Iran: sanctions no solution

LAST week the Bush administration finally had something to crow about. After more than a year of strenuous efforts, it succeeded in getting the United Nations Security Council to pass unanimously a resolution that had been sponsored by Britain, France and Germany. The resolution represents the first ever sanctions on Iran targeting its nuclear and ballistic missile programme. It comes in response to Tehran’s refusal to halt sensitive nuclear fuel work.

It directs all states “to prevent the supply, sale or transfer of all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology, which could contribute to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic programmes”. It also mandates that “all states shall freeze funds, other financial assets and economic resources” owned by people or entities linked to “Iran’s proliferation of sensitive nuclear activities or the development of nuclear weapons delivery systems”.

It calls upon Iran to “without further delay suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities including research and development” as well as “all heavy water-related projects”. It also warns that if Iran refuses to comply with UN demands, the Council “shall adopt further appropriate measures under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the Charter”, a reference to non-military sanctions. The resolution identifies 60 Iranians and asks the UN members to notify their appearances.

Coming two months after the EU-3 first introduced its sanctions draft resolution following Iran’s failure to comply with an August 31 deadline to halt sensitive nuclear fuel work, the resolution was hailed by the sponsors as representing the will of the international community. The EU-3’s success in getting on board Russia and China, two of Iran’s close friends, who also happen to enjoy veto powers in the Council, was critical to the success of their mission. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy affirmed that the objective remained to “convince Iran to conform to its international obligations”. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hailed the UN action, calling it “a strong signal of determination”.

Of course, the sponsors had to accommodate the Russians and Chinese, who insisted that the draft be diluted, if it was to get their support. Washington, on the other hand, had advocated a much tougher line, arguing that the UNSC must not give in to Iran’s defiance. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov nevertheless confirmed that “all the contracts signed before the resolution remain in place and can be honoured.” He also claimed that the resolution would not affect areas like Russia’s billion-dollar contract to construct Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station, due to begin next September. Lavrov called the resolution a compromise but claimed that it had managed to bring about a delicate balance between three objectives: “to avoid violating the non-proliferation regime, maintain conditions for negotiations with Iran and not to destroy legitimate links with Iran’s different domains”.

China, the other important stakeholder in Iran’s oil and gas sector made it clear that Beijing did not think that “sanctions are the objective as they cannot fundamentally resolve the issue”. The spokesperson added that China wants to “see a peaceful solution” of the Iranian nuclear issue through talks.

Not surprisingly, Israel, the first and so far the only country in the region to acquire nuclear weapons, welcomed the UNSC resolution, while calling for “further swift and determined action” against Iran. How ironic that while it will not permit US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to hint even obliquely at its possession of nuclear weapons, it has already passed judgment on Iran and lobbied vigorously for punitive sanctions against it.

In fact, Israel’s right-wing politicians have been calling Tehran’s nuclear programme a threat to their country’s existence and are demanding that either the US take out the facilities or give Israel the green light to do so. Vice-President Dick Cheney has hinted to this effect as well. American investigative reporters have suggested that a nexus between the neo-conservatives and the right-wing of Israel’s Likud Party is responsible for hyping the Iranian nuclear threat as an excuse to launch efforts for their goal of regime change in Iran. Regrettably, President Ahmadinejad may have earned himself kudos at home, but his diatribe against Israel have only added to the image of Iran as irresponsible and dangerous.

Iran’s response to the resolution has been in keeping with its track record. Instead of being cowed down by the UNSC action, Tehran announced immediately thereafter that it would expand its capacity to enrich uranium by installing 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges at a key nuclear plant in the city of Natanz. Iran’s key nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, claimed that the UN action had made Iran even “more determined to pursue its nuclear goals even faster”.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the resolution as a “scrap of paper”, adding that the West would have to learn to live with Iran possessing nuclear technology. Other Iranian officials warned publicly that Iran’s cooperation with the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, could be reduced as a result of the resolution. Later, the Iranian parliament decided to urgently vote on a bill that would oblige the government to “revise its cooperation with the IAEA.”

In real terms, the issue is back at the doorsteps of the IAEA, which is now required to report on Iran’s response within the next 60 days. Given Tehran’s categorical rejection of the resolution, we know what the IAEA will report. Nevertheless, the passage of the resolution represents a major success for the Bush administration in its year-long drive to bring the Iranian case to the Security Council, thereby gaining international legitimacy for its oft-stated objective to bring to an end Iran’s nuclear programme.

Washington claims that it has evidence that the Iranians have embarked on a mission to build the bomb. Others are not so convinced. Even the British and the French are still of the view that the option of negotiations should not be eliminated and the Iranians not pushed against the wall.

Iran’s determined pursuit of its nuclear programme has, however, already had an impact on the Gulf. Many of these countries are now talking openly of their desire to acquire nuclear energy, notwithstanding their massive oil and gas reserves. The conservative Arab regimes are convinced that Iran is determined to acquire nuclear weapons. If it does, it may adversely change the power equilibrium in the region. The last GCC summit’s declaration was evidence of the region’s new thinking on this issue.

