WASHINGTON - As the February 21 United
Nations deadline for Iran to halt its
uranium-enrichment program fast approaches, both
Iran and the West are scrambling to prepare
themselves for all possible moves by the other
side.
A scenario causing some discomfort
among decision-makers in the administration of US
President George W Bush would entail Iran
succumbing to the Security Council request - but
only after first giving its nuclear program a
decisive push.
After more than two years
of negotiations, inspections, threats
and
counter-threats, the UN Security Council finally
put the Western demand for Iran to halt its
uranium-enrichment program into a legally binding
Chapter VII resolution. With a deadline of
February 21, Resolution 1737 requires a suspension
of "all enrichment-related and reprocessing
activities, including research and development, to
be verified by the IAEA", the UN's International
Atomic Energy Agency.
Though the sanctions
imposed on Iran are relatively benign, markets in
that country have reacted negatively to the
development and pragmatists there are pressuring
the nation's top decision-maker, Supreme Leader
Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to find a
face-saving way out of this situation before the
standoff with the West escalates further.
This has proved a difficult task. Khamenei
is suspicious of the intent of Western governments
and has little faith in their willingness to
reciprocate potential Iranian concessions. In his
view, sources close to his office reveal, a
hardline stance against the West should be tried,
since the more conciliatory policies pursued by
former president Mohammad Khatami failed to
produce any gains for Iran.
The
counter-argument, presented by the pragmatists,
goes that the softer policy helped avoid a costly
and potentially unmanageable confrontation with
the West.
According to Nasser Hadian, a
political analyst close to the reformist camp,
Iran will likely announce the connection and
operation of six cascades of centrifuges within
the next few weeks. Sources familiar with the
debate in Tehran say that Iran is considering
using the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on
February 11 to announce this decision and
celebrate it widely.
By doing so, Hadian
explained, the Iranian government would become
psychologically and politically prepared to accept
a compromise on its enrichment program. It would
be a face-saving exercise that could pave the way
for a suspension and an agreement to permit much
tougher IAEA inspections to avoid any escalation
in the Security Council. It would also provide
Iran with a stronger position in the ensuing
negotiations with the P5+1 states (the five
permanent members of the Security Council - the
United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and the
United States - plus Germany).
Though Iran
would agree to the UN Security Council demand and
intrusive inspections, this move is still causing
discomfort in Western capitals. In a standoff that
increasingly has become about prestige and
stature, and less and less about the proliferation
of nuclear weapons, the Iranian move might provide
Tehran with a bit too much face-saving, in the
view of some Europeans. It could be interpreted by
the European Union as an insult that makes its
efforts to find a resolution to the nuclear
wrestling match appear irrelevant.
After
all, speeding up the Iranian program would counter
the spirit and letter of the Security Council
resolution, even if Iran manages to suspend the
program before the resolution deadline is reached.
More important, the Iranian move would
signal that Tehran has - in spite of US and EU
efforts - managed to master the nuclear-fuel
cycle. For Washington, this would cause an
additional headache; mastering the fuel cycle is
the latest Israeli red line (previously, Israel
regarded uranium enrichment as the nuclear point
of no return). Israel has signaled Washington that
if Iran crosses this line, and the Bush
administration refuses to take action, Israel will
be left with no choice but to attack Iran itself.
As a result, from Israel's perspective,
the US policy will be proved a failure if Iran
connects the cascades - even if it subsequently
suspends its nuclear program and enters
negotiations with the US and the EU for a
long-term solution.
The threat of an
Israeli attack on Iran, however, is likely still
viewed with some skepticism in Washington, even
though Israeli officials have warned Washington
that an attack may be imminent. The Israeli Air
Force still lacks the capability to take out the
known Iranian facilities. More important, US war
plans involve targeting not only the nuclear
plants but also much of the infrastructure related
to the nuclear program.
While the US has
the capability to target these points, Israel does
not. A rash and unsuccessful military campaign
could turn the political momentum to Iran's favor
and undermine efforts to stop Tehran.
Israeli military action would also spell
disaster for its efforts to use the perceived
threat from Iran to forge closer ties with the
pro-Washington Sunni dictatorships in the region,
without necessarily acceding to the long-standing
Arab condition for such a diplomatic shift: an
Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state. As
much as these Arab dictatorships loathe and fear
Iran, they cannot gravitate toward Israel if it
engages in a preemptive war against a fellow
Muslim state.
Finally, Iran is home to the
largest community of Jews in the Middle East
outside Israel itself. About 25,000 Iranian Jews
continue to live in the Islamic Republic, a
country they have called home since the Persian
King Cyrus the Great liberated the Jews from
Babylonian imprisonment 2,500 years ago. Military
confrontation with Iran could jeopardize the
security of this ancient community, a move the
Jewish state would be reluctant to take.
Yet even if Israel doesn't act on its
threats, Washington will still be faced with a
major political dilemma. On the one hand, it will
be difficult for the US to refuse negotiations
with Iran after having publicly repeated that
suspension of enrichment is its sole condition for
talks.
"I myself have said I'll show up
any place, any time, anywhere to talk with my
Iranian counterpart, with other European leaders,
if the Iranians will just do the one simple thing
that the world has been asking them to do for
almost three years: suspend their enrichment
capabilities," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
told the US Public Broadcasting Service's News
Hour last month.
On the other hand,
with the Bush administration having defined a
nuclear-weapons capability as the mastering of the
fuel cycle, and having vowed not to permit Iran to
have such a capability, inaction could come at the
expense of appearing to backtrack on an important
pledge to Israel. Washington hawks will no doubt
accuse the president of letting Iran off the hook.
At some point, however, Washington,
Brussels and Tehran must choose whether to win the
battle for enrichment or the battle for prestige.
Winning both may be outside the realm of
possibility for all involved parties.
Dr Trita Parsi is the author of
Treacherous Triangle: The Secret Dealings of
Israel, Iran and the United States (Yale
University Press, 2007). He is also president of
the National Iranian American Council.
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