Thread by @tparsi

/THREAD/ Won’t lie, tremendously honored to receive this recognition from Chomsky.

But more importantly, Chomsky is right that between the official sanctions narrative on Iran and the one I present in Losing an Enemy, there’s no serious scholarship behind the official line. >>

The official line essentially says that Obama sanctioned Iran till they begged for mercy and agreed to negotiate. Then, despite the sanctions remaining in place, the Iranians were so desperate for sanctions relief that it took almost three years to reach a deal (!!??) >>

Thus, had it not been for sanctions, the JCPOA would never have come about and only war could have stopped Iran from getting a nuke. The sanctions were, the official line goes, “essential leverage.” >>

On the surface, this may seem plausible. But only on the surface. The more you dig, the more the narrative falls apart. >>

First of all, while the US sanctioned Iran, Tehran retaliated by doubling down on its nuclear program. If sanctions were leverage for the US, centrifuges and enrichment were leverage for Iran. >>

By Jan 2013, Obama realized that he couldn't sanction Iran faster than Iran could build centrifuges. If he continued on the sanctions-only path, he would not succeed in crippling Iran’s economy before Iran became a de facto nuclear power. >>

Thus, if nothing changed, the sanctions policy was leading to two bad options: Either accept a nuclear Iran - or go to war.

There was only one way to get out of this bind: Serious diplomacy in which the US would accept Iran’s red line (enrichment) up front. >>

That’s what happened in March 2013 in Oman. The US and Iran met in secret and for the first time, the US offered to accept enrichment on Iranian soil under strict restrictions. The zero-enrichment objective was officially shelved. >>

Though Obama had planned to play that card, it was supposed to be used at the end of the negotiation since it was the US’s most valuable bargaining chip. Now, Obama had to play it at the very outset to get talks going - precisely because sanctions didn’t work. >>

Thus, it was American FLEXIBILITY that elicited Iranian flexibility. Not American coercive power that begot Iranian submission. >>

But weren’t sanctions needed to get Iran to this point? Very little evidence to suggest that. Everyone knew that as long as the US insisted on zero-enrichment, Iran would not budge. All the proposals Iran put forward were premised on the US accepting enrichment. >>

Had the US played this card earlier, or responded to earlier Iranian proposals, a better deal could have been reached because less time would have been wasted on the sanctions vs centrifuges game that only saw the Iranian program grow and grow. >>

When Obama took office, Iran had 8000 centrifuges. By the time the JPOA was signed, Iran had 22,000. In 2003, Iran gave a negotiation offer when it only had 164 centrifuges. Bush refused to engage. In 2005, Iran offered to stop at 3,000. Again, no response. >>

The US refused to engage because it thought sanctioning Iran into oblivion would get it a better deal - perhaps even Iran’s capitulation and zero-enrichment. Instead, Iran’s program grew and "better deals" that could have been achieved were lost. >>

As one senior Obama official said at a meeting at the White House during the JCPOA negotiations: "We are always chasing the deal we could have gotten two years ago!" >>

It’s essential that the US doesn't drink its own Kool-aid on sanctions going forward in talks with Iran, particularly if the JCPOA is revived and new diplomacy begins on add-on agreements.>>

If it does, the US will once again lose time and be forced to settle for a deal that is suboptimal compared to what it could’ve achieved had it from the outset banked on the give-and-take of diplomacy rather than the coercive illusions of sanctions.//