US continues to pressure Iran after Geneva talks

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US continues to pressure Iran after Geneva talks
By Peter Symonds
2 October 2009

Following international talks in Geneva yesterday, US President Obama
repeated Washington’s threats against Iran, warning that the US was
“prepared to move towards increased pressure” if Tehran failed to take
“swift action” to meet its nuclear obligations. The talks involved
senior officials of the so-called P5+1—the US, Britain, France,
Russia, China and Germany—with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed
Jalali.

The US backed by Britain and France ratchetted up the pressure on Iran
last Friday with a melodramatic “revelation” that it had a secret
uranium enrichment plant near the city of Qom. Tehran had already
informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the
facility, which is still under construction, four days earlier.
Washington has set a deadline of December for negotiations, warning of
severe sanctions if Tehran refuses to bow to its demands.

During the talks, Jalali reiterated Iran’s intention of shortly
opening up the Qom plant to IAEA inspectors and again insisted that
his country’s nuclear programs were for peaceful purposes. Tehran
maintains that it has met its obligations under the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty to notify the IAEA 180 days before beginning
operations. IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei is due in Tehran tomorrow to
discuss access for inspectors to the Qom facility.

Iran also agreed in principle to an IAEA plan to transfer most of its
existing stock of low-enriched uranium to Russia then France for
further enrichment and processing into fuel rods for a small reactor
near Tehran that produces medical isotopes. Currently the uranium
stock has been enriched to 4 percent—the level required for a nuclear
power reactor—but the fuel rods for the Tehran reactor require 20
percent enrichment.

If the plan proceeds, it would underscore Iran’s declaration that it
is not building a nuclear weapon. The US media has repeatedly
described Iran’s store of low-enriched uranium, produced at its
existing Natanz facility, as “enough to build a bomb”. In fact,
weapon-grade uranium must be enriched to around 90 percent. If the
bulk of its stock were moved to Russia, it would take Iran months to
rebuild its supply inside the country.

In the course of yesterday’s meeting, Jalili also held one-to-one
talks with US Undersecretary of State William Burns over lunch. The
encounter was the highest-level diplomatic contact between Iran and
the US since the 1979 Iranian revolution and the first on the nuclear
issue. Under the Bush administration, the US and Iranian ambassadors
in Baghdad held several meetings, but limited to American efforts to
ensure Iranian support for the US-led occupation of Iraq.

According to US State Department spokesman Robert Wood, Burns told his
Iranian counterpart that Iran had “to take concrete and practical
steps that are consistent with its international obligations”. The
discussion also involved “a frank exchange on other issues, including
human rights.” As well as being Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator,
Jalili is secretary of the country’s powerful national security
council, which answers directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

All sides described the Geneva talks as “constructive”. European
foreign policy chief, Javier Solani, said that all parties had “agreed
to intensify dialogue in the coming weeks” and to hold a second
meeting before the end of October. Despite the positive spin on the
meeting, however, the reaction of the Obama administration highlights
Washington’s confrontational approach to the negotiations.

Even as he described the talks as “a constructive beginning”, Obama
laid out new deadlines for Iran, insisting that the IAEA had to be
given “unfettered access… within two weeks” to the “covert nuclear
facility” near Qom. “We are not interested in talking for the sake of
talking,” Obama said, warning again that “our patience is limited”.
Like the Bush administration in the lead up to the Iraq war, Obama
meets concessions by Iran with fresh ultimatums.

Prior to the Geneva meeting, the Obama administration was engaged in
intense efforts to cajole and bully other members of the P5+1 to back
tough UN Security Council measures against Iran. Current sanctions,
which were reluctantly backed by Russia and China, are largely
targetted against individuals and companies connected to Iran’s
nuclear program. The punitive measures now being actively discussed in
Washington include broad sanctions that could hit Iran’s access to
finance, trade credits and insurance and block much-needed imports of
refined petroleum products.

In a move calculated to secure Russian support, Obama recently
announced modifications to the planned US anti-ballistic missile
shield, including the scrapping of bases in Poland and the Czech
Republic that have been bitterly opposed by Moscow. After meeting with
Obama last Thursday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev strongly hinted
that Moscow might back tough sanctions against Tehran. The statement
was aimed at putting Iran on the defensive as it has previously
counted on China and Russia to block such measures.

While the Geneva talks were held behind closed doors, several articles
noted a shift in the Russian stance. Based on its inside sources, the
British-based Times commented: “Russia was said to be instrumental in
bringing Iran’s attention back to the nuclear issue when it attempted
to veer off its well-trodden narratives about historic injustices.
Moscow seems to have shifted the burden of avoiding sanctions from
Western shoulders onto Iranian ones.”

This sordid Realpolitik, in which the fate of the Iranian people is a
pawn in cynical horse-trading over competing economic and strategic
interests, underscores the fact the present confrontation is not
primarily about Iran’s nuclear program. Rather it is the pretext for a
US campaign to fashion a regime in Tehran more conducive to
Washington’s ambitions for economic and strategic dominance in the
Middle East and Central Asia. Easing off on the US anti-missile system
in Eastern Europe is simply the quid pro quo for Russian assistance in
American plans over Iran.

Amid the scare campaign in the American media over Iran’s “secret”
nuclear plans, isolated articles have appeared proposing a deal with
Tehran to normalise relations in return for mutual security
assurances. A comment on Tuesday in the New York Times by Flynt and
Hillary Leverett, two critics of the Bush administration, warned about
the dangers of confrontation and called for a strategic volte-face
with Iran along the lines of President Nixon’s rapprochement with
China in 1972.

After noting the parallels between aggressive stance of Bush and Obama
towards Iran, the Leveretts wrote: “Instead of pushing the falsehood
that sanctions will give America leverage in Iranian decision-making—a
strategy that will end either in frustration or war—the administration
should seek a strategic realignment with Iran as thoroughgoing as that
effected by Nixon with China. That would require Washington to take
steps, up front, to assure Tehran that rapprochement would serve
Iran’s strategic needs.”

It is necessary to ask, however, who would be the primary
beneficiaries of a grand strategy to normalise relations with Iran. As
in the case of Iraq, the European powers along with China and Russia
already have well-established diplomatic and economic ties with Iran,
including contracts to exploit its huge reserves of oil and gas. The
US, which cut off all relations with Tehran shortly after the Iranian
revolution, would be compelled to start from scratch. By constantly
fuelling tensions, even at the risk of war, the US is able to
undermine the relations of its rivals with Iran as it seeks to
establish a regime in Tehran more amenable to its own interests.

That is why an escalating campaign of threats and provocations by the
US and its allies over the coming months is more likely than an
all-embracing plan to ease tensions and establish diplomatic and
economic relations with Iran.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/iran-o02.shtml

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