High-stakes showdown looms on Iran

Tom Hundley, Chicago Tribune:

Later this week Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to report to the agency's board of governors that Iran has failed to heed demands to halt its uranium-conversion activities.

That will set the table for a week or two of intense diplomatic poker in which the U.S. and its main European allies will attempt to bluff Iran into abandoning efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Though the stakes are high--some experts believe Iran is within two years of building a nuclear bomb--none of the key players is holding a particularly strong hand. READ MORE

The U.S. position has been seriously weakened by the war in Iraq. Earlier this month President Bush said he had not ruled out the use of force against Iran, but the Iraq war has put a severe strain on U.S. military resources, and it is doubtful there would be much public or political support for extending the fight into Iran.

Record-high oil prices also have undermined the U.S. bargaining position. Given America's dependency on Middle East oil, analysts believe the Bush administration would not be eager to risk further price hikes by embarking on another military campaign in the region.

For the so-called EU-3--Britain, Germany and France--the showdown couldn't come at a more inopportune time. The Europeans have spent two years trying to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions by offering economic incentives, to no avail.

Now German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is in the thick of an election fight and does not want to admit that the European alternative to America's "cowboy diplomacy" has failed. Neither does British Prime Minister Tony Blair nor French President Jacques Chirac.

But Schroeder, in a recent campaign speech, managed to undercut the EU's position and strain U.S.-European solidarity when he effectively called Bush's bluff and ruled out the use of force against Iran. The German leader declared that the military option should be taken off the table because "we have seen it does not work."

Concerns for new regime

The Iranians have proved themselves skilled at playing a weak hand, but for a government in power for less than a month, thumbing its nose at world opinion and bringing upon itself a fresh round of United Nations sanctions would not be an auspicious start.

The crisis was set in motion earlier this month when Iran broke the IAEA's monitoring seals on the fuel-conversion line at its Isfahan plant, thus fracturing its deal with the EU-3 not to make nuclear fuel--seen by experts as the crucial step in the weaponization process.

Iran now says it wants to keep negotiating with the Europeans but that its decision to restart the fuel-conversion line is non-negotiable. If Iran doesn't back down, it would seem to give the Americans and the Europeans little choice but to refer the matter to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

That has always been the U.S.' favored plan of action, but the problem is sanctions work better as a threat than a reality.

"The Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese . . . don't want the issue to go to New York; only the U.S. does," said Gary Samore, a former U.S. National Security Council adviser on arms control and now a senior fellow at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Russians, who are helping Iran build its reactor in Bushehr, and the Chinese, whose appetite for oil has suddenly made them a major player in the world energy market, have their own concerns about a nuclear Iran, but neither would be eager to line up with the U.S. in a Security Council showdown.

"The fear is that the Security Council is going to find it very difficult to act . . . and that Iran will retaliate," Samore said. "Referral to the Security Council would lead to a confrontation."

A possible way out

Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington think tank, said a confrontation might be sidestepped if the IAEA's board took matters into its own hands.

"I don't see any reason why action can't be taken before referral," he said.

Sokolski suggested a resolution prohibiting IAEA members from cooperating with Iran's nuclear program. That, he said, would give Russia and China the political fig leaf they need to censure Iran.

The Iranians would prefer a deal. Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran wanted to expand the talks with the Europeans and bring in other parties. He also said Iran soon would unveil new proposals, possibly including an offer to accept intensive monitoring of all nuclear facilities in exchange for allowing Iran to continue with at least some aspects of the fuel-conversion process.