Iran's Nuclear Challenge
Tom Abbott
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/opinion/04wed1.html?pagewanted=print&position=
August 4, 2004
Iran's Nuclear Challenge
The invasion of Iraq, which President Bush has often said
would help stabilize the Middle East, is now hindering
efforts to deal with a real nuclear threat: Iran.
["Hindering our efforts"? How so? "A "real" nuclear
threat"? Well, if you judge Iran like you judged Iraq, you
would have to say that Iran is not a nuclear threat. Yet.
The same could be said of Saddam Insane. Both desire to
have nuclear weapons, and both don't have any at the present
time.]
Despite its ritualistic denials, Iran gives every
indication of building all the essential elements of a
nuclear weapons program.
[The same could have been said about Saddam. If U.S.
forces go into Iran and we don't find a nuclear weapon, will
you fault President Bush like you did when he went into
Iraq?]
And while the United States has hoped to pressure Iran into
halting that program, the government in Tehran has clearly
concluded that it has little to fear for now from an
American government
[I beg to differ. Iranian generals have in recent days
gone out of their way to threaten the United States over a
possible invasion in order to seek to deter U.S. military
action. That does not sound like a self-confident
statement. Rather, it is the typical bluster that comes
from fearful tyrants. Saddam Insane used to foretell all
sorts of bad things happening to U.S. troops if they were so
bold as to invade Iraq.]
whose diplomatic credibility has been damaged
[Says you.]
and whose military capacities have been stretched by the
war in Iraq.
[No, our military capacities are stretched because the
Clinton administration cut the number of troops in uniform,
and placed too much of the burden of defense on the National
Guard and Reserve. President Bush inherited this shortage.]
Given Washington's unsatisfactory options right now, the
best choice is to support Britain, France and Germany as
they search for a diplomatic settlement.
[That's a pretty weak "best choice". Depending on
countries that do not have the best interests of the U.S. in
mind, is not a good idea.]
The chances of success do not look good; the European
initiative has had minimal results and seems to be losing
ground.
[That's because the mad mullahs of Iran know the Europeans
are not going to resort to military action. They had a good
demonstration of that with President Bush's efforts to
disarm Saddam. France and Germany sided with Saddam and the
mad mullahs figure they can count on them to side with Iran,
too.]
Iran announced on Saturday that it had resumed the
construction of centrifuges that are capable of producing
material for a nuclear bomb. Tehran says it is still
honoring a pledge not to operate any of these centrifuges,
but it proclaims its right to resume enrichment at any time.
[And we'll proclaim our right to blow the hell out of
their nuclear weapons infrastructure at any time.]
There would be little reason for Iran to take the
provocative step of restarting centrifuge construction now
unless it also intended to resume operations at some later
date.
[I compliment you on your insight.]
And since there are other, safer ways for Iran to get the
less-enriched uranium used in power-producing reactors, it
is fair to presume that Iran means to use the centrifuges to
produce bomb fuel.
[You're batting 1,000.!]
Constructing uranium centrifuges is, regrettably, legal
under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Using them to
produce fuel for bombs is not. Diplomacy can resolve this
issue only if both sides ultimately want a deal, and it is
not at all clear that Iran's ruling clerics do.
[I think they have no intention of giving up their plans
to build nuclear weapons. After all, they are fanatics and
religious extremists, and sponsor more terrorism around the
world than any other country. To assume they will be
reasonable is wishful thinking.]
They may just be playing for time to develop their
enrichment capacity before quitting the nuclear treaty and
building bombs.
[I don't think there is much doubt about it.]
The tone of Iran's dealings with the outside world has
changed for the worse since early this year, when hard-line
clerics seized control of Parliament by excluding many of
their once-formidable reformist rivals. That shut down an
experiment in partial democracy that many hoped would
eventually lead to less confrontational foreign policies,
like decisions to close the nuclear program and end support
for terrorist groups. Since then, Iran has stepped up its
meddling in Iraq, stopped trying to improve its abysmal
human rights reputation and turned more belligerent in the
nuclear negotiations with Europe.
[That is just how one would expect religious extremists to
act. And BTW, the fantic clerics have always controlled the
Parliament in one way or another, and their beligerent tone
is the same as it has been for years.]
Britain, France and Germany want Iran to renounce,
permanently and verifiably, all technology capable of making
nuclear bomb fuel. In exchange, they offer an equally firm
commitment to use outside suppliers to guarantee an adequate
supply of uranium for civilian power reactors. Such a deal
could work only if Iran returned the spent fuel to the
outside suppliers. Otherwise, plutonium could be extracted
from it and reprocessed to make nuclear weapons. Unless Iran
changes its position and forswears all rights to enrich
uranium or reprocess plutonium, there can be no deal.
[There can be no real confidence unless Iran gives up its
nuclear reactors altogether. They don't need nuclear
reactors to produce electricity. They are sitting on top of
an ocean of oil and natural gas and should be using these
fuels to power electric power generation. Iran burns off
enough waste natural gas to power several large
powerplants.]
For want of a better alternative, Europe is right to give
Iran a little more time to change its mind. But the world
cannot afford to wait long. Once the new centrifuges are
completed, Iran's ambitions will become much harder to
contain. If no agreement is reached soon, this apparent
drive to build nuclear weapons should be recognized as a
threat to international peace and security and taken up by
the United Nations Security Council later this year.
[That might be a little tricky considering that both
Russia and China sit on the UN Security Council, both with
veto power, and both of whom have been helping Iran build
its nuclear powerplants. You are asking the precipitators
of this problem to solve the problem, and all indications
are that they don't see it as a problem, at least not for
them. Don't get your hopes up too high for a solution from
them.]
end
TA