I. INTRODUCTION 1.

Background Following the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, many specialized organizations within its family were created for various purposes which generally seek to promote the economic or social development. As one of the most significant agencies, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was developed on July 29, 1957 as a response to the fear and expectations from the newly discovered nuclear energy (Fischer, 1997). It mainly acts as the international forum for the scientific and technical cooperation in the peaceful application of atomic energy. According to its Statute, the key objectives of the IAEA are to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to further ensure the nonmilitary use of such powerful energy. Additionally, this autonomous organization has three primary functions. First, it tries to promote the research, development, and practical application of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Second, it attempts to encourage the verification of non-military use of nuclear energy. Third, it seeks to develop a high standard for nuclear safety. As of February 2013, the IAEA has 159 member states. The responsibilities to set out programs and budgets of the whole organizations completely rest on two decision- making bodies, namely the Board of Governors and the General Conference. The former comprises at least 32 member states and meets five times a year, while the latter consists of all member states and meet once a year. Furthermore, the IAEA Secretariat is operated under the direction of the Director General and other six Deputy Director Generals. All of the staff members are alleged to solely represent the organization and not accept any instructions from external sources. The tasks of the IAEA are carried out through six departments such as the Department of Management, the Department of Nuclear Energy, the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, the Department of Nuclear Sciences and

Applications, the Department of Safeguards, and the Department of Technical Cooperation, as shown in the Figure 1.

ORGANIZATION CHART (as of 31 December 2012)

Director General's Office for Policy Secretariat of the Policy-making Organs

Office of Internal Oversight Services

Office of Legal Affairs

Department of Technical Cooperation

Department of Nuclear Energy

Department of Nuclear Safety and Security

Department of Management

Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications

Department of Safegurds

Africa

Nuclear cycle and Waste Technology

Nuclear Installation and Saftey

Budget and Finance

Human Health

Conscepts and Planning

Asia and Pacific

Nuclear Power

Radiation, Transport and Waste Saefty

Conference and Document Services

IAEA Environment laboritaries

Operation A

Europe

General Services

Latin America

Information Technology

Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Technique in Food and Agriculture

Operation B

Operation C Physical and Chemical Sciences

Program Support and Coordination

Human Resources

Information Managment

Public Information

Technical and Scientific Services

Figure 1: The Organization Chart of the IAEA (Source: IAEA Annual Report 2012) 2

2. Problem Statement The IAEA has played a very important role in the contemporary world affairs. On one hand, it has worked successfully in providing its member states with some benefits such as agricultural development, environmental protection, healthcare, human resource

development, sustainable energy development, and radiation technology, safety, and security. On the other hand, due to its failures in responding to some nuclear programs, especially in Iran, it is gradually losing reputation and trust from its member states. For instance, since 2003, this specialized agency has been seeking a wide range of resolutions for the controversial problems in Iran. Nonetheless, they are often impeded either directly from Irans government or indirectly from its allies. In particular, in February 2012, the IAEA was directly blocked by Iranian government from access to key records and sites (Warrick & Erdbrink, 2012). 3. Research Question The above case in Iran has led us to raise two important and controversial questions. First, despite the fact that the IAEA has enjoyed some success in its mission in Iran, why is it still frequently considered as failure? Second, will there be any successful resolutions for such a prolonging issue? 4. Thesis Statement This term paper seeks to provide a concise and coherent answer to the above research questions. First of all, the most remarkable failure of the IAEA in this crisis was related to its capability to clarify whether Iran has operated the nuclear program for military purpose or not. This point has undermined the UN agencys success in persuading Iran to negotiate and suspend its programs at times. Moreover, an enforceable resolution for the problem is dependent on the actions of the IAEA, Iran, as well as the superpowers. From our point of view, the lift of sanctions must be ensured, while Iran has to be willing to provide enough

