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An unnecessary escalation

The International Atomic Energy Agency's decision to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council has opened a new and dangerous chapter in the crisis sparked by Western insistence that Teheran abandon its legitimate rights to the civilian nuclear fuel cycle. Saturday's vote by the IAEA Board of Governors has already led to a deterioration in the situation. In line with a law passed by its Parliament, Iran has ended its voluntary adherence to the Additional Protocol and announced an end to its self-imposed suspension of full-scale uranium enrichment. Once these two announcements are operationalised, IAEA inspectors will lose their ability to conduct spot checks at facilities and locations not covered by standard safeguards. If at all there are undeclared nuclear activities on the territory of Iran, the wider access granted by the Additional Protocol was the way to uncover these. As for the Russian offer of jointly operated enrichment facilities, this window for compromise can also now be assumed to have closed for all practical purposes. The fact that the United States and its allies have precipitated a situation where the protocol no longer obtains can only mean one of two things. They either do not believe their own rhetoric about Iran possessing illegal facilities, or they have a better way of uncovering or neutralising the same. It is no secret that Washington believes that the better way is sanctions and the use of force. Holding in abeyance for a month any action by the Security Council is neither here nor there since the U.S. now has the upper hand.

Even if the IAEA is able to answer the outstanding questions surrounding the extent of Iran's research work on the P-2 centrifuge between 1995 and 2002, the fact that Iran has refused to accept any of the five demands made by the Board of Governors in its February 4 resolution will inevitably pave the way for punitive action. The demands themselves are ultra vires, in that they have no bearing whatsoever on the IAEA's legal competences under its statute or Iran's obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and its safeguards agreement. That the Manmohan Singh Government has chosen to give in to Washington's blackmail on the civilian nuclear cooperation front by voting for a resolution that is flawed in law and suspect in intent is bad enough. Worse is that it has ended up endorsing something equally pernicious: the five permanent Security Council members' act of arrogating to themselves the right to decide — behind closed doors — the fate of other countries and international organisations. India's inability to analyse the emerging realities and its readiness to get on the U.S. bandwagon do not advance its claims to big power status. With the world's big powers appeasing Washington's desire for a confrontation with Iran, the Manmohan Singh Government may not be in a position to stave off the inevitable. But the least it could have done is to have refused to back a resolution whose only effect will be the initiation of a new conflict on India's doorstep.

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