The next round of bilateral talks between the U.S. and Russia have been cancelled, and the bilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine are stuck. Pushed out of the news, but not out of Ukraine, Russian troops continue to advance, and Ukrainian soldiers continue to die.
Bilateral talks between the U.S. and Iran that only days ago seemed so promising have now exploded. The U.S. is on the precipice of a war that decades of presidents have tried to prevent and which threatens to destabilize the region.
The tragedy of both wars is that agreements that could be signed with the slightest degree of realism and willingness for peace are waiting on the table.
The promising result of the first round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators was a commitment by both sides to present detailed documents of their vision for a ceasefire at the upcoming round of talks. That promise was deflated when both sides presented visions they knew the other could not accept.
The Ukrainian peace proposal contains at least two points that are nonstarters for Russia. The first is that a “prerequisite for peace negotiations” is a “full and unconditional ceasefire… at least for 30 days.” Russia has firmly and repeatedly rejected this precondition for three reasons. First, having failed by diplomacy to win a written guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO, Russia invaded Ukraine to force that guarantee. Russia is not going to abandon the invasion without securing the guarantee. Secondly, Russia does not want a ceasefire that would simply give Ukraine the gift of 30 days to rest, regroup, rearm and dig trenches simply to return to war in a stronger position. And third, a protracted ceasefire void of a settlement would entrench the conditions that would lead to future war, as happened with the previous ceasefire in Donbas.
The second impossible demand from Ukraine is, in addition to the condition that “no restrictions may be imposed on the number, deployment, or other parameters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the requirement that there be no restrictions “on the deployment of troops of friendly foreign states on the territory of Ukraine.”
The first part is unlikely. Russia has clearly stated that it wants restrictions sufficient to, at a minimum, prevent Ukraine from ever again becoming an anti-Russian bridgehead for the West. They would likely insist on restrictions on long-range weapons, at the least. The second is a nonstarter because Russia has repeatedly made clear that it sees troops from NATO countries on Ukrainian soil as NATO on Ukrainian soil under a different flag.
The Russian peace proposal also contains several points that would be difficult for Ukraine to accept, including abandoning NATO aspirations, limits on their armed forces, guaranteeing the rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine and Russian as an official language, legislation terminating glorification of neo-Nazism and the dissolution of nationalist organizations, and holding elections within 100 days. Many of these, including the most important ones, may not be impossible for Ukraine, and some of the key ones have been agreed to before.
At least one Russian demand, though, is a nonstarter for Ukraine. Russia demands the “complete withdrawal” of the Ukrainian armed forces from Donbas “and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.” Though Ukraine may be able to accept withdrawal of their forces from these regions absent formally recognizing their annexation by Russia, in an earlier section on “Key Parameters for a Definitive Settlement,” the Russian proposal specifies “International legal recognition of the incorporation into the Russian Federation of Crimea, the LPR, the DPR, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions; full withdrawal from these territories of Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
Ukraine will never recognize Russia’s annexation of land that it still controls, nor would even most of Russia’s partners in the Global South.
A second option allowed by Russia is a “[p]rohibition on redeployment of AFU [Ukrainian armed forces],… Cessation of mobilization [and] cessation of foreign supplies of military products and foreign military assistance to Ukraine.”
This option has no greater chance of acceptance. Ukraine will not agree to suspend its armed forces, and Europe will not agree to abandon Ukraine without military supplies or assistance.
Russian and Ukrainian terms have not progressed, they have regressed to incompatible maximalist positions. The only hope remaining is that both sides have adopted a negotiating strategy of presenting their maximum positions first to allow room for negotiations. Compromises will have to be made. Ukraine will have to face the facts on the ground. They will have to agree to neutrality and abandon any hope of joining NATO. They will not recover all of their land. And they will have to guarantee the protection of the rights of the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine. The Russians must—and suggested they could—give up the impossible demand that Ukraine withdraw its troops from land it still controls, and it will have to agree to a Ukrainian military that is still capable of defending Ukraine.
