Foreign Correspondence

[StephanieVanbryce]

Aqazadeh advised the West to seize the "existing positive atmosphere" and shift towards engaging Iran. The influential head of the Majlis (Parliament)National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alae'ddin Broujerdi, aptly summed up the dead seriousness with which the Iranian leadership approached the visit. He said the IAEA chief's visit was "important", "positive in principle" and "helpful for the country".

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, also welcomed the "constructive role" of ElBaradei, while the latter expressed the hope that a "breakthrough" in the Iran nuclear issue would be possible by March. Significantly, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad assured ElBaradei Iran was keen to resolve remaining issues with the IAEA. Tehran has no doubt given the utmost seriousness to packing ElBaradei's trip with content and substance with the objective of enabling a favorable IAEA report in March.

The meeting with Khamenei was most certainly intended to convey that the Iranian leadership is speaking with one voice. Khamenei stressed, "Iran has time and again declared that Islam prohibits the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons."

ElBaradei being in Tehran has major implications. In Iranian politics itself, it becomes a boost for Ahmadinejad's standing and is bound to cast its shadow on the parliamentary elections of March 14. The continuing cooperation between Iran and the IAEA makes it virtually impossible for the Bush administration to rake up the matter in the Security Council. The indications are that Paris senses that President Nicholas Sarkozy needlessly antagonized Tehran. European rhetoric on the whole has diminished. Russia and China are able to dig in with greater conviction on the issue in the Security Council, while at the same time they feel more comfortable in pressing ahead with their strategic cooperation with Iran.

All eyes are now on the report of ElBaradei at the IAEA meeting in March. Tehran, naturally, is pinning high hopes that the Iran nuclear file may become a routine affair involving a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty member country. But the most important outcome of the ElBaradei visit is perhaps its impact in molding regional opinion in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf region.

It gives the decisive push to the "pro-West" Arab regimes to turn their backs on Bush's desperate pleas to join an anti-Iran coalition. Even for the most ardent "pro-West" Arab regimes, there is a serious problem now in identifying with the US-Israeli chorus. Equally, this "new thinking" will have implications for the Palestine-Israel peace process, as well as the situation in Lebanon and Iraq. Simply put, Tehran may be on the verge of breaking through to mainstream Arab regional politics - a historic breakthrough.

ElBaradei appeals to Arab opinion

ElBaradei further chipped in by giving an exclusive interview just before his departure for Tehran to the Saudi-owned newspaper published from London, al-Hayat, which is widely read in the region. It is significant he chose al-Hayat, and, more important, al-Hayat took such an initiative.

In the interview, he put the problem in a historical perspective as an "issue of distrust" ensuing from the West's abrupt boycott of Iran following the revolution in that country in 1979, which only prompted Tehran to keep up its so-called fissile cycle through covert means after all Iranian attempts to "build bridges of trust with the West" failed. Therefore, "There is a process of distrust and the only solution to build trust in the future is through negotiation because the Security Council can impose sanctions, but these alone cannot reach a complete solution for this problem," he explained.

ElBaradei said Iran is still years away from being able to make a nuclear weapon; that he drew a "deep sigh of relief" when the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)was released in Washington in end-November, which "eliminated the element of urgency from the Iranian file and created an opportunity to start a serious dialogue to resolve the problem through negotiation"; that the Iranian nuclear program "cannot be separated from the security process in the Middle East".

http://www.atimes.com/