• The Iranians will find a solution  - an interview withHelena Dunaeva
Under all circumstances Russia will oppose military action against Iran.

• The Persian bomb: forbidden by all  - Yin Gang
China maintains a responsible position on the Iranian nuclear issue, even at the price of serious harm to its relationship with Iran.

• Iran's nuclear challenge  - Ramin Jahanbegloo
No political faction in Iran can afford to argue for giving up on the country's nuclear program.

• No moral high ground  - Ghassan Khatib
The underlying problem in the current dispute over Iran's nuclear program is one of a lack of trust and hostile perceptions.

The Iranians will find a solution
an interview with Helena Dunaeva

BI: How does Russia view the dangers of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program?

Dunaeva: It is very dangerous because of the region. India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons but we don't speak about the dangers because of the nature of their regimes. But in Iran, where there are both conservatives and radicals, all power is now in the hands of the radicals. Still, if in two or three years the radicals possess nuclear weapons, I don't believe they would use them, but rather deploy them as a means of projecting power in the region.

BI: What is the status of the Russian compromise proposal to reprocess spent Iranian nuclear fuel in Russia?

Dunaeva: Iran has not given us a real answer. Ali Larijani [who heads Iran's nuclear negotiating team as well as its National Security Council] accepted our proposal in Moscow, but when he came back to Iran he rejected it. We don't know the real answer from the Iranian side because they change their minds quickly.

BI: How do you view the Russian-Iranian dealings over the nuclear issue in historical perspective?

Dunaeva: Russia and Iran are neighbors and have a long history and tradition of relations, commercial and otherwise. The two sides cannot live without a close relationship. We hope to improve those relations.

BI: What will Russia do if Iran remains defiant and proceeds with its nuclear program alone? What would be Moscow's attitude toward military action against Iran?

Dunaeva: Russia will try to do everything to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program by diplomatic means. If Iran rejects the Russian proposal as well as proposals by the European countries, then Russia can accept, first, diplomatic sanctions and then, if they don't work, economic sanctions. Under all circumstances Russia will oppose military action against Iran. But I believe it will not get to this. The Iranians will find a clever solution before economic sanctions are imposed. There are forces in Iran that want to improve relations with the international community; they will find a solution. Economic sanctions would be serious not only for Iran but for oil consumers everywhere.- Published 2/2/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Helena Dunaeva is a senior research associate in the history of Iran at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.

The Indian and Pakistani nuclear test competition in May 1998 met with world-wide condemnation. Israel was especially afraid of the birth of the "Islamic bomb", worrying that Pakistan's nuclear weapons technology would proliferate to Arab countries. Yet India and Pakistan have not been asked to give up their nuclear weapons, because the world believes theirs are "fixed-targeted bombs" or "bombs for sole objective", hence no threat to third nations.

The entire world is taking a totally different attitude to the development of Iranian nuclear technology, and the Iranians have been pushed into a corner under hard world-wide pressure.

After Iraq's nuclear reactor was destroyed by the Israel Air Force in 1981, the balance of the Iraqi-Iranian nuclear race that started in the 1950s was broken. No one talks about an Iraqi A-bomb anymore. Meanwhile, facing the rapidly-developing Iranian nuclear project, the potential "Persian bomb" worries not only Israel, the US and Europe, but also Arab countries and even remote China.

In understanding the future of the Iranian nuclear project and the forthcoming UN discussion on the topic, we had best classify existing and potential nuclear weapons according to their owners.

The first kind is the nuclear weapons of the great powers, the US, Russia, the UK, France and China. All five are permanent members of the UN Security Council, and were the main victors of WWII. They shoulder the main responsibility of keeping world peace. Although their nuclear bombs are not fixed-targeted, they play a common mutually effective deterrent role, and have functioned to avoid a nuclear war and eventually gain acceptance by international society.

The second kind is the aforementioned bomb for sole objective. Other nations can tolerate this type of bomb in the hands of India or Pakistan. The third type is the "doomsday bomb", possessed by isolated countries like Israel and South Africa before 1994. Both countries faced existential threats from their neighbors, and it is believed they developed nuclear weapons only for that doomsday scenario. As long as doomsday was avoided, these bombs would not be used. Indeed, the existence of this kind of bomb was also tolerated by international society.

