The White House has rejected the latest Iranian proposals to resolve the nuclear dispute and Europe is unwilling or incapable of softening US policies, writes JULIEN MERCILLE
THE WORLD'S major powers Russia, China, the EU, France, Germany, the US and Britain have just presented a new offer to Iran. Tehran has also offered a package to them a month ago.
The two proposals contain the sticking points that need to be resolved to defuse the crisis peacefully. Two basic problems are uranium enrichment and its suspension. Iran, as all Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatories, has the right to enrich, as long as it is for peaceful (civilian) purposes.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections have verified time and again that Iran's nuclear activities are civilian, not military.
Even US intelligence confirmed this in its December 2007 national intelligence estimate. Therefore, Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium and inspections should continue to monitor the programme.
But why is there a crisis? Mostly because Western powers, under heavy US pressure, refuse to admit that Iranian activities are not military, and seem to find regularly new pretexts to "prove" this.
The latest "evidence" presented by the Bush administration are the alleged "weaponisation studies" found on a stolen laptop of mysterious origins.
Those studies supposedly suggest that Iran may have had military nuclear plans, but the claims are dubious.
First, the IAEA received much of this information only in electronic form and was not authorised to provide copies to Iranians, which makes it hard to accuse them of not co-operating.
Second, the studies were received by the US in late 2004 but if the evidence they contain is so strong, why did the West wait nearly three years to bring them to the table? Third, the fact that the studies were brought to prominence in early 2008, just as the IAEA had declared that all outstanding issues in Iran's nuclear programme had basically been resolved, is an obvious sign that the Bush administration simply intended to derail the diplomatic process which was working relatively well.
This is why the major powers' latest package asks for suspension once again. Iranians have replied that they won't suspend indefinitely, because they already did so for about two years a couple of years ago, but this led nowhere as the West failed to fulfil its part of the bargain.
Under the deal, as stated in the 2004 Paris Agreement, Europe had promised Tehran "firm guarantees" on nuclear and technological co-operation and "firm commitments" on security issues, on the condition that Iran give "objective guarantees" that its nuclear programme is peaceful.
Towards this end, enrichment was suspended to build international confidence and the additional protocol implemented, providing for more intrusive inspections. Therefore, Iran held its part of the bargain, as verified multiple times by the IAEA.
However, Europe, held back by the US, failed to fulfil its promises: no real security guarantees were given (for instance Bush still refuses to take the military option off the table) and offers of nuclear co-operation have fallen short of allowing even minimal enrichment capacities in Iran.
This is a strong indication that suspending enrichment once again won't lead anywhere.
Instead, Tehran's latest package proposes to establish an international enrichment consortium on Iranian soil so that westerners could be involved in its nuclear activities and verify their civilian nature. This kind of proposal has also been suggested by experts in the US and would probably be an excellent solution to the crisis.
However, the Bush administration rejects the idea and Europe is unwilling or incapable of softening White House policies.
From a wider perspective, another very important obstacle to resolving the nuclear crisis is the West's policy of double standards, admitted by US assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher in 2006, who stated: "Is there a double-standard? Yeah. There should be." What are some of those double standards? First, contrary to Iran, the US, Britain and France (and Russia and China) are all in serious breach of their NPT obligation to eliminate their nuclear weapons, which they have failed to do.
Worse, they have busied themselves with improving their arsenals.
Second, western allies such as Israel and India have not even signed the NPT but are nevertheless offered much protection and help in developing their own nuclear weapons. Instead, the West should work towards the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, which means addressing the case of Israel's nuclear warheads.
Third, when it was discovered in 2004 that South Korea had enriched uranium to a 77 per cent level, very close to weapons grade, the issue was resolved without any South Korean nuclear crisis emerging.
The best way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is to ensure that it signs an additional protocol.
This Iran has formally announced it would do if its file is sent back to the IAEA by the UN Security Council. There is no reason why this should not be done immediately.
Julien Mercille is a lecturer in the school of geography, planning and environmental Policy at UCD