By M K Bhadrakumar
The conference on the Middle East in Annapolis in the United States
last week seemed to be an exercise in self-delusion. Robert Fisk, who
has chronicled the Levant for the past 31 years for the British
media, somberly noted, "The Middle East is currently a hell disaster
and the president of the United States thinks he is going to produce
the crown jewels from a cabinet and forget Afghanistan and Iraq and
Iran - and Pakistan, for that matter."
But in the days that followed, crown jewels did indeed begin to
tumble out of President George W Bush's cabinet. What awaits
determination is whether Bush orchestrated it, or just let it happen.
In any case, the morning after the Annapolis shindig, we learnt that
Syria and the US had a common choice in General Michel Suleiman (who
also happens to be close to Hezbollah) for the unfilled Lebanese
presidency. And then we saw on Sunday Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah
bin Abdulaziz entering the conference hall of the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) summit in Doha flanked by Iranian President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad. The GCC, flag-carrier of US regional strategy for three
decades, had never before invited Iran to its meetings.
By Monday morning, the Bush administration had released declassified
extracts of the sensational National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on
the Iranian nuclear problem, a report lying in the cabinet in the
Oval Office in the White House for some time. The White House said on
Wednesday that Bush was told in August that Iran may have suspended
its nuclear weapons program. And now we learn that Bush will be
packing his bags for his first-ever visit in his presidency to the
Holy Land and Palestine.
Of course, the "hell disaster" in the Middle East that Fisk mentioned
remains palpable still. Israel said on Tuesday it is seeking bids to
build more than 300 new homes in a disputed east Jerusalem
neighborhood. By nightfall on Tuesday, 21 rockets and mortars had
been fired on Israel from Gaza, bringing the 12-month total to over
2,000. Yet, hardly a week remains for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert and the president of the Palestinian National Authority,
Mahmoud Abbas, to meet in the first follow-up session of the
Annapolis meeting.
It is premature to say whether there is a pattern in all this. There
is no credible evidence of a compelling vision at Annapolis either.
Between a final-status peace and interim measures, a wide chasm
undoubtedly lies. The Middle East sits on plate glass and it is
agonizing to contemplate that glass can give way. All we know for
sure is that the NIE signals that the Middle East isn't going to be
the same again.
China, Russia vindicated
The NIE means the Bush administration cannot resort to a military
strike against Iran during its remaining term in office, as it says
that Iran "halted" its secret nuclear weapons program in the autumn
of 2003. The military option simply doesn't exist anymore, no matter
US officials' grandstanding.
Equally, the Bush administration's diplomatic campaign to get the
international community to back tougher sanctions against Iran runs
into a cul-de-sac. Washington has been lobbying for a third round of
United Nations sanctions against Iran. Bush and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice talked to their Chinese and Russian counterparts.
But Beijing and Moscow have taken serious note of the NIE. Probably,
their intelligence already knew of its contents. At any rate, they
reiterated their aversion for another UN Security Council sanctions
resolution.
China's ambassador at the United States, Wang Guangya, commented, "I
think the [UN] council members will have to consider that [NIE],
because I think we all start from the presumption that now things
have changed." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "We will
assess the situation on proposals for a new resolution in the United
Nations Security Council on the basis of [several] factors, including
the publication by the United States of data showing that Iran does
not have a military nuclear program."
Lavrov added that Moscow had no intelligence pointing toward any
Iranian nuclear weapons program, even before 2003. Lavrov also said
separately following a meeting between Russian President Vladimir
Putin and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, at the
Kremlin on Tuesday, "We noted the willingness of Iran to adhere to
cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], and
Iran again confirmed its adherence to an observation of the [nuclear]
Non-Proliferation Treaty."
China offers mediation
But, having said that, China's stance on the Iran problem has
acquired some unique features. Prominent American strategic thinker
and former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote after
a recent visit to China that it is "timely and historically
expedient" for Washington to enter into a strategic dialogue with
Beijing regarding applying their shared experience in dealing with
the North Korean nuclear problem to the potential crisis with Iran.
