America’s New Approach to the Iran Negotiations

Steve LeVine – Quartz

Critics say Iran has out-maneuvered the outside world for almost two years, winning concession after concession in nuclear talks while itself giving away little. If so, the US appears to have turned the tables at a key juncture in the final negotiating round. The Iranian side seems convinced that it will succeed as long as it holds out. Even as the deadline is here, the Iranians have said they have all the time in the world to cut a good deal. So the US has abruptly shifted course. It is suggesting that, rather than seeking to finish up in the timeframe it had wanted, it is prepared to keep talking on an open-ended basis.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius before the resumption of nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna July 10, 2015. (State Dept. photo/Flickr)

What Happens in Vienna …

Lee Smith – The Weekly Standard

In 1815, the European powers met here to establish the post-Napoleonic order and through a balance of power arrangement bring peace to the continent. Obama surely appreciates the historical echo, since 200 years later he, too, means to create a peaceful order in an especially volatile part of the world by balancing the regional powers—Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran—to ensure that none of them gets too large a piece of the pie and frightens the others into making war. The Iran nuclear talks are important because Obama, a U.S. diplomat circularly explained here last week, “believes a peaceful Iran could be .  .  . the key to peace.” The difference between 1815 and 2015 is that Napoleon had to be defeated at Waterloo before the peace forged by the Congress of Vienna could hold, lasting nearly a century. The Islamic Republic of Iran, on the other hand, is on the march throughout the Middle East, controlling four Arab capitals, and waging war from the eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Nonetheless, over the last two and a half years of negotiations with Iran, the Obama administration has offered Tehran virtually every concession it sought, which only spiked its appetite for more.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, left, talks to journalist from a balcony of the Palais Coburg hotel where the Iran nuclear talks are being held in Vienna, Austria, Thursday, July 9, 2015. Long-standing differences persist over inspections of Iranian facilities and the Islamic republic’s research and development of advanced nuclear technology. (Carlos Barria/Pool Photo via AP)

How Not to Measure the Iran Deal

Mark Champion – Bloomberg View

John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, Thursday railed against a proposed deal that he said would hand Iran, “a global menace,” billions of dollars in sanctions relief “while allowing it to retain the capacity to build a bomb almost immediately.” A more thoughtful example came from an Al Jazeera op-ed article by Luke Coffey, a former U.S. Army officer and special adviser to the British defense ministry. To summarize, he said: Too many concessions have been made to Iran; Iran will be rewarded with sanctions relief and yet will remain a bad actor in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East; it will sign a deal, but that deal’s limitations will last only for 10-15 years; it will keep a nuclear fuel program that it can later expand to become a nuclear-threshold state; it will submit to inspections, but it has a track record of building stuff covertly; and, above all, the failure to guarantee a permanently non-nuclear Iran will prompt Saudi Arabia and others to build their own bombs. The risks described here are real … However, none of these arguments … offers a plan for what should be done instead. It’s a little like the recent Greek referendum, where the winning “No” campaign discussed only what was not to like about the odious bailout terms, and ignored what would happen should Greece reject them.