Iran steps back from the
brink By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Iran has finally blinked, reportedly
agreeing to a temporary suspension of uranium
enrichment and reprocessing activities, as a
confidence-building measure in response to growing
international pressure.
This is a welcome
development that can potentially take the wind out
of the sails of the ship of sanctions planned by
the US and its allies at the United Nations
Security Council.
A diplomat close to
talks between the European Union high
representative on foreign and
security policy, Javier Solana, and Iran's nuclear
chief, Ali Larijani, in Vienna made the
announcement on condition of anonymity.
According to the source, Larijani did not
rule out the possibility that Iran would cease
uranium enrichment for a month or two. Iran failed
to fulfill the requirement of the international
community to cease uranium enrichment by August
31, and its case is now before the UN Security
Council for possible sanctions.
It should
be noted that Iran imposed conditions on a
possible suspension, including, according to some
reports, a halt in activity on Iran at the
Security Council and a step-down from trying to
impose sanctions on Iran.
In response, US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice indicated that
Iran's temporary suspension of its nuclear program
might be enough for the first direct negotiations
between the United States and Iran in more than 25
years. Rice said Iran needed to suspend uranium
enrichment before talks could begin, but she did
not rule out something less than a permanent
suspension.
This marks a softening of the
US approach, which has steadfastly ruled out any
hint of negotiation unless Iran permanently
abandons enrichment activities. This hard line has
been drawing fire domestically, such as by Senator
Chuck Hagel, who has pointed out the need of
serious US negotiation with Iran, warning that
allies of the United States would support tough
action against Iran only if they were confident
Washington was serious about achieving a
negotiated, diplomatic solution.
Larijani
has been a master tactician so far and in making
this important concession has proved that he is
not quite as unpragmatic and rigid as previously
believed. Indeed, he possesses the necessary
diplomatic acumen to realize that his earlier
criticism of his predecessor, Hassan Rowhani, for
inking a similar suspension in October 2004 was
not entirely warranted.
Ironically,
precisely at the time Larijani was disclosing this
important information to Solana, Deputy Foreign
Minister Abbas Araghchi told the Iranian press
that returning to the past case of suspension was
not "a reality".
This, in turn, raises the
question of whether or not Iran's internal debate
is over and the concession by Larijani is fully
backed by the powers that be in Tehran.
Clearly, this is not an easy decision that
can possibly satisfy everyone in Iran. Some
hardline elements in the Iranian parliament
(majlis) and the media are adamantly opposed to
any such concessions, insisting that Iran must
remain steadfast on its right under the
Non-Proliferation Treaty to peaceful nuclear
technology, which includes the right to produce
nuclear fuel under the safeguard agreements with
the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's
nuclear watchdog.
As a result, a small
political brush fire can be expected if Iran makes
good on this announcement and in the near future
re-suspends, albeit temporarily, its nascent
nuclear-fuel cycle.
Not to worry too much,
however, as Iran has placed the accent on
"temporary", and in the overall scheme of things,
such as the lack of urgency for nuclear fuel in
light of Russian foot-dragging on completing the
Bushehr power plant and the technical difficulties
Iran has experienced with its cascades of
centrifuges, such a move by Iran is prudent and
absolutely called for as a crisis-prevention
measure.
Reflecting a growing sentiment
inside Iran's ruling circles, Iran's former
president, Mohammad Khatami, recently told the
Financial Times, "We can achieve that right later,
if that means we can avoid a crisis."
Indeed, several interrelated factors have
converged to bring Iran to this policy shift,
ranging from mounting international pressure and
the growing prospect of escalating sanctions, to
the threat of military action, to Iran's unease
about Russia's commitment to complete the
expensive nuclear reactor in Bushehr.
Concerning the last, Iran has finally
aired its frustration - that the project is now
seven years overdue - through Foreign Ministry
spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi. He bluntly told
Moscow to make good on its promises to turn
Bushehr operational.
Assefi's public
comments came in response to reports in the
Russian press that Moscow was considering halting
its cooperation on Bushehr should the UN impose
sanctions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
told Russian news agencies that there was no basis
to those reports and Russia was committed to its
contract with Iran on the power plant.
But
of course none of Lavrov's verbal assurance can be
completely reassuring to Iran, which sees
Washington's hidden hands influencing Moscow to
keep postponing the due date for Bushehr's opening
day. After all, whereas Russian nuclear officials
touring Iran this year had promised that Bushehr
would be completed in 2006, they have since
extended that, first to early next year and now to
late 2007.
