Adrian Hamilton: Iran has a good case in its nuclear dispute

There is nothing that Iran is doing now that is in breach of its international obligations

The talks over Iran's nuclear ambitions are now slithering helplessly between low farce and high drama. The farcical element is provided by the foreign secretaries and leaders of Germany, France and Britain declaring horror in unison like a bunch of maiden arts tut-tutting at the antics of a naughty nephew.

The high drama comes from the fact that it is, at root, quite serious, a confrontation that could drag in the Middle East, the UN, Israel and the US. Take a country that has just elected a nationalist president, throw in an America with a history of scores to settle with Tehran and then add in a world teetering on the brink of a new wave of nuclear proliferation and you have more than enough to make even the most sanguine concerned.

Yet there's really no need for all this High Noon stuff, if only the West would take a step back and try, for a change, to look realistically at the Middle East and understand Iran in its own terms. If we had done that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when Iran (and Syria for that matter) were desperate to join in a reshaping of the Middle East and a new reconciliation with Washington, when the reformist movement was still strong within Iran and oil prices were lower, things might be different now.

Instead President Bush pursued a vision of the axis of evil in which Iran was seen as next on the list for regime change after Iraq, Tehran was isolated and the Europeans were unable - or unwilling -to break free with a policy independent of the US.

Now the sands have shifted. Iran is still keen to take a leading part in the reshaping of the Middle East, only now it sees new opportunities in the confusions of Iraq and the over-reach of America. Its pro-Western, reform movement is in retreat and the hardliners are moving into the ascendant, with the mandate of a popular (if flawed) election. Rapidly rising oil prices have revolutionised the country's budgetary prospects and given the country new weight in international relations as the consuming world has beaten a path to its door.

For those who care for human rights among Iranians themselves these are unhappy times. For those who fear for a globe in which the existing nuclear powers won't give up their arms and the non-nuclear nations are finding it easier to gain access to the technology, these are depressing days. If Iran really did do a North Korea and achieve nuclear status, the ramifications would be unnerving.

But as Western leaders reach for the microphone with their pompous pronouncements about Iran, it is worth remembering these points. The first is that there is nothing that Iran is doing now, or that it intends to do should it reopen the uranium processing plant in Isfahan, that is in breach of its international obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It has a right to nuclear power for peaceful purposes and it has a right to process uranium into gas for that end. You may distrust its eventual intentions and point to its past surreptitious pursuit of technology (although Tehran would argue that this was made necessary by US sanctions). But at this stage you cannot say that Iran does not have a right to do what it is doing.

Nor, on the hard facts, is it easy to argue with Iran's contention that it is the Western countries, not it, which have failed to fulfil their treaty obligations. The major nuclear powers have done nothing to denuclearise. Just the opposite. We are going for new generations of arms. In seeking to get Iran to stop what it is entitled to do in the way of uranium enrichment, the Europeans have made promises of aid and commerce which they have failed to deliver. Indeed they have failed to come up with any very firm promises, which is why Iran has imposed a deadline with the threat of proceeding unilaterally with enrichment and why, given its determination, it may be too late to stop it.

The fundamental question, of course, is if that uranium processing presages uranium enrichment and hence the development of nuclear weapons. The Iranians insist not, the West suspects it might. Part of the problem here is that, looking around the international scene - at Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, North Korea's development of them and the continued noises from Washington about possible air strikes and even invasion - it is hard to deny their attraction to Iran. Iraq would not have been invaded if Saddam had the weaponry; North Korea is receiving quite different treatment from America now that it does.

Yet it is still to early to call this a major world crisis, as the German Chancellor and the French foreign minister did on Tuesday. On the latest US intelligence, Iran is perhaps a decade away from developing the nuclear bomb or the warhead. One suspects that what they want is the knowledge and the ability not the possession. Certainly every statement from their religious hierarchy condemns nuclear weapons. Peaceful power they are determined on. But why is it that we must always assume the worst from Middle East countries just because we don't understand them.

What this confrontation is really about is not arms but position. Iran wants to be taken seriously as a regional power and as an equal of the West. We can proclaim our support for human rights there and make trade concessions conditional on freedom at home. But until we engage with them as equals in the international arena, we're simply going to lurch from crisis to crisis.

a.hamilton@independent.co.uk