As widely expected, the International Atomic Energy Agency voted today to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council on account of its nuclear activities. However, all parties agreed that the Security Council will not take action for another month - when the IAEA meets again to consider Iran's response. IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has scheduled a comprehensive report on Iran's nuclear program at the next regular meeting of the agency's board on March 6.
For weeks, Tehran has threatened to respond to any such move by curtailing or eliminating U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities and ending talks on a Russian compromise that would allow Iran to enrich uranium in Russia for use in nuclear power plants. The concern has been that Iran, if allowed to enrich uranium on its own territory, might divert some that would then be enriched further for use in nuclear weapons. Iranian leaders have repeatedly said they are not seeking to build nuclear weapons and that they are in full compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
[Update]
Javad Vaidi, deputy secretary of Iran's National Security Council, said the board's vote was "politically motivated" and "not based on any legal or technical grounds." He said Iran had no choice now but to resume uranium enrichment and stop voluntarily cooperating with international inspectors, under a law passed by Iran's parliament last year mandating such retaliation if Iran were reported to the U.N. Security Council.
Noting Iran's threats to stop cooperating, British Ambassador Jenkins said, "We urge Iran to reconsider." In the month ahead, "we hope Iran will take this opportunity to begin rebuilding international confidence," he said.
Twenty-seven of the 35 countries on the IAEA board voted for the resolution, 5 abstained and 3 voted against.
The decision, says the BBC:
...follows days of intensive diplomacy at the agency and could lead to possible UN sanctions against Iran.
Tehran said that if it was reported it would end any co-operation, and any chance of a compromise will be lost.
A Friday vote was planned but delayed in an attempt to persuade as many nations as possible to come on board, and send a stronger message to Iran.
Diplomats speaking on background said the decision was also put off because the United States objected to a clause indirectly criticizing Israel's nuclear program. Israel practices what it calls "ambiguity" in the matter - neither confirming nor denying that it has nuclear weapons. The CIA has reported Israel has somewhere between 200-400 such weapons, a major point of contention in the Middle East, with Arab countries and Iran calling U.S. unwillingness to confront Israel in this matter clear evidence of a double-standard.
Reuters reported that
The vote had been delayed by a day of haggling between EU powers and 15 developing states from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). These tried to soften the resolution for fear it would antagonize Iran and curb their own nuclear energy options.
Diplomats said the EU rejected their attempts to delete a clause mandating that all IAEA investigative reports and resolutions, including one in 2005 declaring Iran non-compliant with nuclear non-proliferation rules, be passed to the Council.
"That was a 'no-no'. Paragraph 2 is the holy grail for us," one EU diplomat said.
Another Western diplomat said that to remove Paragraph 2 would have surrendered to Iranian intimidation. "The threat (to restrict inspections) is on everyone's minds but we consider it blackmail and if we give in to that, there's no end to it."
Diplomats from the EU trio of France, Germany and Britain said they were determined to induce the Islamic Republic to come clean on what they suspect is military involvement in nuclear work, and to stop enrichment of uranium.
The resolution comes amid a backdrop of saber-rattling by both Israel and the United States that culminated in President Bush's State of the Union address earlier this week.
For more than two years, there have been hints of an impending Israeli or U.S. attack on Iran for what both claim is a concerted and secret Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons. This was heated up a year ago when former U.N. nuclear inspector Scott Ritter and investigative journalist Seymour Hersh suggested that an attack might come as early as June 2005.
In December, Turkish papers reported that CIA Director Porter Goss had told Turkey's leaders to be prepared for an air strike against Iran, warning them that Iran was supporting the PKK, a Kurdish secessionist group that has used violence in its effort to create a separate Kurdish state that would encompass parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran.
It would not be unreasonable to view Goss's alleged comments through the prism of propaganda, a kind of bluff conveniently leaked to make Iranian leaders nervous about U.S. intentions. Or if might not be a bluff.
And, in what is the scariest bit of saber-rattling so far, Uri Dan at the Jerusalem Post says that Rafi Eitan, the near-legendary co-founder of Shin Bet and Mossad, is saying Iran may already have a Bomb or the makings for one.
Many believe that logistically, diplomatically and practically, an attack - particularly one that includes ground troops - would be difficult to pull off, as detailed in a war-game conducted by the Atlantic Monthly and published under the title "Will Iran Be Next" in the December 2004 issue. Other views on the matter can be found in the Strategic Studies Institute document, Getting Ready for a Nuclear Iran.
While a ground attack is probably out of the question, especially given the situation in Iraq, other possibilities are available. The Washington Post reported in May that:
Early last summer, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved a top secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" directing the military to assume and maintain readiness to attack hostile countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically Iran and North Korea.
Two months later, Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force, told a reporter that his fleet of B-2 and B-52 bombers had changed its way of operating so that it could be ready to carry out such missions. "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert," Carlson said in an interview with the Shreveport (La.) Times. "We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes." Carlson said his forces were the U.S. Strategic Command's "focal point for global strike" and could execute an attack "in half a day or less."
In the secret world of military planning, global strike has become the term of art to describe a specific preemptive attack. When military officials refer to global strike, they stress its conventional elements. Surprisingly, however, global strike also includes a nuclear option, which runs counter to traditional U.S. notions about the defensive role of nuclear weapons.
As I detailed here a little over a week ago, in Nuke Iran Now! Let's Kill a Million or Three, an attack which included some of the "low-yield" nuclear weapons - which Condoleeza Rice and others have spoken about using against states building weapons of mass destruction - would be devastating. And the diplomatic fallout, not to mention the blowback possibilities, could be huge.
The same could be said for an attack using conventional weapons. But the Bush Administration, which we often say doesn't learn from its mistakes, clearly has played a better game this time around than it did in the run-up to the Iraq War. Twenty-seven states now support referring the Iran matter to the Security Council, including Germany and France, who were adamantly opposed to invading Iraq. Whether the French and Germans and others have taken this stance because of real fears about Iran's potential nuclear weapons capabilities or because they simply believe the United States will attack if they don't get Iran to back down is anybody's guess.
While some have argued that Iran has every right to have nuclear power under the NPT - and even a sovereign right to build nuclear weapons if it wants them - such putative rights will be worthless talking points should Tehran fail to comply with U.S. and IAEA wishes. Without a sharp change of course - whether it is within its rights or not - Iran no doubt will face sanctions, and possibly something far worse.
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