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Fatwa diplomacy

President Obama mentioned Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei’s fatwa against nuclear weapons in his speech last week at the United Nations General Assembly:

Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, and President Rouhani has just recently reiterated that the Islamic Republic will never develop a nuclear weapon.

This naturally brought joy to Iranian hardliners and disdain from American hardliners.  Mike Doran tweeted:

US intel uncovered a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Therefore, the fatwa is baloney.

What are the merits and demerits of this fatwa, which is a legal opinion or ruling by an Islamic scholar?

It seems clear that a written text of the original fatwa has never been published.  The most authoritative early reference to it appears to be an Iranian statement at the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2005:

The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the fatwa that the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons.

Thus the fatwa has meaning for the Iranian government, but there is no reason for the American government to regard it as any better than a unilateral statement of Iran’s intentions, albeit at a high level.  It is not an internationally binding commitment.  Nor is it a commitment that can be verified by international inspection.

Someone in Iran was working on nuclear weapons when the effort was suspended in 2003.  But the fatwa, whatever it says or doesn’t say, was issued after that, so Mike’s argument is illogical.  The fatwa would be baloney only if it had been issued before the program was uncovered, not afterwards.  All the blather about taqiyya, the Islamic doctrine of dissembling  is really irrelevant.*  Sure the Supreme Leader might be lying, and then again he might have made a serious commitment that he intends to keep.  We really don’t know.

The Administration is not relying on the fatwa.  What it is trying to do is use the fatwa as a bridge to a more solid and verifiable commitment.  This is good negotiating technique, not gullibility.  If my enemy is willing to say out loud what I would like him to say, I’d be a fool not to start with that and see if I can get it in writing with the kind of inspections that would give me confidence the commitment is being kept.

Of course those who are convinced the Iranians will never keep such a commitment no matter how tight the verification and don’t want the Administration even to start down this road, for fear the negotiation will provide time and cover for Iran to proceed with its nefarious intent.  Some prefer a military solution.  Others are prepared to live with containment, if negotiation fails.

Neither one meets my criterion for a satisfactory outcome:  a more peaceful world than the one we live in now.  I don’t want to live in a world where Iran is a nuclear power, or bombed back to the stone age.  The former is a very dangerous world, because Israel would not only target a nuclear Iran but would launch on warning.  With a very short transit time (10 minutes?) and no reliable communications between Tehran and Jerusalem, the odds of nuclear war would be higher than any of us would find comfortable.  Bombing Iran back to the stone age is pretty much what you’d have to do to prevent them from reconstituting their nuclear program and redoubling their efforts after an initial military attack, even if it were successful.

The fatwa has no value in and of itself.  It only has value if the Iranians will put it in writing and make a serious, irreversible and verifiable commitment.  That’s what fatwa diplomacy should aim to do.

*I’ve decided an earlier version of this post with a reference to Kol Nidre was erroneous and disputable.  So I’ve removed it.  Credit to @JeffreyGoldberg for calling me out on this.