Iran, Still Defiant
How Tehran views the nuclear standoff with the West

Iran's hard-liners are back. Even with a reform-minded President formally in charge, the stern mullahs' persistent strength is visible everywhere. In late November the streets around the parliament building in Tehran's Baharestan district were festooned with posters hailing the Basij Islamic militia, radical volunteers who serve as one of the regime's most loyal protection forces. Upstairs in his sixth-floor office, Hassan Kamran was wearing a white Basiji scarf around his neck in solidarity with the diehards, who are seen by many Iranians as free-ranging thugs. He was ranting against the U.S., warning that if President George W. Bush dares to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Tehran will retaliate by striking Israel and U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf. "As Imam Khomeini taught us," he says, "we will respond to force with force."

This is the voice of militant Iran, where Islamic conservatives have made a thundering return to political office this year just as their country's nuclear ambitions have sparked growing alarm in the West. Yet despite Kamran's bluster, Iran's government has remained willing to negotiate in the standoff over its nuclear program. The U.S. has charged that what Iran claims to be a peaceful pursuit of nuclear energy is likely part of a rogue regime's covert effort to get its own nuclear weapons. After months of negotiating with European Union officials, Iran agreed to suspend the uranium-enrichment program that is at the heart of the accusations. Ten days later, however, Tehran put the deal in jeopardy by demanding an exemption for research involving a small number of centrifuges that are central to making bomb-grade fuel. As of early December weary negotiators were still dickering over a compromise intended to salvage the hard-won agreement. The fits and starts gave ammunition to Bush Administration officials who are ready to send Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions. If the deal is to be saved, someone will have to back down.

The mullahs publicly deny on moral grounds that Iran plans to enter the nuclear club. The Supreme Leader has said Islam forbids all weapons of mass destruction because they kill innocent civilians. But the on-again, off-again dealmaking causes Western diplomats to wonder whether the resurgent mullahs are courting confrontation with a U.S. Administration that has already sent troops into Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran's immediate neighbors to the east and west.

In Tehran defiance is certainly back in the air now that conservatives have wrested control of the 290-seat Majlis from reformers in elections that were widely condemned at home and abroad as rigged. Supporters of the ruling mullahs seem poised to take back the presidency in the spring of 2005. The up-and-coming pragmatic conservatives, who negotiated the nuclear deal and agree with reformers that Iran should cooperate with the outside world, have been accused of treachery by hard-liners, who control militant organizations like the Basij, the Revolutionary Guards, the Shari'a judicial system and a number of Islamic charities.

Many Iranian citizens, like U.S. officials, assume the mullahs are seeking A-bombs. The public debate has not been about whether Iran should have nuclear technology but about how to resist international pressure to bar it. Iranians believe the clerics have plenty of legitimate reasons to want atomic weapons: they feel threatened by the U.S.; Iran is encircled by nuclear powers like Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India; and the nation was victimized by Saddam Hussein's chemical attacks in the war with Iraq in the 1980s. Others are worried that it could lead to North Korea-style isolation and impoverishment.

In private, hard-liners are high-fiving one another because of what they consider declining odds that the second-term Bush Administration will pursue regime change in Tehran. Observing U.S. difficulties in taming the Iraqis, Iranian leaders are far less worried than they were two years ago that U.S. forces might motor on toward Tehran. In any case, Tehran officials say, Iran's substantial trade ties with Russia and China probably ensure a Security Council veto if the United States pursues U.N. sanctions.

Tehran's pragmatic conservatives seem well aware that tensions with the West could rise sharply if dialogue collapses. Stopping short of declaring Iran in formal breach of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which requires strict international supervision, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued scathing criticisms of Iran's past failures to inform it of suspicious facilities, activities and materials and its chronic foot dragging on cooperation. European negotiators remain skeptical that Iran will stick to its word.

For the mullahs, brinkmanship carries risks. An aggressive posture on nuclear issues runs counter to Iran's otherwise cautious foreign policy and could further undermine the regime's international legitimacy. Given the depth of their unpopularity at home, especially among young Iranians who want real democracy and better ties to the West, the clerics might not be able to count on the populace to rally around the flag if their reckless actions trigger a serious confrontation with the U.S.

The pragmatic conservatives will probably try to keep the nuclear dialogue alive. However, just like Iran's fading reformers, they will be vigorously opposed by the regime's powerful mullahs if they show signs of moderation. That's what happened to Mohammed Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric who, in frustration over the right-wing takeover of parliament, resigned a month ago as Iran's Vice President. "They kicked us out of the political field, arguing that we were soft and weak," he told Time. "They do not want to lose the backing of the minority of Iranians who still support them." As long as the mullahs prevail, so may Iran's quarter-century-old confrontation with the West, only now with nuclear weapons in play. —from TIME, December 6, 2004

Questions

1. What is the basis for the standoff between Iran and the U.S. over Iran's nuclear program?

2. Why do hard-liners in Iran believe that it is increasingly unlikely that the Bush Administration will pursue regime change in Iran?