President Obama's accusation that Iran has lied about a secret nuclear plant gives the United States the most important opportunity in years to pressure Tehran to forgo its nuclear weapons ambitions. By drawing a “line in the sand,’’ the United States, France, and Britain now have the first substantial leverage to deploy when negotiations begin today with a suddenly defensive Ahmadinejad government.
When Obama took office, Iran was seemingly on a fast track to nuclear capability. The Bush administration’s offer of negotiations, in which I was involved, had fallen on deaf ears in Tehran. But a cascading series of events over the last few months have weakened the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Obama’s early offer to negotiate with Tehran coupled with global outrage over the Iranian government’s brutal crackdown against peaceful protesters after its disputed elections won back the moral high ground for the United States. Last week’s accusation that Iran tried to deceive the International Atomic Energy Agency elicited unprecedented criticism, even from Russia and China.
Still, the Obama administration faces a daunting set of barriers to diplomatic progress. Iran will be a formidable foe at the negotiations, the first serious talks between Washington and Tehran in 30 years. The negotiations will probably fail, as it will be extraordinarily difficult to convince the Ahmadinejad government to suspend uranium enrichment and give up its goal of a nuclear weapons capacity.
At home, the president’s conservative critics charge that his engagement policy has been naive, arguing the United States should return to a more confrontational strategy based on military force.
They could not be more mistaken. The president’s patient diplomatic pressure on Iran is a more sophisticated strategy with a better chance of actually arresting Iran’s nuclear efforts. Because of it, the United States has significantly greater credibility to take advantage of Iran’s mendacity and to lead an international coalition toward comprehensive sanctions should talks fail.
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