UN seeks deal on Iran sanctions
As the UN meets to attempt to agree on further sanctions against Iran, the Ayatollah Khamenei has dropped hints that further sanctions may lead Iran to develop nuclear weapons. At least that's what I take him to be suggesting. What else can the following statement mean?
"Until today, what we have done is in accordance with international regulations," he was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.
"But if they take illegal actions, we too can take illegal actions and will do so."
I don't know what Khamenei hopes to achieve by issuing such vague threats but he's actually playing into the hands of the Bush camp. They will take any hint that Iran may develop nuclear weapons as a justification of their policy.
However, the UN are very keen that any resolution passed should be passed unanimously, and there is an amendment that has been tabled by Qatar and Indonesia that the Security Council are said to be considering. They have called for any resolution to call for a nuclear free Middle East. Now, anyone serious about nuclear non proliferation would have to greet such a proposal with open arms, however, it's going to be fascinating to watch how the Americans deal with this suggestion.
After all, Israel, their greatest ally, operates a policy of nuclear ambiguity, where we all know they possess nuclear weapons but we all agree not to talk about it. With this proposal the US will be forced to show how serious they are about nuclear non proliferation.
I fully expect any such amendment to be vetoed by the US, proving that this is less about preventing nuclear proliferation than it is about preserving Israel's nuclear hegemony in the Middle East.
At which point the US's hypocrisy will be laid bare, although I don't expect we'll read much about that in the papers, where the Qatar and Indonesian proposal will be spoken of as "unrealistic" and "Utopian".
We must never forget that we have arrived at this impasse - a ridiculous place to find ourselves as Iran is still a decade away from developing nuclear weapons - only because George Bush imposed his silly demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment before any talks could take place. In effect, demanding that Iran concede that it's perfectly legal actions are illegal as a precondition of those discussions. This is diplomacy, neo-con style. It's failed on every previous occasion where they have attempted to use it, and it's going to fail again. But that won't prevent them from ploughing on.
Failure is such a common feature of Bush's foreign policy that it's hard to even get mildly surprised by such behaviour.
And so we stumble on... Hey ho...
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2 comments:
Kel,
Khamenei is playing on the fear of neighbouring Arab states, more than on the fears of the US and Israel. Basically he is the most active in these negociations and it is his responsibility and not Ahmadi-Nejad's. He disptached his special advisor, Velayati during the active phase of negociations and every time the negociations encountered a clear obstacle, Khamenei switched to a threatening mode. He knows that the US and Israel cannot attack now and conduct serious military operations. That's not a problem for the US and Israel because they know that iran will not acquire the nuclear bomb before ten years and they have plenty of time to strike. That's however the problem of neighbouring Arab countries. If Iran is isolated, it is likely that it will developp ar at least try to developp a bomb and what follows is climate of instability in the gulf, probably the perpetuation of the Iraq civil war and most importantly the rise of Iran as a superpower in Arab public opinion. That can do a lot of damage to the gulf states.
The recent obstacle is Russia who seem to be withdrawing its support to Iran.
As you say, the Bush adminstartion created this problem. Probably without it, without this threat that is the war in iraq and the direct threat to the mollahs regime, Iranians would have never thought to acquire the bomb. This is not their priority. Iran is going through a difficult economic period. The revolution failed the people. Without the US threats, a tranquil reform might have taken place in iran and priorities of iranoians could have been elsewhere. But look at the map. Iran is now surrounded by two countries occupied by the US, the S is threatening Iran, what would you like the Iranian regime to do ?
US foreign policy is driving the world to the abyss.
Sophia,
The only rational way out of this is for all parties to embrace a nuclear free Middle East. The Americans are being hypocritical when they say Iran mustn't acquire a nuclear weapon when they are turning a blind eye to Israeli nuclear weapons. And I think it's too late to prevent Iran acquiring superpower status in the region. That came with the toppling of Saddam.
And I agree that the US surrounding Iran - and denouncing them as part of the "Axis of evil" - is only driving the Iranians closer to acquiring one.
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