Hardliners gain as Iran's nuclear negotiator quits
Ali Larijani, Iran's chief negotiator in the nuclear standoff with the west, dramatically quit his post yesterday in a move that many see as a victory for Ahjmadinajad and his stance that Iran should not weaken their resolve in claiming that enriching uranium is legal under the NNPT, and that the west have no right to demand that they desist.
The resignation of Larijani leads one to believe that, in the battle over whether or not to accede to the west's demands, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has decided to come down on the side of Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seem determined to persist with their point that enriching uranium is legal under the NNPT and that Bush, as Putin recently pointed out, has no proof whatsoever that Iran are engaging in the pursuit of a nuclear weapon.Larijani's resignation was tendered and accepted last week, but its announcement delayed, possibly to avoid overshadowing the visit to Tehran of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, who last Tuesday became the first Kremlin leader to go to Iran since Stalin in 1943. Larijani was said to have offered to quit during a meeting in which Ahmadinejad criticised his 'semi-independent' negotiating style. The president told him to put it in writing.
Saeed Jalili, deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs, who is believed to have become increasingly influential on the nuclear issue , will succeed Larijani. Elham said the new appointment would not affect policy. 'Iran's nuclear policies are stabilised and unchangeable. Managerial change won't bring any changes in policies,' he said.
However, the change is seen as signalling an even tougher stance by Iran towards the UN. 'It shows that the confrontation between Iran and the UN will reach an even higher point and the answer to all the demands will be, we will continue on our path and we don't care what comes out of the security council,' Issa Saharkhiz, a Tehran-based political commentator, said.
The security council has already passed two mild sets of sanctions against Iran for failing to suspend enrichment. A decision on a third embargo has been postponed until at least next month. Russia and China have been dragging their feet over demands from the US, Britain and France for tougher measures. The Bush administration has refused to rule out military strikes
Indeed, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa saying that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons was forbidden under Islam. Now, either Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is unserious about matters of religion and can lie at will and issue fatwa's to cover his lies - a point that I don't think many would care to argue - or he is being serious when he states that nuclear weapons would be an affront to Islam.
Many in the west appear to underestimate the extent to which science, and the development of nuclear energy, have become matters of national pride in Iran.
It is interesting to note that Khamenei has said that Iran's progress is dependent on investment in the field of science and technology and, to this end, he was among the first Islamic clerics to allow stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. Additionally, Khamenei has stated that he believes in the importance of nuclear technology for civilian purposes because "oil and gas reserves cannot last forever."Still, many Iranians say nuclear power resonates as a symbol of prestige and development. But it's not clear how much of that support extends to developing nuclear weapons.
A poll conducted in January by the Iranian Students Polling Agency showed that 85 percent of Iranians support nuclear research. But that number dropped to 64 percent when respondents were told the program would lead to international economic sanctions, and 56 percent if it were to spark a military attack.
Ahmadinejad has accused the west of engaging in "scientific apartheid" by insisting that only nations that the west approves of can develop nuclear energy.
Ahmadinejad is certainly within his rights under the NNPT to produce nuclear energy for domestic consumption and the acceptance of the resignation of Ali Larijani would appear to confirm that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accepts that this is a matter of national pride and that the US and others are stating that Iran can't be trusted to produce nuclear energy without being tempted to produce a nuclear bomb; despite Khamenei's fatwa that such a bomb would be forbidden under Islam.
At the centre of Bush's unproven claims against Iran is the inference that, in a country still heavily influenced and run by Islamic clerics, that their Supreme Leader could lie about his religious beliefs and issue fatwa's to cover those lies. It is an outrageous proposition.
And by backing Ahmadinejad's confrontational stance over Larijani's more conservative pragmatism, Khamenei is sending a very strong signal to the west that he is not for backing down here.
And all of this tension and bluff and counter bluff is taking place without George Bush ever having produced a scintilla of evidence that Iran are producing a nuclear weapon. The man who was 100% wrong regarding Iraq is insisting, once again, that a country is pursuing a weapons programme that the nation in question insists it is not. And, once again, he offers nothing to back his claims other than his repeated insistence that he is right.
Click title for full article.
No comments:
Post a Comment