Ignoring Iran's nuclear plan would be the West's greatest blunder
A Middle East arms race is looming unless our leaders recover their nerve , argues Con Coughlin.
Look at the lovely weapons, Johnny: surface-to-air missiles on display in the streets of Tehran Photo: Con Coughlin
The West has given up on its attempts to prevent Iran acquiring an atom bomb – and the result will be a nuclear arms race that threatens not only the future of the Middle East, but the entire world.
This, at least, is the apocalyptic view that now appears to be taking root among some of the world’s leading Iran experts, as we approach the make-or-break moment next month when Tehran’s newly re-elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, decides whether he is prepared to enter into a constructive dialogue over his country’s illicit pursuit of nuclear technology.
To judge by the mood of the delegates participating in a conference on Iran I attended this week, in the aftermath of June’s bitterly contested election, the omens do not look good.
The meeting took place in a beautiful Italian villa overlooking Lake Como, once the summer residence of Konrad Adenauer, the late German chancellor. It was there that he developed his vision of a united Europe, where the catastrophic upheavals of two world wars would be consigned to the history books.
How ironic, then, that the considered view of those participating in discussions organised by Adenauer’s foundation was that, unless Iran can be prevailed upon to rein in its nuclear ambitions, the world is heading towards a new era of calamitous conflict.
Among those participating were diplomats who had served in Tehran under both the Shah and the ayatollahs, former senior Iranian military officers and defence and intelligence officials. And the overwhelming consensus was that the chances of Mr Ahmadinejad’s responding positively to Barack Obama’s appeal to Tehran to “unclench its fist” are remote indeed.
Iran has been given until September’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to provide a formal response to Washington’s offer. But no matter how hard America tries to convince the Iranian leadership that its intentions are honourable, all the indications suggest that Mr Ahmadinejad is in no mood for compromise.
From the moment that he was proclaimed the winner in the highly contentious presidential poll, he and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, have publicly defended Iran’s right to maintain its pursuit of nuclear technology. Only last week, Mr Khamenei launched yet another attack on the West during the presidential inauguration ceremony, describing the election as a “vote for the fight against arrogance and brave resistance to the international domination-seekers”.
Much of the blame for the failure to coax Tehran to the negotiating table, or so it was argued this week, lies with Mr Obama and his unwillingness to take a hard line with the ayatollahs. At the height of the pro-reform demonstrations in June, when the regime’s guardians launched a brutal assault to suppress the protests, he refused to be drawn into an open condemnation of their tactics.
While the Obama administration is under no illusions that the election was fraudulent, the White House nevertheless believes that is in America’s long-term interests to overlook that unpalatable fact and keep the door open for negotiations.
But what Mr Obama and his Iran team fail to appreciate is that this policy of appeasement is seen by the mullahs in Tehran – rightly – as a sign of weakness. If the Americans are prepared to sit idly by while the regime brutally suppresses the legitimate democratic aspirations of the Iranian people, why should Iran’s leaders be unduly concerned by threats of possible retaliation over their nuclear programme?
Moreover, a mood of defeatism appears to have settled over the White House. As one senior Obama adviser recently remarked: “It wouldn’t be easy to live with an Iran that’s a virtual nuclear power, but at the end of the day, it’s not a complete disaster.” A similar air of resignation has taken hold in Europe, which until recently had taken the lead role in negotiations over Iran’s uranium enrichment. Concerns over the state of the global economy, and the awareness that Iran is close to acquiring the technological capability for an atom bomb, has weakened the Europeans’ resolve to confront it. Only Britain and France have any appetite for further tough talking.
With political will diminishing in the West, the most likely outcome, or so it is now argued, is that leading Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt, seek to acquire their own nuclear arsenals. The Saudis helped to finance Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, while the Syrians and Egyptians are known to have their own advanced research projects. Add to this the massive nuclear stockpile that is already at Israel’s disposal, and it is easy to understand why a poly-nuclear Middle East – to use the technical phrase – would pose the greatest threat to world peace seen since the creation of the Iron Curtain.
But the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, which could be relied upon during the Cold War to prevent a nuclear holocaust, cannot be applied to a region in which national pride and personal honour often take precedence over the more basic human instinct for self-preservation. It’s enough to make Konrad Adenauer turn in his grave.
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