The deal signed between Iran and the world’s leading powers in the small hours of Sunday morning is a potential game changer for the geopolitics of the Middle East. But getting to yes – even on the heavily hedged and conditional deal signed in Geneva – was a long and nerve-racking process, which involved several back-channel negotiations running in parallel.
Track One was the official talks between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K., France and Germany, which have been under way since September.
But the Associated Press revealed Sunday there have also been Track-Two talks – diplomatic term for officials speaking unofficially – going on directly between the U.S. and Iran for at least six months. Those talks focused on the technical details of just how much Iran was willing to concede for a lifting of sanctions – and thrashed out the five points that eventually became the core of the Geneva accords:
1. Iran should stop enriching uranium above 5 percent and dilute its stock of 20 percent–enriched uranium
2. It should suspend all uranium enrichment; it must destroy 9,000 of its 16,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges
3. It must suspend work on a heavy-water reactor at Arak
4. It must accept more intrusive nuclear inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But there were also several other, unofficial, back-channels in motion. One was a meeting of top generals from Iran, Israel and China at the private Chateau de Selore in the Burgundy region of France, moderated by former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke and ex-French defense minister Michele Alliot-Marie. Those talks focused on one of the thorniest unanswered questions of the Geneva talks – building trust between Iran and Israel – who was not at the negotiating table in Geneva.
Israeli hard-liners like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu derided Sunday’s deal as dangerous and destabilizing. “Today the world has become a much more dangerous place,” said Netanyahu. “The most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world.”
But Doron Avital, a rising star of the Israeli center-left Kadima party and a former commander of Israel’s Special Forces, took a much more dovish line at the Selore meeting. “Iran is turning West,” said Avital. “They seriously need a deal. The climate is changing.”
The Selore talks also addressed another Iranian sticking point, the issue of intrusive nuclear inspections. But China’s increased engagement in the inspections process helped to ease Iranian nervousness about becoming another Iraq, where the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors found no evidence of wrongdoing did not the prevent the U.S. from going to war.
The deal’s bitterest opponents, Netanyahu and the Saudis, also waged a back-channel war against the deal. Veteran Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar al Sultan penned an impassioned denunciation of détente with Iran in The Wall Street Journal; top American backers of Netanyahu are also mobilizing opposition to easing sanctions against Iran in Congress.
The final deal was essentially struck bilaterally between Washington and Teheran – and originally contained no mention of Arak. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius insisted, with Israeli backing, that the reactor be shuttered - derailing talks at the beginning of November.
Fabius’s insistence on including Arak in the final deal – based on his own closeness to Netanyahu and to pressure from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, both large investors in France – eventually strengthened the agreement reached in Geneva, according to Jean-Christophe Iseux von Pfetten, a consultant to the Chinese government who hosted the Selore talks.
“After all the French might have been wise about nurturing Israel’s viewpoint, otherwise this interim deal becomes useless,” he said.