Davos: Iran is being offered lots of stick but very little carrot in its present stand-off with the international community over the potential military aspects of the undeclared parts of its nuclear programme.
International pressure through the current UN and other sanctions have been surprisingly effective in damaging the Iranian economy, but no one is sure that they will bring the Iranian leadership to the table, since no negotiating position has been made clear and no incentives for cooperation have been laid out.
"We do not know if sanctions will change the Iranian's position, therefore soon the US and Europe will move beyond the UN sanctions to implement their own more strict sanctions," said Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations.
But Haass outlined the difficulty in defining the red line at which point the international community will be unable to live with Iranian nuclear activities. "Is it enrichment of uranium, or warhead design, or construction of delivery mechanisms, or even virtual or real testing, or even building an arsenal of nuclear weapons. There is a spectrum of capabilities, and it is hard to say when the international community will feel forced to intervene," he said.
Ehud Barak, Israeli Defence Minister, was very clear of what he sees as the real danger. "Iran is moving to military nuclear capability, and the leadership is ready to defy the whole world. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, there will also be leakage of nuclear material to Iran's clients in Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran will then intimidate states across the region, including its neighbours in the Arab Gulf states," he said.
Two Gulf speakers at the session took a different line. General Khalid Al Buainain of the Abu Dhabi-based Enigma Centre insisted from the floor that the current pressure on Iran has to include some kind of incentive, not just threats; and that this carrot has to be developed quickly because events are moving very quickly.
Khalid Abdullah-Janahi told the panel that the majority of the Arab world might well line up with the Iranians against the Americans, since the people's concerns are far more about their dignity and political inclusion, and much less to do with worries about Iran's weapons, even if their leaders are talking with the Americans and agreeing to take part in some way.
"We Arabs have to live with the Iranians in the long term, and no-one wants a war," Janahi said. "The Street will be with Iran if it comes to war." Several speakers spoke of the likely spread of nuclear weapons if Iran gets them, with Saudi Arabia having already stated it might need to look at nuclear arms if Iran has them, and Turkey and Egypt are other regional powers which may need to consider the option.
"Israel has had a nuclear arsenal for many years, but this was defended by the Americans and Israelis as being managed by the only democracy in the Middle East," said Janahi, spelling out that the Arabs have their own rights as independent people to look after their own priorities.
"After the recent elections across the Arab world, they have shifted to saying the Israeli nuclear weapons are managed by the only true democracy in the Middle East, but how long will it be till we hear the real angle: it is the only non-Muslim democracy in the Middle East," he said.
Barak disagreed with several speakers who were trying to define a red line which would trigger action, saying that the Iranians are already working on building all the pieces that are needed to put nuclear weapons together at very short notice.
"They understand that going for a weapon today will trigger action against them," he said. "They want to accumulate lots of low grade uranium, build many centrifuges, and other actions, so that when they think that no one can do much about it, they can then go ahead. The point of no return is when the Iranians will have drifted into this zone of immunity".
"Sanctions will not solve the problem and will drive Iran to hide its activities," said Yan Xuetong, Dean of Modern International Studies at Tsinghua University and close to the current Chinese leadership, who took a much less dramatic line on Iran's activities, indicating that China is against the spread of nuclear weapons, justifying this more pragmatic line by saying that the IAEA has not found any evidence of weapons.
Xuetong also spoke out against the drift of the debate which focused entirely on the practicalities, and missed the political angle. "What no one is asking is what Iran's motivation is, and we do not see reasons for Iran to go for weapons."
