December 13-2013
President Obama says he doesn’t trust anybody in the Islamic Republic, but he judges he will only be able to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran if he treats the regime in a “dignified fashion” and allows for a “dignified resolution” that still must include lots of intrusive inspections to guarantee the government does not build a bomb.
Sitting down for a public Q&A session at the Saban Center at Washington’s Brookings Institution, Obama said for the first time that he wanted Iran to dismantle its heavy water reactor at Arak and its uranium enrichment plant at Fordo—but not the one at Natanz—as part of a final agreement. Officials of the Islamic Republic previously said they would not dismantle either, but Obama just ignored those comments.
Obama also dismissed out of hand the demands of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is insisting that Washington require all uranium enrichment to be halted. Obama said he would love for that to happen, but that it is an unreasonable demand to levy on the Islamic Republic.
Obama finished by giving his reading of the Iranian national character: “The idea that Iran, given everything we know about their history, would just continue to get more and more nervous about more sanctions and military threats, and ultimately just say, ‘okay, we give in,’ I think does not reflect an honest understanding of the Iranian people or the Iranian regime….
“I think even the so-called moderates or reformers inside of Iran would not be able to simply say, ‘we will cave and do exactly what the US and the Israelis say.’
“They are going to have to have a path in which they feel that there is a dignified resolution to this issue. That’s a political requirement of theirs, and that, I suspect, runs across the political spectrum. And so for us to present a door that serves our goals and our purposes but also gives them the opportunity to, in a dignified fashion, reenter the international community and change the approach that they’ve taken—at least on this narrow issue, but one that is of extraordinary importance to all of us—is an opportunity that we should grant them.”
Obama spoke more fully about his thoughts on Iran than he has in a long time while sitting in a chair and speaking conversationally.
He started out talking about President Rohani, saying he believes Rohani shares the regime’s antipathy for the United States.
“He was not necessarily the first choice of the hardliners inside of Iran,” Obama said. “Now, that doesn’t mean that we should trust him or anybody else inside of Iran. This is a regime that came to power swearing opposition to the United States, to Israel, and to many of the values that we hold dear.”
Obama said, “Obviously, Rohani is part of the Iranian establishment and I think we have to assume that his ideology is one that is hostile to the United States and to Israel. But what he also represents is the desire on the part of the Iranian people for a change of direction. And we should not underestimate or entirely dismiss a shift in how the Iranian people want to interact with the world….
“We have to be vigilant about maintaining our security postures, not be naive about the dangers that an Iranian regime poses, fight them wherever they’re engaging in terrorism or actions that are hostile to us or our allies. But we have to not constantly assume that it’s not possible for Iran … to change over time. It may not be likely. If you asked me what is the likelihood that we’re able to arrive at [a final nuclear agreement], I wouldn’t say that it’s more than 50/50. But we have to try.”
Obama said—over and over again—that he wants a diplomatic solution, but recognizes that more sanctions or even military action may follow if the diplomatic solution doesn’t pan out. A key point he made that gets little recognition in the United States outside of the White House and State Department is that he is building international support for more sanctions in the event of failure by bending over backward first to reach a negotiated solution.
“The best way for us to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is for a comprehensive, verifiable, diplomatic resolution, without taking any other options off the table if we fail to achieve that,” Obama said. “If at the end of six months, it turns out that we can’t make a deal, we’re no worse off, and in fact we have greater leverage with the international community to continue to apply sanctions and even strengthen them. If, on the other hand, we’re able to get this deal done, then what we can achieve through a diplomatic resolution of this situation is, frankly, greater than what we could achieve with the other options that are available to us.”
The Obama Administration came into office five years ago complaining that the Bush Administration had angered the world by refusing to reach out a hand to Iran. His Administration believes that his enthusiasm for talking with Iran convinced the rest of the world that the problem lay in Tehran, not Washington, and converted the Europeans from opponents of sanctions to strong proponents of sanctions.
Obama asked the public not to see the choice as one between the ideal solution and the status quo, but between a workable solution and a war.
“When people ask, why should we try to negotiate with them, we can’t trust them, we’re being naive, what I try to describe to them is not the choice between this deal and the ideal, but the choice between this deal and other alternatives,” he said, avoiding the word “war.”
“If we could create an option in which Iran eliminated every single nut and bolt of their nuclear program, and foreswore the possibility of ever having a nuclear program, and, for that matter, got rid of all its military capabilities, I would take it. That particular option is not available. And so, as a consequence, what we have to do is to make a decision as to—given the options available—what is the best way for us to assure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon….
