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  Washington and the Iranian Bomb: The West's Preventative Capitulation

Washington and the Iranian Bomb The West's Preventative Capitulation

Part 2: 'Nuclear Surge Capacity'

Signs that the Islamic Republic is thinking along these lines came this week when two senior Tehran officials made comments indicating a readiness to accept the latest compromise package presented by the European Union foreign policy "czar" Javier Solana. Foreign Minister Manuchehr Motakki even hinted that a suspension of uranium enrichment was no longer an impossibility.

A temporary suspension would not undermine Iran's plans to build a "nuclear surge capacity"-- to have everything in place, that is, to build atomic warheads, without quite manufacturing them. Iranians, after 3,000 years of history, know the value of patience. They are not in a hurry. They know that weaving a Persian carpet sometimes takes years.

In 2003 Iran did announce a suspension of its uranium program. Now we know that even during that suspension, Tehran was working on other aspects of its nuclear project.

This time the regime might accept another temporary suspension in exchange for recognition of its leadership position in the Middle East.

The Islamic Republic will not, indeed cannot, offer any concessions unless faced with the prospect of regime change or offered major concessions, allowing the Khomeinist revolution to enlarge its zone of influence.

Ahmadinejad has said as much, albeit in different words.

He has castigated his predecessor Muhammad Khatami for accepting suspension in 2003 when the regime was not in danger and no major concessions were on offer. Khatami says he did so because, at the time -- shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq -- he feared the Americans might make a left turn and march on Tehran as well.

In other words, it was fear of regime change that persuaded the mullahs to accept suspension six years ago. As soon as that fear was gone, and Bush appeared to be headed for a political lynching party in his own country, the program was resumed at a faster pace.

Three Layers

Why is Iran so fixated on a nuclear program? The issue has three layers:

• The power struggle in Tehran. Ahmadinejad has built his macho image on the nuclear issue. If he backs down, he would be politically dead.

• The regime's strategy for hegemony in the Middle East. The Islamic Republic needs tactical "nuclear parity" to:
• guarantee that it won't be attacked with nuclear weapons as it proceeds to drive the Americans out of the Middle East
• question the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, and
• impose Khomeinism on the Arabs in the name of Islamic unity.

• Tehran's ambitions, spelled out by Ahmadinejad and others, to create an international coalition to challenge the global system dominated by the United States.

Ahmadinejad has already promised "full support and protection" to anti-American regimes in Latin America against the "Great Satan" in Washington. Iran is laying the foundation for an armaments industry in Venezuela. One day a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic may extend its nuclear umbrella to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador and -- why not -- Cuba.

The Islamic Republic has been at war against the United States and the international system led by Washington for almost 30 years. It has been a low intensity war because the US and its allies have shied away from full-scale confrontation. The US has shown it has lots of power, but not the courage to use even a fraction of it. The Islamic Republic's power, on the other hand, is "tiny," as Obama has noted. Yet the mullahs have been prepared to use their "tiny" power in full, with already devastating effects.

The issue is not how to avoid war with the Islamic Republic. It is how to end a war that has been going on for almost 30 years.

As in all wars, there are three ways to end it: surrender, make a deal or win. The coming negotiations between Tehran and the 5+1 Group may find an interim solution, a kind of ceasefire that postpones the inevitable. The only hope is that, in the course of time, Iran may change either its behavior or its regime.

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