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The Iranian nuclear programme is once again hitting the headlines and the
spectre of military conflict in West Asia looms large over the horizon. Citing
“credible” intelligence in its latest report to the United Nations, the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has expressed “serious concerns” that
Iran is working towards building a nuclear weapon. In its most explicit and
authoritative account of Iran’s nuclear activities to date, the IAEA underscores
a structured, focused and secretive effort by Iran to acquire the essential
skills for weapons-building, from warhead design to the testing of triggering
devices.
Crucial Pieces of the Conundrum
There seems to be a certain inevitability about the Iranian capability to
assemble a crude nuclear device in the near future. And this poses a particular
dilemma for the Obama Administration. Much like its predecessor, the Obama
Administration has also vowed that it will not allow Iran to go nuclear. Israel
is already fretting and debating its pre-emptive options. Tel Aviv has made it
clear, time and again, that it would not hesitate to act unilaterally,
overruling American objections, if they judge that Iran is getting too close to
nuclear capability. Meanwhile, tensions are rising in the capitals of Arab Gulf
states. It was the Saudi King, after all, who had famously advised the American
diplomats that the only Iran strategy that would work was one that “cut off the
head of the snake.”
Since January, the Islamic republic has seen its largest regional rival – the
government of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak – toppled by protesters,
while the Iranian-backed Hezbollah has strengthened its grip on Lebanon. Saudi
Arabia, another regional bulwark against Iranian expansion, is distracted by
uprisings on its borders, particularly in Yemen, Oman and Bahrain. Sensing an
opening, Iran has ratcheted up its competition with Saudi Arabia for influence
in the region. The recently disclosed Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador
to the United States is just one of the latest manifestations of this
longstanding conflict. Iran’s hand is being suspected in the death of a Saudi
diplomat in Pakistan earlier this year and the role of the Quds Force, the most
elite Iranian unit, is coming under the scanner.
The Obama administration is rethinking an Iran strategy that relied on Middle
Eastern allies to counterbalance Tehran’s conventional forces and prevent
cheating on economic sanctions. A new containment policy is being structured by
Washington with the installation of antimissile batteries in the Arab states and
with an emerging plan to put more ships and antimissile batteries into the
Persian Gulf as the concerns of Arab Gulf states have risen. There is little
likelihood of more serious sanctions as the Chinese and Russians remain opposed
to any new sanctions and have already made it clear that the revealing new
evidence by the IAEA will only harden Iran’s position.
In its latest round of sanctions, the US has targeted exports of gasoline and
other refined petroleum products to Iran and banned US banks from doing business
with foreign banks that provide services to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. And in
response to the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran on November 29, the
European Union not only imposed new sanctions that included freezing assets and
travel ban on 180 Iranian individuals and companies linked to the Iranian
nuclear programme, but many European nations such France, Germany and The
Netherlands recalled their Ambassadors from Tehran. The gulf between the West
and Iran is widening which many fear will only empower the radical elements of
the governing elite in Iran, making the resolution of the nuclear crisis even
more difficult.
India’s Strategic and Economic Imperatives
India shares with the West the belief that Iranian nuclear ambitions would be
destabilizing for the Middle East. The Indian Prime Minister is on record
suggesting that a nuclear Iran is not in Indian national interest. But New Delhi
does not have the luxury of viewing Iranian nuclear ambitions only through the
prism of Iran-Israel rivalry, which is the norm in the West. India has to
consider this issue from a much wider perspective where Iranian nuclear drive
becomes a product Arab-Iran, and especially Sunni-Shia, rivalry. For Tehran, its
nuclear ambitions are as much a counter to a two-front encirclement of Shias by
Sunni Pakistan and Sunni Saudi Arabia, as it is about ending Israel’s nuclear
monopoly in the region.
The Riyadh declaration signed in January 2010 during the Indian Prime Minister
Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to Saudi Arabia asked Iran to “remove regional and
international doubts about its nuclear weapons program.” In fact, India has even
endorsed the Arab call for a nuclear-weapons free Middle East – a proposal
traditionally targeting Israel but increasingly focused on Iran.
India’s broader position on the Iranian nuclear question is relatively
straightforward. Although India believes that Iran has the right to pursue
civilian nuclear energy, it has insisted that Iran should clarify the doubts
raised by the IAEA regarding Iran’s compliance with the NPT. India has long
maintained that it does not see further nuclear proliferation as being in its
interests. This position has as much to do with India’s desire to project itself
as a responsible nuclear state as with the very real danger that further
proliferation in its extended neighbourhood could endanger its security. India
has continued to affirm its commitment to enforce all sanctions against Iran as
mandated since 2006 by the UN Security Council, when the first set of sanctions
was imposed. However, much like Beijing and Moscow, New Delhi has argued that
such sanctions should not hurt the Iranian populace and has expressed its
disapproval of sanctions by individual countries that restrict investments by
third countries in Iran’s energy sector.
India would like to increase its presence in the Iranian energy sector because
of its rapidly rising energy needs, and is rightfully feeling restless about its
own marginalization in Iran. Not only has Pakistan signed a pipeline deal with
Tehran, but China also is starting to make its presence felt. China is now
Iran’s largest trading partner and is undertaking massive investments in the
country, rapidly occupying the space vacated by Western firms. Iran’s total
crude exports to China increased 47 percent from January to July 2011, compared
to an identical period the previous year. Where Beijing’s economic engagement
with Iran is growing, India’s presence is shrinking, as firms such as Reliance
Industries have, partially under Western pressure, withdrawn from Iran and
others have shelved their plans to make investments.
The strategic reality that confronts New Delhi in West Asia today is that India
has far more significant interests to preserve in the Arab Gulf, and as tensions
rise between the Sunni Arab regimes and Iran, India’s larger stakes in the Arab
world will continue to inhibit Indian-Iranian ties. At the same time, New
Delhi’s outreach to Tehran will remain circumscribed by the internal power
struggle within Iran, growing tensions between Iran and its Arab neighbours, and
Iran’s continued defiance of the global nuclear order.
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