|
USADI
Commentary
Tehran’s
Yellow Cake Celebration
The “yellow cake celebration” last Tuesday in
Iran could not have been more surreal and morbid. Men in a parade-like dance waved a
small silver box containing the first enriched
uranium. Iran’s radical president and former
assassin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asserted that
Tehran was now a member of “the nuclear club”
before a huge mural of white doves and amidst
chants of "God is Great”, "Death to America",
and “Down with Counter-Revolutionaries.”
And with that, Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei
and his hand-picked president took another step
to dare the world community. On the bright side,
the nail-biting suspense of Russian and Chinese
diplomats in the halls of the UN is now gone:
Tehran has rejected the Security Council’s
demand to stop enrichment!
Iran’s Tuesday saber-rattling came on the heels
of a week-long military maneuver in the Persian
Gulf and a major escalation of suppressive
measures and public executions at home. This
year so far nearly 50 people have been either
executed or sentenced to death.
Domestically the “carefully timed political
theater” aimed to shift the focus from dismal
economic and social conations. Pointing to
Iran’s rising “internal crisis”, the German
publication Spiegel has reported that “the
country's high level of poverty has triggered a
series of intense social struggles.” The report
adds that: “Increasing dissatisfaction about
economic conditions in Iran is placing
additional pressure on the regime in Tehran.
Despite a ban on strikes in the country, the
number of workers protesting poor conditions is
increasing across Iran.”
Contrary to claims by Tehran and its
Trans-Atlantic advocates, the mullahs' nuclear
drive runs counter to the best national
interests of the Iranian people. A secret
official poll in Iran revealed last winter that
about 69 percent of Iranians dismiss the nuclear
program as being a “national project.”
Iranians have done much to derail the mullahs'
nuclear program. While satellite imagery and
inspections contributed to revealing the extent
of Iran’s nuclear drive, it was Iran’s major
opposition coalition, the National Council of
Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which - at great
human cost - played the key role in exposing the
mullahs' nuclear secrets in August 2002 and in
subsequent revelations.
The “nuclear show of force” also meant to quell
the widening fissures within the inner circles
of ruling establishment. On Thursday Ahmadinejad
acknowledged this by saying "There are some
coward elements who are trying to create
difference among people. They get together, talk
and create propaganda and psychological war. But
we laugh at them. They call us and say that
crisis is on the way, but we believe that the
enemy has a crisis and we have no crisis in our
country. Our people are brave."
On the international level, the political
message was as clear. Former president Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani told the Kuwaiti news agency
that “When ElBaradei arrives in Iran, he will
face new circumstances.” Ahmadinejad reinforced
the point by saying "our situation has changed
and we are a nuclear country and we are talking
to others from that position”. Iran's strategy
is to portray its nuclear efforts as a fait
accompli.
Some observers say that it is yet difficult to
decipher how much of Ahmadinejad’s announcement
is real and how much of is strategic bluster.
Still, this is a major escalation of the nuclear
stand-off. And the diplomatic world’s reaction
to this blatant defiance of the Security Council
so far amounts to more of a throat-clearing. It
is simply dumfounding and un-excusable. No
wonder, Ahmadinejad, evoking the famous saying
of his mentor Khomeini, said this week that the
world “can not do a damned thing” to stop his
regime’s nuclear drive.
The national security strategy manifesto of the
United States released last month, states that
"We may face no greater challenge from a single
country than from Iran." Tehran continues to
reinforce the point. Ahmadinejad talk of “the
nuclear club,” is in fact a euphemism for the
“the nuclear weapons club.” The day after his
announcement, a diagram titled “The Nuclear
Club” published in the state-controlled daily
Sharq listed Iran only with those states
known to have a nuclear weapon capability.
Although there have been renewed calls from
familiar circles about the “wisdom” of direct
bilateral talk with Tehran, its advocates have
nothing to show for its viability except past
failures. The Europeans' three years of nuclear
negotiations provided Tehran with a diplomatic
fig leaf to advance its nuclear drive at great
speed and announce membership in "the nuclear
club"
As one of the U.S. administration’s most senior
foreign policy advisors put it last week, "the
problem is that our policy has been all carrots
and no sticks. And Iranians know it."
Adoption of a smart sanction regime against the
Iranian leadership coupled with an effective and
sustained political and diplomatic support for
indigenous regime change would be the right kind
of "stick". A first practical step would be
reaching out to Iran’s viable democratic
opposition.
On April 10, the leader of the National Council
of Resistance of Iran, Maryam Rajavi addressed
the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe articulated this point the best. She
stated that “The international community is not
required to choose between the nuclear-armed
mullahs or a war. There is a third option:
Democratic change by the Iranian people and
their organized resistance. Making concessions
to the mullahs is not the way to avoid war. It
would increase the possibility of a war.”
We hope Washington
and its allies are listening.
(USADI)
USADI
Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance
for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events
which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward
Iran |