Inevitably, many Iranians
rightly ponder whether Bushehr will ever be
completed, recalling how only a few months ago
Nicholas Burns, a top US State Department
official, bluntly asked Russia to withdraw from
the Bushehr project if Iran failed to heed the
UN's call to suspend enrichment activities.
At the time, Russia reacted angrily to the
United States' request, but as time has passed and
Iran has defied the UN Security Council's demand,
Russian President Vladimir Putin is put in an
awkward position of either honoring Russia's
contract with Iran on nuclear cooperation or going
along with the US and EU on the threats of
sanctions.
From Iran's vantage point,
looking at past episodes of Russia's barter trade
with the US over Iran, there is now a distinct
possibility that Putin will prioritize his ties to
the West over Iran if pushed to make a choice -
and the diplomatic momentum is drifting precisely
toward such a stark choice.
Consequently,
the stakes have exponentially grown for Iran now,
with the prospect of a longer-term setback to its
much-cherished nuclear program that will have
significant ramifications for the country's
economic planning.
Given this dire
consequence, Tehran has given a serious reply to
the international community's incentive package
over Iran's nuclear program. Tehran seeks
clarification on a number of items, eg, the
timeline on the offered nuclear assistance, the
guarantee of implementation, given existing US
sanctions that preclude the sale of dual-purpose
technology to Iran.
Germany and the five
permanent UN Security Council members - the United
Kingdom, China, France, Russia and the US -
offered Iran a package of economic and political
incentives in June if it suspended nuclear-fuel
work. The package was negotiable, but the six
powers said Iran had to halt all enrichment work
first.
In a sign of moderation toward
Iran, US President George W Bush permitted a visa
to Khatami and made the conciliatory gesture of
stating his willingness "to learn about that
country". This is a timely turnabout from his
incendiary remarks in August, calling Iran the
leader of a global "Islamic fascist" movement.
Certainly, the US and Iran policy of
labeling has gotten the two countries nowhere and
the sooner they shelve their reciprocal
demonization in favor of a prudent, and polite,
diplomacy, the better.
As long as
Washington ignores Iran's stability role in the
region and limits itself to castigating Iran's
"subversive" role, there can be no meaningful
progress on a key aspect of the incentive package,
namely, security.
The package calls for
Iran's inclusion in a regional security
arrangement and, again, an important prerequisite
is Iran's and the United States' ability to see
beyond the fog of their hostile
rhetoric-supplanting policy and explore their
wealth of shared or parallel interests.
Both Tehran and Washington support the
present besieged governments in Kabul and Baghdad,
and the combination of impending civil war in
Iraq, potentially spilling over to neighboring
countries such as Iran, and the Taliban's
resurgence in Afghanistan alone dictates fresh
thinking on Tehran's and Washington's part on how
not to let the situation in the region get out of
hand.
Clearly, the nuclear crisis can add
a qualitative turn for the worse in the current
Middle East crisis still grappling with the
tenuous ceasefire in Lebanon, whose economic
infrastructure has been wiped out. No matter how
Iran publicly celebrates Hezbollah's victory, the
fact is that Hezbollah has sustained serious
injury and faces an international buffer between
itself and Israel that, in turn, denies Iran
crucial leverage in its geostrategic game with the
US.
This observation leads us to question
seriously the conclusion of a recent study by
London's Chatham House, which naively proclaims
Iran a "major beneficiary" of the "war on terror".
Sure, the change of regimes in Kabul and Baghdad
has been a security plus for Iran, but the massive
infusion of US military might, bolstered by
base-building in both Afghanistan and Iraq, not to
mention Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and elsewhere in
Iran's vicinity, have been tantamount to major
tremors threatening the wellspring of Iran's
national security.
Any premature
conclusion that ignores the security predicament
of Iran in the post September 11, 2001, milieu
cannot possibly be taken seriously.
In
fact, the real, clear and present danger of a US
military threat against Iran has caused a state of
semi-emergency that the government's leaders yearn
to end and to return to the state of normalcy -
this against the present pattern of war games and
war preparation draining precious resources and
deflecting from burning economic priorities.
It is hoped that Iran's declared intention
to take the confidence-building measures on its
nuclear program will have the desired result of
de-escalating tensions in the region.
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", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.
He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential
latent", Harvard International Review, and is
author of Iran's Nuclear
Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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