Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy

409 Pages·2017·2.92 MB·English

by  Trita Parsi

Losing an Enemy
Losing an Enemy
Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy
TRITA PARSI
Copyright © 2017 by Trita Parsi. All rights reserved.
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Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Control Number:
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ISBN 978-0-300-21816-9
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of my friend and teacher,
Ruhi Ramazani
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
ONE Introduction
TWO Israel’s Master Stroke
THREE The Epic Mistake
FOUR American Disorder
FIVE A New Year’s Greeting
SIX A Single Roll of the Dice
SEVEN All-Out Escalation
EIGHT Obama and the Mossad Against Netanyahu
NINE The Arabs Who Brought Iran and the United States Together
TEN The “Concession,”
ELEVEN The Sheikh of Diplomacy
TWELVE From Muscat to Geneva
THIRTEEN The Pressure Paradox
FOURTEEN “Our Eyes Were Bleeding,”
FIFTEEN The Unclenched Fist
SIXTEEN The War Zone in Washington
SEVENTEEN Conclusion
Notes
Index
Preface
Blessed are the peace makers.
Jesus of Nazareth, ca. AD 30
This book is focused on geopolitics and foreign policy and, more specifically,
on how the leaders of Iran, the United States, the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, Russia, and China avoided the twin dangers of war and a nuclear-
armed Iran. It’s the triangular story of an intertwined geopolitical battle primarily
among the United States, Israel, and Iran. The security interests of the United
States and Israel, which never fully coincided, increasingly diverged after the
2003 Iraq war, while the enmity of the United States and Iran was never
complete either. The book seeks to document and explain how domestic and
geopolitical factors—as well as luck—made diplomacy possible, and how the
diplomats and negotiators made the nuclear deal achievable. It analyzes the
decisions of the governments and actors involved, as well as factors that
impacted the decision-making process, such as lack of information, mistrust of
the other side’s intentions, and domestic constraints on foreign policy
maneuverability. Earlier chapters of the book are based on my two previous
books on this matter, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran,
and the United States, and A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with
Iran, which explained the foundation for the geopolitical rivalry and documented
the many missed chances to resolve tensions diplomatically, including over
Iran’s nuclear program. This book is in many ways the third part of a trilogy, and
shows not only how the United States and Iran resolved the nuclear crisis, but
also how the American policy of containing Iran and establishing a Middle East
order without Iran’s inclusion—which is at the center of the geopolitical tensions
—finally came to an end.
This book is based predominantly on primary sources, that is, interviews
with decision-makers from the United States, the European Union, Russia,
Israel, and Iran. For the chapter dealing specifically with the nuclear negotiations
after 2010, more than seventy interviews were conducted with top government
officials and the actual negotiators, as well as with outside actors in Washington,
DC, who were aiding President Obama’s diplomatic strategy. Their accounts of
the events have been cross-checked. Where information comes from just one or
two testimonies, it is accompanied by appropriate caveats. The interviewees
were selected on the basis of their direct role in the negotiations or in planning
them.
Much of the book also comes from my personal observations as a witness
and a minor actor in the process. As the president of the National Iranian
American Council and a longtime advocate of diplomacy, I was consulted and
briefed by the U.S. government throughout the negotiations and in their
aftermath. Simultaneously, I maintained a close dialogue with the Iranian
negotiators to better understand their perspective. It wasn’t unusual for me to
attend a briefing at the White House a few days before a round of negotiations
and then have a two-hour conversation with the Iranian foreign minister in his
private hotel room in the midst of the negotiations a few days later. My access to
top decision-makers on both sides gave me a unique perspective, which I have
tried to use to enrich this book and its analysis. Secondary sources, such as the
writings of other analysts and news items, have also been utilized. The news
items are primarily from English-language sources as well as from Iranian
newspapers written in Persian.
Although it is not possible to list all the officials interviewed (and a number
of them preferred to remain anonymous), some should be mentioned. Secretary
of State John Kerry, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Deputy National
Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, lead negotiator Wendy Sherman, as well as other
key players in the U.S. negotiating team such as Jake Sullivan, Richard Nephew,
and Rob Malley, among others, provided invaluable insights into the Obama
administration’s thinking and strategic considerations in regard to the
negotiations as well as the broader geopolitical situation. Concerning the efforts
to secure the deal in Congress, I am very grateful for the perspectives of
Senators Tim Kaine and Dick Durbin and House members Nancy Pelosi, Jan
Schakowsky, Keith Ellison, and David Price.
On the Iranian side, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was enormously generous
with his time and insights, as were Mohammad Nahavandian, President Hassan
Rouhani’s chief of staff, and Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Ravanchi. In
addition, the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and
security policy, Federica Mogherini, France’s ambassador to the United States,
Gérard Araud, Britain’s ambassador to the United States, Peter Westmacott,
Germany’s ambassador to the United States, Peter Wittig, and Russia’s deputy
foreign minister, Sergey Ryabkov, provided contexts for and insights into the
views and calculations of the other key players in these historic events.
The book begins with a geopolitical scene setter. Chapters 2–4 then go on to
describe the roots of the rivalry among the United States, Israel, and Iran, as well
as the roots of the disorder in the Middle East following the U.S. invasion of
Iraq. Chapters 5 and 6 address President Obama’s first attempt at diplomacy and
how domestic political constraints led him to abandon it. In Chapters 7 and 8, I
describe the effort to dramatically ramp up sanctions on Iran, as well as the
tensions between Obama and the Israeli prime minister, which worsened due to
Netanyahu’s threats to take military action against Iran. In Chapters 9 and 10, I
reveal previously unknown details about the groundbreaking secret negotiations
between the United States and Iran hosted by the government of Oman, which
eventually helped lay the foundation for the nuclear deal. Chapter 11, which
focuses on the surprise election of Hassan Rouhani, analyzes how he managed to
defeat his political rivals and considers the ways in which his victory
significantly improved the prospects for a nuclear breakthrough. Chapters 12–15
tell the story of how the negotiators, after twenty months of painstaking talks,
finally managed to secure the historic deal, while Chapter 16 gives an inside
account of the subsequent fight in Congress where opponents of diplomacy
made their last stand against Obama’s nuclear deal.
The last chapter of the book analyzes why diplomacy succeeded and what
we can learn from this episode in order to better use this tool of statecraft to
resolve future international conflicts. It also provides a forward-thinking
consideration of the threats to the durability of the nuclear deal, as well as asking
whether the deal will enable the United States to lose an enemy in the Middle
East—or whether the positive gains in U.S.-Iran relations will eventually be lost.