Iran's nuclear dilemma

The preceding year's intelligence briefing given to the US Congressional staff members indicated Iran's inability to produce nuclear weapons until after 2010 because of existential technical efficiencies in giving full shape to its alleged nuclear program. These estimates contradicted IAEA Director General Mohammed El Baradei telling the CNN in May 2004 that "the jury is still out" on whether Iran's nuclear programs were "exclusively for peaceful purposes" and his interview to the German magazine Der Spiegel early last year that Iran has the capability to produce nuclear weapons in two to three years.

Only the Iranians, perhaps, can tell the world when Iran can have nuclear weapons, assuming Iran has the intention to acquire these weapons. The US bellicosity towards Iran is based on Iran's past efforts to conceal its nuclear activities and unresolved questions with regard to IAEA investigation of Iran's nuclear program.

It may be recalled that in mid-2003, El Baradei reported to the IAEA board of governors that Iran had imported from China about two thousand kgs of uranium materials (without reporting it to the IAEA) which could be processed into fuel for civilian nuclear reactors or fissile material for nuclear weapons. This was regarded as Iran's non-compliance of its safeguard agreement with IAEA. US also questions the rationale of Iran having the world's sixth largest oil reserves but spending billions of dollars to develop nuclear power plants.

Besides, the US remains convinced of Tehran's backing of Hezbollah and Palestinian groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and of Iran's "collusion" with al-Qaeda, ignoring the fundamental difference that while Iran is a theocratic state dominated by the Shia, al-Qaeda subscribes to a fundamental interpretation of Sunni Islam, as well as the fact that during the 1990s Iran backed the anti-Taliban groups with substantial military aid.

In Western eyes, an Iranian nuclear capability would be both dangerous and destabilizing. A group of prominent European and American foreign policy experts (e.g. Sandy Burger and Tony Lake, National Security Advisors to President Clinton; Douglas Hurd, former British Foreign Secretary; Strobe Talbot, former US Deputy Secretary of State; academics Joseph Nye, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Francis Fukuyama, Kalypso Nicolaidis, etc) holds the view that Iranian nuclearization could lead to further nuclear proliferation (in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey for example), prompt Iran to pursue an aggressive foreign policy (including providing support to terrorist groups or armed intervention in neighboring countries), and strike a fatal blow to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.

This group of profoundly influential people is against allowing Iran to develop enrichment and reprocessing capabilities (nuclear fuel cycle) even under international inspection. They urge the US and the European Union to insist that "only a permanent and verifiable end to Iran's nuclear fuel cycle program can provide an objective guarantee that Iran is not working toward a nuclear weapons option."

In essence, therefore, the Western insistence on Iran to abandon its nuclear program is due to the West's lack of trust in the Iranian regime. That Iran so far has not done anything illegal is a moot question. The West, particularly the US, sees a plausible threat in Iran's alleged aberrant behaviour on the nuclear issue. The "plausible threat" argument inevitably brings into discussion Bush doctrine of preemption that seeks legitimacy for military intervention breaching sovereignty of another country without the US facing imminent threat (for self-defense) or UN Security Council authorization.

But then again, as Professor Anthony Arend (of Georgetown University) contends, under the regime of customary international law, developed long before the UN Charter was adopted, it was generally agreed that preemptive force in self-defense was acceptable so long the state exercising its right of preemption could demonstrate its necessity and the use of force was proportionate to the threat.

More than one hundred years ago then US Secretary of War Elihu Root (1899-1904) defined self-defense as "the right of every sovereign state to protect itself by preventing a condition of affairs in which it would be too late to protect itself." Defense of the doctrine of preemption/prevention was germane to Elihu Root's definition. The UN Charter described by John Foster Dulles, as a "pre-atomic document" did not envision either weapons of mass destruction nor terrorism by non-state actors.

Besides the Cold War behaviour of then superpowers in Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Bay of Pigs, etc would provide some of the examples that the UN Charter was not respected whenever then superpowers felt their spheres of influence were threatened. These "threats" on most occasions were not justifiable by any measure of international law.

In the case of Iran, Senator John McCain's view that military option should not be discounted may not be a lone voice given Bush administration's determination that under no circumstances should Iran be allowed to become a nuclear power. Even if China and Russia refuse to go along with the West in the UNSC proposing punitive actions against Iran, it is possible that the US and EU along with Japan may impose diplomatic and economic sanctions on Iran on their own.

Under the current circumstances of Iran's reported willingness to compromise, Western bellicosity is unlikely to gain global endorsement, particularly of the Islamic world, a sizeable part of which continues to view the Iraq war, waged under false premises of Saddam regime's possession of WMD and its links with al-Qaeda as a veritable clash of civilizations.

It would be imprudent for the West to ignore the frustration of the Islamic world over Western policy of "nuclear ambiguity" relating to Israeli possession of nuclear weapons while adamantly refusing to allow any Muslim nation to possess any (excepting Pakistan which the Americans appear to view as providing a stabilizing factor in conflict ridden South Asia). The West must also take into account the four "threats" prompting perceived security need of Iran for nuclear weapon capabilities: Pakistan, Israel, the US, and Iraq.

George Perkovich (of Carnegie Foundation for International Peace) notes that global recognition accorded to Pakistan as a nuclear power offended the Persian sense of superiority because to the Iranians, "Pakistan is a culturally and historically an inferior neighboyr." Besides Pakistan, regarded by Iran as a fertile ground for Wahabi fundamentalism and Sunni extremism, is a natural contestant for religious purity in the light of implacable Shia-Sunni divide.

In the case of Israel, the most recent remarks by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmed-Nijad on Israel and its genocidal policy towards Palestinians reflect the opinion of the broad swath of Iranians. Iran's relation with the US has been a tortured one since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Brussels based International Crisis Group cites the views expressed by the foreign policy advisor to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini that opposition to the US is not a fundamental tenet of the Iranian Revolution and Iranian leaders have never said that Iran wanted to continue this antagonism indefinitely but wanted the problem to be solved eventually.

Iran's policy makers feel that the problem lies more with Washington than with Tehran and Iranians are confused by contradictory signals given by the US administrations (e.g. threat of military attack, regime change, isolationism, economic incentives etc). Besides use of terms like "axis of evil" does not help the cause of moderates within Iranian society seeking change from the state of asphyxiation caused by theocratic rule. As one Iranian political commentator noted: "Any US strategy that even remotely raises the spectre of foreign interference is doomed to fail."

Iraq poses the most obvious and direct threat justifying Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. However, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power has considerably lessened the security threat posed by Iraq, and consequently Iran's need for nuclear deterrent.

In the ultimate analysis, it would be foolhardy for Iran to continue its quest for nuclear weapons. The US and the West will never allow such a thing to happen. Osirak option (1981 Israeli preemptive attack on suspected Iraqi nuclear installations) can be exercised by either Israel or the US at any time of their choice. Western interpretation of "plausible threat" will continue to hold sway for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps Professor Ziauddin Sardar has aptly encapsulated the essence of post Cold War global politics in the following words: "The real power of the West is not located in its economic muscle and technological might. Rather it resides in its power to define for example freedom, progress, civil behaviour, law, tradition. What is real and what it means to be human. The non-Western civilizations have simply to accept these definitions or be defined out of existence."

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.