• Turkish dilemmas -   Kemal Kirisci

• The US will act alone if it has to -   Joshua Muravchik

• The greater threat is US strikes - an interview with  Nawaf Obaid

• Nuclear crisis -   Sadegh Zibakalam

Compromise still possible
 Ephraim Kam

The United States and Iran appear to be heading toward a military clash over the issue of Iran's drive to obtain nuclear weaponry. In recent months, the US has stepped up its pressure on Iran in this regard. The Bush administration sees in Iran the most serious threat confronting it, and is committed to stopping Tehran's military nuclear effort. It has made clear that military measures are one of the options it is weighing, and has leaked details of military planning involving Iran in the event it decides to move in this direction.

In the course of the past three years, an American-European front opposing Iran has been created. It has brought about the publication of a series of reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency that level sharp criticism at Iran's behavior in the nuclear sphere; these have moved the issue to the UN Security Council.

Ephraim Kam is deputy head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. His book From Terror to Nuclear Bombs: The Significance of the Iranian Threat (Hebrew, 2024) looks at the issue in its broadest perspective.

Iranian-Turkish relations have come a long way since the days when an ideological conflict raged between the two countries. In the 1990s, relations were poor partly because Turkey was unstable. Iran was very good at exploiting both political Islam and the Kurdish problem in Turkey at a time when both constituted a threat to the regime in Ankara. Turkey in turn felt very vulnerable to Iranian interference. There was ample evidence of Iranian involvement in support of the PKK as well as Turkish Hizballah. This would now and then lead to serious conflicts between Iran and Turkey, including occasional border skirmishes.

Today the situation is very different. Turkey feels much more confident toward Iran both economically and politically. Iran is an important supplier of oil and gas to Turkey, while Turkey attributes great importance to expanding its exports to Iran and increasing the involvement of Turkish companies in the Iranian economy. Turkey continues to maintain a visa free travel policy toward Iranian nationals, attracting more than half a million Iranian visitors a year.

In confonting the new Ahmedinezhad-led government in Tehran, the major challenge for Turkey is how to ensure continuation of the kind of pragmatic relationship that developed between the countries during the reign of the previous president, Mohammad Khatami. Iranian nuclear policy is one important aspect of the issues that will have to be addressed, but there are also economic considerations. Iran constitutes a growing market that Turkey does not wish to lose; Ankara needs the income from trade to be able to finance its energy bill.

Dependence on Iranian natural gas is another aspect. This winter, the Turkish government got a taste of what this means when Iranian supplies were interrupted for a brief period. This coincided with difficulties in supplies from Russia. As a result, supplies to Turkish industry had to be cut for a couple of days, and the government came close several times to cutting gas supplies to households in the big cities precisely when snowstorms were raging. Hence vulnerability to energy supplies, particularly from Iran, constitutes another major factor that bears on Iranian-Turkish relations. There is also some concern that the new government in Iran may attempt to use its natural gas and oil as a political weapon. This is of course exacerbated by the international crisis over fears that Iran aims to acquire nuclear weapons.

Clearly, Turkish decision-makers are very much concerned about the "security" dimension of Iranian aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons. Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Gul has repeatedly pointed this out, and in the media there is an extensive debate about what Iranian nuclear weapons would mean for Turkish and regional security. In this regard, Turkish policy-makers also face the challenge of managing relations with an American administration that may opt for unilateral military intervention against Iran.

The Turkish government prefers to resolve the crisis over Iran through dialogue. It has a clear stake in such a resolution: it fears both the economic and political consequences of sanctions as well as an eventual military intervention of a unilateral or even multilateral nature. After all, Turkish decision-makers and the Turkish public had first-hand experience of the economic and political ramifications of UN military intervention against Iraq in 1991, sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s and then the unilateral US intervention against Saddam Hussein. The government has made it clear that it would not support any unilateral policy initiatives, especially of a military nature.

The scenario most loathed is an American unilateral intervention that is accompanied by tremendous pressure on Turkey to cooperate. This would leave any government in Ankara in a pretty impossible situation.

First, the current government would have to be sensitive to its constituency's solidarity with yet another Muslim country coming under attack. Given the situation in Iraq, Turkish public opinion would view any unilateral intervention as "imperialism", pure and simple. Second, a military intervention would inevitably push oil prices to astronomical levels, with dire consequences for the Turkish economy, whose performance so far is one of the current government's strong points. Third, the entire region would risk being thrown into an even deeper political turmoil that could have serious consequences for Turkish democracy and reform. Fourth, no Turkish government would want to be involved in a unilateral military intervention that would run against the spirit of the Kasr-i Sirin treaty of 1639, signed between the Ottomans and the Saffavids in Iran. The frontier delineated by that treaty holds to this day, and the peace the treaty brought to the parties was interrupted only once, early in the eighteenth century.

