Essay on Shargh Newspaper - September 12, 2018 -
The original text is in Persian and the following translation was done by Ai.
The United Nations Security Council has fifteen members, five of which are permanent members with veto power: China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, and ten other countries (Bolivia, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland and Sweden) are non-permanent members. As a rule, one of the members takes turns chairing the council every month. Generally, the level of attendance of countries is limited to representatives and ambassadors, and on more important issues, foreign ministers sometimes also attend. Depending on the topic of the meeting, a representative of the country or countries in question is invited.
These days, one of the issues that has been engaging public opinion, especially activists and political experts, is the meeting of the United Nations Security Council, which will be held soon on the sidelines of the General Assembly. The draw for the presidency of the Security Council meetings during the United Nations General Assembly (in September) has fallen in the name of the United States.
Now, international politics is faced with an exceptional being named Donald Trump and all his unconventional behaviors. This issue has put him under a lot of scrutiny in the United States and the world. The United States is facing a very important midterm election in November of this year, and due to the deep rift and gap that has arisen between the major parties and the main political forces of this country, these elections are of great importance, so much so that on Saturday of this week we witnessed Barack Obama officially stepping into these elections (not as a candidate but as the leader of the Democratic Party's electoral campaign). On the other hand, Donald Trump, who, despite the media controversy and the early playing of the victory march in negotiations with the North Korean leader, has not been able to achieve any tangible achievement in this regard so far, is in dire need of a similar show, this time with Iran, as the only foreign policy achievement of his two-year presidency. That is why in recent days we have witnessed the announcement of an imminent meeting of the United Nations Security Council, not with the presence and chairmanship of this country's representative, but with Donald Trump himself as the chairman, who has deliberately made the topic of the meeting Iran and various issues, including Iran's influence in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, and its missile program, in order to turn the meeting into a court to try Iran.
It seems that the US government, following the cancellation of a bilateral meeting with the President of our country, has prepared another plan to make Iran passive and enlist the help of the Europeans and others on this particular issue, and for this reason it will try to put issues against Iran on the agenda that will provoke the support of its traditional allies such as Canada and Europe, as well as other countries in the world.
The question that has been raised among international relations analysts today is the most appropriate type of response to this meeting: Iran can adopt three approaches to this meeting: one is to attend normally (at most at the representative level) and not play into Trump's hands so that the issue does not gain too much traction; the second is to attend at the level of the Minister of Foreign Affairs; and the third is to attend at the level of the President.
According to the rules of procedure of the Security Council, in the meetings of the Council, representatives of all member states, regardless of political rank (whether they are representatives of the president, minister, ambassador, etc.), speak first, and then non-member states deliver speeches in order of rank.
Despite the comments that we rightly hear in the country's media space - and in the context of conflicting opinions, this participation in decision-making can be taken as a good omen - no official position has yet been announced by the government and the country's diplomatic apparatus (which should not be). The fact is that just as we are dealing with an exceptional environment and an exceptional competitor named Trump, we also have at the head of our diplomatic apparatus a person who possesses important personal characteristics: both in terms of international weight and prestige and in terms of mastery of American culture, diplomatic posts, and especially the mechanisms of the United Nations, we have few equals in the country and even at the international level for Dr. Zarif. In addition, his command of English will certainly be very helpful in creating the desired atmosphere in the upcoming scene.
But at the same time, considering the structure mentioned regarding the order of speeches, it can be guessed that if the representative or even the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran is included in the order of speeches, it will almost certainly be at the end of the list (after all members and heads of state), due to his rank. In the Security Council scene, this means speaking to a group that will often be at the level of a permanent representative or lower. And this is what we do not want: giving Trump what he wants, that is, sitting at the table and publishing photos of the meeting that will be considered and promoted in the Republican media as advancing the US President's strategy, and also not hearing what Iran has to say and not being able to turn the meeting in his favor.
In any case, it seems that apart from not participating at the high level, which is always a simple, painless and possible option, the rational and active option, given the above structural and technical considerations, is to participate at the level of the president so that he can be expected to speak immediately after the representatives of the members and change the atmosphere to Trump's detriment. By listing all the agreements and conventions that the Trump administration has withdrawn from and issues such as the recent threat of sanctions by international judges and then focusing on the US withdrawal from the JCPOA and Resolution 2231, he will try to create sympathy for himself and deepen the rift between the US and the other permanent members, trying to shift the burden of the accusations that Trump has raised regarding various discussions onto himself and in fact turn the meeting into a trial of the US government regarding the above actions.
Of course, in a general view, we can guess that this meeting will be fundamentally very difficult and only if we are assured of the support of China and Russia, as well as the alliance with Europe by exploiting their trade and political differences with Trump, can we count on victory in it. But at least Europe, through its political positions in support of the JCPOA and its confrontation with the Trump administration over trade tariffs and other issues, is showing its readiness to support this more than ever.
If there is a threat that must be tried to be turned into an opportunity, this meeting is the best example; creating maximum atmosphere in New York and on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, as well as an authoritative and intelligent presence at the UN Security Council meeting from a high position and with technical consideration, of course, requires the presence of journalists, businessmen, and university professors in the president's entourage, and the presence of official diplomats alone cannot be useful.
From the current juncture, regardless of whether it is a threat or an opportunity, we can once again confirm the view that having deep diplomatic and commercial ties with different countries of the world on the one hand, and the international prestige and individual capabilities of the president and other representatives of the country in international forums on the other, are important and affect national interests.
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