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Dubious promises from Iran

The Washington Times
Oct, 27th 2003

Last week's announcement by the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain that Iran has vowed to suspend its effort to produce enriched uranium for nuclear weapons should be taken with a heavy dose of skepticism. Under the agreement, Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for the Europeans' promise to help it acquire peaceful nuclear technology. As we go to press, however, Iran denies having agreed to halt uranium enrichment.
But the reality is that, even if Iran formally agrees to do this, there is scant likelihood that the deal (which for now, has the reluctantendorsementoftheBush administration) will do anything to dissuade the radical Islamic regime from its goal of obtaining nuclear weapons. One veteran expert who is skeptical is Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, who explained his position in an interview with The Washington Times and a New York Times op-ed.
According to Mr. Milhollin, the agreement is likely to achieve a result much like the failed 1994 agreement between the Clinton administration and North Korea, in which Pyongyang agreed to stop producing plutonium. Under the agreement, brokered by former President Jimmy Carter, North Korea received economic benefits and avoided diplomatic isolation. But, according to Mr. Milhollin, the agreement left five bombs worth of plutonium inside North Korea's borders. The government remained only months away from converting that material into bomb fuel — something the North Koreans now claim to have done.
Mr. Milhollin told us that the European deal with Iran will not prevent that government from building more centrifuges, which are needed to make weapons-grade uranium, and there is nothing in the agreement to prevent Iran from resuming uranium enrichment in the future. The Iran deal, Mr. Milhollin said, buys time for a government that has no intention of halting its nuclear program.
A more productive approach, Mr. Milhollin told The Washington Times, would have Washington mobilize its Western European and Japanese allies to stop selling Iran dual-use items like machine tools, computers and high-strength steel used to produce ballistic missiles unless Iran agrees to give international inspectors access sufficient to determine that it is really dismantling its nuclear weapons program.
No one can definitively say how close Iran is to obtaining such weapons. Last week, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told this newspaper that one year from now may be too late to act to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability — a capability that would make the world a much more dangerous place. One thing should be crystal-clear when it comes to heading off this danger: Time is not on our side.

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20031026-105111-1522r.htm

Keeping Iran in check

The Boston Globe
10/27/2003

THE AGREEMENT on Iran's nuclear activities struck this week during a visit to Tehran by the British, French, and German foreign ministers shows the effectiveness of diplomacy when backed up by a credible threat of UN sanctions. It also illustrates the necessity of preserving cooperation with America's traditional allies across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, however, the Tehran understanding does not preclude the possibility that Iran may at some later date develop and deploy nuclear weapons.

What the foreign ministers did well was to oblige Iran to bring its nuclear program into compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But those measures will not be sufficient to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

The achievement of the foreign ministers' mission is significant. They were able to elicit Iran's acceptance of intrusive, short-notice inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and, in the words of the declaration issued after Tuesday's meeting in Tehran, procured Iran's consent to "suspend all uranium enrichment and processing activities as defined by the IAEA."

The crucial background to these concessions is that the clerical regime in Tehran was confronting a deadline of Oct. 31, by which time they had either to comply with the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or see the issue of their defiance brought before the UN Security Council. The fact that this week's deal with the Europeans was supported by Iranian hard-liners as well as reformers suggests that both camps were eager to avoid the humiliation of arraignment before the Security Council and the punishment of economic sanctions.

The foreign ministers also wielded a purely European threat. They linked trade deals -- particularly for European high technology -- to Iran's acceptance of the IAEA's demands. Because the flagrant corruption and economic incompetence of the ruling mullahs has impoverished resource-rich Iran, antagonizing much of that nation's youthful population, the regime cannot afford subjection to UN sanctions or disruption of its commercial relations with Europe.

The Europeans, then, have done well in pursuing their carrot-and-stick approach to Iran and in reviving trans-Atlantic cooperation. But if the ultimate objective of that cooperation is to keep Iran from producing nuclear weapons and not merely to suspend uranium enrichment and the processing of plutonium, all facilities in Iran capable of producing fissile material for nuclear weapons must be dismantled under the eyes of international inspectors. In the long run, it will be in Iran's interest to forgo nuclear capability; it is up to the rest of the world to make the nation's rulers act on that interest.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2003/10/27/keeping_iran_in_check/