The irony of the headline US accuses Iran of ‘bullying’ UN will hopefully be immediately apparent. Outside of its own borders, the US government hasn’t retained much credibility to make accusations of that sort, whether true or not.
Iran has recently— notoriously—elected a new majlis (parliament), one much more dominated by conservative groupings than its predecessor. This majlis has been elected in a time when Iran sees US troop presence in countries on its Eastern (Afghanistan) and Western (Iraq) borders, increasing disturbances in Saudi Arabia, and a heavy-handed clampdown by Israel on Palestine.
It is also a majlis that has been elected to legislate a country in constant flux. The socio-political melting pot shows no sign of cooling down, the exclusion of thousands of candidates from the election has hurt perception of the political process, and the failure of a reformist government elected with such hope some years ago is likely a key cause of the hardliners’ win in the February elections.
It could well be that Iran does have an active nuclear weapons programme. With Pakistan and Israel both being nuclear-capable it would not seem unlikely that Iran would be eager to develop that capability. But to date the key evidence being presented seems to be a belligerent attitude on the part of the Iranian government, towards the IAEA, an organisation previously sidelined by the US administration when its failure to find nuclear weapons in Iraq didn’t fit with that administration’s agenda.
One detail that seems to be unclear is whether the IAEA inspections that it is being demanded Iran comply with are part of the core of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (of which Iran is a signatory) or of its 1997 Additional Protocol, which the speaker of the majlis told the Tehran Times has yet to be ratified by that body. It does look likely that the inspections are part of that Additional Protocol, and while we should be hoping that the majlis would quickly ratify Iran’s signature to that protocol, it wouldn’t be right to hold a sovereign government to a treaty it has not ratified.
Once again it seems that an issue that can only accurately be rendered in many shades of grey is being presented to us in black and white. At least with US military capacity already overstretched, it is unlikely that these statements will be backed with any further action in the near future.