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2 US and Iran: Squint-eyed
double-dealing By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Seeing "with parted
eye, when
every thing seems double", like
Hermia in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer
Night's Dream: this is, indeed, how the
troubled state of affairs between the United
States and Iran looks now. Just a week after a
breakthrough meeting in Baghdad, hailed by a US
newspaper as tantamount to "breaking major ice", a
third United Nations resolution on Iran championed
by the US is imminent. It will toughen sanctions
on Iran and, most likely, reverse the gains made
in Baghdad.
Diplomats report that the five
permanent UN Security Council members (the United
States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France
and
China) and Germany have agreed on a draft
resolution imposing new sanctions on Iran for
defying demands to suspend uranium enrichment. The
15-nation Security Council will vote on the
document next week.
According to leaks to
the press, the proposal includes a ban on Iranian
arms exports, an assets freeze on individuals and
firms involved in Tehran's nuclear and
ballistic-missile programs, a call to nations and
institutions to bar new grants or loans and a
widening of the net of travel bans for Iranian
officials.
These contradictory
developments in Baghdad and at the UN doubtless
pose serious policy challenges, not just for
Washington and Tehran, but also for just about
every other player involved directly or indirectly
in the ongoing, complex US-Iran games of strategy,
including the Europeans, Iraq and its Arab
neighbors, Israel, China and even Russia.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr
Mottaki has warned that a third resolution against
Iran will prove the Security Council's "enmity"
toward his country. Other Iranian officials,
including Ali Larijani, the head of Supreme
National Security Council and Iran's nuclear
negotiator, as well as members of the Iranian
Majlis (parliament), have also warned that Iran
will react to new sanctions by reappraising its
relations with the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA).
President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad has expressed interest in addressing
the Security Council directly and, as of this
writing, it is unclear whether the US, keen on
building on the momentum at the UN for yet another
consensual strike against Iran, will issue a
timely visa.
Should he make his trek to
New York, Ahmadinejad will have a golden
opportunity to echo earlier Iranian leader
Mohammad Mossadegh, who defended Iran's national
rights in 1951 against Britain, which found Iran's
nationalization of its oil industry unacceptable.
With Russia failing to honor its
agreements with Iran on the delivery of nuclear
fuel and the completion of the Bushehr power
plant, with lame excuses pertaining to late
payments, Iranian officials have quickly pointed
out the necessity of nuclear-fuel self-reliance
instead of foreign dependency. It is patently
clear that Moscow is now following the White
House's line for the sake of whatever is bartered
between them behind the scenes.
"The US
cannot have its cake and eat it too. It cannot
expect cooperation from Iran on regional issues
when it is doing everything possible to weaken
Iran and to deprive Iran of much-needed peaceful
nuclear technology," a Tehran University political
scientist told the author recently. He added: "The
US has now resorted to kidnapping Iranians, not
only in Iraq but also in Turkey, with the help of
the Israelis most likely, and yet expects to have
a smooth meeting in Turkey with Iranian top
officials when they meet next month."
Clearly this will not wash in the long
run, and the administration of US President George
W Bush must let the chips fall on one side or the
other, instead of pursuing the current ambiguous
dual track of detente and blatant hostility. The
neo-conservative leftovers in the Bush
administration may be incensed by the progress
made in Baghdad, deemed as "constructive" and
"positive" by both Iran's Foreign Ministry and the
US Department of State, yet they have more than
sufficient clout in the various branches of the US
government to nip in the bud the mini-breakthrough
achieved.
Their impatient big push for a
third resolution at the Security Council may,
indeed, be the timely circuit-breaker that could
neutralize that precious gain.
If passed,
as expected, the new UN resolution is bound to
generate a serious backlash in Iran that may
culminate in its exit from the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) altogether.
From Iran's vantage, expressed by Mottaki
at a UN conference on disarmament in Geneva, it is
contradictory that some nuclear-weapon states are
beefing up their nuclear arsenals - Britain is
modernizing its Trident nuclear submarines. These
countries are pressuring others to divert the
attention of the international community to
horizontal non-proliferation to the detriment of
nuclear disarmament, when the only safe and
effective way to avoid the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction is through their total
elimination.
Curiously, Mottaki's speech,
which criticized Israel for its clandestine
nuclear program and refusal to abide by NPT
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