The west has spent the past several years in an effort to bid up the price Iran must pay for the pursuit of its nuclear programme. The sanctions strategy is running out of road. The time has come to change the argument, turning a threat into an offer. Unless the US and Europe want to join Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government on a shortening path to war, they should set out what Iran would gain from lifting its pariah status.
This would not be the volte-face it might seem. In theory, the west’s approach has always included a carrot as well as a stick. The incentives were set out in a United Nations resolution three years ago. The offer was expanded in June 2008 in a letter signed by the foreign ministers of the so-called European Union 3+3 (The UK, France, Germany, the US, China and Russia).
Since then it has gathered dust in cyberspace – posted on the websites of various foreign ministries, but largely overlooked in the diplomatic discourse. Those engaged in the negotiations will recite from memory the list of sanctions already imposed on the Tehran regime. They are more likely to stumble in the effort to list the incentives.
Barack Obama has reversed the previous US administration’s refusal to participate in negotiations with Iran. A senior US diplomat will join the Europeans, Chinese and Russians in talks with Iranian officials early next month. The US president has also said he is ready to rebuild a bilateral relationship; the hand remains outstretched in spite of the repression that followed this summer’s Iranian elections.
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