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There are some signs of a thaw, following the recent US-Iran meeting in Geneva. How will this play out and what does it represent to other stakeholders in the region? Here is an attempt to explain. Barack Obama has reason to be proud of himself. The Geneva meeting with Iran on October 1 produced results that exceeded the expectations of many. First, the fact that the Iranians discussed the nuclear programme at all was an important accomplishment: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had previously stated on several occasions that the nuclear file was closed and that it would not be part of the negotiations. Second, Iran apparently agreed to ship some of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France for processing from 3.5% to 20% purity.
Obama owes this achievement to a number of developments. One is the post-election disturbances in Iran, which damaged the regime's image as a stable administration while reducing its legitimacy. The other important source of leverage was information from the American, British, French and Israeli intelligence communities about the secret site in Qom. The growing international pressure that followed the exposure of Qom eroded Iran's negotiating position.
Meanwhile, the Iranian government also walked away with accomplishments of its own. Many in Iran have taken the recent agreement to allow Iranian-produced LEU to be processed in Russia as western recognition of its right to enrich uranium on its soil. This has been one of Iran's key demands and is therefore considered a victory - as was confirmed during last Friday's prayers in Tehran University by Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami.
Despite achievements by both sides, significant challenges remain. According to the agreement reached in Geneva, Iran will in principle send about 80% of its stockpile of LEU outside the country. The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated that Iran possesses 1359kg of LEU, of which about 1087kg should be shipped abroad. However, Iran has agreed to this only in principle. Obama has to wait for the 19 October meeting between Iran, the IAEA, France, Russia and the US to see how much of its LEU Iran is actually willing to hand over.
Conflicting reports are now emerging from Iran. Two days after the Geneva meeting, Peyman Jebelli, the media secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, denied that a deal had been reached over Iran's LEU at all. This was followed by another statement from Ali Shirzadian, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) who said that Iran will need "up to 660lb (300kg) of the more enriched uranium to keep the Tehran reactor running for another 10 to 15 years". This would mean that Iran would only have to give up 300kg - 22%, not 80% - of its stock of LEU. According to Dr Rasool Nafisi, a prominent Iran expert at Strayer University, "it takes a little over two months for Iran to replace the LEU shipped to Russia-France for the exchange. Therefore what is the breakthrough from the Geneva talks?"
Obama's other possible challenge is the forthcoming National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report. One of the main reasons why Obama received the support of the US political establishment to negotiate with Iran in the first place is because according to the most recent NIE report, released in 2007, Iran abandoned the military part of its nuclear programme in 2003. It should be noted that this finding is in direct contrast to the British intelligence services' view that Iran is working on making a bomb.
Meanwhile, the Iranian leadership has its own set of challenges ahead. At the Geneva meeting, Iran was not required to stop enriching uranium on its own soil. Furthermore, the agreement to allow it to ship its LEU to the west was not made on the condition that it would eventually have to do this. However, Ayatollah Khamenei could soon find that the west will start pressuring him to stop uranium enrichment in Iran - either temporarily or permanently.
This is now an even more difficult decision for the Iranian leadership to take, as they have already sold their "victory" to the Iranian public. To comply would mean an embarrassing U-turn. After the recent disturbances at home, this could damage the conservatives' position. However, if they don't agree to it, crippling sanctions, or even war, could follow. After a promising start, the road ahead is full of challenges. Success depends on trust and compromise, from both sides. In this case, if history is anything to go by, being realistic means being pessimistic.
The renewal of talks with Tehran follows President Barack Obama's warning to Iran that it must discuss Western concerns about its nuclear program or else face a new round of sanctions. But Iran has hardly been in an accommodating mood. A week ago it wrote to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to reveal that it was building a uranium-enrichment facility in the mountains near Qom. (Obama announced the existence of the hitherto secret facility four days later, and U.S. officials claimed that Tehran had preempted him only because it was aware that it had been caught red-handed.)
The U.S. and its allies point to signs in the Qom facility of what they say is Iran's military intent: first, the project's secrecy and partially underground location on a military base, and second, the fact that its limited capacity (3,000 centrifuges) makes it unsuitable for supplying reactor fuel but potentially capable of slowly amassing weapons-grade material. Iran continues to insist that it is simply exercising its right to develop nuclear-energy infrastructure as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But Iran's approach to the Oct. 1 talks is unlikely to be uniformly defiant or belligerent. Its response to demands from the U.S. and other international players to open the Qom enrichment site to inspection may be indicative of its broader approach. While declaring its refusal even to discuss the Qom plant at Geneva, Tehran has indicated that it will open the site to IAEA inspectors "in the near future." The Iranians are probably hoping for a repeat of the experience of its main enrichment facility at Natanz - which was also constructed in secret but then subjected to an ongoing IAEA inspection regimen. The result is that Natanz, which gives Iran the capacity to produce fissile material, has become an increasingly intractable fact on the ground, although IAEA oversight prevents such material from being diverted for covert weapons work.
Tehran's approach has been to try to deal with the nuclear issue through the IAEA exclusively and to reject UN Security Council demands that it freeze uranium enrichment. Its insistence on its nuclear "rights" is a statement of its rejection of the demand from Western countries that it give up the right to enrich uranium, even for peaceful purposes, because of concerns about its intentions. Washington and its allies are debating whether the West can sustain that demand or could accept continued enrichment in Iran but under stricter safeguards against weaponization. Iran is making clear where it plans to start the discussion. As Iran's Foreign Minister, Manoucher Mottaki, told the New York Times on Sept. 29, Iran sees the talks as a "two-way street" rather than simply a last chance to respond to a series of Western ultimatums.
The US administration may have little option but to play the diplomatic game, because its "or else" options are so limited. Russia and China remain deeply skeptical of the case for sanctions and are unlikely to approve measures with significant bite. What's more, Israeli and American hawks have long argued that no sanctions will prompt a regime that has invested so much in developing a nuclear program to simply reverse course; rather, they see the choices as boiling down to one between military strikes and accepting a nuclear-armed Iran.
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