Iran Heading Towards Conflict
Churchill
The Iran Nuclear issue is not going away and Iran is determined to have a
nuclear weapon. Hysience has previously reported on Iran's determination to
develop nuclear weapons (Iran PMs cried "Death to America" after voting to
continue their nuclear program!). For an update on the growing problem we
can look to Jane's Intelligence Reports, as reported on 11 November:
" The risk of a confrontation between Iran and the international community
is set to escalate as it becomes likely that the Islamic Republic will soon
possess its own nuclear weapon. JID's nuclear expert reviews the evidence
and warns of a hardening attitude in Washington"
Back in September 2004, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA)
reported that Iran was intending to convert 37 tonnes of milled uranium
oxide ('yellowcake') into uranium hexafluoride, the 'feed' material for
centrifuges that gets made into highly enriched uranium (HEU). This is
viewed to be too small a quantity for a civilian programme but would provide
enough material for around five nuclear weapons.
In undertaking the yellowcake conversion, Iran is going further in breaching
the arrangement it made with the EU in October 2003 when it announced that
it would suspend enrichment activities, shortly after which it decided to
resume assembling centrifuges. Amid calls by the US to refer Iran to the UN
Security Council, the EU member states have opted to allow Iran a final
opportunity to come to a negotiated solution before supporting Washington's
demands for tough sanctions.
The IAEA's resolution called on Iran to suspend all enrichment-related
activities immediately and reconsider its decision to construct a
heavy-water research reactor at Arak. Tehran has insisted that the Arak
reactor would be used solely for research and the production of
radioisotopes for medical and industrial purposes. Experts point out that
such a reactor would also provide the means to produce plutonium without the
need to enrich uranium.
In June 2004, Iran cut the IAEA seals on its existing centrifuge components
and began assembling centrifuges from existing component stock. Other
outstanding issues involve the origin of uranium contamination found at
various locations; the completeness of Iran's declaration about the
acquisition of advanced P2 gas centrifuges; establishing that undeclared
enrichment has not taken place at other locations and confirming that no
undeclared HEU has already been imported."
Then there is the column in the Weekly Standard by Henry Sokolski, From the
November 22, 2004 issue: Rethink nuclear nonproliferation, before it's too
late:
"AS THE UNITED STATES and its allies give Tehran its fifth chance in nearly
two years to suspend activities that could bring it within weeks of having
enough enriched uranium for a large arsenal, the question arises: Isn't
there a better way to prevent states from getting nuclear weapons? The
answer is yes, but only if we and our partners are willing to be much more
aggressive in adapting existing nonproliferation efforts to today's threats.
The key problem is that our current policy concedes too much. Iran, for
instance, asserts that it has the right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty to come within weeks of building a bomb, and we do not publicly
contest this. Instead, Britain, France, and Germany, in their latest
one-last-chance offer, are pleading with Tehran not to exercise the right it
claims. In exchange for an Iranian pledge to suspend certain nuclear
fuel-making activities, the three propose to guarantee Tehran not only a
supply of fresh light-water-reactor fuel for its just-completed power
reactor at Bushehr, but also more such reactors and improved trade relations
as well.
If this sounds like an invitation to nuclear mischief, it is. First, the
fuel that the European Three would guarantee could itself be used to
accelerate the making of a bomb. Fresh, lightly enriched light-water-reactor
fuel is far closer to being bomb grade than is natural uranium. If Iran were
to seize the fuel and divert it--as it probably could without IAEA
inspectors' immediate knowledge--Iran could reduce five-fold the level of
effort it would need to make bomb-grade material: With the centrifuges Iran
admits having, it could make a bomb's worth of fuel in roughly nine weeks as
opposed to a year. This suggests that the IAEA's current cycle of
inspections at Bushehr--once every three months--is woefully inadequate.
Second, so long as Iran and other aspiring bomb-makers have a right to
pursue all the activities necessary to get them within days of a bomb, they
will have the upper hand in negotiations. Certainly, with Iran's enrichment
facilities in place and its right to operate them uncontested, Tehran could
suspend enrichment operations--as it has just agreed to do--and yet be free
to resume them any time it wants. The worry now is that Iran will simply buy
time with the European Three, to push for permission to exercise its right
to enrich while building up its covert capabilities to do so.
This, in essence, is the fatal flaw in our approach to nonproliferation: We
and our partners are still much more willing to defend the right to make
nuclear weapons-usable materials than we are to read the rules so as to deny
it.
This needs to change. Certainly, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which
was negotiated in 1968, qualifies the right of non-weapons states to develop
nuclear energy: They may not use nuclear-energy technology to make nuclear
arms. This is forbidden by the treaty's stricture against non-weapons
states' acquiring the bomb."
So where is all this taking us? While the UN and Europe sleep and the U.S.
has been fighting the war on terror, Iran continues to move toward more
terrible weapons of war for the terrorists. Whatever the outcome the fact
that a terrorist state has been allowed to come so far in developing a
nuclear arsenal is ........
--
Ask your ISP to add the following newsgroups:
alt.war.world-war-one
alt.war.world-war-two
alt.war.world-war-three
alt.war.napoleonic
alt.war.war-of-1812
alt.war.terrorism
alt.war.biological
alt.war.chemical
alt.war.misc