The on-going US-Iran confrontation is reflective of the current thinking in the US which wishes to deny all states not in its good books the opportunity of acquiring nuclear technology. The US obviously believes that the right to nuclear technology as enshrined in the NPT is no longer relevant, given the recent developments. The P-5, which are also the Nuclear-5, are the only countries with the credentials to enjoy this privilege. There are of course exceptions such as India, Japan and Australia which are entitled to pursue this option, because they are democracies that support America’s strategic objectives.

While the American goal to dissuade Iran from going the nuclear weapons route has universal support, there are few takers for Washington’s determination to deny Iran the opportunity to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Many states are deeply worried at Washington’s efforts, both overt and covert, to destabilise Tehran, on the plea that the Islamic regime has adopted a confrontational mode against Israel and is suspected of promoting terrorism in the region.

The Bush administration’s disdain for international law and contempt for international public opinion has taught all nations, especially those targeted by the US, a simple lesson: one’s survival cannot be ensured by reference to international law. It lies in one’s own hands and if the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction or a Faustian bargain is the price, so be it. I remember President Clinton and Tony Blair, advising Nawaz Sharif against going for the nuclear test on the plea that it would gain for Pakistan the “high moral ground”. Those of us then working for the prime minister would respond by arguing that this “high moral ground” would count for nothing against Indian tanks rolling into the plains of Punjab. Fortunately for this country, we then had a leader who refused to be cowed down by either threats or blandishments.

The regimes in North Korea and Iran, having been placed on the “axis of evil” and publicly targeted for ouster, drew the right lessons from Iraq’s swift destruction. Whatever incentive there may have been for Iran to think in terms of an honourable settlement with the IAEA is no longer being contemplated in Tehran. But sadly, it is the US that is responsible for this development, because it was never interested in promoting non-proliferation. Had it been otherwise, it would not have discouraged the EU countries from presenting a sufficiently attractive package to Iran to dissuade it from pursuing the nuclear option.

Whatever doubts there may have been on this score have been taken care of by the cavalier manner in which the Bush administration has trashed its own laws as well as international commitments in the pursuit of a nuclear deal with India. Of course, in the words of US Under-Secretary Nicholas Burns, “this is a unique agreement for a unique country”. But genuine non-proliferation cannot be promoted by these discriminatory policies, or by shutting one’s eyes to the huge nuclear arsenal of Israel. Of course, it too is a unique country, but the Iranians don’t consider themselves children of a lesser god.

Additionally, developments over the past years have made the Middle East a highly turbulent region. While Tehran must surely have welcomed the departure of the Taliban from Kabul and Saddam Hussein from Baghdad, two regimes that were anathema to it, the country could not have been comforted by American threats of similar operations against it as well.

Iran is a big country, a huge producer of oil and gas, and is located in possibly the world’s most sensitive region. Its current regime may not conform to western concepts of democracy but nevertheless represents the will of the people as expressed in regular elections.

Moreover, on the issue of its nuclear programme, there is little evidence of division in Iran. It has managed to live reasonably well under the shadow of American sanctions for over a quarter of a century. If anything, American hostility and desire to bring about a regime change have only added to the regime’s credibility at home. Under these circumstances, there is little likelihood of the UNSC sanctions deterring the leadership in Tehran.

If the Bush administration is genuinely interested in restoring peace to the Middle East, it does not have to go far in search for answers. All it has to do is to carry out the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton report that calls upon the president to recognise that his Iraq policy has brought nothing but misery to that country and caused deep divisions within the US. It has therefore advised him to “engage” with both Syria and Iran in order to extricate America from Iraq and to strive for a fair and just settlement of the Palestinian problem, which more than any other issue is responsible for the spread of terrorism.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Hindutva with a vengeance

BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani had once chided the media for dividing his party into hard-liners and soft-liners. “All of us are the same,” he said. He is correct. The competition now is: who is the ‘hardest’ among them?

The media got it wrong probably because of its wishful thinking that the BJP might realise one day that the modern age and the mediaeval period cannot go together. Hindu fundamentalism is a line of desperation which the BJP has adopted. It should know that religion does not buy political support.

This is as true for India as it is for the rest of South Asia. Pakistan and Bangladesh are Islamic republics but they have never allowed the maulvi to cross the double-digit figure in parliament. Religious parties were able to do well in Pakistan during the last polls because the military rulers wanted the political parties to do badly.

The Jamaat-i-Islami prospered in Bangladesh with the support of Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Nepal, a Hindu state, has never seen a Hindu party winning, nor have the Buddhist monks triumphed in Sri Lanka. Since history and geography have thrown different communities together in the region, they have learnt to live with one another. During elections, they generally rise above religion, though not caste.

The BJP should know it better. It lost in the last election because the countryside voted against the saffron that the urban areas had begun to accept during the BJP’s six-year rule at the centre. The party’s new president Rajnath Singh wants 10 years, not for economic development but for measures to stop “Muslim appeasement”. When they have no jobs, no shelter, not even proper status as the Sachar committee has proved through statistics, where is the Muslims’ appeasement?

