Iran: Nuclear talks with the EU - full text
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A US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report released on Dec. 3 claimed that Iran had halted any attempts to develop its own nuclear weapons programme in 2003. However, it cautioned that Iran was continuing to process uranium and could resume a weapons programme in future.
Immediate Context
Iran’s nuclear programme was regarded as controversial because several Western governments--most notably that of the USA--alleged that Iran was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Iran, however, claimed that its nuclear programme was intended for peaceful purposes only. The USA on Oct. 25 announced a raft of unilateral sanctions against Iran, targeting the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) and the country’s banking system. The US sanctions were imposed despite Iranian and EU representatives having held “constructive” talks in Rome on Oct. 23.
The USA had since 1995 accused Iran of secretly pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, but the dispute intensified in April 2006, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad announced that Iran had successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark stage in its quest to develop nuclear fuel. The UN Security Council responded in December 2006, when it unanimously approved Resolution 1737 (2006), imposing sanctions on Iran for failing to abide by UN Security Council Resolution 1696 (2006) of July 31, 2006, which had ordered Iran to halt all uranium enrichment activities.
It was unclear what action, if any, the US government or UN Security Council planned to take in the face of Iran’s continued refusal to abandon its nuclear programme. Several senior US officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, had said that the US government would prefer a diplomatic solution to the nuclear dispute, but made it clear that the government had not ruled out military action against Iran.
In May 2003, it was reported that the US department of defence (the Pentagon) had proposed a policy of “regime change” in Iran, whilst an article by the renowned US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, published in The New Yorker magazine in January 2005, alleged that US special forces had already conducted secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify potential nuclear, chemical, and missile targets. Hersh also said in The New Yorker in March 2007, that US President George W. Bush had instructed the Pentagon to devise a bombing plan and clandestine operations against Iran that could be executed at 24 hours' notice.
Diplomatic tensions between Iran and the USA were further strained in January 2007, when US officials accused Iran of providing material support for attacks on US troops in Iraq.
Reaction and Outlook
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad described the report as a "great victory". However, US President Bush reiterated his belief that Iran remained a threat and stated that the report changed little. Speaking at the Washington DC-based National Defence University on Oct. 23, Bush had said that US plans to install a missile defence system (MDS) in Europe were essential to protect against an “emerging Iranian threat”, the Reuters news agency reported on the same day.
Russian Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov, however, said that there was no evidence that Iran had ever attempted to build its own nuclear weapons, the BBC online news service reported on Dec. 5.
Historical Context
Iran, formerly known as Persia, had not always been regarded as a potential threat by the USA and its allies. In September 1939, following the outbreak in Europe of World War II, Iran declared itself neutral, but signed a treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union and the UK in January 1942, before declaring war against Nazi Germany in September 1943.
However, Iran’s relations with the West soured in March 1951, when its legislature voted to nationalise the country's oil assets, resulting in a lengthy dispute with the UK over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the majority of which was UK owned. Mohammad Mossadeq, who had been elected as Iran’s Prime Minister in April 1951 on the advice of the country’s monarch Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and who was a leading advocate of the nationalisation plan, was removed from power in August 1953 in a coup orchestrated by Great Britain and the US.
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, who had ruled Iran since September 1941, when his father Shah Reza Pahlevi Khan abdicated “on account of failing health”, was himself overthrown in 1979 by forces loyal to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, establihsing Iran as a theocratic Shia Muslim state and heralding a renewed period of diplomatic tension with the West. Under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran introduced aspects of Islamic law and openly criticised the policies of the US government and Western culture.
Following the “Islamic revolution” of 1979, successive US governments frequently associated Iran with international terrorism. The US hostage crisis of 1980 in particular served to exacerbate tensions and the USA supported Iraq during the brutal Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 1988. During his annual State of the Union address in January 2002, President Bush described Iran, alongside Iraq and North Korea, as being part of an “axis of evil”, accusing the three countries of developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and, in the case of Iran and Iraq, of harbouring and directing international terrorists. Former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in February 2002 accused Iran of helping Talibaan and al-Qaida fighters to flee Afghanistan, where US-led forces had been engaged in military action following the terrorist attacks in the USA on Sept. 11, 2001.