In March 1993, when negotiations between South Africa's President FW de Klerk and the ANC's Nelson Mandela brought a permanent end to the racist apartheid regime in the country, de Klerk announced that South Africa's nuclear weapons had been destroyed. In this way we can expect that the destruction of Israel's doomsday bombs will also be on the agenda if and when all Arab countries realize permanent peace with Israel.

The last is the "absolutely forbidden bomb". In March 1970, six months after Libya's Moammer Qaddafi took power, he sent his deputy Abdul Salam Jalloud to China looking for a Chinese nuclear bomb at a price of $100 million in order to "solve the Arab-Israel conflict once and for all." But Qaddafi's demand was flatly refused by Chinese Premier Zhou En Lai, and Libya was forced to give up its own nuclear project 30 years later.

Similar instances occurred in Argentina and Brazil, both of which abandoned their nuclear weapons projects under international pressure. North Korea, together with Iran, is now moving in the same direction. The latent North Korean nuclear bomb is simply a nightmare to all north-eastern Asian countries. Nor can America tolerate it. Our analysis leads us to conclude that no matter how the Iranian nuclear crisis develops, a Persian bomb cannot possibly come into existence.

China apparently opposes the proposed sanctions against Iran at the moment, but China also rejects a Persian bomb. The fact is, China has withdrawn all its assistance for Iranian nuclear projects. China signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Iran on September 10, 1992 in Beijing and announced its intent to supply two 300 MW pressurized water reactors to Iran. The business contract for the reactors was later reached in Tehran on February 21, 1993.

The Chinese reactor sale seems to have stimulated Russia, which signed a new contract with Iran in January 1995 for a 1000 MW reactor and related nuclear fuel. As a direct consequence of those deals, both China and Russia came under heavy pressure from the American and Israeli governments. Russian President Vladimir Putin ignored the pressure and concluded more reactor sales contracts with Iran, while China changed its position and froze negotiations with Iran immediately after President Bill Clinton announced sanctions on US-Iran investment and trade on April 30, 1995. Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen reportedly told US Secretary of State Warren Christopher in May that China had canceled the 300 MW reactor sale. Furthermore, on October 29 the same year the White House stated: "We have received assurances from the Chinese that they will not engage in any new nuclear cooperation with Iran and that the existing cooperation--there are two projects in particular--will end." Later, in a 1998 report, the CIA verified to the US Congress that in 1997 China had halted all cooperation with Iran related to building a uranium conversion facility.

Apparently, China maintains a circumspect and responsible position on the Iranian nuclear issue even at the price of serious harm to its relationship with Iran. It is reasonable for China to keep a distance from the position of other big powers, but this does not mean China will insist on a different position in the future.

At present, the ball is in the Iranian court. Iran must understand that real civilian utilization of nuclear power is acceptable, subject to the terms of the NPT and with comprehensive monitoring by IAEA, but that under no circumstances is a Persian bomb to be produced. This is unacceptable not only to America and Europe, Israelis and Arabs, but also to Asians, indeed to everyone.- Published 2/2/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Yin Gang is a research professor of the Institute of West Asian and African Studies, under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He also serves as deputy secretary general of the Chinese Association of Middle East Studies.

On January 11, in the presence of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Iran removed the seals at the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, 250 km south of Tehran. Iran insisted it took this step in order to conduct nuclear fuel research and not to produce large quantities of enriched uranium. IAEA chief Mohamad El Baradei also acknowledged that Iran intended to produce enriched uranium on a "small scale". Yet the same Baradei, in an interview to Newsweek magazine, declared: "If [the Iranians] have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponization program along the way, they are really not very far--a few months--from a weapon".

The removal of the IAEA seals triggered a strong reaction from four of the Security Council members, the United States, Britain, France and Russia, and from other key European countries. It seems that after two years of hard negotiations, the Iranians have concluded that their critical dialogue with the EU representatives did not make headway because, in their view, the Europeans were trying to stop Iran permanently in its effort to use nuclear energy. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, challenged the West by declaring firmly and openly that Tehran would not give up its nuclear program "which has been achieved by the talented youth of the country".

