Last week at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Iran and the so-called group of 5+1( the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council +Germany) came tantalisingly close to an interim agreement, reviving the hopes of a diplomatic settlement to the Iranian nuclear crisis.
The US, the European Union and UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran for refusing to comply with UN resolutions that it halt uranium enrichment and other materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons.
The sanctions have been hurting. Iranian oil exports have dropped by about 60 per cent in the past two years, with Iran earning about $100 million (Dh367 million) a day from oil sales as opposed to $250 million two years ago. With inflation skyrocketing and the value of the Iranian currency plummeting, Iran was desperate for relief. The election last June of President Hassan Rouhani on a platform of commitment to reconciliation, to ending Iran’s international isolation, and to a forward looking foreign policy, helped create the necessary environment conducive to resumption of talks.
From the information reportedly leaked to the press, it seems that the group of 5+1 drove a hard bargain, and the parties came close to an agreement thanks to Iranian readiness to make concessions. The agreement would essentially look like this: The Iranians agree to limitations on their enrichment of uranium that would delay their capability to develop nuclear weapons, and to a fairly strict inspection regime. In return, the Iranians get a limited and reversible relief from the sanctions.
Two areas of disagreements could not be bridged. One had to do with Iranian insistence on a written recognition of their right to enrichment and the development of nuclear energy necessary for civilian purpose. Washington took the position that “while countries may have a right to civilian nuclear energy, no state has an inherent right to have enrichment capabilities.”
The second had to do with French insistence that the construction of the Arak reactor, which will be capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, be halted.
There is cautious optimism in the Obama administration that an agreement can be achieved diplomatically: Thus changing the dynamics of the crisis, reversing the escalation, and avoiding the use of force. President Barack Obama appealed to the American Congress — which is pushing for more punitive sanctions against Iran — to give diplomacy a chance. If we are serious about diplomacy, he said, then there is no need for sanctions now.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu campaigned heavily against the agreement. His agenda is of course not served by peace (is it ever?) or by a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear dispute with Iran. Keeping the media and the public apprehensive about the prospect of war with Iran, especially with American support — if not direct involvement— accomplishes two important objectives: first to remove the last potential opponent of Israel in the Palestine conflict, and thus confirm the Zionist hegemonic ascendency in the region; second; keep the Palestine conflict off the American and international agenda — preoccupied with the war in Iran — while accelerating the pace of dispossession and eviction, and consolidating the continued colonisation of the Occupied Territories.
Saudi Arabian leaders also vehemently opposed the potential diplomatic agreement with Iran, arguing that it leaves the door open for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, and that will set in motion a regional arms race, with Egypt and Turkey racing to join the nuclear club.
Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the head of Saudi intelligence and former ambassador to the US recently told a group of European diplomates that his country intended to make “a major shift” in its relations with the US because they were deeply disappointed with the American failure in Syria and lack of firmness in dealing with Iran.
Prince Turki Al Faisal, a former Saudi chief of intelligence earlier this month told Washington Post that Saudi Arabia supported a nuclear-free Middle East — encompassing Israel as well as Iran— but that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, then Gulf countries should do so too.
On November 6, Gary Samore, until March 2013 President Barack Obama’s counter-proliferation adviser, told the BBC’s Newsnight, that Saudi Arabia had invested in Pakistan’s nuclear programme in return for quick deployment of Pakistani nuclear warheads in Saudi Arabia in case of need.”
It maybe that an eventual agreement with Iran will convince Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions; but then again it may turn out to be a temporary palliative. Scientific advances cannot be unlearned. Nuclear weapons after all serve a useful purpose, otherwise why do powers, great and small, seek to acquire them, while denying them to other countries? Isn’t that the logic of the Non-Proliferation Treaty? It obliged the non-nuclear countries not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons; and in return it committed the nuclear powers to negotiate in good faith to achieve total nuclear disarmament. Who is holding the great powers to account for selectively seeking to enforce the Treaty?
Since the Second World War, the millions who died in wars died from conventional weapon warfare, not from nuclear weapons. If nuclear weapons kept the peace between the great powers, why can they not keep the peace between the medium and small powers? If they kept the peace between USA and USSR, why can they not keep the peace between a nuclear Iran, and a ‘temporarily nuclear’ Saudi Arabia? This last question is somewhat problematic because the doctrine of deterrence is unlikely to apply if one of the protagonists “borrowed” some nuclear bombs to “fight” a nuclear enemy. First of all, there is no “fighting” in nuclear doctrines. Nuclear weapons serve deterrence, not wars. Secondly, for deterrence to succeed the “borrowed” bombs must be able to escape preemptive destruction, and survive a first strike in order to be able to inflict a devastating retaliation on the enemy.
And thus even “borrowed” bombs may serve deterrence, and help keep the peace.
Adel Safty is distinguished visiting professor and special adviser to the rector at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Russia. His book, Might Over Right, is endorsed by Noam Chomsky and published in England by Garnet, 2009.
