Iranian president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad likes to repeat Ayatollah Khomeini’s famous slogan,
America can do nothing.
That’s what he
believes when it comes to the latest offer by the Great Powers to
Iran over its nuclear program. He believes he can simply spit in our
face, and we will say, “Sorry.”
¬Ý
Because that’s
what he did when former European Union official Javier Solana
traveled to Tehran on June 6 to present the Great Power offer of
nuclear cooperation. But Solana just took out his handkerchief, and
smiled.
¬Ý
It’s going to be
up to Condoleeza Rice to prove that Ahmadinejad is wrong. And that is
going to be a tall order, since four of the other five persons in the
Bush administration who have backed her offer to Iran all believe
that America needs to learn to say sorry.
¬Ý
(Hint: the guy who
doesn’t just returned from Baghdad.)
¬Ý
Solana was sent to
Tehran to deliver what amounted to an ultimatum from the Permanent
Five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. The ultimatum
was not an American diktat, but in fact reiterated long-standing
demands by the IAEA, the European Union, and most recently, the UN
Security Council, that Iran verifiably suspend its uranium enrichment
programs and cooperate fully and openly with the IAEA.
¬Ý
If Iran met those two
conditions, the great powers were offering “a fresh start in
negotiations of a comprehensive agreement” with Iran, that
would provide Iran with technology and economic incentives, AFP
reported yesterday from Vienna.
¬Ý
The offer included an explicit recognition that Iran could continue a
civilian nuclear power program, and that the West would “actively
support” such a program.
¬Ý
But as a top Iranian
arms control official told me eleven years ago, Iran does not want
nuclear power. Iran wants a dual-use nuclear program that will allow
it to build nuclear weapons at the moment of its choosing. He called
this “keeping our nuclear options open.”
¬Ý
Of course, the
Non-proliferation treaty explicitly bans this type of nuclear
technology transfer. Signatories of the treaty gain access to
civilian nuclear technology if – and only if – they
foreswear any intention or program to build nuclear weapons.
¬Ý
This is why Iran has
rejected an offer that most countries would find too good to refuse.
It wants to keep its nuclear options open.
¬Ý
The latest IAEA report
to the Board of Governors, which meets today to discuss Iran’s
case, describes with clinical accuracy Iran’s refusal of the
Great Power offer.
¬Ý
At the very moment
Solana was in Tehran, the report states, Iran notified the IAEA that
it had “started feeding” uranium hexafluoride gas into an
enrichment cascade composed of 164 high-speed centrifuges, and was “continuing
its installation work on other 164-machine cascades.”
Iran also said it had launched “a new conversion campaign”
of uranium hexafluoride feedstock for enrichment that same day.
¬Ý
The IAEA report went on
to note that Iran had also rejected the other condition for resuming
nuclear talks with the great powers, by refusing to answer repeated
questions from IAEA inspectors about a parallel uranium enrichment
program known as the Green Salt Project, as well as work on “high
explosives testing” and a possible nuclear missile re-entry
vehicle.
¬Ý
All three are related
to nuclear weapons work, as part of a suspected parallel, undeclared
program run by the Iranian military. “Iran has not expressed
readiness to discuss these topics further,” the report
noted.
¬Ý
What part of Iran’s
“No” do we fail to understand?
¬Ý
It has said “no”
to suspending enrichment, and “no” to transparency –
effectively rejecting the Great Power offer. And yet, at the end of
yesterday’s IAEA board meeting in Vienna, the Russian
ambassador told the press as he left the Council chamber that he felt
the IAEA should “continue talking” to Tehran.
¬Ý
The apparent linguistic
disability of the great powers has been frustrating to Ahmadinejad.
Just two days after Solana’s June 6 visit, he decided to make
his rejection of the nuclear offer more clear.
¬Ý
Speaking to a crowd in
Qazvin, home of one of Iran’s previously secret nuclear weapons
research sites, Ahmadinejad reiterated his long-standing insistence
that Iran would never give up its “definite rights” to
uranium enrichment.
¬Ý
“If they think
they can threaten and hold a stick over Iran's head and offer
negotiations at the same time, they should know the Iranian nation
will definitely reject such an atmosphere,” he said.
¬Ý
That is not coded
diplomatic language, nor is it subject to interpretation. The
Iranians have consistently used the same terms whenever they have
flouted the International Atomic Energy Agency or the UN Security
Council over uranium enrichment.
¬Ý
It is their right, they
insist; therefore no one can demand that they give it up, even
temporarily.
The key question is going to be whether the Great Powers hold to the
ultimatum they had Solana deliver to Tehran. Already, voices are
being raised – both here in the U.S. and elsewhere – that
you cannot launch negotiations by imposing conditions.
¬Ý
But so far, the Western
powers (as opposed to Russia and China) appear to be holding
firm.
¬Ý
“Once a country
has enriched uranium to the level needed for nuclear power,” a
Western diplomat in Vienna explained, “that uranium is 70% of
the way to what is needed to make nuclear weapons.”
¬Ý
“That’s why
we’ve been so adamant about not allowing Iran to continue even “small
scale” enrichment, because it’s already 70% of the way to
the bomb,” he added. “You can’t be a little bit
pregnant.”
¬Ý
Condoleeza Rice needs
to step up to the plate, and make clear – yet again –
that the Six Power offer to Iran is not a negotiating position, or an
opening ante, as the Russians and Chinese apparently believe. It is
exactly what she said it was when
she first announced it on May 31.
It’s a choice that the Iranians must make.
¬Ý
And now they have made
it.
¬Ý
The worst possible
outcome of the nuclear showdown with Iran would be for the West to
ignore the Islamic Republic leaders when they clearly announce their
choice.
¬Ý
It’s called the
slippery slope. Take one step down that road, and it’s a quick
bone-crushing ride down the chute to failure. And in this case,
failure means a nuclear-armed Iran.
¬Ý
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