Ten
The Art of Taking
Yes for an Answer
‘We could not take yes for an answer.
—Senior Obama administration official, September 2010
fier months of diplomatic wrangling with hostile
friendly elements and states alike, the Obama admin
istration was finally on the verge of passing a UN
Security Council resolution sanctioning Iran's mo
SBkaclear activities. Concessions had been given to
Russians and Chinese; pressure from Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Com
gress had been heeded; Iranian maneuvers to influence the vote hs
been countered; and a plan of action with the EU had been agreed
upon. All that remained were the formalities.
But in that last moment, Washington miscalculated the diplo-
matic skills of two up-and-coming states—Brazil and ‘Turkey—and
their desire to demonstrate the ability to take on diplomatic
lenges usually reserved for the great powers. Both had followed the
Iranian nuclear fle for some time and both elevated their efforts
assist in finding a solution once the muclear swap deal failed to
traction in the fall of 2009. At first they were encouraged to help. Bi
by the time the pressure of the sanctions track overshadowed the
diplomacy track, their involvement and mediation efforts beca
increasingly problematic for the Obama administration, whic
feared that the Iranians would only use Brazil and Turkey to split the
Security Council, breaking the consensus on sanetions that Ob:Thing Ys for an Answer 13
had spent a considerable amount of political capital to achieve. On
May 15,2010, Brazilian president Lui Infcio Lula da Silva traveled
to Iran with an entourage of some three hundred Brazilian business-
1 on Te was his first vist there, and he would seek Iran's ae ment
reer the nuclear fuel swap in what the Obama administaton and
French president Nicolas Sarkory described as the “last big shot at
agement.” Soon thereafter, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and his energetic foreign minister ‘Ahmet Davutoglu,
joined Lula in an effort to convince Iran ship out its low-enriched
eanium (LEU), Two days later, Lula and Erdogan stunned the U.S.
and the world—they had a deal.!
Contrary to expectations, and arguably to the hopes of some,
they aueceeded in convincing the Lranian government 10 auFee £9
ideal based on the American benchmarks—that 1200 kilograms of
Iranian LEU would be sent out in one shipment, and Tran would
weve fuel pads for its ‘Tehran Research Reactor roughly twelve
vronths later. Fora moment, itlooked as if diplomacy had succeeded
fhe all. But what could have been viewed as a diplomatic break-
through—with Iran blinking first ane succumbing (0 ‘American de-
nands-—was instead treated as an effort to sabotage the new and
higher objective of imposing sanetions. The twisted dance of hos-
filty and missed opportunities between the U.S. and Iran that
Obama hoped to end had just come fll circle—and all within the
first sixteen months of his presidency.
The “New” Kids on the Block
Unlike other actors involved in the Iranian nuclear file, Brazil and
“Turkey were two ofthe few states that pressed the Obama admin-
vation to pursue more robust diplomacy rather chan sanctio’
Both are rising regional powers whose new and asserive foreign
policy profiles have fueled the inevitable fevions that emerge be-
tween great and middle powers as the latter seck opportunities to
“ahance their role in international affairs. In the ease of Brazil, ten-Taking Yes foran Answer
sions had been brewing for a few years between Washington and
Brasilia not only over President Lula’s posture in Latin America, but
increasingly over the Middle East in general and Iran in particular
During the Bush administration, Washington witnessed how rela-
tions between Brazil and Iran warmed while the Brazilians became
more vocal in their criticism of U.S. policies in the Middle East. The
USS. embassy in Brasilia regularly sent cables back to Washington
warning of the left-wing Brazilian government's flirtation with Teh-
ran’s anti-imperialist messages. Washington viewed Brasil as unin
formed about the realities of the Middle East, and its many efforts to
sensitize Brasilia had been rebuffed. The Brazilian foreign ministry
felt no need to “ask permission of the United States in carrying out
foreign policy initiatives” and warned that “the United States should
expect more Brazilian statements on Middle East issues.”
Brazil's position on the nuclear issue had given U.S. policy
makers a headache for some time. For several years Brasilia opposed
Washington's efforts to get the IAEA to refer Iran to the Security
Council until the vote within the agency had become a foregone
conclusion by 2006, and it did not support a UN Security Council
vote to condemn Iranian nuclear activities until Iran missed the UN:
mandated deadline for allowing international inspectors to visit sus
pected nuclear facilities. In retrospect, Brazil's foreign minister
Celso Amorim, even expressed regret over that vote. “Today, I doubs
iffwe did the right thing,” he told me, as he contemplated how tha
decision paved the way for the current stalemate. In spite ofthat vote
Lala publicly defended Iran’s record of compliance with the IAEA
and its right to enrichment on numerous occasions. “Iran has the
right to conduct its own experiments provided they are for peacefal
purposes... so far Iran has not committed any crime against the
direction of the United Nations in relation to nuclear weapons.”
At the heart of the matter was Brazil’s own nuclear program
which was more advanced than the Iranian program and did not
receive as much attention from IAEA inspectors. Moreover, the Bra-
zilians feared that UN action on the Iranian nuclear file would set 2