U.S.-Iran deal may only be short-term

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – The United States and Iran plunged back into negotiation Sunday, hoping to end once and for all a decades-long standoff that has raised the specter of an Iranian nuclear arsenal, a new atomic arms race in the Middle East and even a U.S. or Israeli military intervention. Two weeks out from a deadline for a framework accord, some officials said the awesomeness of the diplomatic task meant negotiators would likely settle for an announcement that they’ve made enough progress to justify further talks.

Officially, the United States and its partners insist their eyes are on “A deal that would protect the world,” Secretary of State John Kerry said this weekend, “from the threat that a nuclear-armed Iran could pose,” but as Kerry arrived in Switzerland for several days of discussions with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, no one was promising the breakthrough.

The deal that had been taking shape would see Iran freeze its nuclear program for at least a decade, with restrictions then gradually lifted over a period of perhaps the following five years. Washington and other world powers would similarly scale back sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy in several phases.

Speaking Sunday on CBS News, Kerry said most of the differences between Iran and the negotiating group of the U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia were “political,” not technical. He didn’t elaborate, but political matters tend to include levels of inspections, Iran’s past military work linked to its nuclear program and how quickly to scale back sanctions. Technical matters refer, for example, to how many centrifuges Iran can maintain, what types of those machines and how much plutonium it would be allowed to produce from a planned heavy water reactor.

Less than four months ago, senior officials talked optimistically about reaching a preliminary agreement by March, with three months of additional talks only for any remaining technical work. But two diplomats said ahead of this week’s talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne that persistent differences at the negotiating table had diminished the chances of such a substantial agreement. Instead, they said, the sides were more likely to restrict themselves to a vague oral statement indicating that enough headway had been made to continue negotiations. They weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive talks and demanded anonymity.

A senior U.S. official rejected that assessment. “We are working toward a framework of substance,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing similar constraints. Top diplomats and technical experts from the U.S. and Iran met Sunday. Kerry and Zarif were to hold their first discussion today.

Experts say the combination of limits on Iran’s uranium program only gives the world two to three months to react if the country tries to surreptitiously “break out” toward nuclear weapons development. The U.S. says it needs at least a year of cushion time, lasting for at least a decade, in a comprehensive agreement.

It’s unclear if negotiators will reach that point, putting the United States in a difficult spot. Fearful Iran could be playing for time, Obama, Kerry and various officials have vowed to walk away from the talks if they show no sign of pointing toward a satisfactory agreement. And they’ve repeatedly stressed that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” But none of them have spelled out what the U.S. strategy for preventing a nuclear-armed Iran would be then.