And Now Iran

Iran's reply to the US-European offer to suspend uranium enrichment is due on 22 August and a demand to suspend by 31 August is coming up. Patrick Seale analyzes the momentum of the next act in a Middle East filled with crises.

Crunch time is approaching for Iran's nuclear programme. Two key moments in the coming days could determine whether the world is heading for confrontation or negotiation with Iran.

* On 22 August, Iran is due to reply to a package of economic incentives which the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, offered it on 6 June, if it suspends uranium enrichment.

* Iran also faces a demand to suspend all uranium enrichment by 31 August, or face sanctions, under a UN Security Council Resolution of 31 July.

One thing is clear. Iran will not yield to threats. On 15 August, addressing the subject for the first time since the Security Council Resolution of 31 July, Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad declared that Iran would not yield to Western pressure to give up its nuclear ambitions.

He told UN Secretary General Kofi Annan: "These gentlemen are mistaken in believing that they can use the Resolution as a stick. The Iranian people will never accept the language of force." The Iranian position, he said, was based on the inalienable rights of the Iranian people. No one could renounce these rights.

He added, however, that Iran was "ready to settle the nuclear question by means of negotiations." This more flexible position was repeated on August 16 by Iran's Foreign Minister, Manushehr Mottaki. Iran, he declared, was ready to discuss all aspects of the proposed Western package of incentives. "One of the points of the package is the issue of suspension. We are ready to negotiate over all issues including suspension."

A day earlier, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, had gone further by saying that Iran was ready to provide guarantees. It was prepared, he said, to give the West its production line of 164 centrifuges which had been enriching uranium since last April.

"A single production line of centrifuges is not in the least worrying," he said. "But if they are really worried, we are ready to give them this production line!"

What do these various statements amount to? It seems clear that Iran remains determined to master the uranium fuel cycle. It argues, with some justice, that it has every right to acquire this technology for peaceful purposes under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it is a signatory. It is prepared, however, to subject its nuclear programme to international monitoring as provided by the NPT, and even to give the Western powers further guarantees if required.

This is a strong negotiating position, which will be difficult to fault. Iran's strategy appears to be to master nuclear technology - under the watchful eye of international inspectors, if need be - but without actually proceeding to bomb making. That threshold could be passed rapidly if and when Iran faced an imminent threat of attack.

Will this posture satisfy the United States? Almost certainly not. But is there anything it can do about it? At the Security Council, the United States is likely to face obstruction by China and Russia if it attempts to impose sanctions on Iran.

As for a US military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, this would be widely seen as an act of folly which could plunge the entire region into devastating turmoil. It would drive up the price of oil to astronomic heights, introduce vast and dangerous uncertainty over oil deliveries from the entire Gulf region, and severely affect America's increasingly desperate attempts to master the insurrection in Iraq.

Given the circumstances, it may be that the world will have to settle for what Iran is offering - that is to say a carefully monitored nuclear programme for peaceful purposes. Iran would, nevertheless, retain the option in an emergency of quitting the NPT and switching its nuclear programme from civilian to military uses.

It needs to be stressed that Iran could never use a nuclear weapon against Israel or indeed anyone else, without committing suicide as a nation. The immediate response by Israel and the United States would be to wipe Iran off the map. The only use, therefore, to which Iran could put a nuclear weapon would be as a deterrent against attack.

Could Israel accept such a compromise? It would require a revolution in Israeli security thinking. Israel's leaders have persuaded themselves - and their public - that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel itself and to Western civilization as a whole. This, of course, is nonsense.

The suspicion is that Israel and the United States want to shut down Iran's nuclear programme, not because they think it might pose a realistic military threat to either of them, but because it would limit their freedom of action to impose their will on the region.

Israel still refuses to accept any form of a balance of power, or of a balance of deterrence, with states or non-state actors in the region. In spite of the severe setback it suffered in Lebanon, Israel still has not accepted that its policy of dominating its neighbours by military force needs to be abandoned.

