But apparently someone thinks “leaking” this will make Obama look good before the final debate on Monday night.
WASHINGTON — The United States and Iran
have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations over Iran’s
nuclear program,
according to Obama administration officials, setting the stage for what
could be a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avert a military strike on
Iran.
Iranian
officials have insisted that the talks wait until after the
presidential election, a senior administration official said, telling
their American counterparts that they want to know with whom they would
be negotiating.
News
of the agreement — a result of intense, secret exchanges between
American and Iranian officials that date almost to the beginning of
President Obama’s term — comes at a critical moment in the presidential
contest, just two weeks before Election Day and the weekend before the
final debate, which is to focus on national security and foreign policy.
It
has the potential to help Mr. Obama make the case that he is nearing a
diplomatic breakthrough in the decade-long effort by the world’s
major powers to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, but it could pose a
risk if Iran is seen as using the prospect of the direct talks to buy
time.
It
is also far from clear that Mr. Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, would go
through with the negotiation should he win election. Mr. Romney
has repeatedly criticized the president as showing weakness on Iran and
failing to stand firmly with Israel against the Iranian nuclear threat.
The
White House publicly denied the report on Saturday evening. “It’s not
true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one
talks or any meeting after the American elections,” said Tommy Vietor, a
White House spokesman. He added, however, that the administration was
open to such talks, and has “said from the outset that we would be
prepared to meet bilaterally.”
Reports of the agreement have circulated among a small group of diplomats involved with Iran.
There
is still a chance the initiative could fall through, even if Mr. Obama
is re-elected. Iran has a history of using the promise of diplomacy
to ease international pressure on it. In this case, American officials
said they were uncertain whether Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, had signed off on the effort. The American understandings have
been reached with senior Iranian officials
who report to him, an administration official said.
Even
if the two sides sit down, American officials worry that Iran could
prolong the negotiations to try to forestall military action and
enable it to complete critical elements of its nuclear program,
particularly at underground sites. Some American officials would like to
limit the talks to Iran’s nuclear program, one official said, while
Iran has indicated that it wants to broaden the agenda
to include Syria, Bahrain and other issues that have bedeviled relations
between Iran and the United States since the American hostage crisis in
1979.
“We’ve
always seen the nuclear issue as independent,” the administration
official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of
the delicacy of the matter. “We’re not going to allow them to draw a
linkage.”
The
question of how best to deal with Iran has political ramifications for
Mr. Romney as well. While he has accused Mr. Obama of weakness,
he has given few specifics about what he would do differently.
Moreover,
the prospect of one-on-one negotiations could put Mr. Romney in an
awkward spot, since he has opposed allowing Iran to enrich
uranium to any level — a concession that experts say will probably
figure in any deal on the nuclear program.
Beyond
that, how Mr. Romney responds could signal how he would act if he
becomes commander in chief. The danger of opposing such a diplomatic
initiative is that it could make him look as if he is willing to risk
another American war in the Middle East without exhausting alternatives.
“It
would be unconscionable to go to war if we haven’t had such
discussions,” said R. Nicholas Burns, who led negotiations with Iran as
under secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration.
Iran’s
nuclear program “is the most difficult national security issue facing
the United States,” Mr. Burns said, adding: “While we should
preserve the use of force as a last resort, negotiating first with Iran
makes sense. What are we going to do instead? Drive straight into a
brick wall called war in 2013, and not try to talk to them?”
The
administration, officials said, has begun an internal review at the
State Department, the White House and the Pentagon to determine
what the United States’ negotiating stance should be, and what it would
put in any offer. One option under consideration is “more for more” —
more restrictions on Iran’s enrichment activities in return for more
easing of sanctions.
Israeli
officials initially expressed an awareness of, and openness to, a
diplomatic initiative. But when asked for a response on Saturday,
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael B. Oren, said the
administration had not informed Israel, and that the Israeli government
feared Iran would use new talks to “advance their nuclear
weapons program.”
“We
do not think Iran should be rewarded with direct talks,” Mr. Oren said,
“rather that sanctions and all other possible pressures on Iran
must be increased.”
Direct
talks would also have implications for an existing series of
negotiations involving a coalition of major powers, including the United
States. These countries have imposed sanctions to pressure Iran over its
nuclear program, which Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes but
which Israel and many in the West believe is aimed at producing a
weapon.
Dennis
B. Ross, who oversaw Iran policy for the White House until early 2012,
says one reason direct talks would make sense after the election
is that the current major-power negotiations are bogged down in
incremental efforts, which may not achieve a solution in time to prevent
a military strike.
Mr.
Ross said the United States could make Iran an “endgame proposal,”
under which Tehran would be allowed to maintain a civil nuclear power
industry. Such a deal would resolve, in one stroke, issues like Iran’s
enrichment of uranium and the monitoring of its nuclear facilities.
Within
the administration, there is debate over just how much uranium the
United States would allow Iran to enrich inside the country. Among
those involved in the deliberations, an official said, are Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton, two of her deputies — William J. Burns and
Wendy Sherman — and key White House officials, including the national
security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and two
of his lieutenants, Denis R. McDonough and Gary Samore.
Iran’s
capacity to enrich uranium bears on another key difference between Mr.
Obama and Mr. Romney: whether to tolerate Iran’s enrichment
program short of producing a nuclear weapon, as long as inspectors can
keep a close eye on it, versus prohibiting Iran from enriching uranium
at all. Obama administration officials say they could imagine some
circumstances under which low-level enrichment might
be permitted; Mr. Romney has said that would be too risky.
But
Mr. Romney’s position has shifted back and forth. In September, he told
ABC News that his “red line” on Iran was the same as Mr. Obama’s
— that Iran may not have a nuclear weapon. But his campaign later edited
its Web site to include the line, “Mitt Romney believes that it is
unacceptable for Iran to possess nuclear weapons capability.”
For
years, Iran has rejected one-on-one talks with the United States,
reflecting what experts say are internal power struggles. A key tug
of war is between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani, Iran’s
former nuclear negotiator and now the chairman of the Parliament.
Iran,
which views its nuclear program as a vital national interest, has also
shied away from direct negotiations because the ruling mullahs
did not want to appear as if they were sitting down with a country they
have long demonized as the Great Satan.
But
economic pressure may be forcing their hand. In June, when the major
powers met in Moscow, American officials say that Iran was desperate
to stave off a crippling European oil embargo. After that failed, these
officials now say, Iranian officials delivered a message that Tehran
would be willing to hold direct talks.
In
New York in September, Mr. Ahmadinejad hinted at the reasoning.
“Experience has shown that important and key decisions are not made in
the U.S. leading up to the national elections,” he said.
A
senior American official said that the prospect of direct talks is why
there has not been another meeting of the major-powers group on
Iran.
In the meantime, pain from the sanctions has deepened. Iran’s currency, the rial, plummeted 40 percent in early October.
David E. Sanger contributed reporting.
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