http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-zarif30dec30,1,1787018.story?coll=la-news-a_section
The case for Iran
Alarmist assessments of Iran's nuclear program lack a
key component: evidence.
By M. Javad Zarif
M. JAVAD ZARIF is the Iranian
ambassador to the United Nations.
December 30, 2006
WHEN THE U.N.
Security Council was forced to convene on the Saturday before Christmas to vote
on Resolution 1737 — against Iran's nuclear program — it was only natural to ask
what the urgency was.
Iran had not attacked or threatened to use force
against any member of the United Nations; in fact, Iran has not attacked any
country for more than two centuries. Iran was not on the verge of building a
nuclear weapon. To the contrary, as a study released this week by the National
Academy of Sciences concludes, Iran needs nuclear energy in spite of its oil and
gas reserves.
At the same time, Iran has categorically rejected the
development, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons on both ideological and
strategic grounds. It has remained committed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty — which it ratified in 1970 — and was even prepared to provide guarantees
that it would never withdraw from the treaty.
All of Iran's nuclear
facilities have been inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran
has stated its readiness to place them under an even more stringent regime, as
it did from December 2003 to February 2006, when more than 2,000 person-days of
scrutiny resulted in repeated statements by the IAEA that there was no evidence
of a weapons program. As IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei recently said,
"A lot of what you see about Iran right now is assessment of intentions."
Many such assessments have been produced by the intelligence agencies of
governments with agendas hostile toward Iran. They are, as a result, misleading.
For instance, a draft National Intelligence Estimate by the CIA in 1992
concluded that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon by 2000. The Israelis have
been saying for many years that Iran will pass the "point of no return" within
six months or less.
But even these alarmist assessments concede that
there is no actual evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon and
that, even if it wanted to do so, it would not be capable of developing one
before 2010 or 2015.
So: no urgency, no imminent threat. The real reason
for the pre-Christmas meeting was to take advantage of a more favorable Security
Council composition — before new members arrive on Jan. 1 — and impose sanctions
on Iran.
The sanctions aim to punish Iran for refusing to suspend its
peaceful and legal uranium enrichment activities. However, suspension is not a
solution in itself; it can only provide time to search for one. A stopgap
suspension was already in place for two years, while Iran engaged in
negotiations. But over the last three years, the United States and its European
allies have never proposed any long-term solution other than insisting on an
indefinite suspension of Iran's enrichment activities.
In contrast, my
country has proposed real alternatives to ensure that its civilian nuclear
program will remain exclusively and indefinitely peaceful:
• On
March 23, 2005, Iran offered a comprehensive and far-reaching package to France,
Germany and Britain, including national legislation to permanently ban
developing or using nuclear weapons, technical guarantees against proliferation
and unprecedented, around-the-clock IAEA inspections. It also envisaged
relations of mutual respect and cooperation in a wide range of economic,
political and counter-terrorism areas. Despite their initial enthusiasm, the
Europeans refused to engage in negotiations on that package, insisting instead
on indefinite suspension, apparently because of U.S. objections.
•
On July 18, 2005, Iran offered to allow the IAEA "to develop an optimized
arrangement on numbers, monitoring mechanism and other specifics" for an
initial, limited operation at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, "which
would address our needs and allay [their] concerns." The offer was not even
considered.
• On Sept. 17, 2005, Iran expressed its readiness to
engage in serious partnerships with private and public sectors of other
countries for uranium enrichment in Iran "in order to provide the greatest
degree of transparency." Again, the offer was rebuffed.
• On March
30, 2006, Iran proposed establishing regional consortia for fuel-cycle
development with countries inside and outside the region, with joint ownership
and division of labor based on the expertise of the participants. No one cared
to respond to this proposal.
• During the September and October
2006 talks between Iranian nuclear negotiators and the European Union, Iran
proposed an international consortium, an offer that was initially considered
very promising by the Europeans but then was rapidly rejected as insufficient.
Once again, they insisted instead on suspension.
These offers were exact
replicas of the IAEA's main proposals on multinational fuel activities,
including enrichment, published Feb. 22, 2005. Iran's readiness to implement
them presents a unique opportunity not only to remove concerns about our
fuel-cycle activities but also to strengthen the Nonproliferation Treaty by
providing a model for other countries with similar enrichment programs. No other
country with similar technology has been prepared to be as flexible as
Iran.
Neither suspension nor sanctions can achieve the stated objective
of ensuring nonproliferation because Iran has now been compelled to develop
nuclear technology on its own. As many nonproliferation experts have already
pointed out, in countries with Iran's level of technological achievement, only
engagement, transparency and international monitoring can provide assurances of
nonproliferation.
Iran remains eager to dispel any doubts. It is not too
late to reach an agreement on meaningful measures that can serve our common
objective of limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
