Matthew Kroenig: Apply more pressure on Iran

USA TODAY

By Matthew Kroenig

An extension of the international negotiations with Iran may be better than the talks breaking down altogether, but an indefinite string of extensions does not make for a sound long-term strategy.

Continued extensions leave Iran as a nuclear weapons threshold state, raising the risk that Iran eventually builds nuclear weapons. In addition, even if Iran never builds nuclear weapons, its current capability causes severe challenges for global non-proliferation efforts, Middle Eastern security and human rights inside Iran.

If we were prepared to live with this situation, we could simply declare the status quo to be a "comprehensive" deal and be done with the matter. But we are not. The temporary deal struck last year was never meant to be permanent.

Moreover, extensions on their own don't get us any closer to a final deal. The failure of diplomacy to date has not been the result of insufficient time. The diplomats have been at it for over a year. The problem is that Iran's supreme leader is not yet ready to make the necessary concessions.

The solution, therefore, is to bring more pressure to bear on Iran. We could immediately slap tougher sanctions on Iran, but Iran might use this as a pretext to walk away from the talks, and many would (wrongly) blame the U.S. Congress, not Iran, for diplomacy's failure.

This would be problematic because international support will be required for the continued success of the sanctions regime and for possible tougher measures down the road.

Rather than additional sanctions, therefore, the Obama administration and Congress must make it clear to Iran and to our international partners that July 1 is a firm deadline. There will be no more extensions.

Iran has several months to make a hard decision, and if it does not, the international community will impose the harshest remaining sanctions on Iran. With the option of another extension off the table and the no-deal path looking increasingly unattractive, this approach offers our best hope of getting Iran's supreme leader to place verifiable curbs on his nuclear program.

Matthew Kroenig is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, a Senior Fellow in the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at The Atlantic Council, a former adviser on Iran policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the author of A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat.