Iran Continues Its Nuclear Program as the World Holds Its Breath
In order to get a perspective on the Iranian nuclear issue, it’s best to view it from the angles of all immediate parties involved. Iran is also preparing for elections and this will likely impact too on the scenario that is likely to unfold in the near future surrounding its nuclear status.
The European-Iranian relationship over the last few months has been tried and tested to the limit by the Iranians, who have dealt with the Europeans more or less testing the grounds ahead of what are expected tougher dealings with the UN, negotiations in which the US will deal with the country directly.
To begin with, the Europeans are likely to show what their words are worth in reality as they make good on their promise to refer Iran to the UN in order to get sanctions going, the procedure that the US had envisaged way sooner.
The Iranians tend to deal with the US and Israel as two of a kind. This approach will likely have been strengthened recently, when the US sold Israel deep hitting nuclear bombing equipment. The US has long followed Middle East policies that appear to be evidence that it always considers Israel as a ‘second option’ in case diplomacy fails.
Iran’s nuclear plans are featuring highly in its elections, but it is frustratingly unknown what the state of play is for all involved. A recent opinion poll by the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) showed that the incumbent Islamist President Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who’s likely to run again, is not very popular.
Analysts say the nuclear plans might be as count for him or against him, depending on how other candidates play the issue. The president attracted only 13.8 percent in popular support and it remains to be seen how the Iranian population takes the nuclear issue on board. Even though it is clear as of now already that a credible anti-regime candidate could win the presidency without too much trouble, it is not sure that the leader is going to allow this, what the opponent’s position on nuclear power is likely to be and how much freedom the opposition will have to use the issue for political gain. Even if there’s an amount of freedom, there is hardly any good indicator what people’s opinions are on the issue.
As for Israel, the Iranians do not have any diplomatic dealings with this country. Rather, Israel appears to feature on their radar screens in just the macabre fashion everyone fears and which is the sole reason for Israeli purchases of the highly sophisticated US bombs.
There are few certainties in the course of action over the next couple of months. One of the uncertainties has been taken out of the equasion; Iran is going to pick up where it left off (or to continue all along) with its nuclear program. That much is clear.
Officially for the purpose of either just fuel, but likely for production of ‘fuel plus’. This is the big issue in the drama that Anti War.com believes is already dictating US politics in ways solely for the purpose of destroying all possibilities of further developments. Perhaps the extra months Iran gained by (faking) compliance with AEIA regulations were all it needs to complete a process of uranium enrichment.
Some hold even worse beliefs. They say Iran has had a nuclear device for years. Others believe that its recent upgrades of conventional weaponry means it has converted into a nuclear capability. And there is the issue of the missing nuclear weapons from the Ukraine, a story the FT of London broke a few months ago. Apparently the Ukranian nuclear devices were rather sophisticated too and its possibly these that have been fitted into the Iranian produced conventional weaponry. Most reports sound precariously like the ones written about Iraq a few years ago.
It is irritating, for want of a more appropriate word, to think that nobody really knows what the potential of these very days that we are living might prove to be in the annals of history. Especially in the wake of the Iraq debacle. On the one hand, you can hardly begin to imagine the horror if something really is amiss yet on the other hand Western actions against Iraq proved too unforgivable for a repeat.
For the time being, international law appears to offer enough solace to remedy the dilemma in as far as the known facts match reality on the ground, or more like, under the ground in Iran. The Iranians have the law on their side so far, when they claim that even though in the past few years they might have bent the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency, they are now fully compliant and are only preparing to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. In this sense, it is unlikely that members of the Security Council are going to be too hard on it.
There are added reasons to believe this too. Russia, for example, is offering the Iranians the technology for its plant in Busheer and has already indicated that it believes Iran is totally peaceful in its motives to want to go ahead with the nuclear program. China, another country with a veto power, is keen to buy its oil and has itself a bomb. So is Japan, whose nuclear example Iran claims to copy. At the same time, Iran would not do itself any favors if it engaged in any war at the moment. It has indicated during its talks with the European Union that it is in need of technology boosts. Also, top Iranians are very keen to be employed elsewhere in the world, something this fast growing population could do with. These are the kind of considerations offered by economic analysts but which people do not repeat too often in their stories about the dilemma.
The European weekly The Economist hit the nail on the head when it reported in a lead article recently, that if countries like Iran were “offered the right sort of assurances by the US, the nuclear genie might be pushed back into the bottle. But this will take unity, co-ordination and statecraft of a kind the world has not seen for many years”. Let’s hope this materializes somehow.
