Silencing Iran's hardline
critics By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
TEHRAN - The Paris agreement between Iran
and the European Union - hammered out by the "Big 3" of
Britain, Germany and France - has been subjected to a
ferocious debate both inside and outside Iran, and there
is no dearth of criticism and accusations - particularly
by certain voices from within Iran's rather concentric
power circles.
Critics of the Paris agreement,
finalized last week, have it wrong, however, and their
criticisms are by and large untenable. They often focus
on select aspects of the Paris agreement when, in fact,
a realistic appraisal must take into account all of its
aspects or dimensions in tandem with each other and,
more important, in the context of Iran's need to
deflect growing international pressure, led by the
United States, to hurl Iran's dossier with the United
Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to the UN Security Council.
Thus a viable assessment of the Paris agreement
and its various pros and cons must take into account the
obverse scenario of what would happen if the two sides
failed to reach an agreement on the eve of the IAEA
summit, where they are likely to find Iran in breach of
its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations in the
absence of such an agreement.
Henceforth, the
pertinent question is whether Iran's effort to preempt
and to neutralize the crisis, albeit temporarily, has
been worthwhile or a serious compromise of Iran's vital
national interests as charged by the critics of the
Paris agreement. Sadly, these critics fail to discuss
the potential harm to those interests as a result of a
hardline approach that would culminate in a tough
anti-Iran resolution by the governing board of the IAEA
in late November, thus setting the stage for a showdown
at the Security Council.
Lest we forget, Iran's nuclear partner, Russia (not to
mention China), is extremely pleased by the Paris agreement,
which smooths the way for the planned trip of
Russian President Vladimir Putin to Tehran in the near
future, almost sure to result in the signing of a
much anticipated, and delayed, agreement on the issue
of returning spent nuclear fuel to Russia. In the
opposite scenario of failed Iran-EU talks and the dispatch
of Iran's case to the Security Council, Russia would
most likely endorse a tough resolution calling on Iran
to halt enrichment activities and, worse, drag its
feet even more on cooperation with Iran on its nuclear
program, to put it mildly. Similarly, Tehran could not
count on either a Russian or Chinese veto,
notwithstanding the Chinese foreign minister's recent
trip to Tehran confirming that China would not cast a
veto given the exorbitant international costs involved.
In light of this nightmare scenario of UN
sanctions, which would lead to Iran's isolation and
serious harm to its budding nuclear industry, the other
pertinent question is, of course, whether or not the
Paris agreement contains the elements of a relatively
better scenario, and the answer is a resounding yes.
First, in contrast to the United States' insistence that
Iran should dismantle its whole nuclear industry, the
Paris agreement explicitly acknowledges Iran's NPT right
to this technology and the right to "exercise" it "with
discrimination". Thus the gap between Europe and the US
has already widened on this sensitive matter.
No wonder the US, since the signing of the agreement,
has tried to throw a monkey wrench in the process by,
among other things, leveling charges that Iran is trying
to install nuclear warheads on its missiles, a
charge ridiculed by EU officials, who point out that even the
US has admitted that Iran does not possess nuclear
weapons. This accusation is likely outgoing Secretary of
State Colin Powell's last lie, notwithstanding how
this "solider and diplomat" ruined his credibility
forever when he two years ago made similar claims against
Iraq at the UN that proved to be false.
Second, the Paris agreement's call for Iran to join
a multilateral group of nuclear-fuel-exporting countries cannot but be
interpreted that at least aspects of Iran's fuel cycle
have been implicitly acknowledged by Europe, foreseeing
Iran as potentially on par with the other 18 members of
this group possessing a full fuel cycle.
Third,
and most important, the Paris agreement is a
"preliminary" agreement that does not so much resolve
the outstanding issues but rather provides a
multi-layered negotiation framework for future talks led
by a "steering committee" and at least three "working
groups" touching on economic, security and nuclear
issues. The agreement states that the steering committee
will focus on providing "objective guarantees" about the
peacefulness of Iran's nuclear program. Nested in the
agreement is, then, the idea of Iran's future resumption
of (low and medium) enrichment activities under
sufficient guarantees that would put to rest the outside
world's anxiety about the diversion of Iran's program to
military purposes.
Thus Hassan Rouhani, the
secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council,
is on the mark when stating, in his press interviews and
report to the majlis (parliament), that the agreement is
a victory for Iran since it provides for a temporary
confidence-building suspension of the enrichment cycle
followed by its resumption through "objective
guarantees".
Not at all surprising, the US and
European media have glossed over the relevant elements
of the Paris agreement mentioned above. For example, a
New York Times editorial writes of the need for "a
permanent end" to the Iranian enrichment program,
without presenting a clue to the readers that the
agreement actually omits the Vienna Declaration's call
for "indefinite suspension" and invokes Iran's NPT
right; the latter clearly includes Iran's right to
produce its nuclear fuel at home as part and parcel of
its peaceful nuclear industry.
Doubtless, one
expects the Iranian critics of the Paris agreement to
show a bit more balanced interpretation than the biased
media cited above. The Paris agreement's fate currently
hangs in the balance, and the issue of Iran's
enrichment, the depth and duration of suspension, may
ultimately prove to be the blind knot that will sink the
ship of Iran-EU bilateral talks, or it may be the
"milestone" envisaged by some EU diplomats paving the
way to a more sustained dialogue reflective of genuine,
long-term mutual understandings and trade-offs. The
Europeans have pledged "firm commitments" for economic,
technological, security and nuclear cooperation with
Iran, and this, again, is a solid victory for Iran that
hinges partially on Tehran's future diplomatic prowess
to ensure they do not remain "paper commitments".
The temporary suspension of Iran's enrichment
activities, viewed as a "voluntary" confidence-building
measure, should not be exaggerated as a long-term
abandonment tantamount to an unequal exchange, nor does
the debate benefit by the overuse of metaphors. Instead,
what is desperately needed is a realistic evaluation
from the prism of Iran's vital national (security)
interests and the policy demands thereto, necessitating
a flexible nuclear diplomacy aimed at neutralizing the
immediate threats while sustaining Iranian interests on
a long-term basis.
Of course, nothing that has
been mentioned so far precludes measured criticisms of
the Paris agreement, instead of wholesale rejections,
such as of its lack of invoking Article IV of the NPT
(the agreement refers only to Article II pertaining to a
ban on nuclear weapons, a misnomer as far as Iran is
concerned), or not fully endorsing Europe's "linkage
diplomacy". Such shortcomings pale, however, in
comparison with the positive dimensions with respect to
Iran's interests, and that is one more thing the
agreement's critics need to consider.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD is visiting
professor of international relations, Tehran University
and senior researcher, Center for Strategic
Research.
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