IN an article on Iran’s nuclear programme published by Dawn on October 24, 2005, I had briefly analysed Washington’s intensified efforts to refer the matter to the Security Council as part of a planned escalation of the drive to deny Iran mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle. Iran was at the time being subjected to a propaganda campaign reminiscent of a similar vilification of Iraq prior to the invasion of March 2003.

The complexity and gravity of the present diplomatic stand-off between Iran and the United States warrants an accurate assessment of Iranian intentions and capabilities and, even more importantly, the short-term and long-term policy objectives of the sole superpower of our times now badly embroiled in the Middle East. I propose to devote two articles to the subject.

Washington was able to overcome resistance to the move for a referral to the Security Council in the 35-member Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) though with no guarantee that two of its permanent members, China and Russia, would go along with its deeper objective of setting the stage for punitive action against Iran.

During recent months there has been as much US rhetoric about a regime change in Iran as about its alleged clandestine ambition to attain a nuclear weapon capability. The pressure on Iran has been increased with orchestrated leaks about military plans and war games for unilateral intervention to destroy its nuclear installations. The intensity of this psychological warfare can be seen in the speculation that the strikes against these installations could include specially designed deep-penetration nuclear tactical devices.

On its part, Iran has responded by reaffirming the purely civilian nature of its nuclear programme and by insisting on its sovereign right to carry out low uranium enrichment to fabricate fuel for its energy projects comprising several nuclear reactors. It remains ready to engage in a meaningful dialogue to settle the issues related to its quest for nuclear energy but has, also, demonstrated its resolve to continue the programme by suspending its acceptance of IAEA’s additional protocol and by resuming enrichment.

An important milestone in the unfolding events was reached when Tehran announced that it had successfully used a cascade of 164 centrifuges to enrich uranium up to fuel-grade 3.5 per cent. This was meant to be a definitive signal that Iran’s scientists have mastered the fuel cycle. Western analysts, including those who relentlessly watch signs of a technological shift towards a weapons programme, generally agree that Iran has still to go a long way before it can design and construct a nuclear bomb. The main focus of attention, therefore, continues to be the enrichment programme which is so far minuscule and has been implemented within the parameters of Iran’s adherence to the non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

Enrichment to a fuel-grade (3.5 per cent) level is a breakthrough justifying Iran’s sense of achievement. But it is drastically short of the weapon-grade level of around 90 per cent and as yet represents a small capability of 164 cascades at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) and a somewhat greater capacity to produce uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous form fed into centrifuges. Natanz is expected to support a much larger number of centrifuges over several years reaching perhaps an eventual number of 50,000 in a distant future when Iran has built many more power reactors. There is nothing clandestine about these plans and Iran is amenable to credible safeguards.

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) published photographs of current construction activity at Natanz and Isfahan on its website on April 14. The accompanying text by David Albright and Paul Brannan and an earlier investigative report, dated March 27, 2006 by Albright and Corey Hinderstein for the same institute suggest that Iran will first try to stabilise six sets of 164 cascades i.e. about 1,000 centrifuges and then aim at 3000 of them. This is the report that launched a thousand anti-Iran articles mostly based on its selective and self-serving use. The report maintains that if Iran decides to embark upon the acquisition of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU), its 1,500 centrifuges could produce enough HEU for one nuclear weapon per annum.

Having followed Iran’s programme for years, its authors are mindful of the technical difficulties standing in the way and are of the opinion that “Iran appears to need at least three years before it could have enough HEU to make a nuclear weapon” and “given the technical difficulty of the task, it could take Iran much longer”. The three-year estimate is shorter than the more frequent estimate of five years and is based on the assumption that an all-out effort by the Iranian scientists may commission 3,000 centrifuges in 2009 and also solve highly complex technological problems in putting together a 20-kiloton implosion device.

President Ahmedenijad has now mentioned research on P-2 centrifuge which, theoretically, can bring about a quadruple acceleration in enrichment process. This is still consistent with Iran’s need for enrichment at an industrial scale for the Bushehr reactor and the projected expansion of nuclear power generation. Furthermore, Iran already possesses enough uranium hexafluoride to build a very small arsenal of weapons if it can master the requisite technology for weaponisation.

