October 15, 2005

OFIGURES show it plainly. The hard work has to be done by the natives themselves N September 24 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme. The 35-nation board of the IAEA in Vienna said that Iran has a “long history of concealment and deception”. The Bush administration immediately reacted to the IAEA’s decision. US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said, “We have a patient long-term strategy. It’s to isolate Iran on this question.”

From the outset, talks of EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany) with Iran were destined to fail. Under the Paris agreement in November, 2004, the EU-3 agreed on Iran’s right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to produce the nuclear fuel necessary for its reactors in exchange for abandonment of its plan to produce nuclear weapons. In addition, the EU agreed to invest in Iran and also invite it to join a club of nuclear fuel-producing countries.

In February, the US relaxed its previous stance of pouring scorn on EU-3’s initiative and started actively supporting its negotiations on the condition that should it fail to reach an agreement, they would have to recommend Iran to the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, Washington worked behind the scenes to scupper the EU-3 initiative and threatened a number of European companies with punitive sanctions if they proceeded to invest in Iran. This was evident from a statement of Lord Brown, the chief executive of BP. He said, “right now it is impractical for BP (to invest in Iran) because 40 per cent of BP is in the US and we are the largest producer of oil and gas there.” This left the EU-3 bereft of any meaningful incentives to offer to Iran which, as a result, was left with little choice but to break off the negotiations.

Thus, Iran’s referral to the UN Security Council is a victory of US diplomacy. Now, its next target is to get the referral approved by the IAEA board in November. The Bush administration expects some form of international legitimacy to emerge from the deliberations at the UN. Some kind of international cover will be enough for the Bush administration to push for a regime change in Iran. Before it happens a number of political obstacles must be surmounted first.

America’s biggest problem is that it has failed to make a compelling case about the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear capability. The fabricated lies about Iraq’s WMD to justify Iraq’s invasion has made it extremely difficult for the US to come up with any credible evidence that may serve to incriminate Iran. Besides the intelligence debacle in Iraq, a US presidential commission investigating pre-war intelligence about Iraq’s weapons concluded in March this year that US data on Iran’s arms is “inadequate”. Western intelligence agencies and eminent think tanks have also revised their estimates about Iran’s nuclear bomb.

On August 1, the Washington Post reported that US National Intelligence estimates that Iran’s nuclear programme is 10 years away from producing a nuclear bomb. John Chipman, director of London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies echoed similar findings. He said, “If Iran threw caution to the wind and sought a nuclear weapon capability as quickly as possible, without regard for international reaction; it might be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a single nuclear weapon by the end of this decade.”

Israel is the only country that continues to insist that Iran’s nuclear bomb is only months away. Sylvan Shalom, Israel’s Foreign Minister told a meeting of Jewish leaders in New York, “they are very, very close. It may be only six months before they will have that full knowledge.”

So given the paucity of data on Iran’s nuclear programme and the admission by western agencies that Iran’s nuclear bomb will be ready by 2015, the best case the US can make against Iran is that its nuclear aspirations contravene international norms. This is despite the fact that Iran’s nuclear programme is legal under the NPT. Penalising Iran for keeping its nuclear programme within the parameters of the NPT and rewarding India (a non-signatory to NPT) with the right to produce nuclear fuel and remaining silent on Israel’s nuclear bombs makes it amply manifest that America is an avid practitioner of nuclear apartheid.

Another hurdle for the US is the lack of consensus at the UN on Iran’s nuclear issue. This was evident at the IAEA board meeting where its members voted by a slim majority to refer Iran to the UN. Divisions are much more pronounced, particularly amongst the permanent members of the Security Council. Three years ago, the Council was bitterly divided in the run-up to the Iraq war, with Germany, France and Russia opposing it while Britain supporting it.

Bush’s visit to Europe and Russia early this year was intended to repair these schisms over Iraq. It was also an implicit admission that the neoconservative-inspired Bush doctrine had collapsed and an olive branch was extended to old Europe to heal the transatlantic rift. Nevertheless, during the visit, there emerged a consensus over the fact that Tehran should not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, but a disagreement was visible over how to punish Iran for its recalcitrance. Despite Bush’s assurance not to attack Iran, doubts in Europe still remain to this day over US intentions to use military force against Iran.

Meanwhile, Russia and China view the possibility of an attack on Iran as part of Washington’s design of attempting to control the world’s oil supply. The recent announcement by Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) demanding America to vacate military bases in Afghanistan and Central Asia, as well as the recent unprecedented Russian-Chinese military exercises, are intended to remind Washington that any advances against Iran will be vehemently opposed.

Under the given circumstances, it is very unlikely that America will be able to secure passage of a resolution that justifies use of military force against Iran. Not only the Chinese and Russians, but the Europeans too are opposed to any military action. In August, Chancellor Schroeder responding to Bush said, “My answer to that is: ‘Dear friends in Europe and America, let’s develop a strong negotiating position towards Iran, but take the military option off the table.”

