Europe Plays Nuclear Poker
with Iran
Analysis by Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI, Aug 2 (IPS) - The Iranian government's threat to resume limited
nuclear activities after the European Union (EU) missed a deadline on Sunday to
offer new incentives is clearly part of a calculated attempt to mount pressure
on the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany).
The EU-3 has rebuffed Iran's call and warned against ''any unilateral move'' on
Tehran's part that would be ''unnecessary and damaging'' and could ''make it
very difficult to continue'' negotiations.
The threats are being seen by neutral observers in this country, which has just
signed a nuclear energy pact with the United States, as part of a cynical game
of nuclear poker now being played over Iran.
At the heart of the moves and countermoves is the changed situation in Iran
after the surprise election of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as president and the West's
great discomfort at dealing with someone who has been termed a ''hardline''
Islamist.
If the nuclear issue is not resolved very soon, the danger will grow and the
nuclear poker game could easily get out of control. The immediate risk is that
the EU and the US might push Iran into an intransigent stand by threatening to
take the controversy to the United Nations Security Council for possible
sanctions against Tehran.
Iran has refused to extend the Jul. 31 deadline agreed with the EU-3 last
November, when Tehran suspended its nuclear activities. This was done on
condition that the European states would make proposals that give Iran the
incentive not to pursue its nuclear programme, which it says is entirely for
''peaceful'' purposes.
The EU-3 requested Iran to extend the deadline for six days. ''This time-span
might appear trivially short, but it is not,'' says Hamid Ansari, a former
Indian ambassador Iran and a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research
Foundation, a policy think-tank in New Delhi.
''Probably the EU-3 wants to hear a pronouncement on the nuclear issue from the
new president-elect, who will assume office on Aug. 6. And the Iranians do not
want to oblige the EU-3''.
It was not an accident that the EU ''missed'' the July 31 deadline. According to
reports, ''which appear reliable and solid'', says Ansari, the EU-3 had
formulated a package of proposals on the assumption that a ''moderate'' like Ali
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani would be elected to Iran's presidency.
But their plans went awry when Ahmedinejad pipped Rafsanjani at the polls.
The package reportedly includes an assured supply of lightly enriched uranium
fuel for Iran's proposed nuclear power stations, lifting of barriers on the sale
of technology to Iran to help enhance its oil and gas output.
Thrown in is the promise of a serious security dialogue leading to the promise
of a no-aggression agreement that would end the a hostile posture by the US
towards Iran -- which President George W. Bush has designated a part of the
''Axis-of-Evil”.
The holding back of this package itself appears related to a hardening of the US
posture vis-a-vis Iran since Ahmedinejad's election and also the visit to Tehran
of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari seeking to repair some of the damage
caused to mutual relations since the Iran- Iraq war of the 1980s.
Washington is not just looking to mount pressure on Iran in favour of
'democracy' but may actually be contemplating an armed attack.
The US magazine, 'The Nation', reported on Jul.21 that 'Bush has given the
Defence Department approval to develop scenarios for an attack if Tehran
proceeds with uranium-enrichment activities viewed in Washington as a precursor
to the manufacture of nuclear munitions'.
In the article, by The Nation's defence correspondent Michael T. Klare, who is
also professor peace and world security at Hampshire College, pointed out that
top officials in the Bush administration have argued in favour of military
action again Iran even before Ahmadinehad's election.
According to 'The American Conservative' another publication, US contingency
plans involve the use of conventional and even nuclear weapons against over 400
targets in Iran.
Iran, for its part, has made a clean, physical separation between two components
of its 18 year-old nuclear enrichment programme, which it had kept secret. Its
enrichment plant is located at Natanz. But the factory that is supposed to feed
it is located in Isfahan and is designed to convert solid uranium oxides into
hexaflouride gas.
At the moment, Iran is only threatening to begin operating the Isfahan factory
--one clean step away from enrichment itself. In any case, Iran says it wants to
enrich uranium to a low level for use in nuclear power reactors. (Normally,
power reactors burn 2 to 4 percent enriched uranium, in which the proportion of
its fissile isotope U-235 has been raised to that percentage up from the
naturally occurring 0.7 percent).
Iran has consistently affirmed that it has a right to acquire and develop
nuclear technology for peaceful uses and that it will never pursue weapons of
mass destruction.
''In this regard, all major Iranian leaders are unanimous; even Rafsanjani could
not have changed the strong consensus that exists in Iran on nuclear policy'',
says Gulshan Dietl, professor of West Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru
University (JNU) in the Indian capital.
''That consensus is that Iran must pursue nuclear power although it will not
make nuclear weapons, at least not yet. There is no reason to believe that there
are major differences on this,'' Dietl said.
However, the US suspects that Iran, which has oil and gas reserves, wants to
enrich uranium only to make nuclear weapons.
It is another matter that the US is not a state with merely suspected nuclear
activity and a weapons programme, but a declared nuclear weapons-state, and that
it developed nuclear power despite its petroleum reserves.
The EU-3 have been trying to mediate between the US and Iran, but their efforts
could fail if the US takes a tough, unhelpful stand to isolate Iran, driving it
to harden its own posture. That could bring two years of difficult EU- Iran
negotiations to a sorry end.
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which permits
the pursuit of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes like generating power.
It has a strong legal case for developing a peaceful nuclear programme under
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision.
Iran's case has been further buttressed by the exceptional agreement the US
signed with India just two weeks ago. Under it, Washington has recognised India
as a ''responsible state with advance nuclear technology'', agreed to resume
civilian nuclear trade with it, and also to help ''adjust'' the international
nuclear control regime to enable wide-ranging civilian transactions with India.
Iran, predictably, responded to this deal by accusing the Bush administration of
double standards and undermining the NPT. Iran says ''the US signed this
agreement despite the fact that India, unlike Iran, has not signed the NPT.''
An Iranian official has been quoted as saying: ''India is looking after its own
national interest. We cannot criticise them for this. On the one hand, [the US]
are depriving an NPT member from having peaceful technology, but at the same
time they are cooperating with India, which is not a member of the NPT, to their
own advantage.''
Such criticism might complicate matters in major Western capitals and also in
the 44-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG). The US will find hard to justify
an inflexible and hostile posture towards Iran. And the EU-3 will find it even
more difficult to win this round of nuclear poker. (END/2005)