Resumption of enrichment activity has enabled the Western propaganda machine to work overtime to demonise Iran’s nuclear programme. David Albright has an interesting comment about the exploitation of the private briefing given by IAEA to the permanent members of the Security Council and Germany in mid-March that Iran was almost ready to start putting uranium gas into a group of 164 centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment site. “Following the briefing, Albright and Hinderstein observe, “anonymous US officials quickly started to distort what the IAEA had said.”

They described it as a significant acceleration of the enrichment programme which had shocked IAEA officials. The IAEA people insisted that they were not even surprised by Iran’s decision. The propaganda blitz has, however, made it manifestly clear that the United States is not willing to tolerate Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle even with full safeguards to ensure that it does not cross the fuel grade low-enrichment threshold.

The main thrust of the media blitz has been that Iran, a “rogue state” linked to organisations such as Hezbollah, cannot be trusted with enrichment at all. “(Any) compromise that permits Iran to carry out any uranium enrichment research activities, even minimal,” says an Israeli expert, “would facilitate larger scale development at a later stage, eventually culminating in the production of military grade enriched uranium.”

Israel’s leaders, who sit on one of the larger stockpile of nuclear weapons, have let it be known that they expect the United States to bring this activity to an end. Ambassador Javad Zarif of Iran reminded readers of the New York Times recently that Iran had allowed a robust inspection regimen by the United Nations and that most of the outstanding issues in connection with uranium conversion activities, laser enrichment, fuel fabrication and the heavy water reactor programme had been resolved before the crisis sharpened. He also recalled that Ayatollah Khamenei had issued a decree against the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.

The ISIS paper mentioned above speaks about “those in the Bush administration who favour confronting Iran and pressing regime change (and are) hyping up Iran’s nuclear threat and (are) trying to undermine intelligence assessments that Iran is several years from having nuclear weapons.” A senior IAEA official is quoted as having said that belligerent statements come “from people who are seeking a crisis, not a solution.” All credible scientific analysis reinforces IAEA’s director-general Mohammad ElBaradei’s judgment that there Iran does not pose an instant or present threat. The overall strategic situation does not rule out that Iran’s defence planners intend acquiring the technical knowledge and the basic materiel for becoming a nuclear weapon state if circumstances so warrant. Japan is already in that category and several other countries have made strides in mastering the fuel cycle. Nuclear disarmament is in total disarray as the United States and Russia embark upon plans to develop more sophisticated nuclear arsenals that have greater lethality to compensate for a reduction in numbers.

The United States is also escalating the nuclear weapon threat by popularising the concept of usable weapons. Russia hopes to restore its nuclear strategic edge by 2015. In Iran’s own region, Israel has a formidable stockpile backed by highly efficient delivery and ABM systems. India and Pakistan continue to improve weapons and delivery systems alike. India’s sea borne nuclear force will have ramifications for the entire region from Egypt to Indonesia.

The most important point, therefore, is not the present tendentious debate on small increments in Iran’s centrifuge capability but the fact that there is sufficient time for diplomacy. IAEA’s Mohammad ElBaradei wants to lower the pitch and calm the debate. Ray Takeyh, the Iran expert in the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that that the only way Iran might slow down or halt its nuclear programme is for the United States to become more directly engaged with the Iranians and also offer some corresponding concessions. While such voices of caution have global resonance and support, the sub-text of the Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker is that Bush and Dick Cheney have made up their mind to “resolve” the Iranian crisis before they leave office and that military planners are hard at work to perfect an intervention plan.

Next week, I will try to assess the gravity of the threat to peace on the issue and the likely responses from Tehran. Also to be brought under focus is the dilemma posed by the present situation for Pakistan. This is the point where two roads diverge in the forest and either of them entails momentous consequences. We in Pakistan cannot but discuss them with the requisite gravitas.

The writer is a former ambassador to Iran.

Email: tanvir.a.khan@gmail.com

APRIL 26 is the 20th anniversary of the explosion and fire in the Chernobyl-4 nuclear reactor, so the long-running dispute over how many people actually died as a result of the accident is back.

And now the growing public argument in western countries about ending the de facto ban on new nuclear power stations has lent wings to the debate.

