c595e24a90458210VgnVCM200000e66411acRCRDapproved/thenational/Articles/Migration/2009-Q4A window for Iran closes and another may not open soonb595e24a90458210VgnVCM200000e66411ac____To have the IAEA outline its displeasure in a such clear terms undercuts Iran's public position and humiliates its leadership.<p>The cries from Tehran were deafening. Days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a critical report and hours after its board of directors adopted a resolution censuring Iran for its lack of nuclear transparency and co-operation, Iranian officials threatened to raise the stakes. Faced with an international reprimand, it was not surprising that a regime already under pressure at home would have to show its teeth abroad. A senior lawmaker in the country suggested that Iran could leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty altogether. Others threatened to suspend the country's adherence to IAEA safeguards, which for the moment are the most effective check on Iran's nuclear progress. And the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that his country's atomic agency would proceed with building 10 more enrichment plants, guaranteeing headlines in newspapers around the world.</p> <p>Of course, Iran has a hard time meeting its current goal of installing 54,000 centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment site. It has around 8,000 spinning now and enough low enriched uranium that could be enriched further to build a nuclear device. But building and operating 500,000 more centrifuges is pure bluster. Iran probably lacks the quantity of uranium ore to feed half a million centrifuges, just as it lacks a nuclear reactor to burn the resulting nuclear fuel. These limits were always a legitimate reason why experts questioned the viability of Iran's peaceful nuclear energy plans and why suspicions of its intentions have been so intense.</p> <p>The IAEA vote is no small blow to Iran. Tehran has always argued that the dispute over its nuclear programme was a "technical" matter, a mere misunderstanding that could be resolved by the IAEA, unjustifiably "politicised" when its board of directors referred it to the UN Security Council in 2006. Tehran had also hoped that the board's more diverse membership and the rather sympathetic attitude of its former director general, the Egyptian Mohammed ElBaradei, would generate Third World solidarity to balance western pressure. To have that very body outline its displeasure in such clear terms undercuts Iran's public position and humiliates its leadership.</p> <p>This is compounded by the fact that China and Russia, long the main obstacles against greater multilateral pressure against Iran, voted in favour of the resolution, defying predictions that no amount of US diplomacy could get them to budge. Of course, the two countries found it easier to censure Iran at the IAEA, where there is no automatic punishment, than at the UN Security Council, where the Obama administration's goal of "crippling sanctions" would conflict with their political and economic interests. But Moscow and Beijing could hardly ignore the two-month Iranian stall when it was engaged by the US. After the Qom facility was exposed - the trigger for the IAEA rebuke - Tehran agreed on an understanding that would have had Iran ship LEU abroad for additional enrichment of uranium that could not be weaponised. This was hailed as a time-buying breakthrough, only to have byzantine Iranian politics empty it of substance, to the great embarrassment of Mr ElBaradei, the understanding's architect, and China and Russia, its cheerleaders.</p> <p>Still, the White House feels vindicated by its diplomatic strategy that has focused on slowly removing the narrative of Iran being bullied by an aggressive America. A new plot is taking hold where the US can no longer be such a convenient villain. US officials also insist that better relations with Russia and Mr Obama's recent trip to China are beginning to bear fruit. Mr Obama has already agreed to redesign a missile defence shield that greatly upset the Russians. The US administration also communicated to Beijing that Israel could hardly sit idle should the process of engagement stall completely. Also, some Gulf nations have reportedly agreed to guarantee a supply of oil to China in exchange for greater Chinese pressure on Iran.</p> <p>But Russia and China may well decide they have done enough for the moment to placate America. And barring compliance by all nations, including energy-hungry India, deepening its investment in Iran's energy sector, all that sanctions would do is create opportunities for spoilers. Second, sanctions will not necessarily provoke the domestic backlash that the US is hoping will bend Iran's leadership. In fact, the IAEA resolution was met with near unanimous condemnation inside Iran, including from the opposition member and former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who called it "sheer spite".</p> <p>The nuclear programme has become a political football in Iran. Mr Ahmadinejad supported the Geneva understanding as a way to shore up his battered standing, but his opponents seized on the opportunity to damage him by denouncing it as an unacceptable compromise on Iran's nuclear rights. In reality, what the Iranian opposition wants is less emphasis on the nuclear issue, where it can score few points, and more on the regime's human rights record. A US focus on the nuclear programme may legitimise a contested regime, the opposition fears.</p> <p>Finally, the fact that several important nations chose to abstain from the IAEA vote altogether exposes the vicissitudes of multilateralism. Egypt and Turkey's abstention are a case in point. The silence of Brazil and South Africa, nations with their own peaceful nuclear ambitions, is equally troubling. Brazil, whom Mr Ahmadinejad lobbied in person last week, fears that demands that Iran suspend its enrichment activities could set a precedent that could curtail its own programme. Had Iran not dithered over the Geneva understanding, there would have been room for a negotiating formula that would have suspended UN sanctions in exchange for a suspension of uranium enrichment.</p> <p>@Email:ehokayem@thenational.ae</p> 82,691YYOPINION2009120200000020091202000000100ARhttp://adedit.ad.atl.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091202/OPINION/712019940171201994020091202100000000def23deb6cb58210VgnVCM100000e56411ac____b595e24a90458210VgnVCM200000e66411ac____6887e91672448210VgnVCM200000e66411acRCRD691abaeb59b58210VgnVCM100000e56411ac____b595e24a90458210VgnVCM200000e66411ac____c484e24a90458210VgnVCM200000e66411acRCRD0e5fc69268b58210VgnVCM200000e66411ac____b595e24a90458210VgnVCM200000e66411ac____924fc4f35ea58210VgnVCM200000e66411acRCRD371abaeb59b58210VgnVCM100000e56411ac____b595e24a90458210VgnVCM200000e66411ac____9abfc4f35ea58210VgnVCM200000e66411acRCRD