Geopolitics

Iran’s Dilemma
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Issue Net Edition | Date : 27 Mar , 2015

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, holds a meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, over Iran's nuclear program, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Wednesday March 18, 2015. Negotiations are expected to continue until Friday. And although neither side is promising a breakthrough over the next three days, each is hoping to resolve as many lingering issues as possible, from the speed of a U.S. sanctions drawdown to the level of inspections on Iranian nuclear sites. (AP Photo/Brian Snyder, Pool) (photo courtesy: Washington Post)

The recent temporary impasse in negotiations with Iran by the six world powers in Switzerland has been in global focus. While the negotiations are to be resumed shortly, the US has accused Israel of spying on the negotiation process. Though Israel has denied it, why should Israel not do so when the outcome impacts its national interests directly, especially with close Iranian support to Hamas? Would not China and Russia too have resorted to such spying if they were not part of the negotiations?

The biggest sticking point in the negotiations, as per Western officials, remains Iran’s demands to have no limits on research and development of advanced centrifuges, machines that purify uranium for use in nuclear reactors…

The trend-lines in global negotiations generally boil down to West versus the Rest with US leading the former pack. However, in these negotiations, one European negotiator has gone on record to say that while the six powers were “generally unified”, the Obama administration was under pressure due to concerns that the Republican-led Congress might wreck any agreement. He added that France wants more stringent restrictions on Iran. He also pointed to the “great paradox” that Congress and Israel have put pressure on the Americans instead of pressurizing Iran while latter is what was needed. The Iranian delegation reportedly returned home from Switzerland due to passing away of mother of the Iranian President.

The earlier March 30 deadline for the agreement is now being hinted upon as extended to June 30. Whether an can come through by the latter date too is questionable because Iran wants all sanctions lifted with the signed deal while the West sees no possibility of this. Obama has said restrictions on Iranian nuclear work should be in place for at least 10 years more while France wants it to last for at least 15 years with another decade of intense monitoring.

The deadlock in the negotiations actually was triggered when Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, Iran’s Supreme Leader received a letter sent by 47 US Senate Republicans saying, “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations that you may not fully understand our government, specifically Article 2, Section 1 of the Declaration of Independence,” the Senators explained in the letter. “It states that the President must be born in the US and not in a foreign country such as Kenya, Indonesia or Hawaii. Since Barak Hussein Obama is not the real President, there’s no point in negotiating with him”, indicating any deal signed with Obama (because of his Arab lineage) would be null and void because of this law. So what does this convey to Iran coupled with the fact that US Presidential elections are slated for next year and, Obama cannot stand third time even as he will continue till early 2017 till the next President takes oath?

The biggest sticking point in the negotiations, as per Western officials, remains Iran’s demands to have no limits on research and development of advanced centrifuges, machines that purify uranium for use in nuclear reactors or, if very highly enriched, in weapons. But then Iran is not ignorant about US machinations of nuclearization. US has admitted that because of technological advances since 1960, a Fast Critical Assembly like at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency used for studying the nuclear physics of fast reactors, allows it to be converted to run on fuel not potentially usable for bombs, unlike HEU or plutonium. Axiomatically, like uranium, plutonium too is used to fuel nuclear power plants and for research purposes, but can also serve as the fissile material for the core of a nuclear bomb.

The fissile material agreed to be returned could be used to build 68 nukes equal in power to the one used in Nagasaki but Japan will still have plenty such material after repatriation is completed.

In 2014, Miles Pomper of Monterey Institute of International Studies had said, “Japan still has nine tons of separated plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons and is looking to make more.” Additionally, the IAEA data had showed Japan also had plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel at civil reactor and reprocessing sites, totaling 159 metric tons at the end of 2012. Though Japan agreed to return fissile material to the US, writing for The Center for Public Integrity, USA, Jeffrey Smith and Douglas Birch said on 14th February 2014 that the amount of plutonium Japan will return is a small fraction of what the country could soon begin producing annually. The fissile material agreed to be returned could be used to build 68 nukes equal in power to the one used in Nagasaki but Japan will still have plenty such material after repatriation is completed. The plutonium alone is 3.5 percent of what Japan has in its warehouses and less than one percent of the country’s total holdings (some stored abroad). It also represents just 4 percent of what the country can produce in a year at its new plutonium factory at Rokkasho that would have gone operational by now.

