Russia warns against military action in Iran

Mark Tran and agencies
Tuesday September 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images

Russia today joined the chorus of concern at the possibility of war in Iran while conflicts continued in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At a news briefing in Moscow, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said: "We are worried by reports that there is serious consideration being given to military action in Iran. That is a threat to a region where there are already grave problems in Iraq and Afghanistan."

His comments, after a meeting with his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, followed a stark warning yesterday from the UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector aimed at the US.

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"I would not talk about any use of force," Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."

Fears of a military conflict with Iran rose a notch after comments on Sunday night by Mr Kouchner, who said: "We have to prepare for the worst ... the worst is war."

In addition, reports from Washington indicate that administration hawks led by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, are winning the argument for tough action against Tehran.

The US has accused Iran of supplying Shia extremists in Iraq with explosive devices that are taking a deadly toll on American troops.

Another flashpoint is Iran's refusal to stop uranium enrichment, a process that can lead to the development of a nuclear bomb. The US is trying to mobilise international support for further sanctions against Iran at the UN security council, but can expect Russian and Chinese opposition.

The US suspects that Iran is determined to develop a nuclear weapon under cover of its civilian nuclear programme, a charge Iran denies. While it says it is seeking a diplomatic solution, the US has not ruled out the use of force.

France, under its new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has adopted a much tougher line on Iran, saying that a nuclear-armed Iran poses a dangerous threat to the west.

Mr Sarkozy last month called the Iranian stand-off "the greatest crisis" of current times, saying the world faced "a catastrophic alternative: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran".

Mr Kouchner told reporters in Moscow that the world should not shy away from sanctions to put pressure on Iran.

"The worst thing to happen would be a war, and in order to avoid it we need to continue talks and be firm enough regarding sanctions," he said. "We have to work on precise sanctions that would demonstrate the world community's serious approach to this problem."

But Russia is trying to cool down the situation. In an interview published in the Russian magazine Vremya Novostei, the deputy foreign minister, Alexander Losyukov, said any military intervention in Iran would be a "political error" with catastrophic results.

"We are convinced that there is no military solution to the Iranian problem ... besides, it is quite clear that there is no military solution to the Iraqi problem either," he said.

‘Bomb Iran’ Podhoretz: War Would ‘Unleash A Wave’ Of Global Anti-Americanism

The current issue of Commentary magazine — “widely regarded as the leading outlet for neoconservative writing” — features a controversial cover story by Norman Podhoretz titled “The Case For Bombing Iran.”

Podhoretz’s article appeals to President Bush, “a man who knows evil when he sees it” and who has been “battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory,” to carry out military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. U.S. diplomats are now pointing to the essay to pressure foreign diplomats to increase pressure on Iran.

In a new interview, Podhoretz was asked to comment on the possible fallout of the military strikes he advocates. “Well, if we were to bomb the Iranians as I hope and pray we will,” Podhoretz says, “we’ll unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the world that will make the anti-Americanism we’ve experienced so far look like a lovefest.”

Watch it (6:20):

Podhoretz qualified his statement about anti-Americanism, saying it was only a “worst case scenario.” It’s “entirely possible,” he claimed, that “many countries, particularly in the Middle East” would “at least secretly applaud us.”

But even global anti-Americanism is worth it, he argues, to slow Iran’s nuclear program “for five or 10 years or more.” In fact, American Progress senior fellow Joseph Cirincione has argued that such a strike “would not, as is often said, delay the Iranian program. It would almost certainly speed it up. That is what happened when the Israelis struck at the Iraq program in 1981.”

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The Case for Bombing Iran

Norman Podhoretz

June 2007

Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what September 11, 2001 did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the cold war was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the cold war, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of Communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.

What follows from this way of looking at the last five years is that the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a protracted global struggle. The same thing is true of Iran. As the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State Department’s latest annual report on the subject) the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism’s weapon of choice, Iran too is a front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous one of all.

The Iranians, of course, never cease denying that they intend to build a nuclear arsenal, and yet in the same breath they openly tell us what they intend to do with it. Their first priority, as repeatedly and unequivocally announced by their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to “wipe Israel off the map”—a feat that could not be accomplished by conventional weapons alone.

But Ahmadinejad’s ambitions are not confined to the destruction of Israel. He also wishes to dominate the greater Middle East, and thereby to control the oilfields of the region and the flow of oil out of it through the Persian Gulf. If he acquired a nuclear capability, he would not even have to use it in order to put all this within his reach. Intimidation and blackmail by themselves would do the trick.

