Iran, A Thorny Issue
Jihad el Khazen Al-Hayat - 15/08/05//
There is a need to double international diplomatic efforts to prevent an imminent confrontation between the US and Iran. The confrontation could begin with economic or other punishment, but will end with an American military strike and a painful Iranian response against US interests in the Arabian peninsula and against Israel. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad chose his first address in Parliament after taking office to announce that his country rejected seeing any party impose its will on Iran, vowing that his country would not submit to the logic of force. The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, chose his first address to the world body after being appointed against the will of Congress to warn of the danger of Iran’s nuclear program and its possessing nuclear weapons to world peace.
Each deserves the other, and even if the coming confrontation is limited to the US and Iran, they will pay the price of their extremism, albeit for different reasons. This confrontation will spread to the entire region and cause tremendous harm to states that have nothing at all to do with the American (Israeli) dispute with Iran.
Iran announced its resumption of uranium conversion in the face of a European warning that it would raise the topic in the Security Council, in order to impose international sanctions on the country.
The issue is a thorny one and I’d like to review the following points:
•Iran announced its resumption of uranium conversion in the face of a European warning that it would raise the topic n the Security Council, in order to impose international sanctions on the country.
•Uranium conversion means transforming it from “yellow cake” into tetra fluoride gas is a first step, to be followed by others that lead to the production of nuclear fuel. If of high enough quality, it can be used to produce a nuclear bomb.
•Iran says that it needs nuclear power for peaceful purposes; personally, I don’t believe this because it has oil, which does away with the need for nuclear power.
•Based on the above, I believe that Iran wants to produce nuclear weapons.
•I support Iran in this policy and support the region’s countries - those that are able to – to demand such weapons, as long as Israel possess them, along with the means for delivering them, and since there is an extremist government in Israel that works against peace.
•The best scenario is for the Middle East to become a totally nuclear-free zone; if the US were to seek this goal it would be the duty of all of us to support it. We should oppose the nuclear ambitions of Iran or any other country.
•Iran is in a strong position to resist American pressure, via Britain, Germany and France. Oil prices have hit record levels recently and the revenues will make up for what is lost to international sanctions.
•Sanctions through the UN Security Council are not a “foregone conclusion,” since there is Russia and China. Neither is enthusiastic about a confrontation with Iran. Russia has hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to provide the Bushehr facility with nuclear fuel while China is increasing its cooperation with Iran in economic and other areas, with its growing demand for oil.
•If sanctions are nonetheless placed on Iran, it will probably withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, like North Korea did two and a half years ago.
•I hope that the Iranian and American announced positions are just “nail-biting” and not the first step toward an economic, then armed confrontation. European countries have offered Iran a “long term economic framework” for cooperation that involves technological and economic assistance with political and security incentives.
Iran has rejected the offer, perhaps because it wants better conditions, meaning an agreement is still possible.
Meanwhile, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, is making efforts with Iran and North Korea, while I see no great progress on either front. Political work continues and Rice has achieved a record number of foreign visits. When she visited Europe, Iran was high on the agenda, just as North Korea was high on the agenda of her trip to the Far East.
Facing this “realistic idealism” of Rice there is the danger of those inside and outside the US administration who call for hegemony. Vice president Dick Cheney, assisted by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is leading the campaign of the neo-conservatives to impose a unilateral American leadership of the world, especially in the Middle East, where the US agenda is a purely Israeli one.
Cheney and Rumsfeld are right-wing extremists but are not of the neo-conservatives, although they have the same goals. The most dangerous part of the Iran issue today are the leaks that Cheney requested the Pentagon to have the American strategic leadership prepare emergency plans for a response to any terror attack such as 11 September 2001. The plans include a wide-scale air attack on Iran, using conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. American generals have identified 450 strategic targets in Iran, including nuclear facilities. As in the Iraq issue, an attack isn’t conditioned on Iran’s involvement in terrorism; Iran is a target as part of a global war on terror.
I hope that the reader doesn’t think that I’m trying to frighten him or her, or that I’m delusional. The American Conservative magazine published similar information in an issue from the first of this month, meaning that it was in the market two weeks ago. I haven’t heard a denial of the story yet. If it’s true, it will make the world and the region race to prevent a confrontation that will greatly overshadow the disasters of the war against and in Iraq.
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