Last Tuesday the World Health Organisation published a report estimating that 405 people died in the first decade after the accident, almost all of them former plant workers, firefighters and soldiers who were exposed to massive radiation doses in the initial explosion or during the nine-day struggle to put out the fire in the reactor core. But over 200,000 people were involved in some aspect of the clean-up operation, and some of them as well as some people living near the site will also develop cancers from their lesser exposure to radiation sooner or later.

The WHO’s best estimate is that about 9,300 people will eventually die from Chernobyl-related cancers. Greenpeace International, on the other hand, has just issued a report predicting that the number of cancer deaths directly attributable to Chernobyl will ultimately reach 93,000.

This is as much an argument about the future as the past, since the outcome of the revived debate in the West about the desirability of nuclear power depends heavily on the public’s perception of the risks involved. It’s not how the debate SHOULD be settled, but both sides know that it’s how it will be.

The West effectively abandoned building new nuclear power stations after the accident at the Three-Mile Island reactor in the US in 1979 (which killed nobody) and the Chernobyl accident in 1986 (which killed quite a lot of people). Few existing plants were shut down, and in a few countries, notably France and Japan, nuclear energy continues to supply most of the nation’s electricity, but the global population of big nuclear power reactors has fluctuated in a narrow band between 400 and 450 for the past twenty years.

Now there is a new wave of reactor-building in Asian countries where rapidly growing economies have created a huge demand for electricity, and few voices have been raised against it in those countries. Even in the West, the debate has been re-opened as concern about global warming has grown. Apart from hydro-power, which is only available in certain areas, nuclear energy is the only available short-term option for producing very large amounts of base load electricity without adding to the greenhouse gases that cause the warming.

The real arguments for and against nuclear power are about complicated technical and financial issues. Would the same amount of investment in “renewables” like wind power produce as much electricity, and how do you allow for the fact that the wind does not always blow?

Those are the real issues, but everybody involved in the argument knows that “safety” will be what decides the outcome in the public debate.—Copyright

MOST Dawn readers who happen to chance on my Monday column, especially those who live in less violent parts of the world, have never heard me speak. But they will read these lines with the implication and inflection of an accent. Just as they do when they come across pieces of first person writing by former Pakistani prime ministers, chief ministers, retired generals, air marshals, admirals and ambassadors — of whom there suddenly appears to be an inordinately large number — with an excessive amount of time on their hands.

It may not necessarily be their accent. But it will be what they assume to be mine. It also doesn’t matter which of us is correct. We are all part of the assumption, snobbery and prejudice that go with writing in English.

For those who might be interested, my accent is a sort of late 1950’s Daily Worker, before it became The Morning Star. It isn’t, one hastens to add, the accent one speaks with — just the one that is used for writing. The accent used for speaking, started off in the 1960s as an all-purpose mandarin, a sort of refined Claude Rains, which went with the blazer and the old school tie. It was subsequently diluted with a bit of drop of Irish brogue, ever since this writer heard Barry Fitzgerald invite a group of Republicans to repair to a pub to talk a little treason.

The accent then changed over the years into an all-sorts medley as one came into contact with more and more Englishmen with regional and estuary accents. Eventually Claude Rains had to be read his last rites. The accent used for writing, however, hasn’t changed, which shows a certain consistency.

People who write with The Daily Worker accent and live in Pakistan are never at a loss for a subject. Every time they stir the witches’ brew fresh bubbles keep bobbing up to the surface. Like the recent visit of the prime minister to the United States and Spain along with 40 parliamentarians. The press release said it was to acquaint the parliamentarians with the working of the United Nations. Spain wasn’t mentioned in the handout.

It must, therefore, be assumed that as Spain doesn’t manufacture nuclear submarines or export AWACS, the purpose of the visit was educational and that somebody in the entourage must have been straining at the leash to discover the difference between the flamenco and the buleria, and the influence of the zarzuela on the development of Andalusian music. The visit was roundly condemned by journalists across the land. “The country doesn’t have money to rehabilitate earthquake victims and has to repeatedly pass around the beggar’s bowl,” said an angry correspondent. “But it has money to throw away on politicians for joy rides.” Another letter writer wanted to know why the prime minister didn’t just ask the Pakistan ambassador in Washington for material on how the United Nations operates. All it takes is an email. The next time the prime minister goes in for a bit of R&R he’d better come up with a more plausible excuse.

