Is it time for the lawyers to go home?

Remember how Barack Obama reserves the right to ignore international standards in defending his nation?

To begin with, I believe that all nations - strong and weak alike - must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I - like any head of state - reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards strengthens those who do, and isolates - and weakens - those who don't.

"Standards" such as the UN Charter, a binding treaty that the US ratified and whose negotiation the United States played the leading role in directing, that prohibits unauthorized attacks on other nations. Here is Article 2, part 4:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

What is legal and what is not legal is often a very interesting question. So interesting that it is possible to ignore more important questions in favor of this one that sometimes is not the most important consideration.

The important questions regarding Iran's nuclear program are how many centrifuges is the West willing to accept, and how large a stock of LEU is the West willing to accept on Iranian soil. The conflict can be resolved if Iran and the West come to an agreement on these two questions, possibly combined with incentives such as reducing sanctions already in place and will not be resolved before these two questions are answered.

We've reached the point where even if Iran's nuclear program is the most illegal activity ever carried out by a nation in human history, the benefits to the nation of the program vastly outweigh, vastly, any consequence the US can arrange for Iran to be forced to pay for it. As Iran's nuclear capability stabilizes, Iran becomes immune to threats of foreign attack or invasion. Because of how virtual weapons work, Iran will never have to build a weapon. Knowing Iran could build a weapon will prevent the US from acting in a way that could invite the crisis it would take to cause Iran to exercise its weapon option. This deterrence will remain even after Iran loses its huge current deterrence when the US sheds its vulnerabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Legal arguments can be made back and forth. Even before Barack Obama's proud announcement, during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, that probably the single most important international law of the last century is a "standard" to be ignored at his discretion in the name of protecting his country from hypothetical threats that only he evaluates, these arguments have seemed to ignore important realities. What if Iran's program is illegal, but sanctions and military attacks just would not work to prevent the program from reaching its goal? When legality or illegality does not make a practical difference, we're done with the lawyers. They can go home now.

One interesting idea to keep in mind is that a team of Western negotiators from 2009 would very easily come to an agreement with a team of Iranian negotiators from 2006. The 2006 Iranian negotiators would have been very happy with caps of fewer than five hundred centrifuges and less than 300 kg of LEU for maybe the next ten years, at which point it would be possible for the deal to be renewed.

The ground has been steadily shifting in Iran's favor ever since then. And importantly the sanctions and other measures taken against Iran have created a sense on the Iranian side that it has earned, and paid for, its advances to this point. I can fairly safely project that a team of 2013 Western negotiators would jump at holding Iran's LEU stock under one ton, and limit Iran's enrichment to fewer than four thousand centrifuges all at one facility.

But instead of facing a 2009 Iranian negotiating team, which probably would accept that offer, the 2013 Western negotiators will face 2013 Iranian negotiators who will feel that the delays in Bushehr and in the S-300s and the trade, energy and investment deals the US interfered with were an investment Iran was forced to make for a more capable nuclear program, that Iran by then will not be willing to relinquish.

So instead, Western negotiators are going to try to engage Iran in a debate about whether or not it is legal to plan tests on technology in nuclear weapons. Then they'll engage Iran in a debate about unsourced documents, and how they impact the legal obligations of IAEA members. Meanwhile they'll stumble forward until they find themselves in 2013 when they'll feel very generous offering that Iran revert to its 2009 nuclear program, which Iran will reject.

The question of what is legal or not is no longer an interesting question, but if Western analysts want to keep asking it, I guess that's in the long term better for Iran.