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Deafening
silence
By Ehsan Ahrari
With Iran resuming work at an uranium
conversion plant, the general understanding in the
United States and in Europe is that it has decided
to confront the West on the issue. That may be a
partially correct assessment, but there is much
more to Tehran's decision than that. The election
of a new president, regional developments, and
more important, the current ups and downs in the
great power relations also appear to be playing a
role in Iran's calculations about testing the
international waters on the nuclear issue at this
point.
If anyone thinks that the American
media do not draw their foreign policy themes from
a sitting administration at any given time should
think twice. On August 8, the thrust of the
national evening news in the US was that two of
the countries included in President George W
Bush's famous phrase "axis of evil", had decided
to confront the Bush administration at the same
time. The basis for such a theme is the fact that
Iran announced that it was going to restart its
enrichment program, while the nuclear talks
between the US and North Korea - a dialogue that
is actually being conducted under the auspices of
a six-nation forum, including the US, the two
Koreas, China, Japan and Russia - are stalled.
Even though the culmination of these two
events is a matter of coincidence, there is the
question of whether North Korea and Iran are
somehow cooperating on the matter. The notion of
cooperation might be a bit over the top, but there
is little doubt that Iran is definitely watching
the behavior of North Korea, and wondering why the
US is not interested in conducting a dialogue with
Tehran.
There may be two explanations.
First, like North Korea, the Iranian nuclear
program has not reached a level of advancement
whereby there are fears that it would become a
nuclear power within a matter of months. In fact,
only last week a study was made public in the US
that estimated that Iran might be 10 or more years
away from developing its own nuclear weapons. The
ayatollahs might not be too happy over the timing
of the release of that study, for they know that
such an assessment would only result in further
hardening of the US position. Second, Iran does
not have a major interlocutor pushing for direct
talks with the US. In the case of North Korea,
China is skillfully playing that role. The
cumulative effect of these variables has emerged
in the form of direct pressure on the Bush
administration to negotiate with North Korea.
These two reasons also make a case, at
least, it would appear, in the estimation of
Iran's leaders, that they should continue to push
their nuclear program closer to the point of
acquiring capabilities to develop nuclear weapons.
Such development would persuade the US to become
as pragmatic about dealing with Iran as it has
become in talking with North Korea.
Iran
is fully aware that the EU-3 countries - France,
Germany and Britain - are edging toward conducting
a dialogue with the US with a view to referring
Iran to the UN Security Council for the imposition
of economic sanctions. On this issue, Iran is
willing to play hardball with the EU-3 and the US.
For any sanctions to become a reality,
they have to be agreed on by the five permanent
members of the Security Council. Of these, two
countries - Russia and China - have reasons of
their own to veto the measure. Russia has been
directly involved in helping Iran build its
nuclear plants for its stated peaceful use of
energy. The US and Russia failed to agree on the
former's assessment that Iran, in reality, wishes
to develop nuclear weapons in the best days of
Washington-Moscow ties. Today, those ties are
experiencing considerable strain of their own.
China has been strengthening its ties in
Iran, most importantly, in the energy field. It
also has been doing business with Iran in the
transfer of missile, and even nuclear technology.
China's voracious energy appetite is in dire need
of Iran's considerable oil and gas reserves. It
also needs a lot of hard cash to pay for the
ever-escalating prices of oil in a bullish
seller's market, which has been rampant for quite
a while. As long as Iran needs China's missile and
nuclear technologies, Beijing expects its oil
purchase bills to become eminently manageable.
Consequently, the Iranians are feeling comfortable
that they have reasons to count on China's support
if the EU-3 and the US were to go to the Security
Council.
There is no suggestion here that
the EU-3 are gearing toward referring Iran to the
UN Security Council. They also know that Iran has
ample reason to count on a veto from Russia and/or
China on the matter. At the same time, Iran is not
interested in closing the door of negotiations in
the faces of the EU-3. There has been ample
goodwill on both sides to be considered.
What is emerging is that Iran is feeling
confident about the possibilities of one of the
following developments. First, it is possible that
the EU-3 will return to the negotiating table by
further sweetening the economic pot for Iran. Even
then, if Iran were not to be satisfied by that -
and the chances are it wouldn't be - then it can
put pressure on the EU-3 to persuade Washington to
start bilateral talks with Tehran. That is one
outcome that Iran had wanted prior to its recent
presidential elections. It is possible that
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad may be persuaded by
some experienced hard-nosed pragmatists in Iran to
remain open to the option of direct negotiations
with the US.
Second, Iran will continue
its hardline position to stall further, just to
see how far it can take its uranium-enrichment
program, hoping that Russia and China will come to
its rescue by vetoing any UN sanctions. At that
point, it would insist on direct talks with the
Bush administration. There is little doubt that
Iran has virtually no trust in any assurances that
it will not be attacked by the US, unless such
pledges come directly from Bush administration
officials.
Iran also watched how India
acquired respectability vis-a-vis the US after
becoming a declared nuclear power. There is no
reason why a nuclear Iran would not be treated by
the great powers similarly in the foreseeable
future. If the ayatollahs are thinking along these
lines, no one can say such calculations are not
well within the bounds of reason.
A
nuclear Iran may not be a reality within the next
five years. However, the ayatollahs have not ruled
it out completely. For now, they are playing by
the contentious double standards established by
the lone superpower regarding nuclear
proliferation. But they also understand that the
global balance of power might favor their desire
to become a nuclear power within the foreseeable
future.
For the US, such a scenario is not
acceptable, but it is not yet willing to persuade
Iran that it has no reason to fear any attack.
Unless such assurances are offered to Iran, it
will continue its strategy of acquiring nuclear
weapons by hook or by crook, much the same way
they were acquired by Israel, India and Pakistan.
Ehsan Ahrari is an independent
strategic analyst based in Alexandria, VA, US. His
columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online. He
is also a regular contributor to the Global Beat
Syndicate. His website: www.ehsanahrari.com.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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