Nuclear Issues

Can an American president make big, historic changes in the country’s direction with a relatively narrow base of political support? That was the challenge President Obama faced when he pushed health-care reform through Congress, and it’s the same problem he faces now in trying to win support for a breakthrough nuclear deal with Iran.

Obama was confident and combative as he made his case this week on Iran. He delivered a powerful speech enumerating the virtues of the agreement. But he included some partisan lines that riled opponents (and some fence-sitters, too), and it’s questionable whether the speech, masterful as it was in analysis, will add any votes of support.

An intriguing figure is gaining prominence in the Iranian government just as regional conflicts in Iraq and Syria intensify and nuclear talks with the West move toward a Nov. 24 deadline.

With a speed few predicted, Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has signaled his interest in negotiations this autumn on Iran’s controversial nuclear program," writes Nicholas Burns. "This could produce the first extensive contact between Washington and Tehran since diplomatic relations ruptured during the Jimmy Carter administration."

The debate about how to handle the Iranian nuclear program has resurfaced since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent comments on CBS's "Face the Nation." Professor Burns looks at it from both sides and reiterates his warning that marching to war--right now--is not the right approach.

"As Israel and Iran entered this summer of confrontation over Tehran’s nuclear program, the Iranians were also conducting talks with the United States and other leading nations to seek a diplomatic alternative to war," writes David Ignatius, a columnist with the Washington Post and 2012-2013 Fischer Family Fellow at the Belfer Center, "since then, the rumors of an impending Israeli military strike have grown almost daily, but whatever happened to the negotiations?"

The answer is that the “P5+1” talks with Iran have been in recess during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but contact is expected to resume soon between the top negotiators. Talking with Iranian and U.S. experts, I don’t hear any hint of a breakthrough that would ease the war fever, although some useful new ideas have been floated.

Professor Burns offers three diplomatic steps the United States can take before entering into a fight with Iran: create a direct channel between Washington and Tehran and begin an extended one-on-one negotiation with all issues on the table; put far-reaching proposals on the table if diplomacy and negotiations are to succeed; and take the reins of this crisis from Israel to give the U.S. more independence and protect Israel’s core interests at the same time.

In this op-ed piece, Professor Nicholas Burns stresses the importance of keeping negotiations and diplomacy, rather than the threat of force, at the forefront of U.S. strategy in dealing with Iran.

"The Nobel Peace Prize Committee cited Obama's dedication to arms control and nonproliferation when announcing last Friday his selection as this year's laureate. If he creates a positive, mutually reinforcing dynamic in the way he presents and sequences the two treaties [NPT and CTBT], it will give momentum and coherence to follow-on negotiations and the agreements that they produce."

Less than a month before talks between the United States, Iran and other world powers begin, three distinguished experts met on September 16, 2009 at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum to discuss how the western world should handle such a controversial regime.