Get off your hobby-horses, face reality

Iran has suspended its relationship with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It said that the visit of an IAEA team to inspect Iran’s nuclear sites will have to get a nod from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi wrote on X: “Our cooperation with the IAEA will be channelled through Iran’s Supreme National Security Council for obvious safety and security reasons.” President Masoud Pezeshkian signed into law legislation passed by the Iranian parliament. IAEA said, “We are aware of these reports.”

Iran blames IAEA for playing a partisan role. It was the vote of the UN agency’s board of governors declaring Tehran to have violated the NPT clauses that led to Israel’s attack on Iran on June 12. Iran said that the IAEA had been siding with the Western powers. When the German foreign office said that Iran should get back to the IAEA, Iran hit back at Germany saying that it had been supporting Israel.

Araqchi accused Germany of “explicit support for Israel’s unlawful attack on Iran, including safeguarded nuclear sites.”

There is not much doubt that the IAEA is not the neutral UN body it is meant to be. It yields to pressure from Western powers, and especially so from the United States. The IAEA had said in its report that the grade of uranium was more than that needed for producing electricity, and that the enrichment was nearer the weapons grade target.

This has been the case on several earlier occasions too, where the enrichment of uranium was more than the limits needed for generating electricity.

But the personal equation between the IAEA inspectors and the Iranian officials is a key aspect of the process. The issue is that Iran has not enriched uranium to weapons grade, even according to the IAEA team. So Iran cannot be said to have breached the NPT.

There is also the fact that Iran’s denunciation of Zionism and the declaration that it considers Israel to be the enemy has more bark than bite in it. So, Israel can use the pretext of Iran’s rhetoric that Tehran wants to destroy Israel is good enough for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch an attack on Israel’s nuclear facilities. Of course, Netanyahu was responding to the political crisis he was facing on the home front,. There is growing anger among the Israelites about Netanyahu’s failure to get all the hostages of the October 7, 2023 attack back.

Israel claims to have other motives to attack Iran. It was Iran’s support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran’s declared support for Hamas in Gaza.

And then there was the Iranian support for the Houthis in Yemen. Iran then is perceived in the Israeli security establishment as a threat to Israel. Netanyahu of course indulges in exaggeration when he says that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel.

The 12-day clash between Israel and Iran has proved that Israel does not have the military wherewithal to decisively attack Iran. It needed American intervention. The reports now say that the American bombing of the nuclear centres in Iran has only pushed back Iran’s bomb plan by two years. So, the Americans too failed to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and capabilities.

The need of the hour is that Iran, Israel and the United States must stop making these rhetorical statements which are so much hot air and nothing more. They should get down to sober diplomatic dialogue. It will be a slow process. There will be no quick fixes. The three countries have to get off their hobby-horses and look reality in the face.