Iran's nuclear crisis : Which way is it heading?

Tehran restarted work on uranium enrichment at Natanz facility soon after the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution asking the Director General to report the progress on safeguards implementation in Iran to UN Security Council after the March Board meeting.

Iran's nuclear programme is passing through a period of crisis and so is the international nonproliferation regime. To add complexity to the prevailing mistrust, between Iran on the one hand and US, France, Germany and Britain on the other. On January 10, 2006 Iran reporteedly removed seals put by IAEA at three locations, breaking the two-year old self-imposed voluntary suspension on enrichment related activities. The international community is facing difficulty in tackling the Iranian posture. Various options are being discussed starting from diplomatic solutions to making Iran a referral case for Security Council to impose sanctions and to eventually use force.

On the recent moves, Iran says the intended scale of the "R&D" is small and will be carried out at PFEP (Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant), Natanz. On its part, the IAEA Chief has asked Tehran to provide him with clarifications on the outstanding issues by March 6, 2006 including the information on their past efforts on modification of their missiles. China and Russia have asked Tehran to maintain restraint. But they have still voted for the February 4 resolution and are quite unready to make Iran a referral case to Security Council. The EU troika, in its meeting at Berlin on January 12, 2006, called the recent acts of Iran as a challenge to the authority of the NPT and the IAEA. Meanwhile, lots of heat has been generated through western media.

In fact, the IAEA in its press release had mentioned that its secretariat received a note from the Permanent Mission of Iran on January 3, 2006 informing the Agency about "the decesion to resume from January 9, 2006 those R&D on the peaceful nuclear energy 'programme which has been suspended as part of its expanded voluntary and non-legally binding suspension."

Before the analysts could have interpreted the nature of resumption, the very next day a British newspaper leaked a classified report prepared by US and European intelligence agencies on the possibility of covert Iranian acquisition plans. The Guardian revealed a 55-page intelligence document based on the findings of British, French, German and Belgian intelligence agencies assessing the clandestine Iranian nuclear procurement plans.

In the beginning of last year, it was reported that during his visit to Washington, the Prime Minister of Israel provided the American President with photographs of Iranian nuclear sites and described the status of Iranian programme as on the cusp of a 'point of no return'. In March 2005, the Wall Street Journal disclosed the US attempt to collect intelligence on Iran's efforts between 2001 and 2003 to adapt its Shahab-3 missile for delivering a "black box", interpreted as a nuclear warhead. The news report stated about an intelligence source, solicited with German help, which provided the US officials with documents related to Farsi-language computer files, diagrams and test data of Iran's missile programme. Four months later, the same newspaper disclosed that US officials shared these classified intelligence with IAEA at Vienna in July 2005 as well. The US officials must be trying hard to prove that Iran is in pursuit of a weapon development programme in the guise of seeking civil nuclear energy.

The Iranian nuclear case drew renewed international attention when on August I, 2005, Iran communicated to the IAEA of its plan to resume the conversion activities at Esfahan. During the Board of Governors' meeting in September, US along with the European representatives tried to push Iran further into isolation by advancing a proposal to make Iran a referral case for UN Security Council. They could not, however, convince their major counterparts like China and Russia to agree on such proposal. Finally, the resolution was passed at the Board of Governors meeting in September 2005 cautioning Iran about the possibility of making it a referral case in future in the event of not showing appropriate flexibility and transparency with the IAEA towards resolving the contested aspects of its past nuclear activities.

A series of developments have taken place at political and diplomatic fronts since the passage of September 24, 2005 resolution on Iran, which point towards the fact that Iran's declarations on nuclear programme are incomplete and overdue.

