Israel’s Top Iran Expert: You Can’t Out-Negotiate the Mullahs
Israel’s Top Iran Expert: You Can’t Out-Negotiate the Mullahs – The Daily Beast.
Oct 22, 2012 9:00 AM EDT
Sure, Iran’s open to haggle with the United States about nukes. But there’s no way the nation will ever stop enriching uranium, Israel’s top Iran expert tells Dan Ephron.
Israel’s top Iran expert, a former spy who predicted the downfall of the shah in 1979, has news for President Barack Obama or anyone else hoping to talk Iran out of its nuclear program: forget about out-negotiating the mullahs.
Uri Lubrani, who was Israel’s ambassador to Iran from 1973 to 1978, told The Daily Beast that the Iran’s reported willingness to engage directly with the United States was yet another sign that sanctions were hurting the regime. But he said with dead certainty that Iran would not agree to stop enriching uranium—no matter what incentives it is offered.
His remarks, following a report in The New York Times that Iran had agreed to direct talks with Washington, echoed the skepticism of Israel’s top political officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But they carried more weight and less political baggage coming from Lubrani, who at 86 is among the grand old men of Israeli secret affairs.
“Under no circumstances will this regime divest itself of the nuclear program. They’ve gone much too far on it and been too successful. They’re going to continue with it, no matter what,” Lubrani said in an interview. He said the Iranian leaders he’d met over the years were all highly skilled negotiators who would run circles around American officials.
“They are traders in their tradition. They’re bazaaris. They know how to how to haggle, when to catch an adversary when he’s weak. They’re pros,” Lubrani said.
“It took me a long time to understand this. I developed a gut feeling out of sheer experience. No Ivy League graduate will ever really understand the soul and the tradition and the behavior of the Iranians.”
Lubrani helped spearhead relations between Israel and Iran in the 1970s that included military exchanges, oil deals, and commercial ties. The two countries even worked together on a developing a missile that could carry a nuclear warhead, according to reports.
But after visiting the shah’s lavish resort island of Kish in 1977, Lubrani cautioned Israeli officials at home that the regime had grown so corrupt, its days were numbered, according to various accounts. American officials apparently dismissed his warnings.
When Islamists ousted the shah in a 1979, Iran went from friend of Israel to menacing foe.
The report in The New York Times said Iran had agreed in principle to face-to-face talks but wanted them to start after the U.S. election next month. While administration officials denied a final agreement had been reached, the issue seemed sure to come up in the debate tonight between Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the last one before the elections next month.
Iran says its nuclear program is civilian in nature but international agencies have repeatedly caught the regime hiding key facilities or lying about its uranium enrichment. Netanyahu, reacting to the Times account, said he had heard nothing from Washington about possible talks.
“I have no information about such contacts, and I cannot say whether there is truth in the report,” he said at a public event Sunday. “I can say, though, that Iran has used negotiations to buy time with America.” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he hoped the story was unsubstantiated.
“They are traders in their tradition. They’re bazaaris. They know how to how to haggle.”
“There are 10 years of cumulative experience, and the Iranians have deceived the Security Council and the P5+1 time and time again,” Lieberman said, referring to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.
Netanyahu has long been skeptical about the chances of weaning Iran of its nuclear program through diplomacy, pushing instead for the United States to pledge to use military force if Iran crosses certain red lines. But Lubrani, who continued helping shape Israel’s policy toward Iran in the decades since serving there, believes it would be a mistake to attack the installations. He advocates instead quiet support for Iranian opposition groups that could foment regime change.
Lubrani criticized the Obama administration for failing to sufficiently support Iranian protesters when they rose up against the regime in June 2009. “I don’t believe in a military solution,” Lubrani said in the interview. “I believe the solution is in the people of Iran getting rid of this regime. And the west has to support them.”
WarSclerotic 
October 22, 2012 at 5:36 PM
Iran has been saying for years that it would never give up its right to nuclear research and enrichment. I am flabbergasted that there are still people that think Iran will sooner or later change its mind.
October 22, 2012 at 6:57 PM
I agree almost completly with Lubani.
Where I disagree though is that I think there’s not enough time for regime change to prevent Iran from going nuclear.
Syria has shown that a brutal tyrannical regime, willing to kill its own people can hold on to power for a pretty long time. Time enough to build their bomb.
Thanks to the traitor obama who missed the chance to support the iranian opposition.
Sanctions will not work because they hit first and foremost the Iranian people. There would still be enough money and resources to finish the bomb while the criminal regime would keep the protesting people down by using brutal force.
So the only realistic option is a military one.
October 23, 2012 at 12:19 AM
The political opponents of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are just as much in favor of the nuclear weapons program. This is well documented, through many declarations. And the Shah wanted these weapons just as much. Iran has viewed itself as an empire for thousands of years. Iranians want nuclear weapons to restore their lost prestige. They want to be a first rate World power. No foreign power can change that through negotiations or arming of the opposition. The only solution is to send them back to the Middle Ages with the best weapon available to do that : an EMP. If Israel does not do it, it means nothing has been learned from the history of the rise of Nazism. But psychologically it is difficult to endorse such an attack, to be the first one to give the order to use such a powerful weapon. It was just as difficult for politicians in the 1930s, a decade and a half after the end of the most horrible war ever, to start a new war against Germany. People wanted to keep on enjoying peace as long as possible. Almost no one wanted to break the peace to prevent the next war with Germany to eventually be more horrible than the previous one. Very few people are capable of taking such a decision, unfortunately. Only the great heroes of history. Not your average hedonistic politician. Not your average statesman who wants to be loved and admired for being a man of peace.