How critical is the standoff between the European Union and Tehran on the issue of Iran's nuclear capability, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed The standoff between Iran and the 25 states of the European Union over Tehran's decision to restart nuclear fuel work dominated the news last week. The decision, which was announced on 1 August, threatened to torpedo a plan put together by the EU, in consultation with the Bush administration, under which Iran would be barred from uranium conversion and enrichment. Negotiations between the EU and Iran over its nuclear programme dragged on for two years. After several postponements, the European proposal was scheduled to be unveiled on 7 August. Throughout the negotiations, details of the package on offer were leaked by officials from both sides, but their statements shed no light on what either was ready to settle for. Would Iran insist on not giving up its right to develop nuclear capability? Would it reject the European proposal which, while conceding Iran's "inalienable right to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes", denied it the right to restart nuclear fuel work, i.e. to produce nuclear weapons? Was the EU's offer of such perks as technology sharing trade preferences and security guarantees and its offer of cooperation on a civilian nuclear programme with Iran the price for Iran's abandoning its right to develop a military nuclear capability? To get a clearer picture of the looming crisis between Iran and the West, we must place it in the context of the new global realities. The breakdown of the Soviet Union, which formed one of the two poles in the former bipolar world order brought to an end the set of rules that had governed international relations since the end of World War II. The new model of international relations that emerged in its place is an ambiguous one that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. The model is not bipolar at least not in the conventional sense. Nor is it multi-polar, because it does not include any great power that stands on an equal footing with the United States. That is not to say, however, that the new world order is unipolar, in which one unique pole is universally accepted as the unchallenged arbiter of world affairs. There is strong resistance to this notion by many players on the world stage who collectively form a new and amorphous pole in what can be described as a new bipolar world order. The new pole is neither a state, nor a body enjoying the sovereignty of a state. It is a body with no legitimate rights. Moreover, it is a body with negative prerogatives, meaning that it includes parties which do not belong to a single pole who actually oppose the legal pole, and extend to include terrorist cells and networks. In a way, terrorism, though a phenomenon based on despair while communism is an ideology based on hope, can be said to be a reaction to communism's failure to deliver on its promises. Terrorism is thus partly a reaction to the failure of hope, as symbolised by the collapse of communism, and partly a reaction to the loss of trust, as symbolised by the blatant double standards applied in a world order that pays pious lip service to morality and justice for all. Democracy can only be built on a foundation of mutual trust, in which any credibility gap is addressed through confidence-building measures designed to assure all parties involved that words and deeds coincide. Bush's policies inspire hatred and mistrust not mutual confidence and as such, do not promote democracy. That is now the belief of a majority of Americans. The nomination of notorious neo-con John Bolton as the US ambassador to the United Nations was opposed not only by the Democrats but also by a significant number of Republicans in Congress. Unable to get Bolton's nomination confirmed by the Senate, Bush waited until it was in recess to make the appointment by presidential decree. All in all, the global environment is not conducive to the promotion of democracy. In the case of Egypt, the absence of mutual trust between government and opposition stands as a major obstacle in the say of expanding the base of popular participation, despite the recent amendment of Article 76 of the constitution to allow for multi-candidate elections. There is a dialectical relationship between the successive models according to which the world was polarised at different stages of its recent history. There was first the bipolar world order, followed by its negation and the emergence of a unipolar world order. But this order gradually degenerated into a new form of bipolarity, different from the previous one, with one pole within the legitimacy of the system and the other, made up of international terrorism and so-called "rogue" states, outside that legitimacy. In defining the parameters of legitimacy, the new world order makes it illegal for "rogue" states to develop or own weapons of mass destruction, and indeed limits membership in the nuclear club to an arbitrary few. Only veto- holders in the Security Council and Israel are entitled to possess WMD. India and Pakistan, which became de facto members of the club in defiance of its restrictive membership rules, are tolerated because they are not regarded as rogue states. Actually, the rules governing the nuclear equation are a prime example of the inconsistencies and double standards in today's world. While the current standoff will not necessarily lead to a showdown between Iran and the US or the EU, there is no guarantee that wisdom will prevail. The new Iranian leader is described as a hardliner. It remains to be seen whether his new responsibilities as leader of the Islamic Republic will soften his stance, whether he will be closer to Khatami's moderate line, or to Khamenei's hawkish attitude. Or whether he will follow an entirely new line that is neither one nor the other. In the meantime, the issue of Iran's nuclear programme stands in the way of a gathering storm. Can some sort of compromise solution be worked out, say by having the EU recognise Iran's right to control all the component elements of the nuclear energy cycle, in exchange for a pledge from Iran, backed by guarantees, that it will not abuse that right and use it for military purposes?
