The exchanges through 2013 helped build the foundation for the first direct talks between the two nations since the 1979 Islamic revolution, current and former U.S. officials involved in the diplomacy said.
Clandestine meetings between U.S. and Iranian officials that started three years ago in Oman’s capital, Muscat, have yielded negotiations that aim to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for removal of international sanctions. Negotiations here on a final agreement will continue past Tuesday’s deadline, officials said Sunday.
“Oman played a key role in facilitating the back channel between the United States and Iran that helped lead to the diplomacy taking place right now on the nuclear issue,” said Marie Harf, a senior adviser for strategic communications at the State Department.
Origins of the current diplomacy reveal a pattern of inducements offered by Washington to coax Tehran to the table, a tactic balanced by international sanctions on Iran’s energy, finance and transportation sectors that have cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars.
With a deal in sight, some worry the U.S. will give up too much without getting significant concessions in return. The Obama administration initially called for an end to Tehran’s nuclear fuel production, a dismantling of many of its facilities and a rollback of its missile program—goals that have been dropped.
The long-term impact of a nuclear deal on U.S.-Iranian relations and the broader Middle East is still under debate at the White House.
Some U.S. officials say an accord could moderate Tehran’s revolutionary government and reopen it to the West. Iranian President Hasan Rouhani took office in 2013 pledging to integrate his country into the global economy and ease its repressive political system. Mr. Rouhani has championed nuclear diplomacy, and some U.S. officials say he will be strengthened politically by a deal.
Others in the Obama administration, and leaders in Israel and the Arab states, see the deal as a payoff—Tehran temporarily curbs its nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Mr. Obama has said Iran could recoup as much as $150 billion in frozen assets in the months after a deal.
A reconstruction of the past six years of U.S.-Iranian diplomacy, based on exclusive interviews with officials directly involved from the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, offers supporting evidence for both views.
Seeking an advantage
Tehran has repeatedly used its exchanges with the U.S. to barter for tactical and monetary gains, said U.S. and Arab officials briefed on the talks.
In July 2009, for example, Iran arrested three American hikers on espionage charges after they had inadvertently crossed into Iran from Iraq. Tehran then amplified demands for the release of its own citizens from U.S. jails, including those on the wish list, current and former U.S. officials said. Iran continues to hold at least three other Americans, including a Washington Post reporter.
Iranian officials involved in the nuclear talks have fixated on gaining immediate sanctions relief, U.S. and European officials said, underscoring the quid pro quo nature of the diplomacy.
“The Iran deal was never really about the transformation of the regime or its behavior,” said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department envoy now at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. “It was always a transactional deal to avoid war, buy time, defuse the nuclear issue and test the possibility, however remote, that Iran might be enlisted as a partner.”
Over the past six years, U.S. allies in the Mideast say, Iran has expanded its influence in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Now, they say, Tehran is set to maintain much of its nuclear infrastructure, while scoring an economic windfall.
“This agreement might backfire,” said Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s energy minister, who voiced concern that releasing Iran from sanctions would mean more money flowing into “destabilizing activities in the region.”
White House proponents of the deal, on the other hand, said the past six years of engagement has reduced tensions and opened the door to possible cooperation in the future—against Islamic State, for example. The proposed deal would cap Iran’s nuclear program for at least a decade, allow aggressive facility inspections and reduce Tehran’s stockpile of nuclear materials, they said.
Mr. Obama entered office in 2009 committed to addressing the Iranian nuclear threat through diplomacy rather than military force, current and former U.S. officials said. He sent letters calling for talks to Iran’s most powerful official, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr. Obama dialed down Washington’s rhetorical attacks. And in a Persian New Year’s message to the Iranian people that March, Mr. Obama referred to their country as the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” the first U.S. president to do so.
Mr. Khamenei had a lukewarm response, according to former U.S. officials who saw one of the cleric’s written messages. Then Oman’s U.K.-educated monarch, Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, secretly offered to help the White House establish a back channel with Iran. Oman and Iran have long-standing cultural and financial ties.
An early step was the presentation by Tehran to the White House, via Oman, of the confidence-building steps, said officials briefed on the matter. The list was aimed at addressing Mr. Khamenei’s long-held belief that the U.S. sought to overthrow his regime, according to two people who viewed it.
In November 2010, the State Department sanctioned a Pakistan-based militant group, called Jundullah, which had attacked Shiite mosques and military installations in eastern Iran, killing hundreds.
Iranian officials, including Mr. Khamenei, had accused the Central Intelligence Agency of supporting the organization, which Washington denied. Blacklisting Jundullah was a way to confront a terrorist organization and signal positive intentions by the White House, current and former U.S. officials said.
“We wanted to say, ‘If there’s openness on your part, there’s openness on ours,’” said a former senior administration official involved in the decision.
The Iranians also raised concerns about two opposition groups, a pro-monarchy organization based in Los Angeles, called Tondar, and the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which the U.S. had already designated a terrorist organization at the time. The administration didn’t respond to that request, current and former U.S. officials said.
But Iranian students eventually got a break. In September 2011, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a “virtual embassy,” allowing Iran to facilitate visas and student-exchange programs. Iranians had complained, via Oman, that U.S. universities were discriminating against their students.
U.S. officials said they didn’t see the move as a favor to Tehran; it could increase pressure on Mr. Khamenei by exposing young Iranians to the West. “The United States has no argument with you,” Mrs. Clinton said in Persian-language TV interviews that month with the British Broadcasting Corp. and Voice of America, targeting Iranians. “We want to support your aspirations.”
While Mr. Obama has been president, the number of Iranian students at U.S. colleges has more than doubled, surpassing 10,000, according to the nonprofit Institute of International Education.
Tehran, meanwhile, increased calls on the U.S. through the Oman channel to release more than a dozen Iranian nationals held in the U.S. and Europe, many on arms-related charges.
A special envoy for Oman’s Sultan Qaboos, a U.S.-educated businessman and diplomat named Salem ben Nasser al Ismaily, brokered the 2011 release of the three American hikers, in part, by paying bonds of nearly $500,000 each. Sultan Qaboos put up the money, U.S. and Arab officials said.
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