information to clarify nuclear ambitions, as it has claimed, for peace only. As long as these significant actors do not alter their attitude to be softer and seek for common interests, this issue will never be solved. II. The Historical Evolution of the Iranian Nuclear Program As the nuclear crisis in Iran has dominated the international affairs for more than a decade, it might be impossible to understand completely the IAEA mission in Iran without taking into account the historical evolution of the Iranian nuclear program. Its evolution was mainly divided into two periods. First, it lasted from the late 1950s until 1979 under the Shah of Iran. The second part was counted from the 1979 revolution under the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 1. Under the Shah of Iran The 1956 agreement under the Atomic for Peace program between Iran and the US marked the inception of the nuclear program in Iran. The Eisenhower administration assured to provide the Persian with mainly technical assistants. Specifically, the first nuclear facility with a 5 megawatt (MW) reactor was established at Tehran University with the support of The American Machine and Foundry Company. Furthermore, General Dynamics supplied Iran with 5.15 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to facilitate the process of nuclear energy development (Partrikarakos, 2012). Having signed and ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 and 1970 respectively, Iran founded the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) in 1974, which was headed by Akbar Etemad. With a fast growing oilbased economy, the Shah of Iran had an ambition to be a nuclear power state by the end of the century. To achieve the 23,000 megawatt electric (MWe) by 1994, Iran intended to establish more nuclear reactors. In addition, a number of students were sent abroad to gain the specializations related to nuclear energy (Vaez & Sadjadpour, 2013).

By the mid-1970s, the US began to be skeptical of this extremely ambitious plan, undermining the USIranian relation. Consequently, the US forbade all of its company to transfer any atomic technology to Iran, but later on forwent this restriction due to the softer Irans attitude toward its program. The Tehran administration did not solely depend on the US to achieve its far-off objectives. In fact, it also sought cooperation with European and African countries, particularly France, West Germany, Africa and Namibia. However, its effort came to an end in 1979. 2. Under the Islamic Republic of Iran The essential reason for the failure of nuclear program under the Shah administration stemmed from the 1979 revolution. From the perspective of revolutionaries, owing to that costly program, Iran fell into economic disparity, causing many people to live with poverty. Indeed, Iran had to buy both technology and material from foreign countries as the domestic uranium and human resources were limited. Additionally, under the early administration of Khomeini, Iran believed that the nuclear safety was not fully guaranteed as it can be seen from the US experience with nuclear incidents in 1979. Surprisingly, the 1980 Iraqi invasion of Iran, which was assisted by the Western powers, led Iran to reconsider its nuclear programs. Iraqi arm was heavily equipped with modern weapons and financially aided by its western allies while Iran was isolated. It was this motive that Iran sought for improvement in nuclear technology; nevertheless, for this time, it may not be only for peaceful, as during the Shah administration, but also for military purposes. Restarting in 1984, the nuclear program firstly gained assistance from only A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani physicist. As an anti-America, Khan offered Iran the technology of nuclear enrichment, and fuel-cycle capabilities. The nuclear program reemerged a priority national objective in the 1990s as it consumed millions of dollars annually. Unhesitatingly, the new generation of Iranian leaders

put all effort into gaining the nuclear now-how from other states. For instance, Iran tried to strengthen its relation with China. Consequently, the Asian power became the main nuclear trade partner with Iran by transferring roughly one million ton of uranium hexafluoride, the data which Iran tried to conceal from the IAEA. Unfortunately for Iran, this cooperation was short-lived because of the USs pressure on its partner. This failure forced Iran to collaborate with another superpower, Russia, which was at the same time facing severe financial crisis resulting from the collapse of its predecessor, the USSR. The main tasks for Russia were to restore the German-built nuclear power plant at Bushehr, and to establish a 915 megawatt electric (MWe) new light water reactor. The secret development of nuclear technology in Iran has gradually made other countries, particularly the Western ones, more curious of its indigenous capability to create nuclear weapons. From the viewpoint of superpowers, it has become a widespread concern and threat to the international peace and security, and more importantly, to their dominance in the international politics as If they do not take any serious actions, Iran might become another powerful state possessing the highly jeopardized weapons. III. The IAEA in the Iranian Nuclear Crisis By 2002, the IAEA acknowledged the clandestine operation of the Iranian nuclear facilities at Arak and Natanz and began to put it as an important issue on the agenda. As a response, the Tehran administration accepted its stealthy nuclear program, which ranging from the establishment of an enrichment facility to fuel fabrication facility. Thereafter, the IAEA has played an indispensable role to investigate and monitor this middle powers nuclear program.

