The US' Iran policy has changed several times since late May,
confusing the international media as well as leaving countries
involved clueless as to what to do next.
On November 4, 1979 Iranian students occupied the US embassy in
Teheran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days in response to
US giving political asylum to deposed Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza
Pahlavi. The US broke diplomatic relations with the Islamic
Republic of Iran on April 7, 1980 and imposed sanctions against the
oil-rich nation.
US President George W. Bush labeled Iran one of the "axis of
evil" countries soon after he took office in 2001. After the 9/11
terrorist attack in 2001, the US deployed military forces in the
Gulf area and toppled the Taliban regime in Iran's eastern neighbor
Afghanistan and Sadam Hussein in neighboring Iraq to the west,
while frequently talking about attacking Iran with military
force.
When the Iran nuclear issue emerged in 2002, foreign ministers
of Britain, France and Germany (then known as the EU3) visited
Teheran together and asked the Iranian government to sign the
Safeguard Agreement of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with the
International Atomic energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange for a
light-water reactor.
Iran signed the document on December 18, 2003 and suspended
production and installation of centrifuges used for uranium
enrichment. It then suspended its uranium enrichment project in
November that year.
The Bush administration was very unhappy about the EU3's move
and demanded that Iran stop all nuclear activities for good. Under
US pressure, EU3 told Iran to give up all activities concerning
uranium enrichment, resulting in the abrupt termination of
negotiations between EU and Iran.
It is fair to say that US-EU3 pressure on Iran over the nuclear
issue played a role in young and headstrong Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
election as Iranian president in June 2005. Not long after formally
taking office in August 2005, Ahmadinejad resumed uranium
enrichment in a show of steely resolve against US-EU bullying.
The Iran nuclear crisis gave rise to the "P5+1" mechanism
comprising the five permanent members of the UN Security Council
and Germany, which came up in June 2006 with a proposal designed to
encourage Iran to suspend uranium enrichment but received only a
"gray" reply from Teheran.
Against this backdrop, the UN Security Council passed the
Resolution 1737 on December 28, last year and the Resolution 1747
on March 24, this year, asking all member countries to take
necessary measures to stop selling items and technology that could
help Iran's uranium enrichment and development of nuclear weapons
delivery systems.
The two resolutions also list 23 entities and 27 individuals,
whose activities outside Iran should be monitored and reported to a
special committee set up by the UNSC.
Both resolutions demand Iran suspend its uranium enrichment
activities within 60 days, but was ignored by Teheran. Immediately
speculation mounted that the US would launch air strikes against
Iran's nuclear facilities. The rumors set global oil prices soaring
and stock markets shaking.
Four days after the 60-day deadline set in the Resolution 1747,
US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and Iranian Ambassador to Iraq
Hassan Kazemi Qomi held bilateral talks in Bagdad on May 28. The
meeting lasted four hours and was focused on the Iraqi security
situation, but drew intense attention and positive comments from
the international media.
Crocker told reporters after the meeting "the talks were
businesslike".
This author finds these words particularly thought-provoking. On
July 24, Crocker and Qomi held another meeting in Baghdad and
agreed to form a US-Iran-Iraq tripartite committee to advance
efforts to restore stability in Iraq.
Senior US and Iranian diplomats holding bilateral talks openly
qualifies as a breakthrough, 27 years after the US severed its
diplomatic ties with Iran and has helped other parties involved in
the nuclear issue make progress in their negotiations with Iran. On
June 22, chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani held talks with IAEA
Director General Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna and agreed to work out
an "action plan" in two months to resolve the issues not yet
settled during the IAEA's inspection of Iran's nuclear project.
Larijani then met with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in
Lisbon the next day for a "positive and constructive talk".
On July 12, Iran and IAEA reached an agreement over the
modalities of inspection. Thus, IAEA representatives have visited
Iran twice since early August to talk about a timetable for the
implementation of the "action plan".
On August 21, IAEA deputy director general Olli Heinonen and his
Iranian counterpart Javad Vaeedi made a joint announcement in
Teheran that they had reached an agreed working plan for resolving
the lingering issues over nuclear inspection, including a timetable
for the actual implementation of the agreement.
On August 27, the IAEA published at Iran's request the full text
of the agreement, which includes items such as the inspection of
Iran's Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant and the heavy water research
reactor in Arak, plutonium experiments and adding more
inspectors.
Iran has reiterated in the document that it is just a
politically motivated and baseless allegation by US intelligence
agencies that Iran has a "Green Salt Project" on high explosive
testing and missile re-entry vehicles.
The US has always held a negative attitude toward IAEA-Iran
cooperation, though it was also negotiating with Teheran at the
same time. On August 15, the US media reported that the US
government planned to list Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a
terrorist organization.
The Iranian side warned Washington that the Gulf would become
"hell" for Iran's enemies if they were to attack the Islamic
Republic. However, a senior Iranian diplomat laughed at the media
report, calling it a "propaganda game" of the US.
After Iran and IAEA reached an agreement on lingering issues
concerning nuclear inspection on August 21, US representative to
the IAEA Gregory Schulte said the agreement "has real
limitations".
Some IAEA officials expressed in private their disagreement with
Shulte's comment, saying it is unrealistic to expect Iran now to
comply on the whole package of demands by the Security Council, all
at once, when they remain under sanctions.
Why does the US keep threatening Iran while negotiating with the
Gulf country? One popular explanation is that the United States'
recent proposal at the UN to subject Iran to more sanctions ran
into objections, and by mounting threats against Teheran the Bush
administration can placate the "hawks' within its ranks who want to
use force against Iran on the one hand and pressure other parties
concerned for more efforts to push a new resolution on further
punishing Iran through the UN Security Council on the other.
But, can the US achieve the above mentioned goal? It is very
difficult to find a definite answer to the question. To most
countries of the world the US is one of those most ready to change
policies in a heartbeat. That means any country set on following
the US must be prepared for any negative consequence brought by
sudden changes in US policies. There have been quite a few examples
of this.
The US insists Iran's nuclear project could be connected to
nuclear proliferation, though Washington's stand on preventing
nuclear proliferation has not been exactly consistent. When India
conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, the US was the first to demand
worldwide sanctions against New Delhi, but it was also the first to
go back on its words not long afterwards.
When the Bush administration took office, it went a step further
by being the first nuclear power to sign an agreement on nuclear
cooperation with India, which is yet to join the non-proliferation
system, and is expected to implement it soon.
Needless to say, many countries that followed Washington's
example and cornered India would not have done so had they known
the US would change its non-proliferation policy so easily.
Sometimes US secret diplomacy also puts other countries in
embarrassing situations - finding Washington shaking hands with
their enemies overnight and themselves left in the cold. The US has
severed diplomatic relations with Iran for nearly 30 years, but no
one is certain their bilateral ties will not take a surprising turn
one of these days. One such example can be found in the "Irangate"
incident exposed during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
Right now, no one can absolutely rule out the possibility that
nuclear talks between the US and Iran may branch out to cover steps
to improve bilateral relations.
So, countries concerned should think rationally about any
negative impact from a US policy shift before deciding whether to
go along with any US initiative. Nations should exercise caution as
the US urges the UN Security Council to place further sanctions
against Iran while continuing to negotiate with Teheran.
The author is a researcher at the China Foreign Affairs
University
(China Daily September 6, 2007)
