DAR AL ISLAM - IRAN: IS IRAN A MOUNTAIN THAT DOES NOT MOVE?!?

Iran: A mountain that doesn't move
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

NEW YORK - Even though Security Council Resolution 1747 was passed this weekend to impose tougher new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, the mood at the United Nations was anything but celebratory.

The latest sanctions block Iranian arms exports and impose an international freeze on the assets of 28 people and organizations involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programs. The measures were adopted in a unanimous vote and give Iran another 60 days to comply with the UN's nuclear demands to stop uranium-enrichment activities or, most likely, face even harsher measures.

Yet with the council's South African president expressing "deep disappointment" about the disregard by the permanent five (the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China and Russia) plus Germany for a call for a 90-day time-out, and other non-permanent members criticizing the council's "selectivity", the vote was cast under a growing internal fissure at the UN.

This is a divide between the nations with nuclear weapons and developing nations in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The issue is further clouded by the Iranian seizure on Friday of 15 British sailors and British complaints of growing Iran-inspired attacks by Iraqi militants against their forces in southern Iraq.

The British ambassador to the UN praised the Security Council vote as a "unanimous and unambiguous signal" by the international community regarding the "unacceptable" Iranian path of proliferation. Yet even the self-congratulatory European diplomats had an air of unnatural circumspection about them - and not to mention duplicity as they went on to preach the need for Iran to respect its "non-proliferation obligations" under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

It was almost as if they had all been in another hall when several Third World representatives called for the need to respect the rights of all nations and questioned the perverse logic that weapons of mass destruction are safe in some hands and not in others. But in reality, no one, not even the US, can possibly ignore South Africa's warning that the Iran nuclear issue "affects the whole international community".

"Iran's behavior reminds me of the Japanese movie Kagemusha," a Third World delegate at the UN told this author. "It [the film] shows a warlord holding his ground against all odds and his troops putting up a gallant fight, and when they triumph, the warlord says 'a mountain doesn't move'."

Certainly, many Iranians and friends of Iran around the world hope so and wonder if they have seen the last of the Third World's caving in to the powers that be at the UN.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, addressing the council after its approval of Resolution 1747, repeatedly referred to the NAM's support of Iran's "inalienable rights" and expressed concern about double standards and hypocrisy with regard to his country.

Some good news as far as Iran is concerned is that the resolution deals with the issue of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East. This was after much resistance by the US and Britain to Arab lobbying for its inclusion as a veiled reference to Israel's nuclear arms, which have hitherto gone unnoticed by the Security Council.

Calling the council's actions "illegal" and "without basis", Mottaki drew comparison to the council's disregard for Iran's rights when the country was invaded by Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 1980. He pledged that just as Iran fought for its rights then, when Saddam occupied "38,000 square kilometers of Iranian territory" without an iota of condemnation by the Security Council, it would do the same now.

"This resolution by establishing sanctions is punishing a country that according to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] has never diverted its nuclear program ... with all its nuclear facilities under the monitoring of the IAEA's inspectors and their cameras," Mottaki said. He added that Iran has "fulfilled all its commitments to the IAEA and the NPT and demands nothing more than its inalienable rights under the NPT. Is there any better way to undermine an important multilateral instrument that deals directly with international peace and security? Isn't this action by the Security Council in and of itself a grave threat to international peace and security?"

Indeed, Iran announced on Sunday it was partially suspending cooperation with the IAEA. Gholam Hossein Elham, a government spokesman, was reported to have told state television that the suspension will last until Iran's nuclear case is referred back to the IAEA from the Security Council.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Iran: A mountain that doesn't move