Monday, November 19, 2007

Yes, But...

Kaveh Afrasiabi makes some good points as usual in his Asia Times Online piece about the IAEA's Iran report (which I finally tracked down here). Yes, Iran has made "substantial progress" in cooperating with the IAEA, especially on providing a paper trail documenting its declared nuclear activities. Yes, all the declared nuclear material is present and accounted for. Yes, more information is on the way, consistent with Iran's obligations under the working agreement it signed in August. Yes, in light of Iran's cooperation, the UN Security Council's demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment -- especially with no attached timeframe -- and the resulting sanctions regime is on tenuous ground under the NPT. Yes, Iran's intransigence about possessing its own nuclear fuel cycle is a result of twenty years of frustrated above-board attempts to strike deals for a civilian nuclear program, demonstrated once again in the difficulty it is having in getting Russia to ship the nuclear fuel necessary to get the Bushehr reactor online.

Yes, but...

The major sticking point in the report is not Iran's increased cooperation with monitoring its declared activity. It is its refusal to provide more transparency to verify that there is no undeclared activity taking place as well. That is extremely significant in this case because for twenty years Iran clandestinely pursued a nuclear enrichment capacity, and acquired materials and technology on the nuclear black market, in contravention of the NPT to which it was a signatory. It might very well be that the resulting program is a strictly civilian one. But it was nonetheless developed secretly.

Now granted, it's impossible to prove that something does not exist. Iraq War supporters' obstinate refusal to acknowledge that there were no Iraqi WMD's is a case in point. But the IAEA report clearly states that Iran could do considerably more to alleviate any suspicions. Which makes the report, contrary to what Afrasiabi maintains, a mixed bag.

A mixed bag is ostensibly a win for Iran, because it makes a third round of UN sanctions very unlikely. I'm convinced that whether or not a third round of sanctions is just or even necessary, a report that facilitated the realistic threat of a third round of sanctions (ie. a report that brought the Russians and Chinese on board) would have served as a major catalyst for defusing this standoff through diplomatic means. And that would have been a win for everyone.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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