Barack Obama, Iran, and the nuclear danger

The award of the Nobel peace prize to Barack Obama on 9 October 2009 is widely understood not as a reward for actual achievement during his first nine months in office but as a declaration of belief in his potential to achieve a resolution of some of the world's most perilous conflicts. It's true that the United States president has moved sharply away from the political narrative that guided the "war on terror" policy of his predecessor, and that the very language he has used in (for example) his major speeches in Prague and Cairo itself represents at least some of the "change" he promised (see Godfrey Hodgson, "Barack Obama's great test", 30 September 2009).

But to make this change real by reducing the gap between visionary rhetoric and crude reality will in a host of areas - domestic as well as international - be tough. None more so than in one of the areas cited by the Nobel committee in support of its decision: Obama's commitment to limit nuclear proliferation and help create a world free of nuclear weapons.

There are many obstacles in the way of progress towards such an objective, perhaps none more at present than what is happening in Iran, where tension over the country's nuclear plans is compounded by the routinely abrasive relations between Washington and Tehran.

Indeed, United States policy towards Iran is an area that where several of the president's most urgent foreign-policy priorities are concentrated - among them the wars in and political future of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan (all three countries are neighbours of Iran), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and energy politics. The reported effort of Washington to encourage Gulf Arab states to sell more oil to China in order to reduce the latter's dependence on Iranian supplies is but one indication of Tehran's vital place in US calculations.

But it is Iran's nuclear plans and the possibility of the regime in Tehran acquiring a nuclear-weapons capacity that is Washington's overriding Iran-related concern. This is an issue that will, alongside "AfPak" and the middle-east conflict, test Barack Obama's peacemaking capacity - and the faith invested in him by Norway's Nobel committee - to the limit.

The Iranian case

The seriousness of the challenge posed by Iran is highlighted by the revelation - in the wake of a United Nations Security Council on non-proliferation of 24 September 2009 - that Iran is building a second nuclear-enrichment facility near Qom, southwest of Tehran.

The confirmation of this project came from Iran itself, perhaps in response to the discovery of existence by western intelligence services. Tehran's letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claimed that the new facility complied with the norms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), and that it is not intended for the production of weapons.

The letter acknowledging the existence of the Qom plant can be interpreted in the context of Iranian domestic politics, in particular the internal tensions following the post-election upheavals in June 2009. The more conservative wing of the government led by Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has reasserted its nationalist principles in the hope of regaining the legitimacy it lost in the brutal repression of popular demonstrations and the mass trials of its opponents. The ensuing divisions within the elite have gravely weakened Iran's complex political-religious system.

In a broader context, Iran's (ostensibly civil) nuclear programme serves to bolster the nationalist credentials of the regime. Many opponents of the ruling elite, including electoral rivals of the president, also support the idea that Iran has the right to develop its nuclear programme for peaceful purposes within the norms of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

Iran believes that this right is justified on three grounds:

• the nuclear powers that signed the NPT have not themselves fulfilled the commitment to achieve disarmament

• other countries considered to be regional powers (India, Pakistan and in particular Israel) have nuclear arsenals; Iran should not be denied the same if it chooses

• Saddam Hussein of Iraq was overthrown and executed, and his country plunged into war and destruction, precisely because he boasted about having weapons of mass destruction when in fact he did not. If he had possessed them, the war might never have happened. This paradox works in favour of Iran's acquisition.

How can the United States and its western allies counter these arguments? In relation to the first, President Obama has offered to talk and is leading the negotiations with Russia to reduce strategic arsenals, while stressing the need to work for a world without nuclear weapons (see Andrew Mack, "America, Russia, and a nuclear-free world", 6 July 2009). The UNSC resolution supported by Washington - reaffirming the need to comply with the NPT, halt nuclear testing, strengthen the safeguards for nuclear material and combat nuclear trafficking - is a move in the same direction. This approach puts Tehran on the defensive.

In relation to the second, Iran's position is eased by the way that China and Russia have shown sympathy towards Iran by treating it as a regional power that has legitimate strategic ambitions. In relation to the third, greater pressure on Iran could prove counterproductive because even if the Iranian government does not want to pursue a military nuclear programme, it can then deploy the argument that a deterrent capability is evidently necessary.

The key issue here is the threat of an Israeli pre-emptive strike. When he addressed the United Nations general assembly on 24 September 2009, Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu fuelled Iran's perception that it needed to arm itself as soon as possible. The Israel leader compared Iran to Nazism, criticised the UN and its strongest members for their passivity in the face of the Iranian president's anti-Israeli rhetoric, and reopened the possibility that Israel could launch an attack against Iranian installations if the Security Council did not move to curtail Tehran's ambitions (see Paul Rogers, "Iran, America, Israel: the nuclear gamble", 2 October 2009).

The new reality

The current atmosphere is reminiscent of that in the years before the Iraq war launched in March 2003, even if the names and faces (President Obama, his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy and British prime minister Gordon Brown) are different. The attitudes towards Tehran, the weapon of sanctions, and the unconfirmed intelligence sources that cite Iran's capacity to make nuclear weapons can be seen as a replay of the earlier dangerous period in international politics.

