[Mb-civic] Iranians Unite Behind Nation's Nuclear Plans

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nuclear10dec10.story

THE WORLD

Iranians Unite Behind Nation's Nuclear Plans
 By Megan K. Stack
 Times Staff Writer

 December 10, 2004

 TEHRAN ‹ From this country's divided political sphere to its disaffected
streets, one thing binds Iranians of all ideologies: a fervent belief in the
Islamic Republic's right to its nuclear program.

 Even Iranians who oppose weapons development, including some members of the
government, insist that the nation has a right to the technology. In a
country that still tends to think of itself as a superpower, nuclear
capabilities represent progress and modernity to a people hypersensitive to
any perceived inequities.

 "Iran has paid dearly, really dearly, to prove its independence
internationally," said Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former representative to the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog
agency. "Maybe we made mistakes in the past, but we want to decide our own
destiny. We don't want others to decide for us."

 While Iran's nuclear negotiations with Britain, France and Germany dragged
on at the IAEA's Vienna headquarters in recent weeks, student organizations
and hard-line political parties staged angry pro-nuclear demonstrations on
the streets of Tehran. Conservative newspapers ran menacing editorials
warning negotiators against caving in to Western demands.

 "Depriving Iran of a nuclear fuel cycle," warned an editorial in the Kayhan
newspaper, "is not a forgivable sin." The message to negotiators was plain:
Iran was in no mood to relinquish its nuclear research. Any Iranian
agreement to relinquish nuclear research or uranium enrichment would spark
political uproar at home, analysts here say.

 "None of the political groups can dare to say that we don't need nuclear
technology," said Sayed Mustafa Taj-Zadeh, an advisor to Mohammad Khatami,
the country's mostly sidelined reformist president.

 Iran insists that its nuclear work is meant only for energy, but the U.S.
accuses it of secretly working to build weapons.

 In Iran, the nuclear debate has become the defining issue in the heated
struggles between reform and conservatism, and engagement with the West or
continued isolation. The bloodshed in Iraq has made Iranians more confident
that the U.S. can't afford to back up its threats with military force, and
strengthened the case for taking a hard stand against Western demands.

 In the compromise reached last week between Iran and negotiators for the
three European nations, the Islamic Republic agreed to temporarily suspend
uranium enrichment, which can produce either nuclear fuel or material for
atomic warheads. But symptoms of Iran's internal struggle over the nation's
nuclear future were plain during the European talks. The negotiations were
delayed by Tehran's flip-flopping on key issues, greeted with outrage by
Iran's hard-liners and marked by Iranian rhetorical shifts over what,
exactly, had been agreed.

 The nuclear standoff with the West comes at a time when Iran's conservative
mullahs have consolidated power and are running the country virtually
unopposed. The brief spell of reformist fever and whispers of a cultural and
international opening that swept the country in the late 1990s and early in
this decade have been smothered, analysts say.

 Iran's hard-line Guardian Council, which answers to supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, banned reformist candidates from running for
parliament in February, ensuring that its conservative allies would sweep
the elections. President Khatami will remain in office until spring but has
proved a relatively weak politician who has been in effect neutralized by
his rivals' overwhelming force.

 Power, however, hasn't created consensus among Iran's conservatives. They
remain sharply divided among themselves, especially on the question of
nuclear weapons. 

 In a country sandwiched between two nations that have been invaded by
U.S.-led troops, religious conservatives believe that a nuclear arsenal is a
crucial tool to solidify the Islamic Republic's power in the region and
create a defense against attack. Hard-liners in Iran's parliament already
have threatened to force the government to resume uranium enrichment.

 But other conservatives now advocate an easing of Iran's defiance in favor
of a more diplomatic approach that would, they hope, lead to a warming of
trade ties with the West. Known as the "neoconservatives," they advocate a
crackdown within Iranian society coupled with an opening to the outside
world. They contend that Iran can benefit from the economic and trade
incentives offered by Europeans in exchange for a nuclear deal.

 Many Iranian leaders now argue ‹ at least in public ‹ that nuclear weapons
are a liability that would only invite attack from abroad. Iranian
politicians and clerics have repeatedly said that nuclear weapons violate
the nation's religious convictions, and the Foreign Ministry says Khamenei
has issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against them.

 "There are two schools of thought about nuclear weapons," said Taj-Zadeh,
the presidential advisor. "Some people think they will threaten our
security. But others think that with nuclear weapons we can defend ourselves
before Israel or even the United States. They think if we have the weapons,
the United States won't attack us like Iraq and Afghanistan."

 The latter perspective has been taken up enthusiastically on the street.
Many ordinary Iranians unabashedly support the development of nuclear
weapons, which are seen by many as symbols of international status. Others
simply believe that Iran should have the most potent weapons available,
particularly when neighbors such as Russia, Pakistan, India and archrival
Israel have nuclear arsenals.

 "If Israel is going to threaten our country, it's our right to have nuclear
weapons to defend ourselves," said Bahar Daeihagh, 21, a student in Tehran
who was at a downtown shopping center Sunday. "Nuclear technology has gone
global, and everybody has it. Iran should also have it."

 Even when politicians and analysts here frame the nuclear question as one
of national sovereignty and technological evolution, questions of weapons
and defense strategy lurk just beneath the surface. Built into the
nationalistic rhetoric is the oft-repeated position that Iran won't
compromise on questions of national security.

 Long months of violence in Iraq have also left their mark on Iran's
political psyche. The U.S. invasion of Iraq may have sowed fear among other
governments in the region, but Iran's hard-liners have since grown more
confident. Spirits in Tehran have been lifted by the conviction that America
can't handle its troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan and would be disinclined
to open a third front by confronting Iran.

 "When Iraq was attacked, most of the fundamentalists were frightened, but
slowly, little by little, both the people and the authoritarian elite saw
that the Americans couldn't deal with Iraq," said Hamid Reza Jalaipour, an
Iranian sociologist and prominent reformist. "And then the authoritarians
got very cocky, and said, 'Look, nobody can change us.' "

 The swelling confidence has been reflected in the recent threats by Iranian
hawks.

 Iran's defense minister, Ali Shamkhani, said last month that the Islamic
Republic had become capable of mass-producing a missile, known as "shooting
star" in Persian, with a range long enough to strike Israel. That
announcement came on the tail of Shamkhani's threat to follow the U.S.
example of preemptive strikes.

 "We will not sit with arms folded to wait for what others will do to us,"
Shamkhani told the Arabic-language Al Jazeera satellite TV channel. "Some
military commanders are convinced that the preventive operations which the
Americans discuss are not their monopoly."

 Pragmatic Iranians, however, insist that the government can't afford to
defy U.S. demands. 

 Britain, France and Germany have offered to sell nuclear fuel to Iran and
to extend trade deals in exchange for the permanent suspension of
enrichment. 

 The incentives, coupled with an opportunity to improve ties with the U.S.
by cooperating in Iraq and Afghanistan, present Iran with a rare chance to
improve its international status. It remains to be seen whether hard-liners
will hold sway.


If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at
latimes.com/archives.

Article licensing and reprint options




 Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times