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Vol. XXXVII
No. 48 December 01, 2013 |
People’s Democracy
and the P5+1 Accord
Prabir Purkayastha
THE negotiations
between Iran and nominally P5+1, but
in reality the US, have led to an interim accord in
which Iran will temporarily
restrict its nuclear program and the US will ease some
of the sanctions on Iran.
This is prelude to a permanent agreement which will
spell out the terms on
which
can continue its
enrichment program and the complete lifting of all
sanctions on
While we must all
be happy that instead of the daily
threats of bombing and another invasion of a West Asian
country by the
and its allies, we have some promise of
peace, the path to a complete understanding on
nuclear program still
remains rocky. The spoilers could be
where Netanyahu has already threatened the accord,
earlier wanted the
to bomb
of course the US Congress,
whose cooperation Obama will need to lift the sanctions.
One should not forget
that a number of international treaties and agreements
climate change,
Comprehensive Test Ban, etc have all been held hostage
to the domestic
politics of the
KEY
FEATURES
The key features
of the interim accord are a)
halting the expansion of its
fuel enrichment program b) stopping further activities
on the
heavy water reactor, c) not going beyond
5% enrichment for these six months and d) converting the
already enriched 20%
uranium into either uranium oxide or dilute it back to
5%. In return, the P5+1
countries agreed to ease sanctions of about 7 billion
dollars in this six month
period.
The key elements
of the interim accord show that both
sides have conceded very little.
nuclear program was not meant for a weapons program, a
fact conceded even by
the
intelligence agencies. It was for developing nuclear
capability and asserting
its right under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
(NPT) to the complete fuel
cycle. It was the
and
that have sought to conflate nuclear
capability with nuclear weapons and have been asserting
that
does not
have the right to the nuclear fuel cycle. All their
actions have been based on
denying
nuclear capability. In their view, it is nuclear
capability that brings about a
strategic parity between
and
And that means accepting that
would be a regional player in the region on par with
20% level was due to the
denying
fabricated fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor as it
was originally contracted
to do. And without a functioning Tehran Research
Reactor,
would not
be able to provide radioactive isotopes vital for cancer
treatment and a host
of other medical diagnostics.
agreeing to convert its existing stock of
20% enriched fuel is not a concession; it is what
was doing already fabricating
fuel plates for the Tehran Reactor. It does not need 20%
enrichment for its
other reactors. What it has conceded is that it will not
expand its current
enrichment program or its activities on the
heavy water reactor. The
reactor
is again a research reactor, meant to take over from the
ageing Tehran Research
Reactor, which is due for retirement. As any heavy water
reactor, it produces
plutonium. However, to extract weapons grade plutonium,
has to
construct a new fuel reprocessing plant and further
facilities, none of which
it is constructing. Bringing
reactor into
discussions of a weapons program was always bad faith on
part of the
its
allies. The
recent antics of the French
over
sense unless it was a
ploy for
to curry
favour with
and
Arabia
In return, the
and its allies have agreed to suspend some minor
sanctions on
repatriate an agreed amount of its frozen funds. It has
been estimated that the
benefits to
would be of the order of $ 7 billion. Considering that
itself are of the order of
$100 billion, this is pocket change for
Nevertheless, it does give
some breathing space to countries like
who have been hampered in their oil imports from
by sanctions on companies that
have to insure the tankers carrying oil.
The
has tried to portray the interim agreement as a major
victory. Obama claimed
that this is the first time that
has agreed to halt its
development of nuclear weapons program. As
has always claimed that its program was completely
peaceful and has always been
willing to put all elements of its program under IAEA
safeguards, this is of
course a
victory over
in a war that
never fought. Obama is also
wishing away that it could have secured a better deal
out of
in the earlier round of discussions in
2003-2005, and also when
and
had negotiated a
deal which the
had earlier agreed and then subsequently rejected. What
always
wanted is its right to the fuel cycle as its right under
NPT. Not
only has the
conceded this right in the
interim agreement, but the words in the final end-state
as spelt out also talks
about a mutually defined enrichment programme with
practical limits and
transparency measures to ensure the peaceful nature of
the programme. In other
words, the
has conceded
rights
to the fuel cycle, the only issue for discussion is the
limits and what kind of
inspections IAEA would carry out.
While the accord
is indeed welcome, the difficulties
in the path of final negotiations should not be
underestimated. As we saw in
the
case, inspections can be intrusive and it is possible to
continuously enlarge
these inspections to include all major military
installations. This could allow
the
to map with exact GPS
precision (all it needs is a smart phone to be carried
by an inspector) every
significant military infrastructure that
possesses. It is this kind of
inspection fishing that
disallowed earlier that was made out to be Iranian
intransigence. The threat of
using IAEA inspections to do straight-forward spying and
mapping Iranian
infrastructure for pin-pointed strikes still remains a
threat and
could lead to break down of future talks.
The final bounds on
enrichment programme could also be a deal breaker.
Coupled with this,
is the possibility of the US
Congress can itself scuttle the talks; either to spite
Obama or to help
All it
needs is to impose fresh sanctions on
Given the influence that
AIPAC and
carries on Capitol Hill, this would be an immediate deal
breaker. While
would
like this to happen, its ability to bend the US Congress
to its will has
weakened recently. Neither over
nor over
does it seem
that there is an appetite in the
for further military ventures
abroad. And the US Congress has to decide whether it
should show allegiance to
the Zionists at home and in
or to the desires of ordinary Americans for peace.
The two casualties
in
peace process are
and
Arabia
Netanyahu has embarrassed himself on numerous occasions
by his statements on
worst
was his hand drawn childish sketch about how near
was to the bomb which he
displayed in the UN. At one stroke, now
has dropped considerably below
his danger mark. Any sane person would have thought
that
going so
far below danger mark would be welcome from Netanyahu’s
viewpoint. Not so.
Instead, he has called the interim accord a historic
mistake. What this brings
out is that
is not
interested in any peace accord; it wants the
to bomb
to the stone age so that it can be the only military
power in the region. The
nuclear issue is only an excuse; if it was not there,
some other issue
chemical weapons, biological weapons would have been
whipped up as it was in
case.
WMD’s have a nice ring, no matter what the reality is.
DANGEROUS
PATH
on a very dangerous path. It is
openly backing Sunni fundamentalism or Takfiri/Wahabi
Islam all over the world
and arming military groups in
and
While
it is unlikely to succeed in a regime change anywhere in
the region, its
ability to impose destructive wars should not be
underestimated.
with its huge cache petro-dollars remains a potent
threat not only in the
region but also to countries outside.
Why should such
small concessions on either side add
up to such a major news event? For this, we have to look
at the larger picture.
and the
been in
a cold war after the fall of Shah of Iran.
has not forgotten how the Shah was installed in power by
the
overthrowing
Mossadegh’s government in the 1953 coup for wanting to
nationalise the
Anglo-Iranian oil company. Neither has the
forgiven
for
overthrowing the Shah and holding the
diplomats hostage in
So this accord is a significant turn in the relations
between
and the
the larger atmospherics
that such an event creates that makes rewinding the war
campaign more
difficult.
For
the
accord is welcome for many reasons. It eases the burden
of oil imports and
makes it easier to continue its commercial relations
with
Hopefully,
two votes in the IAEA, which were admitted by US
officials themselves to have
been extracted through coercion, will now be forgotten.
needs to have good relationship with
if it
wants to be recognised as a player in the region.
