Make Iran deal because sanctions won’t work: New York Times journalist

New York Times journalist and writer Roger Cohen says the United States and its European allies must reach a comprehensive agreement with Iran over its nuclear program because sanctions against the Islamic Republic will not work.

Cohen wrote in his article, titled Iran Matters Most, published by the Times on Tuesday that “an Iranian nuclear accord lasting at least a decade that ring-fences a fiercely monitored and strictly limited enrichment program… is not an ideal outcome, but it is the best conceivable outcome of protracted talks” between Iran and the P5+1 – the US, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany.  

Top officials from Iran and the P5+1 are engaged in intense negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland, to reach a comprehensive deal on the Islamic Republic’s civilian nuclear program as a self-imposed end-March deadline for reaching a mutual understanding over outstanding nuclear issues approaches. However, the two sides have set July 1 as the deadline for a final agreement.

Cohen argued the two sides must work out a deal since “the alternatives are far worse. Centrifuges and enrichment levels would resume their upward curve. War drums would beat again despite the fact that calls to attack Iran are an irresponsible invitation to disaster.”

He said that “American or Israeli bombs on Persia (or both) would have all sorts of ghastly consequences, but the fundamental argument against such folly is that they would cause no more than a hiccup in Iran’s nuclear program before spurring it to renewed and unmonitored intensity.”

Cohen, who has worked as a foreign correspondent in fifteen different countries, criticized opponents of a nuclear accord with Iran, saying they have “offered no serious alternatives.”

“Only elementary knowledge of Iran is needed to know that sanctions will never bring this proud nation to its knees. It would rather starve than cave,” wrote the widely traveled journalist, who was born in London in 1955 to a Jewish family.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told a CNN correspondent in Lausanne on Monday that he and his global counterparts were working hard to resolve "tricky issues" obstructing a nuclear agreement with Iran.

"There still remain some difficult issues. We are working very hard to work those through. We are working late into the night and obviously into tomorrow," Kerry said.

Last week, Kerry defended the US policy of continuing nuclear negotiations with Iran, saying if Washington walks away from the talks, the sanctions against the Islamic Republic will not hold.

Speaking on Wednesday to senior US diplomats in Washington, Kerry warned critics that a failure of the nuclear talks with Tehran would lead to the collapse of the current "sanctions regime" against the country, “because those other people who deem the plan to be reasonable will walk away and say, ‘You do your thing, we’ll do ours. You’re not willing to be reasonable, we’re going to do what we think is reasonable.’”

The illegal sanctions on Iran have been imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Tehran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

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