A Troubling Letter to an Unbending Ayatollah

Who wants a nuclear deal more: the Iranians, or the Obama administration?
Office of the Supreme Leader/AP

The Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Carol Lee reported this week that President Obama recently wrote a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, in which he laid out the benefits for Iran of a nuclear compromise.

“The letter appeared aimed both at buttressing the campaign against Islamic State and nudging Iran’s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal,” the Journal reported. “Mr. Obama stressed to Mr. Khamenei that any cooperation on Islamic State was largely contingent on Iran reaching a comprehensive agreement with global powers on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program by a Nov. 24 diplomatic deadline.”

This is, by most counts, the fourth letter President Obama has written to Ayatollah Khamenei. He has received approximately zero responses. There are two ways to interpret this asymmetry. The first is to conclude that Obama is chasing after Khamenei in the undignified and counterproductive manner of a frustrated suitor. The second is to conclude that Obama is cleverly boxing-in Khamenei in the court of international opinion: When the nuclear talks collapse, the administration will at least be able to say: We tried. We reached out repeatedly to the supreme leader, in whose hands nuclear decisions ultimately rest, and he spurned us, and spurned us again.

Both of these conclusions track with reality, but both are incomplete, because we do not know the tone of these letters, or much about their substance. What we can reasonably assert, however, is that the letter will not have its intended effect. Quite the opposite, according to the Brooking Institution's Suzanne Maloney:

[T]here is simply no plausible scenario in which a letter from the President of the United States to Ali Khamenei generates greater Iranian flexibility on the nuclear program, which the regime has paid an exorbitant price to preserve, or somehow pushes a final agreement across the finish line. Just the opposite—the letter undoubtedly intensified Khamenei's contempt for Washington and reinforced his longstanding determination to extract maximalist concessions from the international community. It is a blow to the delicate end-game state of play in the nuclear talks at the precise moment when American resolve was needed most.

This most recent letter was delivered at an unfortunate moment in the run-up to the putatively climactic negotiations between Iran and world powers scheduled for later this month. The Obama administration has already given the impression that it wants a nuclear deal more than Iran wants a nuclear deal. The U.S. has good reason to want a strong agreement: It could prevent a nuclear-arms race in the world’s most volatile region; it could protect America’s allies, including and especially Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates; it could help ensure that Iranian-sponsored terrorists are denied the protection of a nuclear umbrella; and so on. But it is Iran that actually needs a deal more than the U.S. Its economy has nearly been crushed by American-led sanctions, and the ruling regime understands that further domestic economic hardship could pose a threat to its existence.

And yet, it appears, superficially at least, that it is the U.S. that is bending to the demands of Iran. The most recent example comes via official Iranian-state media, which reported that U.S. negotiators have agreed to allow Iran to run 6,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges, which is up from the previous maximum American concession, 4,000, proposed just two weeks ago.

Iranian negotiators could take such premature concessions as signs that more concessions are coming, in exchange for … not very much. Certainly, no broad shift in Iranian strategic thinking seems likely. As Michael Singh, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy recently observed, “(T)he changes in U.S.-Iran relations have been decidedly one-sided. The central aim of American policy toward Iran in recent years had been to persuade Tehran to make a strategic shift: away from a strategy of projecting power and deterring adversaries through asymmetric means, and toward one that would adhere to international norms and reinforce regional peace and stability. Détente—and, for that matter, a nuclear accord—resulting from such a shift would be welcome by not only the U.S. but also its allies in the region and beyond. Iran does not, however, appear to have undergone any such change.”

Presented by

Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. He is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror. More

Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent, and the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. He was previouslly a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He has also written for the Jewish Daily Forward and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

Goldberg's book Prisoners was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Progressive, Washingtonian magazine, and Playboy. He received the 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism and the 2005 Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize. He is also the winner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist; the Overseas Press Club award for best human-rights reporting; and the Abraham Cahan Prize in Journalism.

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation, and in 2002 he became a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

The Pentagon's $1.5 Trillion Mistake

The F-35 fighter jet was supposed to do everything. Instead, it can barely do anything.

Video

The Pentagon's $1.5 Trillion Mistake

The F-35 fighter jet was supposed to do everything. Instead, it can barely do anything.

Video

How to Cook Spaghetti Squash (and Why)

Cooking for yourself is one of the surest ways to eat well.

Video

Before Tinder, a Tree

Looking for your soulmate? Write a letter to the "Bridegroom's Oak" in Germany.

Video

Where High Tech Meets the 1950s

Why did Green Bank, West Virginia, ban wireless signals? For science.

Video

Would You Live in a Treehouse?

A treehouse can be an ideal office space, vacation rental, and way of reconnecting with your youth.

More in Global

From This Author

Just In