Editor’s Note: It’s hard to imagine a more authoritative writer about U.S.-Iran relations than John Limbert, who spent years in the country prior to the 1979 revolution and then was among the 52 U.S. diplomats held hostage there for 444 days. In 2009, he wrote a book about how to negotiate with Iran while ‘wrestling with the ghosts of history.’ Coming out of retirement and returning to the State Department, he helped the Obama administration craft outreach to the Islamic Republic that led to a 2015 nuclear accord.
By Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Perspectives project
Two old songs in some ways describe recent meetings between American and Iranian negotiators seeking a new agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for relief of U.S. economic sanctions.
For the Iranians, it’s “Something’s Gotta Give.” On the American side, it’s “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better.”
For the Islamic Republic, the two fundamentals in the first song — an “irresistible force” and an “immovable object” — have collided. The immovable object is the fact that the Islamic Republic’s rulers have long insisted that their government’s existence depends on not talking to America (except when they do). With a few exceptions, for 46 years Iran has followed the guidance of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: “Why should we negotiate with America? What does the wolf have to negotiate with the sheep?”
At the same time, the Islamic Republic, led by the same clique of clerics and their descendants and acolytes, has made survival its most important goal. Thanks to that principle, Iran has endured war, international pariahdom, seemingly every sanction imaginable, the hatred of many of its own citizens (particularly its women), and mismanagement that has left a rich country and an educated population with a depreciated currency, a worthless passport and not enough gas, electricity, and water to meet daily needs.
When the ruling clique has believed its survival is at stake, it has done what it must to keep its power, palaces, and privileges. This includes harassing, beating, arresting, and shooting unveiled women, musicians, filmmakers, political activists, and lawyers, as well as holding dual nationals as hostages. At the same time, when survival has meant showing flexibility, the regime has done that too. Beginning in 1980, Khomeini, for the sake of survival during a deadly war initiated by Iraq, approved Iran’s buying American weapons via the hated Israelis; in 1988, with Iran on the verge of collapse, Khomeini agreed to a UN resolution ending the Iran-Iraq war without any gain of territory and with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein still in place.
In 2013, Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, despite similar defiant rhetoric, allowed Iranian officials—notably then-Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and nuclear scientist Ali Salehi—to have unprecedented direct contact with their American counterparts in talks that eventually led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Now, in search of relief for Iran’s battered economy and shredded alliances, Khamenei has authorized “indirect” contacts that both Iranian and U.S. officials have described as “positive” and “constructive” – adjectives rarely used to describe any American-Iranian interaction.
On the American side, the Trump administration’s priorities are clear: stay out of a new war and get an agreement that the president – who claims to be a world-champion deal-maker – can claim as a victory. Most of Donald Trump’s fierce opposition to the original JCPOA was unrelated to the agreement’s contents. What irritated Trump and many Congressional Republicans was that the deal was the achievement of Democratic President Barack Obama. For Trump, it was, by definition, flawed because, “Anything you [Obama] can do, I can do better.”
It is possible that the two sides wind up agreeing on a modified JCPOA limiting Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity and its ability to make nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief. Those who oppose such an agreement, saying that it should stop all Iranian enrichment or dismantle Iran’s missile program, are saying in effect that the U.S. should seek Iranian capitulation to threats of war and even more “maximum pressure” rather than an agreement achieved through give and take.
The irony is that if Trump and his negotiators agree on what amounts to a JCPOA 2.0, most of those who criticized the 2015 deal will likely praise the president for his achievement and commitment to peace. They will demonstrate their loyalty to what Iranians call the hezb-e-baad—the “party of the winds,” or those who follow political winds—to avoid the fate of those who, like Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton, angered his boss by pushing for a destructive conflict with Iran and ended up as a commentator on cable TV — and without official protection against Iranian death threats.
