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Perkovich: Pressures and Benefits Must Be Made Clearer to Iran

Council on Foreign Relations

Interviewee: George Perkovich, Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

November 16, 2007

George Perkovich, a leading expert on Iranian nuclear issues, says the latest IAEA report on Iran written by Director General Mohamed ElBaradei only underscores the importance of increasing efforts to resolve the nuclear enrichment dispute diplomatically. He favors increasing the pressure from the UN Security Council and others, and suggests the possible benefits to Iran if they engage in negotiations should be better defined. “It’s the only strategy to be pursued,” he says. “The Iranians haven’t felt the need to negotiate yet because they haven’t felt enough pressure. And they also haven’t seen any kind of potential reward, so they are holding back. I think that the challenge all along has been to bring both increased pressure on Iran and to be much clearer on what the potential benefits to Iran would be.”

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has delivered his report on Iran’s compliance or non-compliance with the demands or requests on its nuclear enrichment program (PDF). It seems to me to be the classic “Is the glass half-full or half-empty?” report, depending on your point of view. How did you find the report?

Well, as I was getting ready for the interview, I couldn’t get off the “half- full, half-empty” metaphor myself, and I think it is the way it reads. It has a kind of very neutral language, “the Iranians did some things but they haven’t done other things.” I think the report in the end really depends on the eye of the beholder.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.