On Iran talks, extension beats confrontation: Our view
One way to look at the year-long effort to negotiate a deal ending Iran's nuclear weapons program, which missed its latest deadline Monday, is the way people saw the attempt to land a man on the moon in the 1960s. Failure is likely, and setbacks are guaranteed, but the potential reward is so great that the only sensible choice is to accept the risks and press on.
If anything, finalizing a deal with Iran is proving to be the tougher task.
After a frenzied weekend attempt to sprint to a finish, negotiators from Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China reluctantly agreed to give themselves seven more months. They're now aiming to have a political framework for an agreement in place by March 1, with scores of technical details to be resolved by July 1.
In the interim, Iran agreed not to enrich any more uranium and to permit continued inspections of its facilities. The U.S. and its allies will maintain economic sanctions on Tehran but let the Iranians tap $700 million a month in confiscated assets.
The idea is to freeze the Iranian program in place while giving moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ammunition to fend off hard-liners eager to scuttle the talks.
Skeptics immediately assailed the extension — the second since Rouhani's election led to a surprise interim agreement a year ago — as a naive attempt to mollify a regime that is stalling for time to build a bomb. But if the critics' concern is well placed, their eagerness to rush toward a confrontation is premature.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, which inspects Iranian facilities, says that Iran has complied with all aspects of the interim agreement. And while negotiators offered few details about what had been achieved during the latest round of talks, all of them suggested that substantial progress had been made —not a small consideration given the diverse interests of the nations involved.
Nevertheless, the obstacles to an agreement remain massive.
Iran's chief negotiator continues to insist on instant and total relief from sanctions without instant and total abandonment of all aspects of Iran's weapons program, and that's just the lead item on a list of demands that are transparently unacceptable.
Further, there still is no evidence that Iran's supreme leader, who has the final say, will accept whatever outcome is negotiated.
On the U.S. side, hard-liners are similarly arguing that complete capitulation, which is unattainable, is the only acceptable outcome. They are readying new sanctions in Congress, which they might push in the new year.
The odds against overcoming so many obstacles are long. For all the risks they took, the Apollo astronauts at least did not have anyone trying to shoot them down.
But the choice is clear: Give up on negotiations and switch to a path that seems to lead rapidly toward military confrontation, or take the small risk — with ample benefit — on unfreezing some Iranian assets and buying negotiators more time to attain an agreement that could remove a deeply troubling nuclear threat and begin to end the 35-year cold war between the U.S. and Iran.
That shouldn't be a hard decision to make.
USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.