“This diplomatic path is not based on trust; it’s based on what we can verify. And it also, by the way, does not negate the fact that Iran is engaging in a whole bunch of other behavior in the Middle East and around the world that is detrimental to the United States and detrimental to Israel. And we will continue to contest their efforts where they’re engaging in terrorism, where they’re being disruptive to our friends and our allies. We will not abide by any threats to our friends and allies in the region, and we’ve made that perfectly clear.”
He repeated what has become an Administration mantra: “No deal is better than a bad deal. But presuming that it’s going to be a bad deal and, as a consequence, not even trying for a deal, I think would be a dire mistake.”
Asked what he saw as components of a final deal beyond very strict verification measures, Obama was surprisingly concrete and demanding. “In terms of specifics, we know that they don’t need to have an underground, fortified facility like Fordo in order to have a peaceful nuclear program. They certainly don’t need a heavy-water reactor at Arak in order to have a peaceful nuclear program. They don’t need some of the advanced centrifuges that they currently possess in order to have a limited, peaceful nuclear program And so the question ultimately is going to be, are they prepared to roll back some of the advancements that they’ve made that could not be justified by simply wanting some modest, peaceful nuclear power.”
Obama said, “Now, you’ll hear arguments, including potentially from the Prime Minister [of Israel], that say we can’t accept any enrichment on Iranian soil. Period. Full stop. End of conversation. And this takes me back to the point I made earlier. One can envision an ideal world in which Iran said, ‘we’ll destroy every element and facility and, you name it, it’s all gone.’
“I can envision a world in which Congress passed every one of my bills that I put forward,” he said to laughter from the audience. “I mean, there are a lot of things that I can envision that would be wonderful. But precisely because we don’t trust the nature of the Iranian regime, I think that we have to be more realistic and ask ourselves, what puts us in a strong position to assure ourselves that Iran is not having a nuclear weapon and that we are protected? What is required to accomplish that, and how does that compare to other options that we might take?
“And it is my strong belief that we can envision an end state that gives us an assurance that even if they have some modest enrichment capability, it is so constrained and the inspections are so intrusive that they, as a practical matter, do not have breakout capacity. Theoretically, they might still have some. But, frankly, theoretically, they will always have some, because, as I said, the technology here is available to any good physics student at pretty much any university around the world. And they have already gone through the cycle to the point where we’re not going to be able to eliminate the knowledge [about how to enrich]. But what we can do is eliminate the incentive for them to want to do this.
“And with respect to what happens if this breaks down, I won’t go into details. I will say that, if we cannot get the kind of comprehensive end state that satisfies us and the world community and the P5-plus-1, then the pressure that we’ve been applying on them and the options that I’ve made clear I can avail myself of, including a military option, is one that we would consider and prepare for.” This time, Obama flatly said military force was an option. President Bush never went that far, but, for more than a year, Obama has saying openly that military force is an option.
Obama dismissed talk that the fact that he did not in the end take military action in Syria proves that he is unwilling to resort to the use of force. “I think Mr. Qaddafi would have a different view of that, or Mr. Bin Laden,” he said to laughter.
Obama was asked about recent news reports describing secret negiotiations that were held in the months before the Geneva nuclear talks that reached the interim agreement. Obama said there were some secret talks, but they were more about process and not the substance of the eventual agreement.
“There weren’t a lot of secret negotiations,” Obama said. “After Rohani was elected, there was some acceleration leading up to the UN General Assembly [in September]. You’ll recall that Rohani was engaging in what was termed a charm offensive, right, and he was going around talking to folks. And at that point, it made sense for us to see, all right, how serious are you potentially about having these conversations. They did not get highly substantive in the first several meetings but were much more [about] exploring how much room, in fact, did they [Iran] have to get something done. And then as soon as they began to get more technical, at that point, they converged with the P5-plus-1 discussions.”
He then ruminated on what he saw as the difference in the approaches advocated by Netanyahu and himself.
“What this comes down to is the perception that if we just kept on turning up the pressure—new sanctions, more sanctions, more military threats, et cetera—that eventually Iran would cave. And what I’ve tried to explain is two points: One is that the reason the sanctions have been so effective is because other countries had confidence that we were not imposing sanctions just for the sake of sanctions, but we were imposing sanctions for the sake of trying to actually get Iran to the table and resolve the issue.
“And if the perception internationally was that we were not in good faith trying to resolve the issue diplomatically, that, more than anything, would actually begin to fray the edges of the sanctions regime,” he said in a clear retort to Netanyahu, who asserts that the interim agreement is the start of the unraveling of the sanctions program.
