A Daily Briefing on Iran: Coping with Iran's Nuclear Ambitions

Fariborz Mokhtari, The Los Angeles Times:

Iran's nuclear policy is more about nationalism and pride than weapons and energy. If the United States' policy toward Iran ignores the national pride of the Iranian people, it could cause lasting repercussions that will set back relations between Iran, the United States and U.S. allies for a long time to come. READ MORE

The United States would be prudent to avoid the mistake the British made in 1951, when they turned a question of oil royalties into a groundswell of Iranian nationalism.

Washington may now be creating exactly such a reaction with its suggestion that Iran should be required to import fuel for its reactors rather than be allowed to have access to a nuclear fuel cycle of its own.

Such a requirement would make Iran a consumer, completely dependent on the nuclear market. That's not likely to sit well with the people of Iran, because they have learned the hard way not to trust foreign suppliers of essential resources.

In 1975, Iran purchased 10% of France's Eurodif uranium enrichment plant for $1 billion — yet despite its shareholder stake in the plant, Iran has received no uranium from it to date. A German company — possibly due to pressure from the United States — backed away from its contract with Iran to build the Bushehr nuclear power plant, and Germany revoked export licenses for equipment for the plant that Iran had already purchased. During the Iran-Iraq war, Washington cut off Iran's supply of parts for its U.S.-made warplanes and, at the same time, shared sensitive aerial reconnaissance on troop movements with Iraq. Given this history, the Iranians' desire to be self-reliant is not unreasonable.

BUT THAT is only part of the problem with U.S. policy toward Iran. Washington continues to accuse Iran of using its nuclear program as a cover for bomb making, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency found no direct evidence to support such a charge. The much-heralded "smoking gun" — highly enriched uranium traces discovered in June 2003 at two sites in Iran — was later debunked; the enriched uranium was found to have entered Iran on contaminated equipment purchased from Russia and Pakistan, thus confirming Iran's official explanation.

Lost in the rhetoric is the truth that Iran needs a way to deter its perceived enemies. Its security concerns are real and legitimate. The country is surrounded by U.S. bases and troops. Instability in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iraq feeds its security apprehensions. If Pakistan's government and its nuclear arsenal were to fall into the wrong hands, it would be menacing to Iran. And Iran's Arab neighbors, with few exceptions, proved unreliable (and in some cases, hostile) when Saddam Hussein's forces invaded the country, even remaining deafeningly silent as Iraq showered the Iranians with Scud missiles and chemical warheads.

Frankly, Iran cannot afford to develop only conventional deterrence against such threats, and it will not rely on imported armaments again. Which may explain why Iran's rulers would desire an alternative deterrent: limited nuclear weapons coupled with domestically manufactured missiles.

Still, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, who has negotiated with Iran's rulers for months, says that although they will not give up the right to a nuclear program, they will allow the agency to monitor it to assure it would not turn into a weapons program.

Iran's clerical rulers are a fraternity of cunning ideologues, but they are not suicidal. Talk of regime change and military attack from abroad only stiffens the clerics' hold on power, making them more inflexible. And Iranians, proud of their history as one of the world's oldest nations and profoundly nationalistic, would support the regime, even though it is unpopular, if the country were attacked.

Rather than threatening Iran, the United States should recognize that the way to change its policy is through soft diplomacy and education. It is crucial to distinguish the Iranian people from their clerical rulers. The people, especially Iranian youth, must be cultivated and persuaded that the best hope for their national ambitions does not lie with the policies of the regime. If the people are persuaded, their rulers will follow, and Iran's policies will change.