Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2012, Pages 15, 66

Special Report

“Negotiations” Means Ultimatum When It Comes to Iran

By Rachelle Marshall

TALKS ON Iran's nuclear program between Iran and six world powers—the U.S., France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany—were scheduled to resume in Moscow in late June. But hopes that the two sides will come to an agreement have diminished to the vanishing point.

Those hopes were raised in late May, when Iran offered to limit its enrichment of uranium to the 20 percent it needs to fuel its medical reactor. Since that percentage is lower than the percentage required for developing a nuclear weapon, the Iranians expected the Western nations to reciprocate by lifting the painful economic sanctions they have imposed on Iran. Instead they offered only to provide spare parts for Iran's civilian aircraft and assistance with nuclear safety. Harsh sanctions on oil exports and banking transactions remain scheduled to go into effect in July.

In adopting Israel's maximalist demand that Iran abandon its nuclear program entirely and send its stockpile of enriched uranium abroad, the six powers are in effect requiring Iran to give up the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, a right guaranteed to all other signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (Nuclear-armed Israel is not a signatory.) Although the negotiators offered to supply Iran with medical isotopes, Tehran turned down the demands and again called for nuclear disarmament throughout the region.

As Republicans accused President Barack Obama of being too soft on Iran for negotiating at all, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro spoke to the Israeli Bar Association in Jerusalem reassuring the Israelis that not only was Washington willing to use military force to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but that plans for such an attack already had been made. Shapiro was one of a series of U.S. officials who have reassured Israel of the administration's readiness to use military action against Iran if negotiations fail.

"The goal is to raise pressure, not relieve it," according to Dennis B. Ross, a former adviser to President Obama who is now at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy. But a Iranian political analyst close to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said such threats would have no effect on Iran's policy. "When Americans understand there will be no Iran nuclear weapon...there will be no need for threats."

Meanwhile a report released by the RAND Corporation in mid-May strongly advised against a military attack on Iran, saying such an attack would only spur Iran's determination to develop a nuclear weapon and arouse more hostility in the region. According to RAND analysts, "a post-attack Middle East may result in the worst of both worlds; a nuclear-armed Iran more determined than ever to challenge the Jewish state, and with far fewer regional and international impediments to doing so."

In fact, Israel and the U.S. already are waging a hidden war on Iran. Israel is strongly suspected of being behind the assassination of five Iranian nuclear scientists and an explosion at a nuclear laboratory. On May 31 The New York Times revealed a joint effort by the U.S. and Israel to penetrate and damage Iran's computer network. Two viruses developed by the U.S. called Stuxnet and Duqu have disabled 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges Iran uses in the enrichment process, and they are still causing havoc.

A third and more powerful virus developed by American and Israeli experts called Flame not only erases data but records e-mails and telephone conversations and monitors all network traffic. It also spreads rapidly. According to the Times, the U.S. and Israel are "achieving with computer code what until [now] could be accomplished only by bombing a country or sending in agents to plant explosives." In view of Israel's insistence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, it is worth noting that the penetration of Iran's computer network apparently has revealed no evidence that it is doing so.

The absence of any smoking gun, and the fact that Iran's use of nuclear weapons would bring on devastating retaliation by Israel and the U.S., suggest the West's unyielding position is designed largely to dissuade Israel from taking military action against the Islamic republic. But Israel, backed by the United States, seems determined to weaken Iran whether or not it seeks a nuclear weapon, as long as it is governed by a regime that provides support to Hamas and Hezbollah and openly condemns Israel's occupation of Palestine.

If issuing ultimatums and imposing harsher sanctions while waging cyberwarfare are intended to discourage Iran from continuing its nuclear program, it is a dangerous gamble. Attempting to bring Iran to its knees is likely to spur the Iranians to develop a nuclear deterrent and heighten the tensions that could lead to its use. Meanwhile the six powers' demand that Iran "do as we say or else" is not a negotiating position. It is an act of extortion.

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Mill Valley, CA. A member of Jewish Voice for Peace, she writes frequently on the Middle East.