Iran searches for nuclear
exit Story and pictures: Iason Athanasiadis
TEHRAN - Last Thursday night, in the
imposing Qajar-era villa that the Center for
Middle East Strategic Studies occupies in central
Tehran, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali
Larijani, addressed a select audience of foreign
ambassadors, diplomats and Iranian academics.
His speech came at a time of gridlock in
the nuclear negotiations that were conducted
between Iran and the West until Iran broke them
off and restarted uranium enrichment this summer
after the European Union tabled an offer that
Tehran judged to be humiliating.
Resplendent in a sharply tailored suit and
a Hindu turban, the Indian ambassador took the
floor. Fiddling with a malfunctioning microphone,
he launched into a description of how India ended
up having a military nuclear program. His
conclusion was that "we
only
weaponized in 1998, when there was proliferation
already in the neighborhood".
"My
minister has already said in Moscow today that
this issue must be finished in the IAEA
[International Atomic Energy Agency] in Vienna.
Please take this as a word of advice from a good
friend," he concluded. This notwithstanding, India
voted with
the
majority of IAEA members recently to open the way
for Tehran's case to be sent to the United Nations
Security Council, pending one more IAEA meeting
this month.
But referral to the UN may
already be a foregone conclusion. When Iranian
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad made his infamous
remarks about wiping Israel "off the face of the
earth" last week, he might well have sealed his
country's fate. Iranian analysts are now
estimating that concerted Western pressure could
lead to Iran being passed on to the UN and
possible sanctions at the next IAEA meeting.
In Tehran, Westernized Iranians expressed
their surprise at their president's naivete in
playing into the hands of Tel Aviv and Washington.
Reflecting Ahmadinejad's gaffe, the US reaction
was muted and allowed others - notably British
Prime Minister Tony Blair - to lash out at Iran.
"He has no control over his words," was
the reaction of an Iranian academic. "Add to this
some bad advisors around him, and you have a
lethal combination."
Still, referral to the UN is
not a nightmare scenario for Tehran. With booming
oil exports and a record selling price per barrel
of oil, Iranian officials know that sanctions are
unlikely to hurt too bad. Having already slapped
unofficial trade embargoes on two countries that
supported the IAEA vote against them - Britain and
South Korea - Iran has
shown that it's willing to hit back just as hard.
At the same time, Tehran might not relish
a resumption of talks at a time when some of its
top nuclear negotiators have resigned from their
posts.
The trend was started when former
head of the National Security Council, Hassan
Rowhani, resigned in the summer, to be replaced by
Larijani. He was followed out by Mohammad Javad
Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the UN and widely
considered to be a pragmatist with a moderating
influence over Iran's foreign policy.
Zarif's departure was a double blow to any
hopes Iran had of restarting talks with the US as
he had been involved in closed-door talks with
Washington in 2001 on the formation of a
post-Taliban government for Afghanistan and then
again before the invasion of Iraq.
Incidentally, reports have
surfaced that Seyed Muhammad Hossein Adeli, who
was posted to London last year as Iran's
ambassador, has been replaced. According to other
reports, Muhammad Reza Alborzi, Iran's ambassador
to the UN in Geneva, was also being recalled.
Alborzi was part of the Iranian
team involved in negotiations with
Britain, France and Germany (the EU-3) in Paris
this year over Tehran's nuclear program.
Back in Tehran, the foreign diplomatic
community continues to reel from the anti-Israeli
statement that - while constituting part of the
Islamic republic's official policy - would have
been inconceivable under the former president,
Mohammad Khatami. A Western diplomat privately
expressed his anger at "a country whose president
is destroying eight years of hard work re its
international relations ... this is terribly
frustrating and depressing."
The Iranian
Foreign Ministry hit back with accusations that
the West was seeking to ratchet up pressure on a
country it has already decided to target. "Since
Iran has been proven right in the atomic field,
they are trying to pressure us in another sphere
and make us abandon our legitimate rights," it
said.
Unsurprisingly, the phrase "atomic
apartheid" is being heard increasingly in Iranian
government circles as well as by ordinary Iranians
who feel that their country is being unfairly
singled out. At the same time, Iranian analysts
estimate that the new government's actions are
plunging the country deeper into international
isolation.
With the nuclear standoff
unlikely to be resolved by Iran being referred to
the UN, it is unclear how the crisis can be ended
through diplomacy. Within the EU, the bloc's
eastern-most member, Greece, is seeking to
introduce a softer approach to Iran than the one
currently being used by Britain, France and
Germany.
On the evening of the nuclear
speech, Greek Ambassador to Tehran Merkourios
Karafotias received the sole complimentary comment
of the evening by the Iranian nuclear negotiator
after he posed a constructive question on what
incentives Iran would like to see the Europeans
offering. But Western diplomats privately pointed
out that the conciliatory approach to Tehran has
been tried and failed.
In the absence of
other options, the deadlock is most likely to be
solved through involving Iran's Russian ally - the
source of much of the nuclear technology being
used by Tehran today. It is thought that only
Russia has enough credibility with both the
Iranians and with the West to convince Tehran to
forfeit the uranium-enrichment aspect of its
nuclear program and Washington to settle for
Russian supervision of the process. (Iran said
recently that industrial contracts between Iran
and Russia could reach US$10 billion per year if
Russia participated in various oil projects and
more nuclear power plant constructions - a healthy
inducement for an ally.)
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the
majority of IAEA members recently to open the way
for Tehran's case to be sent to the United Nations
Security Council, pending one more IAEA meeting
this month. 
South Korea - Iran has
shown that it's willing to hit back just as hard.
team involved in negotiations with
Britain, France and Germany (the EU-3) in Paris
this year over Tehran's nuclear program.
