Delegates to the International Atomic Energy Agency are pictured in Vienna's UN headquarters prior to an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, Sept. 21. (Reuters File Photo)

For all its pretensions to a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, India on Saturday flunked its first real test as a rising world power. Where no less than 11 countries smaller and less powerful than us--Venezuela, Algeria, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Yemen--had the courage and good sense to join Russia and China in refusing to endorse the U.S.-backed agenda of confrontation with Iran, India threw in its lot with Washington and the European troika.
Scared by a well-choreographed bout of shadow boxing at the start of Congressional hearings on the July 18 Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, the Manmohan Singh Government convinced itself that it had to side with Washington’s unreasonable pressure on Iran. In doing so, the Government has betrayed its own lack of strategic confidence--this at a time when the fine print of the nuclear deal is about to be negotiated and the slightest sign of diplomatic weakness will be used by Washington to push the envelope on issues like the scope of international safeguards and inspections India must accept in order to see the July 18 agreement through.
Moreover, the Government has chosen to go along with a confrontationist move against Iran, which undercuts a key legal argument India has been making for 50 years--that countries can only be held to account for international agreements they sign. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) gives Iran the right to pursue the nuclear fuel cycle subject to safeguards. It gives Iran the right to build a heavy water reactor. The Additional Protocol Iran has signed specifies the kind of intrusive inspections it must allow. But the International Atomic Energy Agency resolution India voted for makes demands that go far, far beyond Iran’s legal obligations. This is a dangerous precedent for India to agree to since this means the safeguards agreement and additional protocol it has committed to sign with the IAEA also one day need not be the final word on its legal obligations.
The vote India cast in the IAEA Board of Governors (BoG) was in favour of a resolution finding Iran in “non-compliance“ with its safeguards obligations under the NPT and expressing “the absence of confidence that Iran’s nuclear programme is entirely for peaceful purposes.“ The finding is under two Articles, XII and III, of the IAEA Statute, both of which mandate referral of the matter to the Security Council. Unlike the referral under Article XII.C, which is more of a procedural nature, the referral under III.B.4 invokes the Security Council’s responsibilities for maintaining international peace and security and holds out a thinly veiled threat of sanctions and other punitive measures.
In what is supposed to be a major “compromise,“ Britain, France, and Germany (the E-3) dropped earlier language stipulating that the referral to the Security Council should be immediate. The timing of this referral has been left to a future BoG meeting, presumably the one that will be convened in November.
The Indian Government, in justifying its decision to back the resolution, has cited this two-step approach as a big concession. Indian officials claim this delay provides the time and space needed for dialogue and diplomacy to work, a claim of extraordinary naivety and even double-speak. First, Saturday’s resolution is more likely to close the door on dialogue than re-open it since it demands Iran surrender even more of its rights under the NPT than ever before. Secondly, the U.S. itself did not necessarily want an immediate referral because there is little practical significance to dragging Iran before the UNSC where China and Russia would exercise their veto. What it really wanted was for the international community to recognise Iran’s civilian nuclear energy programme as a threat to international peace and security requiring potentially endless “special verification“ inspections, which go far beyond that required under the normal safeguards agreement and Additional Protocol. Armed with this broad endorsement, Washington can now choose the time and place for the political--and even military--escalation that is surely in the offing.
Given the composition of the BoG, securing a majority had never been an issue for the U.S. and its allies. But in the absence of consensus, which was impossibility anyway, engineering India’s defection from the ranks of the developing countries was crucial. The U.S. needed to undercut the charge that the West was ganging up on the Third World in denying Iran the right to nuclear fuel cycle-related facilities. Winning over Ecuador, Peru, Ghana, and Singapore was not good enough since these are not countries known for the independence of their foreign policy. The U.S. needed India to provide a cover of credibility for the unreasonable indictment against Iran and the Manmohan Singh Government happily went along. That is why U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns has hailed India’s vote as “a blow to Iran’s attempt to turn this into a developed world versus developing world debate.“
Of all the demands the IAEA resolution makes, three are highly problematic and ultra vires. First, it says Iran must implement “transparency measures ... which extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol.“ Calling Iran a “special verification case,“ the BoG said this requires an expansion in the “limited“ legal authority of the IAEA to conduct inspections. Specifically, this must include “access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual use equipment, certain military owned workshops and research and development locations.“ In this way, the road has been cleared for an Inspection Raj of the UNSCOM/UNMOVIC type, which, even after physically checking every possible location in Iraq several times over, never had the ability to say Baghdad possessed no weapons of mass destruction. The resolution’s demand for access to individuals is also quite rich, considering that the source of the technology Iran is suspected of possessing--A.Q. Khan--is sitting pretty in Pakistan, beyond the reach of IAEA inspectors.
