Bowing to Iran’s right, sole way for US to escape dilemma: Analysis

Two American political analysts say the US must recognize Iran’s legitimate rights to nuclear energy as the only solution for Washington to salvage itself from the existing dilemma.

In a Friday article at The Huffington Post Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett warned against the risk of a “US-initiated military confrontation with Tehran,” as it will become clear that President Barack’s Obama’s “ill-considered wager” that it can “diplomatically” coerce Iran to abandon its indigenous nuclear capabilities will fail over the next year.

Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett are the authors of the book Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran, released in January 2013.

“If the administration does not change course and accept Iran’s strategic independence and rising regional influence — including accepting the principle and reality of internationally-safeguarded uranium enrichment in Iran, it will eventually be left with no fallback from which to resist pressure from Israel and its friends in Washington for military strikes at least against Iranian nuclear facilities,” the analysts said.

The article pointed to the recent expert-level negotiations between the representatives of Iran and the P5+1 (permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) in the Turkish city of Istanbul and pointed out that the result of the meetings indicate that “Iran has not been “softened up” by sanctions” and that Tehran’s conditions for a long-term agreement remain fundamentally the same.

The article also noted that the proposals tabled by the P5+1 indicate that, like the previous US administrations, the Obama administration is not willing to accept Iran’s rights and offer a package that interests Tehran.

“The United States is reaching the end of its ability to threaten ever more severe sanctions against third countries doing business with Iran — but rarely implement such “secondary” sanctions — without eroding the deterrent effect of the threat,” the analysts wrote.

The article argued that the US imposes secondary sanctions on key global players such as China, it will expose itself to serious risk of diplomatic, economic, and legal boomerang effects.
The American analysts noted that irrespective of Iran’s efforts to win international trust and the US campaign to ramp up pressures against the Islamic Republic, nothing can alleviate Israel’s so-called “concerns” about a nuclear-capable Iran.

The article argued that under such circumstances Obama will face “a choice as fateful as it is unpalatable:” Either he has to admit the “reality” that “the United States no longer has the wherewithal to dictate strategic outcomes in the Middle East,” or he could launch another war against another Middle Eastern nation to in fact “protect Israel’s military dominance over its own neighborhood.”

“The only way out of this self-generated dilemma is serious diplomacy, that treats Iranian interests in a serious way … to accept the Islamic Republic of Iran as an enduring political entity representing legitimate national interests, and to come to terms with it as an unavoidably important player in the Middle East,” the analysts concluded.