In recent days, the pressure is mounting once again on the Iranian uranium enrichment program and the lack of adherence to the international community’s call for halting enrichment stressed in three UN Security Council resolutions (1737, 1696, 1803). This recent attention is due to Iran’s convoluted dismissal of the West’s proposal of sending a majority amount of Iran’s low-enriched uranium abroad for further enriching. This would convert the current enrichment level of 3.5% to 20% —enough for peaceful fuel purposes which Iran claims is their intention.
The thought by the West with this proposal is if 1,200 kg or 75% of Iran’s current stockpile of low-enriched uranium is shipped out to Russia for further enrichment, then this quantity is sufficient enough to lower tensions with Iran and at least delay any attempt to further enrich the uranium to weapons grade by about a year. The question that looms with the West and the Security Council is: Why would Iran ignore this offer and chose a path that will lead to severe sanctions if it were not in their best interest?
The question and argument that looms by President Ahmadinejad and some others is: Why can’t Iran exercise its rights as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to enrich uranium to a grade sufficient for peaceful civil purposes? It’s a fair question that should be answered. The UN Security Council believes that Iran has raised sufficient concerns that its enriching program is not entirely made for peaceful purposes and superseded Iran’s rights until it can prove otherwise to the world. The following is a list of reasons why the Security Council of the United Nations has superseded any rights that Iran has according to the NPT and imposed three rounds of sanctions (perhaps by Jan. of 2010 it will be four).
1. Iran has not been forthright with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) charged with monitoring a state’s nuclear program under the NPT. After the Islamic revolution, for 18 years, Iran hid from the IAEA that it was developing a nuclear program. In 2003, this was discovered and Khatami agreed to suspend the program and allow the IAEA to step up their inspections. This does not offer a good first impression upon the international community.
2. Iran continues to try to hide new facilities destined to house centrifuges necessary to enrich uranium. As recently as September of 2009, the announcement was made that Iran was trying to hide another facility near the holy city of Qom. The CIA has known about its existence since 2006 but was mounting evidence of its purpose as this quote from Gordon Brown reported in the Times Online states, “It was, Mr. Brown said, clear evidence of Iran’s ‘serial deception’. Not only had Tehran sought to deceive the world about the Qom plant’s existence, the evidence clearly showed that it was intended for military use.”
3. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric against Israel. Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be wiped off the Earth’s face, has denied the Holocaust, has called Israel a filthy bacteria, has said that Israel is a cancerous growth that will soon disappear , etc. Iran is also a state-sponsor of terrorism funding Hezbollah and Hamas (see Hoffman: Inside Terrorism), often using them to fight their proxy wars against Israel and also supplying insurgents in Iraq with advanced Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). This does not give good credence to trusting Iran in any way, shape, or form.
4. Iran continues to ignore the supreme ruling of the Security Council. Iran has ignored the last two sanctions calling it to cooperate and continues to enrich uranium. At this point now, experts say Iran has produced enough uranium to make a bomb in a few months. However, the next steps by Iran would clearly show its intentions; for instance, they left the NPT or tried to secretly use some of its stockpile to enrich further.
Ahmadinejad says that he will not let the international community tell him what to do and his actions so far have backed that claim. Iran continues to play a waiting game, stalling negotiations, being ambiguous on offers, posturing, threatening, and secretly trying to acquire a nuclear ability so that one day when the world leaders are discussing on which sanctions to hit them with next, Iran will shock the world by announcing that it has joined the ranks of nuclear nations. This most definitely will be a hard thing to hide but Iran has deceived the world before and has pushed and lied this far. Its intentions seem to be clear to those who are most in its crosshairs.
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