Nuclear Iran: A Headache or a Heal? – IV

by Sohail Parwaz

In my first column on this subject I wrote, “Interestingly, the issues on which the US, France, and the UK are making a hue and cry were once hatched and sponsored by them. How could one forget that it was the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who had signed the National Security Decision Memorandum that very generously laid out the niceties of the sale of nuclear energy equipment to Iran?” I still maintain my words that the baseless and bogus logic given now by the US and the Western world are not acceptable to the world. I would insist upon my earlier saying why the logic given now did not strike the astute Americans at that time when, out of sheer sincerity and love, they were equipping the Iranians with their first ever (US-supplied) 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor in 1967. The fact is that the ‘love-lost story’ is of pre-9/11 era. All this botheration started after the falling of the Twin Towers when Bush junior vowed to fight the ‘Crusade’.

Since 2002, the US is adamant about Iran’s need for nuclear power and for that the gauche argument given is that, firstly, Iran has copious oil reserves and secondly, nuclear power is more expensive to generate than oil power.  Ironically, no one dares to ask the US to start the implication of this idea from home as they also have plentiful and untouched oil reserves. Since the last six years the US is unlawfully and unethically flying UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) over Iran to obtain sensitive information about Iran’s nuclear programme but to their disappointment they have not been able to get much out of it. This made them more furious since they are not finding any opportunity to cut loose hell upon the Iranians.

If we go into little details and make some attempt to investigate we will find that the reason for developing a stand-off between the US and Iran over nuclear technology was due to two fallacies on the part of both, the Iranians as well as the Americans. The Iranians had a misapprehension that their persistence for their right as a member of the IAEA to civilian nuclear energy followed by opening all their nuclear energy installations for inspection by the IAEA would finally melt the US’s heart and it would cheerfully accept their right. And then the rest of the West will follow. They knew from the beginning that the Americans were after them and were trying to prevent them from completing the projects the Shah had started, as they did with other industrial projects in Iran.

Though many hardliners still believed that, “Americans cannot do a damn thing” as Khomeini had said, however, in the heart of their hearts they knew that the Americans will put pressure on them for political concessions. On the other hand, the Europeans and Americans had an erroneous belief that the Iranians will never be able to master the sophisticated technology due to lack of scientists and managers that had left Iran after the Islamic Revolution. So, they believed nothing will happen even if they let the Iranians do whatever investment they wanted in the nuclear field. They were of the view that at the end of the day the Iranians will turn to the West for help and then again they can coerce them for political dconcessions. The second delusion was the US and the West’s wrong notions about their might. They had a wrong thinking about intervening diplomatically or militarily at any stage and stopping the Iranians even if they were getting close to “the red line” (enriching uranium). They were wrongly dreaming to cause humiliation to the Iranians and make them dance to their tune.

However, a potential reason behind the US resistance lies in the Middle Eastern geopolitics. The US deems it fit to guard against the slightest possibility of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons capability as it could easily take the West’s sleep away. They are baselessly having an Iran phobia that compels them to maintain double standards for Iran vis-à-vis Israel. They believe that Iran, or for that matter any Muslim nuclear state, is more likely to ignite a conflict against Israel than Israel with Iran or the rest of the Muslim world. The notion that Muslim and especially Iranian or Pakistani nuclear weapons could eventually find their way into the hands of Islamic militants who would have fewer ethics about using them than a national state is deliberately propagated.

This burning issue does not seem likely to end peacefully and is more likely to remain unresolved as long as the American administration remains hypocritical about Iran and will mull over it with altogether different standards than it has for Israel, India, or even itself. What the US preaches to others must start from home first. Before expecting from Iran to fully adhere to the rules set forth in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Washington must do the same at home as well. This treaty is not merely meant for Iran or any other country. It requires the US and other nuclear powers that are parties to the treaty to enter into sincere and trusted parleys to achieve nuclear disarmament. But the irony is that the US is not doing so.

About a couple of years back, in a high-powered Washington dinner party where late Benazir was present along with Scowcroft, Brzezinski, and many others, a show of hands (16 hands!) suggested that Bush was headed to military action and only two ‘innocents’, including Scowcroft, were of the opinion that he would hold his fire. I was also of the opinion that a ‘fanatic and radical’ who felt an intense obligation to do all he could before exiting the Oval Office in 2009 would certainly use force to eliminate threats to ‘American security’, especially when according to him the diplomatic channels were not capable to resolve the Iran problem peacefully but I am not shy to cofess that I was wrong (for the time being). Such channels will merely allow Tehran to buy time for building weapons. Any american president, Bush or Obama, is stubborn to some extent and quite capable of taking risks and, if necessary, enduring consequences. Hence, there is no way of avoiding the conclusion (as far as I think) that the real goal of the US is to dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, regardless of its orientation, and to dispatch Iran to the era of nuclear, scientific, and technological illiteracy, that is in violation of the letter and spirit of the NPT.

The only option left with Iran is to effectively present its case for attaining nuclear energy before the world while having ‘a hardliner-like’ Ahmadenijad in the chair. The clock is ticking and the countdown has already started. Though no one knows for whom the bell would toll, but one thing is clear that the US is determined to turn Iran back into Persia.

(Concluded)

Tags: ira usa israel nuclear-sites