Iran: how the West missed a chance to make peace with Tehran

The new US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, is due to make his first visit to Israel on Sunday amid fresh warnings from the country’s leaders that time is running out to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. Here, in a provocative article based on his controversial new book, Peter Oborne shows how the West turned down a precious opportunity to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis eight years ago, and argues that it is western rather than Iranian intransigence that prevents a deal being struck today.

  

It was the early spring of 2005 and a team of British, French and German diplomats were arriving at the magnificent French foreign ministry at the Quai d’Orsay on the left bank of the Seine.

But the splendour of the Second Empire building did not match their mood. The negotiating team, which included the high-flying John Sawers (now Sir John, head of the British Secret Intelligence Service), had been fruitlessly searching for a solution to the Iranian nuclear stand-off for more than a year.

There seemed to be no solution. The European negotiators, under massive pressure from the United States, were adamant that Iran must give up its uranium enrichment programme.

For the Iranians these demands seemed an intolerable humiliation for a sovereign state, and a classic manifestation of the western imperialism that had humiliated their ancient country for centuries.

The meeting had been under way for approximately 20 minutes, with no progress, when suddenly the face of the leader of the Iranian negotiating team, Javad Zarif, was wreathed in smiles.