In the shadow of the Majlis

This despite the fact that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s poor performance has split the conservatives. An economic crisis is haunting Iran despite oil prices at an all-time high. Ahmadinejad’s radical foreign policy is causing consternation even among Iran’s traditional allies, China and Russia. But with the reformists unable to present a coherent challenge and with the religious establishment firmly backing the conservatives, there is little political opposition left to outline an alternative agenda.

The hardliners have effectively used the global environment to whip up nationalistic feeling, calling the recent UN Security Council resolution an attempt to influence election turnout. They are worried that in the absence of any real electoral choice and a crackdown on the media, Iranians might just decide to stay at home, calling into question the credibility of the elections. So the clerical establishment is urging Iranians to show up in large numbers and frustrate the design of Iran’s Western ‘enemies’ — the US and its allies.

The Security Council voted last week, for the third time, to impose sanctions on Iran for its refusal to cease uranium enrichment that it is suspected of using to create fuel for nuclear weapons. The IAEA had earlier expressed its concern about new intelligence reports that showed work in Iran “not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon.” Despite this, the resolution is a very weak one, and there is no prospect of its changing Tehran’s calculations, already reflected in its defiant rejection of the provisions.

Iran clearly has an upper hand in this tug of war with the Security Council. China’s energy ties, Russia’s ties to Iran’s nuclear programme and European ambivalence about cutting off trade ties have emboldened Iran to reject any demands, however limited, being made by the Security Council. Moreover, the recent US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has fundamentally changed the political dynamics in Washington. In a complete U-turn from its 2005 report, the US intelligence now believes with ‘high confidence’ that Iran’s nuclear weapons programme was halted in 2003 while there is ‘moderate to high confidence’ that Tehran is still keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. The confidence level of the US spy agencies seems to be all over the place, making it difficult to accept any of their conclusions with any degree of confidence.

At a stroke, this report managed to pull the rug from under the Bush administration’s Iran policy such that it was, and also made it impossible for the US to carve out a new policy. Even the UN weapons inspectors and the European nations have expressed their concern that the US NIE report might be too generous to Iran. The latest US intelligence assessment focuses only on uranium enrichment by Iran at secret sites or explicit work on nuclear weapons designs. But Iran has continued with its heavy water reactor at Arak and has now installed 3000 centrifuges at Natanz. Halting the obviously illegal work while pressing ahead with enrichment will still leave Iran with a nuclear option. That Iran continues to enrich uranium on an industrial scale and has blueprints to cast uranium in the shape of an atomic bomb has been confirmed by the IAEA itself.

In the aftermath of the failure to find WMDs in Iraq, intelligence has become a political football in the US, whereby the critics of the Bush administration have underscored the misuse of intelligence by the White House while the supporters of the administration have tried to blame the intelligence bureaucracy. With elections in Iran, no serious candidate can appear to be bowing to the wishes of the international community on the nuclear issue, so the prospect of any near-term reconciliation remains bleak. In the long term too, with the conservatives expected to further consolidate their hold on parliament, any rapprochement between Iran and the West on the nuclear issue seems unlikely. A nuclear Iran is rapidly becoming a serious possibility with some estimates predicting that Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium to build an atomic bomb by the end of this year. One therefore wonders what a future President Obama would be talking to President Ahmadinejad about, once he decides to sit across the table with him as promised.

The writer teaches at King’s College, London

harsh.pant@kcl.ac.uk