Nor are Ahmadinejad’s ambitions merely regional in scope. He has a larger dream of extending the power and influence of Islam throughout Europe, and this too he hopes to accomplish by playing on the fear that resistance to Iran would lead to a nuclear war. And then, finally, comes the largest dream of all: what Ahmadinejad does not shrink from describing as “a world without America.” Demented though he may be, I doubt that Ahmadinejad is so crazy as to imagine that he could wipe America off the map even if he had nuclear weapons. But what he probably does envisage is a diminution of the American will to oppose him: that is, if not a world without America, he will settle, at least in the short run, for a world without much American influence.

Not surprisingly, the old American foreign-policy establishment and many others say that these dreams are nothing more than the fantasies of a madman. They also dismiss those who think otherwise as neoconservative alarmists trying to drag this country into another senseless war that is in the interest not of the United States but only of Israel. But the irony is that Ahmadinejad’s dreams are more realistic than the dismissal of those dreams as merely insane delusions. To understand why, an analogy with World War III may help.

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At certain points in that earlier war, some of us feared that the Soviets might seize control of the oil fields of the Middle East, and that the West, faced with a choice between surrendering to their dominance or trying to stop them at the risk of a nuclear exchange, would choose surrender. In that case, we thought, the result would be what in those days went by the name of Finlandization.

In Europe, where there were large Communist parties, Finlandization would take the form of bringing these parties to power so that they could establish “Red Vichy” regimes like the one already in place in Finland—regimes whose subservience to the Soviet will in all things, domestic and foreign alike, would make military occupation unnecessary and would therefore preserve a minimal degree of national independence.

In the United States, where there was no Communist party to speak of, we speculated that Finlandization would take a subtler form. In the realm of foreign affairs, politicians and pundits would arise to celebrate the arrival of a new era of peace and friendship in which the cold-war policy of containment would be scrapped, thus giving the Soviets complete freedom to expand without encountering any significant obstacles. And in the realm of domestic affairs, Finlandization would mean that the only candidates running for office with a prayer of being elected would be those who promised to work toward a sociopolitical system more in harmony with the Soviet model than the unjust capitalist plutocracy under which we had been living.

Of course, by the grace of God, the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain, and Ronald Reagan, we won World War III and were therefore spared the depredations that Finlandization would have brought. Alas, we are far from knowing what the outcome of World War IV will be. But in the meantime, looking at Europe today, we already see the unfolding of a process analogous to Finlandization: it has been called, rightly, Islamization. Consider, for example, what happened when, only a few weeks ago, the Iranians captured fifteen British sailors and marines and held them hostage. Did the Royal Navy, which once boasted that it ruled the waves, immediately retaliate against this blatant act of aggression, or even threaten to do so unless the captives were immediately released? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, using force was the last thing in the world the British contemplated doing, as they made sure to announce. Instead they relied on the “soft power” so beloved of “sophisticated” Europeans and their American fellow travelers.

But then, as if this show of impotence were not humiliating enough, the British were unable even to mobilize any of that soft power. The European Union, of which they are a member, turned down their request to threaten Iran with a freeze of imports. As for the UN, under whose very auspices they were patrolling the international waters in which the sailors were kidnapped, it once again showed its true colors by refusing even to condemn the Iranians. The most the Security Council could bring itself to do was to express “grave concern.” Meanwhile, a member of the British cabinet was going the Security Council one better. While registering no objection to propaganda pictures of the one woman hostage, who had been forced to shed her uniform and dress for the cameras in Muslim clothing, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt pronounced it “deplorable” that she should have permitted herself to be photographed with a cigarette in her mouth. “This,” said Hewitt, “sends completely the wrong message to our young people.”

According to John Bolton, our former ambassador to the UN, the Iranians were testing the British to see if there would be any price to pay for committing what would once have been considered an act of war. Having received his answer, Ahmadinejad could now reap the additional benefit of, as the British commentator Daniel Johnson puts it, “posing as a benefactor” by releasing the hostages, even while ordering more attacks in Iraq and even while continuing to arm terrorist organizations, whether Shiite (Hizballah) or Sunni (Hamas). For fanatical Shiites though Ahmadinejad and his ilk assuredly are, they are obviously willing to set sectarian differences aside when it comes to forging jihadist alliances against the infidels.