These challenges suggest that Turkey is facing a major dilemma. On the one hand, a nuclear Iran is clearly a threat and a source of instability. On the other, the imposition of sanctions on Iran, let alone military intervention, would adversely affect Turkish economic and political interests. Turkey's relations with the current American administration would be soured, too, as the government and the public are almost certain not to support such an intervention.

For reasons of political realism Turkey is likely, at the declaratory level, to advocate accepting any decision that the international community reaches through the United Nations Security Council. At the same time, the government will probably look discreetly toward Russia and China to preempt any dramatic decision emerging from the Security Council. Furthermore, the government hopes the European Union will discourage the US from mounting a unilateral military strike and will contribute to efforts to persuade Iran to reach a negotiated settlement to the crisis. Ideally, of course, Turkey, as a country that borders Iran and is starting negotiations for membership, would want the EU to consult more closely with it over Iran.- Published 27/4/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Kemal Kirisci is professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bogazici University, Istanbul. He holds a Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration and is also the director of the Center for European Studies at the university.

The confrontation between Iran and the United States over Iran's nuclear program is likely to end in US air strikes against Tehran's nuclear facilities.

There is little room for doubt that Iran, despite pro forma denials, is working to develop nuclear weapons and not just nuclear energy. Of course, many people in the Middle East are skeptical of American claims about this because of Iraq. But the answer to this is that while the US was grievously wrong about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Washington did not lie. After all, it was the US that announced that no WMDs had been found in Iraq. If we were lying, we could have claimed otherwise or even planted things in Iraq once we occupied it.

In the case of Iran, there are several powerful reasons to believe that its nuclear program is intended for weapons:
* After its hand was forced by revelations by an opposition group, the Iranian government confessed that it had filed false reports to the International Atomic Energy Agency for 18 years.
* It still refuses to give the IAEA complete cooperation.
* Iran has stonewalled long, patient European efforts to negotiate an end to the crisis as well as Russia's compromise proposal to enrich nuclear fuel for Iran.
* Some of its acknowledged activities have no technological purpose except for weapons.
* President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad alluded to other Iraqi nuclear programs in a recent speech.
* Iran was involved with the nuclear weapons proliferation activities of the Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan.

The US views Iranian nuclear weapons as especially threatening. Iran is an unusually barbaric regime. It has organized death squads to murder its own dissidents at home. It has sent "hit" teams to murder dissidents abroad. It is the single most active government in the world in funding, supporting and organizing terrorist activity.

Moreover, it is uniquely virulent. Repeatedly, Ahmadinezhad has called for the destruction of Israel. He has also called for the destruction of the United States. Less attention was paid to this, probably because people thought it less likely to be acted upon. But the Iranian regime has sponsored the murder of Americans where it can. Also, "death to America" is the official slogan of that regime, painted on walls and chanted at Friday prayers.

For these reasons, President George W. Bush and members of his administration have said they will not tolerate a nuclear armed Iran. Is this inconsistent, since we do tolerate nuclear weapons in the hands of other states? Only slightly. We have tried to discourage nuclear proliferation everywhere and have been instrumental in persuading several states to abandon their weapons programs. Others we have not been able to stop. But there is no other regime on earth whose conduct so traduces the norms of civilized behavior.

The United States, as everyone knows, finds itself in a great mess in Iraq, where we have made many mistakes and are stretched thinly. For that reason Washington will be reluctant to undertake military action in Iran.

Should Washington go down that route, the US will surely pay a heavy price. By this I do not mean the various ways in which Iran will try to strike back at us in Iraq or Afghanistan or on American soil. I mean we will intensify anti-American feelings that are already far too high in the Middle East and elsewhere. We may also strengthen the Iranian regime. We know its undemocratic rule is quite unpopular in Iran, but people may rally around the regime if we bomb their country.

For all these reasons, Washington has taken a low-key approach, backing the Europeans and even the Russians, hoping that their diplomatic initiatives will work. So far, they have not worked, and their sponsors have undermined themselves. When Javier Solana, the EU leader, declares that the military option against Iran is absolutely "off the table", he is telling Tehran that it need not negotiate in good faith. And when Moscow refuses to support stern sanctions in the Security Council, it is making it more likely that Tehran will continue to brush aside Russia's proposal.

