Iran's nuclear path - A justified mistake (part 2)
By Zam Armatay, 7 January 2007
As I pointed out in the first part of this article the Iranians nuclear program can from the Iranians point of view be justified considering the geopolitical situation of Iran. But the relevant question for Iranians is whether it is the right path for the country with respect to the country's national security and it's economic growth now and in future.
Background
According to Shahram Chubin:
"Origins of Iran’s nuclear program can be traced back to the bloody eight-year Iran-Iraq war that Saddam launched against the infant Islamic Republic in 1980, but the principal motive for developing nuclear technology is two fold:
1. Domestic legitimation of the regime and exploiting nationalist sentiments.
2. Obtaining a Shiite hegemony in the region. The nuclear bomb will be the strongest instrument for Iran to realize its international ambitions, ranging from normalization of relations with the West to asserting Iranian hegemony in the Middle East."
Currently there are two blocks in the Iranian leadership with two substantially different ideas about the development and obtaining nuclear capability:
1. Those who are totally committed to develop nuclear weapons and insist to become a nuclear power in the region. They seek the fundamental ideas of the revolution and believe that Iran has a substantial role to play internationally. They seek to obtain a kind of Shiite hegemony in the region which is a very adventurous and dangerous ambition considering the vast different players and interests in the region. The most notable personalities in this block are the Iranian president Ahmadinejad, the chief of the Iranians Security Council Ali Larijani and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
2. Those who see the uranium enrichment program and the development of the nuclear facilities not as ways and means to obtain nuclear weapon capability, but as a way to reach a more favourable position in their bargaining with the West in order to defend the Iranian national interests both economically and with respect to the security. This block are more nationally oriented in their approach and has a more rational view towards securing the survival of the Islamic regime in the long term. The prominent persons in this block are the former president Khatami, the former president and the member of Iranian Assembly of Experts Akbar Hashemi Rafsenjani and the Larijani's predecessor Rohani.
From 2002 to 2005 Iran was partly suspending their uranium enrichment and was negotiating with EU-3 because of prospects of Americans success in Iraq and pulling out their troops, and was afraid of being the next in turn. They felt weak and vulnerable. From the end of 2005 they have been more aggressive in their approach to the negotiations and in their speeding up the uranium enrichment. In January 2006 they stopped the negotiations with EU-3 and began speeding up the uranium enrichment. This major shift in the Iranian policy was a result of different factors:
- It became more and more apparent that US was really bogged down in Iraq.
- The public opinion in US has turned substantially against war in Iraq and is not prepared for yet another confrontation in the Middle East.
- Increase in oil prices, which has been both an incitement for Iranians to proceed more aggressively with the uranium enrichment and a discouragement for other players specially China and the Europeans not to push as hard as USA wanted them to.
- The other international players specially Russians and Chinese are not with US on the issue of Iranian's nuclear program and the Europeans have not been determined enough.
There is no doubt that Ahamaidnejad has been very successful in his persuasion for nuclear capability so far. He and his fellows have made the nuclear development a national project in order to gain public support.
The problem is that there is not and never has been any public debate in Iran over the cons and pros of the project, which makes it very difficult for Iranian people to acquire a rational view over the subject. The official Islamic Republic News Agency highlighted a January 2006 poll in which 85 percent of Iranians supported resuming the nuclear program. But that same poll found support dropped to 74 percent in case of referral to the UN Security Council, 64 percent in event of economic sanctions, and 56 percent if there were military action against Iran. In other words, the public support for a nuclear program drops as the cost of maintaining the program rises.
National Security
Today there is only a few who do not agree with the fact that the Iranian regime has stepped into a very dangerous path by aggressively continuing their enrichment activities. The national security of Iran is tightly bound to the stability in the region. Thus no Iranian government can bring security to Iran either military or politically by increasing the tensions with it's neighbours and starting an arm race in the region. A nuclear armed Iran has the following consequences:
1. It changes the balance in the region and intimidate the Sunni regimes in the Gulf. This will certainly provoke the Gulf regimes to increase their military capabilities. In a regional arm race the Iranian will end up as the looser, since Arab monarchies and Turkey compared to Iran are both richer and have better ties with the world’s principal arms suppliers.
2. Local crisis like war in Lebanon can easily lead to a miscalculation by Israel and Iran and lead to use of nuclear exchange.
3. It will put a lot of pressure on other countries in the region to develop nuclear weapon, which may not be of immediate concern, but definitely is a destabilizing and dangerous situation in the long term.
4. Isolates Iran in the region which will have a big impact on the country's economy. To the question "Why Iran would not be going this road (becoming a nuclear power)"? Larijani's predecessor Rohani in spring 2005 responded: "We have managed to normalize our relations with the Arab countries in years under Khatami and the dumbest we can do is to build a nuclear weapon to frighten them." Propaganda or not, it is true that it will isolate Iran in the region both economically and politically.
5. Sooner or later the Israelis (if not Americans) would have to respond to the Iran's increasing nuclear thread. As Ehud Olmert the prime minister of Israel told Condoleeza Rice in her previous visit to Israel that Iranians don't realize how far they (Israel) would go to prevent them from obtaining nuclear capability. There have been many other statements coming from different people both in the Israeli government and the parliament recently saying that Israel should attack Iran before it gets too late. No wonder that Iranians have been in such a hurry to purchase 29 Tor-M1 missile systems for $1.4 bln (€1.06 bln). As stated by the ITAR-TASS news agency, the air defence systems are being stationed around Iran's civilian nuclear sites. Americans resisted strongly to the contract and imposed sanctions against Russian jet maker Sukhoi and arms exporter Rosoboronexport. According to a report in The Sunday Times 7 January 2007, two Israeli air force squadrons are training to use nuclear "bunker busting" bombs to demolish Iran's heavily guarded enrichment programme.
Adding to all this, one must have into consideration the nature of the Iranian regime, which is disconnected from the world, highly irrational when it comes to the Israeli issue, and actively seek a sort of Shia hegemony in the region.
The next part of this article will look at the economic aspects of the nuclear energy for Iran.
3 comments:
I don't think what Shahram Chubin has said about the origins of the Iranian's nuclear program is quite right. Though it is true that the origins of the continuation of the program goes back to Iran-Iraq war, because Khomeini after the Iranian revolution was apparantly against the nuclear program.
The origins of the Iran's nuclear program goes back to August 1974, when Shah envisioned a time when the world's oil supply would run out and said: "Petroleum is a noble material, much too valuable to burn…We envision producing as soon as possible 23,000 megawatts of electricity using nuclear plants.”
What is more interesting is that two of the people in the Ford administration, Dick Cheney and Donal Rumsfeld formally approved Iran's plans (including full domestic enrichment of Iran's uranium).
I think that USA together with Israel and England have been very successfull to crate a hysteria around Iranian's uranium enrichment. What they realy are afraid of is the Irans Oil Bourse that may in future become an alternative to New York Mercantile Exchange, NYMEX and International Exchange, ICE (the old IPE), a marketplace for trading oil and gas in Euro rather than Dollar. That is the real thread.
I definitely agree with you Jamshid. As the Iranian president Ahmadinejad rightly pointed out for not long ago, the real war is the economic war that lies beneath all this hysteria.
The problem is that there is not much consistency in the Iranian regimes policy. They should better focus on the Iran Oil Bourse, that has been postponed three times since March 2006, rather than their nuclear encrichment program, otherwise they may loose both.
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