By Farhang Jahanpour
OXFORD, Sep 9 2015 (IPS)

Iran has had a nuclear programme since 1959 when the United States gave a small reactor to Tehran University as part of the “Atoms for Peace” programme during Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s reign.  When the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was introduced in 1968 and entered into force in 1970, Iran was one of the first signatories of that Treaty.

Farhang Jahanpour

The Shah had made extensive plans for using nuclear energy in order to free Iran’s oil deposits for export and also in order for use in petrochemical industries to receive more revenue. The Shah had planned to build 22 nuclear reactors to generate 23 million megawatts of electric power.  By 1977, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) had more than 1,500 highly paid employees, with a budget of 1.3 billion dollars, making it the second biggest public economic institution in the country.

In 1975, the Gerald Ford administration in the United States expressed support for the Shah’s plan to develop a full-fledged nuclear power programme, including the construction of 23 nuclear power reactors.

President Gerald Ford has been reported as having “signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete ‘nuclear fuel cycle’.”“Iran has had a nuclear programme since 1959 when the United States gave a small reactor to Tehran University as part of the “Atoms for Peace” programme during Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s reign”

The Shah donated 20 million dollars to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to train Iranian nuclear experts, many of whom are still working for Iran’s Nuclear Energy Organisation, including the current head of the organisation and one of the chief negotiators, Dr. Ali Akbar Salehi.  In 1975, Iran also paid 1.18 billion dollars to buy 10 percent of Eurodif, a French company that produces enriched uranium. In return, Iran was supposed to receive enriched uranium for its reactors, a pledge that the French government reneged on after the Iranian revolution.

In 1975, Germany’s Kraftwerk Union AG started the construction of two reactors in Bushehr at an estimated cost of 3-6 billion dollars. Kraftwerk Union stopped work on the Bushehr reactors after the start of the Iranian revolution, with one reactor 50 percent complete, and the other 85 percent complete. The United States also cut off the supply of highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel for the Tehran nuclear reactor.

After the revolution, the Islamic Republic initially stopped all work on the nuclear programme. However, in 1981, Iranian officials concluded that after having spent billions of dollars on their programme it would be foolish to dismantle it. So, they turned to the companies that had
signed agreements with Iran to complete their work. Nevertheless, as the result of political pressure by the U.S. government, all of them declined. Iran also turned to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for help to no avail.

In the late 1980s, a consortium of companies from Argentina, Germany and Spain submitted a proposal to Iran to complete the Bushehr-1 reactor, but pressure by the United States stopped the deal. In 1990, U.S. pressure also stopped Spain’s National Institute of Industry and Nuclear Equipment from completing the Bushehr project.  Later on, Iran set up a bilateral cooperation on fuel cycle-related issues with China but, under pressure from the West, China also discontinued its assistance.

Therefore, it was no secret to the West that Iran was trying to revive its nuclear programme.

Having failed to achieve results through formal and open channels, Iranian officials turned to clandestine sources, and using their own domestic capabilities.  A major mistake was to receive assistance from A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme.  In 1992, Iran invited IAEA inspectors to visit all the sites and facilities they asked. Director General Hans Blix reported that all activities observed were consistent with the peaceful use of atomic energy.

On Feb. 9, 2003, Iran’s programme and efforts to build sophisticated facilities at Natanz were revealed allegedly by Iranian dissident group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political wing of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MKO), for years regarded as a terrorist organisation by the West. It has been strongly suggested that MKO had received its information from Israeli intelligence sources.

President Mohammad Khatami announced the existence of the Natanz (and other) facilities on Iranian television and invited the IAEA to visit them. Then, in late February 2003, Dr. Mohammad El-Baradei, the head of IAEA, accompanied by a team of inspectors, visited Iran.  In November 2003, the IAEA reported that Iran had systematically failed to meet its obligations under its NPT safeguards agreement to report its activities to the IAEA, although it also reported no evidence of links to a nuclear weapons programme.

It should be noted that at that time Iran was only bound by the provisions of the NPT, which required the country to inform the IAEA of its nuclear activities only 180 days before introducing any nuclear material into the facility.  So, according to Iranian officials, building the Natanz facility and not declaring it was not illegal, but the West regarded it as an act of concealment and violation of the NPT’s Additional Protocol, which Iran had not signed. In any event, the scale of Iran’s nuclear activities surprised the West, and it was taken for granted that Iran was developing nuclear weapons.