1. Success Although often considered as a failure, the agency also enjoyed some successes, which generally could be traced back to a fundamental source of influence the sanctions of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). With an attempt to avoid any direct interference from the UNSC, Iran was at first willing to cooperate with the agency. This non-Arab state agreed to sign the Additional Protocol in 2003. Particularly, the activities of uranium conversion and enrichment, including the manufacturing, installing, testing, and operating of centrifuges, abruptly halted in 2003. It was not until 2005 did Iran continued the conversion. In the following year also saw the resumption of the enrichment. Seeing that the Islamic republic no longer adhered to the protocol, which constituted a sign of the reemergence of its plan, the IAEA Board of Governors eventually reported the controversial issue to the UNSC in February 2006. Henceforth, the Council adopted seven consecutive resolutions, mainly regarding the economic sanctions. This method pushed Iran into a situation that it must reconsider the complete cooperation with the IAEA. As a result, in August 2007, Iran and the agency concurred on a plan for solving various unanswered questions, though once again, this collaboration did not occur for a long time. Indeed, the UNSC economic sanctions, based on the reports from the IAEA, forced Iran to face many difficulties. They sometimes caused Iran to have softer attitude or short-lived postponement of nuclear program. 2. Failure The most important and obvious failure of the agency was its consistent incapability of ensuring whether the Iranian nuclear program was really for peaceful purpose. Just as his predecessor Mohamed El-Baradei, the present Director-General of the IAEA Yukiya Amano has tried a number of methods to eliminate the doubt since 2009. However, this central issue

cannot be solved due to two important reasons. First, it involves some superpowers intervention in Irans nuclear program. Second, there exists frequent denial to request for visiting key nuclear facilities. 2.1 Intervention of the Superpowers The historical relation with two superpowers, China and Russia, has not been taken for granted. Though the two permanent members usually assert their opposition toward the development or acquisition of nuclear weapons in Iran, they reject any sanctions that go beyond those sanctions implemented by the UNSC. Despite stopping providing technological and material assistance to Iran since the mid-1990s, China has continued to support Iran in different ways. In particular, the good economic cooperation between them in part has spurred Iran to continue its nuclear program. Besides, Russia though having finished its contraction regarding nuclear program with Iran persists to promote economic, political, and military cooperation. In early 2013, Russian defense minister Dmitri Rogozin said, Should anything happen to Iran, should Iran be drawn into any sort of political or military difficulties, it would be a direct threat to Russias national security (Weiss, 2013). This assertion has made Iran more secure in carrying on its program. 2.2 Denial for Request to Access to Key Nuclear Sites In November 2011, the IAEA had requested the visit for addressing issues and had expressed a hope for ending them (Westall & Dalh, 2011). By February 2012, the Tehran administration announced an unexpected denial for the IAEA request to monitor the Parchin weapons development complex located in the southern part of Iran. The agency personnel were disallowed to operate their tasks. In response to this disgraceful behavior, the Director General stated that it was disappointing that Iran had not accepted the agencys request to visit Parchin during the first or second meetings. According to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, The Islamic Republic of Iran, with a thoughtful, jurisprudent,

theoretical approach, believes that owning a nuclear weapon is a big sin. It also believes that keeping such a weapon is vain, harmful and dangerous, he added. This event let the skeptical thought of possible military dimensions continue (Warrick & Erdbrink, 2012). IV. Possible Resolutions The problems centered around the Irans nuclear program immediately require international resolutions. All parties concerned, namely the IAEA, the five permanent members plus Germany, and Iran, should take a step backward to give a window of opportunity in settling the issues through encouraging mutual trust. The IAEA, in particular, should introduce new and effective tactics. First of all, the agency should urge Iran to joint some specific conventions including the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM), the Convention on Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), and the Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (Vaez & Ferguson, 2011). These activities will serve as a bridge to strengthen their cooperation. Second, the agency should ask for its members to sign and ratify the Additional Protocol since it is unfair, from the Iranians belief, that it has to ratify it alone meanwhile some other states, for example Brazil, is also on the similar track. Third, the agency should ensure fair concessions during subsequent meetings (Dalh, 2013). Unless there is balance of backward steps among all parties, any lasting agreement will never be attained. The United States, the closest rival of Iran, should seek new methods too. In return for Irans acceptance of inspection of its nuclear facility, the US should practice a win-win solution through pulling out its unilateral sanction that previously banned investment in oil and gas industry. US should encourage its allies to become clients of Irans uranium enrichment program. Therefore, some countries such as Brazil, India, Turkey, and the US itself can purchase Irans nuclear products at competitive prices in exchange for the

