Summer 2014 has apparently been a phenomenal time
for Iran and its leadership. Over the past few months Lady Luck seems to have
been rolling both the political and the financial dice Iran’s way. But
everything in the garden is not quite as rosy as it appears.
The good times started in June
2013, with the election of the self-styled “moderate”, Sayyed Hassan Rouhani,
as President – a
candidate blessed, it goes without saying, by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei. Also blessed, no doubt,
was the deliberate change of tactics from the defiant and confrontational
stance adopted by ex-President Ahmadinejad, during previous attempts by the UN to
induce Iran to control its nuclear programme.
Now all was to be charm and sweet reason –
and immediately after his election, Rouhani made haste to agree to start substantive
talks with world leaders about Iran’s nuclear intentions.
World leaders swallowed the bait. A new
Iranian team, led by the president, met the P5+1 (the five permanent members of
the UN Security Council –
US, UK, Russia, China, France –
plus Germany) in October 2013. What
followed provided Iran with precisely what it wanted – additional time for its centrifuges to continue spinning. The two teams indeed reached an interim
agreement, but it actually permitted Iran to continue enriching uranium. Meanwhile, the negotiators agreed to meet
again in January 2014. Four additional months. In January the teams decided that they would reach
an agreement by July. Six more
months. There was, it goes without
saying, no agreement by July, so the P5+1 agreed to extend the deadline until
November. A further four months. And all the time Iran is moving inexorably closer
to nuclear military capability.
Certain that the Obama administration has discounted
any sort of military confrontation aimed at preventing Iran achieving its goal, Iran’s leadership believes that finally the P5+1 will accept a deal
allowing it to produce nuclear weapons at the drop of a hat. Every delay, every
extra day without a deal, has brought Iran nearer to its desired
objective. Veteran US Middle East
observer Eric Mandel believes that while the West has been lauding Iran for converting
much of its 20% enriched uranium, Iran’s state-of-the-art centrifuges make
possession of 20% uranium irrelevant. With its advanced centrifuges, Iran can apparently
convert 3% non-enriched uranium to 90% nuclear grade uranium in six to eight
weeks. Right now, Mandel asserts, Iran has enough 3% uranium to produce between
six to eight nuclear bombs.
In return for simply talking,
Iran has been rewarded with the progressive lifting of financial sanctions. As part of the November 2013 interim deal, $4.2
billion in oil revenues were allowed to be transferred to Iran. After the July
2014 meeting, with still no agreement on the table, Iran walked away with
guarantees of a total of a further $2.8 billion to be paid in six parts – four $500-million and two $400-million
instalments, in three-week intervals.
Few Iranian spokesmen these days
are bothering to conceal the fact that the state’s long-term objective is to
become the dominant power in the Middle East, and that, in pursuit of that aim,
they are determined to achieve military nuclear capability. Arab states across the Middle East have come to
regard Iran, and its obvious nuclear ambitions, as the major threat to their
régimes.
The political and religious elements
of Iran’s intentions are inextricably interwoven. One aspect of the dominance that Iran seeks is
the ascendancy of the Shia strand of Islam over the Sunni, for Iran is the pre-eminent
power in what has been termed the “Shi’ite Crescent”.
In striving
for this dominance, Iran has in the past set itself foursquare against Saudi
Arabia, the custodian of Sunni Islam, with Mecca and Medina located within its
borders. Saudi Arabia, and other Sunni Gulf régimes under its influence,
have been the object of Iranian-inspired plots aimed at destabilizing their
governments. But a new player has emerged on the scene, claiming the
leadership of all Muslims the world over –
the extremist Sunni organization calling itself the Islamic State (IS). Its military successes, its rapid advance
into northern Iraq and Syria, its ruthless persecution of all who fail to
subscribe to its extreme brand of Islam, the recent beheading of an American
journalist in front of the television camera, and the large numbers of
adherents flocking to its black banner from all over the world – all this has shocked
the West into realizing the nature and extent of the threat that the IS poses to
accepted civilized and democratic standards.
With Iran
apparently co-operating in the nuclear discussions, influential voices in the West have been urging their
governments to forget the fact that Iran is the world’s number one sponsor of
terrorism, ignore its past record (and that of its “moderate” president) in
this respect, turn a blind eye to its nuclear ambitions, and enter into some
sort of alliance with it, aimed at defeating the bloodthirsty IS armies. Little account is taken of the likely result
of direct Iranian involvement against the IS –
namely the triumph of President Bashar Assad’s despotic regime in Syria, and
the defeat of the democratic forces ranged against him. Moreover the West,
unlike most Middle East states, appears to discount the consequences of Iran
gaining a nuclear arsenal – namely that their clients, like the terrorist
organizations Hezbollah and Hamas, to say nothing of Assad’s forces in Syria, would
also be probable beneficiaries. In short,
the likely result of clutching Iran to our bosom is that we will all get stung.
At the moment Iran is riding high
internationally. The picture at home, however, is not so rosy. Perennially high
inflation, persistent double-digit unemployment, low productivity, rampant
corruption, a hostile business environment that actively discourages
entrepreneurship, and weak financial institutions, complete a dire economic
picture.
These underlying weaknesses in Iran’s economy
are masked to some degree by sizable oil revenues, but the underlying cause of
much of Iran’s domestic problems is the harsh and prolonged stagflation caused
by tightening international sanctions. Between
2012 and 2013, for instance, Iran faced 40 per cent inflation and an almost 6
per cent contraction in GDP. Today, inflation still hovers around 25 per cent and
GDP is set to contract by another 3 per cent by the Persian new year (March
2015).
This is why Rouhani’s best efforts are
devoted to wooing Western opinion and winning further concessions while, of
course, not abandoning for one instant Iran’s intention of becoming a nuclear
power as soon as may be. One can only
hope that the P5+1 are alive to the realities of the situation, and in
November, realizing the effect that sanctions have had on the Iranian economy,
stand firm on their demands for genuinely effective control of Iran’s nuclear
programme before giving another inch.
Published in the Jerusalem Post, 31 August 2014:
http://www.jpost.com/Experts/Irans-golden-summer-372976?rmusr=0SAECqOLrO%2fQOM4pvyLaU0u31fEeiY%2bl8sLMb%2bFHwt9jR0qpehfZB7CZQ%2boocCKh
Published in the Eurasia Review, 31 August 2014:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/31082014-irans-golden-summer-oped/
No comments:
Post a Comment