The Mullahs' Nukes
The U.N. is inviting an attack on Iran.
Sunday, December 14, 2003 12:01 a.m.
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Iraq was a failure of the United Nations arms-control system, but Iran could very easily be its last hurrah. If the mullahs follow North Korea in going nuclear under the not-so-watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that body will have breathed its last.
Yet IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei--who sees 18 years of deception as "no evidence" of a weapons program--has given no indication he understands what's at stake. Neither have the vast majority of IAEA member states--especially those most committed to the concept of "multilateralism." The IAEA board recently voted to respond to Iran's lies (and lies about prior lies) with barely a slap on the wrist. Now Tehran appears to be stalling even on the recent European-brokered inspections deal.
Recall that last year Iran was found to harbor two previously undeclared nuclear sites--an underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, and a heavy-water facility at Arak. Iran then called that enrichment program indigenous, only to blame foreign suppliers when traces of weapons-grade material were detected.
Yet the IAEA has decided not to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions. At the behest of America's ostensible allies in Europe, including Britain (only Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan supported strong language), no referral was even threatened. If this is as far as the agency is prepared to go following inarguable violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, then it might as well close up shop.
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A large part of the problem here is the European Union, which has long pursued a petroleum-driven policy euphemistically known as "constructive engagement" with Iran. The mullahs, in turn, have made it clear that European appeasement will be rewarded. "Iran will not treat countries that stood beside America and others equally . . . in big economic projects," a senior Iranian official said recently. He added that any suspension of uranium enrichment would be "voluntary and temporary."
We recognize that there's no easy solution here. It would be one thing if the cautious EU "multilateral" approach was simply a matter of making the best of a bad situation, and based on a sober appreciation of the aims of the Iranian atomic program. <font size=4>But the U.N. conclusion that there is "no evidence" of an arms program--which Russia has taken as a green light to continue assistance with Iran's reactors--beggars belief.
There is, after all, the matter of the deception. There is also the fact that oil- and gas-rich Iran has little need for peaceful atomic energy. And there is the fact that Iran continues to extend the range of its Shahab missile, which is little threat if not armed with an unconventional warhead.
There are also the mullahs' own words. "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world," the powerful former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, said just two years ago.
Notice that he's talking about thwarting "colonialism," not just Israel, and recall that Iran regards the U.S. as the "Great Satan." The Iranian nuclear program is intended most directly as a deterrent to the U.S. ability to deploy forces to protect its friends and interests in the Middle East.<font size=3> Yet this is no reason for European complacency either. Any hopes they have of influencing future developments in the Middle East and beyond would also likewise be subject to the veto of a nuclear-armed Iran.
The Bush Administration has, if anything, been remarkably restrained on all of this, bowing to European desires. U.S. <font size=4>Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton put things with his usual clarity earlier this month when he said that "the United States believes that the longstanding, massive and covert Iranian effort to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities makes sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program."<font size=3> But so far it has accepted the U.N. refusal to act.
For starters, the Administration could do more to convince the Europeans that their entire multilateral edifice is at stake. Plans should be made now for an appropriate response if IAEA inspectors cannot give Iran a clean bill of health in several months time. More important, the U.S. could get serious in its rhetoric about regime change for Iran, as well as about covert aid to Iranian dissidents. The ultimate problem in Iran is the current radical and anti-American regime.
None of this may stop a determined government in Iran. Its nuclear program appears to be both well developed and well concealed. But <font size=4>only the threat of Security Council or Western action has any chance of keeping the mullahs tethered to a serious inspections system. If the U.N. and Europe fail in Iran as they failed in Iraq, they have to understand that the only other recourse for the U.S. or Israel will be the use of force.
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