Russian national security council chief Igor Ivanov (bottom left) and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani (right), attend a news conference after their meeting in Tehran on Tuesday, October 3, 2006. The Russian ambassador to Iran, Alexander Sadovnikov, is behind Ivanov.
Photo: AP
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Security Counselor
// Igor Ivanov to Help Iran Avert War
Yesterday Russian national security council secretary Igor Ivanov arrived in Iran for another shot at convincing Tehran to make some concessions to the international community. Mr. Ivanov's visit coincided with another sharp spike in tension in the relations between Iran and the West and the beginning of clear preparations by the United States for a new war in the Persian Gulf.
The Russian Game
Last week marked the halfway point of the period in which the United Nations Security Council has decreed Iran must cease its enrichment of uranium. On December 23 of last year, the members of the Security Council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution threatening sanctions against Iran if Tehran does not agree to the international community's demands to cease its enrichment activities. The sixty days that the Security Council gave the Iranian authorities to consider the ultimatum will run out in February. It is already clear, however, that Iran will not fulfill the demands of the international community and that, in fact, Tehran intends to play the game of escalating tension for even higher stakes.
Last Saturday the head of the Iranian parliamentary commission on national security and foreign affairs, Aladdin Broujerdi, announced that the nuclear facility in Natanz is starting construction on 3,000 new centrifuges. The Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, however, preferred to deny the news from parliament: an official representative of the organization stated that "there will be no new centrifuges installed at Natanz." The Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry did not explain the apparent contradiction in the official versions of events, saying only that "technical problems" had something to do with it.
Most likely. both the announcement by Mr. Broujedri and the denial from Iran's Atomic Energy Agency are part of a premeditated political plan dreamed up by the Iranian government, which is continuing to taunt the West and to drop hints of the upheaval that will lie ahead if Iran succeeds in beefing up its nuclear capacity. Meanwhile, the Western media has recently reported more than once that Iran is planning to increase the number of working centrifuges to 54,000 and that the Iranian authorities intend to inaugurate them en masse to coincide with the 28th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, which will be celebrated in February.
The news of the 3,000 centrifuges is far from being the only example of Iran's provocative behavior. Out of a team of 41 inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that were supposed to visit Iran this weekend, only three arrived in Tehran on Saturday: the other 38, who represent countries that voted in favor of introducing sanctions against Iran in the Security Council session on December 23 of last year, were refused entry visas. Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, commenting on the incident, said that the last word on which inspectors would be allowed into the country and which would not rests solely with Tehran and that the decision did not in any way contradict the spirit of Iran's cooperation with the IAEA.
Pushing the envelope even further in its confrontation with the West, Iran has continued to use Russia to its own ends as much as possible. Tehran recognizes that Moscow is no ally of the Iranian regime, particularly since Russia voted for the Security Council resolution on December 23. However, Moscow is prepared to go to bat for Tehran in exchange for some benefits in its political jousting with Washington and to make a show for the West of its influence in the region.
The most recent move in Russia's game plan was yesterday's visit to Tehran by Russian national security council secretary Igor Ivanov, who met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, national security council secretary Ali Larijani, and Foreign Affairs Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and passed on to them greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. "The main idea that we want to get across in this message," said Mr. Ivanov, "is Russia's firm intention to court goodwill in its relationship with its long-term partner Iran."
After talks with Mr. Ivanov, Mr. Mottaki said that Iran and Russia together could play an important role in ensuring stability in the Caucasus and in Central Asia. The double meaning of this statement was obvious: in other words Tehran – if it so chooses – can ensure instability in these regions as well.
According to Mr. Mottaki, the representatives of the two countries also discussed the difficulty posed by the search for a general solution to Iran's nuclear problem. It should be noted that Russia and Iran have already been discussing this problem for several years: Moscow has offered Tehran several concrete options that could have helped the Iranian authorities to deal with any objections from the international community and still manage to save face. However, Tehran turned all of these proposals down, and there is no reason to suppose that this time around will be any different.
At a joint press conference yesterday with his Russian colleagues, Iranian national security council secretary Ali Larijani said that Iran needs more time to consider what should be down with its nuclear program. As it has done before, Tehran is still trying to play for time – with Russia's help.
The American Battle
While Russia and Iran continue their long-standing game, in which each tries to use the other to amass more clout in the international arena, the United States is beginning to take a new line in relations with Iran. Since the beginning of this year, Washington has been giving signs that it wishes to deal decisively with the situation once and for all. At the beginning of January, US President George Bush openly accused Iran of supporting the Iraqi insurgency and declared that the United States would henceforth oppose not only the insurgents but also Tehran's influence in Iraq, which the US considers a key reason for the ongoing instability in the country. Though American soldiers detained six employees of the Iranian consulate in Irbil, Iraq on January 11, however, Tehran refused to take the bait and refrained from making a fuss over the incident.
At the end of last week, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that President Bush has given orders that all Iranian agents discovered in Iraq are to be seized or killed. Tehran officially condemned the order, calling it "an act of terrorism."
In the opinion of many analysts, America's new policy on Iran, which is based on what it sees as the necessity of rooting out Iran's influence in the Near East, is likely to quickly lead to armed clashes. Washington's preparations for military operations in Iraq, according to the US media, are revealed by the deployment to the Persian Gulf of the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, which is carrying an 80-plane naval air wing. By the end of February, the USS Stennis and its fleet of accompanying warships will join another fleet, headed by the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, that has been deployed in the region since December 2006. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns called the deployment of a second strike group to the shores of Iran necessary to ensure that Iran "ceases its attempts to dominate the region." American Vice President Dick Cheney said yesterday that the US is sending a "strong signal" to Iran concerning its intentions to stay in the region and work cooperatively with its allies in the face of the "Iranian threat." Time is on the side of Iran, however: as its influence in the region grows with each passing day, the position of the Bush administration deteriorates, along with Washington's ability to launch a new large-scale military campaign. Vice President Cheney clearly knows that. By continuing on this course, the US is heading straight down the path of no return, where its only option for staying on in the region will be to go to war with Iran.
Petr Yozh
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 29, 2007
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