: Iran: The new Iraq?

Following the shocking decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran’s nuclear case to the UN Security Council, which can impose sanctions against Tehran, it is essential to bear in mind a number of points;

1- Attempts by the United States and the European Union to stop Iran’s nuclear program is unfair. Iran has an "inalienable right" to peaceful nuclear technology as a signatory to the NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY. Countries that possess sufficient nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over didn’t sign this pact. Washington and its European allies have for decades turned a blind eye to Israel. To the Iranians, it seems like some people have sovereignty while others do not.

"Our nation can't give in to the coercion of some bully countries who imagine they are the whole world and see themselves equal to the entire globe," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said as the EU circulated the UNSC referral resolution at the IAEA.

2- Iran, which signed additional protocols and volunteered to suspend nuclear activities during talks with the European Union, has gone beyond its obligations under the NPT to assure the West of it's peaceful intentions. Yet the United States and the European Union asked the IAEA to send its dossier to the Security Council for “violating its nuclear obligations”. In fact, it is the U.S. and other nuclear powers that have not fulfilled their obligations under the NPT, including those stated in Article VI: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” It is no surprise then when Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki describes the recent IAEA vote as “illegal”, and says that it is "the result of a political will based on U.S. hostility" toward Iran.

3- Although the Iranian government said that it will end its voluntary suspension of industrial-scale uranium enrichment, a process that generates fuel for nuclear reactors or a nuclear bomb - depending on the level of enrichment, it is still a long way from the production of atomic weapons.

There are two ways to produce an atomic weapon: using either highly enriched uranium, or separated plutonium. According to the influential London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Iran isn’t capable of pursuing either or both routes. Moreover, IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei assured the world on December 6, 2005 when he said that the IAEA has found no "smoking gun" in Iran that would indicate a nuclear weapons program.

4- "Yesterday we had two options. One was the option of resistance and the other was surrender," Mottaki said following news of Iran’s referral to the UN Security Council.

"We chose resistance." Why and how does Iran resist? The West fails to realize that Iran’s current power in the region is a direct result of the invasion of Iraq and the rise of a Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. The growing pressures against Iran over its NUCLEAR PROGRAM have more to do with Tehran’s close ties with the Iraqi government and the future consequences of such relations.

5- Asked whether Congress had the political will to use military force against Iran if necessary, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said: "The answer is yes, absolutely… We cannot allow Iran to become a nuclear nation… We need to use diplomatic sanctions. If that doesn't work, economic sanctions, and if that doesn't work, the potential for military use has to be on the table."

Also Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld didn’t rule out using military force against Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions. "All options, including the military one, are on the table," he recently said. But warmongers fail to realize that any diplomatic escalations, economic sanctions or military decisions will directly affect the ordinary Iranians, who have nothing to do with their fears, much like what happened to the Iraqis who were the real victims of years of sanctions against Saddam’s regime and who bore the brunt of the attacks following the illegal 2003 invasion.

6- Iran needs the nuclear technology to generate electricity. Some argue that it doesn’t need nuclear power as it has the world’s second largest oil and gas reserves. But global oil production is expected to peak in 5 to 25 years, and demand is expected to exceed supply sometime after that.

Therefore, it makes sense for Iran to look toward alternative means for generating electricity. Tehran has a good reason to preserve oil for other purposes including increasing revenues from export.

7- If Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons, it would pose a real threat to its regional neighbors, not the United States. Israel could defend itself because it is the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East. It is believed to have more than 200 nuclear weapons, the missiles to deliver them to Iran, and it is no secret that it has been threatening strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, just as it launched an unprovoked attack on Iraq's, Osiraq nuclear electric power plant in 1981. Even if Iran poses a direct threat to the U.S., so is North Korea. Moreover, a military attack against Iran wouldn’t be consistent with the U.S.’s reaction to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan.

Singling out Iran for military action or trade sanctions under such circumstances, especially after the U.S.‘s failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, would inflame anti-American sentiments in other countries, particularly in the Islamic world, making it even more difficult to gain support for other U.S. foreign policies.

“Thirty years ago, Iran developing a nuclear capacity caused no problems for the Americans because, at that time, the Shah was seen as a strong ally, and had indeed been put on the throne with American help”, Tony Benn, Britain's secretary of state for energy from 1975-79, was quoted as saying.

"There could hardly be a clearer example  of double standards than this, and it fits in with the arming of SADDAM to attack Iran after the Shah had been toppled, and the complete silence over Israel's huge nuclear armory“.