IRAN:The use of military force against Iran to force an end to its nuclear programme would be disastrous, Mohamed ElBaradei tells Lara Marlowe
Dr Mohamed ElBaradei is a voice of reason in a world gone mad, the man with a mission to prevent us all disappearing in a mushroom cloud. In 2002 and 2003, he pleaded with Washington to give the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), of which he is executive director, more time to prove that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Dr ElBaradei was later proven right, for which he and his organisation received the Nobel Peace prize. Yet only four years later, there is a sense of déjà vu. The US neo-conservatives who said we had to prevent Iraq acquiring WMD now use the same arguments about Iran. Again, Dr ElBaradei is an authoritative opponent of military intervention.
So it is not surprising that when the Government learned that Dr ElBaradei was travelling to Dublin to receive an honour at Trinity College Dublin, the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for the Environment asked to see him.
"Ireland being a major initiator of the whole non-proliferation regime [upon which the IAEA was founded], they are very interested to see that regime doesn't fall apart," Dr ElBaradei said in an interview yesterday in Dublin.
In the week when North Korea concluded an agreement to begin dismantling its nuclear capability in exchange for free fuel and electricity, the Irish want to see the Korean issue through, he added. The Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, said there was no question of Ireland moving towards nuclear power, and expressed concern about Sellafield.
As a member of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), established after India exploded its first nuclear device in 1974 with the brief of controlling the export of nuclear technology and equipment, Ireland is also concerned about the nuclear agreement concluded between the US and India in 2005.
As a non-signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), under NSG rules India should not be allowed to receive nuclear technology from the US. This is the first test case, and Ireland, along with other NSG members, must decide whether to grant Washington and Delhi an exception.
But the most worrying issue is Iran. "There's a lot of hype about the Iranian issue," Dr ElBaradei says. Intelligence agencies, including the CIA and MI6, say Iran is four to eight years away from testing a nuclear device. That leaves plenty of time to defuse the crisis diplomatically, he says.
"I shiver when I hear people talk about the use of force ... We should not talk about the use of military force because that is completely counterproductive ... The use of force would be catastrophic. If Iran is not developing nuclear weapons today, surely they will if they are attacked."
Iran has the knowledge - an understanding of the enrichment process to produce fissile material - but not the capability, Dr ElBaradei stresses. Furthermore, there is no proof that Iran's programme is military rather than civil, as it claims.
"You cannot bomb knowledge. People would simply go underground and have the nuclear weapons programme as a national project. We need to stop this heresy of talking about military attack."
Dr ElBaradei does not say he is certain the Iranians do not want "nukes"; only that there is no proof they do. "This is prudence," he says. "These are issues that have to do with war and peace. One has to be very careful about it. Obviously if we see a weapons programme, we'll say it's a weapons programme. Some governments say Iran has intentions or ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. That could very well be. But I cannot judge intentions or ambitions. I judge matters on the ground."
On February 21st, Dr ElBaradei will report to the Security Council that Iran has not complied with resolution 1737 of December 2006, which required it to suspend uranium enrichment. "The jury is still out on the nature of the programme. We need additional clarity from Iran," he says.
The sanctions already in place (which target only items, technology, people and money related to Iran's sensitive nuclear activities) are "a good warning signal by the international community", Dr ElBaradei says. "But sanctions alone are not going to resolve the problem."
If Iran retaliates in response to sanctions, he fears, "the international community will retaliate further, and we will get into this uncontrolled chain reaction which will hurt everybody, of course including Iran, probably mostly Iran, but the international community in general, with a lot of negative ramifications in the Middle East, which is a total mess right now."
To relieve the Iranian crisis, Dr ElBaradei proposes a "simultaneous time-out", whereby Iran would suspend uranium enrichment while the international community suspends sanctions. Mutual confidence would grow as a far-reaching agreement was hammered out.
At the heart of the dispute over the Iranian programme is the insistence by the US and Europe that Iran stop enrichment. As a signatory to the NPT, Iran has the right to enrichment, Dr ElBaradei says. People suspicious of the Iranians say the treaty is ambiguous in this respect, but Dr ElBaradei disagrees. "The treaty is clear that everybody has the right to enrich and reprocess. That right has been exercised by 12 or 13 countries, and there will probably be more and more. This is not ambiguity in the treaty; this is a clause that needs to be revisited. If more and more countries develop enrichment capability, they are essentially turning into virtual nuclear weapons states - countries that can turn into nuclear weapons states in a matter of months."
To solve this problem, Dr ElBaradei proposes that enrichment and reprocessing, the sensitive part of the fuel cycle, be turned over to multilateral or regional organisations. The biggest obstacle, he says, is the realisation by countries like Iran "that nuclear weapons bring power, prestige and influence".
Dr ElBaradei has long chastised the original nuclear states for failing to disarm under the 1970 NPT. He felt he was preaching in the wilderness, until a recent article appeared in the Wall Street Journal, signed by George Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn, "four éminences grises of US policy", arguing that nuclear weapons must be abolished if the risk of accidental or deliberate use is to be avoided.
"This should be a wake-up call for the weapons state," he says. "The heart of the establishment are coming to realise that nuclear weapons are not sustainable."
This week's agreement with North Korea was " a step in the right direction", Dr ElBaradei says. Though the Iranian question is more complex, the North Korean example proves that engagement is preferable to isolation.
"You approach these issues either from an ideological, theological point of view, which is totally divorced from reality, or you approach them from a practical point of view, saying there is nothing black and white.
Whether we like a regime or not, the highest priority is to make sure we do not end up in a nuclear holocaust."
Dr ElBaradei admits that Kim Jong Il's regime in North Korea "may not fit your benchmark of rationality, but you still have to engage him. Engagement has brought results."
The Bush administration's doctrine of "regime change" is anathema to Dr ElBaradei. "Who is to decide which regime is to be changed and which is not?" he says. "Do I focus now on changing the North Korean regime, or on making sure they don't have nuclear weapons? The choice is clear.
"If we integrate countries we don't like, experience shows that regimes change themselves, through interaction, through building bridges with the international community.
"Isolate a regime, and you favour the most fanatical elements. Integrate a regime and you generate forces of moderation and common sense."