Ahmadinejad's Retreat?

What should we make of the climb down in Ahmadinejad's revolution day speech in Tehran Sunday? On numerous occasions since mid-November, he said that Iran would announce a major turning point in its nuclear program that Iranians could celebrate on the 28th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on February 11. At a Tehran press conference on Nov. 14, he said that Iran would commission approximately 3,000 centrifuges by the end of the Persian calendar year on March 20, 2007. In an Iranian television interview on Nov. 20, he said "Iran will become an established nuclear state before the end of the year. Iran will establish itself on the top of the world nuclear peak." When I visited Tehran two weeks later, a source told me that Ahmadinejad was expected to announce that technicians had assembled six cascades of centrifuges, a milestone in the process of deploying the centrifuges to enrich uranium to a fuel-grade standard.
More than 100,000 showed up in Azadi Square, but Ahmadinejad said that Iranians would now be told of "certain new milestones...great and unprecedented developments," by April 9. The speech was relatively conciliatory. It included the usual insistence on Iran's right to nuclear technology. But despite the imposition of U.N. sanctions on Dec. 23, Ahmadinejad made no mention of retaliatory steps that he and other Iranian officials have threatened in the past. Instead, he said that Iran's activities were focused on peaceful energy, that they would remain under the eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran would not quit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that Tehran remained ready to negotiate over Western concerns.
Some are suggesting that Iran has simply failed to make the promised technological leap, hence the absence of an announcement. Others are saying that Ahmadinejad is responding to domestic critics who complain that his radical statements have unnecessarily provoked the West and complicated Iran's nuclear efforts. Both may be true, but I reckon that the main reason for the climb down is a pragmatic move on the part of Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei and Iran's entire political establishment to lower the temperature with the U.S.
Things are heating up. Washington will seek expanded sanctions on Iran at the U.N. on Feb. 23 if Tehran has not suspended its enrichment program by then. The Bush administration is also stepping up the political pressure. In his State of the Union speech last month, Bush warned of a rising Shia extremist threat to the Middle East emanating from Iran. The U.S. has been accusing Iran of arming militias in Iraq; in Baghdad Sunday, U.S. military officials showed off what they said were captured Iranian weapons of the type that had been used to kill American troops. U.S. officials have denied intentions to attack Iran to take out its suspected nuclear weapon program, but Iranian officials know they must remain prepared for such an eventuality.
By appearing conciliatory, the Iranians also hope to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its crucial allies on the sanctions issue, Europe and Russia. Ahmadinejad's speech is not the only sign of Iranian recalculation. Iran did nothing to stand in the way of a major effort by Saudi Arabia, the main U.S. ally in the Gulf, to broker a peace deal between Palestinian factions last week that could lead to a resumption in peace negotiations with Israel that Tehran opposes. Iran may also have helped persuade Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah to soften his efforts to topple the Lebanese government through street protests.
One thing that Ahmadinejad said is particularly relevant, when he mentioned that the challenge to Iran's nuclear program is not legal or technical but political. A resurgent Iran is at the center of nearly every political crisis in the Middle East. This complicates the task of addressing the region's issues. It also makes it essential that creative international diplomacy handles the issues in a way that solves problems rather than creates new ones.

-By Scott MacLeod/Beirut