Doug Lorimer
On July 31, Iranian UN ambassador Javad Zarif denounced as illegal a resolution adopted by the UN Security Council demanding that his country suspend its research into the production of nuclear power-plant fuel (low-enriched uranium) by August 31 or face possible diplomatic and economic sanctions.
The resolution, presented by France and Britain with US backing, was voted for by 14 of the 15 Security Council members. Qatar, representing the Arab countries, voted against.
"Because of Russian and Chinese demands", Associated Press reported, "the text was watered down from earlier drafts, which would have made the threat of sanctions immediate. The draft now essentially requires the council to hold more discussions before it considers sanctions."
The US and its EU allies claim that Iran's uranium enrichment activities are aimed at making a nuclear bomb, despite the fact that Mohammed ElBaradei, the director-general of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran's nuclear program, has repeatedly reported to the IAEA governing board that his inspectors have found no evidence of such a weapons program.
For several years, the US has been unsuccessfully seeking adoption of a UN resolution threatening punitive action against Iran in order to give international legitimacy to a planned Iraq-style "regime change" invasion of Iran — the world's fourth-largest oil exporter and location of the world's second-largest natural gas reserves.
After Resolution 1696 was adopted, Zarif told the Security Council that his nation was not interested in developing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction — having been the victim of such weapons. He recalled the Security Council's lack of any action when the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein carried out a chemical weapons attack on Iran in 1980.
Zarif said: "Iran's peaceful nuclear program poses no threat to international peace and security and therefore dealing with this issue in the Security Council is unwarranted and void of any legal basis or practical utility."
Indeed, the resolution contravenes the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which accords all signatory countries an "inalienable right to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination".
The IAEA is charged with monitoring the nuclear programs of NPT signatories that do not have nuclear weapons to ensure they do not divert fissionable material to military purposes.
The UN Security Council can only demand suspension of nuclear activities by NPT signatory countries such as Iran if it has received a report from the IAEA that the country is not in compliance with its NPT obligations because there is evidence that it has diverted fissionable materials to military purposes. No such report about Iran has been made by ElBaradei.
EU ambassadors to the UN said that if Iran agreed to the package of proposals presented to it in early June by the five permanent members of the Security Council, Resolution 1696 would be withdrawn. The package includes an offer to provide Western nuclear power technology to Iran if it agrees to suspend its uranium enrichment activities during negotiations on a "comprehensive agreement" for cooperation on developing a civil nuclear power industry in Iran.
US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, however, made no such promise. A member of the pro-Iraq war Project for a New American Century in the late 1990s, Bolton triumphantly declared after Resolution 1696 was passed: "The clock has begun to tick."