Iran Snap Analysis: Ahmadinejad's Nuclear Roadtrip

The Ahmadinedjad roadshow in the US has finally closed. Given that it was a last-minute decision for the Iranian President to go to New York for the nuclear non-proliferation conference, this was a major public-relations campaign. There were at least three significant television appearances  --- one of them on a national morning programme --- and several newspaper interviews in addition to the United Nations speech.

I think Ahmadinejad, on the ground he has chosen, was successful in the tour. Of course he is unlikely to swing the opinions of many in the US, but he was able to put down his American interviewers. More importantly, he had a platform to play to opinion beyond the US, trying to persuade other countries --- especially "non-aligned", non-nuclear states --- that Iran has the high moral and political position on the atomic question.



The question is whether those states will support Iran's case against the "established" order. Both the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon criticised Tehran's stance even before Ahmadinejad took the podium on Monday. The Iranian President's speech, beyond the 11-point proposal for global disarmament, carried this message: "In the end, 'we' will stand against you and the 'nuclear' states like the US and Israel."

Will that get Ahmadinejad enough political space to bolster Iran's position abroad and his authority at home? And, on the specific nuclear question: is he trying to use that space to get a deal on enrichment --- the latest flutter is that Brazil will broker the talks --- or is he trying to avoid any commitment altogether?

Comments

[Catherine]

Scott',
Last night on a pretty good edition of AJE's Inside Story, they also touched on the question of whether AN's speech was/would be successful. The video isn't up yet but should be soon. The guests were Richard Weitz, the director of the Centre for Political Military Analysis at Hudson Institute, Gareth Porter of IPS News - who has written extensively on Iran recently, and unser freund, Prof. Marandi, who remained a bit on the back burner this time around.
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2010/05/201055142318543566.html" rel="nofollow">http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insides...

Gareth Porter argued for the success of his speech in certain specific respects (NAM countries, for example, and made more intelligent points which I can't recall right now, sorry) and Richard Weitz said it was early days and it still remained to be seen if any of the 189 participants would shift towards any of Iran's positions during the course of thhe conference.

[Catherine]

Adrian Hamilton writes a weekly column for The Independent largely on international affairs with particular focus on the Middle East, Iran and foreign policy issues. I found his take on AN's speech particularly sensible - as well as entertaining:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/adrian-hamilton/adrian-hamilton-it-doesnt-help-to-obsess-over-iran-1964251.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentato...

[WitteKr]

I feel Amano and Ban Ki Moon went further then just criticizing. According to Colum Lynch, the blogger from within the UN "The U.N.'s top leadership used a high-level nuclear conference to publicly scold Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" (...) "In a rare breach in protocol, Ban left the General Assembly hall for another meeting shortly before President Ahmadinejad -- the only head of state to address the nuclear conference -- delivered his speech."
And a leading Nonaligned nation, Indonesia, is playing an interesting role... See my entry from yesterday. http://enduringamerica.com/2010/05/05/the-latest-from-iran-5-may-protest-is-not-provocation/#comment-48515732" rel="nofollow">http://enduringamerica.com/2010/05/05/the-lates...

[Catherine]

For those interested, The Christian Science Monitor has a series of short articles called NPT 101 by Scott Peterson, their staff writer in Istanbul. Topics covered:

Part 1: How relevant is cold war treaty in age of terrorism?
Part 2: Which countries have nuclear weapons
Part 3: Why Iran sees nuclear 'hypocrisy'
Part 4: Clash between nuclear haves and have-nots
Part 5: Is Iran violating the nuclear treaty?
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0503/NPT-101-How-relevant-is-cold-war-treaty-in-age-of-terrorism" rel="nofollow">http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010...

[wdavit]

Scott,

You summed this up best in describing it as a "show." It was only a show for the NAM and OIC states to further divide the world on the issue with Iran. The division means Iran avoids sanctions and continues ahead doing whatever it wants. We can all hope they are not pursuing Nukes but evidence seems to suggest they are purposely using dual use techonology along this path indicating they want the option. The questions then remain has Iran committed to a weapons program, are they just giving themselves the option to quickly do it, and finally can the rest of the world live with this? Only time will tell.

Thx
Bill

[Catherine]

Scott,
The video is now available of the Inside Story programme I posted about in the first comment above.

'Putting the world at risk?'
Have the NPT conferences become a platform to settle political accounts and an opportunity to lobby against adversaries? Does the treaty help rid the world of nuclear weapons or does it advocate maintaining the status quo? And will Obama's nuclear undertakings help patch the gaps of the NPT?

Joining the programme are Mohammed Marandi, Richard Weitz, director of the Centre for Political Military Analysis at Hudson Institute, and Gareth Porter of IPS News. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2010/05/201055142318543566.html" rel="nofollow">http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insides...

It's 24 minutes, but you can fast forward though Marandi :-)