The removal of the seals came after talks between Russia and Iran on a proposed compromise to end the row over uranium enrichment. Moscow proposed that Tehran carry out uranium enrichment on Russian territory to allay western fears that the technology could allow Iran to produce a nuclear weapon. Washington has long voiced the view that oil-rich Iran does not need to develop atomic power and that Tehran only wants a nuclear reactor (which the Russians are building) in order to develop nuclear weapons.

According to a Washington Post staff writer, Dafna Linzer, "A major US intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon". If this report is correct, the time required for the Iranian government to create a nuclear weapon is practically twice the previous estimate of five years, which was based on the first-hand knowledge of American government sources.

But even if this new estimate expresses doubts and uncertainties as to whether Iran's ruling clerics have made a decision to build a nuclear arsenal, it goes without saying that Washington would prefer that Iran not acquire any nuclear reactors at all. Many argue in Washington that if Iran develops an atomic weapon it will certainly use it as a means to expand and consolidate its sphere of influence in the Middle East. Others believe an Iranian bomb would enable Iran to pursue a much more aggressive foreign policy against its archenemy, Israel. Last but not least, some western countries fear that elements inside the Iranian regime would secretly provide fissile material to Islamist terrorists around the world.

The main counter-argument put forward by Iran is that under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it can indeed develop a nuclear fuel cycle under inspection. As for creating an atomic weapon--should Iran choose to do so--a number of rationales are being discussed among the think tanks in the Iranian capital. The first argument is that Iran's neighborhood is bristling with nuclear weapons. Three nuclear powers, Pakistan, Israel and Russia, are on its doorstep, and two others, India and China, are not far away. Besides, Iran is surrounded by a US military presence in neighboring Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq and Central Asia, and American warships armed with long-range missiles are navigating in the Persian Gulf.

One should also consider very closely the present leadership in Iran, which is less likely to accept a full compromise with the West. President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, a little-known former IRGC officer appointed mayor of Tehran after conservatives swept the 2003 Tehran municipal council election, has long-standing ties to Iran's traditional conservative elite. Supported by the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian security forces, Ahmadinezhad is surely motivated to solidify the position of the security faction within Iran's ruling elite.

Besides all these arguments, the development of nuclear technologies has become a matter of nationalistic pride in Iran. The government of Iran has had a hand in cultivating this trend by mobilizing public sentiment against the West. Some Iranians believe that US pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear program is a conspiracy by the western powers to prevent Iran from acquiring advanced research capabilities and keep it backward and dependent on the West. Against this backdrop, no political faction in Iran can afford to argue for giving up on the country's nuclear program. Yet the nuclear issue is not a problem that concerns Iranians on an everyday basis. A survey carried out by a reform-inclined newspaper in December 2005 showed that more than 65 percent of Iranians had lost their initial interest in the issue.

This said, Iran will certainly continue with its nuclear program. Apart from the importance of the nuclear question as a political factor for regime consolidation and popularity, the Iranian government is very much aware that the West's options are limited. Sanctions, for example, would not be easy. Given the present high price of oil, any ban on Iran's 2.5 million barrel-per-day oil exports would only raise prices further.

And what if sanctions do not work? Military action might then be on the agenda. It goes without saying that a pre-emptive strike against Iran's uranium enrichment facilities by the US, Israel, or both acting together, similar to the Israeli attack in the early 1980s against Iraq's Osiraq nuclear project, would be a dangerous decision with unpredictable consequences. Both the US and Israel have the required technical and operational capability for such a strike, but it would be beset with problems the likes of which Israel did not face in attacking Iraq.

By the same token, a US-led military intervention in Iran similar to its intervention in Iraq is unlikely to happen, because it could prove even messier than the intervention in Iraq. It could undermine Shi'ite support for American security forces in Iraq in their efforts to pacify the country. The EU countries would certainly not support it.

An attack on Iran should also be understood in relation to the timely withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, which has opened up new options for the deployment of Israeli forces to other fronts. Participation by Turkey in a US-Israeli military operation is also a factor, following an agreement reached between Ankara and Tel Aviv.

