The EU, unlike other powers, foregoes the hard power approach to international relations and prefers diplomacy. By speaking with one voice and acting in a coordinated and consensual manner, the EU and its member states achieve better results – or so the argument runs. Then came the Iraq war and the EU’s unanimity vanished. Rifts emerged and for a while it looked as if the Common and Security Policy (CFSP) might come to a premature and unglamorous end. One reason it did not was Iran.
To understand the European approach towards Iran, the aftershock of the Iraq war has to be taken into account. It very soon became clear that Europe’s own disunity and its strained transatlantic relations could render Europe irrelevant as a foreign policy actor. And if the EU were to fail on Iran too, it may no longer be able to play a significant international role. That’s why action to respond to the looming crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme has become of crucial importance, and the only ones who could act were those whose disagreement over Iraq had so harmed the EU as a foreign policy actor; the UK, France and Germany.
The ‘Big Three’ – or E3 as they soon came to be called – had to have a wider agenda. To begin with there was the growing crisis over the Iranian nuclear programme; there was no way that the Europeans were willing to accept the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb. The second objective was related to the widely-held European belief that war is not the answer to Iran’s nuclear crisis. The E3 therefore focussed on strengthening the international system, and that meant as a first step allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to play a more significant role. Further steps included garnering support from member states, repairing transatlantic relations and getting the widest possible international support for its Iran policy, and inevitably that would involve the UN Security Council, for the Europeans of course insisted on taking a multilateral approach.
When the E3 foreign ministers travelled to Tehran in 2003 to try and convince Iran to cooperate on the nuclear issue, they did so on their own initiative, without first taking the EU institutions on board and in defiance of the belligerent U.S. tone against Tehran. After the initial E3 success, the EU was able to take the helm and its High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana, quickly became the main negotiator with the Iranians, in cooperation with the E3 foreign ministers and – but this is a matter of conjecture – with some backchannel involvement from the U.S. By 2004, all EU policies towards Iran were being coordinated by the E3 plus Solana (the so-called E3/EU format), with his Council secretariat playing a central role as clearing house and main policy driver.
Negotiations with the Khatami government yielded some valuable and tangible results. By the end of 2003, Iran had abandoned the military aspects of its nuclear programme, according to the U.S. government’s 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. It signed the Additional Protocol on safeguards and in November 2004 the Paris Agreement, and as goodwill gesture stopped its enrichment activities. Positive as these steps were, a negotiating breakthrough had still not been achieved by summer 2005, when the Europeans offered a package of economic and political incentives to the Iranians.
Analysing why the negotiations failed is a complex matter. The weakness of the outgoing Khatami presidency and the false European hope that Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, an old acquaintance of the Europeans, would be elected president certainly contributed to the failure. Another reason was that the Iranians were not satisfied with the offer and had hoped for an American security guarantee. But the main reason was certainly the fact that the Iranians insist on their ‘right of enrichment’ of uranium, whereas the Europeans are pressing for Iranian restraint and, hopefully, the abandonment of nuclear enrichment.
Given the irreconcilable nature of these positions, relations were bound to deteriorate and they deteriorated further after the outlandish anti-Semitic vitriol indulged in by Iran’s new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But in fact these remarks had no impact on the nuclear file, which due to the inherent logic of the process had been referred to the UN Security Council. As a result not only have several resolutions been issued against Iran, but also a new international consensual format developed, consisting of the Permanent 5 Security Council members plus Germany plus the EU (P5+1/EU). Javier Solana was now not only tasked with continuation of the talks with the Iranians but also with handing over the letters written to Iran on behalf of the international community. This happened in 2006 with the new offer, and in June 2008 with the final package. Ever since, the international community and with it the EU has been waiting for the Iranians’ answer.
Europe’s efforts to reach a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue within a multilateral framework are just one side of the coin; support for sanctions is the other. The sanctions focus on individuals and enterprises related to Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes, and do not target the Iranian economy or the regime. They are seen not as an end in themselves but as a means of getting the Iranians back to the negotiating table. Their impact on the ground is disputed and experts ascribe the sorry state of Iran’s economy to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s team of economic advisers rather than to external factors. Even so, the sanctions imposed on Bank-e Melli, for instance, had a tremendous psychological impact in Iran, and made European business even less inclined to trade with the Islamic Republic.
What the EU has done up to this point has been a model of good diplomacy. The EU has kept the Union united behind a policy which originated as a mere initiative and enabled the international community (IAEA and the UN) to play a significant role. In political terms, it created a diplomatic architecture that could allow both sides to come to a negotiated solution or, alternatively, to have a fallback position if negotiations, as has been the case since 2007, stalled. In other words, the EU kept Humpty Dumpty up on the wall, so that at least there hasn’t been a great fall.
The question now is what should the Europeans do next? After all, Iran’s nuclear crisis is far from resolved. The only possible course of action is to go back to where we were at the beginning: to the E3 initiative. But this time the initiative must aim to engage directly with the real power-holder of the Islamic Republic, namely the Supreme Leader. Needless to say, this initiative should not be embarked on to the detriment of any feelers that the new Obama administration in the U.S. may be putting out, nor should the idea of replacing the P5+1 format be entertained. Rather, such an initiative would inject the new energy and momentum needed to reinvigorate the stalled diplomatic process.
There is an argument that the EU should wait until the Iranians deliver a proper answer to the June 2008 offer, or until the new administration in Washington takes the lead on Iran. Neither of these are good options for the EU, because staying aloof now and passively waiting for something to happen would be tantamount to abdicating Europe’s role in the Iranian nuclear negotiations. That would in turn mean that all the EU’s efforts will have been in vain, and that the credibility of the Common Foreign and Security Policy would be severely dented.