Iran and the Disappearing Deadline

(Jan. 5) – In the parlance of diplomacy, there are soft deadlines and there are hard deadlines. And then there is Iran.

The Obama administration's autumn threats to impose new sanctions if Tehran didn't compromise on its nuclear program by year's end have all but disappeared now that 2010 is here. That underscores the strong impression that the United States and its allies lack the leverage to carry them out. But it may also signal new patience with a regime that is increasingly under fire at home.

The administration, backed by Britain, France and Germany, has been trying to rally the international community for action against Iran since the Iranians backed off a summer deal to essentially suspend its own enrichment of uranium, an activity Washington and U.S. allies consider part of a program to build atomic weapons. The U.S., on this matter, also has the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has expressed its exasperation with Iran's lack of transparency and downright dishonesty about its nuclear facilities.

Iran hasn't budged. In early December, the Iranians made a counteroffer to the IAEA – one immediately rejected by the West.

The U.S. hasn't budged either, at least not rhetorically. Obama has repeatedly said Iran had until the end of December to yield or face new international sanctions, and as recently as Dec. 22, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that "if Iran fails to live up to its obligations by the end of the year, we'll take our next steps."

But that intransigence now seems so 2009.

On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced a willingness to pursue what she called "an engagement track" before the administration resorts to "a pressure track."

"We've avoided using the term 'deadline' ourselves. That's not a term that we have used because we want to keep the door to dialogue open," Clinton said, even as she warned that "we've also made it clear we can't continue to wait and we cannot continue to stand by" as the Iranians build up their nuclear program. The U.S. is discussing pressure and sanctions with its partners, she added.

The discussion phase will likely last a good while longer.

China, which like Russia has been reluctant to go along with any sanctions against Iran, currently holds the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council. On Tuesday, Ambassador Zhang Yesui said China doesn't plan to hold debates on whether to punish Iran, that "this is not the right time or moment for sanctions" and that diplomats need "more time and patience" to resolve their differences.

In her remarks, Clinton also referred to the "turbulence" that continues to shake Iran. Since Iran's disputed elections last June, discontent with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and even the once-revered supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has spread despite a remorseless crackdown. The ruling mullahs traditionally blame foreigners – namely the U.S. and the U.K. – for troubles at home, but that story is an increasingly hard sell.

It may be that the administration thinks it can make more headway dealing with a weaker Tehran than with a divided United Nations. Nor would it be in Washington's interest to give Tehran a foreign confrontation that it could use to rally its people to the regime. Mindful of that, Clinton suggested any pressure would target the "Revolutionary Guard elements" that have responsibility for both the nuclear program and suppressing internal dissent.

Iran, which over the weekend issued its own ultimatum to the West, said Tuesday that it welcomed the softer words from Clinton, as The Associated Press reported. And it did so in a way that won't win the Obama administration any support from critics of its Iran policy back in Washington.

"We share the same idea with her," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. "Deadlines are meaningless."