If, then, under present circumstances Ahmadinejad could bring about the extraordinary degree of kowtowing that resulted from the kidnapping of the British sailors, what might he not accomplish with a nuclear arsenal behind him—nuclear bombs that could be fitted on missiles capable of reaching Europe? As to such a capability, Robert G. Joseph, the U.S. Special Envoy for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, tells us that Iran is “expanding what is already the largest offensive missile force in the region. Moreover, it is reported to be working closely with North Korea, the world’s number-one missile proliferator, to develop even more capable ballistic missiles.” This, Joseph goes on, is why “analysts agree that in the foreseeable future Iran will be armed with medium- and long-range ballistic missiles,” and it is also why “we could wake up one morning to find that Iran is holding Berlin, Paris or London hostage to whatever its demands are then.”

Norman Podhoretz wants to bomb Iran!

Iran Hints at Oil 'Tool' If Attacked

TEHRAN, June 19--Iran will not rule out using oil as a weapon if the US resorts to military action against the country, a senior Iranian oil official said in remarks published Tuesday.

Washington says it wants a diplomatic end to a standoff over Iran's nuclear energy program but has not ruled out force if that route fails.

Iranian officials say they do not want to use oil as a weapon but have also said they might do so if pushed.

Iran's OPEC governor, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, said that "when the Americans say that military action in regard to the nuclear issue has not been put aside, Iran can also say that it will not put aside oil as a tool".

"We will not start using this tool (of oil) but if others use their tools that they have not put aside to put pressure on negotiations, it is natural that the two sides would discuss all their tools."

Asked what would be the impact if Iran stopped its oil exports, Kazempour Ardebili said: "Definitely the market will be faced with a new shock and oil prices will increase strongly."

He added that prices would climb above $100 a barrel.

Although Iran is OPEC's No. 2 oil producer, it imports about 40 percent of its domestic gasoline needs to meet domestic demand for fuel.

Washington has described this as "leverage" in the nuclear standoff with Tehran.

However, Kazempour Ardebili said Iran would never face problems obtaining gasoline even if some threatened to hinder supplies.

"If anybody makes a threat about not giving gasoline he should know he will not be successful because the main producers of gasoline are members of OPEC and we will never have difficulties in regards to gasoline," he said.

"We believe energy supplies should be de-politicized as much as possible," he added.

Iran has said it will introduce gasoline rationing for motorists as part of efforts to reduce surging consumption.

So far only government cars have been rationed and rationing for other motorists has been delayed from May 22.

No official announcement has been made about when the full rationing system will formally start.

Iran Strategy Stirs Debate at White House

By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: June 16, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 15 — A year after President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a new strategy toward Iran, a behind-the-scenes debate has broken out within the administration over whether the approach has any hope of reining in Iran’s nuclear program, according to senior administration officials.

The debate has pitted Ms. Rice and her deputies, who appear to be winning so far, against the few remaining hawks inside the administration, especially those in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office who, according to some people familiar with the discussions, are pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

In the year since Ms. Rice announced the new strategy for the United States to join forces with Europe, Russia and China to press Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Iran has installed more than a thousand centrifuges to enrich uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency predicts that 8,000 or so could be spinning by the end of the year, if Iran surmounts its technical problems.

Those hard numbers are at the core of the debate within the administration over whether Mr. Bush should warn Iran’s leaders that he will not allow them to get beyond some yet-undefined milestones, leaving the implication that a military strike on the country’s facilities is still an option.

Even beyond its nuclear program, Iran is emerging as an increasing source of trouble for the Bush administration by inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and in Gaza, where it has provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group Hamas, which now controls the Gaza Strip.

Even so, friends and associates of Ms. Rice who have talked with her recently say she has increasingly moved toward the European position that the diplomatic path she has laid out is the only real option for Mr. Bush, even though it has so far failed to deter Iran from enriching uranium, and that a military strike would be disastrous.

The accounts were provided by officials at the State Department, White House and the Pentagon who are on both sides of the debate, as well as people who have spoken with members of Mr. Cheney’s staff and with Ms. Rice. The officials said they were willing to explain the thinking behind their positions, but would do so only on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Bush has publicly vowed that he would never “tolerate” a nuclear Iran, and the question at the core of the debate within the administration is when and whether it makes sense to shift course.

The issue was raised at a closed-door White House meeting recently when the departing deputy national security adviser, J. D. Crouch, told senior officials that President Bush needed an assessment of how the stalemate over Iran’s nuclear program was likely to play out over the next 18 months, said officials briefed on the meeting.

