OPINION:
For months on end, diplomatic progress aimed at stymieing Iran’s nuclear program has seemed far out of reach. Every time the international community has sought to engage in good faith on the nuclear file, Iran has stubbornly refused to play ball.
Yet while Iran’s long pattern of intransigence has made nuclear negotiations difficult, from an American national security perspective, the fundamental rationale for renewed diplomacy has not changed. A nuclear bomb in the hands of this Iranian regime would pose an unprecedented risk to the U.S., Israel and our allies throughout the region.
Fortunately, the diplomatic tide may be starting to shift. For example, at the quarterly meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors this past week, agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi stated that Iran has, in recent months, taken limited but necessary steps to de-escalate the nuclear standoff. By using diplomatic pressure, the international community was able to obtain increased Iranian cooperation regarding essential monitoring and verification of its nuclear program, and a censure of Iran’s behavior was not taken.
These dynamics are predictably exacerbating concerns in Israel’s right-wing government, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised alarm bells this past week about a potential Israeli preemptive strike against Iran by convening an unprecedented war Cabinet meeting in a military command bunker. He also decried the prospect of a new agreement in a call with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
It is in this context that Mr. Blinken, before leaving for a crucial diplomatic visit to Saudi Arabia, gave a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference in which he underscored the Biden administration’s position on Iran.
“We continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to verifiably, effectively, and sustainably prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. In parallel, economic pressure and deterrence reinforce our diplomacy. If Iran rejects the path of diplomacy, then — as President Biden has repeatedly made clear — all options are on the table to ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.”
Even in the face of Iran’s track record of implacability and Israeli government resistance, the U.S. can’t afford to let this possible momentum slip away. And recent events may have finally opened the diplomatic window that is so desperately needed.
The flurry of recent diplomacy in the region has been dramatic. Mr. Blinken was just in Saudi Arabia to meet with that country’s leaders, who only three months earlier made a normalization deal with Iran to restore diplomatic relations. Saudi Arabia is also on the cusp of normalizing relations with Egypt after more than four decades of estrangement. And Israel, too, has been making deep inroads into the region through the Abraham Accords.
The U.S., meanwhile, has kicked up a flurry of regional engagement on Iran. It’s been reported that senior White House Middle East aide Brett McGurk visited Oman in March to discuss Iran and that the State Department’s Iran special envoy, Rob Malley, reportedly met with Iran’s U.N. representatives. It is likely that these talks focused on detainee issues, similar to those just concluded between Iran and European countries, but it’s not hard to imagine that the nuclear issue came up as well.
The challenge now is for the U.S. to find a way to build on both the IAEA and regional momentum to restrain Iran’s nuclear program to a place where it is no longer on the cusp of nuclear weapons capacity. That’s exactly where we are right now due to then-President Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which stripped away the guardrails that were once firmly around Iran’s nuclear program.
To do this, the U.S. must think creatively about the next phase of diplomacy and keep several core principles in mind.
First, Iran shouldn’t be able to obtain a nuclear weapon. This is the best way to prevent regional nuclear proliferation.
Second, Iran’s negative regional activities require a multilateral response, one that should be separate from a new nuclear deal.
Third, military action against Iran must be avoided. This would likely provide only a very temporary solution and prompt Iran to finally make the decision to bolt for the bomb — a decision that U.S. and allied intelligence agencies believe Iran’s leaders have not yet made. It would also eliminate the potential for any future diplomatic agreement.
So just as almost every other country in the region appears to be breaking long-standing diplomatic taboos in pursuit of their goals, and as the tensions of the IAEA review have passed, it’s possible for American diplomacy toward Iran to also think outside the current box.
Because if we don’t, we’ll be back in the same place at the time of the next IAEA board of governors meeting in September, only with an Iranian nuclear program that is much more advanced and much more dangerous.
• Joel Rubin is a former deputy assistant secretary of state and national security expert. He can be found on Twitter @joelmartinrubin.
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