by Matthew Hay Brown
Now that U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iran suspended its quest for a nuclear weapon four years ago, the Islamic republic is asking the secretary-general of the United Nations to call off the Security Council.
With diplomats still considering new sanctions against the country, the Iranian envoy to the United Nations cited last week’s National Intelligence Estimate in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
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“The very pretexts, by which Iran’s nuclear program was refered [sic] to the Security Council have been, from the outset, flawed and unfounded,” Ambassador Mohammad Khazee wrote this week. “Moreover, the report has exposed the United States’ past attempts to distort intelligence to pursue its politically motivated ends with regards to Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.”
While some Democrats in Congress and some foreign diplomats have said the NIE findings call for a new approach to Iran, President Bush has indicated no interest in changing policy.
“Here’s what we know,” he told reporters last week. “We know that they’re still trying to learn how to enrich uranium. We know that enriching uranium is an important step in a country who wants to develop a weapon. We know they had a program. We know the program is halted.
“I think it is very important for the international community to recognize the fact that if Iran were to develop the knowledge that they could transfer to a clandestine program it would create a danger for the world. And so I view this report as a warning signal.”
But in light of the NIE, which concluded that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program until 2003, the United States will likely find it more difficult to build support for tougher sanctions among the other permanent members of the Security Council.
“I think we all start from the presumption that now things have changed,” Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters last week.
China and Russia have been a tough sell on sanctions; as permanent members, they may veto any Security Council resolution.
In his letter to Ban, Khazee repeats the Iranian assertion that it has never had a nuclear weapons program.
“I wish to make it clear that the NIE report contains certain baseless allegations, including, among others, its fictitious supposition that Iran had been working on a so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ before 2003, that are totally unfounded and we categorically reject them,” he wrote. “Iran’s nuclear program has been, is, and will remain absolutely peaceful.”