Doug Lorimer
Following two days of talks in Vienna with Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana told journalists on September 10 the discussions had been "positive" in seeking a compromise that would avoid possible UN sanctions against Iran.
"We have clarified some of the misunderstandings that existed before. We have made progress that we want to continue", Solana said.
As part of its drive to gain UN legitimacy for its planned "regime change" invasion of oil- and gas-rich Iran, Washington has alleged that Iran's nuclear energy program, particularly its research into the production of nuclear fuel (low-enriched uranium, LEU), is a cover for a secret effort to produce nuclear weapons.
Natural uranium contains about 0.7% of the fissionable U-235 isotope. LEU is enriched, through a very complex and difficult process, to about 5% U-235 content. Weapons-grade uranium must be enriched, through even more demanding technical processes, to at least 90% U-235 content.
Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its enrichment research activities are monitored by the UN's Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.
IAEA director-general Mohammed ElBaradei has repeatedly reported that his inspectors have failed to find any indication of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program.
However, he has also reported that there are minor "outstanding" issues of "uncertainty" about Iran's past research activities — which he has also reported is the case with 46 other NPT signatories, including seven European countries.
Seizing on these uncertainties in the case of Iran and with the backing of London and Paris, Washington strong-armed the IAEA governing board in February to pass a resolution that began by reaffirming Iran's "inalienable right" under the NPT "to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination", but then called on Iran to give up its right to research and produce LEU as a "confidence-building" measure.
The IAEA board also referred Iran's IAEA nuclear dossier — consisting largely of ElBaradei's reports — to the UN Security Council, which approved a non-binding statement on March 29 that called on Iran to comply with the IAEA board's February 4 resolution.
US officials then began pushing for a binding Security Council resolution demanding that Iran suspend its LEU research or face "punitive action", beginning with a range of diplomatic and economic sanctions.
However, opposition to this by China and Russia — which, like the US, Britain and France, hold a veto on the Security Council — forced Washington to agree in early June to have Solana present a package of "incentives" to Iran to suspend its LEU research while a "comprehensive agreement" was negotiated with Iran by the five powers and the EU on Iran's nuclear program.
The package included an offer to provide Western civilian nuclear technology to Iran if it agreed to only resume LEU research with Security Council — i.e., Washington's — approval.
Solana presented the "incentives" package to Iran on June 6. On July 18, Larijani told reporters that Iran was studying the package and would formally respond by August 22.
On July 31, Washington succeeded in getting the Security Council to approve the Anglo-French sponsored Resolution 1696 demanding Iran suspend its LEU research by August 31.
Iran's UN ambassador immediately rejected this demand as a violation of the NPT, telling the Security Council: "Today we are witness to an extremely dangerous trend — while members of the NPT are denied their rights and are punished, those who defy the NPT, particularly the perpetrators of the current carnage in Lebanon and Palestine, are rewarded by generous nuclear cooperation agreements." This was a reference to Israel, which has refused to sign the NPT and has an undeclared nuclear weapons program that has provided it with an arsenal of 150-200 nuclear bombs.
The day after the August 31 deadline passed, US President George Bush called on the Security Council to punish Iran. The September 1 Washington Post reported that Bush, "invoking the same language that he used to describe Iraq before the March 2003 invasion, called Iran a 'grave threat' and said 'there must be consequences'" for Tehran's refusal to comply with Resolution 1696.
Bush's claim that Iran's LEU research activities pose a "grave threat", however, was undercut by a report in the August 31 Washington Times that the "US military is operating under the assumption that Iran is five to eight years away" from having the technical capability to produce weapons-grade uranium.
"Defense sources familiar with discussions of senior military commanders", the paper reported, "say the five- to eight-year projection has been discussed inside the Pentagon, which is updating its war plan for Iran. The time frame is generally in line with last year's intelligence community estimate that Iran could have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon by the beginning or middle of the next decade."
"We are going to move toward a sanctions resolution at the United Nations. We expect others to join us", Nicholas Burns, US undersecretary of state for political affairs, told journalists on September 1.
However, a September 8 Berlin meeting of the representatives of the five veto-wielding members of the Security Council ended in a deadlock, with Russia and China opposing any rush to a sanctions resolution.
On September 12 Agence France Presse reported it had been told by a "Western diplomat" that in his meetings with Solana, Larijani had indicated that Iran was prepared to consider carrying out a two-month halt in enrichment, provided that there was "an absolute stepping down from going for sanctions and that Iran would have the right to nuclear fuel technology on its soil".
The September 12 New York Times reported that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "in an ever-so-slight softening of America's stance, on Monday left open the possibility that the United States might suspend efforts to impose sanctions against Iran if it suspended uranium enrichment for two months ...
"The apparent shift in the American stance reflects the hard realities that there are few good options on Iran, even if the Bush administration is able to get Russia and China to sign on to sanctions ... few diplomats believe that Russia and China will agree to more than weak sanctions, and Ms. Rice must calculate whether the coalition will remain intact. If it does not, the United States could be left facing the possibility of further conflict in the Middle East at a time when it is still grappling with the Iraq war."
Indeed, with the US military bogged down in a highly unpopular counterinsurgency war in Iraq, Washington is not in a political or military position to even credibly threaten an Iraq-style "regime change" war against Iran, let alone actually launch such a war.