Bush Softens Stance on Iran

In a concession to European allies negotiating with Iran on nuclear issues, President Bush agreed Friday to drop U.S. objections to Iranian membership in the World Trade Organization and to allow sale of civilian aircraft parts to Iran.

In return, France, Germany and Britain agreed to support taking Iran to the United Nations Security Council if it breaks its promise to suspend uranium enrichment, which can provide fuel for a nuclear weapon, while talks are in progress. The three countries have offered the Iranian leadership in Tehran, the capital, economic and political incentives to abandon any ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons.

Bush’s decision, which was denounced by neoconservatives but hailed by some foreign policy experts, marked a major tactical shift for an administration that has opposed offering incentives to Iran to curtail its nuclear activities. It has argued that to do so would reward bad behavior.

During Bush’s trip to Europe last month, the French and German leaders asked him to reconsider his position, arguing that the negotiations were sure to fail unless the United States joined Europe in a common bargaining position.

Bush’s decision to back the Europeans does not mean that Washington believes a solution is at hand, U.S. officials said. They remain concerned that Iran intends to build a nuclear weapon under the guise of what Tehran insists is a purely peaceful nuclear power program -- but say they must give diplomacy a chance.

“I look forward to working with our European friends to make it abundantly clear to the Iranian regime that the free world will not tolerate them having a nuclear weapon,” Bush told an audience in Shreveport, La., where he was campaigning Friday for Social Security revisions.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphasized that the United States was not entering negotiations with Tehran, but was supporting the European effort to offer Iran incentives to abandon programs that would allow it to build a nuclear weapon.

“The Europeans have a strategy.” Rice said. “And we’re supporting that diplomacy. But this is most assuredly giving the Europeans a stronger hand, not rewarding the Iranians.”

But Michael Rubin, a former U.S. advisor in Iraq now at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the administration was in fact rewarding bad behavior.

“It’s a mistake,” he said. “The lesson that every other country is going to take is that if you mismanage your economy and get yourself into a tight position, the answer is proliferate, proliferate, proliferate, and the Americans will bail you out.”

Rubin predicted that Tehran would use the U.S. compromise for domestic political gain.

“It’s not a diplomatic victory, it’s a loss,” Rubin said. “The Iranians see concessions like this as weakness.”

Other experts said Bush had wisely repositioned himself to insulate the United States from blame if the talks between the Europeans and Iranians failed.

Had the president spurned the personal requests of the French and German leaders to support their effort, he would have been accused of undermining allies with whom he has been trying to rebuild relations shattered by the bitter disputes over the Iraq war.

The Europeans had warned publicly that if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon, the United States would be blamed for allowing it to happen by refusing to aid negotiations out of ideological zeal.

The Europeans have argued that by supporting the talks, even if they ultimately fail, the United States would have more credibility to later argue in the Security Council for international sanctions against Iran. And it would have Europe on its side.

The Bush administration is eager to avoid isolation on Iran after its failed attempt to unite the Security Council behind U.S. military action in Iraq.

“Past experience has shown us that when the U.S. and the EU work in harmony toward a common goal in negotiations with Iran, it does catch their attention,” said Judith Yaphe, an Iran specialist at National Defense University. “It works.”

Last week Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, said his country would resume its uranium enrichment program if the negotiations failed. He also said that imposing Security Council sanctions would make the Middle East more unstable and warned Washington against “playing with fire.”

“The first to suffer from a crisis in the region will be America,” Rowhani said, predicting that oil prices could climb higher, hurting Western economies, and noting that American troops were across Iran’s border in Iraq.

In responding to the U.S. offer, Iran was unyielding.

“What is being suggested is very much insignificant,” Sirus Naseri, a senior Iranian negotiator, told Reuters news service in an interview. “In fact, it [the U.S. offer] is too insignificant to comment about.”

U.S. officials want a permanent halt in uranium enrichment, but Naseri said Iran, which has temporarily suspended the process while negotiating, would not give up its civilian fuel program. Iran has defended its right to do so under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“To abandon our nuclear fuel program is not on the table,” Naseri said.

The Bush administration tried Friday to assert that its policy on Iran had not changed.

“This is not engagement with the Iranians,” Rice said. “This is giving to the Europeans more cards to play in their negotiations with the Iranians.”

But independent analysts said the president’s move marked a major shift. Iran has attempted to join the 148-member World Trade Organization at least 20 times, but the request was vetoed each time by Washington. Also, the United States, which has economic sanctions in place against Iran, has long refused to allow other nations to resell proprietary U.S. technology, including Boeing aircraft parts, to Tehran.

Under the new policy, the United States will license European companies, on a case-by-case basis, to sell spare parts to Iran for its aging fleet of civilian aircraft. A senior U.S. official said the Europeans had not asked the United States to allow sales of new Boeing aircraft, which would require a change in U.S. law.

Officials also noted that dropping U.S. objections to Iran joining the WTO did not mean that it would automatically gain entry. Membership is a lengthy process that requires a broad range of economic and political restructuring, which in Iran’s case could take years, and which the U.S. believes would be desirable for Iran in any event. Ultimately, two-thirds of the member nations must vote to approve a bid to join.

“It’s a long process between application ... and membership, and it will require Iran to make some very hard decisions,” the senior official said.

As part of their package, the three European nations have offered to help Iran prepare to join the WTO, to promote private investment and to give technical assistance or cooperation in agribusiness, automobiles, telecommunications, civil aviation and other areas.

In a letter Thursday, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain and Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, stated, “We are united in our determination that Iran should not acquire a nuclear weapons capability.”

They warned that Iran must maintain the suspension of “all its nuclear enrichment-related and reprocessing activities while long-term arrangements are being negotiated.”

The letter states that Tehran also must cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspectors in Iran monitoring the freeze.

If Iran does not do so, “we shall have no choice but to support referring Iran’s nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council,” the letter says.

The Bush administration has argued that Iran’s nuclear activity should be referred to the Security Council, but lacks the votes at the IAEA for the move.

In a key concession to the Europeans, the Bush administration set no deadline for the European negotiations to bear fruit, a decision that was criticized by American conservatives. Instead, Washington left it to the Europeans to set the timetable.

A European official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, defended that decision.

“There is a suspension of enrichment [by Iran] and there is the IAEA in Iran to verify the suspension, so who is in a hurry? The Iranians -- to get their carrots and to get rid of the IAEA,” the official said. “But we should take the time which is needed to come into a comprehensive agreement.”

Rice said the president’s decision would shift international focus from what the United States was doing and back to the real problem of what Iran was doing.

A spokesperson for the French Embassy in Washington said the agreement was “a positive moment,” but that the Europeans were by no means certain of success.

“It’s a difficult negotiation, and it’s not over yet,” Nathalie Loiseau said. “But today we have one more asset.”