News that the international nuclear talks with Iran are to be extended until next July is welcome. But realistically it will be more difficult to find agreement among so many partners by then because those opposed to a deal are becoming stronger than those who support it. This second extension of the deadline will intensify the struggle between them in Iran, in the Middle East and in the United States. That is ominous because a negative outcome would pitch the region and therefore the world into a more dangerous set of conflicts, whereas success still has the potential to transform them.
Failure to agree this week happened because Iran was unwilling to budge sufficiently on the numbers of centrifuges in its nuclear enrichment programme and demanded more immediate lifting of crippling economic sanctions than its negotiating partners were willing to accept. These talks involving the major nuclear military powers – the US, Russia, China, France and the UK, plus Germany – and chaired by the European Union's former foreign policy chief, have a mandate from the United Nations Security Council.
Iran's principal regional antagonists and rivals, Israel and Saudi Arabia, disbelieve its commitments to peaceful nuclear status and fear the growing strength it would gain from an agreement. This is despite Iran's evident willingness to become a more cooperative regional partner if that happens, with potentially transformative consequences in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. France, Germany and the UK have their own interests in reaching a deal, as does the EU. The US is torn between the possible diplomatic benefits President Obama could reap from a rapprochement with Iran during his final period in office and the rooted opposition to any such outcome from Republican hardliners and neoconservatives, along with their allies in Israel led by Binyamin Netanyahu, for all of whom Iran is an irredeemable enemy.
Should these talks unravel next year both Russia and China would be ready to take advantage of Iran’s need for fresh allies in the face of probably tougher economic bilateral sanctions. Hardline opponents of a deal within Iran who fundamentally distrust President Hassan Rouhani’s drive to reach an overall agreement would once again seize the initiative. As a result the several damaging ways in which international conflicts of interest reinforce lines of cleavage in the Middle East would be made worse, leaving the region and the world more divided and dangerous. Every effort must be made to avoid this long effort to end Iran’s isolation from collapsing and to channel the talks in a constructive direction. That will require confidence-building moves by both sides. These can be made within Iran and separately by the other major parties to the talks, including the EU, France, Germany and the UK.