According to a report by Arms Control Association the European proposal presented to Iran in October contained the following: Iran would suspend the manufacture and import of centrifuges and related components, as well as assembly, installation, testing and operation of such centrifuges; Iran would freeze operation of uranium conversion facility and any converted uranium would be placed under IAEA safeguards; the suspension would be indefinite and verifiable. In return Europeans would guarantee supply to Iran of nuclear reactor fuel from other countries but the spent fuel would have to be removed from Iran. Additionally Europeans will support Iran's acquisition of a light water research reactor Iran is planning to construct. The deal promises European support for on-going Iranian nuclear cooperation with Russia, pursuit of a proposed Middle East nuclear free zone, and negotiation for a EU-Iran trade agreement.

But the Americans are not fully satisfied. Though Colin Powell expressed happiness over November 26 IAEA resolution condemning Iran's past violation of IAEA rules but welcomed Iran's new pledges of cooperation, Bush administration wanted Iran to be declared in breach of 1968 NPT and the matter to be referred to the UNSC for sanctions against Iran. But US failed to convince majority of the 35 members Board of Governors of IAEA except Canada, Japan and Australia. Bush administration's stated security goals being non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to prevent at any cost the nightmarish possibility of acquisition of WMD materials by non-state actors, it feels a nuclear armed Iran, one of the three nations termed by President Bush as "Axis of Evil", would destabilise Persian Gulf and could give terrorist access to WMD materials. Such arguments proffered by neo-cons in Bush administration ignore the possibility that 'axis of evil' and 'regime change' rhetorics inflame nationalistic feeling among Iranians and help Iranian hardliners and clerics who have not particularly done well with the Iranian economy. Europeans being aware of this strand in Iranian politics have opted for reason to deny Iranian hardliners to win their argument that Iran should drop out of NPT and speed up development of nuclear weapons as North Korea has done.

Americans, on the other hand, have fixated for years on the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. US-Iran relations have been tortured and aggrieved one from the time Reza Shah Pahlavi was restored to his throne by the CIA in the aftermath of nationalisation of British owned oil companies by then Prime Minister Mossadegh who was overthrown with American help and sufferings of US mission officials in Tehran following Islamic revolution in 1979. In the recent past the US has pressed China, Russia and others to cut off supply of vital technology, materials and know-how to Iran and interdict both overtly and covertly transfer of equipment that would have helped Iran in its nuclear programme. As George Perkovich (of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) points out nuclear establishments around the world are too politically and symbolically important to be closed down entirely. In Iran's case the need to acquire nuclear capability is to narrow the power and status gap with Pakistan, Israel and the US. Possession of nuclear weapons by Iran would also demonstrate that Shia Iranians are not intellectually and technologically inferior to rival Sunnis. Prior to 9/11 Iranian leaders had a real fear of a Talebanised Pakistan armed with nuclear weapons. One only has to look up the number of Shia-Sunni sectarian violence in Pakistan to appreciate this point.

In case of Israel the threat from Iranian perspective is unambiguous. It should be understood that Supreme leader Ayatollah Khameini and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani are politicians and not defence strategists. They see Western policy of nuclear ambiguity relating to possession of nuclear weapons by Israel (suspected to be over two hundred weapons) as not only inequitable but reaffirmation of western apathy towards the Islamic world which after 9/11 has taken the form of an undeclared war against Islam. In a recent survey eighty per cent of British Muslims have expressed themselves of having been victimised in one way or the other. Anthropologist Professor Prina Werbner has described this feeling of progressive alienation "as the vulnerability of the Muslim diaspora communities in the West, susceptible to being essentialised as fanatical and irrational, a potential fifth column in the clash of civilisation". Advocacy for possession of nuclear weapons by Iranian hardliners in this case becomes all the more saleable because of the experiences of the Muslim diaspora in the West where many people have been convinced of some western intellectuals' thesis on classical Islamic view of the world as being divided into the House of Islam and the House of Unbelief or House of War and of Muslims' recognition from an early date of "a genuine rival -- a competing world religion, a distinctive world civilisation" in Christendom.

Iranians are no exception in seeing Israeli unchallenged possession of nuclear weapons as a hypocritical insult to the integrity of the international non-proliferation regime. Yet the question the Iranians need to ponder is whether possession of a few nuclear weapons would necessarily enhance Iran's security. The sheer disparity in the number and quality of conventional and non-conventional weapons possessed by the US and Israel and the ones that could be developed by Iran would ensure complete annihilation of one of the oldest civilisations of the world. Iranian leaders recognise this but some among the hardliners believe that an arsenal of 50-100 weapons could act as a credible deterrent. Regardless of the validity of such assumption it should also be considered that during the process of acquisition of large number of weapons US and/or Israel may launch a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear installations. Given Under Secretary of State John Bolton's declaration: "we cannot let Iran, a leading sponsor of terrorism, acquire nuclear weapons", one must take such a possibility or of Osirak option (Israeli preemptive attack on Iraqi suspected nuclear installations in 1981) seriously.

Cooler heads in the US, not to speak of in Europe, strongly advise against such preemptive actions on the grounds that (a) logic of preemption would necessitate the US to wage war against 12 nations with nuclear weapons programme that Pentagon says are extant and emerging threats; (b) preemptive strikes may not be able to take out all nuclear installations as these are located in inaccessible areas out of public eyes; (c) Iran-Al Qaida links need further investigation particularly after Iraq fiasco and also alleged Iranian involvement in the 9/11 tragedy -- an allegation most suspect in the eyes of the world; and (d) another Iraq-like misadventure will most certainly inflame anti-American sentiment globally and particularly in the Islamic world. Instead the US should concentrate on the internal dynamics of Iranian politics. Former Iranian Finance Minister Jahangir Amuzegar has written about profound challenge faced by the clerics "from a new and disenchanted generation known as the Third Force born after 1979" Iranian Islamic revolution. They question the concept of velayet-e-faqih (the supremacy of Shia jurists),are unimpressed by President Khatami's Islamic democracy, irreverent to the Iran-Iraq war, and aspiring for freedom and prosperity.

Though Iran's march towards secular democracy took a hard knock in February elections in which 12- members Guardian Council disallowed 3000 candidates from contesting the elections, Iran is blessed with a young (seventy per cent are under the age of thirty) and politically articulate population. Iran's Ayatollahs who have ruled the country since 1979 are demographically dead and the durability of clerical rule appears to be time-spanned. Therefore, to rein in Iranian nuclear programme the West needs to address the question of Iran's potential demand for nuclear weapons. Perhaps the West in conjunction with Russia and Japan may wish to involve Israel and the greater Middle Eastern countries more actively in regional non-proliferation efforts and regional security talks; encourage Israel to join NPT; alter its policy of nuclear ambiguity; ratify Chemical Weapons Convention and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); encourage talks for a verifiable WMD free zone in the area. And above all, find a just solution of the Palestinian crisis. In the ultimate analysis, it is peace and not war that will denuclearise Iran.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.