Iran – Israel stand off 2012

The U.N. nuclear watchdog IAEA and Iran failed on 24.08.2012 to strike a deal aimed at allaying concerns about suspected nuclear weapons research by Tehran, a setback in efforts to resolve the stand-off diplomatically before any Israeli or U.S. military action.

A flurry of bellicose rhetoric from some Israeli politicians this month has fanned speculation that Israel might hit Iran’s nuclear sites before the U.S. presidential election in November.

Tensions rose another notch between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when diplomatic sources said Iran had installed many more uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Fordow underground site.

While the new machines are not yet operating, the move reaffirmed Iranian defiance of international demands on it to suspend enrichment and may strengthen the Israeli belief that toughened sanctions and concerted diplomacy are failing to make the Islamic Republic change course.

“The discussions today (24.08.2012) were intensive but important differences remain between Iran and the U.N. that prevented agreement,” Herman Nackaerts, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s chief inspector, told journalists after about seven hours of talks with an Iranian delegation in Vienna.

“At the moment we have no plans for another meeting.”

Little headway appeared to have been made on the IAEA’s most urgent request – access for its inspectors to the Parchin military site where the IAEA believes Iran has done explosives tests relevant for developing a nuclear weapons capability.

Iran’s ambassador to the Vienna-based IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said that “undoubtedly some progress” was made but that differences remained. “Because it is a very complex issue … issues related to national security of a member state are something very delicate,” the veteran Iranian diplomat said.”But I have to say that we are moving forward … and we are going to continue this process so that we at the end of the day will have a framework agreed by both sides.”Soltanieh had said before the talks began: “Both sides are trying to bridge the gap.”

The diplomatic sources who revealed the expansion of centrifuge capacity at Fordow also said satellite imagery indicated Iran had used a brightly coloured tent-like structure to cover a building at Parchin, increasing concern about a possible removal of evidence of illicit past nuclear work there.

Iran Ignoring World

Israel signalled its patience with diplomacy was fading.

“Only yesterday (23.08.2012) we received additional proof that Iran is continuing accelerated progress towards achieving nuclear weapons and is totally ignoring international demands,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said before the talks ended.

Asked about the outcome of the Vienna meeting, a Western diplomat accredited to the IAEA said: “As dismal as expected.” A U.S. State Department official, asked about the revelation of more enrichment capacity at Iran’s Fordow plant, said world powers would keep using diplomacy and sanctions to press Iran into nuclear restraint, but time was running out.

Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy and the world’s No. 5 oil exporter, says it wants nuclear energy for more electricity to serve a rapidly growing population, not nuclear weapons, and has threatened wide-ranging reprisals if attacked.

Nackaerts, the IAEA’s global chief of inspections, said before the meeting that the broader goal was a deal on greater, overall inspector access to answer the U.N. watchdog’s questions about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.

It was the first meeting between the two sides since discussions in early June 2012 petered out inconclusively, dashing previous hopes that an accord might be on the cards.

These talks were separate from Tehran’s negotiations with six world powers that have made little headway since resuming in April after a 15-month hiatus, but the focus on suspicions about Iran’s nuclear ambitions mean they are still closely linked.

Washington has said there is still time for diplomatic pressure to work in making Iran curb its enrichment programme, which is the immediate priority of the six powers – the United States, Britain, Russia, China, France and Germany.

Refined uranium can fuel nuclear power plants or nuclear bombs, depending on the level of enrichment.

Iranian Concession?

Iran says it seeks only civilian nuclear energy. But its refusal to limit and open up its atomic activity to unfettered IAEA inspections that could determine whether it is purely peaceful, or not, has led to harsher punitive sanctions and louder talk about possible military action.

Western diplomats had expected no breakthrough  but said Iran could offer a concession to inspectors – who want access to sites, officials and documents – in hopes of blunting their upcoming quarterly report on Iran, which is due in the last week of August 2012.

In so doing, Iran would also seek to deflect a planned Western move to have the 35-nation IAEA board of governors, meeting next month, to formally rebuke Tehran over its failure to cooperate with the agency’s inquiry.

