Iran:
Atomic agency declares nuclear
winter By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
This week the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) will, after several days of talks, likely issue a
critical report on Iran's nuclear program that, in turn,
will exacerbate the tensions between the government of
Iran and the United Nations nuclear watchdog, designed
to ensure the compliance of member states who are
signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and
thus set the stage for a growing international crisis
warranting the intervention of UN's Security Council.
On the eve of the IAEA's meeting in Vienna, the
world's press is already awash with reports of a draft
resolution by the agency's governing board "deploring"
Iran's lax compliance and expressing "concern" about the
"outstanding issues" that have led the IAEA's chief to
state, at a recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization
parliamentarian meeting, that "the jury is still out" as
to whether or not Iran's nuclear program has a hidden
military component.
After several visits to Iran
during the past year or so, including to military sites,
IAEA chief Muhammad ElBaradei and his nuclear-inspection
team have yet to find any tangible evidence that Iran is
in the process of procuring nuclear weapons. Many
Iranians, including in the new majlis (parliament)
dominated by hardliners, are increasingly dismayed that
in spite of Iran's voluntary adherence to the NPT's
intrusive Additional Protocol signed last December,
coupled with Iran's submission of a comprehensive report
on its nuclear activities, the IAEA is still inclined to
find Iran in breach of its NPT obligations.
Hence the Iran-IAEA pattern of cooperation is on
the verge of fizzling out, replaced by a reciprocal mood
of acrimony filled with accusations and
counter-accusations, eg, Iran's claim that the United
States has deliberately "politicized" the IAEA's agenda
as part and parcel of its effort to deny Iran access to
peaceful nuclear technology. Should this happen, the
majlis will not ratify the Additional Protocol and the
Iranian government will scale down its level of
cooperation with the IAEA, and may even consider exiting
the NPT altogether, as called for by editorials in
Iran's hardline newspapers.
For the moment, the
crisis seems to be partially contained, however, by
several interrelated factors. First, per the admission
of ElBaradei, a whole "new era" of cooperation with Iran
has been opened by Tehran's willingness to (a) halt its
uranium-enrichment program, albeit on a "temporary
basis" as a confidence-building measure, and (b)
implement the spirit of the Additional Protocol by
allowing unfettered inspections of Iran's nuclear sites,
such as the Kalaye power plant, the Natanz
uranium-enrichment facility, and the heavy-water plant
(under construction) in Karaj, not to mention the
Russian-installed Bushehr power plant, scheduled to go
operational next year.
Second, Iran's
willingness to sign the "93+2" Additional Protocol,
which calls for, among other things, short notice
"access to any location specified by the agency", has
been geared to assuage the world community's fear of a
clandestine weapons program. Indeed, the US allegation
of an "aggressive Iranian nuclear-weapons program"
hardly sits well with Tehran's submission to the tough
verification system of the Additional Protocol, and
insistence that its nuclear program is meant solely to
generate electricity.
The long-term significance
of this matter has been somewhat overshadowed by the
IAEA's latest report on Iran, which according to
excerpts leaked to the media raises concerns about the
"inconsistencies" and "contradictions" in Iran's report
to the agency, focusing in particular on four problem
areas: (1) Iran's acknowledgment that 1.9 kilograms of
uranium hexafluoride, once declared lost, were in fact
used for research; (2) key centrifuge parts for
enriching uranium have been imported from another
country - known to be Pakistan - and yet because of
Pakistan's refusal of an inspection, the IAEA cannot
determine the veracity of Iran's claim; (3) some nuclear
work has been carried out at military sites, contrary to
Iran's declarations; (4) the source of trace amounts of
36% enriched uranium is unknown.
Furthermore,
despite Iran's promise to the IAEA in February 2003 that
it would cease all uranium-enrichment activities,
inspectors have discovered that 285 new rotors for P-1
centrifuges have been assembled since then. Iran's
response, on the other hand, has been that Iran has the
NPT right to enrich uranium in the first place, that its
suspension of enrichment activity is not indefinite, and
that the atomic agency, bowing to the United States'
political pressure, has lost sight of the recent
cooperative accomplishments, focusing on "minor
questions" instead.
Consequently, the US
government should be wary of exerting undue pressure on
Iran, which will likely backfire and simply embolden the
position of those hardliners in Iran who are pushing
more circumspect cooperation with the IAEA. What is
needed in Washington is a process-oriented approach
toward Iran that would be more appreciative of the
breakthrough accomplishments of the past year, instead
of the self-fulfilling prophecy of Iran's non-compliance
brought about partially through US unwillingness to
admit that the bottle is now more than half-full rather
than mostly empty.
