As Iran Nuclear Talks Resume, Brookings Scholars Offer Diverse Viewpoints

Talks resumed today between Iran and six world powers in an effort to hammer out an interim accord to address international concerns over Iran’s nuclear program. These negotiations in Geneva come two weeks after a marathon session led at the ministerial level ended in frustration, and amidst vocal criticism of the proposed deal by Israeli leaders as well as pressure from the U.S. Congress to ratchet up sanctions on Iran. Throughout this time, Brookings Institution scholars have offered a range of perspectives on the negotiations, the bilateral dynamics between the United States and Israel, as well as other aspects of the deal.

• Tamara Cofman Wittes, Director of the Saban Center at Brookings, considered the causes and consequences of the fallout from the previous round of negotiations in her post, “Failed Iran Nuclear Talks May Erode Sanctions, Complicate Peace Process.” 
• Senior Fellow Michael Doran argued that the Obama administration has treated its allies as afterthoughts in a post entitled “U.S. Relations With Allies In Free Fall,” and compared the current diplomacy to the developments that preceded the 1956 Suez crisis in his piece “We’ve Seen This Before: Obama’s Middle East Debacle,” published in The Weekly Standard.
• Senior Fellow Robert Einhorn maintained that reports of disunity among the P5+1 have been overblown and advocated that the Obama administration work with Congress and with Israel to achieve a strong interim deal in his post, “Despite The Hiccup In Geneva, Iran Nuclear Talks Still On Track.”
• Senior Fellow Kenneth Pollack, author of the recently-released Unthinkable: Iran, The Bomb, and American Strategy, compared the prospective diplomatic framework to the available alternatives in a Washington Post op-ed and considered lessons for U.S. strategy toward Tehran from Cold War precedents in a Bloomberg opinion piece. Also check out links to Ken’s other media appearances on the last round of nuclear talks earlier this month here.
• Fellow Natan Sachs offered the view from Jerusalem in his post, “Israel Reacts With Alarm At What Its Leadership Sees As A Bad Deal.”
• Visiting Fellow Jeremy Shapiro, who served in senior State Department positions in the Bureau for European Affairs and on the Policy Planning Staff, took on the debate over the French role in the negotiations in his post, “Lauded – And Blamed – For Diplomacy’s Failure, France Takes Center Stage In Iran Talks.”
• And I highlighted the good news, the bad news, and the outstanding questions emanating from the last round in a post entitled “Washington And Tehran Find That A Nuclear Breakthrough Is Hard To Do.”

Along with many of my colleagues, I’ll be writing more on the diplomacy and on the politics surrounding it in Washington on the blog in forthcoming days. Please watch Iran @ Saban for more analysis, opinions, and debate on the ongoing diplomacy with Iran, and other developments related to Iran, and follow our work on Twitter via @maloneysuzanne.