Of course, as the great Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over til it’s over.” An iron rule of American Iranian relations has been that when negotiators think they are making progress, someone, somehow will screw things up. Trump’s musing before his trip to the Middle East in May about changing the name of the historical “Persian Gulf” to the nonexistent “Arabian Gulf” – a notion rejected by Iranians of all political persuasions — for a time looked like it might derail the whole process.
The list of U.S. bumbles and various acts of obliviousness and hubris toward Iran is long (as is the list of Iranian attacks and other outrages against Americans and U.S. friends): providing CIA support for the 1953 coup against the nationalist premier Mohammad Mosaddegh; insisting on judicial immunity for American military advisors in Iran in 1964; sending the former head of the CIA as ambassador to Tehran in 1973; admitting the deposed Shah to the U.S. in 1979 for medical treatment (with most unpleasant consequences for this author and 51 other Americans); selling arms to a non-existent “moderate faction” of the Islamic Republic in 1985 during the Iran-Contra scandal; and initially blaming Iran for Saddam Hussein’s gassing of Kurds in 1988.
If things fall apart, at worst, the U.S. could get dragged into another war in the Middle East with unforeseen and disastrous consequences for both Americans and Iranians. At best, the two sides may continue to do what they have done for the last forty-six years: shout at and insult each other. The U.S. will impose still more sanctions and arm Iran’s rivals, while Iran will continue to find ways to annoy America and its friends. Have these policies benefited either side in the past? Clearly not—but that appears beside the point. They have made hawks on both sides feel righteous and followed another iron rule of U.S.-Iran relations: It’s better to bang your head against a wall than to walk through an open door.
Perhaps, one should remember what President Obama said in 2009 as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize:
“I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach — condemnation without discussion — can carry forward only a crippling status quo.”
A U.S.-Iran nuclear deal may hinge on survival instincts and political vanity—echoing past patterns in new ways.
John Limbert is a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer, novelist, and academic. He was among the last American diplomats to serve in Iran and spent 14 months as a prisoner of those occupying the U.S. embassy in from 1979 to 1981.
Editor’s Note: It’s hard to imagine a more authoritative writer about U.S.-Iran relations than John Limbert, who spent years in the country prior to the 1979 revolution and then was among the 52 U.S. diplomats held hostage there for 444 days. In 2009, he wrote a book about how to negotiate with Iran while ‘wrestling with the ghosts of history.’ Coming out of retirement and returning to the State Department, he helped the Obama administration craft outreach to the Islamic Republic that led to a 2015 nuclear accord.
By Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Perspectives project
Two old songs in some ways describe recent meetings between American and Iranian negotiators seeking a new agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for relief of U.S. economic sanctions.
For the Iranians, it’s “Something’s Gotta Give.” On the American side, it’s “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better.”
For the Islamic Republic, the two fundamentals in the first song — an “irresistible force” and an “immovable object” — have collided. The immovable object is the fact that the Islamic Republic’s rulers have long insisted that their government’s existence depends on not talking to America (except when they do). With a few exceptions, for 46 years Iran has followed the guidance of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: “Why should we negotiate with America? What does the wolf have to negotiate with the sheep?”
At the same time, the Islamic Republic, led by the same clique of clerics and their descendants and acolytes, has made survival its most important goal. Thanks to that principle, Iran has endured war, international pariahdom, seemingly every sanction imaginable, the hatred of many of its own citizens (particularly its women), and mismanagement that has left a rich country and an educated population with a depreciated currency, a worthless passport and not enough gas, electricity, and water to meet daily needs.
When the ruling clique has believed its survival is at stake, it has done what it must to keep its power, palaces, and privileges. This includes harassing, beating, arresting, and shooting unveiled women, musicians, filmmakers, political activists, and lawyers, as well as holding dual nationals as hostages. At the same time, when survival has meant showing flexibility, the regime has done that too. Beginning in 1980, Khomeini, for the sake of survival during a deadly war initiated by Iraq, approved Iran’s buying American weapons via the hated Israelis; in 1988, with Iran on the verge of collapse, Khomeini agreed to a UN resolution ending the Iran-Iraq war without any gain of territory and with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein still in place.