In response, R. Nicholas Burns, an under secretary of state who is the chief American strategist on Iran, told the group that negotiations with Tehran could still be going on when Mr. Bush leaves office in January 2009. The hawks in the room reported later that they were deeply unhappy — but not surprised — by Mr. Burns’s assessment, which they interpreted as a tacit acknowledgment that the Bush administration had no “red line” beyond which Iran would not be permitted to step.

But conservatives inside the administration have continued in private to press for a tougher line, making arguments that their allies outside government are voicing publicly. “Regime change or the use of force are the only available options to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapons capability, if they want it,” said John R. Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Only a few weeks ago, one of Mr. Cheney’s top aides, David Wurmser, told conservative research groups and consulting firms in Washington that Mr. Cheney believed that Ms. Rice’s diplomatic strategy was failing, and that by next spring Mr. Bush might have to decide whether to take military action.

The vice president’s office has declined to talk about Mr. Wurmser’s statements, and says Mr. Cheney is fully on board with the president’s strategy. In a June 1 article for Commentary magazine, the neoconservative editor Norman Podhoretz laid out what a headline described as “The Case for Bombing Iran.”

“In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force — any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938,” Mr. Podhoretz wrote.

Mr. Burns and officials from the Treasury Department have been trying to use the mounting conservative calls for a military strike to press Europe and Russia to expand economic sanctions against Iran. Just last week, Israel’s transportation minister and former defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, visited Washington and told Ms. Rice that sanctions must be strong enough to get the Iranians to stop enriching uranium by the end of 2007.

While Mr. Mofaz did not threaten a military strike, Israeli officials said he told Ms. Rice that by the end of the year, Israel “would have to reassess where we are.”

The State Department and Treasury officials are pushing for a stronger set of United Nations Security Council sanctions against members of Iran’s government, including an extensive travel ban and further moves to restrict the ability of Iran’s financial institutions to do business outside of Iran. Beyond that, American officials have been trying to get European and Asian banks to take additional steps, outside of the Security Council, against Iran.

“We’re saying to them, ‘Look, you need to help us make the diplomacy succeed, and you guys need to stop business as usual with Iran,’ ” an administration official said. “We’re not just sitting here ignoring reality.”

But the fallout from the Iraq war has severely limited the Bush administration’s ability to maneuver on the Iran nuclear issue and has left many in the administration, and certainly America’s allies and critics in Europe, firmly against military strikes on Iran. On Thursday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the international nuclear watchdog agency, warned anew that military action against Iran would “be an act of madness.”

The debate over “red lines” is a familiar one inside the Bush White House that last arose in 2002 over North Korea. When the North Koreans threw out international inspectors on the last day of that year and soon declared that they planned to reprocess 8,000 rods of spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium, President Bush had to decide whether to declare that if North Korea moved toward weapons, it could face a military strike on its facilities.

The Pentagon had drawn up an extensive plan for taking out those facilities, though with little enthusiasm, because it feared it could not control North Korea’s response, and the administration chose not to delivery any ultimatum. North Korea tested a nuclear weapon last October, and American intelligence officials estimate it now has the fuel for eight or more weapons.

Iran is far behind the North Koreans; it is believed to be three to eight years away from its first weapon, American intelligence officials have told Congress. Conservatives argue that if the administration fails to establish a line over which Iran must not step, the enrichment of uranium will go ahead, eventually giving the Iranians fuel that, with additional enrichment out of the sight of inspectors, it could use for weapons.

To date, however, the administration has been hesitant about saying that it will not permit Iran to produce more than a given amount of fuel, out of concern that Iran’s hard-liners would simply see that figure as a goal.

In the year since the United States made its last offer to Iran, the Iranians have gone from having a few dozen centrifuges in operation to building a facility that at last count, a month ago, had more than 1,300. “The pace of negotiations have lagged behind the pace of the Iranian nuclear program,” said Robert Joseph, the former under secretary of state for international security, who left his post partly over his opposition to the administration’s recent deal with North Korea.

Israel's nuke leak threatening ME

Wed, 13 Jun 2007

Probable explosion in Israel's Dimona nuclear plant may be more tragic than Chernobyl ‎nuclear disaster

A Jordanian expert in nuclear physics has warned that radioactive substances leaking from Israeli nuclear reactors are threatening the region.

"Radioactive leak from Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor coupled with the regime's nuclear waste buried in Jordan are posing serious hazards to not only people in Jordan but also in other regional states, including Egypt and Palestine," Iran's Fars news agency quoted Nabil Atoum as saying on Tuesday.

