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April 22nd, 2013 
Peter Nolan
US intelligence thinks it does not. They have been clear on this point ever
since they published a National Intelligence Estimate (a formal assessment
expressing the consensus view of the 16 US intelligence agencies) on Iran’s
nuclear activities in November 2007.
It stated that ‘We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted
its nuclear weapons program’ adding that ‘We assess with moderate confidence
Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.’ US
intelligence has not changed its view since. Israeli intelligence seems to
share this opinion. A year ago, the Israeli Chief of Staff, General Benny
Gantz told Haaretz that he did not believe that Iran will decide to develop
nuclear weapons. And on his recent visit to Israel, President Obama talked
about the close cooperation of US and Israeli intelligence and stated that
there was “not a lot of daylight” between their assessments of
Iran’s nuclear activities.
Nobody can say with certainty that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons in
secret. But it would be very hard for them to do so. This is because the
country is a fully signed up member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
has for the most part obediently respected its provisions, and continues to
do so today.
This means that Iran’s enrichment facilities are open to inspection by the
International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), as are its other nuclear
facilities. Over many years the IAEA has verified that no nuclear material
has been diverted from these facilities for possible military purposes.
Most experts consider that it would be impossible for Iran to produce
weapons-grade uranium for a bomb without being spotted by IAEA inspectors.
It is certainly true that the IAEA is currently in dispute with Iran over some
of its nuclear activities. But it is not in breach of its NPT commitments,
and here the contrast with India and Israel, both allies of the west, is so
very striking. Their nuclear facilities are almost entirely closed to
international inspections, and Israel is in open defiance of UN security
council demands to make them available for inspection.
The unfairness (grotesque from an Iranian point of view) is glaring.
Iran, which has no nuclear weapons, is the object of ferocious economic
sanctions and threats of military action. By contrast Israel (with perhaps
400 nuclear bombs and the capacity to deliver them anywhere in the Middle
East) is the object of more than $3 billion a year of US military aid.
These basic facts about Iran’s nuclear activities are (if you search for them)
in the public domain. Yet the British media and political class rarely
mentions any of them. As a result, almost all of our public discourse on the
Iranian nuclear issue is misleading, and much of it completely false.
Here are just a few examples. Last year the BBC’s flagship Ten O’Clock News
began a report with the statement that ‘Iran has announced new developments
in its nuclear weapons programme.’ This report simply took it for granted
that Iran possessed a nuclear weapons programme.
One Times report wrote of ‘Tehran’s atomic weaponry’, while the Economist
casually referred to ‘Iran’s nukes’. The fact that respected, sceptical and
authoritative publications talk of Iran as if it already possesses nuclear
weapons highlights the extent to which Iran’s presumed guilt is embedded in
British (and of course American) public discourse.
British politicians fuel the myth. Last year Defence Secretary Philip Hammond
spoke of how Iran is believed to be working ‘flat out’ to build nuclear
weapons. while Foreign Secretary William Hague told The Daily Telegraph last
year that Iran was ‘clearly continuing their nuclear weapons programme.’
Remarks like this from cabinet ministers add weight to the powerful
narrative that Iran’s nuclear ambitions must be curbed, enhancing the case
for ever harsher economic sanctions and, if that fails to do the job, for
military actions. Meanwhile the mainstream media is behaving as it did in
the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 when, instead of questioning
every aspect of the case for military action, it became the cheerleader for
war.
This brings us to the biggest falsehood of all- the claim that Iran is
defiantly refusing to engage reasonably with the west. If anything the
opposite is the truth. More than once, the Iranians have shown themselves
ready to negotiate.
They did so in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 atrocities, which was met
with candlelit vigils in Tehran and denunciations by senior clerics. Iran
provided intelligence briefings and help in the war against the Taliban,
even going so far as far as to offer to rescue US pilots shot down over
Iranian territory. According to James Dobbins, the diplomat who led the US
delegation in the negotiations leading up to the 2001 Bonn agreement on
Afghanistan, ‘in 2002 and again in 2003 Washington actually spurned offers
from Tehran to cooperate on Afghanistan and Iraq and negotiate out other
US/Iranian differences, including over its nuclear programme.’ In 2005 Iran
floated another deal at a meeting with a European negotiating team at the
Quai d’Orsay. It offered to open up all its nuclear facilities to intrusive
international inspection, along with a series of other concessions, so long
as the west recognised its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, a
right to which it is entitled as a signatory of the NPT. This deal was (say
foreign office sources) killed off by Tony Blair, acting on behalf of George
W Bush.
A deal along the these lines could be struck today. But it would require
America and the west to stop treating Iran as a pariah state, and instead as
a proud, independent nation with legitimate regional interests.
If we fail to take this course of action, the consequences look bleak.
Within months the world could be plunged into a new round of war and
bloodshed, with the added risk of global economic collapse. Such an outcome
would not just be terrible. It is wholly unnecessary.
Peter Oborne and David Morrison’s new book, A Dangerous Delusion: Why
the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran, is published by Elliott &
Thompson.
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