In May 2003, in a bold move, the Khatami government in Iran sent a proposal to the U.S. government through Swiss diplomatic channels for a “Grand Bargain”, offering full transparency, as well as withdrawal of support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and resumption of diplomatic relations, but the offer went unanswered.

In October 2003, the United Kingdom, France and Germany undertook a diplomatic initiative to resolve the problem. The foreign ministers of the three countries and Iran issued a statement known as the Tehran Declaration, according to which Iran agreed to cooperate with the IAEA and to implement the Additional Protocol as a voluntary confidence-building measure. Iran even suspended enrichment for two years during the course of the negotiations.  On Mar. 23, 2005, Iran submitted to the EU Troika” a plan of “objective guarantees” with the following elements:

(1) Spent reactor fuels would not be reprocessed by Iran.

(2) Iran would forego plutonium production through a heavy water reactor.

(3) Only low-enriched uranium would be produced.

(4) A limit would be imposed on the enrichment level.

(5) A limit would be imposed on the amount of enrichment, restricting it to what was needed for Iran’s reactors.

(6) All the low-enriched uranium would be converted immediately to fuel rods for use in reactors (fuel rods cannot be further enriched).

(7) The number of centrifuges in Natanz would be limited, at least at the beginning.

(8) The IAEA would have permanent on-site presence at all the facilities for uranium conversion and enrichment.

In early August 2005, the EU Troika” submitted the “Framework for a Long-Term Agreement” to Iran, recognising Iran’s right to develop infrastructure for peaceful use of nuclear energy, and promised collaboration with Iran. However, as the result of extreme U.S. pressure, the EU Troika was unable to respond to Iran’s call for nuclear collaboration, and subsequently Iran withdrew its offer and resumed enrichment.

The rebuff by the West to President Khatami’s outstretched hand resulted in the weakening of the Reformist Movement and the election of hardline candidate Mahmud Ahmadinezhad as the next president of Iran in June 2005. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Iran's Jun. 14 elections garnered voter participation rates close to 73 percent. Credit: Mohammad Ali Shabani

By Farideh Farhi
HONOLULU, Hawaii, Jun 15 2013 (IPS)

Iran’s Jun. 14 presidential election results, announced the day after voting was held, were nothing less than a political earthquake.

The Centrist Hassan Rowhani’s win was ruled out when Iran’s vetting body, the Guardian Council, qualified him as one of the eight candidates on May 21.

Furthermore, a first-round win by anyone in a crowded competition was not foreseen by any pre-election polling.

Up to a couple of weeks ago, conventional wisdom held that only a conservative candidate anointed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could win. Few expected the election of a self-identified independent and moderate who was not well-known outside of Tehran, and few expected participation rates of close to 73 percent.

The expected range was around 60 to 65 percent, in favour of conservative candidates, who benefit from a stable base that always votes.

But the move a few days before the election by reformists and centrists – guided by two former presidents, Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani – to join forces and align behind the centrist Rowhani proved successful. It promises significant changes in the management and top layers of Iran’s various ministries and provincial offices.

Rowhani has also promised a shift towards a more conciliatory foreign policy and less securitised domestic political environment.

The centrist-reformist alliance formed when, in a calculated action earlier this week, the reformist candidate Mohammadreza Aref withdrew his candidacy in favour of Rowhani. But the strong support for Rowhani underwriting his first-round win came from an unexpected surge in voter turnout.

Much of the electorate, disappointed by Iran’s contested 2009 election and the crackdown that followed, was skeptical of the electoral process and whether their votes would really be counted, and they also questioned whether any elected official could change the country’s direction.

Although low voter turnout was the expectation, with the centrist-reformist alliance, the mood of the country changed, with serious debate beginning about whether or not to vote. As more people became convinced, Rowhani’s chances increased. Hope overcame skepticism and cynicism.

The case for voting centred on the argument that the most important democratic institution of the Islamic Republic – the electoral process – should not be abandoned out of fear that it would be manipulated by non-elective institutions and that abandoning the field was tantamount to premature surrender.

Reformist newspaper editorials also articulated the fear that a continuation of Iran’s current policies may lead the country into war and instability.

