COMMENTARY US's impasse over a
'nuclear' Iran By Ehsan Ahrari
Washington's latest buzz about Iran is
that there is no consensus on whether to confront it
about its nuclear aspirations, or engage it with a view
to abandoning it. Such a description creates an
impression that the administration of President George W Bush
could be serious about engaging Iran and is interested
in initiating dialogue. However, if the past performance
of the current administration establishes one
reality, it is that there is not likely to be dialogue with
Tehran in a second Bush administration. It should
also be noted that the arms-control community was
stunned this month to hear from the United Nations'
watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that
Iran "planned to convert 37 tons of milled uranium,
known as yellowcake, into a compound that can [not
only] be used in a peaceful nuclear power program
but also can be used to make weapons-grade enriched
uranium".
Washington's non-proliferation
community lives in a make-believe world of addressing
heady issues without injecting a heavy dose of reality
into that discussion. There are issues related to Iran
that, when not viewed from the viewpoint of realism,
portray a different - or even an incorrect - picture.
One such reality is the conventional wisdom in that
Iran, by going nuclear, presents a serious threat to
Israel. Needless to say, Israel plays a leading role in
making sure that such conventional wisdom not only stays
alive, but that it constantly drives America's policy
that ensures that Iran never becomes a nuclear power. No
one bothers to ask why a nuclear Israel is not a threat
to Iran, or why a nuclear Iran's paramount purpose would
be to threaten Israel, knowing full well the
implications of such threats for its own survival.
The fact of the matter is that, as a
nuclear power since the 1960s, a primary purpose of
Israel's policy is to disallow other Middle Eastern neighbors
the option of going nuclear. So the real purpose
underlying Israel's policy has little to do with threats to
its security. The ultimate objective is that Israel does
not want to lose its nuclear monopoly over other
Middle Eastern states. That fact is applicable as much to
Iran, which is regarded as an unfriendly state, as it is
on Egypt, which has not only been at peace with the
Jewish state since 1979, but also has diplomatic ties with
it.
If one were to examine the history of US
behavior toward nuclear proliferation, one would easily
find a powerful precedent of Israel's current proclivity
regarding its nuclear status. The United States also did
not want the former Soviet Union to break its nuclear
monopoly by becoming a nuclear power. The stated purpose
of the Baruch Plan, presented by the US in 1946, was to
"create a world without nuclear weapons". It called for
the creation of "an international agency that would be
responsible for fostering the development of atomic
power programs in other countries, licensing and
regulating those programs, and ensuring that no country
developed atomic weapons". It "advocated the use of
automatic sanctions if countries were found to be in
violation of the agency's terms". However, the USSR
rightly interpreted the real intent of that plan: that
it was aimed at prolonging, if not permanently
forestalling, its emergence as a nuclear power.
Consequently, Moscow promptly rejected it. Israel is
pursuing the very same type of policy, but in an era
when the chief purpose of US non-proliferation policy is
to deprive the so-called "axis of evil" states (Iraq,
Iran and North Korea) of nuclear weapons. That makes
Israel's job of maintaining the current status on
nuclear non-proliferation quite easy.
One proposal that is currently being advocated by
the nuclear-non-proliferation community in Washington is
US-Iran engagement, not just on the nuclear issue, but
also on a whole spectrum of issues. However, the second
reality in Washington is that the Bush administration
has no such preference. If anything, there is that
hawkish inclination epitomized in the approach of John R
Bolton, under secretary of state for arms control and
international security, which sponsors a tough approach
toward Iran, even though many other officials at the
State Department have argued for engagement.
However, at the topmost levels of the
US government, President Bush's chief foreign-policy
adviser is Vice President Dick Cheney - the superhawk and
neo-conservative par excellence - who has an established record
of loathing countries such as Iran, Syria and
Iraq under Saddam Hussein, whose policies he has evaluated
substantially on the basis of their implications for
the security of Israel. Cheney's world view
may not be driven by Christian fundamentalism; however,
it is very much in harmony with Bush's own world
view as a born-again Christian. In that view, the
security of Israel remains much too important at the
expense of everything else related to the Middle East.
