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Buying time for Iran

By Amir Taheri

Buying Time for Iran

Obama is not getting tough

Last Updated: 4:05 AM, September 30, 2009

Posted: 2:11 AM, September 30, 2009

DIPLOMATS call it President Obama&apos;s first major interna tional test, while pundits see it as a diplomatic version of the gunfight at the OK Corral.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&quot;It,&quot; of course, is tomorrow&apos;s meeting in Geneva between Iran and the 5+1 group -- the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Yet the meeting will likely be far less dramatic than the hype.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
To start with, it&apos;s not quite clear what the meeting is&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;about.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Iran&apos;s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, insists he&apos;s going to Geneva to talk about a&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;rangeof issues: eliminating world poverty, saving the environment, shaping a better future for mankind. (Apparently, there wasn&apos;t room on the agenda for saving the whales.)&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
European Union foreign-policy &quot;czar&quot; Javier Solana, meanwhile, sees the encounter as the latest in a series of &quot;exchanges with Iran&quot; that started 30 years ago.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Yet Obama has a more modest goal: He wants Iran to use the occasion to &quot;demonstrate its peaceful intentions.&quot; He says he&apos;s &quot;committed to building a relationship with Iran&quot; and that his offer of &quot;a serious, meaningful dialogue&quot; remains open.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
In other words, the talks may cover everything&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;exceptwhat they really should be about: persuading Iran to comply with three mandatory Security Council resolutions.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
With the advent of the Obama administration, it has become impolite even to mention the resolutions that order Iran to stop its uranium-enrichment program and honor its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The administration is developing a habit of setting itself the lowest possible foreign-policy goals -- and then failing to achieve them. (On the Arab-Israeli issue, for example, Obama&apos;s goal was a freeze of Jewish settlements in the West Bank -- an objective he&apos;s had to abandon.)&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Thus, if we listen to Obama, tomorrow&apos;s talks are not about the Islamic Republic&apos;s compliance with the UN resolutions but about persuading it to show &quot;significant cooperation&quot; in the next three months.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
But how to measure that &quot;significant cooperation&quot;? Obama&apos;s answer is simple: By year&apos;s end, Iran should open its newly declared &quot;secret&quot; center for uranium enrichment to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Hmm. The IAEA inspectors are in Tehran right now, and the site is just an hour&apos;s drive away. Why do we need to wait three months for them to have a look? Do we need to give Iran the time to &quot;sanitize&quot; the site to ensure that the inspectors find nothing incriminating?&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
It is clear that&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;bothsides want to buy time.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Iran is happy to drag out the process, with three-month tranches if need be, until it has assembled all it needs to build the bomb. A recent editorial in the daily Kayhan, the chief organ of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said it all in its headline: &quot;Talking for the sake of talking.&quot;&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The more talks there are, the more time Iran will have to complete a program that, it argues, is perfectly legal and peaceful.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Obama, meanwhile, has already given Iran an extra year during which the number of Iranian centrifuges for uranium enrichment will reach the magic figure of 10,000, compared to just 800 when he took office. Yet he is still anxious to buy time -- because, having distanced himself from the UN resolutions, he can&apos;t return to them without offering a strategy for&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;forcinga defiant Iran to comply.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The administration&apos;s confusion about the issue is illustrated by Defense Secretary Robert Gates&apos; recent remarks: &quot;Iran has the intention to build a nuclear arsenal,&quot; he says -- but adds that it isn&apos;t clear that &quot;the decision to build the bomb has already been taken.&quot;&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
How does he expect Iran to prove that it&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;doesn&apos;thave &quot;the intention&quot; to build the bomb?&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Iranian leaders have always&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;saidthey have no such intention. And Iran has supposedly already shown its intent by signing the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty almost 40 years ago.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Six years ago, Iran also promised to adopt a set of new protocols to strengthen that treaty. But Iran&apos;s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad canceled the promise -- because he realized that the 5+1 lacked the backbone to impose the UN resolutions.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Obama faces a terrible dilemma.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
He must know that, if Iran doesn&apos;t stop enrichment in accordance with the UN resolutions, there&apos;s no guarantee that it won&apos;t become a nuclear-armed power whenever its leaders so decide.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
At the same time, he knows that if Iran&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;refusesto scrap its enrichment program, the United States and its allies may have to use force to impose the UN resolutions.&lt;p&gt;
	            &lt;/p&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Obama has a dire choice: Accept a nuclear-armed Iran, or go to war to prevent it.</font>	

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