Page 1 of
2 THE ROVING
EYE War
fever as seen from Iran By
Pepe Escobar
Absent the possibility of
joining the Curiosity rover on Mars, there's
nowhere to hide from the "Bomb Iran" hysteria
relentlessly emanating from Tel Aviv and its
Washington outposts. Now that even includes
third-rate hacks suggesting US President Barack
Obama should go in person to Israel to appease the
warmongering duo Bibi-Barak [1].
So it's
time for something completely different - and
totally absent from Western corporate media; sound
Iranian minds rationally analyzing what's really
going on behind the drums of war - regarding Iran,
Turkey, the Arab world and across Eurasia.
Let's start with ambassador Hossein
Mousavian, a research
scholar at Princeton
University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs, a former spokesperson for
the Iranian nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to
2005, and the author of The Iranian Nuclear
Crisis: A Memoir .
Writing at the Arms
Control Association website [2] , Mousavian goes
straight to the point; "The history of Iran's
nuclear program suggests that the West is
inadvertently pushing Iran toward nuclear
weapons."
In seven key steps, he outlines
how this happened - starting with Iran's "entrance
into the nuclear field", owed largely, by the way,
to Washington; "In the 1970s, the Shah [of Iran]
had ambitious plans for expanding the nuclear
program, envisioning 23 nuclear power plants by
1994, with support from the United States."
Mousavian stresses how, from 2003 to 2005,
during the first Bush administration,
Iran submitted different [nuclear]
proposals, which included a declaration to cap
enrichment at the 5% level; export all
low-enriched uranium (LEU) or fabricate it into
fuel rods; commit to an additional protocol to
its IAEA safeguards agreement and to Code 3.1 of
the subsidiary arrangements to the agreement,
which would provide the maximum level of
transparency; and allow the IAEA to make snap
inspections of undeclared facilities. This offer
was intended to address the West's concerns
regarding the nature of Iran's nuclear program
by ensuring that no enriched uranium would be
diverted to a nuclear weapons program. It also
would have facilitated the recognition of Iran's
right to enrichment under the NPT. In exchange
for these Iranian commitments, the Iranian
nuclear file at the IAEA would be normalized,
and Iran would have broader political, economic,
and security cooperation with the European
Union. Furthermore, Iran was interested in
securing fuel for the research reactor in Tehran
and was ready to ship its enriched uranium to
another country for fabrication into fuel
rods.
The Bush administration refused
everything. Mousavian recalls "a meeting I had at
the time with French Ambassador to Iran Francois
Nicoullaud, he told me, "For the US, the
enrichment in Iran is a red line which the
European Union cannot cross."
So "the West
was not interested in solving the nuclear issue.
Rather, the West wanted to compel Iran to forgo
its enrichment program completely." This could
only lead Tehran to "change its nuclear diplomacy
and accelerate its enrichment program, as it
sought self-sufficiency in nuclear fuel."
'Zero stockpile', anyone? Fast
forward to February 2010. Tehran proposed,
"keeping its enrichment activities below 5% in
return for the West providing fuel rods for the
Tehran reactor. The West refused this offer."
Then, in May 2010, "Iran reached a deal
with Brazil and Turkey to swap its stockpile of
LEU for research reactor fuel. The deal was based
on a proposal first drafted by the Obama
administration with Brazilian and Turkish
officials under the impression that they had the
blessing of Washington to negotiate with Iran.
Regrettably, the United States trampled on their
success by rejecting the plan; the UN Security
Council subsequently passed additional sanctions
against Iran."
Every unbiased observer
following the Iranian nuclear dossier knows these
facts. Another flash forward, to September 2011,
"when Iran had completely mastered 20% enrichment
and had a growing stockpile, it proposed stopping
its 20%-enrichment activities and accepting
Western-provided fuel rods for the Tehran reactor.
Once again, the West declined and made it
necessary for the Iranians to move toward
producing their own fuel rods."
