Doug Lorimer
Undeterred by the erosion of public support for the war in Iraq, in an update of its September 2002 US National Security Strategy document, US President George Bush reaffirmed his policy of "pre-emptive" attacks — what used to be called acts of military aggression — against countries deemed to be a threat to "US security". The document explicitly declared that Iran posed "the biggest challenge".
Reporting the public release of the 49-page document, the March 16 USA Today noted that Washington's decision to "launch a pre-emptive invasion against Iraq", based upon fabricated intelligence alleging the oil-rich Middle-Eastern country was developing nuclear weapons that it "might" hand over to the al Qaeda terrorist network, "drew strong support when the war began in 2003. But a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll conducted March 10-12 found that four in 10 predict the United States is likely or certain to lose the war, and that Americans by 2-1 say Bush doesn't have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq."
"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran", the updated document declares, accusing the Iranian government of sponsoring terrorism — for supporting the Palestinian and Lebanese national liberation movements against Israeli occupation. It also accuses Iran of having a secret program to produce nuclear weapons in violation of its safeguards obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), despite the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) having found no evidence of such a program after two years of "go-anywhere, see-anything" inspections.
Among the "challenges" to "US security" listed in the document are socialist Cuba, Venezuela (where a "demagogue awash in oil money is undermining democracy" — by being repeatedly elected in free and fair elections), Colombia (where a "democratic ally is fighting the persistent assaults of Marxist terrorists") and Nepal (where "a vicious Maoist insurgency continues").
North Korea, which is accused of continuing to "destablize its region and defy the international community, now boasting a small nuclear arsenal", is not listed among the countries posing a "challenge" to "US security". Instead, it is described as posing a "serious nuclear proliferation challenge", which Washington seeks to deal with through "regional cooperation" with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, aimed at a "diplomatic solution".
Like its 2002 predecessor, the latest document declares that the "liberty" to "buy, sell and own property" is "fundamental to a free society". It declares that "too many nations hold fast to the false comforts of subsidies and trade barriers" and sets the promotion of "free trade agreements" to "open markets" (to US corporations) as "a bedrock tenet of American foreign policy". The document explicitly declares that Washington aims to "reform Iraq's economy so that it can be self-sustaining based on market principles", i.e., privatisation of its nationalised oil industry.
Russia and China warned
Both Russia and China come in for warnings in the document. While not acknowledging that Russia, because of its arsenal of nuclear-armed long-range missiles, remains the only country capable of destroying the US, the document notes that "Russia has great influence not only in Europe and its own immediate neighborhood, but also in many other regions of vital interest to us: the broader Middle East, South and Central Asia, and East Asia ..." The document declares that the US "must encourage Russia to respect the values of freedom" but warns that recent "trends point to a diminishing commitment" to these "values".
"China's leaders", the document states, "proclaim that they have a decision to walk the transformative path of peaceful development" of capitalism, but they must realise that "they cannot stay on this peaceful path while holding on to old ways of thinking and acting that exacerbate concerns throughout the region and the world".
This includes "acting as if they can somehow 'lock-up' energy supplies around the world" (i.e., buy up oilfields that the US oil corporations seek to monopolise) and supporting "resource-rich countries without regard to" their "misbehaviour" — an allusion to China's opposition to the US drive to impose international economic sanctions on Iran as a step toward a future US invasion of that oil-rich country.
At the UN headquarters in New York, two weeks of closed-door talks among top diplomats from the five permanent members of the 15-member Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia and the US) plus Germany resumed on March 20 in an attempt to resolve a deadlock over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program.
A non-binding Security Council statement needs to be agreed to by all 15 council members, while a binding resolution requires nine votes in favour and no veto from any of the five permanent members.
The Anglo-French draft statement of the "non-binding" statement calls on Iran to "re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development" that the IAEA would verify. It also calls on IAEA director-general Mohammed ElBaradei to report to the Security Council within 14 days on Iran's response.
Both Moscow and Beijing have publicly argued that since Iran is not in breach of its legally binding agreements with the IAEA, any "concerns" about its nuclear program should be dealt with through the IAEA rather than by the Security Council.
In November 2004, Iran voluntarily and temporarily suspended its research into the production of nuclear fuel — low-enriched uranium (LEU) — while it negotiated with Britain, France and Germany — the "EU-3" — on gaining access to their more advanced civilian nuclear technology.
The negotiations broke down after the EU-3 demanded that Iran permanently abandon the production of LEU. Last August, Iran notified the IAEA that it was resuming its LEU research.
Iran set-up
On March 18, Iranian foreign minister Manuchehr Mottaki told reporters in Tehran that his government would not accept any Security Council decision that did not respect Iran's rights under the 1970 NPT. Article 1 of the NPT, to which Iran is a signatory, states that all signatory countries have "the inalienable right ... to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination".
While natural uranium contains less than 1% of the fissionable uranium-235 isotope, LEU used in nuclear power plants typically has 5% U-235. Weapons-grade enriched uranium requires a 90% U-235 concentration, which is well beyond Iran's technological capabilities.
On March 8, ElBaradei forwarded to the Security Council the report on Iran's nuclear program he had presented to the March 6 meeting of the IAEA governing board — as he was requested to by an EU-3 sponsored, US-backed resolution adopted by the board's February 4 meeting.
While ElBaradei declared in his report that the IAEA had found no evidence that Iran had diverted any nuclear materials for the production of nuclear weapons, US officials want the Security Council to adopt a binding resolution demanding that Iran permanently "suspend" its LEU research and production activities.
US officials know full well that Iran will refuse to accept such a discriminatory demand. This would then enable Washington in the future to claim that a US-led invasion of Iran is aimed at enforcing the demands of the UN Security Council for Iran to renounce LEU production, rather than being aimed at enabling US corporations to take over Iran's nationalised oil resources.
While not saying so publicly, Russian officials are clearly aware that this is Washington's strategic goal. "It looks so deja vu", Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters outside the Security Council on March 8, after meeting with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to discuss Iran. Lavrov was Moscow's chief envoy to the UN during the debate over whether Iraq had a secret nuclear weapons program prior to the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iran's oil-rich Arab neighbour.
The attempt by the US and its European imperialist allies to get a "non-binding" Security Council statement calling on Iran to suspend LEU research is aimed at paving the way for a binding resolution to the same effect.
Associated Press reported on March 21 that a confidential letter made available to it and written on March 16 by John Sawers, Britain's top negotiator at the six-power UN talks, to his US, French and German counterparts, stated: "We are not going to bring the Russians and Chinese to accept significant sanctions [against Iran] over the coming months." The letter suggested making suspension of all uranium enrichment by Iran "a mandatory requirement of the Security Council, in a resolution we would aim to adopt early May".
From Green Left Weekly, March 29, 2006.
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