Atomic power History shows why nuclear programme is seen as vital to Iran's identity

Tehran's fight to control its own energy helps explain its insistence on the right to enrich uranium, writes Patrick Wintour

- 

In October 1978, two leaders of the Iranian opposition to the British-backed shah of Iran met in the Paris suburbs of Neauphle-le-Château to plan for the final stages of the revolution, a revolution that after 46 momentous and often brutal years may now be close to expiring.

The two men had little in common but their nationality, age and determination to remove the shah from power. Karim Sanjabi, the leader of the secular liberal National Front, was a Sorbonne-educated former professor of law in his 70s. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, also in his 70s, had been the leading Shia opponent of the Iranian monarchy since the 1960s.

Sanjabi had arrived in Paris with the draft declaration of goals of the coming revolution the two men were to lead. The document stated that the revolution would be grounded on two principles - that it would be democratic and Islamic. Yet Sanjabi later recalled to historians that at the Paris meeting Khomeini in his own handwriting added a third principle to the declaration - independence.

That third principle, the primacy of independence, born of Iran's history of exploitation by colonial powers, helps to explain what may seem otherwise mysterious in the current dispute between Iran and the US - Iran's dogmatic insistence that it must have the right to enrich uranium.

The issue has dogged the talks between Iran and the west over its nuclear programme since the turn of the century and was the sticking point in the two years of discussions that were eventually settled in Iran's favour when the joint comprehensive programme of action (JCPOA) was agreed under the Obama administration in 2015.

It is the reason Iran is being bombed now by Israel and at the weekend by the US.