Middle Ground in the Middle East

Negotiations are gridlocked, neither side trusts the other, both parties routinely condemn their adversary as evil, and the almost-daily op-eds proclaim a near-existential threat.  No, this is not the shutdown.  I'm talking about Iran.

With the election of the reform-minded President Rowhani, Iran has moved closer to a rapprochement with the United States.  SecState Kerry and the Iranian FM met on the sidelines of the UNGA opening session.  The President has lobbied Congress not to invoke another round of tough sanctions against the regime.  Rowhani has declared his intent to work toward a new understanding with the West.  

It seems like everyone is standing around the old proverbial campfire, holding hands, singing Kumbaya...except no one can find Netanyahu.  Instead, he's on an idiom-doused PR push, giving speech after speech warning that "Ahmadinejad was a wolf in wolf’s clothing.  Rowhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing."  And, Rowhani is "a wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community."  Indeed, in one of the more clever applications of English idiom to nuclear weapons nonproliferation efforts, Mr. Netanyahu declared, "Rowhani thinks he can have his yellowcake and eat it too!"

PM Netanyahu is convinced this is a ploy, designed to distract the West and alleviate the impact of crippling American and European sanctions while maintaining Iran's nuclear program intact.  His reasoning is not without merit: Rowhani tried similar stalling tactics as Iran's head nuclear negotiator a decade ago.  Israel wants the US and its allies to keep the sanctions regimen intact and demand unilateral denuclearization.  Any suggestion of deviating from that brings an almost Pavlovian response from Jerusalem.  

On the other hand, Obama and the EU, feeling foreign policy exhaustion after setbacks and embarrassment on Syria, the NSA scandal, and Egypt, seem willing to do anything to reach a deal with Iran.  The President no doubt realizes that a success on Iran would help substantially burnish his foreign policy legacy.

To me it seems neither side is behaving rationally.  The Israelis can't realistically think Iran will ever unilaterally renounce its nuclear program in the absence of significant sanctions.  Its whole raison d'etre was to provide a check against American or Israeli designs against Iran, and given the historical tension in the region, those won't dissipate overnight.

The flip side is that the Obama administration is having a peace-in-our-time moment.  The reason the Iranians have come to the table (which is good and should be embraced) is the tough sanctions and hardline that Obama is taking right now.  It is almost cliche to say, but Reagan's "trust but verify" should be the M.O. with Iran.  Yes, we should sit down to talk.  Yes, we should be prepared to grant concessions.  Yes, military force and sanctions can't be the end game.  At the same time, the concessions have to be linked to verifiable compliance with international standards regarding nuclear weapons production.  

Part of the reason for focusing on compromises for this blog is that the seemingly rational and common sense solutions like "trust but verify" never seem to win out in Washington.  It is possible that there is an element that I'm missing.  Of course, as a 17-year-old high school student I'm not privy to classified information, state secrets, or NSA intelligence.  (Note to NSA employee reading this post: The Fourth Amendment is overrated, I think Guantanamo is full of nothing but complainers, and everyone agrees the NSA should really have won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Credit here.)  Still, it seems like there has to be a better compromise between pragmatism and appeasement.  I desperately hope Washington finds it.