Sanctions ‘united’ Iran

Almost five years ago, Iran unilaterally stopped its uranium enrichment program. The West described it as a diplomatic breakthrough; Tehran called it a temporary suspension. Regardless, the world breathed a sigh of relief.

The respite didn’t last. A resentful Iran restarted its sensitive processing and enrichment program in 2005, shortly after the election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arguing that the West had insulted the country.

In an interview in his finely decorated quarters in Vienna this month, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, described a “confidence deficit” on both sides.

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Tehran is often critical of Western media accounts of the nuclear issue. How would you characterize the Western media’s portrayal?

Western countries are selectively taking the parts of [IAEA] Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei’s reports. The whole issue is this: whether there is a diversion or not to military purpose. They just totally ignore this and they say, “OK, why has Iran not suspended?”

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What are the consequences of the United Nations resolutions against Iran?

The people became more and more united and supportive of the government’s stand. The American administration hoped and dreamed that as a result of these resolutions, and sanctions, the Iranian government would make a hasty mistake by withdrawing from the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] and expelling the inspectors from Iran. We didn’t make that mistake.

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Why not?

We would have given an excuse to Americans to mobilize or convince the other countries to either impose sanctions or stringent or punitive actions. Apart from that, we have not withdrawn from NPT, or we have not stopped the cooperation with the agency, because of some principles. If we wanted to withdraw from NPT, we could have done it after the [1979] revolution. But, in general, weapons of mass destruction are contrary to the very principles enshrined in our constitution.

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If the U.N. Security Council says, “Stop enriching,” why not play good global citizen?

We have taken such steps [in 2003]. We agreed to give a chance to suspend temporarily and voluntarily for a short time, until the agency made a technical analysis [of highly enriched components found in Iran]. In June 2004, ElBaradei reported that it is now proved that Iran’s assertion is correct, and the source of contamination is from outside.

But we found out that when they started by asking and talking of temporary suspension, they had in mind cessation. . . . They said Iran should also suspend research and development in enrichment and processing and all related activities. It means everything. It means the Iranian nation, with thousands of years of civilization, now has to be deprived of research and development. I have to tell you that we lost all trust. Then we decided we cannot continue anymore.

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What should they have done, what could they have done, to build trust instead of build suspicion?

They should have studied Iranian culture. We have maybe five or six types of phrases to tell somebody to sit down. One of them is very friendly. The other one is something unacceptable. . . .

There is a confidence deficit from our side too. We have suspicions too. They should have sat down at the negotiation table, and just reviewed both sides in a very pragmatic, realistic and equal footing.

As soon as they use the notion of preconditions, it’s destined to failure, because we would never accept such preconditions. This is again part of our culture, because it is humiliation. I will never accept the Americans as a superpower. We made a revolution in order not to accept anybody as a superpower; this is the crux of the matter.

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Some say that the negotiations are just a way for Iran to gain time.

This claim is obsolete now. Now we are there. We are masters of enrichment technology. From now on, everything is the same, just adding new machines. We have already done it. We don’t need to buy time now. It looks like, in Iran, suddenly the sanctions are starting to really affect everyday life. So is the population ready to suffer so much for nuclear technology?

Yes. Have you ever analyzed to what extent Iranians have in fact continued their defense during the [1980s Iran-Iraq] war? They never, ever could give up one inch of their land to Saddam [Hussein].

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That was a totally different situation. Iran was under attack.

There, we didn’t want to give up one inch of our homeland; here, it’s our identity. They were passing a red line by trying to deprive Iranians of research and development. This was total humiliation to our identity.

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daragahi@latimes.com