Secondly, Iran has been told to resume the suspension of enrichment-related and reprocessing activity. Unlike all previous resolutions of the BoG, which called on Iran to suspend its enrichment, this resolution makes no explicit mention of the voluntary, non-legally binding nature of Iran’s commitment to suspend those activities. By this subtle act of elision, a voluntary, non-legally binding undertaking is being elevated to the status of a legally binding commitment. Thirdly, the resolution says Iran must “reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water.“ This is a new and illegal demand that did not figure in the last resolution passed by the BoG on August 11, 2005, and represents a further shift of the goalpost.
The irony of the Indian capitulation on Iran is that its display of political weakness comes at a time when the U.S. has finally become aware of India’s strategic weight and significance and is attempting desperately to harness these for its own ends. When President George W. Bush offered Dr. Manmohan Singh full civilian nuclear cooperation, he did so in full knowledge that India has tended to side with the rest of the developing world on the question of Iran. Either his decision to support India’s nuclear industry was taken independently of the Iran equation or it was conditional on New Delhi ditching Tehran both as a source of energy security and as a conduit for the integration of India and Central Asia. If the former is the case, the Manmohan Singh Government had nothing to fear from sticking to its earlier stand of “consensus“ in the IAEA BoG. And if it was the latter, then surely this amounts to a hidden--and onerous--cost India is now being forced to pay in order to see the nuclear deal through.
Siddharth Varadarajan
HINDU.COM

There is no easy solution to the predicament of Hezbollah’s armed status. Thus far, the organization and the new Lebanese government have resisted calls by the United States and the international community to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which urges the state to disarm all militias. If anything, Hezbollah’s resolve to keep hold of its weapons indefinitely has only hardened over the past months, with the party now claiming that its resistance role surpasses that of mere “liberation“ and includes ongoing strategic “defense,“ while rejecting any notion of subsuming its arms under the central command of the Lebanese army.
For its part, the Lebanese government has followed the path of its predecessors by endorsing the resistance in its policy statement, thereby perpetuating the uneasy yet, thus far, stable formula of an armed group that is at once auxiliary and extraneous to the Lebanese army.
In response, the Bush administration has anchored its demands for Hezbollah’s demilitarization within the framework of its democracy agenda for the region, by repeating the mantra of “there can be only one authority in a democracy“ while continuing to brand the movement a terrorist organization.
Yet, as problematic as the preservation of Hezbollah’s arms is, the prospect of attempting to disarm the organization against its will through the use of force or immense political pressure risks further radicalizing the organization and the Shiite community behind it. Such a development would not bode well for Lebanon’s stability, or by extension for the U.S. democratic initiative in the region.
The paradox is that Hezbollah’s arms actually have been conducive to its full political integration and resultant moderation in several ways. The need to legitimize its resistance was one of the principal motivations that induced Hizbullah to enter the political mainstream in 1992, when it contested the first post-war parliamentary elections.
In order to transform the Lebanese state into a substitute security net that could allow Hizbullah to shield its resistance to Western diktat, Hizbullah was compelled to reach out to other groups during the latest parliamentary elections, for example striking electoral alliances with constituent groups of the Sunni-Christian-Druze coalition in exchange for securing their public pledges to support its resistance priority. In this connection, Hizbullah opened up to all major forces across the political spectrum, even reconciling with the right-wing Christian Lebanese Forces, a one-time ally of Israel.
Hizbullah then took the unprecedented step of participating in the Lebanese government both indirectly, through a minister close to the party and directly, by appointing a minister from within its own ranks. In effect, the preservation of Hezbollah’s arms has necessitated its adoption of a two-pronged strategy of full submersion in the democratic arena and rapprochement with groups of all political persuasions.
Hezbollah’s armed activities have fostered a culture of resistance among the Shiites, some 95 percent of whom support the resistance according to a survey conducted in June by the Beirut Center for Research and Information. Hizbullah leaders have repeatedly raised the specter of renewed civil war should the organization be driven underground.
So long as the United States actively pursues the disarmament of Hizbullah alongside its promotion of democratic reforms, it runs the risk of achieving neither. Hezbollah’s disarmament should be the voluntary result of an internal Lebanese dialogue that is free from foreign intervention. Such a dialogue can come about only once the justification for Hezbollah’s arms--the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict--is resolved via a comprehensive regional peace agreement.
DAILYSTAR.COM.LB

Less than a week from today, barring a last-minute upset, there will be a small, quiet signing ceremony, probably in Strasbourg. Not even the UK Foreign Office seems entirely sure of the venue or its format. But no one is questioning the scale of the ambition nor the risks which underpin this event--the opening of the accession process for Turkey’s membership of the European Union. Welcome to regime change, European-style.