This writer was about to stir the pot once again when a newspaper cutting fell out of his scrap book. It was dated November 12, 1999, and was headed ‘Musharraf orders sale of luxury aircraft.’ The language has a certain old fashioned correctitude about it.

“With the revival of the terminally ill Pakistan economy high on his agenda, Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf has ordered the sale of the two luxury aircraft which were in the use of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

“The two Boeing 737s would be replaced with an aircraft cheaper to operate as the cash-starved country could not afford luxury aircraft, an official statement in Islamabad said.

“General Musharraf has promised to cut wasteful expenditure to put the economy on the road to recovery and a massive drive begins on November 17 to recover more than two billion dollars in defaulted loans. A downsizing of the government also is on the cards, sources said.

“Nawaz Sharif, who now faces charges which carry a death sentence, is also being investigated for keeping a Russian-made helicopter for personal use without accounting for it in his tax returns.”

It made jolly good reading at the time. Interestingly enough, the reporter who carried the story didn’t bother to find out just why it was necessary for an unelected head of state of a fifth rate country to have an aircraft in the first place. After all, a former prime minister of Turkey, Tansu Ciller, didn’t have her own aircraft and preferred to travel by the national airline.

Then came the Reformation. The nation was informed in full page advertisements and television broadcasts that the New Order would set the country right, and bring back to the people what was rightfully theirs. The nation held its breath. In fact, six years later, it is still holding its breath and wondering when the president and the current prime minister are going to start implementing their grand plan.

All that the people have witnessed is a series of manoeuvres designed to ensure that no substantial or meaningful change ever takes place in the physical, mental or legal sense in the country. Vani is still being practised in Punjab. The iniquitous Hudood Ordinances are still firmly in place. Women are still being killed in Sindh on the slightest pretext, often with the connivance of the police. The job market is as bad as ever. And criminals move about with impunity. It is now beginning to appear that the present government doesn’t attach too much importance to these things.

The Reformation was carried out in two stages. Phase One started with the stifling of the PPP and the catapulting to power of the MMA, the installation of the government of the turncoats, supported by defectors who collectively still owe the nationalised banks billions of rupees, the election of an obscurantist speaker in the National Assembly who makes doubly sure that no progressive bill will ever get past a first reading, the initial appointment of a prime minister from a minority province who still owes the Agricultural Development Bank 400 million rupees.

Phase Two commenced with the globe trotting tours of the two top functionaries, each with hundreds of hangers-on who could quite easily have paid for their own ticket and hotel expenses, the purchase of a fleet of bullet-proof Mercedes Benzes, the destruction of the civil service, the snapping up of civilian jobs by retired military officials, the wining and dining of opposition politicians in an attempt to wean them over, the passing of the controversial 17th Amendment after the clergy demonstrated a remarkable degree of naivete, and finally the announcement by the spokesman of the government, the man with the two-stroke voice, who said that the people ought to get used to the idea that the president was going to be around for a very long time — naturally, wearing his uniform.

Meanwhile the people of Karachi continue to groan under conditions that worsen every year. There is a dreadful shortage of water and, in spite of the new German management in the KESC, load shedding continues unabated. The roads are in a dreadful state, litter dumps can be found at every corner and getting about is becoming almost impossible. On many thoroughfares pedestrians are finding it almost impossible to cross. And yet the city government continues to display tunnel vision by coming up with plans for more flyovers and underpasses.

What the city desperately needs is an underground railway from Merewether Tower to Tin Hatti and a surface rail connection to Sohrab Goth, with stops at regular intervals. A concerted attempt should also be made to revive the old circular railway with the data one already has and to stop the ridiculous practice of repeatedly sending for more and more consultants who keep raising the price.

One wonders what happened to that warm announcement that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz made on that windy November day in 2001 when he formally inaugurated the circular railway. He said a mass transit project similar to the one at Karachi would be started at Lahore. He also said that 3.5 billion rupees would be spent on the complete renovation of the circular railway, and that previous governments had neglected the project. But...wait for it...the present government is paying full attention to this department. The people of Karachi are still waiting.