TEHRAN: Surrounded by hostile neighbours, Iran is a nation under constant diplomatic — and military — pressure. But while its quest for regional security may have led it to quietly explore weapons of mass destruction, that exploration has led it into the jaws of US criticism. Now that the US has declared ‘war on terrorism’ and pronounced Iran, Iraq, and North Korea an “axis of evil,” such a threat perception in Washington could yield serious consequences.

Iran is stuck in a strategic Catch 22, Western and Iranian analysts say. On one hand, it wants to portray itself as an indomitable regional power. On the other, it wants to avoid the wrath of Pentagon planners. But incur the wrath of the US it has. Washington, backed by Israel, charges that Tehran is “aggressively” pursuing weapons of mass destruction and the long- range missiles to deliver them.

Of all Washington’s concerns, those of Iran’s possible nuclear ambitions top the list.

Having already declared its interest in effecting “regime change” in Iraq, a negative US assessment about Iranian intentions could pave the way for powerful US action.

President Mohammad Khatami says Iran is interested only in civilian nuclear power, and has repeatedly called for the Mideast to be turned into a zone free of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

“It’s better for the American administration to decide among themselves if they want to raise the flag of war, or of dialogue,” Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said this week. “America believes it is the only source of right and wrong.”

Indeed, independent assessments of Iran’s abilities are often at odds with official US rhetoric. But the country may have reasons entirely separate from its rivalry with the US and Israel to research weapons of mass destruction.

“Iran has 15 neighbours and no friends, and these neighbours are not the most charming,” says a Western diplomat in Tehran.

The easiest way to create such a deterrent, the diplomat says, is to “build up a rocket programme that flies,... and then leave in doubt that what you put in it is not TNT.”

“There are doubts about what Iran is doing,” says a Western diplomat, who asked not to be identified. “But at the same time, they are years behind entering the nuclear club, and their ballistic missile programme is in difficult shape.

The problem is the US and Israel say Iran is building ICBMs (inter-continental ballistic missiles). This is questionable.” Iran’s nuclear programme is also far weaker than many of its already weaponized neighbours, including Pakistan and Israel.

Against the wishes of the US, Russia plans to complete two civilian power reactors in Iran by September 2003. “Iran’s (nuclear) programme is in shambles, and the people who read all the intelligence know that,” says Amin Tarzi, an Iran specialist at the Center for Non-proliferation Studies at the Monterrey Institute in California.

“Pakistan showed that having nuclear weapons can change the policy of great nations,” Tarzi says.

Unlike its nuclear neighbours Israel, Pakistan, and India, Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and allows the UN International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect its nuclear material.

“From our point of view, Iran has been playing by the rules,” says Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the IAEA in Vienna. “However, these rules, under the safeguard system that we have now, are limited.”—Dawn/The Christian Science Monitor News Service.