@@ An offer Iran MUST refuse @@
Arash
March 16, 2005
An offer that can be refused
By Dr. Kaveh L. Afrasiabi
TEHRAN - The Bush administration has offered modest incentives - of Iran's
entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and spare parts for its aging
airplanes - rejected by Iran as incommensurate with the huge nuclear card.
In making this announcement, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made
clear that this decision, reached with the European Three (ie France,
Germany and Britain - EU-3) currently holding nuclear talks with Iran,
implies that if Iran rejected the offer and insists on resuming its nuclear
fuel cycle, then Europe would support the U.S.'s bid to take the matter to
the United Nations Security Council for further action.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi said Sunday in a
statement that the country was determined to use nuclear technology for
peaceful purposes, and "no pressure, bribe or threat" could make Iran give
up.
This development is, indeed, troublesome for both Iran-EU relations as well
as US-EU ties, notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. continues to insist on
Iran's permanent suspension of its uranium enrichment program, whereas the
Paris Agreement, signed between Iran and the EU-3 last November, implicitly
if not explicitly recognizes Iran's right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) to produce the nuclear fuel necessary for its reactors and, what is
more, invites Iran to join a club of nuclear fuel-producing countries.
Thus, no matter how urgent the European desire to heal the trans-Atlantic
rift with Washington, vividly demonstrated in President George W Bush's
recent charm offensive in European capitals, the fact remains that in
agreeing to bandwagon with the U.S. on the next steps toward Iran, Europe
has potentially bargained away its diplomacy and, worse, put at risk its
carefully-cultivated nuanced approach toward Iran; already, Iran's top
nuclear negotiator, Dr. Hassan Rowhani, has warned that in light of Iran's
full compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
inspections, Iran will immediately cease negotiations with Europe and resume
nuclear fuel production if Iran's dossier is sent to the Security Council.
From Iran's vantage point, the U.S.'s offer above-mentioned is problematic
on several grounds: first, it overlooks that Iran has legitimately exercised
its right to acquire peaceful nuclear technology, per Article IV of the NPT,
and that to ask Iran to deny itself this right, or part of it, is illegal,
from the prism of international law and international regimes such as the
NPT.
Second, per U.S. intelligence's own admission, reflected in the New York
Times on March 10, 2005, there is no reliable information that Iran has
embarked on a secret nuclear weapon program, notwithstanding the IAEA's
widespread inspection of Iranian civil and military sites and the absence of
any evidence corroborating the U.S.'s and Israel's allegations that Iran has
a clandestine weapons program.
Third, Iran has already committed a huge sum of money, in upwards of U.S.$1
billion, in setting up the nuclear facilities in Tehran, Isfahan, Arak, etc,
which the West is now demanding to dismantle in exchange for token rewards.
The heavy water reactor alone has cost Iran over $100 million, and per
reliable information relayed to the author by one of Iran's top nuclear
negotiators, recently the British negotiators in Vienna offered a light
water reactor to Iran if it agreed to scrap the heavy water reactor, an
offer which had apparently surprised the German and French negotiators.
But, this aside, the U.S. and Europe cannot possibly overlook the role and
influence of Iran's national character and collective psyche, which will be
badly bruised if Iran bargains away its NPT rights to nuclear technology for
such modest incentives
Without doubt, the political backlash inside Iran will be tremendous, and
Rowhani and others involved in such a humiliating bargain will be the
immediate political casualties, sure to be replaced with more hawkish
politicians more apt to emulate North Korea's path - of exiting the NPT and
excluding any outside inspection of their nuclear facilities.
On the other hand, Iran cannot afford remaining indifferent to the unique
window of opportunity to reach rapprochement with the West via a
mutually-satisfactory nuclear negotiation, one that would bring tangible
economic as well as security rewards to Iran.
To open a parenthesis here, it is worth mentioning that at a recent
international conference on nuclear technology held at the Center for
Strategic Research in Tehran, former president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani made an
apt comparison of Iran and Israel (for the first time refraining from using
the adjective "Zionist" state and mentioning Israel by name), by stating
that the U.S.'s rationale for Israel's nuclear weapons in terms of Israel's
national security worries, should be "logically extended to other
countries".
Clearly, Iran is not oblivious to the post-Yasser Arafat developments and is
gearing up to make necessary adjustments in its Middle East policy, an
important fact conveniently overlooked by the Western media.
What, then, is really important about the U.S. offer is a policy shift, away
from regime change and toward dialogue and even rapprochement, discernible
in the stated willingness to drop the objections to Iran's membership in the
WTO and sale of spare parts for Iran's Boeing airplanes; the latter would
almost automatically mean a reconsideration of the U.S. sanctions on Iran, a
welcome first step that could, optimistically speaking, pave the way for the
future deletion of all sanctions on Iran, which have seriously impacted the
Iranian economy so far by chasing away potential foreign investment,
particularly in the ailing energy sector.
Consequently, from Iran's vantage point, it is important to keep the
totality of the picture in mind, the fact that the present U.S. offer could
well turn into the harbinger of more substantial, and meaningful,
compromises in the near future, indeed a mini-golden opportunity that should
not be dismissed out of hand and studied carefully instead, in the light of
the expanding pool of shared or parallel interests between Iran and the U.S.
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and, indeed, the entire region.
Nevertheless, the problem of Iranian suspicion of the U.S.'s real intentions
is a serious one: is the U.S. making this modest proposal as a symbolic
gesture in order to give the appearance of serious negotiation, when in fact
it is merely posturing as a prelude for tough actions against Iran down the
road? Is the White House serious about steering away from regime change and
willing to normalize relations with a regime that Bush recently described in
his State of the Union address as the world's foremost state sponsor of
terrorism? Indeed, the rather schizophrenic U.S. policy toward Iran leaves a
lot to be desired and, from Tehran's point of view, is insufficiently
reassuring of the U.S.'s benevolent intentions.
Tehran's cynical editorials have already put the accent on the U.S.'s
"cunning manipulation of Europe", that is, as part of a
carefully-orchestrated policy to lure Europe from its present course of
action toward Iran, causing a growing atrophy in Iran-EU diplomacy and a
priori garnering a European commitment to the U.S.'s UN sanctions approach
"should Iran refuse the offer".
But, hasn't Europe learnt its lessons from the Iraq fiasco? Shouldn't the
Europeans maintain a healthy skepticism about the true intentions of the
White House, dominated by hawkish neo-conservatives who openly pen about
"war to war" and "axis of evil".
And why should Europe all of a sudden succumb to forgetfulness vis-a-vis its
own Paris Agreement with Iran, which clearly mentions that Iran's suspension
of its nuclear fuel program "is not a legal obligation" but rather a
"voluntary" confidence-building measure.
In conclusion, the glass of U.S. nuclear diplomacy toward Iran is definitely
more than half empty rather than half full, compared with Europe, and it
would be a pity, for the sake of Middle East and international peace, if
Europe does not pressure the U.S. for greater transparency of its ultimate
intentions toward Iran.
* Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1078994467)
and "Iran's Foreign Policy Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs,
co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas Maleki, No 2, 2003. He
teaches political science at Tehran University.
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