With Japanese Prime Minister Hata admitting in the Diet in 1994 that Japan had the knowhow to produce the bomb and delivery systems already in place, isn’t this signal countering China’s increasing aggressiveness in Asia Pacific? And isn’t South Korea similarly already a similar undeclared nuclear power without having resorted to testing?

What about America’s stoic silence to China’s blatant nuclear proliferation of Pakistan and North Korea plus supply of nuclear capable Silkworm missiles to Saudi Arabia? Didn’t the US permit Pakistan’s Sunni Bomb because of US-Saudi Arabia connections and also ignored further proliferation by Pakistan engineered by Musharraf through AQ Khan? It is American bloggers who write about Pakistani tactical nuclear weapons kept packed and ready for Saudi Arabia as and when the situation demands. Isn’t it because of the US-Saudi Arabia connection that Iran’s Shia Bomb is being blocked? So while Khomeini noted recently that he was pleased to learn that Obama is secretly a devout Muslim, he would have wondered which Muslim world Obama supports.

Interestingly, an article in Conservative Papers of March 23 titled ‘Act Now’ says, “The Independent has compiled some statistics on where ISIS supporters are tweeting from. Saudi Arabia ranks first with the most ISIS-supporting tweeters. The United States ranks fourth. This means that there are many Muslims who support ISIS right here in the US. Yet we still can’t have a discussion about Islam without being called Rracists, Bigots, and Islamophobes.” Not that nuclearization of more countries is good for the world but what conclusions should Iran draw from the case of Libya that US did not dare to touch till it was continuing with its nuclear program but destroyed it moment it gave up its nuclear weapons quest? What about nuclear North Korea chiding the US while China ensures the so called sanctions against North Korea remain diluted, if not nullified. So where is the code of conduct of the P-5?

…the creation of the ISIS was obviously part of US intelligence operations since their training inside Turkey and Jordan could not have been without the blessings of the CIA and Pentagon.

Iran surely remains suspect of future US intentions that advertently or inadvertently remains unpredictable. Years after Israel effectively neutralized Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981, the US invaded Iraq on trumped up charges of Iraq developing nuclear weapons. That the Sunni-Shia divide, though age old, was inflamed through employment of western mercenaries is also on record, which continues to ravage the Middle East. Didn’t the US install the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who stand banned in that country today? The 1980 ‘Carter Doctrine’ was categorical that US would use force to defend access to Persian Gulf oil. Accordingly, the Strait of Hormuz remains heavily militarized and US maintains large naval force in the region.

Post the US dumping Iran migrating to the era of confrontation, Iran had threatened shutting oil flow in event of war with US or Israel. Significantly, while the bombing of Afghanistan was underway for the US invasion in 2000, US DoD had already drawn plans to take out Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finally Iran, as disclosed by Gen Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO in March 2007. The bombing of Syria was to prevent the Iran-Syria-Iraq-Europe oil pipeline and not bomb Syria’s chemical facilities.

Then, the creation of the ISIS was obviously part of US intelligence operations since their training inside Turkey and Jordan could not have been without the blessings of the CIA and Pentagon. However, when Baghdadi went rogue, the handshake with Iran became necessary because of the requirement of boots on ground, other than the Kurds and Peshmerga fighting in their own interest. While boosting the ISIS was to counter Al Qaeda, what fallout this would have on Iran is not difficult to gauge. Not that the 40-nation US led coalition against ISIS has stopped the latter from smuggling and selling oil to earn $ 3 million per day on an average. The finesse of US use of proxies has been on display past several years.. You may kill Osama and Fazlullah, even maybe Baghdadi but these terrorists groups will continue to be used through underhand links. Presently, the Boogeyman (ISIS) appears to be being embedded in Afghanistan, ostensibly to force the Afghan Taliban into the reconciliation process in Afghanistan to get them into the government. But as the ISIS to counter Al Qaeda has become a greater problem, will another Frankenstein now raise its head in Af-Pak and in doing so what is the fallout on Iran through Afghanistan and Balochistan.