The expert drew an analogy between the humanitarian and ecological catastrophe caused by the Russian reactor Chernobyl two decade ago and the probable nuclear tragedy that can be caused by the vulnerable Dimona reactor, warning this could set off a "new Zionist Holocaust".

He cautioned that the magnitude of an Israeli reactor catastrophe can be even greater than Russia's Chernobyl.

Atoum said Amman has admitted it has no immediate solution to deal with a probable catastrophe at Israel's Dimona nuclear plant, and called for international mediation and an investigation into the Israeli regime's nuclear activities.

Meanwhile, Ali Hatr, a member of Jordan's Resistance Committee exclaimed that although Jordanian officials are aware of the contamination, they have made no efforts to avert a nuclear disaster.

He expressed serious doubts over Jordan's ability to control such disaster on its own. "Even the former Soviet Union, which was a far greater power than Jordan, could not control the contamination caused by the Chernobyl reactor meltdown," he compared.

The Zionist regime possesses the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal with at least 200 nuclear warheads. Months ago, prime minister Ehud Olmert admitted that Israel has nuclear arms, abandoning the ambiguity policy Tel Aviv had adopted over its nuclear weapons for decades.

The Chernobyl disaster was a major accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986 which was followed by radioactive contamination of the surrounding geographic area.

A plume of radioactive fallout drifted over parts of western Soviet Union, eastern, western and northern Europe, and eastern North America. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia also were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people.

About 60 percent of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus, according to official post-Soviet data.

MI6 probes UK link to nuclear trade with Iran

Mark Townsend, crime correspondent
Sunday June 10, 2007
The Observer

A British company has been closed down after being caught in an apparent attempt to sell black-market weapons-grade uranium to Iran and Sudan, The Observer can reveal.

Anti-terrorist officers and MI6 are now investigating a wider British-based plot allegedly to supply Iran with material for use in a nuclear weapons programme. One person has already been charged with attempting to proliferate 'weapons of mass destruction'.

During the 20-month investigation, which also involved MI5 and Customs and Excise, a group of Britons was tracked as they obtained weapons-grade uranium from the black market in Russia. Investigators believe it was intended for export to Sudan and on to Iran.

A number of Britons, who are understood to have links with Islamic terrorists abroad, remain under surveillance. Investigators believe they have uncovered the first proof that al-Qaeda supporters have been actively engaged in developing an atomic capability. The British company, whose identity is known to The Observer but cannot be disclosed for legal reasons, has been wound up.

A Customs and Excise spokesman said: 'We continue to investigate allegations related to the supply of components for nuclear programmes including related activities of British nationals.'

It is not clear whether all of those involved in the alleged nuclear conspiracy were aware of the uranium's ultimate destination or of any intended use.

British agents believe Russian black-market uranium was destined for Sudan, described as a 'trans-shipment' point. The alleged plot, however, was disrupted in early 2006, before the nuclear material reached its final destination.

Roger Berry, chairman of Parliament's Quadripartite Committee, which monitors arms exports, said: 'With the collapse of the Soviet Union there was always the question over not just uranium but where other WMD components were going and how this could be controlled. Real credit must go to the enforcement authorities that they have disrupted this. The really worrying aspect is that if one company is involved, are there others out there?'

Politically, the allegations hold potentially huge ramifications for diplomatic relations between the West and Tehran. Already, tensions are running high between Iran, the US and the European Union over the true extent of Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iran refuses to suspend its nuclear programme in the face of mounting pressure, arguing its intent is entirely peaceful and solely aimed at producing power for civilian use.

Investigators are understood to have evidence that Iran was to receive the uranium to help develop a nuclear weapons capability. 'They may argue that the material is for civilian use but it does seem an extremely odd way to procure uranium,' said Berry.

Alleged evidence of Sudan's role will concern British security services. The East African state has long been suspected of offering a haven for Islamist terrorists and has been accused of harbouring figures including Osama bin Laden who, during the mid-Nineties, set up a number of al-Qaeda training camps in the country.

Details of the plot arrive against a backdrop of increasing co-operation between Sudan and Iran on defence issues, although the level of involvement, if any, of the governments in Khartoum and Tehran in the alleged nuclear plot is unclear.

