DAR AL ISLAM - IRAN: OUR NUCLEAR PROJECT IS UNSTOPPABLE

Nuclear project is unstoppable, says Iran
By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent

Iran urged Western governments to "accept the new reality" of its nuclear programme yesterday as the regime disclosed a central plank of its strategy for resisting outside pressure.
Teheran will try to present the world with a fait accompli by pressing ahead with uranium enrichment on an industrial scale at its nuclear facility in Natanz.

This highly sensitive procedure breaches three United Nations resolutions, all passed under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter lending them the strongest legal authority.

But Iran says that Western governments must accept this defiance before any substantive talks on the future of the nuclear programme can begin. "The suspension of enrichment is not acceptable either as a precondition to negotiations or as a result of such talks," said Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister. He added that Iran was "ready for dialogue" if there was "something new to say". But the "other party must accept the new reality" of Iran's large-scale enrichment of uranium, said Mr Mottaki.

At present, Iran's relations with the West are deadlocked. America will not talk to Iran unless it stops enriching uranium and accepts the relevant UN resolutions. Iran will not talk to America unless Washington accepts that enrichment will take place and Teheran will continue defying the UN.

In this atmosphere, substantive negotiations seem unlikely. In the meantime, the Security Council is reviewing the nuclear crisis every 60 days. Unless Iran backs down - which appears increasingly unlikely - it will continue to tighten the sanctions it has already imposed on the Islamic republic.

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and


Iran Calls the UN's Bluff
By William R. Hawkins

In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 29, R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said, “Just this past weekend, the U.S. led the Security Council in a 15-0 vote to condemn and sanction Iran for the second time in three months. Despite the fulminations of President Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran is not impervious to financial and diplomatic pressure. It is clear to us that concerted international pressure is helping to undercut the Iranian regime’s sense of ascendancy, unnerve its overly confident leadership, and clarify to it the costs of its irresponsible behavior.” What a difference two weeks can make in turning such declarations on their head!

Iran’s capture of 15 British sailors and Royal Marines the day before the UN vote demonstrated that Tehran still has its sense of “ascendancy” and confidence. Iran struck at sea in the face of a U.S. show of naval force by two aircraft carrier groups meant to back the UN vote. The hostage crisis was entirely manufactured and stage-managed by President Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad to call the West’s bluff. And to prove that the release of the British personnel 13 days later– after the broadcast of their “confessions,” was not a sign of retreat by Tehran, a massive roadside bomb destroyed a British armored vehicle and killed its four man crew the next day in Basra. Major General Mohammed al-Moussawi, chief of police in Basra, said such an explosive device had not been used in southern Iraq before, but was of a type supplied by Tehran to pro-Iranian factions of the Mahdi Army. It should be noted that when Ahmadi-Nejad released the British hostages, he called on London to withdraw from Iraq.

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The real problem, however, is that the only powers with the means to apply real pressure– the U.S. and UK, are also reluctant to act, giving the impression that they are fearful of Iran.

No wonder Ahmadi-Nejad was able to declare April 9 “nuclear day” in Iran, announcing that his country could now enrich uranium on an “industrial scale.” Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said Iran will not accept any suspension of its uranium-enrichment activities and urged world powers to accept the "new reality" of the Islamic republic's nuclear program. In the wake of recent events, it is clear why Tehran could believe that the world had already accepted their rise to major power status.

and


How Iran Probed, Found Weakness and Won a Triumph
By John R. Bolton

Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, an improbable Easter bunny, scored a political victory, both in Iran and internationally, by his "gift" of the return of Britain's 15 hostages. Against all odds, Iran emerged with a win-win from the crisis: winning by its provocation in seizing the hostages in the first place and winning again by its unilateral decision to release them.

The debacle, from its murky start in the Gulf to its end on a Tehran television stage, must be seen in the larger context of Iran's efforts to project power in the Middle East and beyond. Through the aggressive, two-decades-long pursuit of nuclear weapons; by massive financial and armaments support to Hizbollah, Hamas and other terrorists; and by its growing subversion in Iraq, Iran's government today is a theological revolution on the march.

Carried out by naval units of the Revolutionary Guard, the core military support for Iran's Islamic revolution,the incident was deliberate and strategic, not simply a frolic and detour by a zealous local commander. Snatching the hostages, whatever waters they were in, was a low-cost way of testing British and allied resolve. What would the British reaction be? In the first instance, the hostages surrendered without a shot fired in self-defence, a strange reaction in a war zone. By day 13, Iran already had its final answer: not much of a reaction at all. This passive, hesitant, almost acquiescent approach barely concealed the Foreign Office's real objective: keeping the faint hope alive that three years of failed negotiations on Iran's nuclear weapons programme would not suffer another, this time possibly fatal, setback.

Tony Blair, the prime minister, said he was "not negotiating but not confronting either". If there were no negotiations and there should not have been in response to a hostage-taking it simply underlines the unilateral nature of Iran's release of the hostages. Moreover, what does "not negotiating but not confronting" actually mean? Unnamed British diplomats briefed the press that they had engaged in "discussions" but not negotiations. One can only await with interest to learn what that distinction without a difference implies. In fact, the doublespeak will convince Tehran and other rogue states and terrorists that hostage-taking throws Britain into a state of confusion, not a state of resolve. The wider world's response was no better. The United Nations and the European Union contributed their usual level of determination precious little and the US was silent, at Britain's behest.

That is the lesson for Iran: it probed and found weakness. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, the president, can undertake equal or greater provocations, confident he need not fear a strong response. Iran held all the high cards and played them at a time and in a manner of its choosing. At the end, British diplomacy was irrelevant. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad was the puppet-master throughout, taunting and admonishing Mr Blair not to prosecute the hostages for illegally entering Iranian waters, as they had confessed. That is chutzpah! Amazingly to US ears, some in Britain criticised Mr Blair for being too tough.

Emboldened as Iran now is, and ironically for engagement advocates, it is even less likely there will be a negotiated solution to the nuclear weapons issue, not that there was ever much chance of one.

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Indisputably the winners in Iran were the hardliners. It was Mr Ahmadi-Nejad who stood in the international spotlight for hours on end, who awarded medals to the Revolutionary Guards who captured the hostages, who announced the hostages' release and accepted their thanks. Even if the moderates concurred in the outcome, divergent motives can lead to the same conclusion. The question is, who increased relative to others in the Iranian calculus of power? The evidence unmistakably points to Mr Ahmadi-Nejad. If strengthening his hand within the Tehran leadership amounts to success for British diplomacy and Iranian moderates, one hesitates to ask what would constitute failure.

Unfortunately for the west, the mullahs had a happy Easter in Tehran. The only thing risen from this crisis is Iranian determination and resolve to confront us elsewhere, at their discretion, whether on Iraq, nuclear weapons or terrorism.



Pertinent Links:

1) Nuclear project is unstoppable, says Iran

2) Iran Calls the UN's Bluff

3) FrontPageMag.com

4) How Iran Probed, Found Weakness and Won a Triumph