How to Stop Iran's Nuclear Threat
The Huffington Post, March 1, 2010
Foreign Affairs Analyst and Iran Expert
The United Nations' nuclear
watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in its
most recent report in February, declared for the first time
that they have obtained extensive evidence that "raises
concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or
current undisclosed activities related to the development of
a nuclear payload for a missile." The report indicated that
Iran told inspectors it was preparing to make its uranium
into a metallic form -- a step necessary for making the core
of an atom bomb despite Tehran's categorical claim of
general research.
In his introductory statement to the agency's Board of
Governors today, the IAEA's new Director General, Yukiya
Amano said that the UN nuclear watchdog cannot confirm that
Iran has not turned some of its nuclear material toward
weapons purposes. These alarmingly nefarious and clandestine
activities belie the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei's
preposterous claims on 19 February that "our religious
principles and beliefs consider such weapons to be a symbol
of destruction that is forbidden."
President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address,
described the threat of nuclear weapons as "perhaps the
greatest danger to the American people" and promised that
Iran's leaders would face new consequences for their
defiance of international obligations.
His appeal to Iran's rulers a year ago to "unclench their
fists" clearly fell on deaf ears. It turns out Tehran's
tyrants have been busy using their fists to brutally, albeit
unsuccessfully, suppress the pro-democracy uprising at home,
while defying their commitments internationally.
Thus it came as no surprise when they responded to the
latest ultimatum to diplomatically resolve the longstanding
nuclear standoff with a counter-ultimatum. In his speech at
Freedom Square on the anniversary of Iranian Revolution, as
chants of "Death to Dictator" were being heard, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad declared Iran a nuclear state. He announced that
Iran has mastered enriching to 20 percent--something the
IAEA report confirmed--and has the ability to enrich to 80%
which is a weapons usable grade. Tehran is clearly in breach
of UN Security Council's several resolutions calling for
suspension of Iran's enrichment program.
Washington is reportedly working on a set of economic
sanctions to dissuade Iran from further enrichment, while
acknowledging that, contrary to the 2007 National
Intelligence Estimate, Iran is still pushing ahead with
nuclear weapons development.
Apparently it would take a diplomatic miracle to bring
Russia and China on board with tough sanctions. Russia was
among the few countries to endorse Ahmadinejad's disputed
election grab in June; hence the chants of "down with
Russia" in recent anti-government protests. And China
recently rushed its delivery of advanced anti-riot armored
trucks to the ayatollahs' embattled regime.
That being said, a true appreciation of the nationwide
uprising in Iran would breathe new life into the power of
sanctions. The David and Goliath battle raging in Iran, at
its core, is a struggle for democracy, popular sovereignty
and rule of law in place of theocracy, tyranny and rogue
behavior. The outcome will definitively determine the future
of Iran's nuclear weapons program, and that is the key
element the West needs to comprehend.
The last three decades have shown that sanctions alone are
not enough to compel the regime to abandon its nuclear
weapons program. The regime's leadership rightly believes
that it is in the midst of a do-or-die struggle against an
increasingly empowered opposition. Backing down in any
arena, particularly the very visible nuclear deadlock would
be lethal.
Slogans chanted by the protesters across Iran, such as
"Death to Khamenei," "Death to the Dictator," and "No to
Gaza, No to Lebanon, I will die for Iran," make it clear
that Iranians seek not just an end to the religious
dictatorship; they also want an end to its rogue behavior
abroad. Their chant "freedom is our inalienable right" is a
direct jab at Ahmadinejad's favorite phrase, "nuclear energy
is our inalienable right." Despite turning Tehran into a big
garrison last Thursday, and despite the unprecedented wave
of arrests, torture, and execution of dissidents in recent
months, hundreds of thousands braved the massive clampdown
and marched against the supreme leader all over the country,
calling for an end to the clerical dictatorship.
It is further reassuring that the opposition movement
People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) seeks a
nuclear-free Iran. This group has repeatedly exposed
Tehran's nuclear weapons secrets at great risk to its
network in Iran. The group has "a pretty good record,"
according to Frank Pabian, Senior Nonproliferation
Infrastructure Analyst at Los Alamos National Laboratory in
New Mexico. "They're right 90 percent of the time," he told
the New York Times in January.
In this framework, the triumph of the opposition is a much
surer way to defuse the nuclear threat and end the
Tehran-sponsored bloodshed in Iraq and the region. Indeed,
it should be President Obama's Iran policy linchpin.
The indigenous opposition movement does not ask for money or
arms, much less troops. It does demand, as do a large
bi-partisan group of Members of Congress, that at this
critical juncture it not be shut out of the Iran policy
debate; i.e., no Iranian opposition group should remain
blacklisted by the State Department. To be sure,
comprehensive sanctions meant to cripple the regime's
economic, diplomatic, and above all security apparatus,
would prove effective only when they are implemented within
the framework of a new policy aimed at empowering the
movement for change.
The wheels of change ending the reign of the clerics are
rolling; it is only a matter of time. One protester recently
described the regime's heightened show of force in the
streets of Tehran as "the last efforts of a dying state in
denial." The opposition's triumph will close Tehran's
nuclear dossier and end its regional mischief-making once
and for all. President Obama should accelerate his gradual
shift away from Tehran's ruthless rulers and stand with the
Iranian people. This would bring U.S. policy in line with
his State of the Union promise that "America must always
stand on the side of freedom and human dignity."
Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of "The Iran Threat:
President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis"
(Palgrave MacMillan). Jafarzadeh exposed the Natanz uranium
enrichment facility in 2002 which triggered the UN
inspection of Iranian nuclear sites.
