THE EU has climbed down on its plan to make a formal protest to have Iran immediately called before the UN Security Council, via the International Atomic Energy Agency, on the ground that it was in breach of its obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. After two years of direct negotiations with Tehran, the EU trio, France, Germany and the UK, appear to have accepted that while Iran may have reneged on certain commitments given to the EU, it can still be argued it has not acted outside the NPT.
This is the line taken by the Russians and the Chinese. Therefore any chance of a Security Council vote demanding that Iran cease its nuclear fuel enrichment program and any development of nuclear weapons that could come from such enrichment, is bound to fail. Rather than launch a doomed Security Council initiative, the Europeans have decided to back off. What has undermined US and British insistence that Iran really is intent on obtaining a nuclear weapons capability, is the unforgettable fact that precisely the same allegations were used to underpin the Washington-led invasion of Iraq and those allegations turned out to be total falsehoods. Britain’s working in partnership with France and Germany, which had both bitterly opposed the attack on Iraq, has not added strength to the EU demands on Iran. Though even Moscow, which has supplied Iran’s nuclear program, has in the past expressed some guarded reservations about Teheran’s fuel enrichment, its influence at this juncture together with China has proven crucial in forcing an EU climb down.
The truth is that Washington, Paris and London, which all have nuclear arsenals, seem set on a nuclear apartheid which discourages any state not deemed an ally, from pursuing any form of nuclear power. Fast breeder reactors, such as the Iranian prototype under construction are seen as the next generation of nuclear power technology. They require enriched fuel to work. That same fuel is certainly also essential for nuclear weaponry but it cannot be assumed that weapons will automatically follow directly from power generation.
Moscow and Beijing undoubtedly fear that the Bush White House could use the excuse of an Iranian nuclear bomb, however bogus, as justification for further disastrous military adventurism in the Middle East. Just how the Americans, already struggling in Iraq, could cope with another military confrontation is hard to imagine. Nevertheless the Bush administration will not make the history books for its international wisdom and subtlety.
By heading off the EU, Moscow and Beijing will be hoping to bend Washington’s hitherto inflexible policy. No one in the region would welcome a second nuclear power after Israel and the Russians would hardly feel happy about such a state on its southern border. For the moment however, its considered judgment is that everyone should stop trying to strong-arm Iran and rely rather on the workings of the NPT and the IAEA inspections that go with it.