Brzezinski highlighted three points. First, in "wide-ranging private
conversations", Chinese leaders impressed on him their worry about
the financial and political fallouts of a US-Iran collision. Second,
Chinese leaders pointed out to Brzezinski that Iranian denials of a
nuclear weapons program in fact create a window of opportunity for
Washington to contrive a face-saving arrangement for an
internationally sanctioned, non-threatening Iranian nuclear program.
"In China's view, the United States should avoid being drawn into tit-
for-tat salvos" with the Iranian leadership, but should rather focus
on a formula that "effectively forsakes the allegedly unwanted
nuclear option". Third, China could help break the US-Iran stalemate,
but the US should be "more active in the negotiating process with Iran".
China's motivations are completely self-centered. Beijing doesn't
want its economic relationship with Tehran disrupted. Iran is a major
supplier of oil to China. China intends to boost its bilateral trade
with Iran to over US$100 billion annually in the near future. (There
is no reason to doubt China's capacity to do so.) China supplies
weapons and industrial products to Iran and participates in major
projects, such as the Tehran metro.
Interestingly, Brzezinski gave a logical explanation as to why the US
and China should become equal stakeholders. He pointed out that
cascading US-Iran tensions could cause a more dramatic shift in the
global distribution of power than what the international system
witnessed when the Cold War receded into history. He explained that
unlike the US and China, Russia has an "uncertain role" in the Iran
crisis. That is because Russia is an increasingly revisionist state,
and denying Chinese and American access to Caspian and Central Asian
oil is at the core of the Russian geostrategy. Also, Russia fears
"potential Chinese encroachments on Russia's empty but mineral-rich
eastern areas and American political encroachments on the populated
western areas" of the former Soviet Union.
Therefore, Brzezinski argued that unlike the US and China, Russia
might even stand to gain from a political conflict in the Persian
Gulf. Russia would certainly stand to gain out of a dramatic spike in
oil prices, unlike the US and China, which would be badly hit. More
important, high oil prices resulting from Persian Gulf tensions would
leave Europe and China with no option but to depend heavily on
Russian energy supplies. That is to say, "Russia would clearly be the
financial and geopolitical beneficiary" of the Iran crisis.
Brzezinski concluded, "A comprehensive strategic dialog between the
United States and China regardingthe relevance of their shared
experience dealing with North Korea to the potential crisis with Iran
could be timely and historically expedient."
US leaves allies in the lurch
Curiously, the NIE echoes the line of thinking that the Chinese
leaders put across to Brzezinski. But it leaves the US's allies with
a lot of egg on their faces. Not only the US's European allies but
also its Asian partners, like Japan, India and Australia, went out on
a limb to demonstrate their willingness to toe Washington's line on
the Iran question.
Britain and France will be severely embarrassed by the u-turn in the
NIE. They were hardliners. Germany, in comparison, has been the
weakest link. The mounting US pressure on Germany will now ease. On
the whole, the European allies will now be even more lukewarm about
pursuing a confrontational path with regard to Iran.
Among Washington's Asian partners, it is India which will be the
hardest hit. India's Iran policy is in a shambles. Amazingly, it now
transpires that Delhi succumbed to US pressure to curtail banking
links with Iran. Delhi will be hard-pressed to claw its way back into
friendship with Tehran. There is a stunned silence among the
strategic community and media elite in Delhi, who used to disparage
the "mad mullahs" in Tehran. The NIE has been a nasty hit when there
is much criticism already in public opinion over Delhi's pro-US
foreign policy.
Compared to the US's Asian partners, its Middle Eastern allies find
themselves far better placed to cope with the fallouts of the NIE.
They heave a sigh of relief that the threat of war descending on the
region may now lift. The pro-West Arab regimes should feel relieved
that they kept a dual-track approach by also engaging Tehran
actively. The changes in Saudi foreign policy in the post-September
11, 2001, period in the direction of more diversified external
relationships included a judicious approach of keeping lines of
communication open to Tehran at the highest levels of leadership, no
matter the US-Iran tensions.
Therefore, the GCC's decision to invite Iran for its summit for the
first time goes beyond a symbolic gesture. What remains to be seen is
the extent to which the GCC kept Washington informed in advance about
its overture to Tehran. Conceivably, the GCC consulted Washington. If
so, we are witnessing the foundation-laying ceremony for a new
regional security architecture in the Persian Gulf region.
