The Iranian president's foray into the United Nations left its mark, writes Graham Usher in New York President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used his appearance at the United Nations' Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference last week to assail the global non-proliferation system as an exercise in double- standards, with one rule for the nuclear weapon "haves" like the United States and Israel and another for the "have-nots" like Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Cuba, all of which are under some form of US sanction. He spent the rest of his time in New York trying to hone an image of statesmanship to a national media that likens him to Hitler and whose administration that is aggressively pursuing a fourth round of United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran's nuclear programme. The results were mixed. The low point was his interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's Good Morning America. The Iranian leader made the valid point that although the US and Russia had recently agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, they were not allowing neutral inspectors to confirm compliance, something they insist on for the nuclear energy programmes of non-nuclear weapon states like Iran. But the discussion then descended into vitriol with each man accusing the other of hosting Osama bin Laden in his respective capital. Ahmadinejad fared better at a New York press conference on 4 May. Contrary to most accounts, Iran was interested in defusing its crisis with the West over its nuclear programme, he said. In fact, it was ready to reopen talks on a plan submitted last year by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in which Iran would exchange much of its low-enriched uranium for refinement abroad into fuel rods needed for a Tehran research reactor (TRR). The US, Russia and China have said acceptance of this proposal would stay for now the threat of sanctions. Brazil has offered to revive the deal, a mediation Ahmadinejad has accepted and Russia and China welcomed. The only problem is that Iran has played this hand before -- only to insist any fuel exchange must be simultaneous and occur inside Iran, two conditions that are non- starters as far as the IAEA is concerned. It's not clear whether Ahmadinejad will give on these terms. But whereas at the NPT conference he raised the fist, here, at the press conference, he wore gloves. He also said Iran, unlike North Korea, would not withdraw from the NPT, playing down fears that Iran sought enriched uranium not to meet its energy needs but to "breakout" to a nuclear weapons capability. But, he warned, another round of UNSC sanctions would end all prospect of "engagement" with the Obama administration. As for the threat of an Israeli military strike on Iran, Ahmadinejad reverted to hyperbole. "Israel's chances to win -- either in Lebanon, Syria or even in Gaza -- are nil," he said. If Ahmadinejad's aim at the press conference was to confuse and divide, it worked. Progress towards an agreed UNSC sanctions resolution, already slow before the NPT conference, has become glacial. Security Council permanent members the US, France and Britain want "tough" penalties targeting Iran's financial and military sectors and Revolutionary Guards. China "opposes pretty much everything", says one source. And Russia thinks certain sanctions are more attuned to regime change than policy change, and won't back them. As for non-permanent Security Council members like Brazil and Turkey, they don't want sanctions at all. The upshot is that a resolution the US, Britain and France wanted done before the NPT conference may now drift into June. Brazil's mediation offer -- as Iran's support for it -- may spin it out even longer. Similarly, Ahmadinejad's efforts at the NPT conference to divert attention from Iran's nuclear programme to Israel's nuclear arsenal paid off. Delegates from Arab and Islamic states heeded less the potential risk of Iranian proliferation than the actual threat posed by Israel's nuclear weapons and the failure to make any progress on a 1995 NPT resolution calling for a nuclear weapons free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East. Egypt has made any support for a consensus statement at this conference conditional on moves to implement the 1995 resolution. In particular, it wants backing for an "exploratory" regional conference next year that, with Israel's participation, will start negotiations on a NWFZ in the Middle East. The call is supported by the Arab League and the 118-state Non- Aligned Movement, which Egypt currently chairs. Most significant of all, it has won the grudging backing of the permanent UNSC states. In a statement released on 5 May the five acknowledged nuclear weapon states not only expressed "serious concern" over Iran's nuclear programme but support for the "full implementation" of the 1995 resolution. The five also said they were ready to "consider all relevant proposals... aimed at taking concrete steps in this direction". It is not clear what form these steps could take. But what is clear -- a week or so after Ahmadinejad's appearance at the NPT conference -- is that "success in dealing with Iran will depend to a large extent on how successfully we deal with the establishment of a nuclear-free zone" in the Middle East, says Egypt's UN Ambassador Maged Abdel-Aziz.
