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Iran’s Nuclear Postures:Towards Inevitable Confrontation, by Dr. Chintamani Mahapatra, 9 May 2006 Print E-mail

ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 9 May 2006

Iran’s Nuclear Postures

Towards Inevitable Confrontation

By Dr. Chintamani Mahapatra

School of International Studies, JNU

 Iran has threatened to walk out of the NPT, if it is pressured too much to give up its uranium enrichment programme. How is it going to help Iran? Will it make its nuclear programme more legitimate? Will it assist in warding off the threat of possible international economic sanctions or military intervention?

The United States and its European partners and the IAEA have complained that Iran has been clandestinely seeking to develop a nuclear weapon capability. It has been alleged that Iran has secretly sought to acquire nuclear programme related technology and equipment for about 18 years in the international nuclear black market.

Several years of pressures and months of negotiations have failed to bring Iran on to its knees. Iran appears hell bent to go its way as far as its domestic nuclear programme is concerned. Citing political arguments based on the concept of national sovereignty, economic compulsion based on diversification of its sources of energy and security-  related justification, based on the limits of oil and gas resources, Iran has shown its determination to acquire a full civilian nuclear power cycle capability. It has uranium mines and now it claims that it has developed the capacity to domestically enrich uranium to generate nuclear fuel to run nuclear power reactors.

Iran has been a member of the NPT, the most extensive and inclusive nuclear non-proliferation regime. It has been a member of the IAEA, the international nuclear watch dog. It claims rights under international law and under the NPT and IAEA provisions to pursue a civilian nuclear power programme.

The US and several other countries in the West, however, do not have confidence that Iran will confine its ambition only to acquire a capability to run a full cycle nuclear power programme. Tehran is suspected to have been keeping an ambition to develop nuclear weapons.

What are the bases of such suspicions? First of all, Iran has been under the rule of a theocratic system since 1979 and has adopted a policy of confrontation with the West. It has withstood the US pressure and policy of isolation for long by systematically trying to cultivate good relations with the major powers and other countries. It seeks to enhance its capability in the face of alleged persistent US hostility.

Secondly, Iran has witnessed the US role during the Gulf War I and Gulf War II;  and the fate of Iraq. It does not want to take any chances and seeks a capability that could prevent foreign military intervention. Thirdly, it has strong grievances against the Western silence over Israeli nuclear weapons capability. Fourthly, it has seen the emergence of a nuclear Pakistan which has often been dubbed as a failed state and which has survived the Western non-proliferation pressures despite its clandestine activities and involvement in nuclear black market. If Pakistan could, why cannot Iran?

That Iran may have an ambition to develop nuclear weapon capability is reflected in its uncompromising stances on this issue and its fearless rhetoric challenging the US and its allies, including Israel. Never before any Middle-Eastern country threatened to obliterate Israel from the global map, as Iran did recently. Israel, which has won all wars fought with various combinations of Arab countries, is also a nuclear capable country. Issuing a threat to Israel’s existence can have two meanings. One, the threatening country has nuclear weapons capability. Two, the leader issuing such threats has a target audience to woo and he does not mean what he says in true sense of the term.

The problem is that Iranian people cannot be fooled. They know the military capabilities of Israel and would not support any direct confrontation with that country. That means Tehran may have developed a capability to build a crude bomb and is indirectly demonstrating its capability by using a combination of defiant action and rhetoric.

Tehran broke the lock and resumed its nuclear programme contrary to IAEA directions. It stopped IAEA inspections of its nuclear programme. It also confidently rejected the EU-3’s diplomatic initiatives and proposals. Russia, which has very friendly and close ties with Iran, also came up with a sound compromise formula. But Iran discarded it. The US Security Council passed a resolution asking Iran to stop uranium enrichment within a month, but Iran turned it down. On the contrary, it declared its new technological breakthrough in the field of uranium enrichment. The latest in Iran’s defiant attitude towards the international community and determination to go ahead with its nuclear programme is its warning that it would walk out of the NPT.

Why is Iran so defiant? Can a leadership be so audacious without strength – in this case nuclear weapon capability? Iran’s political behaviour is to some extent perplexing. Currently, there is a lively debate in the US about the rights and wrongs of taking military action against Iran. Although very powerful arguments are being put forward against military intervention, the US Government does not rule out military option.

There is no doubt that the Bush administration wants diplomacy to complete its full course before it would decide on military means. The past mistakes in the case of Iraq have brought significant lessons for the US Administration and President Bush clearly would not like any repetition of those. The Congressional elections also pose another set of political problems for President Bush. On top of it all, his opinion ratings among the people has been rapidly sliding down. There is no guarantee that yet another military adventure would bring any political benefit to him.

If these factors, along with Russian and Chinese opposition to punitive measures against Iran, have enabled Iranian leadership to withstand the Western pressure, the world in general and Persian Gulf in particular are safer. Even then, Iran’s obstinate behaviour is increasingly making it difficult for Russian, Chinese and other friendly countries to unconditionally support its stand.

The question is what happens if Iran announces its nuclear capability after walking out of the NPT? Iran’s nuclear weapons will not be considered legal either under the NPT or otherwise. So it may very well stay out of the NPT and launch itself as a new nuclear weapon state. Analysts in several western nations do not believe that Iran currently has the nuclear weapon capability. But their prediction may go wrong, as it has been so in so many other instances. 

More hair-raising question is whether the neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration would confront a nuclear Iran or make fences with it. (What with Washington dismissing. Iranian President Mahmohd Ahmadinejad’s letter to President Bush to “propose new ways” to resolve the matter) Will Iran face tough sanctions or even military intervention? Will Russians and Chinese come to the rescue of a nuclear Iran or sit idly and watch yet another case of US unilateral intervention? (Especially against the backdrop that both have rejected the US proposal to invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which provides for enforcement i.e. more sanctions and war.  Instead they had suggested another Security Council rejection to demand Iran stop its nuclear programme) It is most likely that some sort of confrontation is in the making as far as US-Iranian relations are concerned.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

 

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