The Gathering Calm: The Guardian's editorial position on Iran's nuclear programme
APRIL 2010
Introduction
Hardly any observer now disputes that Iran is pursuing a nuclear bomb. Over the past seven months, strong evidence has been presented as to Tehran’s military intentions with enriched uranium, and yet The Guardian’s editorial coverage of this issue has been tentative and unsure, as if to treat Iran’s acquisition of weapons of mass destruction as a post-script to an ongoing debate over diplomatic engagement and the dangers of Israeli pre-emption. Since September 2009, The Guardian has published eight editorials [1] on the subject of Iran’s nuclear programme and how the international community should respond to it.
Throughout this period, numerous events challenged Iran’s argument that its nuclear programme was for civilian use only, but none of them has significantly altered the line that The Guardian has consistently promoted; namely, that the mullahs must be engaged diplomatically since the risks associated with both military strikes and tougher economic sanctions are too great. The suggestion that Iran might be stalling for time during the diplomatic process in order to complete production of a nuclear weapon, or that such a weapon poses a serious threat to Israel or the wider Middle East, has never been seriously addressed in the newspaper.
Is Iran seeking the bomb?
In spite of the mounting evidence, Guardian editorials are almost always hesitant when it comes to Iran’s true intent with nuclear technology. For instance, following the discovery in September 2009 of a second nuclear facility built into the side of a mountain near the Iranian city of Qom, The Guardian published, ‘Time to come clean’ (26 Sep 2009). This leader seemed to acknowledge Iran’s military purpose, stating, ‘The likelihood that Iran's nuclear programme is wholly civilian, as its leaders continue to claim, diminishes with each unpleasant surprise.’ It also chimed with President Barak Obama’s view that ‘the size and type of the enrichment plant at Qom is inconsistent with that of a peaceful facility.’
However, only a week later, in ‘Talking is the only option’ (2 Oct 2009), the newspaper reverted to equivocality with respect to Iran’s motives, writing that: ‘While there is evidence that Iran is gaining the knowledge and the capacity to build a bomb, that is different from saying that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has taken the decision to go ahead with a military programme.’
Any events which may have occasioned this climb-down from the previous week’s certitude go unstated, although the main concern here was not really Iran’s misbehaviour but rather combating the possible responses to it: ‘Bombing Iran's nuclear facilities - the option that Israel has been lobbying and training its pilots for - would, at the very best, only delay a nuclear bomb by a few years. It would turn the probability that Iran is making the bomb into a certainty.’
Two further significant disclosures - or ‘unpleasant surprises’ - about Iran’s nuclear programme were either not commented on or downplayed by The Guardian.
The first was an exclusive report published in The Times on 14 December 2009, drawing from confidential intelligence documents that the newspaper obtained which showed that Iran was at work on a ‘key final component of a nuclear bomb.’ The so-called ‘nuclear trigger’ notes were described by The Times’ Washington correspondent Catherine Philp as coming ‘from Iran’s most sensitive military nuclear project, describ[ing] a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion. Foreign intelligence agencies date them to early 2007, four years after Iran was thought to have suspended its weapons programme. [2]’ This report was seismic enough to cause the Obama administration to launch an investigation, but it elicited no editorial comment from The Guardian.
The second disclosure came on 11 February 2010 when it was widely reported that Iran had begun enriching uranium at 20 percent -- up from its previous 4 percent level -- at its Natanz nuclear facility. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even took the occasion of the concurrent 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution to remark on the milestone before a crowd of hundreds of thousands in Tehran: ‘I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first package of 20 percent fuel was produced and provided to the scientists. [3]’ Although 90 percent uranium enrichment is necessary for constructing a nuclear bomb, according to The New York Times, ‘the technical leap required to get to 90 percent from 20 percent is relatively straightforward, the specialists say, because enriching uranium in machines known as centrifuges becomes easier at higher levels. [4]’
Despite these two major developments, on 12 February 2010, The Guardian once again diminished the Iranian nuclear threat by emphasising its technical difficulties. Remarking on the 20 percent enrichment announcement as well as the broader state of the democratic opposition to the religious dictatorship, The Guardian wrote, ‘In reality, there are fewer working centrifuges this year than there were last, because the original Pakistani design is inherently faulty and machines regularly break down. Nor is Iran closer to weaponising its enriched uranium and putting it on a missile, although the IAEA's key questions to Iran on this issue remain unanswered.’ (‘Trials of strength,’ 12 Feb 2010)
Does it matter if Iran gets the bomb?