Washington's choice
The NIE poses Washington with a difficult choice. Prominent neo-
conservative thinker Robert Kagan, who is close to the US
administration, starkly posed the dilemma: "With its policy tools
broken, the Bush administration can sit around isolated for the next
year. Or it can seize the initiative, and do the next administration
a favor, by opening direct talks with Tehran."
Kagan argues a strong case for negotiations and suggests an agenda of
intrusive IAEA inspections and monitoring of Iran's nuclear
facilities, and underlines that any talks with Tehran should be wide-
ranging and include such thorny issues as terrorism and al-Qaeda,
Hezbollah and Hamas, and of course Iraq.
Meanwhile, Bush and Rice have kept up a road show that the NIE
changed nothing. Such grandstanding doesn't come as surprise.
Washington will strive to negotiate with Tehran from a position of
strength. Also, it is far from clear how the NIE shock waves play out
on Iran's complicated political landscape. The Bush administration
will be closely watching for signals from Tehran.
Ahmadinejad certainly comes out a winner on the Iranian political
heap. He astutely played his cards. By appointing a tough negotiator
like Jalili, he ensured that his position that Iran would not stop
its uranium-enrichment program would be put across more firmly than
before. The West now realizes that the stance carries conviction and
is rooted on a principle that is difficult to counter, namely, that
as long as Iran honors its commitments under the nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has no reason to forgo its rights either.
A logjam has resulted insofar as UN Security Council resolution 1747,
adopted in March, insists on suspension of all enrichment and
reprocessing-related activities by Iran. That leaves two choices.
First, if Iran stubbornly refuses to curtail its uranium enrichment,
then the Security Council ought to impose tougher sanctions. But
China and Russia will not agree. The alternative is embarrassing and
precedent setting - the Security Council backtracks from 1747,
admitting a mistake. Iran has essentially challenged the US's
untenable assumption that it is incumbent on the NPT's non-weapon
signatories to prove the peaceful nature of their programs.
On balance, Ahmadinejad has won. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said
recently that it no longer makes sense to insist Iran should stop
enrichment since its nuclear program is already far advanced.
Washington has to learn to live with Iran, just as it did with North
Korea, despite the latter actually possessing nuclear weapons. No
wonder, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who
met with Jalili last week, plainly admitted he had no more proposals
to make to Iran, nor did he think Iran would resume nuclear talks.
Putin, too, acknowledged this reality when he referred at his meeting
with Jalili in Moscow on Tuesday to the "intensive contacts at all
levels" lately between Moscow and Tehran and "stepped-up cooperation
on all fronts", and added, "I am very pleased to note the
intensification of contacts between your country and the IAEA. We
welcome the expansion of cooperation and expect that all your nuclear
programs will be open, transparent and conducted under the
supervision of this international organization."
But it is unlikely Tehran will brag too much. Once the dust settles
on the NIE, cool stocktaking will follow in Tehran. The diplomatic
statements at responsible levels so far - by Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki and the head of the majlis (Parliament)foreign
policy committee, Ala'eddin Broujerdi - have been mature and reasonable.
The highly respected former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans
has assessed after a recent visit to Tehran and meetings with top
Iranian officials that the outlines of a deal are emerging and the
NIE "gives us the chance to break out of this impasse [of Iran
insisting on its right to enrich]". He suggested that the "red line"
should no longer be the issue of enrichment, but could be between the
"civilian and military capability" of NPT signatories, and if such a
new red line would hold, "it would not matter whether Iran was
capable of producing its own nuclear fuel".
Evans added, "That [red] line will hold if we can get Iran to accept
a highly intrusive monitoring, verification and inspection regime"
with additional safeguards, and if Iran could be persuaded to
"stretch out over time the development of its enrichment capability
and to have any industrial-scale activity conducted not by Iran but
by an international consortium".
Evan assesses that Iran is "capable of being persuaded" if incentives
include the lifting of sanctions and normalization of relations with
the US. Evans concluded: "This is a country seething with both
national pride and resentment against past humiliations, and it wants
to cut a regional and global figure by proving its sophisticated
technological capability. One only wishes that something less
sensitive than the nuclear fuel cycle had been chosen to make that
point."
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador
to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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