Mustafa El-Labbad analyses the context of a time of reckoning for Iran while Emad Mekay catalogues efforts of Washington's right-wing lobbyists and think tanks to prepare the way for war International pressures on Tehran over its nuclear programme have brought Iran to the threshold of an entirely new phase in its post-revolutionary history. The Iranian regime is no stranger to outside forces; the US has sustained a virtually uninterrupted political, economic and technological blockade against it since the 1979 revolution. However, never before has it confronted an international community so unanimously and determinedly ranged against it. It now appears almost inevitable that the nuclear issue will be brought before the UN Security Council and that Iran, for the first time in its history, will face punitive measures. Until last year, Tehran played brilliantly within the margin of manoeuvrability opened to it by the rift between Europe, China and Russia, on the one hand, and the US, on the other. Blazoning millions of dollars worth of oil contracts with major petroleum companies from the former areas, it succeeded voiding the American-led drive against it of all substance and driving sharp dents into the NATO front. The rift between the US and other international powers simultaneously enabled Tehran to sustain its regional presence and to develop this into one of its primary strategic strengths. Since then, however, the European and American stances towards Iran have converged to near conformity, especially after Tehran's decision to resume work in its nuclear research centre in Isfahan and its uranium plant in Natanz. After having steadfastly resisted US pressures for two years in their hope of reaching a negotiated settlement with Iran, the countries of the so-called Troika (Britain, German and France), which had spearheaded these negotiations, now support the American demand to bring the case of Iran's nuclear programme before the Security Council. If Russia has long been the most sympathetic to Iran's insistence on its rights to develop its nuclear technology, it, too, is likely to change its position soon. Moscow had offered Tehran the face- saving opportunity to let its scientists refine Iranian uranium on Russian soil. The initiative would have conquered several birds with one stone. It would have kept Tehran's nuclear ambitions under skein of silken diplomatic restraints as it would be taken for read that Tehran could not, therefore, possess the full fuel cycle needed to power nuclear weaponry. This, in turn, would have forestalled Washington's designs to escalate its campaign against Iran diplomatically and militarily. At the same time, Russia would be able to maintain its economic, military and strategic interests in Iran. Tehran rejected the Russian offer, leaving Moscow little alternative but to toughen its stance towards Iran if it does not want to jeopardise its relations with Washington. As the foregoing suggests, Iranian leaders are in no small measure responsible for the changing tide of opinion against them. Their handling of the nuclear issue has changed radically since only a little over a year ago. At the end of 2004, in Paris, they agreed to a voluntary halt in their uranium enrichment activities until an agreement over the issue could be struck with the Troika. Contrary to the claim of current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that move was not a "compromise," but rather a very astute manoeuvre at the appropriate time. As long as Iran was involved in negotiations with Europe, regardless of how wildly they fluctuated between near success and near failure, Tehran enjoyed a form of international cover, which protected it from the escalating onslaught from Washington and beneath which it could strengthen its hand against the US by consolidating its regional influence and, more importantly, securing allies in positions of power in Iraq. It is in this regard that the timing of Iran's shift in tactics is particularly significant. One can not help but to notice that its decision to back out of the Paris agreement and resume uranium enrichment operations occurred effectively following the announcement of the results of the recent parliamentary elections in Iraq. It was those elections that put paid to Washington's hopes that even a small piece of the power pie in Iraq would go to certain political and sectarian parties, thereby weakening the relatively large majority held by Iran's major ally in that country, the Shia United Iraqi Coalition. Perhaps decision-makers in Iran feel that the prudence they had shown until last year -- or more appropriately, their policy of dissimulation under duress -- was no longer sustainable as the international balance shifted against them. Having given their nuclear development programme such high priority and having over previous years mobilised public opinion in support of this programme, they have landed themselves in something of a predicament. Now, even if they wanted to lower the ceiling of their nuclear ambitions they could not without losing considerable credibility at home. The development of a nuclear capacity has come to epitomise the Iranian national dream, the interpretation and pursuit of which is monopolised by the power centres of the Islamic republic. Moreover, there is a closer meeting of minds than ever in these power centres, now that the conservatives have come to dominate all the country's executive and legislative institutions, to the almost total exclusion of the reformists, a development that was crowned with the rise of Ahmadinejad as president of the republic. Certainly this helps to account for the current tenor of Tehran's diplomatic and media drive. If achieving a nuclear capacity is not just one of the aims, but the ultimate aspiration of the regime and the cornerstone of its legitimacy, it has little alternative, in view of the logic of domestic politics, but to meet mounting pressures from abroad with an escalation of its own. This has taken the form of the decision to restart uranium enrichment operations regardless of the consequences. "Keep your gold and intentions to yourself," goes a Shia saying cautioning against publicising the extent of your wealth and your financial dealings. The regime in Tehran has clearly cast this adage to the winds, or, at least cast it in a different mould. The oil and natural gas-rich country no longer makes a secret of its lust after "yellow cake" and its intent to control all possible means to develop its nuclear technology.
