Race for sanctions on Iran speeds up
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
The next Iran report by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) is due in early March, and even though Tehran has fully cooperated and
there is no evidence of military diversion from its peaceful nuclear
activities, the United Nations is about to impose severe new sanctions on Iran,
deemed "punitive" by a US government spokesperson.
According to Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the proposed third
round of sanctions is really about "escaping answers to world public opinion"
because the US and its allies "are worried about the agency report". Mottaki
has hinted at compromise and Iran's willingness to show greater flexibility in
nuclear negotiations, by calling on the US to "couch whatever it
has to say in the Five plus One framework". This refers to the US, Britain,
France, Russia and China plus Germany, which have been debating Iran's case.
The next IAEA report will raise the question of Tehran's program in public
opinion, that is, on what basis and on the proof of what diversions are new
sanctions resolutions against Iran proposed?
This is a question asked by a growing number of Third World diplomats. Case in
point, South Africa's Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad has cited "good
progress" in the process of negotiation between Iran and the UN's atomic agency
(the IAEA), adding that "the world community should support this process".
Pahad and a number of diplomats from other nations, who are members of the
Non-Aligned Movement, have warned the UN Security Council's actions could end
up harming "successful" Iran-IAEA cooperation.
Concerning the latter, the IAEA's director general, Mohammad ElBaradei, visited
Iran from January 11 to 12 and reached an agreement with Tehran on the timeline
for implementation of all the remaining verification issues specified in
the August 2007 "workplan" between the IAEA and Iran.
"Iran has nothing to hide and therefore has no fear to answer remaining
questions ... to pave the ground for the IAEA to give a transparent report
about Iran's program," Mohammad Saeedi, the deputy director of Iran's atomic
energy organization, has stated.
Irrespective of both the decent progress in Iran-IAEA cooperation and the
recent intelligence report, compiled by 16 US spy agencies, that concludes Iran
is not proliferating nuclear weapons, President George W Bush used his final
state of the union address on Tuesday to level the traditional charge of
proliferation, as well as Iran's troublemaking in Iraq, against Tehran, calling
on Iran to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. (The latter is unlikely to
happen. Iran has even indicated it could join a proposed international bank for
enriched uranium that would provide countries with safe fuel for nuclear power
stations - but as a supplier.)
As if intent on obviating any signs of compromise on Iran's part, the US has
escalated its demands, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice going on record
about the need for Iran "to give up its nuclear fuel program". This surpasses
the UN's demands, which go as far as requesting a mere "suspension" as a
confidence-building measure, ie, inherently as a time-specific, temporary step.
A third resolution ahead of the IAEA report?
Between now and early March, that is, when the IAEA's governing board meets
in Vienna to deliberate on ElBaradei's country report on Iran, we will
likely witness a stiff struggle at the UN over the exact content, wording and
timing of the third sanctions resolution.
In light of Iran's warning that it will respond negatively to any such
resolution, and that the new one will likely call for a range of actions,
including travel bans, asset freezes, monitoring of some of Iran's banks, and
inspection of suspicious cargo, it is likely to probable that the IAEA's
agreement with Iran, and with it the process of Iran's nuclear transparency,
will be an immediate and direct casualty of the new UN sanctions.
By the same token, should the Security Council delay action until after
ElBaradei's report is out, then, assuming the report will substantiate the
peacefulness of Iran's nuclear program, it will be doubly hard for the US and
its three European allies (Germany, France and Britain) to seek "additional
sanctions" when such sanctions lack the necessary justifications.
Thus, the US's extra effort now to preempt the IAEA report by getting the third
UN resolution passed well ahead of the next IAEA meeting, perhaps betting on an
instant Iranian backlash against the IAEA. But, in light of China's
announcement that it will take "several weeks" for the new resolution to be
adopted, the US may not get its wish.
The first two UN resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, first in December 2006
and then in March 2007, called on Tehran to suspend all uranium-enrichment
related activities and also banned arms sales and froze Iranian assets in
overseas financial institutions.
Third resolution: Tough and dangerous, sold as mild
It is noteworthy that the draft UN resolution for the first time imposes an
export ban on all "dual-purpose" nuclear material or technology, the only
exception being those under the supervision of the IAEA, for example, material
for use in light water reactors, in which case the UN committee monitoring Iran
sanctions must authorize its export to Iran.
Moreover, the proposed resolution calls for inspection of suspicious cargoes to
and from Iran. Will this mean the US's warships patrolling the Persian Gulf or
Indian Ocean will be next inspecting Iran's cargo ships looking for banned
nuclear material? And what happens if the Iranians resist?
These are questions to ponder at the UN Security Council, especially on the
part of those permanent and non-permanent members professing the need for
"pacific resolution" of the Iran nuclear crisis, since the draft sanctions
resolutions have a distinct potential to cause a violent trigger that could
easily spiral out of control.
On paper, the US's intention is to extend to Iran the experience of cargo-ship
interdiction under the guise of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI),
which bears the stamp of the Nuclear Supplier Group and has been implemented
against North Korea a number of times.
But, the North Korea analogy can only go so far and, in light of Iran's
assertive posture in the region, similar PSI interdiction in the Persian Gulf
runs the risk of an unwanted warfare that could escalate and grip the entire
oil region, thus adding severe new headaches to an already troubled world
economy in the throes of (potentially) a coming recession.
Unmindful of the unintended, though fully anticipatory, consequences of the new
UN resolution, the US keeps building the momentum for its quick adoption at the
Security Council, thus setting the stage both for a let down at the IAEA and a
showdown in the Persian Gulf.
The US media toe the line
Meanwhile, the US media have dutifully toed the official Washington line, with
various papers such as the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Wall Street
Journal backing the proposed third UN resolution, uniformly branding it as a
"message to Iran".
Indeed, in addition to wholesale support for tough new actions against Iran,
with a New York Times editorial lamenting the lack of "stronger punishments",
what is interesting about the US media's reaction is the way in which the
importance of the US's recent intelligence finding on Iran is either
side-stepped or, better yet, completely ignored, while recycling the old
accusations regarding Iran's proliferation and its "nuclear ambitions".
Another key element of the US media campaign, to sell the draft UN resolution
to world public opinion, is placing the blame squarely on Iran's political
leadership and maintaining that the new sanctions "would send a strong message
to Iran's citizens about the folly of their leaders' course", to paraphrase a
New York Times editorial titled "Too easy to refuse".
But the proposed new sanctions, adding qualitative new weight to the existing
sanctions, are not easy. For instance, Iranian businessmen cannot get letters
of credit from foreign banks and have to resort to pre-modern cash
transactions, not to mention foreign capital being frightened out of Iran.
Above all, the legal justification for the whole sanctions regime, given Iran's
nuclear transparency and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty foundation for
its pursuit of an independent nuclear fuel cycle, is lacking. We have yet to
see an objective US editorial take this into consideration.
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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