Diplomacy must work on Iran

BY DAVID MILIBAND

I was asked this question repeatedly when I was in the United States last month. We've been pursuing the diplomatic track for several years, we've had four Security Council resolutions, and yet the Iranian regime is still busy installing new centrifuges.
The diplomatic track has to work — the alternatives are appalling. And I believe that our Iran policy can still work.
The Iranian regime may believe that time is on their side, but the state of the Iranian economy says differently. So does the state of Iran's enrichment programme. The regime has claimed for years to be further ahead than it is, and it continues to do so. Enrichment is hard technology to master, and our assessment is that Iran is still some way from doing so.
So we will continue to offer a clear choice: Come into compliance with UN resolutions and be part of the international community, or remain in breach and suffer growing political and economic isolation.
That choice will become incrementally starker over time, with every new sanctions resolution, with each new EU agreement on further measures and with every further critical report from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The IAEA has just published one such report. It said that Iran was failing to co-operate with IAEA inspectors. It found troubling Iran's refusal to explain documents that suggest Iran's nuclear intentions are military, not purely civilian as they claim.
Alongside its continuing pursuit of nuclear capability, the Iranian regime continues to support insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan. British and American troops are attacked with technology coming from Iran. The Iraqis themselves have started to turn on Iranian interference and trouble-making. Iran's angry professions of innocence look more and more hollow as the evidence mounts up.
The tragedy is that it needn't be this way. Iran should be one of the great nations of the international community. It has a history, a culture and a strategic importance that means the world would welcome it with open arms if it were not pursuing a nuclear programme with no civilian use and supporting terrorism.
The world needs a responsible, active Iran that pulls its weight in the region and beyond — but not in the destructive way it does at present. And Iran needs the world.
Behind the regime's tough rhetoric of defiance and nationalism is the knowledge that Iran must not become isolated again. The Iranian people do not enjoy seeing their proud nation in pariah status. The Iranian economy badly needs to be part of the global economy, not cut off from capital, technology and markets.
So we will continue to give Iran that clear and increasingly stark choice about its future — the so-called "dual track" approach. On June 14 we took another step in this. I sent the Foreign Office's political director to Teheran, along with his French, German, Chinese and Russian counterparts and the EU's High Representative, Javier Solana. They were there to give Iran a new offer. It is not the first offer we have made the Iranians, but it is the most far-reaching. We need a rapid response from Iran.
Part of that offer is actually a willingness to help Iran develop nuclear technology. The Iranian regime tells its people the international community is trying to deny Iran its right to nuclear power. They have turned it into a nationalist issue. But if they were honest with their own people, they would have to say that the opposite is true.
In June 2006 the six countries of the "E3+3" — Britain, France and Germany plus the United States, China and Russia — offered Teheran the technology to build nuclear power stations using state-of-the-art technology. The Iranian Government showed no interest. They spurned the offer, pushing ahead with an enrichment programme that has no apparent civilian application.
Our aim is clear: We simply want to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It is not regime change in Teheran. The new deal is also clear. It includes specific proposals to assist Iran to acquire everything it needs for a modern nuclear power industry, including technological and financial assistance, legally binding fuel supply guarantees and cooperation on radioactive waste. It also includes an offer from all E3+3 foreign ministers — which includes the United States - to sit down and talk if Iran suspends its nuclear enrichment activities. And it covers a long list of other potential benefits, from greatly improved political contacts and cooperation to steps towards normalising trade, economic and energy relations, and agricultural, aviation and development assistance.
Our offer to Teheran is a further reminder — to the Iranian people, and to the world — that our approach is not just one of isolation and pressure. There is a massive prize for Iran on offer from the international community if Iran is willing to behave like a responsible member of that community. We are determined to balance the tough punitive measures with generous incentives.
Iran likes to play the victim. It tells its people that it is being unfairly treated by the world. But the Iranian regime is the author of its own misfortune. It has chosen its path — to ignore the UN's demands, obfuscate with the IAEA and spurn the E3+3's attempts to engage with it.
As we have once again made clear, Iran has a choice. If it continues to make the wrong choice, then it will not be the international community's policy that has failed, but the Iranian regime's.
David Miliband is the British foreign secretary