Ireland should use its prestige to build an international consensus on countering Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions, writes Rory Miller.
The possibility that Iran's Islamic revolutionary regime may be close to developing a nuclear weapon capability has come to top the international non-proliferation agenda.
Only last week Tehran announced that it would begin converting raw "yellow cake" uranium to prepare it for enrichment - a process that can ultimately lead to an atomic capability.
This despite an October 2003 promise to France, Germany and Britain that it would halt its uranium enrichment programme and a more recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution demanding Iran cease such activities.
The international response to this latest development has been predictable. The Bush administration, which in January 2002 included Iran in its "axis of evil", continues to call for a united front behind its threat of UN sanctions.
The EU, which since 1993 has pursued a policy of "Critical Dialogue" that has put it at odds with both the Clinton and Bush administrations, refuses to commit to this approach and continues, publicly at least, to place its faith in the powers of persuasion.
Ireland adheres to the EU's official Iran policy of dialogue and on the nuclear issue, defers to the "EU-3" - Germany, Britain and France - who, in the absence of US engagement, have taken it upon themselves to negotiate a compromise on behalf of the international community.
Nevertheless, one cannot help contrasting the muted Irish position on Iran's nuclear programme with the commitment of successive Irish governments during the Cold War to the UN's nuclear non-proliferation effort.
This was so widely recognised at the time that the groundbreaking 1961 General Assembly resolution on nuclear disarmament came to be known as the "Irish Resolution" and foreign minister Frank Aiken had the honour of being the first signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on July 1st, 1968.
It is true that Ireland's unflinching effort, in the words of Aiken, "to promote a Pax Atomica while we build a Pax Mundi" during the Cold War was idealistic and may have little relevance in an era when mutually assured destruction is possibly the objective, rather than the fear, of those who control an Iranian "bomb".
It is also true that Ireland has had little success on those rare past occasions when it has attempted to act independently of the EU to see if it could moderate Iran's stance.
It failed to gain concessions on the fatwa against author Salman Rushdie; on Iranian opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations at Madrid and Oslo; and on human rights, when it managed, in the company of Britain and the Netherlands, to get the EU's "Critical Dialogue" to emphasise the "human rights dimension".
But it should also be remembered that at no time in the quarter of a century since Iran became a theocracy has its atrocious human rights record or its wide-ranging links to international terrorism topped Ireland's agenda.
Rather Ireland has focused its efforts on developing two distinct but overlapping priorities - trade and positive diplomacy - both of which necessitated a willingness to ignore the worst excesses of the Iranian regime.
At the time of the establishment of an Islamic republic in 1979 Iran was Ireland's second most valuable export market in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia. From this time until 1986 Ireland's main priority was building on economic ties with this oil rich, beef-importing nation and by the mid-1980s over half of the work of the Irish diplomatic mission in Tehran was occupied with trade.
Following the kidnapping of Brian Keenan in Beirut in 1986, until his release in August 1990, the main focus shifted to fostering close diplomatic relations with the ayatollahs in the hope that they would use their influence in Lebanon to help gain his release.
From 1993 to the present time Ireland has followed the EU's policy of "Critical Dialogue" based on the belief that normalising economic, cultural and political ties with the radical regime would foster domestic reforms, empower moderate factions and, in particular, help the reformer president, Mohammad Khatami, known affectionately as "Ayatollah Gorbachev", to marginalise extremists.
Dialogue is a viable option for dealing with Iran's long-time involvement in domestic repression and sponsorship of terror.
But as long as Iran refuses to suspend its enrichment programme for the duration of such talks, it is of little use in dealing with the nuclear issue.
A nuclear Iran will be an immense threat to regional and global security. Ireland should use its position inside the EU and its credibility and prestige outside, particularly in the Islamic world, to urge consensus on the matter of UN sanctions in the case of continued non-compliance.
This in itself would not solve the current crisis. But it would contribute to the establishment of a united front that would send a clear message to future proliferators.
It would also help the process of rebuilding trust and co-operation between the EU and US, a key priority of Irish foreign policy. Last, but by no means least, it would help restore the credibility of the NPT, a framework that past Irish governments laboured so hard to bring about.
Dr Rory Miller is a lecturer in Mediterranean Studies at King's College, University of London