Iran nuclear issue: A bargain of peanuts for diamonds
- By Jin Liangxiang
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 29, 2012
Recent months have witnessed intensive interactions between Iran and the P5+1 regarding Iran's nuclear program after a hiatus of approximately fifteen months. Despite optimistic information released about the negotiations, the new round of diplomatic maneuvers will most likely result in more frustration if new ideas are not considered.
In the West, there is a kind of widely shared argument that the Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to become the world's tenth nuclear power. It might be true that Iran has a hidden intention to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran's harsh rhetoric against Israel and the United States, its policy to compete for regional influence in the Middle East and some of its actions breaching the NPT regime all lead the West and even the international community at large to believe that Iran might be truly seeking nuclear weapons.
Relevant with this kind of judgment, the West opines that nuclear technology is not something that Iran cannot live without. And pressures, if tremendous enough, and costs, if imposed high enough, will shake Iran's determination to have such technology. But that is not the full story. Iran's determination of independent nuclear capability should never be underestimated.
Peaceful use of nuclear energy, another side of the nature of its nuclear program, should equally not be neglected. As one of the most important advancements of the last century, nuclear technology is regarded by most countries as a symbol of national modernization. Iran is no exception.
According to a twenty-year vision paper proposed by the Khatami government and approved by the supreme leader in 2003, Iran will have to build between fifteen to twenty nuclear power stations before 2024 so as to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity.
Iran argues that like any other nation, it also has the legitimate right to enjoy the benefits that advancements of science and technology can bring, and to enjoy a cleaner environment that results from properly controlled nuclear energy. And Iran can also benefit a lot economically by exporting electricity to its neighboring countries with nuclear power plants.
It sounds reasonable that Iran can import fuels necessary for the power plants from other countries, as the West proposed. But Iran argues that its power plants cannot always rely on the import of fuel. Iran might be able to buy fuel from other countries when their state-to-state relations are relaxed. But when conflict arises, they might cut off such supply. Then all the domestic plants will be neutralized.
Iran's concerns are also legitimate. Economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation and military threats over the past thirty years have been the usual measures that the West has employed in dealing with their relations with Iran. The frequent use of petroleum as a leverage in international politics even makes Iran feel insecure without independent and stable fuel supplies. How can Iran trust the external world, the West in particular?
In addition, Iran argues that its nuclear capability is also for medical use. Every year the Islamic Republic has more than 500,000 patients afflicted with various cancers waiting for treatment using medical isotopes. And to produce medical isotopes, Iran has to have capability to enrich uranium at 20 percent purity. Currently Iran is running out of stock of such medical isotopes, which used to be imported from Argentina.
Therefore, despite the risks of Iran's potential wrong doings involving nuclear proliferation, Iran's quest for the use of nuclear energy and self-reliant capability to produce nuclear fuel is legitimate. The significance of such capability for Iran should not be underestimated.
That might be the reason why Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian negotiator, shortly before the negotiation on June 18-19, dismissed as "diamonds for peanuts" a proposal by world powers that Tehran halt higher-grade uranium enrichment and close an underground nuclear site in exchange for reactor fuel and civil aviation parts.
Actually, Mousavian's analogy is nothing new. Early when Ali Larijani was chief nuclear negotiator and secretary of Supreme Council of National Security (SCNS), he described the West's package of proposals in exchange for Iran to give up enrichment capability as a piece of chocolate for jewels.
Regardless, whether it is peanuts for diamonds or chocolate for jewels, it all well reflects Iran's firm determination to have a certain level of nuclear capability.
However, it by no way means that there is no resolution to the Iran nuclear dispute. Currently, Iran openly claims the right to produce uranium at 3.5 percent purity, but has met resistance on whether it should enrich uranium at 20 percent purity at home.
Although it is very unlikely that Iran will give up its capability of lower enrichment purity, the P5+1 could prevent Iran from further advancing its nuclear capability by enhancing inspections.
To put it another way, instead of trying to deal with all aspects of the Iran nuclear issue, such as exchanging Iran's stockpile of lower purity enriched uranium and pressing Iran to give up 20 percent purity enrichment capability and allow inspection at the Fordo facilities, the P5+1 should concentrate its negotiations on only one.
That would be more practical.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/jinliangxiang.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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