However, circumstantial evidence suggesting that elements within both countries might be colluding on military matters has been mounting in recent months. A Sudanese delegation visited Iran's uranium conversion facility in February, while the East African country reportedly recently signed a mutual defence co-operation pact with Iran, allowing Tehran to deploy ballistic missiles in Sudan

Security Council refuses to condemn Iran

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 8,

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council refused to approve a statement Friday that would condemn remarks about Israel's impending destruction attributed to Iran's hard-line president because of objections from Indonesia, council diplomats said.

Qatar, the only Arab nation on the council, said it had no instructions, which also meant approval on Friday was impossible, the diplomats said. The statement must be approved by all 15 council members.

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, who called for condemnation of the remarks attributed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said it was unfortunate that the council could not act immediately. But he said he would try again on Monday to get all 15 council members to approve the statement.

"At stake is ... a real question of principle. When the president of a country talks about the destruction of another country, a member of the United Nations, this is a serious issue," de La Sabliere said.

"His remark is very similar to the one he made in 2005 and the Security Council reacted in 2005," the French ambassador said. "I am confident that the council will react this time again."

In October 2005, the Iranian president caused outrage in the West when he said in a speech that Israel's "Zionist regime should be wiped off the map."

The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Sunday that Ahmadinejad referred twice to Israel's destruction.

IRNA quoted the president as saying that in last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah "the Lebanese nation pushed the button to begin counting the days until the destruction of the Zionist regime." It also quoted him as saying "God willing, in the near future we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime."

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, said Ahmadinejad had not really threatened Israel, council diplomats said.

Indonesia also accused the Security Council of double standards in defending Israel. It accused the council of doing nothing when Palestinians are attacked, when Israeli ministers threatened Iran or when the newspaper Haaretz called for Ahmadinejad's assassination, the diplomats said.

France, Britain and the United States stressed that there was a difference between comments in a newspaper and comments by a head of state, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the consultations were private.

"A statement by a head of state calling for or implying the destruction of a member state of the United Nations is as a matter of principle unacceptable, and this is a threat to international peace and security," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters after the closed meeting.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed dismay at the Iranian report.

The brief press statement proposed by France would have the council "strongly condemn the remarks about the destruction of Israel" attributed to Ahmadinejad, while reaffirming Israel's rights and obligations as a U.N. member. It would also "reaffirm that under the United Nations Charter, al members have undertaken to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

Iran: 'Too late' to stop nuclear program

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN,
Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 5,

TEHRAN, Iran - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that it was "too late" to stop Iran's nuclear program and warned the U.S. and its allies not to push for new U.N. sanctions, comparing his country to a lion sitting quietly in a corner.

"We advise them not to play with the lion's tail," Ahmadinejad said, drawing applause from a room of reporters, Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries at a Tehran news conference.

"It is too late to stop the progress of Iran," Ahmadinejad said. "Iran has passed the point where they wanted Iran to stop."

The U.N. Security Council is preparing to debate a third set of sanctions against the Islamic republic in response to Tehran's continuing refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for civilian energy or fissile material for a bomb.

Addressing the West, Ahmadinejad said that a third round of sanctions will only "make things harder for you and distances you from resolving the issue ... We advise them to give up stubbornness and childish games."

The Security Council first imposed sanctions on Iran in December and modestly increased them in March over Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment. Iran says it is within its rights to pursue uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes.

The country's nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said this week that the nuclear standoff could be settled in the coming weeks if the council drops preparations to debate the third round of sanctions.

The president's news conference was his first since talks between U.S. and Iranian diplomats in Baghdad on May 28 — the first public talks between the two countries in nearly three decades. The two sides are supposed to meet again in less than a month.

Ahmadinejad scoffed at U.S. accusations that Iranian agents were helping fellow Shiite militants in Iraq but said that Tehran wanted to help calm the violence there.

"The occupiers of Iraq ... have lost the way, they don't know what to do. They imagine that by accusing others, they can resolve problems."

"Now, they said help us," Ahmadinejad said, in an apparent reference to the U.S. invitation for the Baghdad talks. "We are prepared, for the sake of the Iraqi people, to help. We won't spare any efforts."

Iranians have largely welcomed the talks, although the state television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Iran only agreed to them after the U.S. asked Iran 40 times and sent a formal diplomatic note

Nuclear Energy, Balancing Benefits and Risks

Author:	Charles D. Ferguson, Fellow for Science and Technology

Council on Foreign Relations

April 2007

56 pages






Click here to download ( pdf file)

Increased concern over energy security and global climate change has led many people to take a fresh look at the benefits and risks of nuclear power for the United States and other countries. The debate surrounding nuclear energy also intersects with critical U.S. foreign policy issues such as nuclear proliferation and terrorism. This Council Special Report, produced in partnership with Washington and Lee University and written by the Council’s Fellow for Science and Technology Charles D. Ferguson, provides the factual and analytical background to inform this debate.

