In Iran, a day the world could do without

• Last Updated: April 09. 2009 9:30AM UAE / April 9. 2009 5:30AM GMT

Today Iran celebrates National Nuclear Technology Day. This celebration of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear progress is an elaborate artifice created by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2006 to rally the population around the most controversial aspect of Iranian behaviour.

By turning centrifuges and enriched uranium into the new totems of the Islamic Revolution, Mr Ahmadinejad and his allies hope to create the equivalent of a human shield around what the rest of the world perceives to be a threat to international stability.

Iran has found a way to turn Nuclear Technology Day into real spectacle. In 2006, an official with the country’s Atomic Energy Organisation paraded before photographers with a sample of yellowcake. An analyst recounts that, two days later, speaking live on TV from the holy city of Mashhad, Mr Ahmadinejad proudly announced that his country had managed to enrich uranium to 3.5 per cent, declaring that Iran had joined the elite group of nuclear nations.

This announcement was accompanied by footage of scientists dancing and waving test tubes marked with the chemical symbol for uranium. In 2007, the same Mr Ahmadinejad, perhaps short on new lines, boasted once again: “With great honour, I declare that as of today our dear country has joined the nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.” That day Iran confirmed that it had installed 3,000 centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility. And last year Mr Ahmadinejad announced the installation of an additional 6,000 centrifuges of “the highest level” technology, a “technology not imported, that nobody can take from us”.

This is unfortunate. The Iranian people certainly have other achievements more worthy of the pageantry that will be on display today than a programme that has all but isolated their country and alienated its neighbours. This demographic and cultural giant undoubtedly deserves respect, but today’s spectacle will have more the threatening quality of a military parade than the appealing charm of Persian poetry and history.

Although government-commissioned polls show that 85 per cent of the population supports its nuclear plans, popular support cannot be taken as a given. Iranian citizens don’t dream about enriched uranium when inflation reaches double-digit levels and the populist promises of Mr Ahmadinejad have failed to deliver sustainable growth.

The government allows no serious public discussion of the costs and benefits of the programme – which has so far cost more than $14 billion, a significant expense for a country suffering from economic dislocation and isolation, and from which the returns have been more symbolic than tangible. Iran is still a long way from a civilian nuclear energy infrastructure, a gap that will be further highlighted by the emergence of a nuclear energy industry on the other side of the Gulf.

Iran has serious motivations to pursue nuclear capability, from the threats it perceives to the prestige it desires. But this venture is misguided: a nuclear Iran will be bad news for everyone, including the Iranian people.

After an initial period of pride and exuberance, they will realise that the nuclear programme will complicate rather than facilitate Iran’s integration into the global economic and political systems. For an example of the unfortunate consequences of grandiose nuclear ambitions, look at North Korea.