In addition to The Guardian’s reluctance to acknowledge Iran’s atomic ambitions, its stance on the implications of Iran’s obtaining the bomb is equally questionable. Despite its recurring editorial theme of instability and violence in Iran, not once does the publication point to the danger of an unstable theocratic government becoming a nuclear power. The connection is never made.
In eight editorials, The Guardian never speculated about the potential threat Iran would pose to the Middle East or the West if it had a nuclear weapon, despite a long history of its senior leadership talking triumphantly about just such a contingency. For instance, in 2005, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Kharrazi, secretary-general of Iranian Hezbollah, declared: ‘We are able to produce atomic bombs, and we will do that...The United States is not more than a barking dog.[5] ’ Similarly, in 2008, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, a former regime spokesman, chided Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his bravado in flouting international calls for greater transparency in Iran’s nuclear programme, which he alleged was undercutting that programme’s secrecy: ‘We had an overt policy,’ Ramezanzadeh said in a panel with journalists and political advisers, ‘which was one of negotiation and confidence building, and a covert policy, which was continuation of the activities. [6] ’
The Guardian has instead focused on domestic turmoil in Iran, arguing that ‘There are several clocks ticking here, and the nuclear one on which western governments concentrate may not be the most important.’ (‘Trials of strength,’ 12 Feb 2010). On one occasion the anxiety felt in the region about the Iranian nuclear programme was referred to, but the newspaper stopped short of setting out the reasons why. Upon the discovery of the secret enrichment site in Qom, ‘Time to come clean’ (26 Sep 2009) noted: ‘This adds further weight to the fear of every Arab state in the region: that Iran's nuclear programme is run by the military.’
However, this ‘weight’ was by no means extended to Israeli fears, even though Israel is the country at the receiving end of Iran’s most explicitly violent threats, and has recently been in conflict with Gaza-based Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah, both of which have ties to Tehran. To cite but one example of Iran’s threatening rhetoric, in a speech famously translated by The New York Times on 30 October, 2005, Ahmadinejad said: ‘Our dear Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] said that the occupying regime [Israel] must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement.’
The same editorial which highlighted legitimate Sunni Arab fears of a Shiite military’s control of a nuclear programme painted Israel as the cynical beneficiary of the Qom facility discovery: ‘Iran's cat-and-mouse game with nuclear inspectors hands a propaganda victory on a plate to Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli premier who has made little secret of his air force's preparations for a long-range air strike.’ Once again, the issue of Iran’s brazen defiance of international law is treated as no more than a nettlesome legitimisation of the Israeli narrative. The term ‘propaganda victory’ also reduces the plausible claim that Netanyahu’s concerns might have been well-founded to begin with.
Indeed, The Guardian has consistently depicted Israel in a warmongering light with regard to Iran and not once referred to Ahmadinejad’s repeated public threats against Israel – the crucial context for Netanyahu’s defensive posture. As such, repeated editorial references to Israel’s presumed readiness to attack Iran[7] created an unbalanced picture of which country was inciting trouble.
Whose fault is the diplomatic failure to solve the Iranian nuclear issue?
Following Iran’s rejection of the West’s offer to enrich its uranium abroad - for expressly civilian purposes - on 29 October 2009, The Guardian made clear that it holds the West, specifically the United States, responsible for this outcome and for the general failure to come to terms with Iran. ‘On collision course’ (15 Dec 2009) cited ‘Giving diplomacy no more than three months to work’ and ‘limiting the talks to the enrichment process alone’ as reasons for the failure to secure a deal. Nowhere in the leading article did The Guardian implicate Iran itself for refusing to compromise.
Six weeks later, in ‘Reverting to Bush’ (1 Feb 2010) The Guardian repeated the contention that ‘In truth, negotiations were too narrowly focused and given too little time - months, in comparison to the years in which sanctions have operated unsuccessfully.’ The editorial went on to criticise Barack Obama’s deployment of anti-missile defences in the Persian Gulf, accusing the US President of ‘reverting to a policy that his predecessor, George Bush, followed on Iran, and it is far from clear whether the result will be any different.’
In this case, an emphasis was placed on the turmoil inside Iran as a result of June 2009’s fraudulent presidential election and the ensuing civil opposition to its outcome, and on whether ‘Instead of probing the divisions that exist between pragmatists and ideologues within the ruling elite, Mr Obama may be unintentionally cementing them.’ Again, the ultimate responsibility for the fate of Iran was placed with the United States and not with Iran itself.
What is the recommended course of action now?
