Translated material
Nuclear cult
Iranian authorities lecture the opposition and the IAEA
The spring session of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) opens today in Vienna. The main issue on the agenda will be the Iranian nuclear problem. If participants in the discussions believe that the Iranians are engaged in secret nuclear development, it is unlikely that anything will save Tehran from a significant tightening of sanctions. The United States and its allies accuse Iran of seeking to create an atomic bomb, and in recent months Russia has expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the Iranian side is ignoring the demands of the world community.The report on Iran by the new IAEA Director General, Mr. Yukiya Amano (this 62-year-old Japanese replaced the Egyptian Muhammad ElBaradei at the end of 2009) was prepared by February 18, but has not yet been officially published, although the public has already been familiarized with a preliminary version. According to one European diplomat, the tone of the document is “clearer and harsher than that of the reports of Muhammad ElBaradei.” The situation was aggravated by the decision announced at the end of 2009 by 53-year-old Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to build ten new uranium enrichment plants in addition to the one operating in Natanz and the one under construction in Qom.
Anticipating unfavorable developments in Vienna, the Iranians launched a psychological attack on Yukiya Amano. The head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Manouchehr Mottaki, recently said in an interview with the local television and radio company Al-Alam that the report of the new director general is “full of serious flaws.” This is not surprising, according to the minister, “after all, Mr. Amano is new to his work”: “He still has a long way to go to gain the experience of Muhammad ElBaradei.”
In the West, Iranian rhetoric is no longer taken seriously. Tehran "is not living up to its commitments, and we are working with our partners in the international community to increase pressure on Iran to change course," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said recently. Russia is still more restrained. “The sanctions themselves, and this is our deep conviction, hardly produce the desired results,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recalled last week. “We do not want any other goals to be promoted under the pretext of observing the non-proliferation regime, including strangling Iran, taking measures that will actually worsen the humanitarian situation and the situation of the population,” the minister added.
“Iranians have become accustomed to living under sanctions since the time of the Islamic Revolution of 1979,” Nina Mamedova, head of the Iranian sector at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, recalled in an interview with Vremya Novostey. “In recent years, the country has demonstrated steady growth in gross domestic product and is becoming an attractive market for many world powers, primarily China. Therefore, Iran should be encouraged to make concessions through diplomatic measures, involving it in cooperation and without provoking a harsh response from the ruling religious circles,” the expert believes.
The Iranian leadership is actively using external pressure as a reason to persecute oppositionists. Tehran's Revolutionary Court has already sentenced 11 opposition activists to death and more than 80 people to prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years. They are accused of undermining the foundations of the Islamic Republic and having connections with Western intelligence agencies. Mass anti-government protests swept through Tehran in the summer of 2009, when the opposition accused the authorities of rigging the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 elections. However, security forces suppressed the protests and arrested hundreds of participants.
Now opposition leader and former presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi, who will turn 68 on March 2, declares that a “dictatorial cult” rules in Iran under the name of Islam: “This is a cult that has appropriated the concept of Iranianism and nationalism.” Mousavi’s loud accusations came in response to the words of Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the opposition, by refusing to recognize the elections, “deprived itself of the right to participate in political life.”
“In Iran, there is growing dissatisfaction among the socially active part of the population - the intelligentsia, students, entrepreneurs who are trying to make Iranian society more open,” says Nina Mamedova. “However, it is too early to say that these forces pose a real threat to the authorities.” In the near future, Iran’s policy will depend on the balance of power within the country’s ruling religious elite, in which various currents are fighting.”