The Obama administration has slipped past self-imposed deadlines and
minced words over red lines before. Although certainly an embarrassment
for the White House, another missed deadline in the seemingly
never-ending Iran nuclear negotiations — which stretched beyond the
latest deadline of March 31 — may not matter much in the end.
From Iran's point of view, it was a deadline to be exploited, not one
to fret over. Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, had expressed misgivings
about a framework agreement, insisting that the deal is not done until
all core issues are resolved in a final deal. The White House imposed
the March deadline to prove to Congress that enough progress was being
made to hold off on sanctions. Still, a dodged deadline and a diluted
progress report are unlikely to calm dissenters in Congress. Even if a
bill calling for additional sanctions in the event of a violation of an
agreement makes its way through Congress, it will be vetoed in the Oval
Office. Congress overturning that veto is a less likely prospect.
What is a Geopolitical Diary?
George Friedman Explains.
Ironically, the U.S. congressmen vehemently threatening more
sanctions are working in Iran's favor in this stage of the negotiating
process. The more effort the U.S. negotiating team has to put into
keeping Iran at the table, the more leverage Iran has in the talks. So,
as the plethora of leaks on Monday all pointed toward the drafting of an
agreement, Tehran strategically dropped a bombshell at the last minute.
It said that while it would agree to reduce the number of operational
centrifuges to 6,000 — going against the supreme leader's earlier demand
for at least 10,000 centrifuges to remain in operation — it would pull
back on an earlier concession to ship its low-enriched nuclear fuel to
Russia.
This is a classic negotiating tactic: One party throws up a flare,
panic ensues and once all sides return to the table, any further
concessions from the instigator appear that much more generous. The next
three months will be filled with such twists
as the window for negotiations narrows.
In Iran's neighborhood, states like Saudi Arabia do not have the
luxury of betting against the United States and Iran and have to prepare
for the worst. The developing U.S.-Iranian relationship is
what has driven Saudi Arabia into action in leading its Sunni allies against Iran across multiple fronts, with Yemen now in the spotlight.
Israel may also be upset at the United States for negotiating what it
considers a bad deal with Iran, but it cannot deny that the upsurge in
Sunni determination to contain Iran is a good thing. For example,
Sudan's recruitment into the Saudi-led alliance had been
months in the making,
but the end result is that Iran has lost a critical conduit to supply
arms to militant groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad through
supply routes that run from Port Sudan up through the Sinai Peninsula
to the Gaza Strip. So long as
Hamas struggles to replenish its weapons, including long-range rocket components, Israel has less to worry about.
Egypt is another beneficiary of the Saudi-led "Decisive Storm"
operation. The White House never abandoned its close relationship with
Cairo, but it became entangled politically by branding the deposal of
former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi a coup and demanding steps
toward democracy before resuming aid. While the United States was trying
to maintain its political correctness, Russia took the opportunity to
court Egypt with military and energy deals, trying to broadcast the
message that Washington's role had been filled in the Middle East.
Cairo simply used the attention from Moscow
to bargain with Washington,
waiting for the politics to become conducive enough to normalize
relations with the United States with the understanding that a
relationship with Washington would matter much more than one with
Moscow. Egypt has yet to reschedule its elections, yet its participation
in the Yemen operation gave the White House the justification it needed
to show that Cairo is still a key Arab ally worthy of a dozen F-16
fighter jets that are now being delivered.
Much will be made of a missed deadline in
Lausanne. Doubts will be cast over a potential agreement. But it is
important to keep some perspective. This deadline over an interim
agreement did not mean much to Iran in the first place. Progress,
however uneven, is being made in the nuclear negotiations, and a
U.S.-Iranian understanding is already having reverberations across the
region.
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