Tulin DALOGLU

Fantasies and realities; Opening direct talks with Iran

The Washington Times

BYLINE: By Tulin Daloglu, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Now that the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear capabilities has been made public, the answers to the basic questions should be obvious – yet they are anything but. The report’s conclusion – that Iran halted its secret nuclear weapons program four years ago – has put Mohamed El Baradei’s International Atomic Energy Agency into a position that defies its director-general’s traditional position toward the Bush administration.
The New York Times reported last week that although the agency embraces the findings of the intelligence assessment, “in truth (it) is taking a more cautious approach in drawing conclusions about Iran’s nuclear program.” A senior IAEA official told correspondent Elaine Sciolino, “To be frank, we are more skeptical. … We don’t buy the American analysis 100 percent We are not generous with Iran.”
President Bush’s rhetoric toward Iran has not been generous at all. At a November press conference, he said, “I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing the Iranians from gaining the means to make nuclear weapons.” While the intelligence assessment ends any possibility of military action against Iran’s nuclear sites during what’s left of the Bush administration, the trouble remains.
Jonathan Schell, a visiting lecturer at Yale University, explained in a Dec. 7 piece in Lebanon’s Daily Star: “Every technically competent person knows that the paths to civilian nuclear power and to nuclear weapons are the same, except for a few last, comparatively simple steps. The hard part is obtaining the fissionable materials – plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Once that’s done, any nation – or even a sophisticated terrorist group – can do the rest.”
“The NIE said Iran had a hidden, covert nuclear weapons program. What’s to say they couldn’t start another covert nuclear weapons program?” Mr. Bush inquired last week. “Of course,” Mr. Schell wrote, “[t]his does not mean that once Iran has adequate enrichment facilities, it will make a bomb. It is capacity, not intent, that counts.” And a Western official once told me that the U.S. has crossed its own red lines on the Iranian nuclear program. And those lines opened the door for Iran to continue on the path to acquire the capacity.
This is a backward approach to deadly serious affairs. It’s also very much a Middle Eastern style; if you can’t find a solution, just complicate it further. The NIE surely complicated an already difficult matter. Like Alice in Wonderland, the United States has shrunk to assure the Muslim Middle East that a war with Iran will not occur during the Bush administration. But the possibility that Iran will attain the capacity to build nuclear weapons remains on the table. And when it does, none of the Middle East’s Sunni Muslim nations will benefit. Yet they point Israel to shoulder the only aggressive stance toward the Iranian nuclear program.
At a global security conference in Bahrain, Defense Secretary Robert Gates appealed to Persian Gulf nations to demand that Iran “openly affirm that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons in the future.” Now, those nations must prove whether they will have the strength, the clout and the means to prevent Iran from acquiring the capability to build nuclear weapons. This odyssey is, however, doomed to spiral through a series of increasingly dark fantasies – such as Iran over valuing its momentary victorious position and not nearing any conciliatory talk.
Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian political analyst, observed in October that Iranians are not after a regional hegemony. “Saudi spends four times more than what Iran spends for its military,” he told me. “I don’t think Ahmadinejad is looking for a grand bargain.”
While Mr. Ahmadinejad may not be re-elected in the coming March elections, Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace suggested last week in The Washington Post that the White House can “[d]o the next administration a favor, by opening direct talks with Tehran.” If that happens, other countries in the region can surely be expected to refuse to cooperate with the conditions of any deal they have not directly and actively participated in.
A true fantasy would be a deal between Israel and Iran, which is the un-gettable get under the present Iranian regime. Yet if Iranians are sincere about bringing about a change in their own government, tomorrow could produce very different-minded partners. And if both the U.S. and Turkey become part of such negotiation, the Arab Middle East may end up regretting its protective umbrella over Iran today. That would further complicate the balance of power for the rest of the Sunni Arab Muslim states.
For now, fantasies are out of question. For now, the reality is that Iran has proven that it is a chess master and continues its path undeterred.
Tulin Daloglu is a freelance writer.