More room needed at table

Editorial

The P5+1 – namely, the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France, plus Germany – have been in Geneva, negotiating with Iran over what level of Iranian nuclear preparedness deserves what level of economic sanctions.

Failure to reach a deal last week has led to finger pointing from both sides and conflicting stories about unity among the P5+1. A deal almost reached apparently would have allowed Iran to continue to enrich uranium, although officially nobody knows what was in the agreement that almost was.

In the eyes of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and others, the Geneva talks provided the kind of time Iran intended to buy with negotiations. It is, in this interpretation, the strategy the new Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani bragged in his book about using against the West when he was chief weapons negotiator for the Islamic republic.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry insisted all was not lost in seeking a negotiated settlement – that Iran’s refusal to end uranium enrichment signified a bump in the road, not the end of the road. He deflected the view of skeptics that a legitimate negotiated agreement with Iran is impossible because Rouhani is, as Netanyahu claims, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“We are not blind,” Kerry said, “and I don’t think we’re stupid.” Kerry deflected Netanyahu’s criticism of the secret negotiations thusly: “The time to oppose [a deal] is when you see what it is.”

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has expressed fears that perhaps Israel may have waited too long to act militarily against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, having been pressed into continued inaction by reassuring words from its American ally. And, in Europe, countries whose interests in the matter are as theoretical as those of the United States hope that the 10-day negotiations might augur something other than more time for Iran to advance its plans.

In a week where we commemorated Remembrance Day and Kristallnacht, the echoes of the past are louder than usual. Seeing Netanyahu standing to the side of the P5+1 world powers meeting in Geneva – several thousand kilometres and a veritable world to the side – a student of history might recall Golda Meir’s reflections on her attendance at the 1938 Evian conference, where, essentially, the fate of the Jews of Europe was sealed by the entire world, which refused to accept Jewish refugees. Meir would write of “the ludicrous capacity of the [Jewish] observer from Palestine, not even seated with the delegates, although the refugees under discussion were my own people....”

Hemming and hawing and trying to convince ourselves that we “don’t think we’re stupid” on this issue is a luxury Kerry, the Americans, and the five other parties at Geneva might enjoy. Having been singled out for annihilation by Iran, the issue for Israel is far more real and relevant. There should have been room at the table for another +1.

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