If President Obama is trying to vindicate critics of his Iran policy, he could hardly do a better job than he is doing this week.
The Obama administration’s desperation and eagerness to make a deal have been quite obvious for some time. And no one has been more acutely aware of this than Iran’s theocratic government. The most recent manifestation of this desperation has been the State Department’s protracted effort to delay release of a report on Iran’s human rights record. That report is supposed to be released Thursday — four months after the deadline, an unprecedentedly late stage of the calendar year. And even now, it is only happening because Republicans in Congress threatened to cut the State Department’s budget.
As negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program come to a close, the Iranians are taking full advantage of the fact that Obama is so eager to make a deal. They have suddenly hardened their stance, demanding an immediate lifting of all sanctions for any deal to go forward — as opposed to a gradual lifting of sanctions based on how well they comply with the deal. Their Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made a speech Tuesday rejecting any long-term freeze on their nuclear research and development program. He also stated his intention to close off his nation’s nuclear sites, just as the question of transparency in Iran’s nuclear program has become a major sticking point in negotiations.
Khamenei knows he has Obama over a barrel, and so he is pressing for the best deal he can get. And as Iran’s position hardens, Obama’s position is crumbling.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the U.S. and other countries are now offering “high-tech reactors and other state-of-the-art equipment” to Tehran in exchange for a deal. The offering is quite substantial, and the reductions in Iran’s ability to break out and become a nuclear power at some future date are much less so. One of the critical facilities discussed in the talks — Fordo, which is buried in a mountain and would be difficult to bomb, should it come to that — could still be used for isotope production, the nature of which process would make it very easy for Iran to revert to using it to enrich uranium.
This is the predictable and much-predicted result of a negotiating process in which one side — supposedly the stronger side — has made its eagerness for a deal all too clear. Instead of holding out and using the threat of continued or even strengthened sanctions to bring Iran to the table, Obama began the bargaining by easing up and giving relief without any serious preconditions. This set the tone of the entire negotiation as a “how not to” example from the American side.
When the talks end, the State Department would do well to study the tactics of their victorious Iranian counterparts, because the Iranians have already won. Deal or no deal, they have successfully used Obama’s desperation to buy Iran’s economy a temporary lifeline. Meanwhile, their government’s obdurate support of terrorist paramilitaries and its atrocious human rights record are being rewarded with concessions from the United States of America.