…Iran has regained primacy in US strategic calculus because of the need to integrate Iran more closely in the anti-ISIS matrix.

Last September, a delegation of ISIS reportedly visited the Jundallah terrorist group in Balochistan. The Jundallah have been carrying out cross-border raids inside Iran and are associated with the TTP. The fact is that pincer through Pakistan can hurt Iran much more. It is for this reason that Saudi Arabia funds 16 Divisions of the Pakistan Army, of which eight rotate through Saudi Arabia. That is why the US even overlooked Pakistani support for 9/11 on behest of Saudi Arabia. Today, the Saudi-Wahabi ‘Taliban’ have formed into regiments from ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Pakistan Taliban to the Pakistan Army and imagine the dividend to Saudi Arabis if Iraq can be replicated in the main prize – Iran? The moot question here is that when the US boosted the ISIS irrespective of it going rogue that may not have been expected, was it averse to a Saudi-Wahabi type of Caliphate even if the intention was to carve an integrated Sunni state from Iraq and Syria?

A cross section of scholars feels that Iran has regained primacy in US strategic calculus because of the need to integrate Iran more closely in the anti-ISIS matrix. But a closer scrutiny would reveal Iran was never beyond the US cross-hairs. Yes the coziness may remain for more time with the Iraqi offensive presently stalled against the ISIS but given the issues described above what the future holds for Iran is difficult to predict. That is the dilemma for Iran.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Lt Gen Prakash Katoch

is Former Director General of Information Systems and A Special Forces Veteran, Indian Army.

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2 thoughts on “Iran’s Dilemma

  1. Very well written.
    First they created Afgan Mujahideen to counter Soviets which in return turned to create Taliban and Al-Qaeda. They never cared.
    Only after 9/11 they charged at them because its only American Human Life that matters.
    To politically break Al-Qaeda they took Bagdadi away and trained and armed him to take away Syria from Assad because he is was still holding on after the CIA brainchild, the so-called ‘Arab Storm’
    Now he went rouge after seeing the large Petro-Dollars and Rich Arab Sunni’s investment in ISIS.
    Still they don’t care, it will only be after he attacks the American mainland that they will come to senses.
    If the US really is concerned about ISIS, can’t they ask Turkey (a NATO member) to close the cross-border trade with the ISIS held territories? Stop them from exporting oil and importing arms and manpower?
    They can very well stop them but they won’t.
    Its always a bloody CIA behind everything.

  2. There is no way that the US can be a long term ally of Iran or do any kind of deal with Iran. For several reasons. Firstly, the US is a committed ally of the Sunni-Wahabi (Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait, Al Shebab, ISIS, Boko Haram, Pakistan, Jaish e Mohammed, Taliban, Al Qaeda’s many ghosts etc.) Not only have they been partners in crime since the days of Sheikh Yamani and Daddy Bush in his avatar as a CIA director, but their Petro Dollars have purchased the loyalty, and collateral silence, of generations of US opinion and decision makers. The Sunni are a “majority” and the Shia (Iran) are a minority and the US has this same penchant for majoritarianism masquerading as “democracy” as India’s vote bank loving politicians. That the Sunni will rend them after finishing with the Shia as they did after dealing with Russia in Afghanstan is of as little consequence to the US elite as the antics of Islam in India and other “democracies” to their respective elites because the elites are sheltered in personal cockle shells of hubris, infallibility and immortality. So, why this sudden closeness to Iran? The answer lies in Obama’s petulance. Just as he gave a green light to the Ukraine “regime change”, MH 17 false flag and war with Russia because Putin’s open letter on Syria in the NYT made him look bad, Iran is Obama’s way of ticking off Bibi for bending Obama’s nose at the UN and in the US Congress. This too will pass and the US will return to the Sunni and Israeli side of America’s War on the World

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