This is not according to law
While almost assured to be referred to the Security Council
for punitive measures, Iran still has right on its side, writes
Mustafa
El-Labbad
The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors
resolution ordering the referral of the Iranian nuclear file to the UN
Security Council opens the door wide to the placement of sanctions on
Tehran for the first time in the history of the Islamic republic. The
resolution passed by 27 votes of a total of 35. This result is an
indicator of current regional and international balances as well as
future majorities in the Security Council.
The acquiescence of Russia and China -- both traditional allies of
Iran -- to the draft resolution's demands and their approval of it is a
virtual lifting of the international cover that has shielded Tehran in
its confrontations with Washington via the IAEA. Only three states
objected to the resolution: Syria, which is tied to a regional alliance
with Tehran, and Cuba and Venezuela, both of which are engaged in
reciprocal relations of hostility with Washington. And only five states
refrained from voting: South Africa, Belarus, Indonesia, Algeria and
Libya. Even neighbouring states such as Egypt, Yemen and India voted in
favour of referral. The resolution needed only a passing majority (18
out of 35 votes). The high percentage of votes in favour can be read
like a thermometer measuring the degree of international pressure being
placed on Iran.
While the text of the resolution did not make reference to possible
sanctions against Iran, its spirit, which reveals an escalation in
comparison to which other resolutions pale, opens the door wide to
sanctions. The same text guarantees that the Iranian nuclear file will
be subject to non-stop screening, thus barring Iran from tying the
IAEA's demands to a limited time period and cutting away at the margins
of manoeuvre in its hands. The resolution's text does not include an
explicit "time limit" but rather automatically transfers the Iranian
nuclear file to the Security Council at the next meeting of the IAEA
Board of Governors at the beginning of March. Should Iran not comply
with the demands of the resolution, the "limit" will be up. It can thus
be said that Washington has succeeded, through diplomatic and media
pressure and mobilisation, in reaching the furthest reach of its demands
-- automatically transferring the file to the Security Council --
without need for a further vote by the IAEA.
The formulation of the IAEA's demands is evidence of Iran's
diplomatic crisis. Its legal position is much stronger, however, and to
get around this problem Washington and its allies have been intent on
inverting any logic that the accused be regarded innocent until proven
guilty and that accusations must be backed up with evidence. For Iran to
prove its innocence, it must comply with debilitating demands, although
the text doesn't indicate it, being formulated with a great deal of
baseness and very little sensitivity. The Board of Governors set four
basic demands on Tehran ahead of automatic transferral to the Security
Council. The first of these is "full and sustained suspension of all
enrichment-related and processing activities, including research and
development, to be verified by the agency". This means that it is
forbidden for Iran to possess any form of nuclear knowledge or
technology. The demand retracts Iran's legal right to enrich uranium for
peaceful purposes, a right of all nations that is provided for by the
IAEA's charter. The second part of this demand infers the IAEA placing
its hand on Iran and its nuclear installations in order to "verify"
something that in actuality has no legal classification. Nor does its
time frame or geographic limits.
The IAEA's second demand calls on Iran to "reconsider the
construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water," which
means barring Iran from using any technology with dual use. The third
demand is that Iran change its legal obligations and "ratify promptly
and implement in full the Additional Protocol [of the IAEA's safeguards
regime]," and "pending ratification, continue to act in accordance with
the provisions of the Additional Protocol." It is well known that the
United States itself has not signed the IAEA Additional Protocol that
allows unannounced inspections of nuclear installations, something that
in Iran's case will be intensive if Tehran bows down to this demand.
The final and most important demand is to "implement the transparency
measures ... which extend beyond the former requirements of the
Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol, and include such access to
individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual use equipment,
certain military- owned workshops ... " This final clause renders null
Iran's sovereignty over its military sites and opens them to the IAEA
and its inspectors. To a large extent, this resembles demands imposed on
Iraq following its occupation of Kuwait and its being accused of
possessing weapons of mass destruction, which, three years after Iraq's
occupation, we are still waiting for evidence of.
It appears that this resolution, in word and spirit, aims at only one
possible outcome: forcing Iran's hand into rejecting it, followed by a
swift transferral of the Iranian file to the Security Council. Iran is
holding fast to its rights provided by international charters and to its
regional ambitions as witnessed by its political and strategic presence
stretching from its western borders to northern Israel, passing through
the Iraqi government, the Syrian regime, Hizbullah in Lebanon and
Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Palestine. It will thus not accept these
conditions. Despite question marks raised over the nature of the Iranian
regime, Iran's insistence on possessing nuclear technology is a national
endeavour that enjoys consensus among all political currents, from
conservatives to reformists and inclusive of wide sectors of the Iranian
people. And as to regional ambitions, they would not appear but for the
desolation of the Middle East in absence of an "Arab policy". This is
not something Iran can be blamed for.
There is no law that justifies the issuance of this resolution. Iran
has not violated international law, and has not occupied another country
like Iraq did Kuwait. The spirit of the resolution deals with Iran as
though it has been vanquished in a military conflict, its defeat being
substantiated with unfair conditions. Iran's so-called crime is that it
has not relinquished its nuclear ambitions, and that it has exploited a
regional vacuum opened up, largely, by the misadventures of the current
American administration. What is being demanded of Iran clearly goes
beyond its nuclear file and reaches the point of changing its political
system under the pretext of inspecting its nuclear installations. The
Board of Governors' resolution is nothing other than a final episode
before handing Tehran over to the Security Council and placing sanctions
upon it. If its political system remains unshaken, then thought might be
given to military strikes against a "state to be punished on the basis
of international resolutions".
Washington succeeded in imposing its will on signatories to the
resolution; those who learned one thing from the Iraq debacle -- riding
the American bandwagon guarantees profit and influence. But Iran today
is not Iraq 2003. Its regional cards qualify it to deflect international
demands on it throughout the region, stretching from its western
borders, passing through Iraq and Syria, and reaching southern Lebanon.
In this sense, the region and its peoples, and not just Iran and its
people, will pay the price of Bush's catalogue of errors in the Middle
East. It is true that Iran has never in its history seen an
international line-up set against it as it is seeing now. But it is also
true that its regional influence is stronger now than it was in the era
of Qurush the Great, more than 2,500 years ago. Supporting the oppressed
is a humanitarian duty regardless of nationality, colour, race and
creed. The administration of President Bush, which turns a blind eye to
Israel's actions, cannot, despite military prowess, erase the
protections of international law nor pose as anything but the
oppressor.
