Page 2 of 2 Cracks in the Iran nuclear
stalemate By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
beyond their "one-way moral" lenses and to
consider Iran's legitimate concerns about the
threats posed to Iran by the US military
leviathan.
Arguing that just like the Iraq
War, a coming war with Iran would be over oil and
not weapons of mass destruction, Pilger
rationalizes an alleged Iranian quest for nuclear
weapons - as a
deterrent shield against the
US threat.
But, this argument, repeated ad
infinitum by so many other pundits in the East and
West, leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, Iran has
neighbors, Pakistan and Russia, that have the
bomb, but neither poses the kind of challenge to
Iran that, in the foreseeable future, mandates a
nuclear counter-strategy. Pakistan is indefinitely
locked in with India, and Russia's vast arsenals
have never directly or indirectly posed a threat
to Iran.
Israel would pose a greater
danger to Iran if Iran possessed the bomb and then
became fully integrated in the Arab-Israeli
security calculus in which, for the moment, Iran
is only marginally involved, principally through
its support for Hezbollah. But this would change
overnight with the onset of an Iran-Israeli
nuclear arms race.
As for the US's role in
Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in Iran's
vicinity, there are important facts to consider:
Iran has benefited from Saddam Hussein's downfall
and the rise of a Shi'ite-led government in
Baghdad, as well as from the demise of the Taliban
and the Tehran-friendly government in Kabul today.
Pilger and others overlook an important
difference between Iraq under Saddam and Iran,
namely, the fact that the Ba'athist regime had
twice invaded its neighbors and had committed
serious mass atrocities which made it a ripe
candidate for overthrow from the without. This in
contrast to Iran, which has good relations with
all of its neighbors, and which has not invaded
anyone during the past 250 years. The US has, as a
result, no legitimate reason to attack Iran,
particularly since its gambit in Iraq has not paid
off and turned into a lengthy quagmire.
Instead of proliferation, Iran has a
number of alternatives, such as joining the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and thus
bolstering its national security through closer
cooperation with China and Russia. These countries
persistently evade the radar of pundits who shed
crocodile tears about Iran's "national security
predicament" and try to find a rationale for its
alleged bomb-making ambitions. The fact that such
commentaries appear in the right-wing, pro-Israel
press in the US and Europe speaks for itself.
The Iraq crisis has priority What
concerns Tehran more than anything else at present
is not the threat of a US or Israeli military
strike or proliferation risks, but rather the
dangerous quagmire in Iraq reflected in the spate
of attacks on Shi'ites, not just in Baghdad but
also in the hitherto relatively peaceful cities of
Najaf and Karbala.
The explosions inside
the Iraqi Parliament and near the holy shrine of
Imam Hussein in Karbala have sent strong messages
to Tehran that the Shi'ite power house in
post-Saddam Iraq may collapse like a house of
cards and serious efforts are needed on all fronts
to prevent that scenario.
The coming Iraq
security summit in Cairo in early May presents an
excellent opportunity for the US and Iran to
discuss directly the Iraq crisis, the nuclear
crisis, and other outstanding issues. Iran's
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has stated
that he may not participate if the five Iranians
in US custody in Iraq are not released.
But, the stakes are too high to eschew
this golden opportunity for direct US-Iran
dialogue, and the forum itself can be utilized to
reach an agreement on the "Iran hostages" issue.
After all, Iran has always insisted on "talks
without preconditions" and should not contradict
itself at this critical juncture.
The US
has upped the ante against Iran regarding its
subversive military role in Iraq by claiming that
Iran funnels arms not just to Shi'ite groups but
also to extremist Sunni groups, a charge strongly
denied by Tehran.
The US must realize that
Iran will continue to play the politics of
leverage in Iraq in its nuclear diplomacy, and the
two issues are not unrelated. This is all the more
reason for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to
tackle both issues when and if she meets Mottaki
three weeks from now on the sideline of the Iraq
summit.
Rice's deputy, Burns, has sounded
conciliatory and the conceptual narrowing of gaps
on the standby option is a good omen that now
needs to be seized on by all sides, as part of a
comprehensive approach geared toward hitherto
elusive US-Iran rapprochement.
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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