The Case Against Iran: Strengthening or Weakening?

The Economist:

Why is the pressure suddenly seeming to leak out of the diplomacy to persuade Iran to end its nuclear dabbling—just when the regime is flaunting its defiance? Despite frantic lobbying that will continue at next week's United Nations summit in New York, Britain, France and Germany are struggling to keep up support for efforts to coax a recalcitrant Iran to give up—or else!—its plans to enrich uranium and make plutonium, two ingredients of civilian nuclear fuel that can also be fashioned into the fissile core of a bomb.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear guardian, confirmed this week that Iran has resumed work at its uranium-conversion plant at Isfahan, where uranium ore is turned into gas, ready for later enrichment. That breaks Iran's agreement with the Europeans, bringing months of talks to an end. They now want the IAEA's 35-nation board, when it meets on September 19th, to report Iran to the UN Security Council—something it should have done two years ago, when two decades of nuclear deception first came to light, but deferred to give diplomacy a chance. Now Russia, among others, is balking. So is Iran about to shake off all nuclear restraint? READ MORE

Its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will make new proposals, possibly next week in New York, that his officials claim will reassure the world about the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme. Yet conversion work will continue, they insist; future talks can cover the conditions under which Iran will resume full-scale enrichment work in the fast-spinning centrifuges it had already been building at Natanz before inspectors were tipped off three years ago.

Iran has played nuclear hardball like this with the Europeans before, only to beat a retreat in the face of concerted diplomatic pressure. But on this occasion the Europeans themselves acknowledge that, as the diplomatic clock runs out, consensus on the issue at the IAEA is starting to weaken.

Venezuela, increasingly friendly with nose-thumbing Iran, is unlikely to go along with the Europeans. Others, such as Brazil and South Africa, are critical of Iran but leery of reporting it to the UN for activities that are not explicitly ruled out by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and that they have an interest in pursuing themselves. So Iran has been pressing what it claims is its right to fuel-making technologies under the treaty.

In fact, the NPT promises only the benefits of civilian nuclear power to its members, not particular technologies, and only to those with a nuclear programme under proper IAEA safeguards. The Europeans have offered Iran safer nuclear technologies. Russia is already contracted to supply fuel to Iran's one nuclear power reactor, at Bushehr, and would happily do more. Other countries use nuclear power without making their own fuel.

Timetables for breakout

Yet what's the rush? In a report this week, entitled “Iran's Strategic Weapons Programmes”, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies concludes that, even without technical hitches, Iran is still some five years from having enough highly enriched uranium at its declared nuclear facilities for its first bomb (America thinks it might take the Iranians longer; Israel thinks they could do it a bit faster). But that assumes Iran has no secret enriching under way. If it has, skills acquired by restarting nuclear work the inspectors know about could help it break out of the NPT more quickly.

So suspicions about Iran's nuclear ambitions continue. This week the IAEA once again documented Iran's past nuclear transgressions: failing to account properly for importing enrichment equipment and materials from the nuclear black market; secretly enriching uranium and separating plutonium; and experimenting with polonium and attempting to import beryllium, two materials with civilian uses that also can be used as triggers for bombs.

Though reasonably sure that the traces of highly enriched uranium they found came from black-market equipment from Pakistan, the IAEA's inspectors still have no explanation for extra traces of the low-enriched sort. They cannot, they say, be certain that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.

Yet even some of those sceptical of Iran's nuclear motives fret that referral to the Security Council might not help. Iran has already been growling about disrupting oil supplies through the Gulf. If pushed, it could end co-operation with the IAEA. North Korea's even more flagrant breaches, and then its withdrawal from the NPT, were reported to the UN, but China blocked further discussion. Will Russia do the same for Iran?

The Europeans are keen to show this is not an argument between themselves and Iran, but between Iran and all who would uphold the NPT rules. Russia had been quite helpful. But this week its foreign ministry—saying now was not the time to involve the UN—set a different tone. So Russia's Vladimir Putin, like China's Hu Jintao, can expect an earful about Iran from President George Bush in the wings of next week's UN meeting.

Would bringing Iran to the UN simply give America or others an excuse to take extreme measures, even using military force? The Europeans insist their aim is to strengthen the authority of the IAEA and its inspectors, not to usurp it. But they have a lot of persuading to do.