by Jay Solomon
To reach out to the West and Washington, Rouhani installed Javad Zarif as his foreign minister. The former ambassador to the United Nations had cooperated closely with the Bush administration in establishing a post-Taliban government in Afghanistan. To Obama administration officials, Zarif’s appointment was an olive branch, and it was a signal Tehran was serious about returning to the negotiating table. They also saw the makeup of Rouhani’s first cabinet as an effort by Iran’s new president to reduce the power of the Revolutionary Guard: only three ministers out of an eighteen-member cabinet were associated with the IRGC, compared to nine during Ahmadinejad’s last year in office.
Zarif quickly reconnected with contacts he’d made in Washington, New York, and Brussels during his tenure at the United Nations. These included a mix of active and former American diplomats, U.S. lawmakers, journalists, and heads of prominent think tanks. He conveyed to them his belief that a deal on the nuclear issue based on some of the terms negotiated between Rouhani’s diplomatic team and the Europeans in the early 2000s could be quickly negotiated. These included limits on Iran’s production of nuclear fuel, curbs on the numbers of centrifuges it had enriching uranium, and greater monitoring of Tehran’s nuclear facilities by the IAEA. In return, Zarif told his interlocutors, Tehran expected a rapid unraveling of the Western sanctions.
U.S. officials privately worried that Zarif was moving too fast to try to cinch a deal. They hoped he’d slow down the process. But the Obama administration saw Rouhani’s arrival as a potential watershed. “The election of Rouhani likely opened things up a bit on their side,” said Wendy Sherman, the State Department official who ran the day-to-day Iran nuclear policy. “If they didn’t get a better economic future for their country, they could create a risk for themselves.”
Zarif also sought to make clear to the world that the Ahmadinejad era—marked by the leader’s Holocaust denial and threats to Israel—was over. On September 4, 2013, the diplomat took to the Internet and tweeted “Happy Rosh Hashanah” to the world’s Jewry. His message astonished many in the Obama administration, considering that Ahmadinejad had regularly threatened to “wipe Israel off the face of time” and openly questioned the historical validity of the Holocaust. Many Iran watchers wondered if the tweet was genuine, given the ridicule Zarif was likely to face from conservative clerics and IRGC officers inside Iran.
Among those watching Zarif was Christine Pelosi, daughter of Nancy Pelosi, a California congresswoman and former Speaker of the House. The documentary filmmaker was raised a Catholic, but her husband was Jewish and her daughter attended a Jewish preschool. The younger Pelosi challenged the Iranian diplomat on Twitter: “Thanks. The New Year would be even sweeter if you would end Iran’s Holocaust denial, sir.”
Zarif wasted little time in responding: “Iran never denied it. The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone. Happy New Year.”
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TOTALLY UNKNOWN TO THE outside world, the secret diplomatic channel established between Iran and the United States through Oman intensified once Rouhani took office, and at a significantly higher level. William Burns, the unflappable deputy secretary of state who had met with the Iranians earlier in Switzerland, joined Sullivan and Talwar in traveling to Muscat in the weeks after Rouhani’s August inauguration.
Burns, Sullivan, and Talwar began a flurry of meetings with Iranian diplomats, not just in Muscat but also in Geneva and New York. The purpose of these meetings was to create an interim agreement that would freeze parts of Tehran’s nuclear program and provide more time and diplomatic space for Washington and Tehran to forge a final deal.
The strategy drew heavily from the “fuel swap” agreement Burns thought he had secured with Iran in 2009. This plan held that the United States should get Iran to freeze its production of nuclear fuel in exchange for economic benefits. The American line continued to be that the United States wanted Iran to eventually dismantle its centrifuges to guard against Tehran diverting any nuclear fuel for military purposes. But Kerry and other U.S. officials had already begun signaling to the Iranians that the United States was flexible on this issue. On other areas, they still weren’t: Iran should dismantle its heavy water reactor, which was seen as largely a bomb-making facility. Iran should also close its underground enrichment facility in the city of Qom, which was seen as having been built solely for the purpose of producing weapons-grade uranium. The United States at this stage showed no inclination that it would accede to Iran’s other demands: the lifting of the UN resolution that barred Iran from developing ballistic missiles and a separate resolution that prevented countries from trading arms with the Iranians.
