‘‘Any immediate sanctions against Iran need to be of a diplomatic and legal nature, rather than economic, so that Tehran has less legal maneuvering space over the nuclear issue.’’
These are the words of Dr John Chipman, director of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), a think tank that was thrust into the Iraq debate in 2002 after it produced a strategic dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme.
In September last year, the IISS produced a similar dossier on potential threats in North Korea and Iran.
‘‘Our report on Iran states that Iran may be 10 months to a year away from mastering the capability of using a cascade of centrifuges in its enrichment programme,’’ Chipman told The Indian Express in an exclusive discussion.
His rationale is that international disdain and UN isolation should be perceived by Iran to be too high a cost to master the nuclear fuel cycle. ‘‘The promise Iran needs to make to the international community is that there is no enrichment taking place on its soil.’’
Chipman, who believes that specific pre-emptive strategic strikes are still a viable option against a recognisable threat, feels however, that ‘‘a majority of those who favoured the US invasion of Iraq, now feel that the presumptions on which they based that judgement may have been wrong’’.
He is also of the opinion that while there is definitely a US Centcom plan for military action against Iran, it is a contingency plan rather than a truly operational one, though there would be ‘‘almost no possibility of tactical nuclear weapons being used’’.
Though he does not believe that Iran has the capacity to effectively patrol the Gulf of Hormuz, the fact that the US Fifth Fleet’s constant watch on Iranian maritime exercises suggests the possibility that this could be a future regional flashpoint, he indicated.
Chipman is in the country to confirm the participation of Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Shangri-La Dialogue 2006, a conclave of defence ministers from the Asia-Pacific region to be held in Singapore from June 2-4.
The conclave, ostensibly of an informal nature, will include sessions on India and China as emerging global powers, maritime security in the region and counter-insurgency warfare in the 21st century. He will be back later this year to invite the defence minister to provide an Indian ministerial role to a similar conclave in the Gulf.