Military action against Iran is likely to trigger a broader war throughout the Middle East, not to mention an implosion in the Palestinian state. If that moment comes, it would be another decision point for the West, Iran and Israel. In other words, there is a lot at stake for everyone in Iran's nuclear challenge. Hence both Iran and the West must exercise great caution in handling this issue in the next few months.- Published 2/2/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Ramin Jahanbegloo is professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He is the author of "Talking Politics" (with Bhikhu Parekh , Oxford University Press, India, 2010).

The underlying problem in the current dispute over Iran's nuclear program is one of a lack of trust and hostile perceptions.

On the one hand, the West and other countries are fearful of Iranian intentions vis-a-vis its nuclear ambitions. The combination of an Islamic regime with a long history of standing up to US/western hegemony in the Middle East, an increasingly hardline Iranian government, general instability and western policy designs in the region, are a cocktail into which a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is not seen as in any way desirable.

The change a nuclear armed Iran might bring to the regional balance of power and the potential for the projection of Iranian power that it would entail is not seen by the West as potentially stabilizing, but, to the contrary, as even more destabilizing.

On the other hand, Iran has no faith in western designs for the region and itself. First, Iran has never claimed to want nuclear weapons. As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, what Iran says it wants to do--i.e., pursue nuclear power for peaceful purposes only in order to secure the future of its energy supply--is entirely within its right. Whatever its intentions, the almost blanket suspicion that Tehran is really pursuing a nuclear weapons program has left the Iranian regime indignant and crying foul over western double standards.

Further, since Iraq was invaded under what turned out to be the false pretext of an alleged program to develop weapons of mass destruction, and with nuclear powers surrounding it, not to mention a massive US military presence in both its largest neighbors, Iran is feeling highly defensive. The Iranian regime seems convinced that, as in Iraq, whatever it says or does, it is its very existence that is threatening the West.

Both sides have a case. On pure principle, the proliferation of nuclear weapons anywhere is undesirable. As such, the West is right in seeking assurances that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

But the West's case is considerably weakened by its double standards. Adhering slavishly to the legitimacy of the United Nations when it comes to Iran, but utterly ignoring it when it comes to Israel, leaves it without any moral high ground at all. While this is a point that has been made ad tedium, it is none the less valid for it. It is no surprise that Tehran lashes out in turn, believing that the regime is not involved in a dispute over principle but rather in an existential conflict for its own survival.

Further, calling the Iranian regime undemocratic is now becoming an argument with little validity. As the victory of Hamas in Palestinian legislative elections show, being democratically elected is no guarantee that the West will show any more consistency in its policies. Calling for democracy on the one hand, and then trying to ignore the results on the other, or force whatever leadership is elected to tow a western line, shows one thing and one thing only: the West does not care what kind of system is in place, it cares what kind of policies a country espouses. If a country is friendly to the West, it can engage in an illegal decades-long belligerent military occupation of another people, and have nuclear weapons without being a signatory to the NPT to boot, without being punished.

But Iran is not only standing on principle. Its leverage in Iraq, where its relative balance of power with the US is quite favorable, is also enabling the new hardline regime in Tehran to sound increasingly radical in the belief that, at least for the moment, it is safe from military action. Indeed, it is hard to see the US, already overextended militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, want to conflagrate the situation further by striking Iran.

Nevertheless, that is the direction the current rhetoric is taking us. It would be disastrous and it would reverberate around the region.

The West must take a step back. Before it can credibly confront Iran, on a practical level it must have secured Iraq, preferably by withdrawing under favorable circumstances. Secondly, Islamic political parties are a reality and a force to be reckoned with in the region. The West must learn to deal with them in a rational manner rather than in a manner driven by fear. Engaging the region fully on a socio-economic level and bringing Middle East countries into the global economy has to be the sensible approach to reaching out and assuaging fears here that western designs are just hostile.

Finally, the US in particular needs to be consistent. It has been said a thousand times before, but here we go again. As long as Israel is allowed to continue its occupation of Palestinian land, the West will forever be practicing double standards here. Almost all approaches have been tried to create a stable region, whether by appeasement or by invasion. The only one that hasn't been tried is the one Arabs and Muslims across the world have proposed for decades: force Israel to end the occupation.

It shouldn't be too hard.- Published 2/2/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org


Ghassan Khatib is coeditor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications and director of the Government Media Center. This article represents his personal views.