Global Policy Forum

By Kaveh L. Afrasiabi *

The power struggle over Iran at the United Nations Security Council has reached a critical threshold, with Russia and China throwing their weight against a proposed sanctions resolution and the United States toughening its stance by insisting on identifying Iran's nuclear program as a threat to global peace and security. Meanwhile, Iran's military exercises in Persian Gulf send a strong signal that Tehran is in no mood to compromise its rights.

Indeed, the theater of Iran's nuclear row has definitely extended to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, scene of a US-led arms-interdiction exercise late last month, followed by the 10-day land, sea and air maneuvers by Revolutionary Guards, proudly displaying Iran's new generation of missiles that "can reach the far corners of Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea", to quote a military commander. The "Great Prophet 2" exercise was specifically billed by the Iranian press as a powerful response to the US-led maneuver that was, in the words of an Iranian analyst on the semi-official website Baztab.com, conducted "in parallel with the pressures on Iran at the Security Council".

The author goes on to state that Iran's unveiling of its advanced missile technology, including the enhanced Shahab-3, which can carry multiple warheads, demonstrates the futility of any attempt to deprive Iran of this technology, in light of the draft UN resolution banning the sale of all nuclear and missile technology to Iran. Another message is Iran's intention to retaliate against any neighboring state that collaborates with the US on any attacks on Iran.

As far as Iran is concerned, the rationale for the US having a permanent presence in the Persian Gulf is aided by the hyped-up allegations of Iran's nuclear proliferation. This is hardly a figment of Iranian imagination or paranoia. After all, the people who put together US President George W Bush's foreign-policy agenda were frank when they stated, in their report for a new century led by the United States titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses", that their horizon transcends Iraq: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security ... the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." One might add that it also transcends Iran's nuclear program.

Combining hard power with soft power

Simultaneously, Iran has combined its military, hard-power approach with a deft soft-power approach by (1) allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to conduct more inspections of Iran's uranium-enrichment activities, in light of Iran's announced launching of a second cascade of centrifuges, (2) announcing Iran's willingness to hold direct talks with the US on Iraq, and (3) encouraging Hezbollah to participate in Lebanon's national-unity talks. Moreover, Tehran has been busy playing host to visitors from the likes of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and France, soliciting sympathy for its grievance against the United States' "illegal bullying" on the nuclear issue.

Thus, for example, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Jalili recently told a French parliamentary delegation to Tehran that Iran's nuclear diplomacy is based on the twin pillars of "maintaining Iran's rights within the framework of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and lack of diversion from the peaceful path". Regardless, the US has remained steadfast on the notion of stopping Iran from the path of mastering the enrichment technology that would ultimately allow it to possess nuclear weapons, to paraphrase US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her recent interview with the Bloomberg news agency.

But the United States' "zero-sum" approach on Iran's centrifuges is clearly not working, and the military option is unlikely to bear fruit now or in the future, notwithstanding Iran's nationalist zeal and pride behind the nuclear project. Instead of making futile efforts within or outside the UN to pressure Iran to give up its nascent nuclear-fuel cycle, the US and its European allies are better off pursuing the alternative of ensuring that the objective guarantees regarding Iran's peaceful program are fail-safe and trustworthy.

As IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei recently stated, Iran is a "latent nuclear power". The question, as articulated by this author in a recent piece in the Harvard International Review, is how to avoid idealism and to pursue policies that would ensure Iran's latent proliferation tendency remains just that, latent. After all, this tendency is germane to the nature of beast, as the dual-purpose nuclear technology and the possibility of "reverse engineering" even in the event of a full suspension of questionable activities testify.

The UN's conundrum

It is perfectly possible now that a Security Council action against Iran may have the unwanted, yet fully predictable, consequence of aiding Iran's latent proliferation tendency, by bolstering the hands of hardliners who counsel Iran's exit from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and termination of its cooperation with the IAEA. In that case, both the UN system and the non-proliferation regime would have suffered, thus adding to the monumental headaches introduced by North Korea's nuclear test.

In a recent conversation with a senior UN official, this author was told that the Security Council has "boxed itself" in concerning some form of sanctions against Iran in light of that country's defiance of Resolution 1696, which called on Iran to suspend some of its nuclear activities. "The council does not have the option of completely ignoring this, and for its own sake if nothing else, will take action sooner or later."

The above sentiment is seemingly shared by a number of Tehran politicians, including several members of parliament (MPs) who have openly predicted that "we are on the verge of witnessing limited sanctions against Iran". According to Soleyman Jaafarzadeh, a member of parliament's National Security and Foreign Relations Committee, the best option is "calmness on Iran's nuclear dossier ... benefiting both Iran and the Western nations". tating, like other top Iranian officials, that "Iran is ready for comprehensive cooperation", Jaafarzadeh and his colleagues have at the same time warned about Iran's "firm and appropriate response" to any sanctions.

Another MP, Hossein Afarideh, who serves on the Energy Committee, has aired blunt criticisms of Russia, accusing Moscow of seeking "incentives" from the US in line with its "own interests" to the detriment of Iran. Afarideh has thus articulated a growing fear in Iran that ultimately Russia will go along the sanctions regime and set aside its present misgivings on UN action against Iran.
Of course, not everyone inside or outside Iran shares this sentiment about Russia, and an opinion column in the International Herald Tribune levels the opposite criticism at Moscow for toying with the US and maneuvering at the UN to Iran's advantage. By the same token, from Iran's vantage point, Russia's vulnerability to such stinging criticisms in the West translate into even bigger question marks about Moscow's ultimate stance on the nuclear row.

In light of a new secretary general assuming his position in January, the UN is in a state of political transition, and chances are the Security Council will defer action until early next year. For the Bush administration, whose Middle East policy was severely tested in the United States' mid-term elections this week, this is not such a bad option either, since to do otherwise is simply to augment the boiling pot of Middle East crisis at a time of falling oil prices and when the US public is in no mood for higher energy costs this winter.

Henceforth, with the window of opportunity of several weeks to negotiate the Iran nuclear issue in European capitals, the lesser evil out of UN's conundrum is, indeed, none other than inaction. Anything else might be a recipe for disaster.

About the Author: Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.

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