Weekly Commentary

Ahmadinejad’s Nuclear Fangs

Following his disastrous high profile visit to the UN’s World Summit earlier this month, Iran’s new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showcased his fangs to the world. Addressing a military parade in Tehran, he promised the world “fire and destruction” if his regime were to be punished for its well-documented, two- decade long repeated violations breach of the Non- proliferation Treaty (NPT). Indeed, his virulent tirade came in the aftermath of an equally nefarious address at the UN earlier in the week, which convinced many governments that the clerical regime was going for the A-bomb.

The silver lining in having an infamous assassin like Ahmadinejad as the mullahs’ president is that his utterance is a short cut to the party line in Tehran. He means what he says and his cabinet - a who-is- who of the most notorious Revolutionary Guards commanders and security- intelligence officials - is determined to carry out what their boss says: Tehran is going to have nuclear weapons at any cost.

Last week, Ali Larijani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and a former General of the Revolutionary Guards, said Tehran views nuclear capability as providing the sole guarantee for the regime's survival. Referring to current nuclear stand-off, Larijani, a protégé of Supreme Leader Khamenei, said, “This is a war. If we take a step back today, tomorrow they will bring up the issue of human rights, and the day after they will bring up the issue of Hezbollah, and then democracy, and other matters.” The most threatening pronouncement to date, however, came out on Monday when Larijani blatantly threatened the United States saying Iran would use its "full might" to “endanger U.S. interests” if Washington further pressured Tehran over its disputed nuclear program, according to the Associated Press.

And the nuclear-based survival strategy of the mullahs’ regime has brought other establishment figures to the fray, even those who took a political beating during the Presidential elections, chief among them former President Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. In his Friday prayer sermon he, too, reminded the world that Tehran’s diplomacy at its core was rested on the use of terror. Echoing similar remarks during his own presidency in early 1990, he warned foreign capitals against tightening the screws Tehran: “This field is one which will not be easy for you to cross.. This is a perilous mine field such where if you don’t make the proper moves, it will cost you, the region, and the world dearly”, Rafsanjani said.

Rafsanjani also insisted that on the nuclear issue there was unanimity among in clerical establishment. “All the people and the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran are resolute in defending their rights. We insist on having the fuel cycle and this issue is not safe for anyone," he said.

To give a practical context to Ahmadinejad's comments, Larijani, and Rafsanjani, the new Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, boasted that the Islamic Republic had suicide volunteers who could be used against foreign enemies. He told a gathering of Guards commanders in Tehran, “The Iranian nation has martyrdom- seeking Bassij forces. “A nation which has a spirit of devotion, sacrifice, self-confidence, and martyrdom does not need nuclear weapons. It can use its devoted forces to stand up against the enemies and neutralize their threats”. “Our martyrs have shown world powers that the Islamic Iran is alive, dynamic, and willing to make the biggest sacrifices to defend its values and dignity”, Mohammad-Najjar said.

The recent IAEA resolution, declaring Iran in non- compliance with many NPT regulations, should provide the trigger to refer Tehran’s case to the Security Council. Although it said so implicitly, it fell short of setting a date for the UNSC referral. The resolution however offered the strongest IAEA’s lambasting of Tehran’s breaches, failures and lack of transparency.

The imposition of Security Council sanctions against Tehran and its impact on both the mullahs’ capacity to advance the program and the oil market is already being hotly debated. The fact remains that the political and economic cost of having a nuclear weapon capable theocracy far outweighs the adverse impact of sanctions on the world economy, as exaggerated as they may have been predicted.

As suggested by a Washington Post Editorial last week, “Concerted pressure by Western states, which means economic and political sanctions, could eventually force the ruling mullahs to abandon the hostile intransigence that Mr. Ahmadinejad represents. At the very least, sanctions could, at last, place the United States and Europe on the right side of Iran's domestic struggle between an isolated and increasingly incompetent clerical elite and a growing population that yearns for freedom.”

