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EUROPE
IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT AFTER IRAN NUCLEAR ASSESSMENT by JEFFREY LAURENTI:
18/12/2007 (MaximsNews Network)
UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network /
- 18 December 2007 -- President
Bush is certainly right that the new national intelligence estimate on Iran’s
nuclear capabilities does not mean that, “O.K., everybody needs to
relax and quit.” But its release marks yet another case of American retreat
and lost credibility.
Ironically,
the unintended consequence of his administration’s bristling unilateralism is
Europe’s ascendancy as global arbiter and deal-maker.
Washington’s
urgent warnings about Iran’s single-minded pursuit of nuclear weapons and even
“World War III” are now deeply discredited, and the president is right to
worry that the international community may lower its guard.
Iran,
after all, is still pursuing nuclear enrichment that could allow it to “break
out” of strictly civilian uses and lunge for nuclear weapons in just a few
years.
Iran is
under United Nations sanctions because the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese all
agree its enrichment activities would put it perilously close to a weapons
break-out. That risk is as real today as it was a year ago, when the Security
Council voted the first round of sanctions.
But the
administration’s drumbeat about an imminent nuclear threat was never
persuasive to its international partners. It’s the Europeans, who have
persistently negotiated with the Iranians despite Washington’s pouting and
hissing, who have been crucial to building successful U.N. coalitions.
Much
maligned by the White House, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s prudent
judgment and impartiality are again vindicated. Yet the IAEA still looks to the
Security Council to “incentivize” Iran to account fully for all its nuclear
activities and allow intrusive agency inspections of all its nuclear facilities.
Chinese hints
that “now things have changed” are disingenuous; Beijing never believed the
U.S. claims in the first place, and the IAEA’s issues have not changed. All
Security Council members, and not just the Europeans, need to press Iran to
“accelerate its cooperation,” as IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei insists, and
“work actively with the IAEA to clarify” remaining doubts about its program.
Certainly
the noose of international financial sanctions that Americans and Europeans have
tightened around Iran’s economy bracingly reminds Tehran of its own
vulnerabilities. When Chinese banks refuse credit to Iranian businessmen, as
began happening last
week, influential sectors of the Iranian establishment feel the jolt—and
they will not long permit political grandstanders to leave them hanging.
The U.S.
intelligence community’s conclusion that Iran ended its weapons research in
2003, after a European-Iranian agreement, will reassure America’s allies that
our national security professionals have successfully fought off intense
pressures from political hardliners to subvert standards.
But the
hardliners’ long battle
to suppress skeptical views in the intelligence estimate, and the fury with
which they turned on intelligence director John Negroponte in April 2006 when he
insisted Iran was “a number of years off” from a bomb, highlight their
continuing influence.
The war
hawks in Washington have not stopped shrieking. And while the Iraq quagmire and
adamant European opposition should have made a military attack against Iran
politically inconceivable long ago, President Bush has still not definitively
disavowed it.
Still,
the president in the past two years has increasingly rediscovered diplomatic
deal-making and edged away from failed policies of militarized unilateralism. If
he can follow the Europeans’ lead on negotiations with Tehran, Bush can set
the stage to lock in a nuclear-weapons-free Iran—early in his successor’s
term.
Indirectly
affirming the Europeans’ 2003 success in negotiating an end to Iran’s
weapons program with Iran’s previous reformist-led government, Bush
acknowledged Tuesday that Iran’s elections mattered: “What changed was the
change of leadership in Iran.”
“We
had a diplomatic track going,” the president explained—apparently a
reference to the Europeans’ diplomatic track, since he had barred
any U.S. discussions with Iran. “And Ahmadinejad came along and took a
different tone. And the Iranian people must understand that the tone and actions
of their government are that which is isolating them.”
Precisely.
Indeed, it seems increasingly likely that Iranian voters will oust Ahmadinejad
and his allies in 2009. But Bush’s point seems eerily applicable to the
American people as well.
A new
administration that sets a new tone—that is prepared to talk directly with the
Iranians, respect their legitimate security concerns, eschew bellicose threats,
work with America’s U.N. partners, and pursue nuclear policies consistent with
global nonproliferation obligations—can reclaim U.S. credibility and achieve
success on Iran.
Already,
two leading presidential candidates, John Edwards and Barack Obama, have
committed themselves to the global phase-out of nuclear weapons.
That
U.S. recommitment will make Iran’s verified renunciation of such weapons much
more achievable. Other aspirants should pick up the cue.
In the
meantime, Bush need only “take a different tone” and harmonize with Europe
to keep Iran’s program in bounds for his remaining thirteen months.
JeffreyLaurenti@MaximsNews.com
Labels: United
Nations, U.N.,
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