Iran Analysis: The IAEA Nuclear Report --- Everyone's a Winner!

See also Iran Special Analysis (Part 1): The Nuclear Report --- "May" Is Not "Definitely" 
Iran Snap Analysis: The IAEA Nuclear Report --- Serious, But Not That Serious.... 
Iran Special: "Activities Relevant to the Development of a Nuclear Explosive Device" --- Text of IAEA Report 

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It is one accomplishment to achieve alarm in the presentation of "facts". It is quite another to be alarming on more than foront. If you’re a citizen of Israel, reading the International Atomic Energy Agency report on the Iranian nuclear programme,  you may feel that the existence of your country and could be in mortal danger. But if you’re afraid of World War III and think this document does not provide enough evidence to suggest that Iran is making nuclear weapons, then you’re right, too.

The document is so vague with its data that you can spin it every which way you want. That’s why any attempt at questioning its merits or glorifying its accomplishments will end in futility. What matters now is how the report will be used by interested actors.

For the US and its allies, this is just going to be another drop of fuel to the fire they are stoking against Iran. The view from many in Washington is that Western interests are getting hammered in Central Asia and the Middle East, thanks to Iran’s support for militants from Afghanistan to Iraq to Lebanon. Since the West is unable to directly attack Iran, it has to resort to alternative methods of bringing down the regime.

Alternative methods in this case simply mean more sanctions. However, the West has already enacted a large set of sanctions against Iran, and none of them has bitten the Iranian regime as bad as the US would like. For some policymakers, the main reason for this is Russia and China’s reluctance to put teeth in the existing sanctions, let alone enforce new ones.  

Yet already the quest of Washington to use the report to sway Russia to supporting tougher sanctions is in jeopardy. The Russian Foreign Ministry, anticipating the game, released a terse statement following the document's release:  

We have serious doubts about the justification for steps to reveal contents of the report to a broad public, primarily because it is precisely now that certain chances for the renewal of dialogue between the 'sextet' of international mediators and Tehran have begun to appear.

Translation: the US did not need to grandstand by not only pushing for the tough IAEA line but by broadcasting it; it could have kept the contents among the 5+1 (US, UK, Russia, China, Germany, France) Powers.  

Meanwhile, the report adds more tarmac to the path of collision between Iran and Israel. The prospects of an Iran with nuclear weapons – even though that is a possibility still in the temporal distance – is very likely going to alarm a large section of Israel’s population and bolster the hard-line rhetoric of the Netanyahu Government..

Those fears, though, are not going to materialise in airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. That is not for a lack of Israeli will in the near future, but because the US is in no mood to give a green light for such an attack. President Obama may not have his original "engagement" with Tehran, but he does not wants to pursue a policy risking new conflicts, and the US is reluctant to see the Persian Gulf in flames, sending oil prices sky-rocketing amidst harsh economic conditions.

The IAEA document opens up a different opportunity to open dialogue with Tehran from a declared position of strength, given the allegations against Iran.  So even if Israel will not attack, the talk of "serious measures" could get a more favourable settlement over the future of Tehran's nuclear programme. In that context, playing it cool is the best option the Israelis have for now. 

The West and Israel look poised to gain from this document if they take that route. However, Iran is not going to end up being the sore loser, either.

Prepare yourselves for the Iranian narrative to take centre-stage in many parts of the world in the face of Western counter-measures by the West. While the Supreme Leaders gives out sermons to Iranians about the virtues of his nation and the sins of the US and Britain, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will remind the listeners about that Iran is a nation with supremacy over the West in its ethics and dignity. [Editor: Indeed, the President did exactly that in his first public reaction to the IAEA document.] The West will be the aggressor that wants to destroy this utopia, but Iran will never budge in the face of the forces of tyranny. [Editor: Right again.]

While the regime puts out this narrative across the world, inside Iran more people will be arrested and abused, using the pretext that they are in league with the foreign enemy trying to intimidate Tehran with the IAEA report. The drill is well-established, having been honed in previous rhetorical episodes over sanctions.

Whatever the IAEA document actually proves is up in the air, but what it does provide is a chance for everyone to claim a victory. The Israeli government, without resorting to military attack, can say that the world is standing up to Iran; its US and European counterparts can enter discussions with Tehran claiming a stronger hear; the Iranian regime can create more space for its suppression of dissent.

That --- more than any claim of nuclear equipment or foreign scientists helping Tehran towards a Bomb --- is the overriding "accomplishment" of this report.