The latest IAEA report on Iran's nuclear plans is a further echo, in that Iran is combining an affirmation of its position with a degree of flexibility. After the meeting between Iran and the members of the Security Council (plus Germany) on 1 October 2009 to discuss its nuclear programme, Tehran indicated that it aims to continue with its nuclear programme; but it also consented to the Qom enrichment plant being opened to IAEA inspectors and to most of its enriched uranium being sent to Russia.

There is also a difference: unlike the months before the Iraq war, the United States and Europe are not now in opposing camps. The radical nationalism of the Iranian president in his own speech at the UN general assembly on 25 September has proved to be a unifying transatlantic force. But this also is not enough in the new conditions of international politics, where Russia and China as well as rising states such as India and Brazil wield more influence in the global arena. The very day after the general assembly, the G20 summit underscored the reality that has become increasingly evident since the financial meltdown of 2007-09: the bipolar world has ended and new actors must be involved in decision-making on leading world issues.

Iraq and Afghanistan - the latest wars dictated by Washington, London and the Nato allies - provide irrefutable proof of the need for dialogue and consensus on security. Neither war (despite the supposed victory in Iraq) is close to a solution. Washington is seeking regional dialogue over "AfPak" that to a degree involves China, Russia and Iran, but the challenges are immense and nobody has a clear idea of what the "solution" might be.

Russia is not keen to impose sanctions on Iran as it is an economic ally and a potential asset in future negotiations with the US. The White House sent a conciliatory signal to Moscow on 17 September 2009 by announcing that it was cancelling the anti-ballistic missile shield promoted by the George W Bush administration.  President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed the move, but still considers that Washington and Europe are exaggerating their concern over Iran. China is also reluctant to impose sanctions on a major economic partner and prefers instead to strength the role of the IAEA.

Thus, the Iranian nuclear issue must be seen in the context of both Tehran-Washington relations and of new geopolitical realities on the other. In other words, points of convergence (the Afghanistan conflict and its regional impact) should be sought and points of disagreement (human rights, Iranian support to Hizbollah and Hamas) discussed. Iran wants to be recognised as a regional power, but must also be able to hear criticism of its repressive political regime. Russia (as the Soviet Union) and China, among other states, were after all treated in the same way during the cold war.

This recognition, coupled with an abandonment of the policy of regime change (stated by Obama in his Cairo speech in June 2009) would greatly help negotiations. Two former members of the US National Security Council have even argued that Obama should "demonstrate acceptance of the Islamic Republic, even as problematic Iranian behaviour continued in the near term (...) and should seek a strategic realignment with Iran as thoroughgoing as that effected by Nixon with China" in 1969.

The appeal of war

In his address to the UN general assembly, Barack Obama recognised the change in the international system when he said that his country cannot solve global problems alone and that a new era of engagement was needed. The question is whether this engagement means that Washington decides and others agree (as his predecessor wanted) or whether the international system will create mechanisms for joint deliberation. Washington's stance on climate change at the Copenhagen conference of December 2009 is at best ambiguous here; it seems closer to the anti-multilateral position of the George W Bush presidency than collaboration among equals.

Washington's will to establish new relations is not an easy task; the inertia of the past reappears again and again. When Obama announced his policy change on the anti-ballistic missiles, Poland and the Czech Republic felt they had been left defenceless - while Russia hailed the decision. The Republicans accused Obama of neglecting central Europe and giving in to Moscow. Iran added fuel to the fire a few days later by testing short-range missiles that could easily reach Israel, the Arab Gulf states and parts of Europe.

Obama is under heavy pressure from several sides: from the Pentagon to authorise a new troop surge in Afghanistan that many analysts consider would drive the US into a trap; from Israel to more forcefully threaten Iran (and to forget about promoting negotiations with the Palestinians); from American society, Republican politicians and populist-conservative media to abandon his discourse based on change and revert to George W Bush's neo-imperial policies. This complex situation could stall the administration and even lead it to consider using force against Iran.

If the president of the United States really believes that change is necessary, because the world has already changed, then he needs the active cooperation of Europe together with the emerging powers, and he should also persevere in the dialogue he has initiated with Russia and China. And if his goal is to prevent and de-escalate armed conflicts, then he and his allies need to neutralise both aggressive discourse (viz Netanyahu), the regressive rants of the right in the US and Iran's dangerous provocations.

In the context of this big picture, Barack Obama deserves the Nobel peace prize for what he has already said and the dynamics that his words have generated. But he must also now show that he is capable of negotiating at the same time in complex situations, without renouncing his principles. That is difficult enough; what makes it even more so is that he doesn't have much time. This supremely gifted and (so far) lucky politician will need all his gifts, all his luck - and more - to make the progress that is so much needed.

This article was translated from Spanish by Fionnuala Ni Eigeartaigh

This article is published by Mariano Aguirre, and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence.