However, according to the 2004 to 2005 Strategic Survey by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “by early 2004 it was evident that Iran had not fully declared its past enrichment research and was continuing efforts to conceal suspected nuclear activities.” By late 2004 a shouting match had developed between Iran and the EU over unfulfilled pledges from both parties. Iran announced that it would resume making parts for enrichment centrifuges and begin production of uranium hexafluoride to feed the centrifuges. But then, threatened with an IAEA resolution that would refer it to the UN Security Council, Iran backed down. In November 2004, it agreed to restore temporary suspension of enrichment and gave general assurances that it would halt any weapons program in return for Western cooperation and new trade deals, including WTO membership.

Stalled Negotiations

In early 2005, the Bush administration began sending contradictory messages to both its allies and Iran. On a February tour, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denounced the ruling Iranian establishment as an “outpost of tyranny,” disassociating the United States from the EU-3 compromise efforts. However, once Bush completed his March 2005 European tour, the administration indicated support for the EU plan. As part of the compromise, it agreed to terminate opposition to Iran’s WTO membership aspirations and to approve, on a case-by-case basis, release of spare US parts for Iran’s aging and increasingly shaky civil air fleet. In February 2005, Iran reluctantly showed the IAEA documents connected with nuclear bomb-making, including the crucial casting of uranium metal, from the collection of rogue Pakistani scientist AQ Khan. In 2005 Iran also began building storage tunnels north of its Isfahan uranium processing facility without informing the IAEA. It denied the IAEA further access to its Parchin military site, where Western experts suspected that Iran could be testing high-explosive nuclear-weapons components. Following the 2005 election of President Ahmadinejad, several Iranian spokesmen for the government repeated earlier promises that Iran would never renounce its right to enrich uranium guaranteed to it under the NPT accords. Such pursuits, they claimed, were vital to Iran’s independent energy program and to its national pride.

It soon became chillingly clear that there would be no compromise with the European Union or anyone else. By March 2006, the Iranians had broken IAEA inspection seals on their nuclear sites, blocked spot inspections, and resumed uranium enrichment on a small scale. As a result, the IAEA referred Iran to the UN Security Council. Unfortunately, there has since been little consensus in the Security Council over how to proceed. While US Ambassador John Bolton has called for economic sanctions, Russia and China are calling for a more diplomatic approach.

Within Iran, national sentiment seems to be highly in favor of the country’s recent nuclear developments. Every time an Israeli politician or analyst calls for action to thwart an “imminent” Iranian nuclear danger—the Jerusalem Post headlined at least twice, without supporting evidence, that “Iran already has a bomb”—Iranians, pointing to Israel’s own stockpile of nuclear weapons, ask, “If them, why not us?”

As Roula Khalaf, the perceptive Financial Times Middle East analyst, reported in February, Tehran’s “aggressive approach is based on a rational calculation that a potent combination of high oil prices, a distracted and overstretched United States, and Tehran’s potential to foment unrest in the Middle East will ensure the Islamic Republic emerges triumphant from its long months of brinkmanship with the West. In other words, while Iran’s strategy may be dangerous, it cannot fairly be characterized as mad.”

Avoiding World War III

Should unilateral or bilateral US or Israeli attacks be only a “last resort,” as US Republican Senator John McCain and others have postulated? Tehran seems to count on China and Russia to block any punitive sanctions by the UN Security Council. This summer, an energetic rebirth of muscular diplomacy appears to be the best hope of avoiding an armed conflict, which could erupt as early as this summer or fall, if not in early 2007.

Seymour Hersh’s April New Yorker article on Washington’s war plans, which discussed the possibility of multiple air assaults on Iran and tactical nuclear bunker-busting strikes on Iran’s deep underground installations, evoked only weak denials from the Bush administration. It was closely followed on April 13 by Iran’s triumphant proclamation that it had mastered uranium enrichment techniques and had begun laboratory-scale enrichment for the first time.

On April 2, the London Sunday Telegraph reported that senior British defense officials have secretly discussed the likely consequences of an “inevitable” US-led air offensive against Iran. The United States hopes to garner multinational support, it claims, but it would go it alone or only with Israel if it had to. This unchallenged report contrasts sharply with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s assurances in March that such an action was “inconceivable”—similar to many British and US public comments preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Telegraph predicted that the weapons would be largely the same as those used in Iraq: Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from submarines and B-2 Stealth bombers carrying BLU-28 satellite-guided bunker-busting bombs. It did not mention tactical nuclear weapons.

Over 40 years of close coverage inside and outside the Middle East convinces me of the folly of such an assault on Iran—especially if the Bush-Rumsfeld team should ignore the advice of senior US military officers against using tactical nukes. Bombing Iran would strengthen, not weaken, the clerical regime that Bush apparently wants to overthrow. During his reign, the Shah of Iran’s actions, which included an intentional increase of world oil prices in 1973 and an unsuccessful attempt to annex Bahrain in 1968, were highly unpopular in the West. Iranians, however, rallied around the flag at home in support of these initiatives. In the event of a US-led attack on the country’s regime or military, they would undoubtedly rally again with intense nationalistic fervor. Such an attack would be seen as an attempt to frustrate the advent of nuclear energy as a tool of modernization and industrialization in Iran—an initiative that has its foundations in the late 1950s. Moreover, Iranians would be outraged at the hypocrisy of such an incursion by the United States, a country that has tacitly approved the unofficial nuclear weapons programs of Pakistan, India, and Israel.