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Crisis heightens Iran's
divisions
By Safa Haeri
PARIS - Iran's ayatollahs have never had such a
crisis with the international community in their 25
years of rule, says Sadeq Saba, a senior analyst on
Iranian affairs, commenting on the spat between the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
and Tehran over the Islamic republic's nuclear programs.
The crisis erupted when the 35-member board of
governors of the United Nations nuclear watchdog on
September 12 approved, without voting, though, a
resolution presented by Australia, Canada and Japan that
urged Iran to sign "immediately and unconditionally"
additional protocols to the Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) and stop "at once" all its uranium enriching
activities, although a deadline of October 31 was set.
At the very center of the row sits Iran's
declared - and undeclared - nuclear projects, which the
United States and Israel, now joined by the European
Union, insist have a military finality: to destroy
Israel.
For its part, Tehran, supported by
Russia, the country that is engaged in the construction
of Iran's first nuclear-powered electricity plant,
reiterates that all its atomic projects, under
construction and in the future, are strictly for
peaceful purposes and civilian use. Russia is assisting
with the construction of a light-water nuclear reactor
near the city of Bushehr. Moscow has apparently agreed
to provide fuel for the reactor, with the condition that
Iran sign an agreement to return the spent fuel.
The Iranians go even further in declaring that
Islam, the religion on which the present Iranian
political system is based, prohibits the possession of
atomic weapons. But they do not explain that if this is
true, how come Pakistan has been able to become the
first Islam-based nation to build a bomb. Neither,
obviously, can they back up this claim from the
centuries-old Koran.
Analysts and observers say
that while officials in the government of Iranian
President Mohammed Khatami, who assure that Iran's
nuclear projects are not for military use, are sincere,
they have no more information than ordinary people of
the exact magnitude of the regime's military setup,
which is entirely in the hands of selected officers,
most of them unknown, or little known, to the general
public.
"Having in mind the bombing of Iraq's
nuclear center by Israel [in 1981], Iran's military
strategists have scattered the country's sensitive and
strategic installations, mostly the atomic ones, all
over the country, hidden deep in mountainous regions,"
one former Iranian military expert explained.
The protocols that the IAEA would like to see
Iran sign would allow international atomic inspectors
and experts unrestricted access to all Iranian nuclear
sites, at will, without any conditions. (However, Pierre
Goldschmidt, the Belgian deputy to IAEA head Mohammad
El-Bradeh'i said last week that his boss' recent warning
over Iran's nuclear programs, and chiefly its uranium
enriching activities, were the central issue, not
signing the protocols.)
During a trip to Iran
earlier this year, IAEA inspectors found traces of
weapons-grade uranium and signs of other questionable
nuclear activity, leading the agency give Iran until the
end of October to come clean about its nuclear projects,
or the issue would be sent to the UN Security Council
for a final decision, which could include sanctions
against Tehran.
Iran's response to the traces
was that they came in on contaminated equipment bought
abroad, stopping short of divulging the sources of the
purchase. In his comment, analyst Saba noted that the
IAEA resolution had placed Iran in a very difficult
situation: either bow to the "humiliating" demands or
face possible international sanctions.
And
clearly, the cleric-led Iranian regime itself does not
yet know exactly which way it will jump. According to
some Iranian political pundits, one reason for this
dramatic inability to decide is because the regime's
dual-head establishment is equally divided. Hardline
personalities and spokesmen close to Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, the orthodox leader of the Iranian theocracy,
have equated the signing of the protocols to
surrendering of Islamic pride and Iranian sovereignty by
opening up all doors to foreign inspectors and spies.
Tehran informed sources tell Asia Times Online that
some top advisers to Khamenei, like Hoseyn
Shari'atmadari, an intelligence officer appointed as
editor of the hardline evening daily Keyhan, Mohammad
Javad Larijani, and Dr Ali Akbar Velayati, the former
foreign affairs minister, are among those pressing the
leader to take Iran out of the NPT and follow the path
taken by communist North Korea in dealing with the IAEA.
They are supported by hawkish ayatollahs such as
Ahmad Jannati, secretary of the powerful Guardians
Council, Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, believed to be
Khamenei' s mentor, and Mohammad Kashani, one of the
main preachers of traditional Friday prayers.
Facing them are "official" reformers such as
Mohsen Armin, a deputy chairman of the National Security
and Foreign Affairs Committee of the majlis
(parliament)and an outspoken critic of the
conservatives, Mohammad Salamati, secretary of the
Mojahedeen of the Islamic Revolution Organization that
supports the effectively powerless President Khatami,
and Behzad Nabavi, a deputy speaker of parliament. They
are backed, conditionally though, by the dissident Grand
Ayatollah Hoseynali Montazri, Iran's highest religious
authority who is also the ruling establishment's most
ferocious critic, including of both Khamenei and
Hojjatoleslam Khatami.
But other sources think
that the man who will eventually decide which way to
take is the former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, nicknamed kouseh, or shark,
because of his beardless face.
Not only is
Rafsanjani known for his personal influence over
Khamenei, one of his oldest and closest friends from the
time of their religious studies with the Grand Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic
Revolution and founder of the Islamic republic, but also
because as the chairman of the powerful Expediency
Council, he is the regime's virtual number two man after
the leader.
An unelected body dominated by the
conservatives, the 32-member council serves as an
advisory group to the leader, and besides discerning the
best interests of the state, it also arbitrates between
the majlis and the Guardians' Council, another unelected
institution that not only checks the full conformity of
laws approved by lawmakers with Islamic canons, but also
vets all candidates to all elections.
On his
return from the UN General Assembly recently, Foreign
Affairs Minister Kamal Kharrazi informed reporters that
accepting the protocols was not against Iran's
constitution, adding that the Expediency Council would
decide on the issue.
The reformists' main
argument is that not only the conservatives' stubborn
policy has plunged Iran into international isolation, as
seen by the dramatic rapprochement of the European
Union's stand with that of the US, a far cry of the
"golden days" when Tehran was the darling of the
Europeans and most of the region's countries except
Israel, but in case Iran does not respond to the demands
formulated by the IAEA, the whole regime is in danger of
the same fate as Saddam Hussein - total collapse.
It is exactly to prevent this scenario that the
hardliners want to master nuclear technology as soon as
possible, believing that once an atomic power, American
threats and bullying against Iran will change, as is the
case with North Korea.
It is therefore not
without logic that recently Tehran displayed a new
version of its Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, which are
believed to have a range of 1,700 kilometers, thus
capable of "hitting the heart of the enemy", meaning
Israel.
But analysts also blame government
officials' contradictory and often unconvincing
statements, including those of President Khatami, on
Iran's aims with nuclear projects for the hard line
attitude taken by the West.
"When Khatami states
publicly that Iran wants nuclear technology for
strengthening its defense, when officials declare that
some of Iran's sites would be off limit to inspectors,
when Kamal Kharrazi, the Foreign Affairs Minister, says
enriching uranium is for nuclear electricity plants,
while it falls on the Russians to supply this material
for the Bushehr station, when Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's
ambassador at the IAEA, confirms that Iran has been
enriching uranium for many years, etc, it all tends to
one conclusion: that Iran has something to hide," one
Iranian scholar told Asia Times Online on condition of
anonymity.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
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policies.)
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