Given the strong ideological penchant of the
president and vice president of US, where is the room
for compromise? The very notion of compromise is based
on the necessity of a quid pro quo and a search
for common ground. That search, in turn, requires a
thorough understanding of Iran's security interests, a
shared view of how Iran views its regional as well as
global strategic environment, and how to go about
calming Iran's genuine fears regarding its security, so
that it does not see the necessity for acquiring nuclear
weapons. Those characteristics are utterly absent in the
Bush administration, with, perhaps, the lone exception
of some State Department officials. Even those officials
are opting to lie low for now.
The only other
viable option on the part of all parties is to bide time
until the presidential elections in November. In the
meantime, the Bush administration is relying on its
European allies to persuade Iran to allow as complete a
transparency for its nuclear program as possible. The US
knows that Iran would not adopt that path in good faith.
So the next choice is behind-the-scenes suggestions that
the EU-3 (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) bite
the bullet and refer Iran's case to the UN Security
Council for possible economic sanctions or other
punitive measures.
The European countries
- especially France and Germany - on their part are
also concerned that pushing Iran might result in the break
up of delicate negotiations. Besides, those
European countries have a low level of trust in the
Bush administration's description of Iran's
nuclear capabilities or intentions. Lies and
exaggerations related to Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction capabilities before the US invasion of that
country continue to color their reception of
Washington's position regarding Iran. As Francois Heisbourg,
director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic
Research, told Patrick Tyler of the Los Angeles Times on
Sunday, "This is an administration that's bent on polishing
its macho image seven weeks before an election."
Besides, France and Germany - and even the UK - have
their respective business interests in Iran that are
also driving them to continue looking for a diplomatic
resolution to Iran's alleged nuclear weapons-related
aspirations.
There is
another not-so-subtle problem associated with referring Iran's
alleged desire to possess nuclear weapons to the
Security Council, however. There is no assurance that either
China or Russia would not veto possible sanctions on
Iran. Great-power relations are currently somewhat
precarious because of their own idiosyncrasies. Washington
cannot count on a posture of across-the-board
cooperation either from Beijing or Moscow. Until November 2,
both countries are putting their own respective
policies toward Washington on hold, to see who wins
the presidential election. The election of John
Kerry would present them with an array of options, mostly
of re-evaluation of their policies on a number of
durable great-power-related issues. However, if Bush is
re-elected, there is still little chance that either
China or Russia would go along with sanctions against
Iran.
Both
China and Russia played important and, perhaps, a range
of subtle-to-not-so-subtle roles in Iran's quest for nuclear
know-how, including its ballistic-missile capabilities, and
even possible development of nuclear weapons. They have
long supplied Iran with nuclear technology. Both of
these countries have envisaged the emergence of new nuclear
powers as an inevitable reality of global affairs in
this and following decades. They do not envisage
such a possibility as inherently threatening to
their own status as powers. The US, on the other hand, has
no room in its strategic calculation for
such alleged inevitability. It has always rejected the prospect
of a world where a multitude of nuclear powers
co-exist. If nothing else, such a world creates a
situation of constrained US options regarding conflicting
issues of global consequence. Washington vividly
remembers the Cold War years when its policy
options were intermittently constrained by what the
USSR's reaction would be. In the post-Cold War years, on the
other hand, the US has become too used to the freedom
of operating in a unipolar world. After September 11,
2001, such independent US actions resulted in two successful
military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. If one is
to ignore the fact that neither of those countries has
emerged as a stable or peaceful place, having the
independence to conduct such campaigns in the future is
much too enticing for the US to resist. Besides, the
emergence of a nuclear North Korea continues to weigh
heavily on America's behavior of doing everything to
forestall such a potential regarding Iran.
In the final analysis, the current policy impasse
in Washington is temporary. It may even be spurious in
the sense that the Bush administration only creates
an impression of remaining undecided about a
"nuclear" Iran. That appearance is also misleading.
Choices regarding Iran have already been made. The
only necessity is to await the decision of US voters on
November 2.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an
Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic
analyst.
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