Pre-empting a nuclear Iran

Iranian women protest against the IAEA protocol after the Friday prayer in Teheran on October 31, following the organisation's ultimatum to Teheran to prove that it has no secret nuclear weapons programme. - MORTEZA NIKOUBAZL/REUTERS

Iran's decision to open up its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspections presents a challenge to the weapons inspectors, who might find it difficult to prove that the country has a covert weapons programme.

THE Iranian government announced in the third week of December that it would allow inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unfettered access to the country's nuclear facilities. A non-proliferation treaty protocol that was signed by Aliakbar Salehi, the Iranian representative to the IAEA, at its headquarters in Vienna has been hailed as a significant breakthrough. The agreement requires Iran to submit to intrusive and unannounced inspections of its nuclear complexes and research facilities.

In November, the IAEA had approved a resolution condemning Iran for engaging in secret nuclear activities. According to IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei, a strong message, which said that "future breaches will not be tolerated", was sent to Teheran.

Although the agreement with the IAEA has to be ratified by the Iranian Parliament, it has the approval of President Mohammed Khatami and, crucially, that of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Many prominent hardliners, who owe allegiance to Khamenei, are opposed to any concessions to the West on the nuclear issue, particularly in the light of the behaviour of IAEA inspectors in neighbouring Iraq where they used inspections as a pretext to espionage on behalf of the United States and Israel. The Bush administration has included Iran in the "axis of evil". It is no secret that the influential "neoconservatives" in Washington would like to see nothing better than the demise of the Islamist government in Iran.

After September 11, 2001, the U.S. has virtually surrounded Iran. American troops are stationed in virtually all the countries neighbouring Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been demanding military action against Teheran, saying that Israel's security is endangered by Iran's alleged nuclear expertise. Israel had declared Iran its enemy number one in the early 1990s. Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz issued a public warning in late December that his country was thinking in terms of launching an operation to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities. Meir Daggan, the head of Israel's external intelligence service, told parliamentarians in November that Iran's nuclear programme posed the biggest threat to Israel since its creation in 1948.

There is speculation that once the Bushehr reactor is ready to be loaded with nuclear fuel in the middle of 2004, the U.S. may tacitly give its ally Israel the go-ahead to attack Iran. According to many Western analysts, such an attack would weaken the Iranian government and help preserve Israel's nuclear monopoly in the region. With American approval, Israel had targeted Iraq's main nuclear facility at Osirak in the early 1980s when the country was considered a bigger threat to Israel's security than Iran. Both Iraq and Iran are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which allows member-countries to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

Some commentators say that Iran has a right to develop its own nuclear deterrent, especially in view of the deteriorating security situation in the region. Iran has been focussing on the development of the Shahab-3 missile, which it first tested in 2000. The missile is said to be nuclear-capable, with the ability to hit targets within a range of 1,350 km, bringing West Asia and Central Asia within its ambit. Iran's main nuclear processing centre, at Bushehr, is being completed with Russian help. The Bush administration tried a lot of arm-twisting on the Russian government. However, President Vladimir Putin stood firm and assured Teheran that Russia would continue to provide the expertise and materiel necessary for the successful completion of the Bushehr Plant.

When the Iranian revolution took place in 1979, 85 per cent of the Bushehr plant had been completed. The contract was given to the German company Siemens, which withdrew immediately after the overthrow of the pro-Western monarchy. The Bushehr plant was repeatedly bombed during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. Moscow stepped into the picture in 1995 and signed an $800-million deal to complete the work on the reactor. By the mid-1990s Moscow and Teheran had begun to share similar concerns about the dramatic expansion of American influence in their backyard.

Washington has been orchestrating the recent moves against Iran, alleging that it was on the verge of producing nuclear weapons. American suspicions that Iran could be on its way to becoming a nuclear power were strengthened by the satellite pictures of two previously unknown Iranian nuclear facilities in Arak, 150 km from Teheran, and Natanz, 100 km from the city of Isfahan, in August 2002. Iranian authorities acknowledged the existence of the sites and said that they were being built to develop their own nuclear refuelling capabilities. This acknowledgement meant that Iran had access to the gas centrifuge technology necessary for uranium enrichment.

The Bush administration has been pressuring the 35-nation IAEA Board, calling for the most severe action against Iran for continuing with its nuclear programme. However, Washington could get the support of only four nations in the current United Nations Security Council in its bid to impose international sanctions on Iran. None of the other permanent members, including the United Kingdom, supported the hard-line stance taken by the Bush administration. The European Union, which has strong economic ties with Iran, has assured Teheran that if it complies with IAEA guidelines, then the country would be given access to modern nuclear technology and supplies from countries such as France, Germany and the U.K. Iran could then be placed in a favourable position. It should be remembered that the West has placed sanctions on the supply of nuclear technology to Teheran for the past 20 years.

Moscow too has welcomed the latest IAEA resolution on Iran. The spokesman for the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry said that the resolution "gives an opportunity to step up Russian-Iranian cooperation in nuclear power engineering". Washington had to be satisfied with the IAEA decision giving inspectors more time to carry on their work in Iran before the matter is referred to the Security Council. If the IAEA discovers anything controversial about Iran's nuclear programme, a full report will be submitted to the IAEA Board. El Baradei has warned that any further breaches of the NPT will have "very serious and ominous" consequences for Iran. Teheran has been insisting that its nuclear programme is meant only for peaceful purposes, especially the generation of electricity.

However, the IAEA has cast doubts on Iran's claims that its nuclear programme was meant mainly to be an alternative energy source to oil. In a recent report, the IAEA alleged that Iran had failed to honour international obligations that required it to report the processing and use of nuclear materials and reveal the facilities that are used to store and process them. Iran agreed in November to suspend its uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing programmes. Analysts are of the opinion that the Iranian government has made significant concessions after having adopted an uncompromising stance for two decades.

However, shortly after Iran's decision to comply with the IAEA's demand, Hassan Rowhani, secretary of Iran's supreme National Security Council, said that the suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment programme "could last one day or one year; it depends on us".

Analysts point out that despite the rigorous inspection procedures that are likely to be adopted, it will be extremely difficult for the IAEA inspectors to make a credible case against Iran. If the inspectors fail to unearth proof that Iran is pursuing a covert nuclear programme, the country will have to be given the right to enrich uranium and handle all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle.

A nuclear-armed Iran would end the monopoly of Israel as the only nuclear weapons power in West Asia. Iran would then be able to circumscribe the growing American hegemony in the region. "Uranium enrichment is Iran's natural right, and (Iran) will reserve for itself this right - there has been and there will be no question of a permanent suspension or halt at all. We want to control the whole fuel cycle," said Rowhani.