it can agree to Iran enriching uranium in the future if Iran can establish that no uranium is being diverted to weaponry.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the concession Friday in an interview with the BBC. The BBC ended the interview right after Clinton made the surprise announcement. Hardly anyone noticed the remark and it got only passing mention in some media as few people understood it was a reversal of the previous American position.
BBC interviewer Kim Ghattas asked Clinton, “Why not cut to the chase and tell Iran it can enrich its own uranium on its own territory, since everybody knows that this is probably the end result.”
Indeed, many analysts have argued that the West cannot now reasonably hope to halt all Iranian enrichment.
Clinton gave a rather long-winded, sleep-inducing response, but then ended by saying: “They can enrich uranium at some future date once they have demonstrated that they can do so in a responsible manner in accordance with international obligations.”
The BBC’s Ghattas then said, “Thank you very much,” and ended the interview as if he was unaware of the startling reversal Clinton had just announced.
Throughout the Bush and Obama Administrations, it has been the policy that Iran must halt all enrichment because it simply cannot be trusted not to build a bomb. That has also been the policy of the other Big Six nations—China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain.
Russia long ago offered a compromise under which a dedicated enrichment plant sited in Russia and partly owned by Iran would be used to enrich fuel for Iran, but without Iran having any access to the technology. The United States supported that proposal enthusiastically. Iran has brushed it aside.
A key problem, as many critics point out, is that Iran has already mastered the fundamental technology and is now enriching uranium, even if it is doing so very slowly and with frequent breakdowns and inefficiencies.
It is unlikely that Clinton would have made the announcement of a policy change if the shift had not already been cleared with all five other states dealing with Iran on the enrichment issue. It seemed likely the Big Six planned to unveil the new position at their December 6-7 sessions with Iran in Geneva. But nothing was announced after those meetings.
US officials later said it is still the demand of the Big Six that Iran halt enrichment during the talks—but that enrichment could be endorsed as a result of the talks, if protective mechanisms were put in place.
The key is whether the Islamic Republic is willing to bend enough to provide adequate guarantees that it won’t divert any enriched uranium. Clinton didn’t say what that would involve. But it would presumably include acceptance of very intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—inspections not only at Natanz, the one location where Iran is now known to enrich, but of any suspicious sites elsewhere in the country.
The catch is that if Iran refuses to accept intrusive inspections in exchange for the guaranteed right to enrich, the United States can conclude—and likely convince many other countries to conclude—that Iran doesn’t want enrichment just for peaceful purposes.
The Clinton concession actually is not so much as concession to Iran as it is a concession to a multitude of countries that have been issuing statements in recent years backing Iran’s right to enrich.
The standard belief in much of the developing world is that the Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees every country the right to enrich and the United States and other major powers are trying to take that right away from Iran—and effectively away from every country that doesn’t now enrich.
The almost cookie-cutter policy statements from the bulk of the world’s governments says that Iran has a right to enrich—but must also convince the rest of the world that it doesn’t have any nuclear weapons program.
The US position for many years has been that Iran has forfeited its right to enrich by hiding its nuclear activities from the IAEA, most prominently by building the Natanz enrichment plant in secret when IAEA rules required a report to the IAEA before construction began. The IAEA sent the Iran case to the United Nations four years ago after voting that Iran had committed 16 violations of its treaty obligations, mainly failures to tell the IAEA what it was doing.
The United States is not alone in its position. For example, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last year flatly said that Iran had lost its right to enrich by its many violations of its treaty commitments.
By conceding Iran’s right to enrich, Clinton is now shifting the emphasis to the other point so many countries have made in public statements—that Iran must provide ironclad guarantees that it won’t divert enriched uranium to weaponry.
And if Iran fails to do so, talk that military coercion is justified in the face of Iranian intransigence is certain to grow.
The Clinton concession thus will likely increase the pressure on Iran to make concessions since it will no longer be able to go to other countries, like Brazil and Turkey, and argue that it just fighting for the right of all countries to enrich if they so choose.
There is a good chance now that Iran will complain that Western demands for intrusive inspections are too intrusive and impact Iran’s sovereignty. Perceived threats to sovereignty generate heated emotions in much of the developing world, where the fear of interference and intervention by the major powers is quite strong. Iran could try to play that card.
In fact, it may already have started to play it.
On Saturday, one day after Clinton’s enrichment concession was announced, Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said that the IAEA had sent Western spies into Iran posing as agency inspectors.
Did the Islamic Republic see what Secretary Clinton said Friday, immediately understand what she was up to, and start right away preparing its deflection policy by laying the groundwork for objecting to intrusive inspections?
Mottaki snubbed me: Clinton
US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton says her
Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, snubbed her Friday in Bahrain, but Mottaki denied doing any such thing.
The two were attending a security conference on the Persian Gulf island. Clinton said that when it ended, “I got up to leave and he was sitting a couple of seats down from me and shaking people’s hands. He saw me and he stopped and began to turn away. I said, ‘Hello, minister.’ He just turned away.”
At a news conference later, Mottaki was asked about the reported slight. He denied any such thing. He said he had been greeting King Abdullah of Jordan at the moment Clinton spoke to him. He said he had returned her greeting.
It is possible Mottaki did not wish to face Clinton for fear she would extend her hand and he would then have to visibly snub her, since Iranian diplomats are not supposed to shake any woman’s hand.
But, once again, the United States and the Islamic Republic cannot agree on even basic facts. This disagreement came just nine days before diplomats from the countries were to face each other in Geneva.
Clinton said her speech at the Bahrain conference was designed to set the stage for the Geneva meeting by demonstrating that real dialogue is possible. The Reuters news agency said Mottaki gave no indication of paying much attention to what Clinton was saying. He just “concentrated on his dinner,” Reuters reported.
by Warren L. Nelson