So any Iranian concession should be treated with scepticism, one diplomat accredited to the IAEA said.

The IAEA’s immediate priority remains access to Parchin, even though Western diplomats say it may now have been purged of any evidence of nuclear weapons research, possibly carried out a decade ago.

Citing satellite images, diplomats said this week Iran has demolished some small buildings and moved earth at Parchin. On 23.08.2012, diplomatic sources said the building believed to be housing an explosives chamber – if it is still there – had been “wrapped” with scaffolding and tarpaulin, hiding any sanitisation or other activity there from satellite cameras.

Iran says Parchin, about 30 km (20 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, is a conventional military facility and has dismissed allegations aired about it as “ridiculous”. It says a broad framework agreement for how the IAEA should conduct its inquiry is needed before possibly allowing access to Parchin.

Israeli independence – Iranian revolution

From the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 until the Iranian Revolution and the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979, Israel and Iran maintained close ties. Iran was the second Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel as a sovereign nation after Turkey.Israel viewed Iran as a natural ally as a non-Arab power on the edge of the Arab world, in accordance with David Ben Gurion’s concept of an alliance of the periphery. Israel had a permanent delegation in Tehran which served as an unofficial de facto embassy.

After the Six Day War, Iran supplied Israel with a significant portion of its oil needs and Iranian oil was shipped to European markets via the joint Israeli-Iranian Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline.Brisk trade between the countries continued until 1979. Israeli construction firms and engineers were active in Iran. Iranian-Israeli military links and projects were kept secret, but they are believed to have been wide-ranging,for example the joint military project Project Flower (1977–79), an Iranian-Israeli attempt to develop a new missile.

In spite of all those ties and trades, Iran voted in support of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 in 1975 which equated Zionism with racism (the resolution, however, was later revoked with Resolution 4686 in 1991, which post-revolution Iran voted against).

Other issues between Iran and Israel

Khomeini’s comments

During Ayatollah Khomeini’s campaign to overthrow Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Israel, which had relatively warm relations with the Shah, became an issue. Khomeini declared Israel an “enemy of Islam” and ‘The Little Satan’ – the United States was called ‘The Great Satan’.

After the second phase of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which witnessed the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Iran cut off all official relations; official statements, state institutes, events and sanctioned initiatives adopted a sharp anti-Zionist stance.

According to Dr. Trita Parsi, author of “Treacherous Alliance – The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States,” (Yale University Press, 2007), Iran’s strategic imperatives compelled the Khomeini government to maintain clandestine ties to Israel, while hope that the periphery doctrine could be resurrected motivated the Jewish State’s assistance to Iran.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in December 2000 called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that should be removed from the region. In 2005 he emphasized that “Palestine belongs to Palestinians, and the fate of Palestine should also be determined by the Palestinian people”. In 2005 Khamenei responded to President Ahmadinejad’s alleged remark that Israel should be “wiped off the map” by saying that “the Islamic Republic has never threatened and will never threaten any country.”

On 15 August 2012, during a meeting with veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, Ayatollah Khamenei said that he was confident that “the fake Zionist (regime) will disappear from the landscape of geography.”In addition, on 19 August, Khamenei reiterated comments made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which the international community and United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon condemened, during which he called Israel a “cancerous tumor in the heart of the Islamic world” and said that its existence is responsible for many problems facing the Muslim world.

Iranian funding of Hamas and Hezbollah

A mural in Tehran, Iran. The mural depicts the emblem of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and quotes the founder of The Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, saying: “Israel must be destroyed”

Iran supplies political support and weapons to Hamas, an organization committed to the destruction of Israel by Jihad. According to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, “Hamas is funded by Iran. It claims it is financed by donations, but the donations are nothing like what it receives from Iran.”

Iran has also supplied another enemy of Israel, the militant organization Hezbollah with substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid while persuading Hezbollah to take an action against Israel.Hezbollah’s 1985 manifesto listed its four main goals as “Israel’s final departure from Lebanon as a prelude to its final obliteration.” According to reports released in February 2010, Hezbollah received $400 million dollars from Iran.