Iran's Latest Score

Despite intense diplomatic lobbying by the U.S., the IAEA has so far this week declined to refer Iran’s nuclear dossier to the U.N. Security Council. This despite President Ahmadinejad’s belligerent tone at his U.N. appearances last week, and despite Iran’s continued insistence that the nuclear fuel cycle is non-negotiable. It is a victory for Iran’s diplomacy, which has all along been one of insisting on developing nations’ rights to nuclear technology (something that resonates well amongst the non-aligned nations) and Iran’s very visible tilt to the East, whereby it can count on allies such as China and Russia to block any U.N. resolution or sanctions against it.

Iran’s position vis-a-vis nuclear energy is easy to defend if you’re a non-aligned or developing nation. The NPT and the Additional Protocols specifically allow a signatory state to develop the nuclear cycle but it goes further than that: it requires states with nuclear technology to assist other states in developing their own. The reason the U.S. and the Europeans have decided that Iran should not benefit from the NPT is the argument that since Iran breached the agreement by hiding a nuclear program for eighteen years, it should not be trusted with nuclear technology again. Iran’s reason for hiding its program is that it accuses the Western powers of breaching the NPT by not providing it with the technology, thus forcing Iran to develop it on its own and in secret. Now, they say, Iran’s nuclear program is in the open and in full compliance with the NPT, which is perhaps technically true. At a press breakfast with President Ahmadinejad a week ago in New York, I heard him say, in response to a question about trust, that it is impossible to prove a negative: how, he wondered, can Iran prove it doesn’t want a nuclear weapon? He cleverly equated Western suspicions of Iranian intent with the run-up to the Iraq war, where suspicion rather than evidence led us to that unfortunate conflict. His implication was that if suspicion of malicious intent was enough, then the world would be forever engulfed in “pre-emptive” wars.

The Iraq war has clearly weakened America’s arguments. Not only do many other nations not take America’s word on Iran’s intentions seriously anymore (as is evidenced by the haggling in Vienna), but the U.S. has found itself in the position of having to backtrack when it comes to Iran’s nuclear energy development. Initially the U.S. position was that Iran should not be allowed even peaceful nuclear technology under any circumstances. Subsequently, and having left the big stick we usually carry somewhere in Baghdad, the U.S. has admitted that Iran indeed has the right to nuclear power, but that it still shouldn’t be allowed to make its own fuel (which could one day be used also for weapon manufacture). Iran’s position that it refuses to be beholden to the West for nuclear fuel (in the same way that the West is beholden to the Middle East for oil) is a popular one amongst the developing nations who also wish to someday be free of dependence on foreign sources of energy, and Iran’s proposal to share its nuclear technology with some of those nations (at least the Muslim ones) at the U.N. last week no doubt won it some new friends.

Iran’s threat over the weekend that she could stir up the Shiites of Iraq in case of any military conflict with the U.S. may seem like bluster, but Ayatollah Sistani’s envoy’s meeting with Expediency Council Chairman Hashemi Rafsanjani in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday only emphasized the strong hand that Iran is playing at a time when American might is being exposed as illusionary. So where does this leave us on the Iran question? Even if, at some later date, the U.S. is successful in bringing Iran to the Security Council, a resolution is unlikely (with China and Russia vetoes), let alone sanctions. If “all options are on the table”, as both President Bush and Condoleezza Rice have said, then what are the other options if not U.N. action? Clearly only an air strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, or a full-scale military invasion. An air strike has already been determined to be potentially ineffective and it would not only be a declaration of war against Iran, it would probably lead Iran to move full speed ahead with development of nuclear weapons. (Although the Iranian leadership has expressed that nuclear arms are prohibited in Islam, an attack could easily result in a fatwa that reverses that opinion.) An invasion today is practically impossible for a U.S. military that is having a hard enough time finding soldiers to send to Iraq.

The truth of the matter is that it would be far better for the U.S. to engage Iran, so that as it develops nuclear energy under the watchful eye of the IAEA, it is disinclined to divert that technology and fuel to a weapons program. Iran has, it’s true, made it difficult for the U.S. to be friendly. But for all the rhetoric emanating from Washington and London about Iran being the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, it should be remembered that Iran has not been behind any of the recent terrorist actions against the West. 9/11, Bali, Madrid and London were the works of al-Qaeda or its supporters: Sunni Arabs, who just happen to be the mortal enemies of Shiite Iranians. Iran’s “state-sponsored” terrorism is limited to their support of Palestinian resistance groups and Hezbollah of Lebanon, all involved in regional conflicts and who have rarely, at least in recent years, turned their gun sights on civilians in the West (unless one counts Israelis as Westerners). Outside of the Israeli-Palestinian question, Iran’s interests in the Middle East are actually closely aligned with the U.S.: in Afghanistan, Iran was supporting the Northern Alliance way before the U.S. forcibly removed the Taliban (who the Iranians said gave Islam a bad name); in Iraq, the U.S. defeated perhaps Iran’s greatest enemy, Saddam Hussein; and Iran is possibly the only country in the world that supports the (Shiite) Iraqi government with as much fervor as us; certainly far more than our Arab allies do. And if ever there were an American government that could find common ground with Iran’s theocracy it is the Bush administration. Both feel they are serving at the pleasure of (if not appointed by) God, both have shown a willingness to manipulate (if not rig) elections, both control a part of their media that spews propaganda (Fox News and IRIB), and neither really believe in complete freedom of the press (remember Ari Fleischer’s “you have to watch what you say....?). You’d think they’d get along famously, and spare the world a new conflict.