The Director General of the IAEA, in his November 18, 2005 report mentioned that Iran provided the Agency with the documents related to drawings, showing a cascade layout for 6 cascades of 168 machines each and a small plant of 2000 centrifuges arranged in the same hall and also the procedural requirements for the reduction of uranium hexfluoride to metal in small quantities. The documents also contained information on casting and machining of enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms. The British ambassador Peter Jenkins on behalf of the EU at the November 2006 Board of Governors' meeting in Vienna was quoted saying about the newly found documents by the IAEA as "Iran has admitted to having a document ... which describes process that has no application other than the production of nuclear weapons." IAEA. believes that substantive details are still missing. Many of the controversies revolve around the nuclear imports especially through Pakistan based A. Q. Khan network, and the associated past concealments.

Following the November 2005 meeting Vienna, the international political environment witnessed considerable turmoil especially; a result of various remarks made by the Iran. President. In December, Iranian President Ahmadinejad said that the history about 'massacre of the Jews' by the Nazis during the World War II was a myth fabricated t the West and Europe. Two months earlier Ahmadinejad had warned Israel to be 'wiped off from the map'. Naturally, his remarks created wide uproar in US, Britain, Germany, France and many European countries. The western analysts viewed Ahmadinejad's oratory as reflection of Iran's anti-US and anti-West outlook, a continuing legacy of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Ahmadinejad's provocative posturing may have been aimed at the Muslim world in the neighbourhood where anti-US sentiments are brewing at the moment. The Iranian President may also be trying to influence his domestic power base by projecting himself as a strong leader, who would hardly yield to the pressures from the Americans on nuclear issues. However, it has made the task of the Bush administration and Israel easier to convince the Europeans about the aggressive motives of Iran.

The spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister, said in reaction to Ahmadenijad's statement that "we hope that these extremist declarations will make the world wake up to the nature of this regime, especially the fact that Iran's nuclear programme and its support of international terrorism represents not only a danger for Israel but for the entire Western civilization." He added, "Thank God Israel has the means at its disposal to bring about the downfall of this extremist regime in Iran." All this has activated the western media to toss up speculations over the possibility of Israel joining hands with US in any preemptive attack on the nuclear facilities of Iran.

Towards the end of 2005, the German media tried to collate few recent intelligence reports and come up with an investigative story that had appeared in the New Yorker in the beginning of the year forecasting Iran as the next strategic target for US after Iraq. The January report of New Yorker stated about American forces secretly entering Iran in 2005 and discussed the possibility of Israel joining hands with the Americans.

By quoting the western security sources, Der Spiegel reported on December 30, 2005 of a potential NATO operation plan of air strikes against Iran sometime in 2006. Two days before, Der Tagesspiegel disclosed the case of a high ranking official of Pentagon and CIA to be working on a possible option of use of force in Iran. Another piece by the German news agency DDP on December 23, 2005 noted that countries neighboring Iran, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, Turkey and Pakistan were also updated of the supposed plan.

The reason behind such speculations is that countries like US, Britain and Israel strongly believe in the existence of a hidden nuclear programme in Iran and that they perceive nuclear Iran as a challenge to their security interests. Their suspicion is further fuelled by tough political posturing of Iran. As it is evident from the available information in the public domain, IAEA has found many gaps in the declarations by Iran on its past activities, yet the Agency inspectors have not detected any clear proof which indicates that Tehran is building nuclear weapons. Now, there is growing international pressure on Iran to honour its international obligations.

The Iranian's stiffening of posture vis-a-vis US, E-3 and the IAEA has made the issue of confidence building more complex. Tehran had agreed, upon persuasions from Britain, Germany and France, to voluntarily suspend its efforts, aimed at uranium enrichment and reprocessing since October 2003. However, it restarted some centrifuge production related works for few months and committed itself again to voluntary suspension of enrichment related and reprocessing activities again in November 2004. These measures were undertaken by Iran in an attempt to build confidence with the IAEA. As of now, Iran may have gone back on its commitment again.

Though the leaks of intelligence reports in the western media propel mixed reactions in the public debates, Bush sounds little cautious. He has been quoted saying as "People will say, If we're trying to make the case on Iran, well, the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we trust the intelligence in Iran?" After all, it is once bitten twice shy.

(Dr. Rajesh Kumar Mishra is a Nell' Delhi based Defence Analyst)