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2018 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

8. The Action/2: The E3/EU and the United States

verfasst von : Riccardo Alcaro

Erschienen in: Europe and Iran’s Nuclear Crisis

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Intra-EU unity and transatlantic convergence on Iran’s nuclear issue were intrinsically tied. On the one hand, EU unity resulted from transatlantic convergence. France, Germany and the United Kingdom (E3) used the ‘US factor’ throughout the nuclear dispute to defend themselves from intra-EU criticisms, build support for their policy line or persuade the other member states to take difficult decisions. On the other hand, EU unity facilitated transatlantic convergence. During the Bush presidency, the E3 managed to moderate US requests for tougher action by insisting that the European Union would only support coercive measures if they were incremental, reversible and had a legal basis in Security Council resolutions. When Obama took office and steered US policy closer to EU preferences, the E3/EU could argue that EU-sanctioned coercive measures were a way to strengthen Obama’s hand in forcing Iran back to the negotiating table and fend off criticisms from America’s Middle Eastern allies and their supporters in the US Congress.

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Fußnoten
1
European External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten dismissed the ‘axis of evil speech’ as “absolutist and simplistic” (BBC News 2002b).
 
2
Interview with an official from the HR office, 23 June 2010.
 
3
This Rice should obviously not be confused with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The author was Susan Rice, who at the time was a scholar at the Brookings Institution and later became one of President Obama’s most trusted foreign policy advisors. She served first as US ambassador to the United Nations (2009–2013) and then as national security advisor (2013–17).
 
4
Interview with a former official from the US Department of State, 27 April 2009.
 
5
Interview with a former official from the US Department of State, 27 April 2009.
 
6
Interview with an E3 official, 12 February 2009, and Skype interview with a former E3 official, 12 February 2015.
 
7
Phone interview with a senior E3 official, 21 April 2009. The official claimed that, prior to Iran’s 2005 presidential election, he outlined a ‘formula’ that the Iranian negotiators found acceptable. The basic idea of this ‘formula’ was that Iran would not enrich on an industrial scale until the economic need for indigenous production of nuclear fuel emerged, which meant a situation in which Iran would already possess 10–12 LWRs and would be unable to find the necessary fuel on the international market. In the meantime, Iran would be allowed to do only R&D work involving about 20 centrifuges (an industrial-scale programme employs around 50,000 centrifuges, although 3000 are sufficient for producing the HEU needed for a bomb). The diplomat conceded though that there was no guarantee that the new negotiating team under the Ahmadinejad administration would have responded as positively as the previous one had.
 
8
Interview with an E3 official, 20 February 2009. See also Sauer (2008: 278).
 
9
Interview with a former E3 foreign minister, 2 March 2009. The Iranian proposal did not specify the exact timing of the four phases in which it would unfold.
 
10
Interviews with a former E3 foreign minister, 2 March 2009, and an official from the HR office, 22 June 2010. See also International Crisis Group (2006: 2, fn. 7). For details of the E3/EU’s proposed assistance in the fuel procurement for Iran’s LWRs, see IAEA Board of Governors (2005: 15–17).
 
11
Phone interview with an E3 senior official, 21 April 2009.
 
12
Interview with a former E3 ambassador to Iran, 7 April 2009. “At the time Germany was not a good ally”, the former ambassador said. He acknowledged however that the Germans were careful not to let the debate leave confidential meetings between the E3/EU and the United States, thus preventing Iran (or anyone else) from seizing on it to foment divisions within the E3/EU+3 group. See also Sauer (2008: 278 and 280).
 
13
A commentator equated the Treasury campaign to nothing less than a war against Iran (McGlynn 2008).
 
14
As proof that the Europeans were not yet ready to go down the path of outright confrontation, they refrained from adopting comprehensive unilateral sanctions for as long as the Bush administration was in office. While large EU energy firms started decreasing their activities in Iran, many others continued to invest in and trade with the Islamic Republic, including French ones (Makinsky 2009: 110).
 
15
Rice also agreed to sign an accompanying letter that was attached to the text of the E3/EU+3 proposal brought to Tehran by Solana in June 2008.
 
16
For a detailed list of all changes in the Bush administration’s Iran policy between 2005 and 2008, see Fitzpatrick (2008: 63).
 
17
Tellingly, in his 2009 Nowruz message to Iran, Obama addressed not only the Iranian people but also Iran’s leaders (Sect. 4 in Chap. 3, fn. 15).
 
18
Interview with a former official from the Department of State, 27 April 2009.
 
19
Interview with an official from the HR office, 22 June 2010.
 
20
Interview with a European Commission official, 22 June 2010.
 
21
Interview with a European Commission official, 22 June 2010.
 
22
Interview with a European Commission official, 22 June 2010.
 
23
Skype interview with an E3 official involved in the negotiations over the 2013 interim nuclear deal, 12 February 2015.
 
24
It is true, however, that Secretary of State Kerry, as well as other E3/EU+3 and Iranian negotiators, were not pleased by the way French Foreign Minister Fabius went public about the Arak issue (Skype interview with a former E3 official involved in the interim nuclear deal negotiations, 12 February 2015). Fabius has a different take of the whole issue in his self-congratulatory account of the 2013–15 negotiations (Fabius 2016, see in particular pp. 14–16).
 
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Metadaten
Titel
The Action/2: The E3/EU and the United States
verfasst von
Riccardo Alcaro
Copyright-Jahr
2018
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74298-4_8