IAEA Interviews Scientists and the Military

Arash Motamed, Rooz Online: Special Rooz report

In a momentous private reversal, president Ahmadinejad’s team is fulfilling a provision of the IAEA’s August 24th resolution by allowing the specialists of the international nuclear watchdog to interview Iranian nuclear scientists and military officials. After seating themselves in the country’s political saddle, Iran’s hardliners initially took aggressive and non-compromising postures regarding the country nuclear policy, reversing the earlier decisions and trends. Soon after that, and particularly after testing the waters and feeling the roadblocks, they began to moderate their stands privately, while still holding their guns in public.

The nuclear hardline policy that the new president and his team adapted was the center-piece of their foreign policy. Last year, when Iran signed the Paris accord, under which Iran unilaterally imposed a freeze on its nuclear enrichment and conversion activities until its negotiations with 3 European countries on behalf of the IAEA progressed, Ali Larijani who is now the chairman of the country’s National Security Council, said “Iran gave up a jewel in return for a candy bar.” At that time, Larijani was a presidential candidate from the ultra traditional faction of the conservative Heyate Motalefe Islami group (Islamic Coalition party) and after the victory of the hardliners became their point man in their attacks and advance.

When the IAEA met in late September to discuss Iran’s nuclear situation, the Ahmadinejad-Larijani team had not yet completely taken over the foreign policy functions from their predecessors. At that time, hardliners continued their harsh and hard attacks on the previous negotiators belonging to moderate president Khatami and lead by Hassan Rohani. They went as far as even calling them “traitors”, “baffled “, and “yielding” adding that they were not afraid of Iran’s case going to the UN Security Council and thus prepared the grounds for restarting the enrichment activities, contrary to the Paris accord.

In their criticism, hardliners compared the Paris accord with the Torkamanchai agreement that Iran had signed with Russia in the middle of 19 century by which Iran ceded much of its northern territory and towns to the Tsars in a short but decisive war. But facts and evidence support the notion that Rohani’s team had no choice but to accept the freeze because of the revelations of Iran’s non-compliance with provisions of the NPT in the past. So the team accepted the freeze with the Europeans who were under strong pressure from the US to take Iran to the UN Security Council, with the goal of promoting a policy of confidence-building which when completed would allow Iran to lift its self-imposed freeze.

In the words of one official involved in the talks, “The Paris accord had been signed by the leaders of the state, i.e. president Mohammad Khatami, State Expediency Chairman Hashemi Rafsanjani, and National Security Chairman Hassan Rohani.” So the accord was an official state agreement. By attacking the accord, the hardliners wished to achieve a number of goals: first discredit and thus remove the previous negotiating team; second, they wished to criticize the Supreme Leader Khamenei and Hashemi Rafsanjani.” He added that in the current power struggle, there are those who wish to do to Rafsanjani what some did to Ahmad Khomeini (ayatollah Khomeini’s son), i.e. to remove him from any political influence, and then strike the final blow on to the Leader of the Islamic Republic.

In the pursuit of their goals, hardliners took two dangerous steps: they restarted the nuclear enrichment activities in Isfahan while Khatami’s government was in the process of handing over the reigns of power to the new president Ahmadinejad and despite international and even local pressure not to lift the self-imposed freeze; and, they presented a defiant posture at the UN General Assembly in September, which lead to a negative international attitude towards Iran. It was under these conditions that the IAEA governing board passed a strong resolution against Iran, implicitly threatening to take Iran’s case to the UN Security Council if Iran did not comply with its requirements. According to Article 4-I of the resolution, it also requested that Iran provide access to individuals, documentation related to dual use equipment, certain military owned workshops and research and development locations to IAEA inspectors in an effort to implement transparency measures.

According to Iranian observers, this specific request which translates to mean that Iran should allow the IAEA to interview Iranian nuclear scientists and military officials is what had also been asked of Iraq before the toppling of Saddam.

The IAEA resolution has had a critical impact on the country’s political events. So while hardliners in Tehran tried to portray the IAEA resolution as a “failure”, the fact of the matter is that it has cornered Iran. Iranian political groups that had opted to remain silent during these critical days after Ahmadinejad came to power, began speaking out against the policies of the new president stating that the newcomers were taking Iran to the brink of a new war. With that pressure, Ahmadinejad’s team took a short break and then announced their new strategy to be the diplomacy of travel, in which they would travel to find new allies in the East and restart the nuclear talks “with no preconditions.”

The results of this new strategy will become clearer after November 24th when the IAEA meets again to discuss Iran’s nuclear dossier. In the meantime, the Iranian nation is kept in the dark as to what is being done behind the scenes and in the corridors of diplomacy. Still, two points stand out: Iran is trying hard to get the support and approval of Russia “by any means and at any cost”; and, private acceptance of the key requests of the IAEA as reflected in its resolution. The Russian card is played by promising them the business of Iran’s recycling needs, i.e. involving them in the fuel cycle, thus co-opting them. It is absolutely deplorable that the very same individuals and administration that once condemned former Iranian negotiators for allowing IAEA inspectors to carry out their task of verification of Iran’s nuclear installations, is now secretly allowing the same inspectors to return and interview the country’s nuclear scientists and military officials. According to Iranian analysts, these interviews are nothing but interrogations that will reveal the top secret aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. READ MORE

IAEA interviews with military officials have already begun, soon to be followed with nuclear scientists. And in true form, we shall probably be reading about these interviews in the foreign press, as Iran’s public continues to be kept in the dark.