The West's sanction for global war

With the West willfully ignoring opportunities to negotiate with a nuclear Iran, the outlook for the world is grim, says a new analysis

The George Bush administration's inflexibility on Iran was "bombastic diplomacy" that "wasted energy and hardened the lines". Under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran had "a right to peaceful nuclear power and to enrichment in the purpose". If you thought these words came from some left-leaning critics of the Bush foreign policy, think again. Senator John Kerry, now US secretary of state, expressed these views in 2009 when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If these views were to become the US policy propounded by Secretary of State Kerry in 2013, write Peter Oborne and David Morrison in their book, A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong About Nuclear Iran, "the prospects for a settlement with Iran on the nuclear issue would be excellent". If not, which is most likely, the authors have no doubt that "the outlook for the world is grim".

As the title suggests, the authors demolish some of the myths created around Iran and its controversial nuclear programme. Contrary to the dominant view in the West, Iran had made overtures for a settlement of the nuclear issue a number of times; every time, its bids were rejected outright by the West. A 2005 meeting between European countries and Iran at the French foreign ministry is a case in point. In the meeting, Javad Zarif, leader of the Iranian negotiating team, made an unofficial proposal. He said Tehran was not prepared to give up plans to develop centrifuge enrichment technology. "But in return for carrying on with their enrichment programme, they proposed unprecedented measures to provide guarantees that they would never divert peaceful nuclear technology for military use," the authors say. Iran also offered inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) improved oversight of all nuclear activities in the Islamic Republic.

The West turned down the offer, the authors tell us. Later, John Sawers, one of the members of the European negotiating team (now head of the British Secret Intelligence Service), explained to Seyed Hossein Mousavian, spokesperson of the Iranian nuclear negotiation team, why the offer could not be taken up: "Washington would never tolerate operation of even one centrifuge in Iran."

The origins of Iran's nuclear programme go back to the country's last Shah, who planned for the generation of 23,000 MW of electricity using nuclear plants. Shah's Iran was part of America's twin pillar strategy in West Asia (the other pillar was Saudi Arabia). The West offered to assist in Shah's nuclear ambitions. However, the Islamic revolution of 1979, which toppled Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought the Islamists to power in Tehran, changed the relationship between Iran and the West. The US, France and Germany called off all nuclear agreements with post-revolutionary Iran, which then asked the IAEA to fill the gap by providing hexafluoride feed stock for centrifuges. The IAEA was inclined to help Iran, but the US prevented it, apparently in violation of the NPT, which obliges nuclear-weapons states to share nuclear technology with signatories of the treaty for peaceful purposes. Iran, unlike India and Israel, has signed the treaty.

The American hostage crisis in Tehran and the subsequent Iran-Iraq war worsened relations between Iran and the US. There were talks about a rapprochement when the reformist Mohammad Khatami became president in 1997. He suspended nuclear enrichment, denounced the 9/11 attacks and helped the US when it invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. But, in return, the Bush administration clubbed it with an "axis of evil", accusing Iran, Iraq and North Korea of aiding terror. In 2003 America invaded Iraq, which triggered debates over whether Iran would be next. Fuelling speculation, the Bush administration turned up the heat on Iran.

Seymour M Hersh of The New Yorker reported in 2011 about the cutting-edge surveillance techniques put in place inside Iran by US intelligence teams to find evidence of Tehran's nuclear programme. For example, street signs were surreptitiously removed in heavily populated areas of Tehran and replaced with similar-looking signs implanted with radiation sensors. Still, since 2007, the US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has judged "with a high degree of confidence" that Iran does not have a programme to develop a nuclear weapon. Moreover, Iran's facilities operate under the IAEA's supervision, and the agency has consistently confirmed that no material has been diverted from Iran's installations for military purposes.

The authors, however, do not overlook genuine criticism against the Iranian government. The government has breached its safeguards agreements. The authors do not deny that the nuclear programme may have had a military dimension over a decade ago. Also, Iran's human rights record is appalling. But the West has dealt with nations that have had a worse human rights record. The point is that it must stop the war rhetoric and take constructive steps for reconciliation.

"The sanctions regime being imposed on Iran is not only unjust. It's dangerous. It's the way that wars start," the authors write. That's what the story of Iraq tells us.

A DANGEROUS DELUSION
Why the West is Wrong About Nuclear Iran
Peter Oborne and David Morrison
Elliott & Thompson
112 pages; Rs 779