Closing the doors to nuclear
diplomacy By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
A small window of opportunity was shut
down after being slightly opened by the news from
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that
its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, had come
out in favor of limited nuclear enrichment by
Iran.
That news, flashed around the globe
on the eve of important talks in Moscow and
Brussels over Iran's nuclear program, was
welcomed by Iranian Foreign
Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as a "positive
development and a step forward", and was even
endorsed by Iran's chief negotiator, Ali Larijani,
who issued a communique in Paris offering an olive
branch.
Larijani's statement was
conciliatory in both tone and content, worth
quoting:
The best guarantee for peacefulness
of the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic
of Iran could include the following measures:
Accepting the current IAEA monitoring and
verification systems.
Use of modern centrifuges, proposed by some
American and British scientists, which permit
only limited enrichment.
Participation of interested countries in
Iran's peaceful nuclear activities in the form
of a consortium.
Accordingly, there are
various ways to ensure that Iran is not pursuing
military nuclear programs. Should these
guarantees be acceptable, the Islamic Republic
of Iran would accept to send the Additional
Protocol [to the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty] to parliament for ratification. The
Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to negotiate
and cooperate with all other countries (except
the Zionist regime) in this regard.
Well, that was on February 16, a
few days before the much-anticipated meeting in
Moscow over the Russian offer to defuse the
nuclear crisis by enriching fuel for Iran on
Russian territory, and, sadly, before IAEA
spokeswoman Melisa Fleming informed the media that
the statement attributed to ElBaradei was false
and that the IAEA chief was steadfast in his
opposition to any new enrichment capabilities.
It was no surprise, then, that the Moscow
talks on Monday transpired with a less than
enthusiastic Iranian delegation, which before
departing Tehran labored the point that their
discussions of the Russian proposal were unrelated
to any suspension of enrichment by Iran. The
Russia-Iran talks were due to continue on Tuesday,
and are set to resume on Thursday, when Russia's
nuclear chief visits Iran, but then again, one
should not vest too much hope for any
breakthroughs.
Speaking after Monday's
meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
said his country wanted Iran to restore its
moratorium on uranium enrichment. Iran has
admitted to restarting enrichment activities,
which it says is its right, after voluntarily
halting them while in negotiation with European
countries.
The Russian daily Gazeta
commented that Russia's main aim was to prevent US
military action against Iran. "For our country,
too, it's not profitable for an armed conflict to
start on the territory of a strategic partner, and
if agreement is not reached it's necessary to try
to create the impression of fruitful and
continuing dialogue," Gazeta said.
This is
correct, but dissimulation and make-believe
progress can only go so far and all sides need to
show a creative flexibility to achieve a
much-needed breakthrough in the boiling nuclear
crisis.
Hypothetically speaking, had
ElBaradei confirmed the statements attributed to
him - after all, why did the IAEA take so long to
deny them? - then a golden opportunity for
resolving this increasingly dangerous crisis may
have materialized in the form of the following
formula: (1) Iran would ink an agreement with
Russia for fuel enrichment in Russia, perhaps with
some participation by China; (2) Iran would be
allowed to engage in small "pilot" enrichment
utilizing a couple of hundred centrifuges; (3)
Iran, as indicated by Larijani in his statement,
would re-adopt the Additional Protocol and pass it
through the majlis (parliament); (4) Iran would
declare intention to join an international
nuclear-fuel consortium in the future.
In
one sense, this would have been tantamount to a
win-win situation for all those concerned. It
would have been a face-saving situation for Iran,
a media coup for Russia, and several pluses for
the United States and the European Union, which
would have taken credit for their combined
pressures persuading Iran to go for the
compromised solution. Instead, increasingly, as
the crisis drags on and possibly deepens, it has
the potential of a lose-lose scenario for all the
key players.
Now, those lining up against
Iran might attempt to obtain even greater
concessions from Iran through the United Nations
Security Council, to which Tehran has been
referred by the IAEA. The IAEA is due to deliver a
final report on Iran on March 6, after which the
Security Council will discuss the possible
implementation of sanctions.
Tougher
concessions have been articulated by former IAEA
deputy chief Pierre Goldschmidt, who wants a
limitless inspection right of "any time,
anywhere", as if today's Iran is yesterday's Iraq
(see Asia Times Online, Iran's challenge to the UN,
January 28.)
At this point another
question: What is the United States' ultimate
objective? Surely the US is too bogged down in
Iraq and Afghanistan to be thirsting for another
war, and cannot possibly be blind to the dim
prospects for UN sanctions in light of, among
other things, China's likely veto, given Beijing's
entrenched energy investments in Iran. Nor is
there any guarantee that the UN Security Council
will even go as far as invoking Chapter VII and
call for punitive measures against Iran, as was
the North Korea example in the early 1990s.
All indications are that the US dreaded
the thought of a breakthrough in Moscow and was
doing everything possible behind the scenes to
abort it, which explains the timing of the United
States' announcement of major funds for promoting
democracy in Iran, with the probable intention of
increasing Tehran's ire and cementing its
intransigence.
A more prudent US move at
this critical juncture would have been some
security assurances, and not hints of renewed
efforts at regime change.
John Bolton, the
US ambassador to the UN and presiding at the
Security Council, is clearly sharpening his claws
for the coming historic bout - bound to invoke
memories of an earlier showdown in 1952-53, when
Iran fought for its right to nationalize its oil
industries, using the Security Council forum to
its advantage.
Many in Iran, including
Larijani, are placing their bets on the battle
yielding the same results, but this may turn out
to be wishful thinking.
Meanwhile, Iran is
actively pushing the arch of its European
diplomacy, hoping to drive a wedge between the US
and the EU and simultaneously resorting to threat
tactics by calling for the departure of British
forces from southern Iraq and by brandishing its
waves of would-be suicide bombers in the event of
a military strike on Iran.
Iran's strategy
has little chance of success, however, and,
anticipating the coming report of ElBaradei on
Iran, the next IAEA meeting early next month is
almost sure to seal the fate of Iran's dossier at
the UN. The only feasible scenario for keeping
this crisis from escalating and endangering world
peace is to reopen that golden opportunity, and
yet that is impossible without major rethinking on
the United States' course of action.
In
conclusion, an alternative solution has been
proposed by two Massachusetts Institute of
Technology professors in an article they published
in the Financial Times on Monday. Geoff Forden and
Sir John Thompson, in an article titled "A shared
solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff", argue
the following:
We suggest operations owned and
controlled by a holding company with governments
as shareholders. Initially, these might be Iran
and Britain, Germany and France - the EU-3 -
with Russia as one possible addition. The
shareholders would jointly meet costs and share
profits. The holding company would lease all
Iranian facilities connected with enrichment,
including their existing centrifuges. Similarly,
it would lease the latest model of centrifuge
from Urenco, the European enrichment group.
The plant containing all these
centrifuges would be at Iran's Natanz facility.
The product of the operation, low-enriched
uranium, would be the property of the holding
company and be sold at market rates to any
customer observing full IAEA safeguards,
including Iran. While the holding company would
determine policy, an international management
group would run the facilities. All shareholders
would have personnel in this group.
This is an apt alternative that, it
is hoped, will not fall on deaf
ears.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is
the author of After Khomeini: New Directions
in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and
co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear
Populism", the Brown Journal of World Affairs,
Volume XII, issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa
Kibaroglu.
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