Mohamed ElBaradei describes the Nobel
Peace Prize he shared with the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a "timely shot in
the arm," one that can influence the agency's Iran
policy.
The timing might be perfect for
ElBaradei, the IAEA's director general, as the
Iran policy is currently the subject of heated
debate among its member states
In light of
Iran's refusal of the IAEA governing board's
recent request to freeze all its uranium
enrichment-related activities, an
IAEA meeting in
November is shaping up as a decisive moment that
may influence the broader issue of IAEA's
macro-role in non-proliferation and the strength
of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Iran's refusal provoked a sharp IAEA
rebuke in the form of a resolution, adopted in
September, charging Iran with "non-compliance" and
"breach" of its obligation through "years of
concealment".
The Nobel award to ElBaradei
is likely to increase his margin of independence
and maneuverability - particularly with respect to
the pressure applied by the US and to a lesser
extent by the European Union - to commit the IAEA
to take the next logical step and refer Iran to
the UN Security Council.
So far, ElBaradei
has resisted this idea, arguing that there is
still a window of opportunity to resolve the
matter within the IAEA and through the Iran-EU
talks. Hence, recalling how the Bush
administration reluctantly consented to the
extension of ElBaradei's tenure in light of his
knack for independence, the 2005 Nobel Peace
recipient is now better positioned to dictate his
map of action vis-a-vis the Iranian nuclear issue,
depending, in part, on Iran's willingness to show
more flexibility.
In the absence of a
perceived Iranian flexibility, on the other hand,
ElBaradei can conceivably utilize his enhanced
stature to exert more pressure on Iran and,
perhaps, even resort to the stick of Security
Council action.
This does not bode well
for Iran, which has been very critical of the
IAEA, and now has to contend with a
much-strengthened body showered with global
accolades through the Nobel prize. No matter what,
in the current ongoing IAEA-Iran negotiations, the
Nobel Prize has tipped the balance in favor of the
former and somewhat weakened the Iranian hand.
But in a clue to the complexity of the
issues, there are unconfirmed reports that the
legal department of the IAEA has concluded that
the legal basis for dispatching Iran's case to the
Security Council is lacking. This is hardly
surprising since, per the IAEA's own standards in
Item 12 (C), the only explicit provision for such
cases is reserved for when there is suspicion of
diversion of nuclear activities towards weapon
proliferation.
Yet, per the IAEA's own
findings, reflected in the various ElBaradei
reports on Iran, all nuclear material has been
accounted for and no such diversion has occurred
in Iran. This and the rather impressive record of
Iran-IAEA cooperation the past two years (which
raises questions on the legitimacy of its latest
resolution on Iran) have raised the concern that
the IAEA would be potentially undermining itself,
pretty much as a pawn of the US, if it opts at the
next meeting to send Iran's case to the Security
Council.
The recent changes in the
composition of the IAEA governing board, raising
the number of non-aligned movement (NAM) nations
to 16 from 14, has been interpreted by Iran as a
welcome development in the light of the opposition
of most NAM nations to the US-EU drive toward the
Security Council. That despite the decision of
India, traditionally a leader in NAM politics, to
cast a vote against Iran, leads us to believe that
it would be premature to take NAM's role and
weight in the upcoming battle for granted.
Another welcome sign as far as Iran is
concerned is the initiative by South Africa to
diffuse the crisis through its proposed swap of
Iran's "yellowcake" (the concentrated oxide of
uranium formed in the milling of uranium ore) for
nuclear fuel. This proposal, currently in the
process of being refined, is viewed favorably by
some of Iran's top nuclear decision-makers. These
decision-makers are still hoping that their quest
to restart Iran's enrichment facilities in Natanz
under full outside scrutiny and perhaps in
collaboration with foreign companies (as stated by
Iran's president in his UN speech last month),
will somehow materialize without a major hitch.