In the end, if Tehran continues its obdurate refusal to back down from its drive for nuclear weapons, I believe the US will act on its own. There is zero possibility of an Iraq-style invasion. But the US could conduct a bombing campaign that would destroy much of Iran's nuclear facilities. We would not have to destroy it all to set back by years Iran's acquisition of "the bomb". Perhaps that would buy enough time for the Iranian people to take their country back from their benighted rulers.- Published 27/4/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Joshua Muravchik, a fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, is the author of "The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East".

BI: How serious is the US-Iran standoff at the moment?

Obaid: It's obviously a major issue. The question everyone is asking is whether the US will take this a step further and try to settle the dispute by military means. If it does, it will have catastrophic consequences for the whole region.

BI: How do you assess that danger at the moment, with the rhetoric ratcheted up so high?

Obaid: The rhetoric is high, but there has to be a realization that on the ground the American standing in the region today is extremely weak. If the US does decide to attack Iran, it will have an immediate spillover effect, especially in Iraq and in certain other countries in the Gulf region, specifically Bahrain, where there is a Shi'ite majority.

BI: Both sides seem to have painted themselves into a corner and there seems no obvious way for either to stand down. What would be a possible compromise?

Obaid: It's clear that the Iranians are pretty much sticking to their guns as are the Americans, at least on the rhetorical side. What happens on the ground is, we hope, somewhat different. But this is just speculation at the moment.

One thing we do know is that if it does go to armed conflict it will be one of the most foolish attempts yet to settle a problem in the region and will just create many more.

BI: Iran is so far insisting it wants nuclear power only for peaceful means, while the US and the West are insisting that Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Which side is to be believed?

Obaid: No country with nuclear weapons will use them aggressively. That's the nuclear doctrine. If Iran attacked another country using nuclear weapons it would be tantamount to its own destruction. The response by the international community, by the US and the major nuclear powers, would be disastrous for Iran.

So, from our perspective, if nuclear weapons are ever developed, they would obviously only be used for defensive purposes, not aggressive ones.

BI: Would a nuclear Iran spark a nuclear arms race in the region?

Obaid: The only other country that could go down this road at this point would be Saudi Arabia. It has been very clear from the start, and has been said by the Saudi leadership, that this is a policy the Saudi government will not follow. So, no, I highly doubt at this point that Saudi Arabia would consider developing its own nuclear weapons program.

BI: How would the balance of power in the region be affected?

Obaid: Iran might get nuclear weapons but that won't help it much in its foreign policy. Iran is not the dominant economic power, that's Saudi Arabia; it's not the dominant oil power, that's also Saudi Arabia. Militarily, 95 percent of Iran's equipment is ageing. The devil is in the details.

We don't believe Iran will become a bigger threat by having nuclear weapons because it would be afraid of using them. And no country to this day has used nuclear weapons as an aggressive weapon. They have always been the ultimate defensive weapons.

BI: So, in Saudi Arabia this is not really looked upon as the major issue it has become in the West?

Obaid: Absolutely. If Iran had all the other characteristics, especially on the economic, oil and religious fronts, then yes, it could claim a mantle of regional leadership. But Iran is a Shi'ite country and the vast majority of the Muslim world is Sunni. Iran's economy is pretty much in tatters right now, and it's oil might is decreasing every year through natural depletion.

These and other factors all add up the fact that, actually, no, Iran is not poised to become the regional leader just because of this ongoing program. And definitely it's not seen as such within senior circles in Riyadh.

BI: Then why does the West seem to be in such a tizzy about it?

Obaid: The West sees this as a problem for it. Remember, Saudi Arabia has lived with a nuclear armed Israel for 50 years, and we've never really worried about it. On the other side are Pakistan and India. A nuclear Iran will not really change much in the general structure in the region. Israel is even closer to us than Iran.

Ultimately, countries will not use nuclear weapons, and politically there is not much capital to be gained from having them any more.

BI: So, from a Saudi perspective the greater threat is what the West does, not Iran.

Obaid: In the short term, yes, absolutely. In fact, it's not really the West; it's the US. We don't believe the Europeans want any military action taken against Iran.- Published 27/4/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Nawaf Obaid is managing director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, a consultancy based in Riyadh.

The conflict between Iran and the United States is as old as the Islamic regime itself. But never during the past 27 years has the intensity of hostilities between the two states been so high. Even at the peak of the war with Iraq, and given that Iranians broadly blamed the US for persuading Iraq to attack Iran, animosity between the two countries was not as high as it is today.

Many Iranians wonder anxiously whether the US will launch a military invasion against Iran. Some are convinced that the US is contemplating an air strike against Iran's nuclear sites. On the eve of the so-called 5+1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) gathering in Moscow on April 17 and 18, the price of gold jumped rapidly in Iran. Although the government intervened and the price eventually came down, the price of a standard Iranian gold coin rose two-fold at the peak of the panic.

