Iran and the nuclear axis

Lebanon Daily News:

Sunday, August 21, 2005 - Iran has the international community in a muddle over its nuclear activities. Two weeks ago, in clear defiance of Europe and the United States, Iran restarted its uranium conversion program. More recently, it warned Europe to stop pressuring it to limit its nuclear operations.

Under the terms of the 1968 Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to develop nuclear energy for power generation, but U.S. officials and international monitors believe Iran is taking steps to develop a weapons program.

Whatever Iran is up to, Europe is leading an effort to convince them to stop. The U.S. supports the European initiative despite suspicions that Iran is not negotiating in good faith.

Last week, President Bush hinted that, if Iran persists to develop nuclear weapons, military force might be an option. The comment was brushed off by Britain's Tony Blair and rebuked by German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. "No one can want the Iranian leadership to gain possession of atomic weapons," said Schroeder. "But let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work."

The question is, what does work? Since the U.S. is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, a military threat may not seem credible to Iran. And with gasoline prices soaring worldwide, an attack on Iran's nuclear installations would probably send world oil markets into a tailspin and send record prices ever higher. Israel seems preoccupied with the Gaza withdrawal, and in any event no one seems quite sure whether a strike could get the job done.

Iran's intransigence has not yet been raised before the U.N. Security Council, though that could happen if Iran's new hardline president Mahmood Ahmadinejad continues to stiff-arm the Europeans. In the Clinton era, Iran responded to unilateral U.S. economic sanctions because it was in debt and anxious to attract foreign investment. Today Iran is flush with oil revenues and Ahmadinejad has rejected Europe's most recent offer of economic and political incentives.

Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy notes that Russia is helping build one of Iran's reactors and has said that it won't help fuel the nuclear plant until Iran reaches an agreement with Europe.

Iran is not ruling out further talks, and Bush has renewed his support for the European negotiators. Iran looms as a critical hot spot, like North Korea, where an antagonistic country must yet be persuaded to set aside its nuclear ambitions to avoid destabilizing a fragile region.