On September 3, after wide-ranging talks with the EU’s 25 foreign ministers in Newport, South Wales, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told journalists: “Nobody is proposing military action in regard of Iran. This is an issue that needs to be resolved, and can only be resolved, by diplomatic means.” So, the Europeans are more likely to support economic sanctions.

But for the Bush administration the very notion of sanctions represents a failure of US policy on Iran and a return to the old policy of containment pursued by previous Democratic and Republican administrations. The issue of containment/engagement vs military action to change Tehran’s behaviour has plagued the US administration ever since Bush rose to office. This has become a major stumbling block in formulating a coherent policy to deal with Iran.

At the heart of the issue is a fierce dispute between the realists and the neoconservatives over what could be the best approach towards Iran. It has apparently divided even state organs such as the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA. The disagreements came to ahead in July 2004 with the publication of the report entitled “Iran: Time for a New Approach” which was prepared by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) under the direction of Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser.

The report argued that Iran was not ripe for regime change as advocated by the neoconservatives. It stated: “”[D]espite considerable political flux and popular dissatisfaction... Iran is not on the verge of another revolution. Those forces that are committed to preserving Iran’s current system remain firmly in control...” The report also stressed, that a “grand bargain” to settle all outstanding conflicts between Washington and Tehran is unrealistic and that talks should focus instead on making “incremental progress” on a variety of key issues, including regional stability and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The recommendations of the report were instantly dismissed by the neoconservatives who are closely associated with Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Arch neoconservative Michael Ledeen, who considers Tehran the global capital of Islamist “terror masters,” wrote in National Review Online that the CFR recommendations were “humiliating” and constituted “appeasement”.

However, the second Bush presidency heralded the decline of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration. Some of the neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton were ushered out of a foreign policy making role and given new assignments at the World Bank and the UN, while others like Douglas Feith were made to leave. The departure of the neoconservatives gave way to realism and soft power in the Bush administration. To a large extent parity was restored between the influence of the US State Department and the Pentagon over foreign policy matters. Collaboration with other nations to solve political crisis in Sudan, Lebanon, North Korea and Iran is reminiscent of multilateralism employed by previous US administration.

The ascendancy of realism in the Bush administration has not completely neutralized the neoconservative. Dick Cheney has taken it upon himself to ensure that should the opportunity arise, America is prepared to use overwhelming force against Iran to occupy its oil and gas fields.

For some time now, the Cheney faction in the Bush administration has been secretly preparing for an attack on Iran. This came to attention early this year, when Seymour Hersh revealed in the “New Yorker” that American Special Forces had conducted reconnaissance missions inside Iran for six months. On February 13, The Washington Post revealed that the US military had been flying surveillance drones over Iran for nearly a year to seek evidence of nuclear weapons programmes and detect weaknesses in air defences. The paper went on to state: “The aerial espionage is standard in military preparations for an eventual air attack and is also employed as a tool for intimidation”.

But Tehran is not taking any chances. The Iranian government has taken note of US military deployments in the neighbouring countries and has taken several steps against a possible US invasion. The first sign came in June with the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who proceeded to purge the military, the security apparatus, the civil service, state-owned corporations and the media of moderate elements. The most significant purges occurred in the military top brass. Among those replaced are the commander-in-chief of the regular army and his four deputies, 11 senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and five commanders of the paramilitary Mobilisation of the Dispossessed.

The minister of intelligence and security, and the minister of the interior who controls the police and the gendarmerie, have also been replaced. But, perhaps, the strongest sign of Iranian military preparedness stems from the military build-up in the five provinces bordering Iraq. The region, with a population of 20 million, has been put under the control of the IRGC.

Iran is reported to have 250,000 troops in the area, its biggest military deployment since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. Iran has also tightened its grip on Turkomen, Arabs, Baloch, and Kurds who live in the southwest, southeast, and northwest of the country. This is because Tehran fears a multiple prong attack from the US which may result in separation of the Arab province of Khuzestan, the Kurdistan province and the Baloch province of Khorasan from the motherland.

The neoconservatives want to transform the region into territories controlled by Arab Shias, but segregated from Sunni dominated areas. In many ways this is an offshoot of the old American plan to divide Iraq into three segments and to gather the Arab Shias under America’s leadership. The reason behind this is that most of the oil of the Middle East lies in Arab Shia dominated areas such as southern Iraq, Khuzestan, Bahrain and Eastern Saudi Arabia. In short, the neoconservative vision for the region is a magnified picture of Iraq-segregated oil-rich US protectorates surrounded by managed chaos. Or in other words a recipe for perpetual wars, continuous occupation of Arab lands and bloodshed — this is the neoconservative dream.

However, a relieving aspect of the tense situation is that realists in the Bush administration have now gained an upper hand. Their preferred method of dealing with Iran’s nuclear programme is through multilaterism and diplomacy, as opposed to unilateralism and military intervention. Yet, the inability of the Bush administration to subdue the voices which exhort military action against Iran continues to alarm the world. But these concerns appear to be over-stated as Iraq, Katrina and scandals in the GOP threaten to derail Bush’s foreign policy agenda.

The writer is a London-based political analyst.

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