Global Policy Forum

By Dominic Moran*

With the upcoming IAEA meeting, speculation abounds on the details of an agreement with Iran and the impact it will have on the UN Security Council in its quest to convince the Islamic Republic to forego its nuclear plans.

It remains unclear whether Iran is willing to consider scenarios that would at least delay the imposition of more determined international sanctions package through assuring the international community that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program. However, in establishing the basis for Iran to provide missing information on controversial aspects of its nuclear development history, the Iran-IAEA pact does provide a window of opportunity in which to formulate a diplomatic agenda for easing tensions.

Iran specialist at UK-based think tank Chatham House, Dr Ali Ansari, disagrees, telling ISN Security Watch, "I think the problem with the IAEA is that it is probably overstepping the mark as far as the Europeans and the Americans are concerned. The IAEA is almost operating as an independent peacemaking body; it just isn't going to work." "I think there are groups of Iranians who are genuine in their desire to solve this. I have to say that I don't think that the Iranian government is particularly behind it," he said.

Opposition

The USand two EU-3 states, Britain and France, have signaled their rejection of the IAEA-Iran agreement, with US officials the most vociferous in their opposition to the deal. French President Nicholas Sarkozy joined the US in seeking to raise pressure on Iran in a wide-ranging foreign policy speech Monday, dubbing the Iranian nuclear program "undoubtedly the most serious crisis before us today" and describing a renewed diplomatic push as the only means available to prevent "the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."

"I think we are going to see a strengthened sanctions process," Ansari said, adding, "The main problem as far as Iran is concerned is that the West has absolutely no incentive to be soft, to come to a solution […] they see the country as suffering from very severe economic difficulties and there is really no incentive at the moment for them to provide a way out." "Of course it is unjust if Iran can't do what it says under the NPT [Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty], that is not the point. The point is that there is a very serious problem with US-Iran relations and it is coming to a head," he said. According to Kile, "The US administration is basically trying to pursue a policy of pressure, of coercion. Basically it is all sticks, no carrots, to get Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program and they don't want to see anything that is going to divert international attention from that goal." "Iran is playing exactly the opposite game. They are trying to distract from the enrichment program, they are trying to be more conciliatory as a way to relieve the pressure that is coming on them in the Security Council," he said.

While the media has largely focused on international efforts to halt autonomous Iranian uranium enrichment, the country's dispute with the IAEA centers on safety and compliance issues, in particular, the failure of the Islamic Republic to report on activities and materials uncovered by IAEA inspections and other sources in contravention of its NPT commitments. Iran's right to full access to the nuclear fuel cycle is guaranteed under the NPT, although the sourcing of technologies for the production of centrifuges currently under development is a subject of concern for the IAEA.

According to Kile the Iranians "are looking for some formula to get out of that box that they have painted themselves into at the Security Council […] By promising to resolve all of the unresolved safety and compliance issues, they are trying to take the uranium enrichment suspension issue off the table and refocus the debate a little bit." Asked if the safety and compliance issues are significant, Kile said, "Yes, they are substantial because they go to the core of whether Iran has a clandestine nuclear weapons program." "I suspect that the Iranians have got themselves in a little bit of a bind now because if they actually come clean and admit that they have in fact had some aspects of a clandestine nuclear weapons program in the past, then that might get them into even more hot water than they are currently in," he said.

Turning point

Buoyed by a strong showing in local elections, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's allies were soundly defeated, moderate religious conservatives have joined reformists in critiquing government policy on the nuclear issue. According to Ansari, the moderate conservatives "want to get control of the country and get it back onto some sort of rational basis. They feel at the moment 'we're on a hiding to nothing,' heading toward either economic meltdown or war."

