Iran's Nuclear Program Reaches Critical Juncture

Newswise — What is it like to live in a world in which the materials and technology for making nuclear weapons are freely, if covertly, traded? We are in the midst of finding out. Why would Iran, a country that has some of the world's largest reserves of fossil fuels, need an extensive, multibillion-dollar program of nuclear development? Since the pre-revolutionary years of the Shah, the determination of this country to build nuclear power plants has aroused wide suspicion. Indeed, the Iranians have been assembling the nuclear wherewithal with a speed and determination not seen since the heyday of Iraq's infamous nuclear weapons program of the 1980s. With the revelation early this year that Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan sold the technologies he used to build Pakistan's nuclear bomb to supposedly nonnuclear states around the world, including Iran and Libya, it became apparent that the threat of the "casual" use of nuclear weapons and of nuclear terrorism had moved from the theoretical and abstract to the bleakly concrete. As reported in the June issue of IEEE Spectrum, it's apparent from the lies Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog group, that its theocratic leadership is determined to acquire nuclear weapons. Ironically, it will be good news if the IAEA concludes in its next report on Iran's nuclear fuel development program--due out in June--that the highly enriched uranium particles collected by international inspectors in Iran last year originated in such black market deals between that country and Pakistan. The bad news will be if the IAEA concludes that Iran enriched the uranium itself, a finding that would require the agency to call for sanctions from the United Nations Security Council. Then, there will be little to keep Iran's leaders from withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and taking their weapons-oriented enrichment program with them. Worse yet, with the bazaar for nuclear technology open and flourishing, what's to keep the silent partners in nuclear commerce from trading weapons and not just the materials for them? Those who would prefer to dismiss such scenarios as paranoid are not much helped by some chilling oratory that has come out of Tehran.