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2 Iran rocks its nuclear
boat By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
With the clock ticking toward the next
meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) in November, where IAEA chief Mohammad
ElBaradei will present a report on the status of
Iran's cooperation with the UN's nuclear agency,
Iranians are coming to terms with the sudden
resignation of their chief nuclear negotiator, Ali
Larijani, and his replacement with Saeed Jalili, a
deputy foreign minister and close ally of
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
The
developments have triggered a national debate
regarding the
timing, significance and
potential ramifications of this unexpected move.
While it is too early to draw any
comprehensive review of Larijani's performance as
negotiator, it appears that his distinct
contribution was in the area of tactical
maneuvers, quiet diplomacy, and less in terms of
public diplomacy. This is surprising for someone
who was head of Iran's state broadcasting monopoly
for 10 years up to 2004. In addition, Larijani at
times appeared wavering and insufficiently in sync
with his determined president; his strategic moves
laden with extra heaviness and his tactical
"chessmanship" lacking sufficient vagaries as
called for by changing circumstances.
According to reports from Iran, ElBaradei
has sent a confidential letter to Iran and has yet
to receive a reply. ElBaradei's deputy, Olli
Heinonen, is due in Tehran this week to meet with
Javad Vaeedi, the deputy secretary of the Supreme
National Security Council. They are scheduled to
discuss Iran's centrifuges, as well as topics
covered by the recent Iran-IAEA agreement, in
terms of which Iran agreed to disclose information
on its nuclear program, including issues related
to plutonium and sources of contamination.
Insisting that Larijani's resignation will
have no bearing on Iran's nuclear strategy, the
Iranian government has also announced that
Larijani will accompany Jalili to Rome for a
meeting on Tuesday with the European Union's
foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.
Does
this mean that from now on Solana will negotiate
with two individuals from Iran? This question was
posed by an Iranian reporter to Foreign Ministry
spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini, whose response
sheds much light on the nature of things to come.
Hosseini stated: "The negotiation with
Javier Solana will definitely continue on Tuesday,
with the difference that Dr Ali Larijani will
participate as the representative of the Supreme
Leader of the Revolution in the Supreme National
Security Council [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], with
emphasis by his excellency and the president."
In other words, no sooner had Larijani
tendered his resignation when he was swung back
into the middle of the process. At least for now,
that is, as Hosseini indicated that decisions on
future meetings will be made later.
Various commentators, especially in Europe
and the United States, have been quick in
interpreting Larijani's resignation as a "bad
omen" reflecting a triumph for hardliners led by
Ahmadinejad. But that is simplistic and ignores a
more complex reality in the Iran's state affairs.
The quest for greater centralization of nuclear
decision-making has met a contradictory response
in, on the one hand, the move for more direct
input by Khamenei, and, on the other hand, a
parallel effort by Ahmadinejad to gain greater
control of decision-making.
Regarding the
former, in the aftermath of Russian President
Vladimir Putin's recent Tehran visit, where he
submitted a nuclear proposal not to his equal,
Ahmadinejad, but rather to Khamenei [1] , thus
belittling Iran's president, Khamenei has
reportedly held a meeting with all top officials
of the regime and informed them for the first time
that an American military attack on Iran is "a
possibility" that "should be taken seriously".
Khamenei has reportedly promised Putin to
"study and consider" his proposal. Confusingly,
though, while Larijani has announced that Putin
did pass on a proposal for resolving the nuclear
standoff, Ahmadinejad has insisted that Putin did
not present any such proposal and limited himself
to the expansion of bilateral and multilateral
relations.
Conspicuously absent from the
recent Caspian Sea summit in Tehran, Larijani had
reportedly twice before tendered his resignation,
and the fact that this time it was accepted has
been widely interpreted by Tehran's political
analysts as indicative of a "sharpening of
internal frictions over the management of Iran's
nuclear file", to paraphrase an editorial in the
daily Etemad. The newspaper further states, "There
are some reports of Larijani's serious dispute
with Ahmadinejad in this regard ... and Putin's
trip put a seal of approval on those reports."
Another paper, Etemad Melli, has
interpreted Larijani's resignation in terms of
"placing the decision-making wheel in the hands of
the president", adding that Ahmadinejad and his
advisors will "certainly pay the costs" of this
decision.
Some Iranian pundits have also
argued that Larijani resigned to protect himself
"from the high cost of managing the nuclear file".
The editorial of Etemad Melli asked, "If this
interpretation is correct, the Iranian people have
the right to ask from Mr Larijani: Would he still
vacate the scene if he could guarantee success?"
According to veteran political analyst
Davood Hermidas Bavand, the real reason for
Larijani's resignation can be found in the failure
of the government's "eastern approach" that
naively banked on support from China and Russia in
the nuclear row, despite Moscow and Beijing's role
in supporting sanctions resolutions at the UN
Security Council. "Larijani's resignation is his
objection to the strategy laid out by the
government of Mahmud Ahmadinejad," Bavand insists.
Another pundit, Mohsen Armin, writing in a
reformist website, www.emrouz.com, under the
heading "Crisis in crisis-management", made the
following observation: "A month ago, when
Ahmadinejad in his public speech referred to the
arbitrary initiative of certain people in
negotiating with the Europeans, many thought he
was referring to Mr Hassan Rowhani [the previous
nuclear negotiator], but those who know the
behind-the-scene facts know very well that he was
pointing at Larijani, not Rowhani."
Assuming that Armin's observation is
correct, then the fact that Larijani has been
allowed to attend the next round of nuclear talks,
with the explicit blessing of the Supreme Leader,
means that Ahmadinejad can no longer level such
criticisms at him and we may be seeing a new
situation of dual nuclear crisis management.
But, given the gravity of the crisis and
the current bifurcation of the negotiation role,
the net result is the internalization of factional
struggles over proper nuclear policy in the core
foreign policy institutions, above all, in the
Supreme National Security Council.
Reactions in
Parliament Several parliamentary (majlis)
deputies have raised concerns that the 42-year-old
Jalili is not experienced enough to shoulder the
massive responsibility of negotiating the complex
nuclear issue at a critical time when the US and
Israel are pushing aggressively for a new round of
sanctions on Iran and the threats of war remain on
the horizon.
Thus, Ahmad Tavakoli, a
member associated with the majority faction,
Osoolgarayan, has complained that whereas Larijani
has an extensive government background, Jalili
lacks the necessary "stature" to replace him in
foreign negotiations. He expressed the hope that
"this shuffle does not lead to any change in the
composition of the secretariat of the Supreme
Security Council and the damages of this decision
do not climb any higher".
Another deputy,
Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the deputy head of the
majlis, stated that until now the Ahmadinejad
government had replaced the reformists of the
Mohammad Khatami era. But now, for the first time,
someone like Larijani, "who is approved by the
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