Iran: IAEA To Decide On Sending Tehran To UN Security Council

IAEA chief Muhammad el-Baradei confers with Oili Heinonen at the special Board of Governors meeting on Iran in Vienna on 2 February (epa) The board of governors of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) opened a meeting in Vienna today that is expected to decide whether to report Iran to the UN Security Council over its controversial nuclear program. The move is fiercely opposed by Tehran, which says it will break off all cooperation with the IAEA if the matter is taken to the Security Council. A number of IAEA board members are reportedly reluctant to act against Iran, and the outcome of the meeting is not yet certain.

PRAGUE, 2 February 2006 -- The 35-member IAEA board of governors contains a mix of nations ranging from close allies of the United States, like Australia, to active opponents of Washington, like Venezuela, with other countries in the middle, like India.

Over the next two days, this volatile collection of nations will have to decide whether to agree to what was originally a Western proposal to report Iran to the UN Security Council because it has resumed work towards nuclear-fuel enrichment.

Political HorseTrading

The Western powers suspect Tehran is trying to develop a nuclear-weapons program, which the Iranians deny.

Regional expert Walter Posch, of the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris, says he expects much bargaining for support in the corridors of the IAEA. "The trade-offs that are under way now are really important; there must be negotiations between the larger European countries, plus the Americans, with each of the [other] countries," he said.

With Syria, Cuba, and Yemen on the governing board, as well as Venezuela, there is a core of nations likely to oppose the move to report Iran. There are others which are not expected to be enthusiastic, like predominantly-Muslim Indonesia, as well as nonaligned Algeria and Belarus.

There are still others with some doubts, like South Africa, Argentina, and Brazil, which are known to be uneasy that interference with Iran's nuclear program could set a precedent conflicting with their own nuclear ambitions.

Tehran Lacking Support?

Analyst Posch says despite this lineup, Iran may not get enough support to defeat the proposal: "It's almost as if the Iranians have overplayed their cards in terms of the sympathy they can gain, and a referral [to the Security Council] might be very likely."

He says this is because of two factors. One is that many board members may not be willing to side with Iran in view of the extreme nature of the anti-Israeli comments of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The other is that this time, Russia and China -- veto-holding members of the Security Council -- are aligned with the United States, France, and Britain in supporting the resolution.

To Report Or Refer?

To obtain the backing of Moscow and Beijing, the Western powers watered down their resolution from a formal "referral" of Iran to the Security Council to a "report."

This means no UN sanctions can be imposed on Iran until after the issue of a full IAEA report on the subject on 6 March.

In the meantime, analyst Glen Barclay of Australian National University in Canberra says the Western powers in one sense may have played into Ahmadinejad's hands: "He is looking for something which activates mass popular support [for himself] and, of course, there is nothing like external pressure to rally a nation behind its leader, so this [crisis] is fine from his point of view."

Analyst Posch says Ahmadinejad has destroyed the atmosphere and the small credit of trust which former reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami managed to build in the West.