On December 23, 2006, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1737, imposing sanctions on Iran for failing to suspend activities related to uranium enrichment and the production of plutonium. [1] The activities targeted by the sanctions could provide Iran with materials usable for nuclear weapons.

The debate in Iran following adoption of the resolution has been robust. Along with denunciations of the UN and strong statements of support for the country’s nuclear program, a new theme has emerged, as critics, including those from the ranks of the country’s powerful conservative clerics, have challenged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arguing that he has mishandled the nuclear portfolio and neglected more urgent domestic issues. Until recently, the country’s nuclear program had enjoyed nearly universal support and “nuclear nationalism” had been a unifying rallying point in the country. In the wake of the Security Council action, however, this issue has become divisive, even to the point of fomenting dissent within Iran’s political elite.

Iran Victimized, Unalterably Committed to Nuclear Program
A common theme in the Iranian media was outrage that Iran had been sanctioned when the December 2006 comment by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert indicating that Israel possessed nuclear weapons program failed to elicit international condemnation. (See related story in this issue of WMD Insights.) Most of the Iranian coverage of UNSC Resolution 1737 framed the resolution as embodying a “double standard” in light of Olmert’s admission. Indeed, Javad Zarif, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, made this point in a statement delivered to the Council after the adoption of the resolution. [2]

The official state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) similarly focused attention on the Israeli Prime Minister’s disclosure: “Israel has stepped up activities to cover up the scandal of admitting its stockpiles of nuclear arms by its ringleader Ehud Olmert after two decades.” The news item then immediately shifted its attention to Israel’s lobbying efforts in Europe to present the Iranian nuclear program as a threat. It quoted the Israel newspaper Yediot Aharonot as stating, “’The dispatched Israeli delegations in their meetings with EU officials provided them with security reports on the program that prove Iran has reached a no return point in its drive towards achieving the nuclear bomb.’” [3]

The conservative paper Keyhan (“The Nation”) also condemned the UN and its inaction regarding Israel’s program. It quoted the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council and chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, as stating, “Although the Zionists made such a claim we can see that the Security Council, which is the guardian of international peace and security, chose to maintain total silence against such a claim instead of making an immediate reaction.” Referring to the UN resolution, Larijani continued: “Our immediate response is that we will start our activities at the Natanz site, which has a 3,000 centrifuge facility, and we will continue our activities with full speed.” [4] Approximately three weeks later, the plan to install 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz was reaffirmed, and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini reiterated that operations at the Natanz enrichment facility would continue despite the UN Security Council resolution. [5]

The reformist Ayande-ye Now (“The New Future”) was no less enthusiastic about Iran’s nuclear plans, featuring a lengthy interview with Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh. [6] The article quoted the AEOI director as boasting: “Iran has succeeded in producing more than 250 tons of yellow cake (UF6) and at present, it is producing four percent enriched uranium.” [Note: The quoted comment contains a technical error: “yellowcake” is uranium oxide, a powder that is a precursor to UF6 – uranium hexafluoride – the easily gasified form of uranium that is used directly in the enrichment process. In June 2006, the IAEA reported that Iran possessed 116 metric tons of UF6, suggesting that Aghazadeh intended to say that Iran had increased its stocks of the material to 250 tons.]

In response to recently imposed sanctions and rumors of an imminent aerial attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Aghazadeh declared that punitive actions would not eliminate his nation’s program, because “nuclear knowledge has been institutionalized.” Noting that the students at Iran’s “superior universities” are the key to Iran’s nuclear program, he estimated that thousands of students had studied nuclear science and engineering at these schools. Underscoring his point, he stated that the UF6 production plant at Isfahan, an essential component of the Iranian nuclear program, was designed by a 27-year-old Iranian-trained specialist. Graduates, he stressed, have received lucrative offers to work abroad, but have refused them due to “their national and religious sense and the identity they have found in nuclear progress.” Highlighting the dual religious and secular foundations for the nuclear program, Aghazadeh revealed that his inspiration for developing the Iranian nuclear capacity came while he was visiting the shrine of Imam Riza in Mashad, a revered figure in Shi’a Islam. He also quoted the Deputy to the President as saying that Iran’s nuclear era constitutes “the most distinguished period in the last 300 years of Iran’s history.”

Other analysts called on Iran to reexamine its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Pursuant to Iran’s status as a party to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the agency currently inspects all nuclear sites in Iran to ensure they are not being used for nuclear weapons purposes. A December 24, 2006, editorial in the conservative newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami (“The Islamic Republic”), proposed that Iran consider barring these inspections, stating that the United States opposes “the basic existence of this [the Iranian Revolutionary] regime, and they will not rest until they topple this system.  Consequently we too must reconsider the manner of our cooperation with the IAEA.” [7]  (Indeed, in early 2007, the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee denied entry permits to 38 IAEA inspectors.) [8]

Ahmadinejad Challenged
Notably, however, on January 9, 2007, barely two weeks later, the same conservative paper, which exalts Ayatollah Khomeini’s legacy, featured an editorial that contradicted the nationalist line it had taken in December and severely criticized Ahmadinejad’s stance on the nation’s nuclear program. [9] The editorial directly addressed the Iranian President by name and provided a list of mistakes he has made, stating, for example:

2. You discuss important decisions about the nuclear issue in speeches that give the impression that these decisions are made lightly. You mention 3,000 centrifuges one day and 60,000 the next. These statements and others like them do not appear to be responsible, planned statements.

3. Your manner in discussing the nuclear issue is aggressive and hostile. Why is the President taking this tone, which gives the people the impression that you are taking a hard line on the nuclear issue?

4. You have made the nuclear issue the main issue of your administration while in reality it is an issue for the [political] system to deal with. [Presidential] Administrations pass, but national issues will remain. [10]