'Talks with Iran have an almost zero chance of success'

The U.S. strategy in the nuclear talks with Iran is "to buy time," says Gary Samore, a former top White House expert on the Iranian nuclear program, in a Bloomberg interview • Rouhani "very constrained by the hard-liners," Samore says.

Eli Leon and Israel Hayom Staff

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna on Tuesday | Photo credit: Reuters

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In a conspicuously timed interview Tuesday as nuclear talks between Iran and the West resumed, U.S. President Barack Obama's top former adviser on weapons of mass destruction and Iran's nuclear program, Gary Samore, told Bloomberg that the talks have an almost zero chance of success.

Speaking with Bloomberg's Jeffrey Goldberg, Samore, who now works at Harvard University, said the West has not given Iran sufficient cause to feel as if it must give up its nuclear program.

Talks could continue "for two or three years and then the Iranians could decide they're strong enough to walk away," said Samore.

When asked what Iran must agree to for negotiations to work, Samore answered: "Iran would have to drastically limit the number of centrifuges they will have at Natanz, for starters. They could be dismantled, or disinstalled, or put in storage someplace, but a monitored storage. Basically, they would have to operate far fewer centrifuges than they currently have. We're also talking about taking down their supply of low-enriched uranium, way below the seven or eight tons they have currently that they have no need for. We're talking about losing Qom, the famous Fordo facility inside a mountain. We're talking about closing or converting the Arak heavy-water research reactor, either shutting it or converting it to a low power light water reactor. And we're talking about enhanced monitoring and verification."

But does Samore really think this could happen?

"As I read the Iranian position, they reject all of that. [Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani says they won't dismantle a thing. ... So I think we're miles apart. And I think both sides are really locked in by their domestic politics. If Rouhani were free to act, he might very well accept restrictions for the sake of getting the sanctions lifted and for changing Iran's international position. But he's very constrained by the hard-liners."

Samore said that Obama is also trapped, because if he was "to agree to any kind of final deal that would allow Iran to essentially be a nuclear threshold state under the guise of a civilian nuclear program, Congress would overturn it."

Meanwhile, according to Samore: "Both sides are benefiting from this period of diplomacy. And the question will be: How and when will it end? At some point, there could be internal changes in Iran, if the supreme leader dies and someone else takes over. We don't know what the person's calculations will be."

What could lead to Iran abandoning negotiations? Samore believes they could walk away if they "feel strong enough," similar to what they did 10 years ago after reaching a deal with the Europeans.

And what would Iran walking away look like?

Samore believes the "least likely" scenario involves Iran making an overt dash for a bomb. "They're not just going to kick out the inspectors in place and take other steps that would be so easily detected. It would be too risky. ... The best scenario for them is to build secret plants, secret enrichment facilities, and produce a couple of nuclear weapons, and then when they test one, they've got a few to back up what they have."

According to Samore, "They've tried to do this twice already, with the formerly secret facilities at Natanz and Qom. Both times we caught them."

He added that it "would make sense for them to freeze the overt program, and then, while everyone is focused on that as the issue of contention and negotiation, someplace off in the dark they would start to build another facility."

Despite the pessimistic outlook, Samore does not believe the talks are a waste of time. "If we freeze the program for two years, that's a positive good. It's probably as good as you can do with diplomacy. Our strategy is to buy time," he said.

Regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's view, in the words of Goldberg, that "bombing could lead to a total change in the situation," Samore replied: "I've heard the prime minister say that once you bomb them, it would expose the vulnerability and fragility of the system, and they would be overthrown. I don't know anyone who believes that, but he thinks that a military attack might lead to regime change."