Iran: is a deal on the way?
It's only a week ago that the US, France and Britain announced that they'd discovered a hitherto unadmitted Iranian nuclear facility near the religious centre of Qom.
Yesterday, in Geneva, during more than seven hours of talks, Iran seemed to be keen to defuse what looked like becoming a major new bone of contention.
According to a "senior US official", Iran has accepted a proposal - not about the Qom plant but about a much older one in Tehran - that, if implemented, "would be a positive interim step to help build confidence". (The full US background briefing is available here.)
The key questions were: would Iran agree to allow UN inspectors free access to the Qum plant? And would it agree to a proposal that it should export its known stocks of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia, where it would be further enriched to allow it to be used for medical purposes but not for weapons?
The answers to both questions appear to be Yes. The New York Times reported: "Iran's agreement in principle to export most of its enriched uranium for processing -- if it happens -- would represent a major accomplishment for the West, reducing Iran's ability to make a nuclear weapon quickly and buying more time for negotiations to bear fruit."
By the way, a word about the people the Iranians were talking to yesterday. They are sometimes described as the E3 + 3 (in other words, three European nations - Britain, France and Germany - plus three others: the US, Russia, and China), or as the P5 + 1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - plus one other: Germany). It adds up, of course, to the same thing.
And just a thought about sanctions. Iran has been told that it has until the end of the year to satisfy the Security Council that it's not secretly developing nuclear weapons, or face the threat of tighter UN sanctions.
But if you look back at what sanctions did to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, or Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia as it was then) under Ian Smith, or Cuba under Fidel Castro (49 years and counting), it's evident that sanctions rarely do what they're designed to do.
And Iran has a neighbour, Iraq, with a very long border and a government that is more than friendly. No wonder many Western diplomats feel that the carrot may work better than the stick.
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Given the media's penchant for hyperbole and Iran's proposals which so often have far less substance to them than they first appear to once you get past the headlines, I'm waiting to see what the experts have to say about it. Especially experts in those countries that feel most threatened by the possibility of Iran having nuclear weapons. The goal is to have Iran provide concrete assurance to the world with hard evidence that it is not building a nuclear weapons arsenal. Only expert opinion will be able to judge whether this proposal will meet that criteria or is just one more of Iran's interminable smokescreens. But I'm sure they will view it with a critical eye. It's rare that a leopard changes his spots. My instincts tell me not to trust it.
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Smoke and Mirrors from Iran. As for sanctions they do work if they are applied correctly, and if they are not diluted by politicians trying to score political points.
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"But if you look back at what sanctions did to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, or Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia as it was then) under Ian Smith, or Cuba under Fidel Castro (49 years and counting), it's evident that sanctions rarely do what they're designed to do."
The important point here is that governments are not always honest about what sanctions are aimed at doing, despite journalists accepting the official reasons without question. In the case of Iraq, declassified DIA documents reveal that the devastating effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi population were predicted well in advance.
e.g. "Iraq will suffer increasing shortages of purified water because of the lack of required chemicals and desalination membranes. Incidences of disease, including possible epidemics, will become probable unless the population were careful to boil water."
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_511rept_91.html
Of course when stories of the suffering of the population emerged from time to time, politicians just claimed that it was because Saddam was withholding supplies. This was a lie. Western governments knew exactly what was going on. It is therefore likely that the Iraqi-population was a major target of the sanctions. There was perhaps a deranged hope that producing extreme conditions of disease and hardship would set up the necessary conditions for a coup against Saddam.
Setting up the conditions for regime change by making life very hard for the population has been used many times by numerous countries. Yet the horrific suffering of the population is either completely sidelined and/or blamed on the dictator. The people enforcing the sanctions are somehow immune from any blame at all and are certainly never held to account. You'll have a very hard time finding mainstream journalists asking any awkward questions.
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Informed opinion seems to be nearly unanimous so far. UK intelligence disagrees with the US 2007 report and says that Iran IS working on nuclear weapons. France has criticized President Obama for not being forceful enough (when did I ever think I'd live to see the day that a French President would tell an American President he needs to be more forceful?) and other expert opinions seem to agree that unless something happens, Iran will have nuclear weapons and this will start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. They are also agreed that even if sanctions were imposed, they probably wouldn't work. The alternative is military action. Looks like the world is left with no good choices. Some say there will be dramatic developments by the end of the year. Israel is the wild card.
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Scott Ritter the former UN nuclear weapons inspector who didn't believe Iraq posed a credible threat was interviewed on C-Span today. He has dismissed the conclusions of German, French, and American intelligence, has dismissed the unreleased and so far internal report of the IAEA that its head Mohammed el Baradei also disagrees with, says the laptop computer that supposedly convicts Iran of knowing how to build an atom bomb was probably fabricated by western intelligence, says the recently disclosed secret nuclear site is nothing more now than a hole in the ground with cement, says the Iranians can't enrich uranium beyond 3.5% not nealy the 19% needed even for nuclear power plant fuel, castigates Israel as an instigator, and warns that an attack of any kind on Iran will lead to a catastrophe. He especially singled out German intelligence for criticism.
Others are not so sure. They think Iran's leaders are lying, hiding the truth, and are mere months to a year and a half away from being able to build a nuclear bomb. They say Iran's missiles are being reconfigured to carry nuclear warheads. There is talk that something big will happen by the end of the year. Who knows what to believe or where the truth lies. There is no way for the public to take an informed position when experts and people with access to classified information disagree so sharply. It also isn't clear what should be done. It appears given how little time is left, sanctions won't work even if they could somehow be imposed. It appears even that is not possible. It is also clear that if Iran is attacked, failure to eliminate its ability to retaliate will lead to a disaster for Israel, for American troops in Iraq, and possibly for Arab states. If Israel attacks Iran, it is believed that Suni Moslem states will come to Shiite Iran's defense. If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, that will trigger a nuclear arms race in the middle east.
Having listened to so many people, I don't know what to make of it all. I don't like Scott Ritter but so far he's proven the best informed "expert" opinion to date when the subject was Iraq.
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As so often happens, the media is quick off the mark on an important story, jumps to conclusions or forces readers to jump to conclusions, and fails to folloup on the story. This update to the Iran disarmament negotiations comes two weeks after the initial story during the Pittsburgh G20 summit when the US, UK, and France accused Iran of hiding uranium enrichment facilities from international inspectors. According to Agence France Presse reporter Michael Adler in the Daily Beast, US diplomats "will meet with Iran to seal the deal that could take the country's uranium away" for processing in a third country (probably Russia). According to Adler, a deal could be "a potentially transformative development which few expected and most doubt is possible. The Iranians agreed in principle in Geneva on October 1 to send uranium that can be used to make atom bombs to a safe place outside of the country. This would reduce the threat that Iran could use the uranium for a nuclear weapon and give time for non-proliferation talks. The question [on] Monday is: will the deal go forward, collapse, or perhaps what is worse, die of a thousand cuts as it is delayed?"
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