THE ROVING EYE
Iran knocks Europe out - again
By Pepe Escobar

The EU-3 (France, Britain and Germany) should underestimate Ali Larijani, the head of the Supreme National Security Council and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, at their peril. He's extremely close to the all-powerful Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Larijani's comments this week - comparing the nuclear row with the fight to nationalize Iran's oil industry in the early 1950s, then controlled by the British - struck a powerful chord not only internally but with an array of developing countries.

Larijani said, "The Europeans have been trying to humiliate the Iranians. Do not doubt that enrichment is a national desire." Popular reaction in Iran at the mosque, at the bazaar and at the



teashop attests that it is. But Larijani went one step further. "Those countries that have economic transactions with Iran, especially in the field of oil, have not defended Iran's rights so far."
The conclusion was loud and clear. "Based on how much they defend Iran's national right will facilitate their participation in Iran's economic field." So a logical possibility is that under pressure, Iran may resort to an oil embargo, just like the one imposed in the aftermath of 1973 Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur war.

This is the first time the Iranian leadership has publicly established a direct, sensitive link between nuclear policy and oil. Of course, it's all part of psychological warfare. But it set alarm bells ringing. Analysts in Europe tend to agree that were Iran to resort to an oil embargo in the next few months, the barrel of oil could easily reach US$100. According to Thierry Demarest, chief executive of TotalFinaElf, "the world cannot live without Iranian oil".

Us against them
What happened in Vienna this week at the 35-member International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors meeting was one more graphic illustration of how the world really does business - with the EU-3 and the US on one side, the developing world on another.

The EU-3 were in fact defeated - again - in Vienna from the moment a one-page resolution drafted by the 14-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was circulated, stating that the Iran nuclear row "should remain in the purview of the International Atomic Energy Agency". That is, no referral to the United Nations Security Council, which would open the way for possible sanctions against Tehran.

The NAM argument is iron-clad: these countries - in Asia, Africa, Latin America - don't want the Iranian case to set a precedent, since Iran's earlier suspension of uranium enrichment activities was "a voluntary and non-legally binding confidence-building measure", as the head of the NAM, Malaysian ambassador Rajmah Hussain, had been repeating for weeks.

So staunch opposition to the EU-3 did not come only from Security Council members Russia and China - both engaged in multibillion-dollar energy deals with Iran. After the NAM resolution, there was no way out for the EU-3 but to drop its confrontational, US-backed draft resolution.

In the new draft there's no explicit threat that Iran will be hauled to the Security Council, although this remains a possibility, at the discretion of the IAEA board. But the EU-3 draft still declares that Iran has been in "non-compliance" with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - which is not true.

Earlier in the week, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that taking Iran to the Security Council was "counterproductive" because Iran was cooperating with the IAEA. The IAEA itself recognized it - before Tehran, exasperated with European procrastination, resumed uranium enrichment at its Isfahan plant.

Talking heads
The outcome, at least for moment, has only reinforced popular perception inside Iran that both the EU and the US have no support from the so-called "international community".

As Iran's nuclear spokesman Ali Aqa-Mohammadi put it, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad "tried to begin a new era in Iranian diplomacy by assembling countries from the Non-Aligned Movement, India, South Africa and Brazil".

He confirmed that Ahmadinejad's initiative - spelled out at the UN last week - to "internationalize" the debate on the Iranian nuclear program was the president's idea. It should have been in fact Khamenei's idea, since he is the ultimate authority responsible for Iran's nuclear policy. Iranian negotiator Javad Vaeedi, quoted by IRNA, summed it all up: "Our firm stance, China and Russia's backing and also a lack of legal basis caused the EU's withdrawal."

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang insists there is still room for dialogue. He urged both the EU and Iran to resume their negotiations. It's hard to see on which basis - with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain and the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana publishing a letter in the Wall Street Journal denouncing Tehran for its rigidity despite "repeated offers of cooperation", while at the same time the Iranians remain convinced they are being humiliated.

Ahmadinejad, in his UN speech, also proposed that Iran should develop uranium enrichment technology while allowing foreign public and private sector involvement. That would function as some kind of supervision. Europeans and Americans rejected the offer. American, French, British and German media almost unanimously labeled Ahmadinejad's speech as "fiery" and "unhelpful" - echoing their diplomats' reactions.

But even if Iran is taken to the Security Council, the country won't abandon the NPT, according to Iranian negotiator Ali Asghar Soltani - and this despite some threats uttered by Larijani earlier in the week. The country instead would resume uranium enrichment and withdraw from voluntary inspection agreements with the IAEA.

Iran has already called the Europeans' bluff twice. It will do it again. Its right to a nuclear program - for civilian use - is a matter of national pride. The consensus extends from the hardliners who control all levers of power to the reformists and to the general population.

Oil prices are going though the roof - and no government in its right mind would be willing to risk an Iranian oil embargo. The Iranians as much as the EU-3 foreign ministers know very well that uranium enrichment is not forbidden by the NPT. And they also know very well that absolutely nothing was done by the "international community" regarding the Israeli, Indian and Pakistani nuclear programs.

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