On May 23, a meeting was held in Baghdad over Iran’s nuclear program between Iran and the P5+1—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China, plus Germany. This meeting was a follow-up to an April 13-14 meeting held in Istanbul.
While both sides reported a positive atmosphere in the meetings, no concrete agreements were made, other than an agreement for a third meeting in Moscow on June 18.
Details on the substance of the negotiations are not public. But the media have been reporting broadly on Iran’s willingness to make significant concessions. Iran is reportedly willing to discontinue enrichment of uranium to 20 percent—used for medical purposes, cancer treatment in particular—provide wider access to the inspection of its nuclear facilities, and it is even open to negotiating the possibility of storing its 20 percent enriched uranium outside the country. In exchange, Iran wants sanctions, particularly the U.S./EU sanctions on its oil sales, to be halted.Contrary to the common misconception propagated by the corporate media, all of Iran’s enrichment facilities have for years been open to regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. When IAEA chief, Yukiya Amano, visited Tehran on May 20, the main topic of negotiations was his demand to gain access to the Parchin military complex, a conventional arms facility the IAEA is demanding to inspect. Iran has expressed willingness to grant access to Parchin, but only if the IAEA comes up with a specific list of all the sites it wants to visit, as opposed to an endless list of sites that keeps getting added to after every inspection. On May 22, Amano announced that he had reached an agreement with Iran over the inspections of the sites that IAEA had asked to visit.
The lesson of Iraq
Following the 1991 Gulf War, the UN formed the United Nations Special Commission , charged with eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In effect, UNSCOM turned into another tool in the hands of imperialist powers to contribute to the goal of regime change. All the way up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, UNSCOM had an inexhaustible list of sites it demanded to inspect.
Some members of UNSCOM provided a steady flow of intelligence data to the U.S. government using information gathered during UNSCOM inspections, purportedly a UN operation aimed at finding WMD. “The United States started to subvert UNSCOM operations as early as 1992 by using its intelligence agents and technicians trained in handling communications and bugging devices to intercept microwave transmissions sent by the Iraqi military… Several damaging revelations appeared in the U.S. press about the infiltration of UNSCOM by U.S. intelligence agencies.” (http://www.answers.com/topic/united-nations-special-commission)Several times during those years, Iraq refused to cooperate with UNSCOM, pointing out that it appeared the inspections would never end and that the intelligence gathered was used to develop targets of the relentless aerial bombardments. But intense U.S./U.K. air bombing campaigns, which continued during the 12 years of the genocidal sanctions on Iraq, each time forced Iraq to continue providing access to the sites UNSCOM demanded.
In the end, after 12 years of inspections, UNSCOM’s work remained “incomplete,” allowing the United States and its allies to invade Iraq on the pretense of the existence of WMD. Obviously, following the invasion of Iraq, no WMD were discovered other than those used by the U.S. and its allies.
History of Iran’s nuclear negotiations
The corporate media’s account of the history of inspections has it that only recently, after the severe sanctions of Iran’s banking system designed to block its sales of oil, has Iran showed any interest in negotiating in good faith and making concessions. The truth is the opposite.
As far back as 8 years ago, Iran was willing to make significant concessions. From 2003 to 2007, Iran voluntarily submitted itself to the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Additional Protocol, not a requirement of the NPT, allows IAEA inspectors to conduct surprise inspections. Even more, between November 2004 and August 2005, Iran voluntarily suspended its nuclear program altogether. At the time, Iran was in negotiations with the EU3 — U.K., France and Germany. Iran had hoped that the huge concessions of the voluntary suspension of its uranium enrichment and the voluntary agreement to the Additional Protocol would lead the negotiations to an agreement. But the negotiations did not go anywhere.
The reason the negotiations failed was clearly explained on Sept. 7, 2005, when some European diplomats involved in the negotiations admitted, off the record, to Asia Times Online that the package offered by the EU3 was “an empty box of chocolates.” But “there is nothing else we can offer,” the diplomats went on to say. “The Americans simply wouldn’t let us.”
As is often the case when imperialist powers negotiate with an oppressed country, the imperialist demand was nothing less than complete capitulation. In this case, the EU3, backed by the United States, offered nothing and demanded an effective end to the Iranian nuclear program.
Over the years, negotiations have gone through many rounds of fruitless phases. But from the imperialist side, what are called negotiations have really been ultimatums for Iran to meet the absolute demand of halting its nuclear program, to which it is entitled under the NPT. In exchange, the West has offered insignificant incentives, such as allowing Iran to purchase spare parts for its civilian airliners.
Commenting on this incentive, in March 2005, Iranian negotiator Cyrus Naseri stated: “It is too ridiculous to be called an offer… It is like trading a lion for a mouse. Would the United States be prepared to give up its own nuclear fuel production against a cargo of pistachios delivered in truckloads?”
There are mixed signals that make it impossible to know the true intentions of the imperialist powers in the new round of negotiations. On the one hand, reports suggest some interest on the part of Western powers to reach an agreement. For example, they seem to have dropped their long-standing insistence that Iran cease its nuclear program altogether. The positive tone of IAEA chief Amano could be a significant development, especially since Amano, unlike his predecessor al-Baradei, has been hawkish on Iran, granting credence to every U.S./Israeli “intelligence” report accusing Iran of having a nuclear weapons program,.
On the other hand, reports emerging from the Baghdad negotiations suggest that the West’s approach is more of the same. For instance, the offer of parts for commercial planes has re-emerged as an “incentive.” Reflecting on the nature of such an exchange, Hassan Abedini, an Iranian media executive who was briefed on the negotiations , stated: “Giving up 20 percent enrichment levels in return for plane spare parts is a joke.” Western negotiators are reportedly refusing to offer any easing of the sanctions in exchange for Iran’s concessions, postponing that discussion to a later, undetermined date. If this remains the Western approach, the current round of negotiations, to be continued in Moscow, will amount to nothing, just like all the previous rounds.
Nuclear weapons only dangerous for Iran?
The underlying premise of the negotiations is that Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, for the existence of which there is no evidence, is a danger to humanity, while the actually existing thousands of nuclear weapons in the hands of the U.S., Israel, U.K., France and others are perfectly safe. Furthermore, the U.S. and Israel have a right to openly threaten Iran with military attack -—”all options are on the table”—while Iran needs to act “responsibly” and “meet its obligations to the international community.” The utter hypocrisy of such a premise is so obvious that only the ruling-class dominance over the major media outlets conceals the ridiculousness of such a position.
Iran, as an oppressed country long targeted by the United States and its imperialist allies, has a right to develop not just nuclear energy but also nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are extremely dangerous and they all should be destroyed. However, it makes no sense to demand disarmament of an oppressed country that is in real danger of being attacked while the potential attackers continue to maintain and enhance their stockpile of nuclear weapons. The real road to safety from nuclear weapons starts with disarming the one country that has the most nuclear weapons, has actually used them twice and continues to threaten using them today—the United States.
