Iran: The divine right to a bomb

Date: 28/02/04

No case for a war. But the world would be safer without a nuclear Iran

IRAN'S election last week made it possible to see clearly something that had been fogged by ambiguity. It made it clear that the Islamic Republic founded by Ayatollah Khomeini 25 years ago has not evolved as some had hoped into a serious democracy. This is not for want of its people's trying. In a string of elections in recent years, Iranians flocked to vote for those politicians who said they were reformers. But under the constitution bequeathed by Khomeini, the decisions of a mere parliament can be struck down by the “just and pious” clergymen of the Council of Guardians, which is in turn subordinate to the faqih, the top cleric and “supreme leader”. He and they have crushed the breath out of reform by closing newspapers and striking down progressive laws. The final straw, which made the vote of February 20th a parody of an election, was the council's disqualification of more than 2,000 candidates, including 87 existing members of parliament.

Thumbs on the people, fingers on the button

In a bogus democracy, fewer people bother to vote. So the predictable outcome was the lowest turnout for a parliamentary election since the revolution, and a thumping victory for the religious conservatives. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, said that the losers were “the United States, Zionism, and the enemies of the Iranian nation”. In truth, the chief losers are Iran's own citizens, whose yearning for personal and political freedom has been thwarted again. But Mr Khamenei is right in at least one respect, which is that the result of the election is depressing not only for Iranians but for the outside world - and, yes, especially America and Israel - as well. For Iran is not just a country whose people look fated to squirm for a good while longer under the thumb of obscurantist clerics who claim a divine right to rule. These clerics also seem to want to put their finger on a nuclear button.

It has to be “seem” because Iran's leaders insist that they do not want nuclear weapons, and never have. That, they say, is why the Islamic Republic - unlike Israel - has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Over the past year, however, they have been caught out time and again failing to give the full account required by the treaty of their nuclear activities. With each new leak, Iran has changed its story. It now admits to having had a secret programme to enrich uranium. Along with Libya and North Korea, it seems to have been one of the main customers of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced Pakistani who ran a global nuclear-smuggling network. Though it clings amid the confessions to the fable that all of this was for peaceful purposes, few people believe it.

How dangerous would a nuclear Iran be? And what should be done about it? Understandably, the world is in no mood to think about such questions right now. Just to pose them is to invite a sinking feeling of deja vu. It is, after all, only two years since George Bush put Iran with Iraq and North Korea in his “axis of evil”. He still says he will not allow “the world's most dangerous regimes” to threaten America with nuclear weapons. But having invested so much political capital in the invasion of Iraq, Mr Bush no doubt feels his appetite for foreign conflict waning. He will not win re-election in November by making himself look like a serial warmonger.

The many people who were appalled by the Iraqi war may be reassured by Mr Bush's distraction. They should not be. A distracted America may give the clerics the very breathing space they need to build a nuclear arsenal. Indeed, Iran may have concluded from what happened to Saddam Hussein (and did not happen to North Korea) that the sooner you acquire a bomb the safer you are from the superpower, especially one with armies on two of your borders. Iran's recent agreement to submit to more rigorous inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency is not inconsistent with its having reached such a conclusion. Under the NPT, Iran is entitled to master the nuclear cycle. It could then give three months' notice to quit the NPT lawfully and build its bomb.

Yet that might not be calamitous. A nuclear Iran is certainly less frightening than a nuclear Saddam would have been. Even under the clerics, Iran is run by a regime with checks and balances, not by one megalomaniac. It no longer tries to export its revolution. It opposed the Taliban in Afghanistan, and has so far done less than it might to undermine America in Afghanistan or Iraq. On the other hand, it calls for eliminating Israel and helps violent organisations like Hamas, Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad to work to that end. The mere prospect of Iran acquiring a bomb has prompted Israel to ponder aloud the case for a pre-emptive strike (though that would depend on knowing exactly where all Iran's nuclear gear was concealed). If Iran got the bomb, sometime enemies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia might feel compelled to follow suit.

Europe's chance

In short, though a nuclear Iran may not be worth fighting a war to avert, it is a danger worth averting. But how? In October, Britain, France and Germany thought they had talked Iran into coming clean about its secret nuclear activities and “suspending” uranium enrichment. In return, Europe dangles the trade relations Iran's economy sorely needs. If such an approach really did persuade Iran to do without a bomb, the Europeans could boast that they had found a better way than pre-emption to stop proliferation. And this may even be what Iran wants. Just possibly, Iran has decided in the wake of the Iraq war to do its own version of a Libya, by giving up a secret bomb programme but without the shame of admitting, as Muammar Qaddafi did, that it ever existed.

The question is how to be sure. Since October, Iran has spun more tales than Scheherazade to explain away the discovery of bits and pieces of nuclear research it had neglected to mention. This does not inspire confidence. The mullahs' failure to continue along the path of democratic reform is another reason not to give Iran the benefit of the doubt. Having dangled a carrot, the Europeans ought not to hand it over until Iran has delivered its end of the bargain. In the meantime, it does no harm for America to keep hold of a stick.

Having dangled a carrot, Europe should not hand it over until Iran has delivered its side of the bargain.

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