investigation of its nuclear sites. The economic sanctions have long been the fundamental source of reason for Iran not to allow the specialists to access its sites. The Great Britain, France, and Germany have long played major roles in the crisis. Their sanctions are more or less an important factor that hampers the negotiation. The actions, for example the embargo on Irans oil exports, do account for a large leverage toward Ians economy. However, this Persian Gulf state has been quite skillful in managing to survive for years. In 2012, Irans foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast said, "The European countries and those who are under American pressure should think about their own interests. Any country that deprives itself from Iran's energy market will soon see that it has been replaced by others" (Aljazeera, 2012). It showed that the EU threes sanctions were not effective enough to stop Iran from pursuing its nuclear program but instead made the relations worse. Therefore, the lift of most sanctions is an appropriate way to ameliorate the situation. Russia and China, widely known as Irans closest partners, are also the important actors. To reach a settlement of the persisting problem, the former should rethink about their relation with Iran. The much looser military cooperation should be sought, as the close one, which is emphasized above, let Iran to feel that it can continue the covert program. Moreover, China through its economic tie should more often convince Iran to respect international agreements or treaties such as Safeguard Agreement which is also signed by Iran under the form of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The permanent members, along with Germany, ought to assure that the countries other than Iran need to prove their commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The superpowers negligence in the Israeli case has obviously showed the bias of their attitude toward different countries. If they cannot persuade Israel to join that treaty, there is no trustworthy reason for Iran to follow it too. Moreover, according to CNN (2012),

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Iranian scientists one after another were assassinated. If the superpowers cannot assure that such assailants do not happen anymore, Iran might not even stop the negotiation but also attempt to retaliate against the nations of those who commit the crime. On the other hand, Iran should temper its controversial nuclear program obduracy by using several soft actions. The first one is involved with its adherence to the Additional Protocol which it signed in 2003 but later reversed in 2006. Another action is related to its cooperation with the IAEA. Iran can guarantee the peaceful purpose of its nuclear program by only permitting the agency inspectors access to its nuclear facilities. Reports of its activities, such as the enrichment and import of nuclear material, should be regularly offered to the IAEA. V. Conclusion In spite of the fact that Iran initiated its nuclear program since the late 1950s, the IAEA had not considered its existence as a possible progress toward military dimension until 2003. Thereafter, the agency relentlessly sought many different ways to assure the real purpose of such a covertly operating program. On one hand, the UNSC-backed agency sometimes enjoys success by forcing the Tehran administration to come to the meeting table and even agree to cooperate with it, dealing with many questions. On the other hand, the weakness of the agency can be demonstrated clearly. Indeed, all concurrences on cooperation among the parties involved have not existed for a long time. More important, there still persists its inability to ensure if the program is beyond the peaceful objective or not. Apparently, it has experienced both success and failure; nonetheless, its failure seems to be proportionately larger than its success. This led to the conclusion that the IAEA actions constituted failure rather than success. It is impossible to find any practical resolutions for this prolonging problem without considering the participations of various actors, consisting of the IAEA, the five permanent

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members and Germany, as well as Iran. Therefore, we would like to suggest that all parties work harder to find common interests and solutions. The IAEA should convince Iran to sign more conventions and further assure equivalent concessions during the following negotiations. Besides, the US, the UK, France, and Germany should lift their sanctions on Iran and improve economic cooperation in exchange for full investigation on the nuclear sites and reliable promise of no ambition to produce nuclear weapons forever. Russia should not strengthen but loosen their military cooperation with Iran, while China should use the economic tie to persuade this Gulf state to adhere to various treaties necessary to clarify their peaceful purpose of the nuclear program. In addition, Iran should fully collaborate with the IAEA, for instance by providing all crucial data and statistics of its activities to the agency regularly. We strongly believe that the crisis can be solved by increasing trust and decreasing misunderstanding among one another.

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Vaez, A., & Ferguson, C. D. (2011). Towards Enhanced Safeguards for Iran's Nuclear Program. Retrieved from December 6, 2013, from [Link]

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