Moving on
to this year's talks in Istanbul and Baghdad,
Mousavian stresses, "with each blockage and
punitive Western action, Iran further advances its
nuclear program."
And it gets worse; "A
comparison of the June 19 statement in Moscow by
Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief and
lead negotiator for the P5+1, with her April 14
Istanbul statement reveals a major difference. The
P5+1 is now giving more emphasis to Iran's
compliance with its international obligations,
namely, UN Security Council resolutions, rather
than focusing on the country's obligations under
the NPT. This is a clear setback from the Istanbul
position. It indicates a focus on suspension of
Iran's enrichment activities, a demand that has
been a deal breaker since 2003."
The
bottom line is "not only has the West pushed Iran
to seek self-sufficiency, but at every juncture,
it has tried to deprive Iran of its inalienable
right to enrichment. This has simply propelled
Iran to proceed full throttle toward mastering
nuclear technology."
The conclusion is
inevitable; "The progress of Iran's nuclear
program is the product of Western efforts to
pressure and isolate Iran while refusing to
recognize Iran's rights."
Washington and
its European followers simply can't understand
that "sanctions, isolation, and threats would not
bring Iran to its knees. On the contrary, these
policies have led only to the advancement of
Iran's nuclear program." With even more
devastating sanctions and the "Bomb Iran" fever
turning into an attack, one consequence, says
Mousavian, is assured; "Iran would be likely to
withdraw from the NPT and pursue nuclear weapons."
What makes it even more absurd is that
there is a solution to all this madness:
To satisfy the concerns of the West
regarding Iran's 20% stockpile, a mutually
acceptable solution for the long term would
entail a "zero stockpile". Under this approach,
a joint committee of the P5+1 and Iran would
quantify the domestic needs of Iran for use of
20% enriched uranium, and any quantity beyond
that amount would be sold in the international
market or immediately converted back to an
enrichment level of 3.5%. This would ensure that
Iran does not possess excess 20% enriched
uranium forever, satisfying the international
concerns that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.
It would be a face-saving solution for all
parties as it would recognize Iran's right to
enrichment and would help to negate concerns
that Iran is pursuing nuclear
weapons.
Will Washington - and Tel
Aviv - ever accept it? Of course not. The dogs of
war will keep on barking.
A new
security game It's also quite refreshing to
examine Iranian analysts' take on Syria.
Mehdi Mohammadi, writing at the IranNuc.IR
website [3] notes "the fear that the Sunni
majority has of a Salafi minority is a very
important, and often censored, reality about the
situation on the ground in Syria. It is the same
reality which has prevented the opposition to
accept any form of negotiations or even free
elections". This fact is absolutely anathema in
Western corporate media's coverage of Syria.
Mohammadi correctly evaluates the
discrepancies among different Muslim Brotherhood
(MB) factions inside Syria; one hardline faction
wants Sharia law; another is convinced the future
of the whole region is essentially at the hands of
the MB anyway, so they are on a mission from God;
but the majority wants to extract as much money as
they can from Saudi Arabia while allied with
France, the US, Sunnis in Lebanon and Jordan;
"this part forms the spine of the armed opposition
in Syria".
The bottom line is that even in
the best-case scenario, the MB "is making a dire
strategic mistake ... Even if Assad's government
falls, the Americans will not allow the Syrian
government to fall into the hands of that part of
the Muslim Brotherhood which seeks to continue and
even give more depth to the existing conflict with
Israel."
Mohammadi also observes, right on
the money, how the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and
Turkey "reached the conclusion that the best way
for preventing Arab Spring developments to serve
Iran's increasing power in the region was to turn
the whole situation into a conflict between
Shi'ites and Sunnis."
Essentially, how
does Tehran see it? According to Mohammadi, "there
is a high degree of confidence that the Syrian
government will not fall in medium term." On top
of it, "it is very unlikely that Russia and China
will reach an agreement with the West over Syria",
and "even on Iran's nuclear dossier".
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