Iran: Time RunningOut

By Kenneth R.Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com | June29, 2006

When Condoleeza Rice meets with G-8 foreign ministers in Moscowtoday, one item must be at the very top of her agenda: showing Iranthat the United States and its partners meansbusiness.


She must insist thather partners agree to send a clear message to Tehran, telling themthey have until the following Monday, July 3, to answer theU.S.-backed offer.
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The message to Tehran’sleaders should go something like this.
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You have now had a fullmonth to respond to a clear-cut, yes-no proposition concerning yournuclear program and the future of your relations with theinternational community.
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You will not succeed inbuying more time. If you do not respond with an unequivocal yes (notyes, but&) by this coming Monday, July 3, then we will return tothe UN Security Council later that week to vote an initial resolutioncalling for sanctions on your country.
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That first resolutionwill carry with it another deadline, July 14. By that date, you willbe required to carry out all of the demands of the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA). These include: a verifiable suspensionof all uranium enrichment and reprocessing programs, fulltransparency at all nuclear facilities, access to program directors,and complete documentation on weaponization activities, includingdocuments acquired through the A.Q. Khan network.
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If you fail to meet theIAEA requirements by midnight, New York time, on July 14, the UNSecurity Council will meet the next day to vote a second resolutionthat will make mandatory against your country the political,consular, commercial and financial sanctions described in the firstresolution.
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Without tough wordssuch as these, the Iranians win. It’s as simple as that.Because time is not on our side.
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So far, the Iranianshave responded to the U.S.-backed offer of nuclear talks in anynumber of ways. They have laughed. They have thumbed their noses.They have beaten their chests.
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The very day thatEuropean diplomatic envoy Javier Solana presented the offer inTehran, the Iranians informed the IAEA that they were launching a newcampaign of uranium enrichment.
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Since then, Iranianpresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly has thumbed his nose,pretending that something about the choice outlined by CondoleezaRice (which I described inthese pages two weeks ago)required such intense discussion in Tehran that he would be unable ofproviding an answer until August 22.
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On Tuesday, the SupremeLeader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated yetagain that Iran would not accept the offer as it is currentlyphrased, but would agree to talks with the United States and thegreat powers on condition that they recognize Iran’s “right”to nuclear technology.
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These are classicstalling tactics.
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It should be clear bynow that Iran is trying to run out the clock, delaying its answer tothe U.S.-backed offer until it has ironed out the kinks of itscentrifuge enrichment program so it will be able to take itunderground should the West impose sanctions later on.
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“Iran is tryingto slow down the diplomacy while they race forward with thetechnology,” Israeli officials argued during briefings in TelAviv and Jerusalem last week. “They want to cross thetechnology threshold before the international community can stopthem.”
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Key to success, in Iran’sview, is dragging out its response to the Western offer until afterthe G-8 summit in St. Petersburg on July 15. Why? Because Russianpresident Vladimir Putin desperately wants a successful summit, andis willing to make some concessions to the United States and itspartners to keep the Iran issue from blowing up in his face.
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But once the summit isover, that leverage is gone. And the Iranians know it full well.
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The United States andits partners simply cannot afford to allow these deadlines to passwithout acting. It is not enough to sit down with Iran whenever theyare ready to talk, as President Bush said irritably in Vienna lastweek on hearing of Ahmadinejad’s stalling tactic.
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It is essentially thatthe United States and its partners make Iran understand that it willpay a price for stalling, and that stalling amounts to a rejection ofthe yes-no offer announced by Condi on May 31.
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Israel believes theIranians are just months from crossing the “technologicalthreshold,” giving them mastery over the entire uraniumenrichment process.
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Once they reach thatpoint, Iran can simply take its program “into the basements,”officials said. And once that happens, neither Israel nor the UnitedStates will be able to do much about it, short of militaryaction.
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Israeli officials madeclear they had “no confidence” they would be able tolocate clandestine enrichment sites. Unchecked by the G-8 over thenext fifteen days, Iran could be building bombs in the basementwithin three years at most, the Israelis believe. They base thatestimate on the known parameters of Iran’s enrichment programas known to the IAEA, not on any clandestine or parallel program.
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If Iran is operatingclandestine enrichment sites, it could be building bombs as early asnext year, some Israeli analysts believe.
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Former Mossad Directorof Intelligence Uzi Arad said he believed the U.S.-backed offer wascobbled together prematurely, and only should have been made after aconcerted, international effort was made to impress upon Iran thecosts it would incur by refusing the nuclear deal.
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“Had there beeneconomic, diplomatic and other sanctions in place and a crediblemilitary option looming in the air, there is a great likelihood thatIran would have contemplated that threat and accepted the offer,”he said.
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But without sanctionsin place, Iran was likely to rebuff the offer, “or fool aroundwith it in such way as to diminish the credibility” of anyresulting deal, he said.
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It’s still nottoo late to show Iran that the offer is serious – and so is thethreat of sanctions.
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But time is quicklyrunning out.
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