The parallels are inescapable: The US launched its regime change in a Muslim country with shock and awe, an unprecedented onslaught of military power. The EU quietly initiates its regime change in the Muslim country next door with the shock of 80,000 pages of EU regulations on everything from the treatment of wastewater to the protection of Kurdish-minority rights. While one sends in its Humvees and helicopters, the other sends in an army of management consultants, human-rights lawyers and food-hygiene specialists.
The more the US model of regime change disintegrates into violent chaos in Iraq, the more the EU glows with discreet pride in its own unparalleled record of successful regime change, from post-dictatorship Spain and Portugal to the more recent enlargement countries such as Hungary and Estonia. The EU model uses the incentive of membership to insist on dramatic change--once a country is a member, the leverage is lost. So Turkey will have to jump through a number of hoops on issues such as corruption and sewerage, which might trip up many of the oldest EU members. It’s a style of regime change which is “cheap, voluntary and hence long-lasting’’, points out Steven Everts in a new pamphlet, Why Europe Should Embrace Turkey.
This kind of regime change is the only way in which the EU can lay claim to being a serious global playerÑ-on almost every recent international crisis, from Bosnia to Iraq, internal squabbles crippled an effective response. No wonder then that there are plenty of Europhiles, particularly in the UK, whose eyes glitter at the prospect of Turkey in the EU queue. They rattle off the long list of advantages: the geostrategic significance of Turkey in relation to the Caucasus and the Middle East; the key gas supplies that now run through Turkey; the demographic advantages of a much younger population; the dynamic Turkish economy--grown by a quarter since 2001; securing Europe’s back door against drugs and people-trafficking.
What fuels this British enthusiasm is that Turkey offers the tantalizing possibility of exorcising the “clash of civilizations’’ ghost. If there was a secular, democratic, economically successful Muslim state it would kill off intense arguments about the incompatibility of Islam with democracy or Islam with human rights and modernity. Furthermore, 80 million Turks within the EU would also kill off the EU’s credibility deficit in the Muslim world, where it’s seen as a Christian, white club with a dodgy imperial past .
But this is the nub of the problem--vast swathes of Europe don’t buy it. Either they don’t believe a peaceful accommodation with Muslims is possible or they fear it requires such a dilution of European identity that they don’t want it. Britain’s enthusiasm is echoed in only a few countries such as Poland and Spain, while across the rest of the continent the “clash of civilizations’’ argument is flourishing. Hence the quietness of the short ceremony next Monday. No one has any desire to launch this project of regime change with a fanfare--it fills European populations with horror.
GUARDIAN.CO.UK

After the grey men of the left who have run Poland in recent years, Sunday’s parliamentary election winners are a colourful crew. Heading the list are identical twins Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, who lead the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party that came first in the vote. They will almost certainly form a coalition with the liberal Civic Platform (PO), headed by Jan Rokita, a former anti-communist who once dressed in drag to escape the police.
But colour alone will not bring Poland good government. PiS-PO must run the country more honestly than the corrupt ex-Communist SLD which has been swept out of office.
The first challenge is building an effective coalition. Although both parties come from the anti-communist Solidarity movement, there is an ideological gap between PO, with its pro-business stance, and the Christian democrats of PiS, who want state intervention, extra welfare spending and some controls on foreign investment. PiS leaders must recognise that while populism may win an election, it cannot decide economic policy. Poland needs cuts, not increases, in public spending.
There are also differences over foreign policy, with PiS taking a more nationalist view of Poland’s relations, especially with Russia and Germany. On the European Union, PiS leaders are sceptics, delighting in the demise of the constitutional treaty. The PO is also glad to see it off the agenda. On balance, a PiS-PO coalition will probably stand close to the UK on political integration issues. But Warsaw must not forget Poland’s peace and prosperity depends on a strong EU.
With presidential elections due next month, tensions are running high. Civic Platform’s Donald Tusk has been leading in opinion polls, but his nearest rival, Lech Kaczynski, will be boosted by Sunday’s results. Little will be clear until mid-October, especially as Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the PiS prime ministerial candidate, says he will stand down if his brother wins the presidency.
Despite the centre-right’s success, Europe’s liberal reformers should not see Sunday as a vote for reform. Poles voted not for liberalisation but to get rid of a corrupt administration. They want clean government--and, if PiS-PO fails to deliver, they will vote them out too. PiS and PO leaders must never forget that Poland’s populists stand waiting in the wings. The leftist Self-Defence and the rightwing League of Polish Families together scored nearly 20 per cent. With unemployment standing at 17.8 per cent, the highest in the EU, the populists expected to do better. They have had more impact in far richer western European states, notably France. However, the new government must not be complacent.
Nor should it ignore the miserable 40 per cent turnout - the lowest in the EU since 1945. Even after the success of EU accession, Poland’s leaders have much to do before their young democracy is really mature.
FT.COM