What has elevated animosity between the two states to an unprecedented level is Iran's nuclear program. The positions of the two adversaries over the issue are clear and leave no room for compromise. Iran believes in its solemn and ineluctable right under international treaties, including the NPT, to develop its "peaceful" nuclear program. Allowing for some minor mistakes and past negligence that are tantamount to no more than misdemeanors, the Iranian authorities insist that all of the country's nuclear activities have conformed with the rules and regulations of the international watch-dog body, the IAEA. They refer to reports compiled by IAEA inspectors who have visited every site in which Iran carried out some sort of nuclear activity as well as military installations not involved in any nuclear activity. None of the reports produced any evidence that Iran is developing atomic weapons.

While not disputing Iran's right to develop its nuclear industry, the US holds that the Islamic regime's past record as well as some of its present behavior give rise to serious concern about the ultimate objective of its nuclear program. Iran basically says, "take my word for it that I have no intention of developing an atomic bomb and I only intend to enrich uranium to a low degree sufficient to produce fuel for my present and future nuclear reactors." The US rejects Iran's word. The European Union has increasingly adopted the US position, while Russia and China have tried to play the role of honest broker. On the whole, Iran has found itself increasingly isolated and is losing the battle for international public opinion to the western countries.

Apart from deepening hostility with the US, the nuclear issue has confronted Iran with its most serious international crisis since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In many ways, the nuclear issue has presented Iranian leaders with a far more complex problem than the eight-year war with Iraq. The Iranian leadership was more or less united over the war with Iraq; this is not the case regarding the nuclear issue.

Ostensibly, Iranians have managed to present a unified front over the country's nuclear program. The left, reformists, pragmatists, conservatives and hardliners have all defended Iran's rights to develop its nuclear potential. Beneath the unified front, however, there are disagreements. The main disagreement is twofold: how to continue the country's nuclear program, and how to address the international community, particularly the US, regarding its nuclear program.

The more pragmatic Iranian leaders, headed by ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, while in principle supporting continuation of the program, believe that Iran must refrain from antagonizing the West, particularly the US, over its nuclear activities. They are more inclined to reach a deal worked out by the three leading EU countries, the UK, France and Germany, rather than relying on Russian and Chinese support in the Security Council. They believe that the extent of trade and economic ties these two countries have with the US and the EU is critical; confronted with serious pressure from the US, both Russia and China might withdraw their support for Iran and leave the Islamic regime in the cold. Meanwhile, Iran has to provide both countries with lucrative deals to compensate for their support.

The deal with the EU may not initially offer Iran a great deal. But in the long run, by convincing the Europeans that Iran is serious in not wishing to develop nuclear weapons, we can benefit a great deal more than by relying on Russia and China. Moreover the EU, particularly the UK, has far more leverage over Washington than do Russia and China together.

This was broadly the strategy employed by the previous Iranian negotiating team, headed by Dr.Hasan Ruhani, one of Rafsanjani's lieutenants. In trying to reduce US fears regarding Iran's nuclear program, the pragmatists are also inclined to halt uranium enrichment on an industrial scale for up to five years and to carry out enrichment on a laboratory scale under international supervision. In return for an open and limited-scale program, Iran would expect to receive western know-how for its nuclear program and, more importantly, much needed western investment in the country's energy industry. In short, the more moderate Iranian leaders prefer a more conciliatory approach.

In contrast to the moderates, the hardliners, headed by newly-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, advocate a more hawkish approach to the country's nuclear program. Initially, Ahmadinezhad's disapproval of the way the Iranian team had been negotiating with the western powers was implicit, but he soon began criticizing the ex-negotiators very openly. Ruhani and his colleagues initially showed constraint and did not respond to Ahmadinezhad's criticisms; eventually however, they lost patience and replied.

They defended their tactics throughout the two years of negotiating with the EU3, including the two year voluntary freeze on the country's enrichment program. The moderates further criticized Ahmadinezhad's comments about Israel and the Holocaust. One reformist newspaper even went so far as to blame Ahmadinezhad for trying deliberately to provoke the US over the country's nuclear program. Without naming the president, the newspaper wrote, "it appears that some of our leaders are trying to use the country's nuclear issue as a tool to score points against the Great Satan. While every effort ought to be undertaken to alleviate US fears about our nuclear program, some of our leaders are in fact behaving in exactly the opposite direction". Ahmadinezhad eventually replaced Ruhani with Ali Larijani.

The future of American-Iranian relations concerning Iran's nuclear program depends in part on the outcome of the quiet struggle that is unfolding between hardliners and moderates within the Iranian leadership.- Published 27/4/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Sadegh Zibakalam is professor of political science at Tehran University.