, whose primary interest is the national interest of the country as they see it. The real question is whether the clamor of domestic politics in both the United States and Iran will prevent the pragmatists on both sides from being heard."