Nuclear Energy: Balancing Benefits and Risks is a sobering and authoritative look at nuclear power. Dr. Ferguson argues that nuclear energy, despite its attributes, is unlikely to play a major role in the coming decades in strengthening energy security or in countering the harmful effects of climate change. In particular, the rapid rate of nuclear reactor expansion required to make even a modest reduction in global warming would drive up construction costs and create shortages in building materials, trained personnel, and safety controls. There are also lingering questions over nuclear waste, as well as continued political opposition to siting new plants. Nonetheless, the report points out steps the United States could take—such as imposing a fee on greenhouse gas emissions—to level the economic playing field for all energy sectors, which over the long run would encourage the construction of new nuclear reactors (if only to replace existing ones that will need to be retired) and help reduce global warming.

Dr. Ferguson has written a fair and balanced report that brings the nuclear energy debate down from one of preferences and ideologies to one of reality. Nuclear Energy: Balancing Benefits and Risks is useful to anyone who wants to understand both the potential and the limits of nuclear power to enhance energy security and slow climate change.

Rice Plays Down Hawkish Talk About Iran

By HELENE COOPER

June 2, 2007

MADRID, June 1 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought Friday to minimize any sense of division within the Bush administration over Iran after the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency delivered a pointed warning against what he called the “new crazies” pushing for military action against Tehran.

“The president of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course,” Ms. Rice said here. “That policy is supported by all of the members of the cabinet, and by the vice president of the United States.”

Ms. Rice’s assurance came as senior officials at the State Department were expressing fury over reports that members of Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff have told others that Mr. Cheney believes the diplomatic track with Iran is pointless, and is looking for ways to persuade Mr. Bush to confront Iran militarily.

In a news conference on Friday, Ms. Rice maintained that Mr. Cheney supported her strategy of trying to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions through diplomacy. A senior Bush administration official separately denied that there was a deep divide between Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney on Iran.

But, the official said, “The vice president is not necessarily responsible for every single thing that comes out of the mouth of every single member of his staff.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about any divide within the administration.

The reports about hawkish statements by members of Mr. Cheney’s staff first surfaced last week in The Washington Note, an influential blog put out by Steve Clemons of the left-leaning New America Foundation. The reports have alarmed European diplomats, some of whom fear that the struggle over Iran’s nuclear program may evolve into a decision by the Bush administration to resort to force against Iran.

In interviews, people who have spoken with Mr. Cheney’s staff have confirmed the broad outlines of the reports, and said that some of the hawkish statements to outsiders had been made by David Wurmser, a former Pentagon official who is now the principal deputy assistant to Mr. Cheney for national security affairs. The accounts were provided by people who expressed alarm about the statements, but refused to be quoted by name.

“The vice president and his staff fully support the president’s position on Iran” a spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, Megan McGinn, said.

During an interview with BBC Radio broadcast Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he did not want to see another war like the one still raging in Iraq four years after the American-led invasion there.

“You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say, ‘Let’s go and bomb Iran,’ ” Dr. ElBaradei said. “I wake up every morning and see 100 Iraqis, innocent civilians, are dying.”

Dr. ElBaradei, who has urged Western powers to consider allowing Iran limited uranium enrichment on its own territory, is already facing criticism from Bush administration officials who say he should stick to monitoring Iran’s nuclear program and leave diplomatic policy to the six countries that have banded together to confront Tehran’s ambitions.

But several Western European officials echoed his concern, and said privately that they were worried that Mr. Cheney’s “red line” — the point at which he believed Iran was on the brink of acquiring a nuclear weapon and a military strike was necessary — may be coming soon. “We fully believe that Foggy Bottom is committed to the diplomatic track,” one European official said Wednesday, referring the State Department. “But there’s some concern about the vice president’s office.”

Dr. ElBaradei told the BBC that one could not “bomb knowledge.” Asked who the “new crazies” were, he said, “Those who have extreme views and say the only solution is to impose our will by force.”

Exactly one year ago on Friday, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France offered a package of incentives to Iran if it stopped enriching uranium, which Iran maintains is for peaceful purposes but which the West believes is directed toward a nuclear weapons program. Iran rejected the offer, and the United Nations Security Council has since passed two sets of sanctions aimed at forcing that country’s governing religious leadership to change its mind.