Concerns continued to mount at this time that Israel could launch unilateral military strikes against Iran later in 2013 if diplomacy wasn’t effective in extending the time Tehran needed to build an atomic weapon. The White House was intensely focused on heading off such an Israeli attack and trying to forge some common ground with the new Rouhani government in Tehran.
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PARTICIPANTS IN THESE MEETINGS said there was a lot of early jockeying between the Americans and Iranians in an effort to understand the other side’s positions. Sullivan at one point quizzed Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, about the rationale behind Tehran’s nuclear program. The Minnesota native said it was inconceivable to most Westerners that Iran’s program could have any purpose other than to build atomic bombs. The economics behind it made no sense, Sullivan argued. Iran had massive amounts of oil and gas, and it could have developed much cheaper nuclear power simply by purchasing enriched uranium from foreign suppliers.
Araghchi pushed back. He cited the U.S. space program in the 1960s and 1970s and the quest to put a man on the moon. Washington derived little economic gain from the lunar walk, the former Iranian ambassador to Japan said. But the feat generated an enormous amount of national pride in the United States and bred scientific innovation. Iran’s nuclear program “is our moon shot,” Araghchi told the Americans.
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KERRY’S FIRST DIRECT CONTACT with Zarif, which captivated the world, came at the September 2013 session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The annual event brings together the world’s leaders for two weeks of speeches, dinners, and diplomacy in the spotlight of Manhattan. In the past, the meetings had been a showcase for President Ahmadinejad’s radical views: he had used his appearances to question the Holocaust, Washington’s narrative about the 9/11 attacks, and the wisdom of American foreign policy, and he had sought to rally the developing world against the United States and the cabal of imperialists, Zionists, and neocolonialists he claimed were exploiting Muslim, African, and Latin American populations globally. Ahmadinejad’s presence sparked sizable protests every year from Jewish, Iranian, and human rights groups who assembled across the street from the UN’s building in Turtle Bay.
But Rouhani and Zarif were committed to erasing Ahmadinejad’s legacy and portraying Iran as a responsible actor on the global stage during their first General Assembly session. Trying to right the Iranian government’s record, Rouhani gave a string of interviews to American media outlets as the September conference began. Tehran did acknowledge the Holocaust happened, Rouhani said, and he expressed his desire for better relations with Washington. The Iranian president and his top diplomat also began the process of trying to woo Western businesses back to Iran. At a gathering of the influential Asia Society, elite New York businesspeople, financiers, and intellectuals heard Rouhani make his pitch for rapprochement and Iran’s reintegration into the global economy. “During my tenure in office as president, moderation and wisdom will guide my government in making and implementing policies in every field,” Rouhani told hundreds of guests in the Hilton Hotel’s ballroom on Sixth Avenue, including—for reasons most didn’t comprehend—the boxing promoter Don King. “ ‘Win-lose’ approaches to international relations have already lost ground.”
Beyond the media glare, the secret diplomatic track establish
ed in Oman between Washington and Tehran was working to organize an even greater event: a direct meeting (or at least a handshake) between Obama and Rouhani. No Iranian president had met his American counterpart, or even spoken with him, in more than thirty years. And both sides were eager to break the diplomatic ice and show visible support for the negotiations aimed at resolving the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program. Political opponents of rapprochement in both Washington and Tehran would attack such a meeting, Obama’s and Rouhani’s advisors understood. But they were eager to make history while the world’s leaders were in New York.
Burns and Sullivan secretly discussed such a high-level meeting with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva and New York. President Obama’s other close advisors also got involved. Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador at the United Nations at the time, had developed a cordial working relationship with her Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Khazaee, during her four years in New York. Rice and Khazaee—despite the public acrimony expressed between their two countries—had privately tried to establish a formal hotline through which to reduce tensions between the American and Iranian navies in the Persian Gulf. There were growing concerns that any accident at sea involving the countries’ ships could escalate into an all-out war.
