Iran's nuclear power play

CAIRO - An offer by the United States and five other powers to end the nuclear impasse with Tehran has ignited a struggle within the Iranian regime over who will ultimately control its nuclear policy.

Two major competing camps in Iran are pursuing different strategies for dealing with internal pressure. One faction is led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other hard-liners who prefer confrontation with the West. Heading the other camp is Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a two-time Iranian president and leading pragmatist. He and others have urged negotiations with Europe and even Washington.

The offer was drafted by Germany and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. It provides financial and trade incentives for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or material for bombs. If Iran rejects the deal, it could face economic sanctions or even military action.

Iran has not responded to the offer, which European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented June 6 in Tehran. Analysts say hard-liners in the regime want to reject the proposal outright, while pragmatists led by Rafsanjani want to accept it and seek changes. A third faction wants Tehran to offer a counterproposal, but the United States and European powers are unlikely to entertain that idea.

The Bush administration is already accusing Iran of dragging its feet and has asked for an answer by mid-July, when world leaders hold a summit in Moscow.

But even if the pragmatic faction wins the internal struggle, analysts do not expect a straightforward "yes" from Tehran. Instead, the regime is likely to try finding ways to avoid suspending its enrichment program.

Iran insists that all of its activities are legal, and that it wants to develop technology for nuclear energy, not weapons. But the United States and Europe say Tehran is secretly developing an arms program.

The true levers of power in Iran rest with a group of unelected clerics, especially the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He has not taken a public stand, but analysts say he is nurturing both factions.

"Khamenei wants to make it clear that Iran is negotiating from a position of strength and doesn't intend to compromise on what it sees as its legitimate right," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based International Crisis Group, a think tank that focuses on conflict resolution. "He's suspicious of the U.S. because he views the nuclear issue as a pretext for Washington to promote regime change in Tehran."

Khamenei is under pressure from hard-line clerics to reject the deal. "The package they [world powers] have presented is good for them. It is not good for Iran," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a senior cleric close to Khamenei, said in a Friday sermon broadcast nationally.

Pragmatists recognize that Iran is in an excellent position: the price of oil is at record levels, and Tehran's Shia Muslim allies have taken control of the government in neighboring Iraq.

"Given the regional situation, the pragmatists in Iran realize that this might be the best time to make a deal," Sadjadpour said.

To make the deal possible, the Bush administration agreed last month to join talks if Tehran suspended its uranium enrichment. That could open the door for broader dialogue between Iran and the United States, which cut off ties in 1979 after Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 hostages.

"It really is a major shift in U.S. policy," said Gary Sick, a former White House adviser on Iran at the time of the hostage crisis who is now teaching at Columbia University. "Regardless of spin, the offer to join the talks is a reversal of previous U.S. positions and was achieved only after a good bit of bureaucratic blood was spilled."

But Sick warned that if hard-liners like Ahmadinejad persuade Khamenei and the ruling clerics to reject the U.S. opening, it could set back relations for a long time to come.

"If Iran follows the dictates of its own neoconservatives, who believe that the U.S. is presently a toothless tiger that can be dismissed with impunity, then the hard-liners in Washington will also win," Sick said. "We will have missed still another opportunity to resolve the issues between the two countries."

After denying the Holocaust and calling for the destruction of Israel, Ahmadinejad has isolated himself from the West. He also filled Iran's nuclear negotiations team with hard-liners and accelerated atomic research.

Rafsanjani's camp feels that Ahmadinejad should defer to Iran's elder statesmen on relations with the West and nuclear talks. But Ahmadinejad has shown little sign of bowing to leaders of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, such as Rafsanjani.

As a result, Rafsanjani's camp has tried to put out a message that there are others willing to negotiate. The leading candidate is Hassan Rohani, who headed Iran's Supreme National Security Council for 17 years - until Ahmadinejad forced him out.

In an "open letter to the West" last month, Rohani said Tehran would accept limits on uranium enrichment and consider allowing surprise inspections of nuclear development sites.

The key question now is which faction will determine the answer to the West's offer.

"It's still too early to say which of the warring tribes will ultimately prevail," Sick said.