In 2013, Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, despite similar defiant rhetoric, allowed Iranian officials—notably then-Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and nuclear scientist Ali Salehi—to have unprecedented direct contact with their American counterparts in talks that eventually led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Now, in search of relief for Iran’s battered economy and shredded alliances, Khamenei has authorized “indirect” contacts that both Iranian and U.S. officials have described as “positive” and “constructive” – adjectives rarely used to describe any American-Iranian interaction.
On the American side, the Trump administration’s priorities are clear: stay out of a new war and get an agreement that the president – who claims to be a world-champion deal-maker – can claim as a victory. Most of Donald Trump’s fierce opposition to the original JCPOA was unrelated to the agreement’s contents. What irritated Trump and many Congressional Republicans was that the deal was the achievement of Democratic President Barack Obama. For Trump, it was, by definition, flawed because, “Anything you [Obama] can do, I can do better.”
It is possible that the two sides wind up agreeing on a modified JCPOA limiting Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity and its ability to make nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief. Those who oppose such an agreement, saying that it should stop all Iranian enrichment or dismantle Iran’s missile program, are saying in effect that the U.S. should seek Iranian capitulation to threats of war and even more “maximum pressure” rather than an agreement achieved through give and take.
The irony is that if Trump and his negotiators agree on what amounts to a JCPOA 2.0, most of those who criticized the 2015 deal will likely praise the president for his achievement and commitment to peace. They will demonstrate their loyalty to what Iranians call the hezb-e-baad—the “party of the winds,” or those who follow political winds—to avoid the fate of those who, like Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton, angered his boss by pushing for a destructive conflict with Iran and ended up as a commentator on cable TV — and without official protection against Iranian death threats.
Of course, as the great Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over til it’s over.” An iron rule of American Iranian relations has been that when negotiators think they are making progress, someone, somehow will screw things up. Trump’s musing before his trip to the Middle East in May about changing the name of the historical “Persian Gulf” to the nonexistent “Arabian Gulf” – a notion rejected by Iranians of all political persuasions — for a time looked like it might derail the whole process.
The list of U.S. bumbles and various acts of obliviousness and hubris toward Iran is long (as is the list of Iranian attacks and other outrages against Americans and U.S. friends): providing CIA support for the 1953 coup against the nationalist premier Mohammad Mosaddegh; insisting on judicial immunity for American military advisors in Iran in 1964; sending the former head of the CIA as ambassador to Tehran in 1973; admitting the deposed Shah to the U.S. in 1979 for medical treatment (with most unpleasant consequences for this author and 51 other Americans); selling arms to a non-existent “moderate faction” of the Islamic Republic in 1985 during the Iran-Contra scandal; and initially blaming Iran for Saddam Hussein’s gassing of Kurds in 1988.
If things fall apart, at worst, the U.S. could get dragged into another war in the Middle East with unforeseen and disastrous consequences for both Americans and Iranians. At best, the two sides may continue to do what they have done for the last forty-six years: shout at and insult each other. The U.S. will impose still more sanctions and arm Iran’s rivals, while Iran will continue to find ways to annoy America and its friends. Have these policies benefited either side in the past? Clearly not—but that appears beside the point. They have made hawks on both sides feel righteous and followed another iron rule of U.S.-Iran relations: It’s better to bang your head against a wall than to walk through an open door.
Perhaps, one should remember what President Obama said in 2009 as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize:
“I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach — condemnation without discussion — can carry forward only a crippling status quo.”
A U.S.-Iran nuclear deal may hinge on survival instincts and political vanity—echoing past patterns in new ways.
John Limbert is a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer, novelist, and academic. He was among the last American diplomats to serve in Iran and spent 14 months as a prisoner of those occupying the U.S. embassy in from 1979 to 1981.
