Iran-Bashing Will Serve No Purpose

by Patrick Seale

Released: 2 Oct 2009

It may be time to try to penetrate and dispel the fog of hysteria, hypocrisy and malicious propaganda that surrounds the issue of Iran and its nuclear programme.

What do we know for certain?

Iran is evidently well on the way to mastering the uranium fuel cycle. Indeed, it may already have done so, since it has declared itself to be a nuclear power. It has the scientists, the technical knowledge and the industrial facilities to be one. This is a source of intense national pride. It seems certain that Iran will not give up its nuclear programme except under extreme duress, or if the Islamic regime is defeated in war.

Does this mean that Iran intends to build nuclear weapons? Its leaders have repeatedly denied any such intention. They have vowed to stick with low-level enrichment, well below what is required for bomb-making. Moreover, Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is on reasonably good terms with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the international nuclear watchdog, whose inspectors pay frequent visits to Iran. The IAEA has declared that it has no concrete evidence that Iran has a military nuclear programme.

Doubts persist nevertheless. The consensus among experts would seem to be that Iran is very probably seeking to acquire the technical ability to make nuclear weapons, but has decided not to proceed with their manufacture -- in other words, it would appear that Iran does not intend to go beyond the “threshold” stage, much like Japan, for example.

It would thus not be in breach of NPT rules, and would not unduly alarm its Arab neighbours, especially in the Gulf, but would nevertheless have acquired a certain deterrent capability, since any would-be aggressor would know that, in an emergency, Iran could build a nuclear weapon within a very short time.

Why does Iran need a deterrent capability? Because it has been under the threat of “regime change” by the United States for the past 30 years, and because, when Iraq attacked it in 1980, the U.S., Europe and virtually the entire Arab world (with the exception of Syria) backed the Iraqi aggressor. Iran barely survived the 8-year life-and-death struggle, in which Iraq used chemical weapons. For Iran’s present leadership, that war was a formative experience. It left deep wounds.

Today, Iraq is broken and poses no threat, while the United States under Barack Obama has (at least temporarily) abandoned bellicosity. The immediate threat to Iran comes from Israel, which has sought to mobilise the whole world against the Islamic Republic, and has repeatedly trumpeted its own readiness to strike.

Just last week, at the UN General Assembly, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu railed against the “Tyrants of Tehran,” while his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, declared (as reported from Jerusalem by Le Monde on 19 September) that “Without wasting time, we must work for the overthrow of the mad regime in Tehran.”

Iran’s announcement that it is building a second site south of Qum in which to enrich uranium (although no uranium has yet been introduced into the facility) as well as its recent missile tests, have given its opponents a new opportunity to whip up hysteria against it. In fact, neither action is in breach of Iran’s legal obligations. In any event, Iran has said it will allow the IAEA to inspect the new site.

This has not prevented Paul Wolfowitz, the discredited architect of America’s war against Iraq, to raise the alarm. In the usually sober Financial Times of 28 September, he stridently called for “the toughest possible sanctions [against Iran], and soon. Time is running out.” “Even this approach,” he added, “may not be enough to persuade Israel not to act on its own...”

“And it is more than Israel’s security that is at risk,” he continued. “Iran’s Arab neighbours are also deeply worried that nuclear weapons would embolden Iran’s support for terrorism, subversion and even conventional military aggression... would embolden Tehran to provide sanctuary to al-Qaeda or other terrorists. Or, more catastrophically, even to provide them covertly with nuclear weapons.”

This nonsensical scare-mongering will not enhance Wolfowitz’s reputation, already battered by his disastrous spell as deputy defence secretary in the run up to the Iraq war. Israel’s security at risk? In an interview last week with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharanot, Defence Minister Ehud Barak was quoted as saying that Iran did not pose an existential threat to Israel both because it did not yet have a nuclear weapon and because even if it developed one, Israel could protect itself.

Barak could have added that Israel opposes Iran’s nuclear programme, not because of any credible threat to itself, but because Iran’s possession of a bomb would potentially erode Israel’s military hegemony over the region, and might therefore limit its ability to hit its neighbours at will.

Israel can certainly defend itself, as Barak conceded. Quite apart from its overwhelming conventional superiority, it has a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, acquired over the past 40 years. The programme began in the early 1960s, when Shimon Peres, then at the defence ministry, persuaded Israel’s friends in France to supply it clandestinely with a nuclear reactor, a plutonium separation plant and delivery vehicles, all under the nose of General Charles de Gaulle, who was enraged when he discovered the deception.

Wolfowitz warns that Tehran might provide a sanctuary for al-Qaeda. He should know that Iran is a bitter enemy of violent Sunni extremism in all its forms, and of al-Qaeda in particular. Wolfowitz peddled false intelligence to push the United States into war against Iraq. He is now, shamelessly, at it again.

Military threats will not make Iran yield to Western/Israel dictation. Sanctions will not work either because Russia and China will not agree to impose them. Iran is a strategic ally of Moscow, while China is a major commercial partner. It is already supplying up to a third of Iran’s needs in petrol, thus undermining any attempt to cripple Iran by cutting off its fuel supplies.

Having been temporarily defeated by Netanyahu on the issue of an Israeli settlement freeze in the occupied Palestinian territories, U.S. President Barack Obama is in danger of allowing himself to be pushed by Israel, and by some of his European allies, into using a big stick against Iran. This would be a grave mistake.

Instead, if he wants results, it is vital that he treat Iran with the respect it deserves, abandon all resort to threats, and agree to quiet negotiations ranging beyond the narrow nuclear issue to the broad field of regional security, economic cooperation and political entente. When he took office this was the policy he declared he wished to pursue. He must stick to it. Whether he likes it or not, the United States needs the cooperation of Iran in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Lebanon and -- not least -- in resolving the poisonous Arab-Israeli conflict.

A peaceable, wide-ranging approach must be the American posture at the talks which the six major powers -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany -- begin with Iran on 1 October. If they think otherwise, they should have stayed at home.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

Copyright © 2009 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 02 October 2009
Word Count: 1,191
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