Iran's unspoken nuclear victory

[joeblow]

Iran's unspoken nuclear victory
Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:54:12 GMT

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=1 ... id=3510303



By Anoush Maleki

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday announced that he would have "good news" regarding the country's nuclear drive in the next two weeks.

The news, more specifically, is likely to include updates on the fuel needed for a medical research reactor in Tehran. The prospects of Iran enriching its uranium to a level of 20 percent have improved drastically due to the West's stonewalling of an exchange proposal.

"The news is so sweet that every Iranian will be cheerful," President Ahmadinejad told reporters after presenting his budget bill to Parliament.

The so-called international community, however, will not revel in his announcement. Under a UN-brokered proposal, the United States, France and Russia had planned to sell the much needed fuel to Iran under their own conditions.

Tehran had welcomed the gist of the proposal, but asked for guarantees that the fuel would be delivered in a timely manner, citing previous failures by global powers in their nuclear deals with the country.

They, however, did not deem necessary further assurances.

Iran then moved to update the proposal when in mid-December it offered to exchange 400 kilos of uranium with fuel, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on its Kish Island in the Persian Gulf.

World powers were not fond of the new counter proposal either. They insisted that the original draft should be the base of any likely deal.

Britain, France, Germany and the United States — influenced by perpetual warnings coming out of Israel — have long accused the country of developing covert military projects under the guise of its nuclear energy program.

For the deal to go through they all advocate the full departure of Iran's 1,763 kilos of low enriched uranium — according to the latest report by the UN nuclear agency on Iran — in exchange for the fuel, on fears that the stockpile, even though under the surveillance of agency inspectors, could be used to build at least one atomic bomb.

As the powers dragged on the diplomatic tug-of-war over the exchange, Tehran moved to make it clear that should the deal fail, it would opt to produce the fuel itself.

The indigenous production would enable Iran to practice, for the first time, enriching its uranium to a level of above 5 percent. The further enriched uranium would then be turned into metal rods to be used in the reactor.

The stonewalling of the deal has no source in disagreements over its details. World powers have hoped to pull off two objectives.

Forcing Iran into accepting the deal would demonstrate that the country will finally budge under pressure, not to mention the ludicrous financial benefit they would be entitled to under the original proposal.

And, if the government in Tehran does not accept the fixed conditions, they would freely fuel an ongoing campaign that Iran does not welcome diplomacy over its nuclear program, allowing them to instead threaten the country with fresh United Nations Security Council sanctions resolutions, or even military action.

President Ahmadinejad's announcement on Sunday, however, seems to have changed the formula they had been working on. The news was the harbinger that the country is given the West enough time to think over the deal and now it is time to make a decision.

The sanction threats, meanwhile, have hit a brick wall after China sent a low-level official to the latest meeting of the so called P5+1, which is comprised of Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States — the five permanent members of the UNSC — plus Germany in New York on January 16.

Russia — which, like the Chinese, has close diplomatic and economic relations with Tehran — has also spoken out against the latest threats, with its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, issuing a warning that any fresh sanction against Iran would be counterproductive.

If Iran has finally decided to produce the fuel itself, its people will welcome it as the latest nuclear 'victory.'

But what should not be overlooked here is that, under the rule of former President George W. Bush, the United States, along with its allies in Tel Aviv, for years pushed an agenda to terminate Iran's enrichment activities altogether — even though the country is entitled to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.

In an infamous press conference on October 2007, President Bush suggested that Iran's enrichment technology plus the know-how to build a bomb would allow the country to pave the road to "World War III."

"If you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," he said.

President Bush, however, failed to bully Iran into abandoning its enrichment work, as the man in charge of the White House backed his words with a series of unilateral sanctions and UNSC sanctions, flavored with threats of military action against the country.

Realizing that his predecessor's logic was not completely sound, President Obama has slyly stepped away from the warning of an imminent world war in the making should Iran continue its nuclear work.

However, President Obama has chosen an illogical approach himself. He has pushed for fresh UNSC sanctions against Tehran twice.

The first time was when Iran informed the UN nuclear body of a nascent enrichment plant in southwest of the capital. The second time being the recent P5+1 meeting over the delayed nuclear deal.

Nonetheless, the Iranian nation can rejoice over their latest nuclear victories. Thanks to the robust stance of the government, the West has finally, but quietly, accepted that Iran is entitled to enrich uranium on its soil.