German Envoy Says U.S. Leaders Gates, Rice, ‘Brilliant’ In Handling Russian Objection To Installing Missile Defense System In Europe
If ongoing Iranian production of nuclear materials leads to Iran wielding nuclear weapons in the Middle East, that would be a catastrophe for world peace, according to Klaus Scharioth, German ambassador to the United States.
“A nuclear-weapons-state Iran would be quite disastrous for the region,” because many other Middle Eastern nations then would move to acquire nuclear bombs, the Harvard- educated Scharioth said. “I think within years you would have a nuclear conglomeration of states in the area,” if Iran begins building nuclear weapons.
While the United States is planning to build a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Europe to guard European nations and U.S. troops there from attack by Iranian missiles tipped with nuclear weapons, Russia initially responded to the initiative with blistering rage. Russians said the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), or European Midcourse Defense, interceptors could be targeted at Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles.
But Russian objections have been muted greatly since U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Moscow and made an offer that Scharioth termed “a brilliant move.”
The Americans offered to permit the Russians to inspect the U.S. GMD sites, including 10 interceptor missiles in silos at a site in Poland, and also offered to have a common analysis of the threat posed by Iran. Russia has attempted to say Iran doesn’t pose a serious threat, a view that Scharioth clearly doesn’t share.
Responding to a question from Space & Missile Defense Report about the GMD system, Scharioth that “I very much hope that Russia will take them up” on the offer. He spoke at a seminar of The Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies in Washington.
Scharioth said, “I think it was a brilliant move by Bob Gates and Condi Rice to say to the Russians, we offer you two things: We offer you transparency. We offer you that you can have these sudden inspections in Poland. And we also offer you that we create [a joint assessment] where you have a common threat analysis.”
That was an adroit response to months of Russian objections, Scharioth said.
“We believe it’s exactly the right proposal, made by the United States,” the ambassador said. “And so, I think we are moving in the right direction, because if we get this common threat analysis, and if everybody comes to the agreement there is the common threat, then let’s do something about it.” In other words, that would leave the Russians in the position of admitting Iran does pose a threat, meaning that Russia then couldn’t object to U.S. installation of a ballistic missile defense system to counter that threat.
And Russia also couldn’t voice suspicions about the true purpose and operation of that GMD missile shield, if Russians were given the right to inspect the interceptors site.
“If there is transparency, then you don’t have this possibility that you, let’s say, get kind of an escalation, and you get mistrust on various sides,” Scharioth said.
Presentation of the offer to Moscow is highly significant, “because it means that Russia has no excuse now to just say no,” he said. “Why shouldn’t they agree to a common threat analysis? I think that’s perfectly fair.”
And any objective, accurate analysis will conclude that Iran, moving to become a nuclear state, is appalling, Scharioth indicated.
Germany long has viewed Iran as a threat, he said: “We were getting more and more concerned in 2003 that Iran was in reality doing something, which was, at least — could possibly not be an exclusively civil nuclear program.” Not only Germany, but many industrialized nations, suspect Iran is processing nuclear materials to produce nuclear weapons and not, as Iran claims, to produce fuel for nuclear electrical generating plants.
But while Germany, France and the United Kingdom half a decade ago saw Iran as posing a weapons-of-mass-destruction threat, the United States was focused on Iraq as the threat, Scharioth indicated.
“You could not convince others that Iran was the No. 1 priority,” he said. “We felt it was much more important than, for instance, Iraq, but we couldn’t convince others.”
So foreign ministers of the three European nations went to Tehran in October 2003 and voiced their fears and suspicions that Iran was moving to go nuclear, creating atomic bombs.
The message to Iranian leaders then was, “We know that you have the basic right to enrich. But you have to know that the world is losing – you have not the confidence of the world, because everybody has suspicions you are not just doing, as you say, for your civil nuclear energy, because what do you need civil nuclear energy for?” Scharioth said.
Iran contains some of the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Also, Russians have offered, and delivered, fissile materials that Iran could use to fuel any nuclear generating plant.
Those three foreign ministers, Scharioth said, wanted Iranian leaders to answer a multi-part question:
“Why do you enrich [radioactive materials], why do you reprocess, why do you use heavy water reactors? We told them, why don’t you suspend those [programs]?”
If Iran were, as it claimed, interested solely in creating nuclear electrical-generating capabilities, that could be accomplished with a light water reactor, and “with a light water reactor you can’t feed a nuclear weapons program, and without enrichment and processing you can’t do it either,” the ambassador continued.
Iran only temporarily ceased its nuclear materials production program, then resumed processing materials.
“What I want to say is, we take that very, very seriously,” Scharioth said. “We believe that a nuclear weapons state Iran would be quite disastrous for the region, because I think many other players in the region would immediately also try to acquire nuclear weapons. And that’s very easy. You just go to the Pakistanis or whatever, you know. It’s not very difficult. So I think within years you would have a nuclear conglomeration of states in the area.
“And therefore we take them extremely seriously.”
However, while a nuclear-arsenal Iran would be frightening, Scharioth made clear that the European view isn’t to launch an invasion of Iran.
“I think the military solution is not advisable,” he explained “because if you take a look at the country, you could — at least what the military people tell us — you could maybe delay the program, but it wouldn’t help. And you would have disastrous consequences in the region. So I would not be really advising that.”
Rather, Scharioth said industrialized nations should use both carrot and stick in attempting to push Iran into abandoning its nuclear production program.
The carrot segment would promise to give Iran a light water reactor.
But the stick would strike an obstinate, noncompliant Iran with increasingly punitive sanctions.