Syria, in particular, played an important role as the Iranian public watched peaceful protests for change there turn into a violent civil war.

The hope that the Iranian electoral system could still be used to register a desire for change was a significant motivation for voters.

Beyond the choice of Iran’s president, the conduct of this election should be considered an affirmation of a key institution of the Islamic Republic that was tainted when the 2009 results were questioned by a large part of the voting public.

The election was conducted peacefully and without any serious complaints regarding its process.

Unlike the previous election, when results were announced hurriedly on the night of the election, the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of conducting the election, with over 60,000 voting stations throughout the country, chose to take its time to reveal the complete results.

Other key individual winners of this election, beyond Rowhani, are undoubtedly former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami who proved they can lead and convince their supporters to vote for their preferred candidate.

Khatami in particular had to rally reformers behind a centrist candidate who, until this election, had said little about many reformist concerns, including the incarceration of their key leaders, Mir Hossein Mussavi, his spouse Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karrubi.

Khatami’s task was made easier when Rowhani also began criticising the securitised environment of the past few years and the arrests of journalists, civil society activists and even former government officials.

Meanwhile, Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose own candidacy was rejected by the Guardian Council, saw his call for moderation and political reconciliation confirmed by Rowhani’s win.

He rightly sensed that despite the country’s huge economic problems, caused by bad management and the ferocious U.S.-led sanctions regime imposed on Iran, voters understood the importance of political change in bringing about economic recovery.

Conservatives, on the other hand, proved rather inept at understanding the mood of the country, failing in their attempt to unify behind one candidate and stealing votes from each other instead.

The biggest losers were the hardline conservatives, whose candidate Saeed Jalili ran on a platform that mostly emphasised resistance against Western powers and a reinvigoration of conservative Islamic values.

Although he was initially believed to be favoured, due to the presumed support he had from Khamenei, he ended up placing third, with only 11.4 percent of the vote, behind the more moderate conservative mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.

The hardliners loss did not, however, result from a purge. Other candidates besides Rowhani received approximately 49 percent of the vote overall, and so while this election did not signal the hardliners’ disappearance, it did showcase the diversity and differentiation of the Iranian public.

Rowhani, as a centrist candidate in alliance with the reformists, will still be a president who will need to negotiate with the conservative-controlled parliament, Guardian Council and other key institutions such as the Judiciary, various security organisations and the office of Ali Khamenei, which also continues to be controlled by conservatives.

Rowhani’s mandate gives him a strong position but not one that is outside the political frames of the Islamic Republic. He will have to negotiate between the demands of many of his supporters who will be pushing for faster change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

For a country wracked by eight years of polarised and erratic politics, Rowhani’s slogan of moderation and prudence sets the right tone, even as his promises constitute a tall order.

Whether he will be able to decrease political tensions, help release political prisoners, reverse the economic downturn and ease the sanctions regime through negotiations with the United States remains to be seen.

But Iran’s voters just showed they still believe the presidential office matters and they expect the president to play a vital role in guiding the country in a different direction.

With just over two months before the Jun. 14 presidential election, Iranians remain unclear about which candidates will be approved by the Guardian Council to compete, let alone who has the best chance of winning.

Khatami’s candidacy increases the chance of disparate reformist factions coalescing behind one candidate. Credit: World Economic Forum/cc by 2.0

To date, nearly 20 former officials have either declared or expressed interest in running.

But talk of a possible run by former president Mohammad Khatami has sparked excitement and hope, at least among that part of the Iranian population that feels disenfranchised by the contested 2009 presidential election and the repression that followed.

At the same time, there has also been harsh criticism and angry reaction on the part of conservatives, as well as some reformists who see his potential candidacy as a betrayal of the two 2009 presidential candidates, Mir Hossein Mussavi and Mehdi Karrubi, who have spent most of the past four years under house arrest.

The campaign to recruit Khatami was confirmed in a public letter issued in mid-March and signed by 91 individuals, including a number of prominent reformists, calling on him to become a candidate. The following day, the Reformist Front’s Coordination Council, the most important collection of reformist parties and organisations, echoed the call.

These appeals are based on the belief that Khatami remains the most popular politician in Iran. His flaws, including his timidity in confronting unelected institutions and the state’s security apparatus during his tenure (1997-2005), are widely acknowledged.

