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Anyone banking on a big-win breakthrough in Wednesday'snuclear talks with Iran will likely find themselves in the same boat as investors who beton an instant surge in the Facebook stock price last week. If there's value to be found innuclear negotiations with Iran, then like an investment inFacebook it's likely to emerge over time. And in bothcases, even the long-term outcome remains uncertain. Officials on both sides seem to be tamping down expectations aheadof the meeting in Baghdad. "If we talk substantively onelements of a deal and agree to meet again in three weeks, Baghdadwill have been a success," a senior U.S. official told al-Monitor on Monday. The spin ahead of the talks in recentweeks has been positive almost too positive for diplomats, whonaturally prefer diminished expectations. At home, Iran'sleaders are proclaiming a great victory in the willingness ofWestern powers to negotiate while Iran continues to enrich uranium,suggesting that they're preparing their public for acompromised deal that will be sold as a great victory. The Westernnarrative paints Iran's willingness to negotiate as aconsequence of ever tightening economic sanctions, implying thatsuch pressure must be maintained to curb its nuclear ambitions. ( MORE: Why Tehran Might Be Ready to Talk ) There are some positive signs: Sunday's talks in Tehranbetween IAEA chief Yukiya Amano and Iran's nuclear negotiatorSaeed Jalili appear to have yielded an in-principle agreement, notyet inked or finalized, to expand the nuclear-watchdogagency's access to sensitive sites in Iran. Amano, who hastaken a tough line in dealing with Iran, was upbeat, expecting asigned agreement "quite soon." But the IAEA talks arethe undercard to the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (theU.S., France , Britain, Germany, Russia and China). Even if they improve theatmosphere for the Baghdad meeting, a breakdown between Iran andthe P5+1 would likely imperil any progress made by the IAEA. Then again, Wednesday's talks in the Iraqi capital a venuechosen by Iran are not an all-or-nothing affair. Lastweekend's G-8 summit communique called on Iran to use theopportunity to engage "in detailed discussions aboutnear-term, concrete steps that can, through a step-by-step approachbased on reciprocity, lead toward a comprehensive negotiatedsolution, which restores international confidence that Iran'snuclear program is exclusively peaceful." In other words, theworld powers see the Baghdad talks as part of a diplomatic process likely to unfold in the coming weeks, aimed at creating asustainable momentum of concrete steps to peacefully resolve thestandoff. In Baghdad, the two sides will lay down their opening bids todefine the sequence of reciprocal steps required to break thedeadlock and create diplomatic momentum. And, obviously, they willpresent substantially different ideas of the steps each shouldtake, and in what sequence. Bridging the gaps via workable interimproposals may take many more weeks or months of negotiation. ( MORE: Political Pressure Mounts Ahead of Iran Nuclear Talks ) The immediate focus of the P5+1 appears to be on haltingIran's enrichment of uranium to 20% purity, a process that isostensibly undertaken to create fuel for a medical-research reactorin Tehran, but which is substantially closer to weapons-gradematerial, by measure of reprocessing time, than the 3.5% uraniumIran was enriching for reactor fuel. Western powers will reportedlycall on Iran to verifiably halt 20% enrichment and ship abroad itsstockpile of such for conversion into fuel rods (which aredifficult to turn into weapons-grade material). They'llspecifically ask Iran to halt work at Fordow, the hardened facilitybuilt into a mountainside near Qom, where 20% enrichment has beenunder way since January. The site has been of particular concern tothe Israelis, who fear it may be beyond the reach of their airforce. A number of senior Iranian officials, past and present, haveindicated that Iran would be willing to do a deal over 20%enrichment, although whether and on what terms they'd meetall the demands laid out above remain to be seen. But what wouldIran get in exchange for a deal to halt 20% enrichment? There liesthe rub. Iranian leaders have made clear that Tehran sees the quidpro quo for doing so as an easing of sanctions, particularly themeasures aimed at choking off Iran's oil exports due to takeeffect on July 1. "If those sanctions kick in, why wouldIran make a deal now?" Carnegie Endowment for InternationalPeace analyst George Perkovich told NPR on Tuesday. "They won't. I think they'd justsay, Well, hell, if you're going to punish us in any case,then why should I concede anything? So agreeing to suspend thosesanctions will be a very important factor for Iran." ButU.S. officials are stressing that concessions on 20% enrichmentwon't be sufficient to ease sanctions pressure. "Justhope the Iranians are not deluding themselves [that] they are goingto get sanctions relief now, said the U.S. official who spoke toal-Monitor. "That's not going to happen at thisstage." ( MORE: Israel Sets Tough Demands for Next Round of Iran Talks ) Sanctions have been Washington's most important form ofleverage over Iran, and it's unlikely to trade them away inexchange for interim agreements this early in the game. Thestep-by-step reciprocity approach, fashioned originally by theRussians, would require that the two sides agree on verifiablesteps to make such moves gradual, but political pressures are suchthat the Obama Administration may not have the flexibility it mayneed to openly ease sanctions. Many of the U.S. measures have beenimposed by Congress, which takes a dim view of nuclear compromisewith Iran. And trying to reverse any pressure on Iran in anelection year may prove challenging, particularly whenIsrael's leaders are openly skeptical of the diplomaticprocess. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that the bottom line forsuccess is nothing less than agreement on the dismantling ofIran's uranium-enrichment capabilities, even to 3.5%.It's highly unlikely that Iran would agree to give up itsright as a nonproliferation-treaty signatory to enrich uranium forpeaceful purposes, and it doesn't appear that it'sbeing asked to do so by the P5+1. Still, expect Israel to push backfiercely against any move to relax sanctions pressure on Iran onthe basis of interim agreements and also to try to set deadlineson diplomacy lest the Iranians use the process to simply buy time. European leaders and diplomats appear to be searching formechanisms to bridge the gap between what Iran expects if it givesup 20% enrichment and what Obama will politically be able to give.There's talk in Europe of delaying the implementation of someof the oil-related sanctions due to take effect in July, andallowing de facto work-arounds on some of the financial sanctionstargeting Iran's banking sector all conditional onprogress toward implementing confidence-building measures. But theE.U.'s consensus-based decisionmaking make that moredifficult too. Nobody is expecting a deal in Baghdad beyond another round of talksto be held within a matter of weeks. Nor are Western negotiatorsunaware of the pitfalls of an open-ended process that doesn'tsubstantially alter the status quo. The key to meaningfulprogress may depend less on trust and accord, as much as it will bebased on the shared sense that the alternative to a peacefulsolution may be too ghastly to contemplate. MORE: 5 Tips for President Obama on Nuclear Negotiations with Iran. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Digital Metal Detector , China Bulletproof Products for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Walk Through Metal Detector.
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