This is another way of arousing Hindus’ passion. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi whipped up a frenzy and killed hundreds of Muslims and uprooted thousands of others a few years ago. The problem with the BJP is that it has no other agenda, neither economic nor social. Its programme is to isolate and torment the minorities although the party’s 2004 election manifesto promised all to minorities. Living in the wilderness has made the party go berserk.

India’s commitment is to pluralism. The freedom struggle consecrated this belief through sacrifices. The nation has developed a secular temperament which the BJP has been trying to change in vain. The party fails to understand that democracy and theology do not go together. No doubt, the British divided India on the basis of religion. But the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, himself changed the goalposts, saying a few days before the creation of Pakistan that religion had nothing to do with governance.

The BJP is resurrecting a discarded ideology, although it had tried to do so earlier and failed. As the Hindu Mahasabha, it won only three to four seats. When it became the Jana Sangh the tally was no different. It gained during its new incarnation as the BJP. But that was because it acquired credibility for being part of the Janata Party which had risen from the ashes of Mrs Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule.

However, the BJP went back on the undertaking it gave to Jayaprakash Narayan, the Janata Party’s founder, that it would sever its connection with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which rules it completely. The BJP lost at the polls again when it presented itself as a Hindu party. What brought it to power was the alliance with the non-Congress parties which had won on a secular, not communal, plank. After deluding even the liberal rightists, the BJP has taken off its mask that tried to show it as a different entity from the RSS. A few days ago, the party held its executive meeting at an RSS building in Lucknow where it proudly announced that the RSS ‘pracharaks’ (preachers) would occupy key positions in the BJP.

The party president, like an evangelist, has declared that they would construct the Ram Mandir at the same place where the Babri Masjid stood before its destruction. Also, the party seeks to scrap Article 370 which gives a special status to Jammu and Kashmir. But the party or its leaders did not utter a word to condemn the atrocities that the upper castes are committing against the Dalits who constitute one-sixth of the Hindu community. Even the ban on the Dalits’ entry into temples in Orissa recently figured nowhere in the BJP’s discussions. What kind of Hindu party is this?

The BJP’s onslaught takes the shape of Hindutva with a vengeance with its anti-secular, anti-minorities stance. The party is seeking to communalise every field and trying to polarise society. This may have an adverse effect on economic development because the BJP’s attention is going to be focused on how to Hinduise the country, not on how to harness all communities for the people’s welfare. Institutions may face relentless pressure from Hindu fanatics who will stop at nothing.

Parliament and state legislatures may be hit. The BJP will measure every bill or business on the scales of religion. What pushes the cause of Hindutva will be the criterion, not the country.

In a way, this is welcome because the BJP’s game of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is over. Forces committed to secular democracy have before them an opponent who, like the Al Qaeda, wants religion to throw out democracy and the rule of law. It is difficult to imagine how secular parties can adjust themselves in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The Janata Dal (Secular) has left it. How can the Nitish Kumar government belonging to the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar have the BJP as its coalition partner? It needs the BJP’s announcement that the NDA’s common minimum programme stays. In other words, the party will have to keep aside the mandir and the Article 370 issue as it did during the Atal Behari Vajpayee government.

Indeed, the BJP has thrown down the gauntlet. It is up to the nation to pick it up. It is a challenge to the pluralistic structure that the country has built in the last 60 years. True, the future may decide whether or not the nation can protect the ethos of secularism which Mahatma Gandhi provided while leading the people to freedom. This will mean that all secular and democratic forces should join hands to kill the demon of communalism once and for all. But the question is why does it raise its head again and again.

The Pakistanis have a point when they ask me why members from the BJP are increasing in parliament and in the state legislatures, particularly in the north. How does India, with its long tradition of secular democracy, return the BJP which is like any Muslim fundamentalist outfit?

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

A matter of judgment

A SURVEY for the Thomas Cook travel company shows that two-thirds of British people feel jealous about other people’s holidays. So it is hardly surprising that prime ministers, who are rarely the most popular people in the land (and certainly not at the moment), provoke special hostility when they make plans for a few days off.

Journalists, some of whose own holidays would not withstand much ethical scrutiny, happily pander to this prejudice. As a result, a prime minister is damned if he does and damned if she doesn’t. John Major was derided for his cricket-dominated breaks. Margaret Thatcher was mocked for not taking holidays at all.

Yet it is not enough to dismiss recurrent criticism of Tony Blair’s holidays as just another bout of public and media mean-spiritedness. Holidays, including prime ministerial ones, are wholly necessary and, in principle, private matters, but they inescapably tell us something about the person who takes them.

The public uses all available evidence, political or personal, to judge their leaders (which is why Bill Clinton even consulted focus groups about the holiday he should choose).

When they saw Harold Macmillan on the grouse moors the public correctly drew the conclusion that the prime minister lived a remote life of traditional privilege. When they saw Harold Wilson in his unpretentious Scillies bungalow they suspected he was offering a deliberate contrast — and perhaps also putting on a bit of an act.

Mr Blair is too much of a politician not to know what message he is sending when he and his family take breaks like the one they are currently enjoying at Robin Gibb’s luxury Florida mansion.

—The Guardian, London