By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
In light of the latest news regarding Iran's rapid advances in nuclear centrifuge technology and Tehran's warning that it will reject any new UN measures aimed at halting its nuclear progress, it's clear that Iran's nuclear standoff has entered a new phase - one that may have global consequences and cause irreparable harm to the pillars of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The connection between the two issues has been presented in a different light by Western pundits who have maintained that the NPT will deteriorate in the absence of effective action to counter the Iranian "proliferation activities". Foremost among such pundits is a former official of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), Pierre Goldschmidt, who has called for proactive initiatives by the UN Security Council to address proliferation risks often attributed to "NPT loopholes".
Of course, first among the "loopholes" is the right to produce nuclear fuel under Article IV of the NPT. In the words of IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei, this means that the non-nuclear weapons nations exercising nuclear power would become "virtual nuclear weapon states". The gap between "virtual" and "actual" can be rather wide, however, and may remain so as long as a robust verification and inspection regime remains in place.
But the problem with proposals of Goldschmidt and other like-minded experts is that they introduce new and potentially larger problems, particularly with respect to the relatively successful non-proliferation regime. For one thing, the UN Security Council's attempt to deprive Iran of the capability to produce nuclear fuel has no legal precedent. Bottom line, this is an anti-NPT initiative that will only lead to an anarchy in rules and the collapse of norms that other nuclear proliferators can take advantage of.
So what exactly is the purpose of these abnormal UN initiatives against Iran? Is it to indirectly weaken the non-proliferation regime, in order to benefit countries such as Israel that have come under increasing international pressure to conform to the regime's norms? Or is it exclusively due to the fears of Iran's proliferation?
Unfortunately, little attention has been given to the various, intended or unintended, implications of the UN Security Council's actions against Iran, often under the lame argument that "inaction is not an option". But improper action is equally, if not additionally, harmful.
Indeed, if the UN Security Council transforms itself into a new de facto arm of the NPT, should we expect it to do the same for all the other international regimes - chemical, biological, developmental, disarmament, or otherwise - that also suffer from various "loopholes" and shortcomings? Clearly, we need a more norm-guided UN approach toward the Iran nuclear issue, otherwise, the negative spillover effects on the NPT and a host of other international issues, will soon be upon us.
Assuming that the IAEA's next report, due out in a few weeks, will bolster Iran's position that it has not breached any of its international obligations (a position eloquently reiterated by Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Soltanieh, at a university in Geneva this week) then the Security Council will have a hard time rationalizing its sanctions regime, let alone toughening it.
Already, South Africa has put a damper on the current "5 + 1" efforts to pass a third sanctions resolution on Iran by counseling patience and the need to avoid rash moves. With the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) solidly behind Iran's nuclear rights, the coming ElBaradei report on Iran will likely sharpen the tensions at the UN between the US-led coalition aiming to penalize Iran for defying the UN's demands and the bulk of the UN's member states defending Iran's rights.
With its plate overflowing with multiple crises - Kenya, Chad, Darfur, Kosovo, and others - the UN can ill-afford the divisive Iran issue that will polarize its members if the UN leadership is not careful.
Iran sanctions rollback
By all indications, the initial news from Washington regarding a "5 +1" consensus on new sanctions against Iran has been premature. New signs of fissure and disagreement have emerged, suggesting that the draft third sanctions resolution is in trouble. As a result, expectations are that the drastic measures stipulated in the draft resolution will be watered down, otherwise it will not pass and fall prey to the quagmire of diplomatic wrangling.
For their part, Tehran has been emphasizing the "honesty and sincerity" of its cooperation with the IAEA. A recent article by Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottakin, in the British daily The Guardian furthers this emphasis, as does the fact that this cooperation has extended beyond the Iran-IAEA protocol and involved "complementary access and information".
In the absence of any evidence of military diversion, the fact that Iran has already mastered the enrichment technology does not warrant an international reprisal, particularly from the UN, which has invoked Chapter VII and deemed it to be an issue of global security and threat to world peace. The US intelligence report on Iran, confirming that Iran is not presently engaged in a nuclear weapons program, has undermined the legitimacy of this UN response, and the US and its allies are now hard-pressed to find viable arguments to justify the multilateral sanctions regime on Iran.
The argument that Iran's possession of nuclear knowledge is "dangerous", repeatedly stated by President George W Bush, is undermined by the fact that Iran has already passed that threshold and that its scientific progress is not erasable.
Another argument, that Iran's centrifuge activities represent a thinly-veiled proto-proliferation, also falters by the counter-argument that as long as the IAEA inspection regime is in place, any diversion would be detected.
A third argument, that Iran has no need for nuclear fuel since Russia has already provided it with what is needed for its reactors, has been soundly defended by Iranian nuclear officials who cite past broken promises, the delay in Russia's completion of Bushehr power plant, and the importance of technological progress and self-reliance, not to mention the possibility of Iran entering the lucrative market of nuclear fuel.
In tandem with Iran's cooperation and nuclear transparency, what is needed is a phasing out of the UN sanctions regime on Iran, instead of strengthening it. Iran's former foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, who advises the supreme leader on foreign policy matters, has recently stated the importance of Iran's diplomatic dialogue with the "5 +1". This signals a growing Iranian willingness to enter direct dialogue with the US on the nuclear issue.
The US must be prepared to revise its defunct and unrealistic positions on Iran's nuclear dossier, to focus on transparency and confidence-building measures pertaining to the various "objective guarantees" that Iran has been putting on the table for some time. The continuation of the present "coercive" course of action against Iran by Washington will neither solve the Iran nuclear crisis nor improve the semi-crisis that the NPT finds itself in today; rather, it will augment both.
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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