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02.06.2006

Iran-USA: prospective for development

   

Sevak Sarukhanyan 

The production of enriched uranium by Iran, its refusal to sustain its nuclear researches and the new announcements of the US to suspend Iran’s nuclear activities puts the Islamic Republic in the first place of the international political agenda.

The Enrichment of Iranian uranium was not carried out on an industrial scale, but on laboratory scale. That’s to say it was not a step of great importance for nuclear military program, it was just a reality which has come to prove about certain progress in Iranian scientific and technical field. At the same time it is difficult to agree with the announcement of Iran’s president according to which Iran became a nuclear power due to its young scientists: The whole chain of uranium enrichment process was mainly realized owing to technologies bought from Pakistan’s “father” of nuclear bomb A. Q. Khan.

However Iranian enriched uranium is already a reality and it greatly changes Iran’s position in negotiation process. First of all it makes the Iran’s announcement on exceptional peaceful usage of the nuclear technologies vulnerable. Yet, at the same time, the uranium enrichment strengthens Iran’s position, that’s to say today the existing realities will become a subject of negotiations.

At the same time, by means of enriching uranium, Iran overcame a psychological barrier making the international community submit to the happening. March-April were the months of Iranian “sensations” which may be called a testing period of will. Iranians think that the US is not ready to settle the Iranian issue by military means. Only American governing body knows whether it coincides with the reality or not. But appeals voiced by such figures as Z. Bzezinski, M. Olbrait in informational field directed to the American government to give up the scene of using military force against Iran has come to prove that in America’s governing body there are advocates of the issue’s military settlement.

However, the Americans’ readiness and at the same time its unreadiness to give the Iranian issue a military settlement may seem mutually exclusive only from the first sight. The processes are more complicated and unpredictable.

Preparation for the war

It is obvious that Iran’s present mode of existence is not expectable for the US. Today’s Iran poses a threat for American interests, and not only, it makes Iraq’s occupation senseless and disadvantageous: from the comparative standpoint Iran’s positions in this country has got stronger then America’s. Iraq and Afghanistan, the military bases in the Middle Asia, were quite a long period of time accepted by many experts as perspective points of support for the Iranian Issue’s military settlement. However, the latest developments have come to prove that it is Iran which is considered to be a possible fulcrum of American position in the region by the American strategists. The American military bases were withdrawn from Uzbekistan, and the American forces in Kirgizia may suffer the same fate. The developments in Iraq may hardly include this country into the list of the US possible points of support. Today in the region of so called “Big Middle East” the US is in unprecedented full retreat.

Of course t is out of the question that the US leaves the region. It is clear that the US will remain the main military-political actor in the region for a long time. However there is a big difference between the main and the absolute actor, a role the US strives at.

It is obvious that America’s withdrawal today can’t last long. And in this sense it is important to solve Iran’s issue, which will allow the American forces make a chainlike re-form- Afghanistan-Iran-Iraq. At the same time the expected American invasion into Iran may cause quite a good opportunity to deploy military bases in Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Today we can already say that the first phase of possible developments is in process, that’s to say preparation for intrusion into Iran and deployment of military bases in Azerbaijan in the light of the possible military solution of the Iranian issue.

Imitation of the war

Still before the Azerbaijani president’s latest visit to the US, information was spread by mass media that in his interview given to the Egyptian journal “Al-Akhram” the secretary of Iran’s Security Council Larijani said that in case of the US intrusion, Iran will strike a blow against Azerbaijan and Baku-Ceyhan oil-pipeline. However immediate familiarization with the text of that interview showed, that Larijani didn’t voice such an idea. In the analytical article published by the American center “Stratfor” it is also pointed out that in case of further escalation of tension in Iran-US relations and America’s intrusion into this country Azerbaijan and Baku-Ceyhan oil-pipeline may become targets for attack by Iran. The above mentioned disinformation and “Stratfor” center’s analysis were represented to the community in the context of discussing expediency of deploying military bases in Azerbaijan.

Here a special attention should be paid to the fact that Iran’s counterblow against Baku-Ceyhan oil-pipeline is not that substantial from financial standpoint as it is considered to be. Baku-Ceyhan doesn’t transport oil yet and till Kazakhstan’s full joining to the project, it will transport not more then 20 million tones of Azerbaijani oil a year, insignificant volume from the global standpoint, taking into account the fact that the annual oil balance of almost bankrupted and split up Yukos trice exceeds the given showings.

The above mentioned allow us to reveal another scenario: Iran’s nuclear program, its possible counterblows and American undelayable invasion represented in informational field are only a cause to deploy military bases in Iran’s neighborhood and spreading so called “guarantees for security”. A part of this scenario is an opinion spread in informational field that it is necessary for the US to solve Karabakh issue to make a possibly effective attack on Iran: In such a way the possible attack on Iran is being used to strengthen America’s position in South Caucasus and deploy military bases.

There is no doubt that the scenarios of preparation and imitation of the war may be a part of a big scenario, representing two indissoluble but all-sufficient phases.

At the same time one can suppose that the US hasn’t shaped its final position how to solve Iranian issues. In spite of the fact that all these introduces negative uncertainty in the processes relating to Iran, however, at the same time, it is positive in the framework of expending participation of international diplomacy in Iranian issues’ settlement. In this aspect IAEA ambiguous opinion on Iranian nuclear program and the fact that up till now the UN Security Council hasn’t imposed sanctions against Iran have come to prove about the possibility and prospective of the issue’s diplomatic settlement.

8 May, 2006
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