[Peace-discuss] On to Iran, anyway?

[patton paul]

Don't Be Fooled. The Iraqi Maelstrom Won't Save Iran
by Jonathan Steele


The cloud is still no larger than George Bush's hand but the storm of
concern which the US is orchestrating over Iran is beginning to show
uncomfortable similarities with the row over Saddam Hussein's Iraq. A
deadline has been set for Iran to make a full declaration of its nuclear
energy program by the end of this month. There is a demand for
international inspectors to go in and examine any site to check for a
possible hidden weapons project. Punitive measures are threatened in the
case of non-compliance.

Many British and American critics of the last war take comfort in the view
that the mess the United States and Britain have got into in post-war Iraq
has the benefit that Bush and Blair will not repeat their adventure. Do
not be fooled. That, increasingly, looks complacent.

Blair's speech this week showed that he stands by his view that preventing
the spread of weapons of mass destruction - if necessary by pre-emptive
force - is top of his foreign policy priorities. It was not to be expected
that the prime minister would publicly admit he got Iraq wrong. Had he
done so, it would be a resigning matter.

But if he had private regrets he might at least have shifted the focus of
future British policy to different challenges, like his old rhetoric about
world poverty and Africa being a scar on the conscience of humankind. But
no. He told the conference that dealing with WMD proliferation headed the
agenda for the 21st century. On the BBC's Today program, he went further
by claiming a new success for the war on Iraq. It had helped to get Iran
to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, he said.

For Bush, too, dealing with WMD proliferation is still a high priority in
spite of the fiasco of the failed search in Iraq. While North Korea has
long been in the frame, the new element is Washington's heavy focus on
Iran. Power, it is often said, lies in the ability to set the agenda, and
it is remarkable how Washington has managed to switch the world's
spotlight to Iran.

The White House is already hinting at using force. Warning Iranians that
"development of a nuclear weapon is not in their interests", Bush said in
late July that "all options remain on the table". The Los Angeles Times
subsequently reported that the CIA has briefed friendly foreign
intelligence services on a contingency plan for air and missile strikes on
Iranian nuclear installations.

Much of the pressure is coming from the Israeli prime minister, Ariel
Sharon, and the same neo-conservative friends of his in Washington who
drove the war on Iraq. They recently formed a "Coalition for democracy in
Iran", which advocates the overthrow of Iran's regime. It includes
well-known hawks like Michael Ledeen and Morris Amitay, a former executive
director of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee. According to
the Washington Post, Sharon recently told Bush that Israel might strike
Iran's nuclear facilities, just as it destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear
reactor in 1981. Whether Sharon only meant his warning as a device to get
the US to take the issue seriously and strike first is not clear.

Few would deny that global nuclear proliferation is a serious danger. But
as Ken Coates of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation points out in a new
pamphlet, the Bush administration's talk of "counter-proliferation" is
diametrically opposed to the old language of non-proliferation. The
original idea was that all nuclear-weapons states would move towards
disarmament, a pledge that the US, Britain and the other three declared
bomb-owners made in 1995. Now we have a kind of class distinction. The US
continues to develop new forms of nuclear weapons. US-friendly states that
refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) but have nuclear
weapons - like India, Israel and Pakistan - are treated with kid gloves.
An NPT-signer such as Iran, against whom Washington bears ancient grudges,
is threatened with punishment, and possible force.

Iran is not North Korea. It has no bomb and has consistently said it has
no plans for one. It has a nuclear power program and plans for full-cycle
fuel enrichment, but one reason for its drive towards self-sufficiency is
that its world trade already suffers from US sanctions, as well as US
pressure on Russia and other European states to restrict their own exports
to Iran.

All Iranians, not just the regime's supporters, resent international
pressure on their country to renounce nuclear power. As one of the first
countries in their region which industrialized, they feel they have a
"right to technology".

If Iran is secretly trying to develop a bomb, only a few politicians are
behind it. "Iran has no military lobby for the bomb like Pakistan, nor a
civilian-scientific one like India," according to Shahram Chubin, one of
the most clear-headed analysts of Iran's national security policy, now a
Swiss citizen. Marginalizing Iran, refusing to consult it where its
interests are involved, and generally demonizing it would strengthen those
in Iran who argue that nuclear weapons confer status and influence, he
wrote some months ago. The war in Iraq and the stepped-up US campaign
against Iran have only reinforced his case.

The time has surely come for some sort of "grand bargain" with Iran, a
dialogue in which everything is put on the table, including a lifting of
sanctions, the renunciation of the use or threat of force, and the
restoration of diplomatic relations with the US in return for nuclear
transparency. Sadly, the recent trend has been the other way. On Monday
the European Union issued its toughest statement on Iran, echoing
Washington's hard line. The French went along happily - no sign of
Chiraquian revolt on this one. The EU warned that even if Iran signed the
International Atomic Energy Agency's additional protocol to allow for snap
visits by outside inspectors, this would only be a "first step" towards
"restoring international trust".

In the case of Iraq, the Clinton administration and Britain made a serious
mistake in 1998 by making clear sanctions would not be lifted in return
for Saddam Hussein's compliance with inspections. Now the mistake is being
repeated with Iran, giving it no clear incentive to cooperate, and making
people in Tehran ask what the next demand will be.

Until this summer, the EU took a different line from Washington. Instead
of "containment", it argued for more dialogue and trade with Iran. Unless
the EU quickly breaks with Bush and resumes the path of incentives rather
than threats, Iran is more likely to be pushed into wanting a bomb than
renouncing it.