The Guardian is so adamant that military action against Iran should not be entertained under any circumstances that this posture belies the scepticism it has shown toward Iran’s nuclear brinkmanship. ‘Talking is the only option’ (2 Oct 2009) set out this approach in no uncertain terms: ‘The alternatives to engagement are appalling. Bombing Iran's nuclear facilities - the option that Israel has been lobbying and training its pilots for - would, at the very best, only delay a nuclear bomb by a few years.’ Predicting such a strike would ‘be the start of a conflagration that would spread rapidly from the Strait of Hormuz to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza and Lebanon’ the leading article concluded that ‘The price would be so heavy and the reverberations would be so wide that it is not for Israel to make that call.’
Strong opposition towards sanctions was also voiced by The Guardian: ‘Would tougher sanctions work? In a word, no. We have seen what effect they had on Saddam Hussein. They allowed him to pin a "Made in America" label on the misery Iraqis endured, while he carried on building all the palaces he wanted.’ (‘Talking is the only option’). The publication contends that such measures may boost domestic support for the current regime: ‘But as the regime in Tehran loses its last vestige of legitimacy with its own people, it is important that international sanctions do not restore to the Iranian leadership its role as defender of the faith.’ (‘Leave well alone,’ 13 Jan 2010). This message is repeated in ‘Trials of strength’ (12 Feb 2010) which warns: ‘President Barack Obama should take care with the sanctions he wants the UN to apply. They could end up bolstering the very people they want to weaken.’
Less clear is the course of positive action recommended by The Guardian. As highlighted earlier, the newspaper views the nuclear issue as only one of ‘several clocks ticking.’ Engagement with Iran, regardless of its inefficacy, is the only option favoured.
In light of the rejection of the West’s offer to enrich Iran’s uranium abroad in October 2009 as well as the February 2010 announcement that Iran had enriched uranium to 20 percent, The Guardian continues to reject any diplomatic or military sanctions.
Its December editorial, ‘On collision course again’ (15 Dec 2009) which focused on the Iranian crackdown on ‘a domestic revolt that refuses to die’ and included reference to ‘The rape and abuse of detainees in prison,’ The Guardian once again rejected sanctions and called for ‘smart engagement,’ noting casually: ‘There are many other fronts on which Iran should be engaged, if US troops want to pull their troops out of either Iraq or Afghanistan.’
Conclusion
An examination of this sample of editorials puts beyond doubt that The Guardian stands firmly in favour of words and against action -- both diplomatic and military -- in relation to the Iran nuclear issue. Furthermore, it is by no means clear that the publication views a nuclear Iran as a necessarily negative prospect; nowhere does its editorial column cite the potential dangers this would pose to the Middle East or the world. The Guardian instead displays greater interest in the domestic affairs of Iran, and chastises the West for allegedly over-emphasising the nuclear issue and mishandling the negotiations with the regime.
Foonotes
[1] ‘Spinning out of control’, The Guardian, 25 Sep 2009; ‘Time to come clean’, The Guardian, 26 Sep 2009; ‘Talking is the only option’, The Guardian, 2 Oct 2009; ‘Nuclear fission’, The Guardian, 23 Oct 2009; ‘On collision course, again’, The Guardian, 15 Dec; ‘Leave well alone’, The Guardian, 13 Jan 2010; ‘Reverting to Bush’, The Guardian, 1 Feb 2010; ‘Trials of strength’, The Guardian, 12 Feb 2010. The Guardian also published ‘Protest that refuses to die’ (Dec 29 2009) during this period, which focuses solely on the internal protests, without mentioning the nuclear controversy.
[2] 'Secret document exposes Iran's nuclear trigger', The Times, Dec 15 2009
[3] ‘Iran has made the first batch of higher-grade uranium, president says’, The Guardian, 11 Feb 2010
[4] ‘Small Step in Iran’s Nuclear Effort Suggests Ambitions for a Weapon, Experts Say’, The New York Times, 9 Feb 2010
[5] ‘Iranian Hardliner Says Iran Will Produce Atomic Bomb,’ IranMania.com, Feb 14 2005.
[6] Michael Rubin, testimony before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, July 22 2009
[7] ‘Spinning out of control’, The Guardian, 25 Sep 2009: ‘the US will revert to a more traditional posture which contemplates the use of force. No one will be happy, except Israel and Dick Cheney perhaps’; ‘Talking is the only option’, The Guardian, 2 Oct 2009: ‘Bombing Iran's nuclear facilities - the option that Israel has been lobbying and training its pilots for - would, at the very best, only delay a nuclear bomb by a few years.’