The latest news from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), aside from
a gloomy portrayal of an international agency starved of cash and manpower, is
that it cannot confirm the absence of a clandestine Iranian nuclear program.
The head of the United Nations' watchdog, Mohamad ElBaradei, should know better
that this is not his agency's mandate to begin with, no matter how much new
affection is poured on the troubled agency by Western powers.
Hence the question: is there a discrete quid pro quo for the
simultaneous announcements whereby the IAEA tags along with the United States'
plan of action with regard to Iran, as long as Washington promises no military
action, and then it is rewarded with Washington's and London's power of the
purse?
On Monday, ElBaradei warned that the agency's ability to carry
out its core work was at risk unless funding was increased. He pointed out that
90% of the IAEA's nuclear security program depended on voluntary funding,
rather than on its regular budget, which in 2008 amounted to US$415 million.
The reason of raising the possibility of a quid pro quo is that the IAEA
has recently flip-flopped over Iran's "outstanding issues", which were thought
to have been put to rest in the agency's February 2008 report. They have
cropped up in a subsequent report, albeit around the contentious issue of
certain alleged "weaponization studies".
Iran and the IAEA signed an agreement last year to resolve the outstanding
issues. The agency posed eight questions, which Tehran answered and ElBaradei
said "the answers support the IAEA documentation" verifying non-diversion of
Iran's nuclear program to military use.
Soon after this, the US came up with "lap-top" allegations or "alleged studies"
that pointed to a weapons program. Iran dismissed these charges, saying they
did not come under the earlier agreement with the IAEA on outstanding issues.
And by ElBaradei's own admission, in his latest report, there is no evidence of
diversion of any nuclear material toward those alleged studies, nor has the
agency detected any discrepancy in Iran's nuclear declarations. Add to this the
fact that only a fraction of the IAEA's 145 member states have so far received
a complete clean bill of health, and many of them have yet to adopt the
intrusive Additional Protocol inspection regime of the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Maybe ElBaradei's real intention is to apply pressure on Iran to re-adopt the
Additional Protocol, but he is certainly going down the wrong path in pursuing
this. Iran stopped its cooperation with the Additional Protocol in 2005 after
two years, when it became abundantly clear that it not only did not satisfy the
IAEA, worse, it became an excuse for ElBaradei to ask for more "transparency
beyond the Additional Protocol".
In fairness to ElBaradei, he now realizes his mistake and no longer levels such
demands on Iran, hoping to get the Additional Protocol back on Iran's agenda -
which Tehran very well might adopt if ElBaradei and his inspectors stop
annoying Iran by giving credence and legitimacy to the fabricated evidence that
has so far precluded the atomic agency from declaring Iran's nuclear file as
"normal".
There is nothing normal about Iran's dossier at the UN, which has imposed three
rounds of sanctions on Iran and just last week issued yet another Security
Council statement calling on Iran to comply with the UN's demand for a complete
suspension of uranium-enrichment activities. Due to Russia's lack of
cooperation, the Security Council failed to get the necessary momentum for a
fourth round of sanctions, and the issue now at the UN is what to do next.
The weak sanctions are clearly not going to deter Iran's progress with
centrifuge cascades and Iran is on a diplomatic offensive with respect to its
nuclear transparency and "inalienable rights" to pursue a civilian nuclear
program.
Absent any "smoking gun", the West is forced to rely on hypothetical
conjectures that Iran's nuclear activities pose a threat because maybe Iran is
harboring the ill intentions of going after nuclear weapon at some point in the
future. This is defective logic and underscores the necessity of hard evidence
to implicate Iran in any military application of its nuclear program, instead
of mere projections and guesswork. And it is precisely here that ElBaradei is
now playing a critical function, by raising the scenario of a yet-to-be
discovered clandestine nuclear program.
Again, this is beyond the parameters of the IAEA and its safeguard agreement
with Iran, or for that matter with any other IAEA member state, and the agency
would be better off not speculating and keeping its eyes focused on its
technical responsibility. That is, to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran's
declared activities.
As the unhappy experience of Iraq reminds us, the IAEA treads a dangerous path
when it ventures beyond its responsibilities and tries to prowl in the
wilderness of "proving an absence".
All this is disconcerting for Iranian officials, some of whom now wonder if the
IAEA chief, who has not sought re-appointment for his job after November 2009,
may be thinking of his personal "legacy" and thus going the extra mile to avoid
being labeled as the man who let Iran's nuclear proliferation happen under his
watch, no matter what the risk of getting it wrong.
This is too big a risk for the IAEA's own prestige and ElBaradei's suspicion
that Iran may be engaged in undeclared nuclear activity may come to haunt him
in the future if, somehow, such suspicions end up fueling an avoidable
conflict. But, even short of a military confrontation, the effect of
perpetuating the economic warfare of UN (and US) sanctions on Iran warrants a
serious examination of the real sources for ElBaradei's suspicion.
"Mr ElBaradei was treated with high respect when he visited Iran last year and
now because of his unwarranted allegations and blind acceptance of accusations
against Iran, he has lost some of his credibility with Tehran and this may
affect cooperation with the IAEA in a negative way," said a Tehran political
analyst.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has told the author that he sees
Western political manipulation of the IAEA. He is not alone; this is a
sentiment shared by many diplomats associated with the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM), this author discovered at the UN headquarter these past several days.
Strangely, the longer the Iran nuclear crisis continues, the less isolated
Tehran appears, its net of NAM solidarity growing almost on a daily basis, and
the division between the US and its few Western allies on the one hand and a
bulk of the international community that participates in the NAM movement on
the other.
Who, then, is really getting isolated here? With respect to the IAEA, this is
an important question for ElBaradei to entertain since there is a good chance
he may be self-isolating and harming his cherished agency if he persists with
the extra-legal demand that Iran prove a negative - the lack of a clandestine
nuclear program. Surely that is not the definition of a worthy legacy.
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. For his
Wikipedia entry, click here.
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