The negotiations between the U.S. and Iran also began with promise. They progressed through five rounds of talks that both sides evaluated as positive. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the fifth round of talks “has strengthened the possibility of achieving progress.” The U.S. called the fifth round of talks “constructive” and said that, though “there is still work to be done,” “further progress” was made.
Then the talks blew up. President Donald Trump, who was elected on a promise of being “a peacemaker” whose success would be measured by “the wars we never get into,” succumbed to resurrected pressures from his first term and undermined the talks with a maximalist demand of zero uranium enrichment. This requirement could not advance negotiations, it could only cause a war. American officials and negotiators know that Iran will never agree to zero enrichment.
As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has “the inalienable right” to a civilian program that uses nuclear energy “for peaceful purposes.” To be discriminated against as the only member state of the non-proliferation community to be denied the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes would be a national humiliation for a nation that has spent so much and paid so dearly to develop its program and exercise this right.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian insists that “Iran has never sought, is not seeking, and will never seek nuclear weapons” but that “Iran will not give up its peaceful nuclear rights.” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei has insisted that this right will never be surrendered under his leadership. The former Iranian nuclear negotiator, Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, recently told The American Conservative that “Iran will not dismantle its enrichment facilities under any circumstances.”
If there is any hope of stopping the war in Iran before it gets much worse and spreads much further, it could come from two directions, both of which involve expanding participation in the solution to other countries.
Though much of the hard work that led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was done behind the scenes in bilateral talks between the U.S. and Iran, the talks succeeded because a wider community, including Russia, France, Germany, and China took part. On June 18, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and the UK announced that they would be meeting with Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in Geneva on Friday. The announcement is promising because the talks are “taking place in coordination with the United States” and, most importantly, because the goal of the talks seems to be a return to the realistic and possible demand that Iran “firmly guarantee[s] that it will use its nuclear programme solely for civilian purposes.”
Iran has always said it would agree to that demand. After the bombing of Iran had begun, Iran still insisted, “We are prepared for any agreement aimed at ensuring Iran does not pursue nuclear weapons,” maintaining only that they cannot agree to any deal that “deprives Iran of its nuclear rights.”
International involvement could happen, not only at the level of negotiations, but at the level of the outcome. A solution has been floated that Iran either suggested itself or is open to that could resolve the paradox of the U.S. demand that Iran not be able to enrich uranium and the Iranian insistence that it will never abandon its right to enrich uranium.
The idea is that Iran join an enrichment consortium of nations, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran would be able to enrich uranium, as it insists, but could not enrich it alone, per U.S. insistence. Components of the enrichment process would be spread across countries with each sharing all but none fully possessing all. Iran could have its enriched uranium, but Iran could not fully enrich uranium.
The Princeton physicist Frank von Hippel explained to TAC that a consortium has the advantage of allowing nuclear experts from each country to “visit each other’s facilities to assure themselves that the activities are peaceful.”
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Other details being discussed that are intended to address American concerns while still accommodating Iranian priorities include letting Iran enrich but not on its own soil. Iran would build centrifuges and ship them to a partner consortium country where Iranian technicians would operate them. Another idea being discussed is building the enrichment facility on an island in the Persian Gulf. Iran could require that the island be one of theirs, allowing the U.S. to assert that uranium is not being enriched on Iranian soil, while Iran can insist that it is.
Having the enrichment facility on an island would have the added advantage to the Americans of being more visible than facilities deep under the ground like the one at Fordow. For Iran, that would invite the concern that it could be more easily attacked. One way to address that concern would be to, once again, broaden the involvement of the international community. Russia, which is trusted by both Iran and Israel, has offered to be a part, not only of the negotiations, but of the enriched uranium solution as well. It could also be included in the consortium. Even the U.S. could be part of the consortium. That would give Iran the security that an attack on the enrichment facility would also be an attack on the U.S. or Russia.
In both the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and the United States and Iran, all sides know that only one outcome is possible. Russia must receive a written guarantee that NATO will not expand to Ukraine, and Iran must receive guarantees of its NPT right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. In both negotiations, workable agreements are on the table. In both cases, realism and a willingness for peace must prevail—or else two terrible, and solvable, wars will rage on.
