BEIRUT — While Gaza and Iraq understandably dominate Middle East news these days, the issue with the most significant long-term impact on the region and the world is the status of Iran’s nuclear industry and Western attempts to curb it. This issue is a technical matter about nuclear proliferation; a regional determinant of the balance of power; and, a global reflection of the informal emergence of a bloc of nations countering the worldwide dominance of the United States.
Quite amazingly, the debate on Iran is defined primarily by uncertainty on most of its crucial aspects:
* the exact nature and pace of the Iranian nuclear conversion and enrichment activities;
* whether Iran is simultaneously working on weaponizing its nuclear capabilities;
* the details of the US-EU proposals to Iran on June 6 to suspend enrichment in return for direct talks with the US-EU on a package of trade and nuclear energy incentives;
* who exactly in the Iranian regime decides on these issues;
* and, how far the Russians and Chinese will go in assisting Iran technologically, and siding with the Americans and Europeans diplomatically.
Clearly, three years after European-Iranian talks started, this third round of discussions is the most serious, because Iran has successfully achieved small-scale and low-level enrichment of uranium using a small number of centrifuges. The changed technical and diplomatic landscape reflects Iranian confidence and defiance. This was symbolized most recently by Iran blatantly ignoring the original deadline of June 23 that the West had set for its response to the proposals delivered in Tehran on June 6, by European foreign policy chief Javier Solana. The Iranian president said recently that his country would reply in August. Two days ago in Moscow, the G-8 foreign ministers set another deadline for Iran’s response: July 5, next Wednesday.
So mid-to-late-July seems like a pretty good guess of when Iran might reply.
The diplomatic game of dueling dates symbolizes an important element of this process on all sides: The West cannot unilaterally dictate terms or timetables to Iran on its diplomacy or its nuclear industry. Threats will be met with defiance and faster Iranian work on its nuclear research and development. If diplomatic progress is to happen, it will do so on the basis of negotiations between equal parties that deal with each other with respect, rather than on the basis of ultimatums, warnings and threats.
On the technical level, Iran insists its nuclear research and conversion only aim to produce electricity. But it still has not answered all the questions raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including plutonium experiments, centrifuges, unexplained traces of enriched uranium, and indications of a military nuclear program undertaken at military facilities. The West remains convinced that Tehran continues to hide a nuclear weapons program.
On the political level, a nuclear Iran means several frightening things to the US-led West. Already a victor of sorts from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, a nuclear Tehran would dominate the Gulf, prod a new round of regional Shiite empowerment, and probably trigger a race by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt to obtain nuclear weapons. This spells the death knell of the already wobbly Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Israel or the United States could attack Iran’s nuclear facilities militarily, which would further destabilize an already tense and violent region. Iran might confront the United States in other ways in the Gulf or the region. It is also hard to predict how China, India and Russia would react to a nuclear Iran, given their important energy, economic and geo-strategic interests in the Gulf region.
The key political dimension of all this may be Iran’s recent emergence as the Asian-Middle Eastern-Islamic fulcrum of a loose grouping of states and people who wish to resist American dominance of the region and the world. I suspect that robust and successful political defiance, rather than pure military threat, is what most worries the United States about Iran’s posture. We are probably witnessing the first significant move in the world to challenge U.S. hegemonic power since the end of the Cold War in 1989 — which explains why Washington’s initial hysteria has been replaced recently by more realism, to its credit.
Iran’s more measured response to Western offers in recent weeks suggests it is securing that which it most covets: national respect, serious political engagement, and the prospect of a normal relationship with the West, without the American threat of regime change or the UN-EU threat of sanctions. Consequently, Iran and the Western powers seem to be heading to a logical meeting point: Iran will continue uranium conversion and enrichment activities, and other small-scale research and development, but under strict IAEA supervision that effectively blocks the development of nuclear weapons.
Tehran has spoken in recent weeks in the more relative and nuanced vocabulary of realism and national interest, rather than absolutist rights and ringing ideology. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in recent days has named a new foreign policy strategy team, headed by experienced loyalists, to control policy as the moment of decision approaches on a reasonable deal with the West. The implications of an agreement for the Middle East and the world will be enormous and mostly positive if this issue is resolved through a meeting of minds rather than the use of muscle.
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 01 July 2006
Word Count: 875
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