TEHRAN'S TRICKS
PLAYS ROPE-A-DOPE ON NUKES
TOMORROW is the deadline for Iran to respond to the latest offer on its nuclear program. The package, shaped by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany and offered in Geneva two weeks ago, offers a way out of the impasse.
But don't expect Tehran to call the lead negotiator, European Union foreign-policy czar Javier Solana, to say it's accepted the deal. Iran has made it clear it doesn't intend to show any flexibility.
"Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad set the tone Wednesday in speeches at a gathering of officials and militants in Tehran.
"The only way to victory passes through resistance and steadfastness," said Khamenei. "We shall not allow anyone to dictate to us."
Ahmadinejad went further. "The United States is a sunset power," he said. "American foreign policy has failed everywhere and the American economy is facing collapse."
The EU compromise (offered in the presence of the No. 3 US diplomat, William Burns) was a timid attempt at opening a new space for negotiations. Under its formula, Tehran would freeze its uranium-enrichment program at present levels for six weeks. In exchange, the Security Council would undertake not to impose new sanctions during that period.
That deal represents a major concession to Iran - envisioning a suspension of enrichment and processing activities, not the total and verifiable end demanded by three mandatory Security Council resolutions.
When the Security Council passed the first of those resolutions last year, Iran had only a dozen centrifuges enriching uranium. Now it has more than 6,000. Thus, the "freeze" formula would let the Islamic Republic continue its nuclear project at levels far above what the United Nations once deemed completely unacceptable. Keeping Iran's enrichment activities stable at 6,000 centrifuges would enable it to produce enough weapons-grade material to build a dozen or so nuclear warheads by 2012.
Nor does the latest EU offer cover the plutonium plant that Iran is building in Arak, west of Tehran. Once completed, that plant could produce enough material for hundreds of warheads.
Indeed, Tehran is showing remarkable confidence in rejecting the EU offer. It could agree to a six-week suspension, then demand more negotiations to make the freeze permanent. The EU negotiators would be dragged into an endless dance in which the mullahs set the pace.
In Geneva, top Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili presented a six-page "nonpaper" - a technical term that describes policy positions without legal commitment. This was designed to redirect negotiations away from the issue of uranium enrichment to that of the legal framework for pursuing the Iranian case.
Tehran demands that the issue be taken away from the Security Council and referred to the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which would negotiate with Iran over "a redefinition of the areas of concern to both sides." Once those talks were completed, the issue would go to the IAEA director general. In practice, this would bury the issue in technical and bureaucratic disagreements.
Iran's "nonpaper" also envisages a "cooling down" phase in which IAEA inspectors would be able to assess the implications of Iran's program within a "reasonable" time frame of, say, two to three years. Iran then would enter into substantive talks "on a broader range of issues" with the EU group.
Tehran's formula could lead to talks lasting five to six years - the time Iran needs to master the nuclear cycle.
The beauty of the Iranian position (if one might grace it with such description) is that it doesn't allow the discovery of any smoking gun in the "cooling down" phase, since enriched uranium and processed plutonium can be used for both generating electricity and making bombs. And once Iran has enough weapons-grade material, it wouldn't matter whether it actually loaded it into warheads or not. Yet, unless that material were provably loaded into warheads, it would be hard to make a legal case accusing Iran of having violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Iran's leaders say they aren't making bombs. How could they agree to end a program that they pretend doesn't exist?
There's ample evidence, however, that the regime's real intention is to build a nuclear-weapons arsenal - but intentions are hard to prove and inadequate as bases for a legal case.
The problem with the Islamic Republic is one of trust. If the EU group trusts Tehran, it should accept the claim that the nuclear project is for peaceful purposes only. But if they don't trust it, they'd gain nothing from the "freeze" formula.
Even if Jalili announces Tehran's agreement to a "freeze," who could guarantee that his promise would be honored? Iran could always continue a clandestine parallel program - it did so for 18 years without the IAEA ever finding out, despite more than 200 inspection tours.
Ahmadinejad has just created an informal committee to plan his campaign for next year's presidential election. He has built his image around the claim that he has defied the big powers, including the American "Great Satan," and won.
He genuinely believes that his radical brand of politics represents the future. He's placing himself at the head of the Nonaligned Movement and seeks the creation of a "global peace and justice front" to lead "the post-American world." He plans to launch his proposed "front" in New York in September, when he addresses the UN General Assembly.
Against such a background, it'd be naive to expect Ahmadinejad to go along with the EU's offer.
Amir Taheri's next book, "The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution," is due out this fall.
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