Bush should show Iran some respect

The Sunday Times:

August 14, 2005

MICHAEL PORTILLO

Washington, we have a problem. The famous distress call from Apollo 13 in 1970, not to Washington but to Houston, resonated last week as Nasa brought the space shuttle safely home after a white knuckle ride. But what brought that memorable phrase back to me was not the shuttle’s epic survival, but rather the shipwreck of American foreign policy towards Iran, highlighted by new suggestions yesterday from President Bush that America might resort to force.

Nothing has gone right. Establishing democracy in Iraq was meant to strengthen the moderates in Iran and topple the corrupt autocracy of its mullahs. American sanctions against Iran were supposed to warn it off developing nuclear technologies. If those measures did not work, hints of military attack ought to have done the trick. If none of the above, perhaps bribery would succeed.

Hopes have been dashed. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now president. He was the mullahs’ candidate. He campaigned on issues such as public probity and private piety. During his stint as mayor of Tehran he imposed dress codes on public servants and banned advertising that featured the face of David Beckham. He trounced the pragmatic former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the contender favoured by the West. America is unlikely to proclaim the result as a triumph for emerging democracy.

US sanctions have not led to a moderate takeover in Iran. They have helped the mullahs by increasing anti-Americanism. Perhaps the embargo has contributed to today’s unemployment rate of a third among Iranians in their twenties, which gave a focus for Ahmadinejad’s campaign.

American military threats also help the theocracy in its propaganda. The United States has invaded Iran’s neighbour Iraq. The mullahs can scarcely be thought paranoid if they arm Iran against aggression.

The US has already had to execute a modest policy U-turn. Bush, having first despised efforts by Britain, France and Germany to persuade Iran to forgo uranium conversion work in return for aid, later pledged to add US funds to the European initiative. As the president said: “We’re relying upon others because we’ve sanctioned ourselves out of influence with Iran.”

Even before Ahmadinejad became president, Iran announced that it would restart its programme to upgrade uranium and last week it put its Isfahan plant back into operation.

So the European Union’s approach has been no more successful than America’s. Now the Europeans seem as exasperated as the US and threaten to seek a United Nations security council resolution imposing international economic sanctions.

Securing agreement on that might not be easy. China might veto. Russia fears Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but would like to continue to sell nuclear kit for peaceful purposes. Anyway, the case against Iran is not clear-cut.

Under article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) nations have “an inalienable right . . . to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination”. Iran claims to be interested only in producing electricity. The Europeans argue that the Iranians have been deceiving the world for 20 years.

Securing sanctions would be a pyrrhic victory. Then Europe, too, would be “sanctioned out” and Iran would acquire new grievances with which to set its population seething.

So it is not just Washington that has the problem. Events have confounded optimists like me who thought that reformers would gain the upper hand in Iran and European leaders who believed that American obduracy was the main impediment to an accommodation with Tehran.

Maybe the Euro carrot has failed because the US stick is not credible. Bush has again raised the prospect of military intervention. But only a few paranoid liberals now think that an American attack on Iran is imminent. For nearly 2½ years the US military has been sinking into the quicksand of Iraq. America lacks the resources and willpower and public support for another war in the Middle East, at least while the two in which it is engaged remain unfinished. These days even neoconservatives do not talk much about invading Iran.

So it is far from obvious how to deal with this state that views America as the Great Satan and exports terror. Ahmadinejad’s inauguration was greeted with cries of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”. True, the new president has denounced weapons of mass destruction but it is small comfort given that nuclear policy is decided not by him but by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. It is hard to guess Iran’s real intentions.

Does it merely see the West’s present weakness as an opportunity to increase the price for any concessions? It complains that the EU has failed to live up to its promises. It says it will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor its activities. So maybe the bargaining will continue. The Iranian regime is not unintelligent. It aims to avoid UN sanctions and so sounds reasonable.

On the other hand, perhaps Iran has a non-negotiable desire to possess nuclear weapons. I would guess that it does. It would increase its security. US neoconservatives rarely suggest invading nuclear weapons states. Joining the nuclear club would give Iran prestige. Look at how America now courts India and Pakistan.

What are the West’s arguments against Iran having the bomb: that it would export nuclear technology? It could hardly outdo Abdul Qadeer Khan, who headed Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme and sold secrets around the world. That it would put nuclear weapons in the hands of an unstable Islamic state? See Pakistan again. That the Middle East should be a nuclear weapons-free zone? Tell that to Israel.

Anyway, the West appears to be in breach of the NPT article VI that requires nuclear weapons states to work for disarmament. Britain, for example, is upgrading its mass destruction systems. So what moral authority do we have? Supposing Iran is intent on getting nuclear weapons; how frightening is that, given that it would not be the first scary state to do so? The chances are that it would never use them. Only the United States has, 60 years ago last weekend. All other countries that have nuclear weapons have employed them only to intimidate. So far.

Coinciding with Ahmadinejad’s inauguration, a long-awaited US intelligence analysis estimated that Iran will not get the bomb for another decade, double previous estimates. The new data do not make the problem disappear but perhaps give time for reflection on both sides.

America believes that it cannot live with a nuclear-armed Iran. In that case it must consider everything else. Bush yesterday said again that he preferred a diplomatic solution. So far the hostility to Iran has brought no dividend. It must therefore contemplate engagement. After all, President Nixon engaged with China and President Reagan with the Soviet Union, both hostile powers that were more frightening than Iran.

Tehran is looking for respect. Perhaps the US should show it some. It would be a brave policy shift for America with no guarantee of success. But if Bush wants an example of political courage he should look at Ariel Sharon.

Next week the Israeli army will remove by force any Israeli settlers left in Gaza, then bulldoze their houses and hand the land to the Palestinians. Benjamin Nethanyahu’s opportunistic decision to resign from the Israeli cabinet merely serves to underline that Sharon is a leader of exceptional grit. In the face of intense domestic opposition the prime minister is tackling Israel’s least defensible policy: the planting of settlers in Palestinian lands. He recognises that peace stands no chance unless Israel demonstrates the willpower to remove them. Sharon is unilaterally unrolling part of the road map to peace and challenging the Palestinian Authority to prove that it can enforce security. He shows that you can be tough but imaginative.

The question is whether Bush, a president who has not flinched from carrying war to Afghanistan and Iraq, has the leeway and the creativity to try an equally radical and risky new approach to Iran.

As with Apollo 13 after it suffered an explosion in space, things in Iran look pretty grim right now. The failures call for exceptional measures. If we try something unprecedented we might just succeed in steering the Iran problem towards a safe landing.