Opinion | Columnists
How risky is Iran's nuclear goal?
The only use to which Tehran could put a nuclear weapon would be as a deterrent against attack. Two key moments in the coming days could determine whether the world is heading for confrontation or negotiation with Iran.
- By Patrick Seale, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:00 August 21, 2006
- Image Credit: Illustration by Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
Crunch time is approaching for Iran's nuclear programme. Two key moments in the coming days could determine whether the world is heading for confrontation or negotiation with Iran.
- On August 22, Iran is due to reply to a package of economic incentives which the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, offered it on June 6, if it suspends uranium enrichment.
- Iran also faces a demand to suspend all uranium enrichment by August 31, or face sanctions, under a UN Security Council Resolution of July 31.
So, what are the prospects?
One thing is clear. Iran will not yield to threats. On August 15, addressing the subject for the first time since the UN Security Council Resolution of July 31, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Iran would not yield to western pressure to give up its nuclear ambitions.
He told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan: "These gentlemen are mistaken in believing that they can use the resolution as a stick. The Iranian people will never accept the language of force." The Iranian position, he said, was based on the inalienable rights of the Iranian people. No one could renounce these rights.
He added, however, that Iran was "ready to settle the nuclear question by means of negotiations". This more flexible position was repeated on August 16 by Iran's Foreign Minister, Manushehr Mottaki. Iran, he declared, was ready to discuss all aspects of the proposed western package of incentives. "One of the points of the package is the issue of suspension. We are ready to negotiate over all issues including suspension."
A day earlier, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, had gone further by saying that Iran was ready to provide guarantees. It was prepared, he said, to "give" the West its production line of 164 centrifuges which had been enriching uranium since last April.
"A single production line of centrifuges is not in the least worrying," he said. "But if they are really worried, we are ready to give them this production line!"
What do these various statements amount to? It seems clear that Iran remains determined to master the uranium fuel cycle. It argues, with some justice, that it has every right to acquire this technology for peaceful purposes under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which it is a signatory. It is prepared, however, to subject its nuclear programme to international monitoring as provided by the NPT, and even to give the Western powers further guarantees if required.
This is a strong negotiating position, which will be difficult to fault. Iran's strategy appears to be to master nuclear technology under the watchful eye of international inspectors, if need be but without actually proceeding to bomb making. That threshold could be passed rapidly if and when Iran faced an imminent threat of attack.
Will this posture satisfy the United States? Almost certainly not. But is there anything it can do about it? At the UN Security Council, the United States is likely to face obstruction by China and Russia if it attempts to impose sanctions on Iran.
Act of folly
As for a US military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, this would be widely seen as an act of folly which could plunge the entire region into devastating turmoil. It would drive up the price of oil to astronomic heights, introduce vast and dangerous uncertainty over oil deliveries from the entire Gulf region and severely affect America's increasingly desperate attempts to master the insurrection in Iraq.
In the circumstances, it may be that the world will have to settle for what Iran is offering that is to say a carefully monitored nuclear programme for peaceful purposes. Iran would, nevertheless, retain the option in an emergency of quitting the NPT and switching its nuclear programme from civilian to military uses.
It needs to be stressed that Iran could never use a nuclear weapon against Israel or indeed anyone else, without committing suicide as a nation. The immediate response by Israel and the United States would be to wipe Iran off the map. The only use, therefore, to which Iran could put a nuclear weapon would be as a deterrent against attack.
Could Israel accept such a compromise? It would require a revolution in Israeli security thinking. Israel's leaders have persuaded themselves and their public that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an "existential" threat to Israel itself and to western civilisation as a whole. This, of course, is nonsense.
The suspicion is that Israel and the United States want to shut down Iran's nuclear programme, not because they think it might pose a realistic military threat to either of them, but because it would limit their freedom of action to impose their will on the region.
Israel still refuses to accept any form of a balance of power, or of a balance of deterrence, with states or non-state actors in the region. In spite of the severe setback it suffered in Lebanon, Israel has still not accepted that its policy of dominating its neighbours by military force needs to be abandoned.
Israeli strategists and their neocon allies in Washington see Hezbollah as a forward outpost of Iran. With the Lebanon war, they tried to destroy Hezbollah in order to weaken Iran and make it more vulnerable to attack. They wanted to rob Iran of the ability to hit back by means of Hezbollah.
The war has demonstrated the flaws in this thinking. But, as the latest commando raid on Ba'albek demonstrates, Israel has no respect for the ceasefire of August 14. It will violate it at will. It is unlikely to give up its attempt to kill Hezbollah commanders and especially its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Speaking on the BBC a few days ago, Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN, said: "If the international community does not disarm Hezbollah, we will do it." This does not suggest that Israel has yet digested the lessons of the war. It must also be assumed that Israel and its American ally will not easily give up their attempts to disrupt or end Iran's nuclear programme by all possible means. The coming weeks and months are unlikely to be peaceful.
Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.
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