US and Iran prepare for the blame game

“If it were not for the last minute, nothing would ever get done,” the American writer Rita Mae Brown once put it. Her dictum is being put to the test in last-ditch talks in Vienna this week on Iran’s nuclear programme.

With the self-imposed deadline of Monday fast approaching, the negotiations are taking place on three levels. The first part is a hectic attempt to reach a final deal that would put sharp restraints on Iran’s nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief.

More likely is that the diplomats will announce another extension to the talks, which will probably give them until around February before the new Republican-controlled US Congress starts to have a say in the matter.

But beneath the surface there is a third level to the negotiations, the subtle start of a blame game between the US and Iran to define who would be responsible should the diplomatic enterprise fail.

The finger-pointing is important not just in itself but because it helps explain the negotiating position of the main parties. After all, if the blame game can eventually be won, why make too many concessions now?

During the past few weeks, Iran has been quietly articulating a back-up plan in the event of a complete breakdown. A final deal would lead to a significant relaxation in sanctions: but if the talks fail, Iran hopes it can find other ways to break out of the straitjacket of sanctions.

The first part of Iran’s approach will be to blame the breakdown on American intransigence. The election of a Republican-controlled Congress eager to introduce new sanctions gives the Iranians a convenient rhetorical scapegoat: they will argue that Beltway hardliners made it impossible for the Obama administration to negotiate in good faith. If Tehran can define the US as the obstacle, it will lobby Russia, China and maybe some of the Europeans to start lifting sanctions.

“The United States and some of its allies are pushing for arbitrary limitations which have no bearing whatsoever on whether Iran can produce a nuclear weapon,” Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, told NPR last month.

Even with a floundering economy and a falling oil price, Iran might think it would have two advantages in a new stand-off with the US.

First, the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or Isis, has made the US threat of military action against Iran less credible. At a time when the US and Iran are tacit partners in the anti-Isis campaign in Iraq, it would be even more complicated to think about bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran might also hope that the Ukraine crisis could provide another opening. So far, Moscow has kept its dispute with the west over Ukraine very much apart from its Iran diplomacy. But if a broader conflict breaks out in the coming months in eastern Ukraine, Russia might be tempted to make concessions to Iran as a way of undermining the US.
"The US and some of its allies are pushing for arbitrary limitations which have no bearing whatsoever on whether Iran can produce a nuclear weapon"

- Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, told NPR

In response to this Iranian whispering campaign, the US has found itself hamstrung. Because it is negotiating as part of a coalition that includes the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China, it has had to be much more careful in its public statements, for fear of breaking ranks.

But that united front is the crucial factor for the US. If the talks fail, the priority will be to make sure that its negotiating partners have a common view about why no deal was reached and how to get Tehran back to the negotiating table. If the US can keep the negotiating group together, then it can start to apply more pressure on Iran through additional sanctions.

With new sanctions, however, the tactics will be crucial. If the new Congress barges ahead and imposes new penalties on Iranian oil exports, Tehran will gain a propaganda win. But if Congress waits and manages to frame new sanctions as a response to a new Iranian escalation – more centrifuges or evidence of weapons research – then the administration will have a much better chance of holding the international coalition together.

On a day when the administration and Congress are starting to do battle over immigration, their ability to work together on Iran remains the wild card.

FT.com