Israeli strategists - and their neocon allies in Washington - see Hizbullah as a forward outpost of Iran. With the Lebanon War, they tried to destroy Hizbullah in order to weaken Iran and make it more vulnerable to attack. They wanted to rob Iran of the ability to hit back by means of Hizbullah.

The war has demonstrated the flaws in this thinking. But, as the latest commando raid on Baalbek demonstrates, Israel has no respect for the ceasefire of 14 August. It will violate it at will. It is unlikely to give up its attempts to kill Hizbullah commanders, and especially its leader, Hasan Nasrallah.

Speaking on the BBC a few days ago, Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN, said, "If the international community does not disarm Hezbollah, we will do it." This does not suggest that Israel has yet digested the lessons of the war.

It must also be assumed that Israel and its American ally will not easily give up their attempts to disrupt or end Iran's nuclear programme by all possible means. The coming weeks and months are unlikely to be peaceful.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

Israel has no respect for the ceasefire of 14 August. It will violate it at will.

Yeah. That's the problem.

As they say: "If the Arabs dropped their weapons, there would be peace in the Middle East. If the Jews dropped their weapons, there would be no Jews in the Middle East."

Lemmee see.... if Iran refuses to comply with U.N. or international demands, we will.... errr... they will....errr.... I guess nothing will happen, right?

Lets' face it, the Democrats have de-balled our foreign policy ability.

We cannot threaten any nation, let alone an islamic nation, with military force. They know that within 6 months, regardless of our military successes, the Democrats will be talking against the war, advancing the interests of our enemies.

The U.N. has proven that a country can ignore sanctions (China, Russia, Germany and France will trade in violation of any sanctions) and those sanctions are useless.

Iran will get their nukes, get their missles, and commit the greatest act of suicide ever.

Typical naive, childish, left-wing Bitish thinking. The writer greatly underestimates the theat of Iran kicking out the international inspectors and making bombs if it is allowed to master the nuclear fuel cycle.

"It needs to be stressed that Iran could never use a nuclear weapon against Israel or indeed anyone else, without committing suicide as a nation. The immediate response by Israel and the United States would be to wipe Iran off the map. The only use, therefore, to which Iran could put a nuclear weapon would be as a deterrent against attack."

Complete bullsh## here. This idiot doesn't understand that many people in Iran believe strongly in the concept of martyrdom, and therefore Iranian leaders could someday decide to commit national suicide. We cannot allow the survival of the western world to someday be decided by the whim of the current grand ayatollah of Iran. That is madness, resulting from the madness of crazy liberals who want to give Iran the opportunity to acquire nuclear weapons.

Yes. It's a difficult problem. A very difficult problem.

The only possible way out is to invite Nobel Peace Prize Recipient and brilliant international statesman Jimmy Carter to negotiate a final solution.

(By the way, did the mullahs ever finish erecting that statue to him in Tehran?)

This idiot doesn't understand that many people in Iran believe strongly in the concept of martyrdom

Indeed. In the recent fracas in Lebanon, a rocket from Hezbollah took out a bunch of Islamic children. Nasrullah went on the airwaves to reassure his people that this was OK. The children were martyrs, it's all good, and there was no harm done.

The parents of the children voiced unhappiness, and Nasrullah did have to pull back a little on his rhetoric, but the fact that he thought that way in the first place tells you everything you need to know.

During the Cold War, there was frequent talk that the Russians love their children just as much as we love out children, so we should all try to avoid Destruction. Whether that was true or not in regards to the Soviet Union, I can't say. But I do know that the Islamofascists really don't care if we kill their children. They want our head on a pike and they're willing to pay the price.

If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, Israel may as well pack up and leave. Heck, the way they fought in Lebanon, it looks like half the military apparatus has one foot out the door as it is.

"They want our head on a pike and they're willing to pay the price."

Exactly. I'm constantly amazed at the grave risks that liberals are willing to take by assuming that Iran is a "rational actor."

Really? That is not a given at all. Suppose Kerry or someone like him were President. Would he favor such a "disproportionate" response or would he encourage what's left of Israel to sit down at the negotiating table and try to understand what they did to make the Arab world angry with them?

This about sums up how NK got to be well on their way to becoming a nuclear power.

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