Obama’s and Rouhani’s aides studied the UN General Assembly’s agenda to identify a time and place where the two leaders might casually run into each other. They scoured hotel rooms in Manhattan where Obama and Rouhani could have a short meeting. The U.S. president’s window of opportunity was narrow, as he was only staying in New York for a little more than a day.
American and Iranian officials identified the first Tuesday of the General Assembly session as the best venue for an encounter between Obama and Rouhani. Both men would be attending a lunch in honor of the heads of state at the UN offices. And they hoped the two men could shake hands and exchange a few words as the world’s television cameras filmed.
But when the lunch guests arrived, Rouhani was noticeably not among them. Iranian officials said the president couldn’t attend because wine was being served—an affront to a Muslim cleric. U.S. officials believed there was another reason: Iranian hard-liners were waiting to pounce on Rouhani for engaging the Great Satan. The Iranian president simply had had second thoughts because of political considerations, Iranian officials said. “We didn’t have enough time to prepare,” an Iranian official, Alireza Miryousefi, told me at the time outside the UN’s offices.
American diplomats involved in the Iran diplomacy were concerned. If Rouhani couldn’t even meet with Obama, how was he going to make concessions on the nuclear file? But the Obama administration wouldn’t give up. Just hours before Rouhani was scheduled to fly back to Tehran, the White House patched President Obama through to the Iranian leader’s cellphone as he drove to Kennedy Airport. For fifteen minutes they discussed global affairs and the need to resolve the nuclear dispute, with Foreign Minister Zarif serving as interpreter. Both men cautioned against the possibility of a dramatic restoration of relations between the United States and Iran, but both also said they believed there was a path forward. “While there will surely be important obstacles to moving forward and success is by no means guaranteed, I believe we can reach a comprehensive solution,” Obama told a televised audience from the White House after the phone call. “The test will be meaningful, transparent, and verifiable actions, which can also bring relief from the comprehensive international sanctions that are currently in place” against Iran.
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AFTER THE HISTORIC PHONE call between Obama and Rouhani, in October 2013 the quest for rapprochement shifted from New York to the Swiss lakeside city of Geneva. Geneva has long been a center for international diplomacy and intrigue, hosting major arms control conferences and secret meetings between American officials and Washington’s nemeses—whether Iranian, North Korean, or Syrian. The “Peace Capital” hosts the UN’s European headquarters and many of its international agencies, including the World Food Programme and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as the Red Cross. Luxury five-star hotels line Geneva’s leafy streets and quiet shores, where Russian, Arab, and Persian businessmen watch over fortunes stashed away in the city’s private banks—institutions hidden behind security cameras and darkened windows. Designer watches, chocolates, jewelry, and cheeses are sold from exclusive shops on the cobblestone streets of Geneva’s Old Town.
Iranian diplomats and their counterparts from the United States, Europe, China, and Russia assembled intermittently in Geneva for five weeks in late 2013 in a high-profile attempt to resurrect the international negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program that had flagged during Ahmadinejad’s tenure but gained momentum in Oman. Optimism was rekindled as the foreign minister stressed that a deal could be quickly concluded if the international community simply showed Iran respect and negotiated with it on equal footing. The Rouhani administration was engineering a massive makeover of Tehran’s reputation, a public relations campaign the Israelis and the Arabs vociferously didn’t buy. But the Russians, Chinese, and Europeans—and many in the White House—fully embraced it, wary of the prospects of another Mideast war if negotiations failed.
The Americans pursued a two-track strategy in Geneva, one that would only further alienate Washington from its Mideast allies and some in Europe. Officially, the American delegation was led by Wendy Sherman, the chief nuclear negotiator for the United States, backed by John Kerry, now secretary of state. Sherman was a veteran of the Clinton administration who had negotiated missile reductions with the North Koreans in the 1990s. But behind the scenes, and away from the prying eyes of the global media, the secret Oman channel was also hard at work. The Iranians and the Americans believed the best way to reach a deal was without the complication of the P5+1.