We could not agree more. (USADI)
 

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The Christian Science Monitor (Editorial)

September 28, 2005
EU Can Do More to Block an Iranian Bomb

Last Saturday, the UN atomic watchdog agency threatened to seek sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. The move represents a diplomatic failure by France, Germany, and Britain to persuade Iran not to build an atomic bomb.

Credible evidence has mounted in the past two years that Iran has cheated for two decades on its international agreement not to develop technology for nuclear weapons. The "EU-3," as the three nations are called, wanted to head off any possible military action by the US (or Israel) against Iran. So they dangled economic carrots, such as entry to the World Trade Organization, before Iran's reigning Muslim clerics in hopes they would end their pursuit of bomb-grade material..

The EU-3 may be correct that Iran's leaders might somehow see the light, but they're whistling in the dark trying to invoke any UN legitimacy to solve this dangerous situation. The UN, which operates more on national interests than principles, is the wrong forum for tough action against a terrorist-supporting nation.

The European Union itself has the means already to impose meaningful sanctions against Iran. The easiest step would be to stop issuing visas for Iran's elite to travel to Europe or to conduct business there. (The US already has such sanctions.)

The EU needs to form a coalition of nations willing to send a stern message to Iran that enough nations of influence will neither tolerate nuclear proliferation in the Middle East nor risk the possibility of Iran giving atomic weapons or their know-how to other nations or terrorists.

The EU would have to put these goals ahead of its considerable business interests in Iran. And they would have to give up trying to prove the US wrong in not always seeking UN approval for every military action.

While the UN conducts many worthwhile activities, it often cannot enlist nations such as China or other dictatorships into action, or nations, such as Russia, with mercantile interests in hot spots.

An Iranian atomic bomb would be very hot indeed, and the time for real diplomatic action is now.

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The Wall Street Journal (Editorial)

September 28, 2005
Wrist-Slap for the Mullahs

 
The Governing Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency voted last Saturday to express an "absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes." The U.S. is taking it as a victory that Russia and China voted to abstain, and that India voted for censure. The hope is that the Board will actually refer Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council at the next meeting in November.

The IAEA vote does not come out of the blue. Iran admitted to violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in the spring of 2003. Iran's case should have been referred to the Security Council that fall, but the U.S. agreed to allow Britain, France and Germany to negotiate directly with Tehran. Over the next year, the IAEA called on Iran to suspend its nuclear-related activities on six separate occasions. Iran finally agreed last November, only to withdraw from talks several months later.

Even this, however, might not have moved the IAEA to action had Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not used his speech to the U.N. General Assembly this month to denounce the "nuclear apartheid" of the NPT regime. Now Iran is threatening to expel U.N. inspectors from nuclear sites if the IAEA moves forward with a referral to the Security Council.

The bluster might work: Europe especially is unlikely to vote for trade sanctions with oil prices already high. Also, by November both Cuba and Belarus will be voting members of the 35-member IAEA governing board. These are among the countries whose support the U.S. will require simply to move Iran's case to the Security Council, where China and Russia would likely block even a mild resolution. No wonder the mullahs believe they can be so dismissive of the U.N. as they march toward their goal of becoming a nuclear power.
 

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The US Alliance for Democratic Iran (USADI), is a US-based, non-profit, independent organization, which promotes informed policy debate, exchange of ideas, analysis, research and education to advance a US  policy on Iran which will benefit America’s interests, both at home and in the Middle East, through supporting Iranian people’s  aspirations for a democratic, secular, and peaceful government, free of tyranny, fundamentalism, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism.

USADI supports the Iranian peoples' aspirations for democracy, peace,  human rights, women’s equality, freedom of expression, separation of  church and state, self-determination, control of land and resources,  cultural integrity, and the right to development and prosperity.

The USADI is not affiliated with any government agencies, political groups or parties. The USADI administration is solely responsible for its activities and decisions.