The South African initiative is by all
accounts a major new development that can
potentially avert a serious global crisis over
Iran's nuclear program, at least for now, even
though the final answer to this crisis will likely
be determined over the question of when and if
Iran decides to resume the work at Natanz
facilities. Concerning the latter, per information
from the top Iranian officials at the Iranian
Atomic Energy Egency, the question of Natanz's
restart is at least half a year away.
Meanwhile, another pertinent question
revolves around European resolve on this subject,
given the German elections culminating in a new,
conservative chancelor, Angela Merkel, keen on
closer trans-Atlantic relations with the United
States (even though the outgoing left coalition
will keep the post of foreign minister). Still,
the prospect of a more pro-US turn in German
foreign relations cannot be considered a plus for
Iran at this critical juncture. On the contrary,
it spells more trouble both for Iran-German and
Iran-EU relations. To open a caveat here, this
author recalls that during his 2000 trip to
Germany, Iran's then president, Mohammad Khatami,
met Merkel and a number of other German
parliamentarians, and was lectured by Merkel on
human rights and so on. Hence, it would be hardly
surprising if Merkel prioritizes sending Iran's
case to the Security Council in the near future,
this as a gesture of closer German-US ties.
On the other hand, several factors
militate against such a scenario. First, as the
last IAEA meeting clearly showed, the EU lacks a
consensus on Iran, and several EU member states
sitting at the IAEA governing board are reluctant
to force the Iran issue at the Security Council,
as are most NAM nations as well as China and
Russia. This explains why the initial EU draft on
Iran at the last IAEA meeting, explicitly calling
for Security Council action, was not even logged
in, contrary to the normal protocol, and the
second draft resolution proposed by the EU-3
(Germany, France and United Kingdom) omitted this
demand as well as any mention of deadlines set for
Iran to comply with the IAEA's request for Iran's
suspension of its uranium-conversion activities in
Isfahan.
What is the IAEA to do then? The
answer is that in a certain sense the IAEA is
caught between the Scylla of inaction threatening
the agency's perceived viability and inner resolve
and the Charybdis of strong action against Iran
threatening its internal unity.
The
alternative middle way, that would somehow appease
both the anti-Iran hardliners and the soft-neutral
or pro-Iran member states, needs to be worked out,
which in turn requires positive inputs from both
Iran, the US and Europe.
Concerning the
US, so far there is little sign that the Bush
administration is accommodating itself to anything
short of Security Council action, and President
George W Bush's latest press interview, lambasting
Iran as a "terror-sponsoring" state, can hardly be
interpreted as a positive sign as to how the US is
implementing its Iran policy within the IAEA. The
European trip of career US diplomat, Nicholas
Burns, currently meeting European diplomats over
Iran, will be key in determining this question.
Another player increasingly weighing in
the picture is the EU's high representative,
Javier Solana, who preempted Burns by calling for
the continuation of Iran-EU talks, quickly echoed
by Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani.
Solana has a rather unqiue opportunity right now,
given the political transition in Germany and the
unsettling turmoil in Tehran-London relations
clogging up their direct diplomacy, to play an
unprecedented role.
He along with
ElBaradei can put the "genie" of Iran's nuclear
crisis back in the bottle. Solana's ability to
play this role effectively depends in part on
White House willingness to give European diplomacy
more chance. That in turn depends on the American
calculation of the risk of losing the momentum in
getting Security Council action against Iran if
the US lessens the pressure somewhat. Indeed, the
conundrum of how to make Iran comply with the
IAEA's demands without aggrevating the matter into
a full-scale international crisis is not just an
American problem but also a European problem -
and, above all, the IAEA's problem. How the IAEA
will tackle this problem in the near future will
be quite illuminating not only in the wake of the
UN's atomic agency basking in the glow of Nobel
limelight, but also in the context to NAM, the EU
and US diplomacy in the new century.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the
author of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and
co-authored "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism",
The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume X11,
issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.
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