What would that entail? Virtually all the proposals that have come from outside experts suggest that the P5+1 begin with modest confidence-building measures, especially in the period before the election. A recent report by the Arms Control Association enumerates several of them. Western diplomats, for example, could take up Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's foreign minister, on his proposal to limit the "extent" of enrichment -- i.e., well below 20 percent -- in exchange for fuel rods for the research reaction and a recognition of Iran's "right to enrich," a notional concept the United States already supports under specified conditions. Or Iran could suspend 20-percent enrichment in exchange for a suspension of new sanctions. But Iran is unlikely to accept even such small steps unless it felt that additional moves would win additional explicit concessions.
Beyond that, the outlines of what in Middle East peacemaking is known as "final status" are clear enough: Iran agrees to verifiable inspections to ensure that it does not enrich uranium beyond 3.5 percent and does not pursue a nuclear weapons program, while the West accepts Iran's "right to enrich" and dismantles sanctions. Of course, the outlines of a Middle East peace deal are clear enough, too. But in both cases, neither side trusts the other, and each demands that the other go first. Instead, nobody goes anywhere.
U.S. officials have very good reason to be wary of Iran's bona fides. In 2009, they reached a deal with Iranian negotiators to send the stockpile of highly enriched uranium out of the country -- only to see the ayatollah repudiate it. As Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert with the Council on Foreign Relations puts it, "Khamenei has created a politics where it's hard for him to compromise." But so has the United States. Anyone who watched Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing knows that it is an article of faith in Congress -- and pretty much a bipartisan one -- that Iran is a faithless, illegitimate terrorist state that will be deterred from building a bomb only by the threat of massive attack. Had Hagel been foolish enough to suggest that the United States offer to reduce sanctions in exchange for Iranian concessions, the White House would have had to find a new candidate for defense secretary.
It's the U.S. Congress that arguably holds the high cards, though the White House put them in its hands. The most potent sanctions are legislated, and have been written in such a way that they will be very hard to unwind. Obama can waive them for up to six months. But the ayatollah is not about to make irreversible decisions in exchange for six months of relief.
The White House is thus stuck between Tehran and Capitol Hill. And it can't live long with the current stalemate. After all, Obama has said that "containment" is not an option. He is hoping that the combination of economic pain and fear of military action will bring Tehran to its senses. If it doesn't, the president has said that he is prepared to use force. Perhaps he feels that just as spurned engagement served as the predicate for tough sanctions, so would failed negotiations lay the predicate for a broadly supported strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran left us no choice, he might say, as the bombers fly.
That would constitute a diplomatic triumph ... if a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities is a good idea. If in fact it's a dreadful prospect -- worse, perhaps, even than containment -- then it would constitute a failure that would obliterate the record of adroit diplomacy of the last four years. Obama understands very well -- even if many members of Congress do not -- that even our worst adversaries have interests of their own, that those interests feel as legitimate to them as ours do to us, and that we at least have a chance of settling disputes with them if we can find the place where our interests overlap. The time has come for him to apply that wisdom to Iran.
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