Ahmadinejad rival and former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has used his position as head of the Expediency Council to repeatedly criticize the policies of the Ahmadinejad government. Rafsanjani was recently appointed temporary chair of the Assembly of Experts – a parliamentary body charged with supervising, selecting and firing the Supreme Leader - in an apparent continuation of moves by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to balance his power with that of the president. Ansari described Rafsanjani as a "major factor" while noting that the former president has run into a lot of flak over the recent publication of his memoirs which includes uncomplimentary vignettes about the Ayatollah Khomeini.

There appear to also be ructions within political circles close to the Revolutionary Guard, which plays a significant role in domestic economic and political life and whose commanders are being targeted by the current UN sanctions regime. "You see even some fairly well known people who are saying now 'Our country is heading on a collision course with the West, this is not in our best interests.'" Kile said. "That is the view of some of the pragmatic conservatives, but even some like Mosen Razai, the former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, [who is] making some rather conciliatory comments."

A news agency associated with Razai, Barzab, recently reported the results of a public opinion poll showing that over 62 percent of respondents who voted in 2005 for Ahmadinejad would not cast their votes for the president again. In a politically charged case, former nuclear negotiator and Rafsanjani associate Hossein Musavian is to face trial on unspecified "security charges" thought to relate to the passing of nuclear information to foreign elements.

According to Ansari, "The attitude of Ahmadinejad and [chief nuclear negotiator] Larijani [is] that if you just get tougher and tougher then the West will back down and Musavian has said that this will simply not be the case," Ansari said. "So what they have basically done is to indicate that 'no-one is above our law and we can get anyone.' It has basically silenced the criticism." Ahmadinejad's allies have counterattacked with a number of high profile clerics – including Khamenei - expressing strong support for his government's foreign policy positions in recent days. "At the moment I think that the consensus among the Iranian elite is that Iran should not give up its enrichment program," Kile concluded.

Failing to enrich

On 26 August Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Ali Hosseini rejected media suggestions that his country has attenuated its uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities in recent weeks. Diplomatic sources close to the IAEA confirmed to the AP that Iran has made little progress in enrichment activities this summer, reportedly operating only 2,000 P1 centrifuges in 164 cascades at the Natanz facility, a scale of enrichment that still leaves the Islamic Republic well below the level of production required for utilization in industrial scale fuel production. This does however provide the capacity for nuclear weapons production which, according to the AP report, would require 18 cascades working at full capacity at supersonic speeds for a full year. The P1 centrifuges are severely outdated and are known to have significant technological issues and their utilization underscores the limited technical capacity of the Iranian program and the extent to which it could benefit from future technological deals with nuclear powers. Iran is believed to be developing and testing P2 centrifuges in facilities that are not open to IAEA inspections.

Consortium

Last week, IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei expressed support for the establishment of an international consortium based in Russia to provide Iran with a guaranteed nuclear fuel supply. This offer was previously made in the June 2006 incentives package, but was firmly rejected by Iran. Kile said that the idea of an international consortium is probably now the "least worst option." He explained that the idea would be to establish a commercial multi-national company that "would lease from Iran all of its enrichment and enrichment-related facilities." After a couple of years the Iranian technologies would be replaced by black-boxed "state-of-the-art Western technology" providing Iran with security of supply while preventing nationalization of the facilities and alleviating proliferation concerns. The location of all facilities on Iranian soil would allow Iran to present the arrangement as securing the country's right to autonomous enrichment.

Asked if the Iranians would go for the consortium idea if it was based in Iran, Ansari said, "Yeah, that would be fine. As long as they could get someone else's money and do it in Iran." "If they don't suspend enrichment there will be a basis for the sanctions," he opined. Kile said, "I suspect sometime this autumn there is going to be a realization that the current diplomatic course, the European-US approach, is not working and that we need to start thinking about alternatives." "I sense that what the Iranians are going to have to be looking for is some sort of immunity deal […] whereby the international community will overlook its past transgressions in return for Iran making a clean breast of it," he said.

About the Author: Dr Dominic Moran, based in Tel Aviv, is ISN Security Watch's senior correspondent in the Middle East and the Director of Operations of ISA Consulting.