At present there is no
consensus on nuclear weapons in Iran, and according to
some Iranian policy experts, the departure of Saddam
Hussein in Iraq and the threat of his weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) have lessened considerably Iran's
motivation to go nuclear. As for the "US threat", given
the preponderance of US power, it is hard to see how a
nuclear Iran would deter future US aggression against
Iran anyway.
What is more, Iran's proliferation
could have a deleterious impact on regional security as,
for instance, Saudi Arabia would likely follow suit and
a whole "action-reaction" vicious cycle of nuclear arms
race would plague a region already beset with major
economic maladies requiring the allocation of precious
government resources. As for the question of Israel's
nuclear threat, very few security analysts in Iran
actually fear "out of area" Israel's weapons, a crucial
point missed by Israel and its supporters in the US, who
are prone to an apocalyptic portrait of
"weapons-possessing mad mullahs".
By all
indications, the Iranian national-security debate on
nuclear weapons is still at its infancy, and there is no
"groupthink" one way or the other. Publicly at least,
the non-proliferation announcement of government leaders
aside, there has been very little serious discussion of
the subject matter.
Specifically, a national
debate on the various national-security pros and cons of
a nuclear Iran has yet to materialize. Instead,
notwithstanding the Iraq war and the "WMD hoax" of
Washington and London, there is a growing feeling in
Iran that no matter how compliant the government, the
United States' anti-Iran diktat will proceed according
to its own logic of action - vividly crystallized in the
"axis of evil" presidency of George W Bush; the mere
fact that US presidential hopeful John Kerry has
recently criticized the Bush administration for
overlooking Iran's nuclear threat, can hardly be
comforting to the Iranian leaders seemingly resigned to
greater squeeze by Washington in the future no matter
who sits in the Oval Office.
Iran's
counter-strategy, however, is highly reliant on its
European policy, in light of the agreement with the
"troika", ie, France, the United Kingdom and Germany,
last year whereby in return for Iran's cooperation the
Europeans promised to facilitate Iran's civilian nuclear
program. Yet as the recent Group of Eight (G8) statement
on Iran calling for greater cooperation with the UN
agency and greater transparency clearly indicates, the
gap between the US and Europe on Iran may be narrowing
instead of widening, indeed ominous news from Tehran's
perspective.
Still, Iran's top national-security
policymakers do not seem hugely disturbed by these
latest developments and, relying on the positive side of
things, are hedging their bets that, for now at least,
the European Union will balk at fully endorsing the
United States' rather confrontational approach vis-a-vis
Iran. In fact, one may argue that the US-EU's
patching-up on Iraq, reflected both at the G8 summit and
the UN Security Council this month, has provided more
elbow room for the EU member states in the IAEA to seek
a compromised solution. After all, a major setback on
Iran-IAEA relations would be tantamount to a huge
failure for European diplomacy and British Prime
Minister Tony Blair, conceding the role of his Iraq
policy in his Labour Party's local-elections' defeat, is
hardly amenable to conceding such a failure.
As
a result, the IAEA showdown with Iran is unlikely to
degenerate into a full-blown crisis for now and,
optimistically speaking, will not explode beyond a semi-
or quasi-crisis; the latter will likely warrant
corrective actions by Iran keenly aware of the
complexities of its national security hazardous
environment. In case the opposite happens and the
Iranian breach of its NPT commitments is hurled at the
Security Council, it is worth remembering that in the
case of another "axis of evil" country, namely North
Korea, its exit from the NPT did not culminate in any
sanctions, only a statement of regret from the Security
Council. For a UN currently besieged with the Iraq
crisis, it is hardly predisposed to confront another
major international crisis in the form of Iran's alleged
quest for nuclear weapons. The proximity to the Iraq
crisis and the welter of postwar worries of the UN
constitute, in fact, many leverages for Iran in its
ongoing transactions with the UN's nuclear inspection
arm.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the
author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's
Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and "Iran's Foreign
Policy Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs,
co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas
Maleki, No 2, 2003.
(Copyright 2004 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
This week the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) will, after several days of talks, likely issue a
critical report on Iran's nuclear program that, in turn,
will exacerbate the tensions between the government of
Iran and the United Nations nuclear watchdog, designed
to ensure the compliance of member states who are
signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and
thus set the stage for a growing international crisis
warranting the intervention of UN's Security Council.