But the hope is that a substantial part of the electorate will rally behind him given their fondness for his urbane and gracious demeanour and the possibility of returning the country to an environment which is more open politically and culturally less rigid — an environment where economic and foreign policy-making is less erratic and bombastic than under his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Nonetheless, the call for Khatami’s candidacy has angered many radical reformers, particularly those now in exile who see him as an ineffective leader and his candidacy as detrimental to the larger necessity of fundamental change that they say the Islamic Republic requires.

But their call for an electoral boycott is not shared by most reformists inside the country. To them, the memory of Khatami’s presidency offers a sufficient alternative for participation in the electoral process.

According to a well-known novelist, speaking to IPS on condition of anonymity, “The civil, social, and cultural freedoms of the Khatami period are a nostalgic memory for all of us. He has left a defendable record of governing as an intellectual.”

In the words of another supporter who is also a renowned translator, “He makes us proud of our culture and civilisation.”

Similarly, many in the private sector remember his economic policies, despite weaknesses and setbacks, as having laid the basis of a sounder economic decision-making process.

“During the Khatami presidency,” a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Mines told IPS, “our path to trade with the world was opened, production and economic activities of the youth were given more attention, and most importantly the Oil Stabilisation Fund was established” to support the private sector during economic downturns.

But not all support for Khatami is based on nostalgia. There are also political and tactical considerations.

His candidacy increases the chance of disparate reformist factions coalescing behind one candidate. In addition, keeping him at the centre of attention maximises the impact of the support he may eventually give to another reformist candidate. This is what happened in 2009 when Khatami withdrew his candidacy and publicly supported Mussavi.

Khatami himself has remained non-committal. “You do not need to worry about my decision,” he told an audience of university students recently. “I am just one individual in the great reformist collective. I have my own opinion but in practice I also respect the collective decision.”

Khatami’s unwillingness to declare his plans is at least partly the result of uncertainty regarding the field in which he will potentially compete.

The current number of potential candidates could grow between now and the third week of May when the Guardian Council completes the vetting process and announces the names of those who are “qualified” by it to run.

In 2009, only four out 475 registrants – most of whom were not well-known enough to meet the constitutional requirement of being “among the religious and political elites” of the country – were approved by the Council, while in the open 2005 election eight out of more than 1,000 aspirants made the cut.

Khatami may be disqualified by the conservative Guardian Council for being too close to Mussavi and Karrubi and what the regime has identified as the “sedition current” in the country.

On Mar. 9, the hard-line Kayhan Daily, which is reportedly close to Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ran a harsh piece entitled “Who Said They Will Let You to Run?” The column cited Khatami’s “multiple crimes” during the “American-Israeli sedition” of the 2009 election, insisting that they disqualified him from “participation in the body-politic of the system” and called for his supporters to “forget about (his) candidacy for (the) presidency”.

The intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, went further and referred to Khatami as “shameless” and rebuked him for forgetting the harm he had done to country by questioning the results of the 2009 election and still wanting to run.

But the fact that Khatami may be disqualified has not deterred his supporters who believe that it is better to force the Guardian Council – and, ultimately, Khamenei himself who many believe would be the hidden hand behind Khatami’s disqualification – to bear the political costs of such a move.

Even if there is a threat of physical attack against Khatami, according to one political science professor, the former president should not seek Khamenei’s permission, or not enter the fray for fear of disqualification. Given the dire economic situation in the country and Iran’s difficult international predicament, “Khatami must feel a sense of duty and step forward,” he told IPS.

For such supporters the hope is that the country’s difficult predicament, as well as the former president’s continued popularity, will also influence Khamenei and ultimately persuade him to abandon any objection to Khatami’s candidacy.

Ironically, the desire for Khatami’s return, if it is indeed as widespread as his supporters believe, can also be seen as a reflection of the broader societal desire for cooperating with Khamenei to end the deepening economic and political crisis in the country.

In the words of one high-ranking state manager, who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity, “It is only with Khatami that the dangers associated with any shift of power in Iran be avoided. With anyone else, such a shift may be like an electricity blackout, resulting in event greater popular disenchantment. We hope Ayatollah Khamenei understands this and welcomes it.”