In early November, Sherman and her staff encamped in wood-paneled rooms at Geneva’s Intercontinental Hotel, just across from the UN’s offices at the Palais des Nations. Iranian, Russian, Chinese, and European diplomats joined them and busily moved between rooms and floors carrying position papers and legal briefs in a frantic effort to seal an initial deal. Hundreds of journalists waited in the hotel lobby, pestering tourists and businessmen alike while they awaited news of an agreement. The reception area began to look like a college dormitory, with Iranian, American, and European journalists sleeping on the floor and littering the area with discarded coffee cups and cigarette butts.
But across town, William Burns and Jake Sullivan were holding separate negotiations in the serene lakeside rooms at another five-star hotel. Thanks to the months of negotiations they’d already held in Muscat and New York, the outlines of a deal were fast coming into focus. The Iranians would scale back the most dangerous portions of their nuclear program, particularly the production of near-weapons-grade fuel and the installation of thousands of new centrifuges used to enrich uranium. In return, the United States and the Europeans would suspend some of their financial sanctions and return billions of dollars in frozen oil revenues the Iranians had been attempting to repatriate from overseas banks. Such an interim agreement would address Western concerns that Tehran might rapidly move to produce nuclear weapons. It would also provide time for a more permanent agreement to be reached.
The diplomacy in Geneva took on a schizophrenic nature as the United States tried to rationalize the two tracks it was pursuing. Puneet Talwar, the White House staffer, was one of the diplomats tasked with shuttling messages between the two U.S. delegations and forging a united front. Puzzled journalists saw Talwar taking Geneva’s public buses, not knowing he was going to attend the secret meetings at the second hotel. He darted down the city’s snowy streets in his business suit trying to make appointments with the Iranians as the clock ticked. The Obama administration still hadn’t made public that there was a separate channel.
The diplomatic process reached a crescendo in mid-November when Kerry and the foreign ministers from the other negotiating countries arrived in Geneva, seemingly to clinch
a deal. France had been taking a particularly hard line in the talks, hewing to the position that Iran must not be allowed to maintain any of the infrastructure it had developed to produce nuclear fuel. Paris’s attitude, a marked role reversal on the international stage, where the Americans were normally cast as the diplomatic heavy, was led by French foreign minister Laurent Fabius. Fabius’s role as France’s top diplomat was seen as his last major position in the French government before retirement. A former prime minister, he’d spent more than four decades in France’s political limelight, and wasn’t going to go quietly.
Arriving in Geneva on November 8, 2013, the American and Iranian delegations presented a draft agreement to the rest of the P5+1, which had largely been inactive for a year. Expecting to begin deliberations, instead they realized an accord had nearly been completed behind their backs and that the goalposts had shifted. Many of the P5+1’s most stringent demands weren’t addressed. And there were clear indications that Iran would be allowed to maintain much of its nuclear infrastructure, including centrifuge machines and the Arak reactor, while beginning to get sanctions relief. The U.S. position had clearly softened, and this was only the interim deal.
Fabius wasted little time making France’s presence felt. Iran and the P5+1 countries had all agreed not to discuss the substance of the deal with the press. But Fabius, feeling sufficiently burned by the United States, walked in front of the cameras at the Intercontinental Hotel and proclaimed that the Western countries were being duped by the Iranians. He specifically focused on the Arak reactor. “One wants a deal…but not a sucker’s deal,” Fabius told French radio.
Kerry and the U.S. delegations were livid. They privately accused Fabius of seeking to court the Israelis and Arab business by taking such a dramatic and public position. They accused the French diplomat of struggling to even understand the science behind the interim accord. “He didn’t have any leverage and didn’t know what he wanted,” said one of the Americans in Geneva.
