Recently President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran announced that Iranian nuclear scientists had made a breakthrough in enriching uranium to the point where it can be used as fuel for nuclear reactors in power generation.[1] In making the announcement Ahmadinejad made it quite clear that the sole purpose for the enrichment is for power generation, an activity that is entirely legitimate and an activity that Iran has the right to undertake under international law.
At no time has Iran even hinted at a desire to have nuclear weapons. On the contrary, Iran has always made efforts to make it abundantly clear that, despite the insistence of the US and Israel that Iran’s intention has been otherwise, their only interest has, as Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the US explains, been the pursuit of fuel for its nuclear energy generation program.[2]
Without any evidence whatsoever, the US and Israel have been accusing Iran for well over a decade of being in pursuit of nuclear weapons technology.[3] In the latest outburst from the US and Israel the Iranians are apparently intent on “confronting the West” by announcing that they now intend to expand its nuclear enrichment abilities to “produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale”.[4] This is grossly misleading. Because the mainstream media have been pushing the idea that Iran is in pursuit of nuclear weapons, readers associate the idea that Iran now wishes to ‘produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale’ as Iran wanting now to produce enriched uranium for nuclear weapons whereas in reality, despite Iran’s breakthrough in enrichment technology, it is still some years away to being able to producing enough fuel for power generation and even more years away from producing weapons grade enriched uranium.[5]
In the light of this one has to wonder who is confronting who. All Iran has done is achieve something that all along it has said it wanted to achieve and for no other reason than to produce fuel for nuclear power generation. For some reason the world has gone into panic mode in an effort to appease the US. Despite all the rhetoric, there is still not one skerrick of evidence to suggest that is in pursuit of nuclear weapons.[6]
The real reason for the intensity of US and Israeli lies about, and condemnation of, Iran’s nuclear ambitions is to create a climate in which Iran may be attacked in order to effect regime change – in other words, for exactly the same reason as the US and Israel accused Saddam Hussein of pursuing non-existent nuclear weapons. The irony, of course, is that it seems the world is falling for the same old lies yet again. Back in September of 2003 the IAEA found tiny traces of enriched weapons grade uranium at two sites in Iran, one of them Nantanz, Iran’s major nuclear facility.[7] The US government seized on the discovery as proof that Iran was developing nuclear weapons.[8] As it turns out, the tiny particles were found on equipment the Iranians had purchased second hand.
The nuclear issue with Iran, just as it was with Iraq, is simply an excuse for the US and Israel to confront Iraq with a view to regime change. Perhaps there are enough dumb and gullible people in the world still to fall for those lies – again.
ENDNOTES
[1] Nazila Fathi, David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, ‘Iran Says It Is Making Nuclear Fuel, Defying U.N.’, New York Times, 12 April 2006. Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/world/middleeast/12iran.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Accessed 13 April 2006.
[2] Javad Zarif, ‘We Do Not Have a Nuclear Weapons Program’, New York Times, 6 April 2006. Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/opinion/06zarif.html Accessed 13 April 2006.
[3] Chris Hedges, ‘Nuclear Trail – A special report; A Vast Smuggling Network Feeds Irans Arms Program’, New York Times, 15 March 1995. Available online: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F60610FF355B0C768DDDAA0894DD494D81 Accessed 13 April 2006.
[4] Nazila Fathi and Christine Hauser, ‘Iran Details Nuclear Ambitions; Rice Urges ‘Strong Steps’’, New York Times, 12 April 2006. Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/world/middleeast/12cnd-iran.html?hp&ex=1144900800&en=95109157285477d5&ei=5094&partner=homepage Accessed 13 April 2006.
[5] Tony Karon, ‘Nuclear ‘Breakthrough’ May Help Iran to Compromise’, Time, 12 April 2006. Available online: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1183187,00.html Accessed 13 April 2006.
[6] Atul Aneja, ‘IAEA says no evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons plan’, Globalresearch, 2 March 2006. Available online: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ANE20060302&articleId=2055 Accessed 13 April 2006.
[7] Felicity Barringer, ‘Inspectors in Iran Find Highly Enriched Uranium at an Electrical Plant’, New York Times, 26 September 2003. Available online: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F7071EFE39590C758EDDA00894DB404482 Accessed 13 April 2006.
[8] ‘IAEA Find Uranium Traces in Iran’, Fox News, 23 September 2003. Available online: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,98292,00.html Accessed 13 April 2006.
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2 comments:
Why do you reject the American interpretation of how the nuclear material found by the IAEA got to be in Iran and yet accept, without question, the Iranian explanation that it was because of second-hand, black market purchases?
Are you really this biased?
Bias, dear Anonymous person, has absolutely nothing to do with it. Reality and common sense has. The levels of purity of the traces found on the equipment were weapons grade. It would follow therefore that, if the source of the trace was indeed from Iran’s own nuclear plants and that the weapons grade material were manufactured at these plants – and remember, this was in 2003 – then the West is far too late to stop any supposed manufacturing of weapons grade material; it apparently has already been manufactured!
Now, what was that about bias again?
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