One Last Chance
November 26, 2003
The Economist.com
The Economist
European governments have persuaded America not to have Iran dragged before the UN Security Council over its suspicious nuclear experiments. But Iran has been told it had better keep its promise to mend its ways.
AFTER struggling for several weeks to reach a compromise on how to deal with the illicit nuclear experiments that Iran has been concealing for the past 18 years, the 35 countries on the board of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have finally reached agreement. On Wednesday November 26th they passed a resolution, which stops short of reporting Iran to the United Nations Security Council, as America had wanted. But the resolution’s wording was tougher than that of earlier drafts—proposed jointly by Britain, France and Germany—which both America and the IAEA’s head, Mohamed ElBaradei, thought too lenient.
The IAEA monitors Iran's nuclear programme. IRNA, Iran's official news agency, presents the official line on news events. See also the Iranian presidency and the Foreign Ministry. The European Union outlines foreign relations with Iran. The US State Department issues statements on Iran's nuclear programme and gives information on non-proliferation. The Federation of American Scientists posts background information on the NPT. Australia's Uranium Information Centre gives details of the various types of nuclear reactor and how they work.
The resolution “strongly deplores” Iran’s breaches of its Safeguards Agreement under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It welcomes Iran’s recent confession of its past transgressions and its promise to allow UN inspectors to make more intrusive checks on the country’s nuclear facilities. But it says that if any further violations are uncovered, the IAEA board would immediately meet to consider “all options at its disposal”—meaning bringing Iran before the Security Council, which may impose economic sanctions.
Iran has repeatedly denied America’s accusation that it is using its civil nuclear-power programme as a cover for bomb-making. But it has been forced to change its story several times, thanks to leaks from Iranian opposition groups and findings by IAEA inspectors. It has now owned up to having secret nuclear facilities. Some of the experiments Iran has carried out—such as producing small amounts of plutonium and metallic uranium—are useful steps towards making a nuclear bomb but not much use for the sort of civil energy programme that Iran is developing. The nuclear-power station that Russia is building for Iran at Bushehr on the Gulf coast is perfectly legal but questionable: why would a country with some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves bother with the expense of nuclear power unless it had other motives?
In July, Mr ElBaradei went to Tehran, with the backing of many of the world’s main powers, to press the country’s government to sign an “additional protocol” to the NPT. This would give the IAEA’s inspectors the right to visit both declared and suspected nuclear facilities at short notice. The agency then gave Iran until the end of October to come clean about all its nuclear dabblings. Shortly before this deadline, Iran sent the IAEA what it said were full details of its activities. The country promised that it would sign up for the tougher inspections regime and suspend its enrichment of uranium (a technique useful for making either bombs or fuel for power plants), though not necessarily permanently.
The IAEA’s board convened last week to discuss a report from Mr ElBaradei which criticised Iran’s treaty infringements but said—to America’s annoyance—that no clear evidence of bomb-building had been found. The board’s deliberations were extended into this week after its members were unable to close the gap between America’s demands for an immediate referral to the Security Council (backed by Israel, a likely target for any Iranian nuclear bomb) and European countries’ desire to encourage Iran to co-operate.
Though Iran is playing down the significance of its nuclear experiments, arguing that they only produced tiny quantities of fissile materials, they show that the country has mastered some of the most important stages in nuclear bomb-making. Thus if it ever pulled out of the NPT, Iran could quickly have such weapons ready. In July, it brought into service a new missile capable, in theory, of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Israel, or indeed reaching American bases in the Middle East.
Western diplomats said the resolution means Iran will be faced with a stark choice—total transparency or the risk of painful sanctions. But America is still worried, as its secretary of state, Colin Powell, has put it, that the world powers will declare premature victory; indeed, Russia has already stopped threatening to halt the construction of the Bushehr power station and is talking of building a second one. There are, in fact, several more vital steps before the world can be sure that Iran really has given up its nuclear option, as opposed to just pursuing it more cannily: its parliament must ratify the tough new inspections regime; and Iran must then allow the inspectors free rein to do their jobs, without obstruction or obfuscation.
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