Ms. Rice was the one who prodded Mr. Bush last year to offer to reverse 27 years of American policy and join European talks with Iran over its nuclear program, provided that Iran suspended its enrichment of uranium. Some conservative hawks in the administration have privately expressed doubt that the diplomatic course would yield much.

Last week, the atomic energy agency issued a report detailing Iran’s progress in enriching uranium, and said that Iran had 1,300 centrifuges running during a surprise inspection in May. The report did say that Iran had fed only 260 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride into the machines for enrichment over the past few months, suggesting that the centrifuges were running quite slowly. But American officials have nonetheless called the report “alarming” because Iran is closing in on the 3,000 centrifuges needed to make a nuclear bomb.

Ms. Rice, traveling through Europe this week, refused to say where her “red line” is on Iran, and, when asked, maintained that she intended to continue to pursue the diplomatic course with Iran. In Madrid on Friday for a brief stop to try to mend the Bush administration’s tattered relations with Spain’s Socialist government, Ms. Rice was asked whether she could assure that Mr. Cheney did not want to use military action to deal with Iran.

“The most powerful set of disincentives that we have now are the collateral effects of Iran being under a Security Council resolution, which has made the private sector think twice about the investment and reputational risk of getting involved with Iran,” she said.

“I will tell you what will help to get us to a place where we don’t have an unpalatable choice,” she said. “We do have a choice, we have a diplomatic choice.”

Bush Demands Iran Free Detainees

WASHINGTON, June 1 (AP) — President Bush demanded Friday that Iran “immediately and unconditionally” release four Iranian-Americans detained for alleged espionage, and provide information about a former F.B.I. agent missing there.

“I strongly condemn their detention at the hands of Iranian authorities,” he said in a written statement. The United States has denied that the four detainees are spies.

The State Department on Thursday warned United States citizens against traveling to Iran, accusing its Islamic authorities of harassing Iranian-Americans.

European, Iranian envoys to meet again

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer

MADRID, Spain - Top envoys for Iran and the European Union ended talks Thursday with little indication they were closer to resolving a deadlock over Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, but they agreed to meet again in two weeks.

"Sometimes we are not able to move the process as we like, but in any case, the atmosphere continues to be very positive," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana after meeting with Ali Larijani, Iran's ranking nuclear negotiator.

Solana's comment appeared to be tacit acknowledgment that Iran refused to give way on international demands it suspend enrichment or face further U.N. Security Council sanctions.

In Vienna, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Tehran to heed the U.N. Security Council and freeze enrichment, saying Washington was ready for wide-ranging discussions if it complied.

"I think it's time for Iran to change its tactics," Rice told reporters in the Austrian capital, outside a conference on the role of women in the Middle East. If Iran does so, she said, "then we are prepared to ... sit with Iran and talk about whatever Iran would like to talk about.

"But that can't be done when Iran continues to pursue, to try to perfect technologies that are going to lead to a nuclear weapon," Rice said, alluding to the U.S. assertion that Tehran is seeking the cover of a peaceful nuclear program to make such arms.

U.S., Europeans Split at UN on How to Tighten Sanctions on Iran

By Bill Varner

May 23 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. diverged from its European allies today over how much more pressure to exert on Iran at the United Nations after a nuclear watchdog agency said existing sanctions aren't working.

``It is clear that what we have done so far has not been enough,'' U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters at the UN. ``The time has come to take a look at additional pressure, to ratchet up the pressure to bring about a change in the Iranian calculation.''

French and German envoys said they would support an ``incremental'' tightening of sanctions imposed on Iran in an attempt to halt uranium-enrichment and open its nuclear program to more scrutiny. ``I didn't use that word,'' Khalilzad said, while declining to speculate on what the U.S. would propose in a new measure on Iran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it is learning less about Iran's atomic work than before the Security Council imposed sanctions, increasing concern that Iran may be diverting uranium for military purposes.

The Vienna-based agency's ``level of knowledge of certain aspects of Iran's nuclear-related activities has deteriorated,'' read a four-page report released today. The deputy chairman of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Saeedi, told the official Iranian news agency that there is no obstacle to legal inspections of nuclear facilities by the IAEA. Saeedi said Iran had suspended some of its cooperation because its rights are being ignored by the UN.

The Security Council backed resolutions in December and March that imposed penalties on Iran for its refusal to stop its nuclear development work.

`Background Music'

German Ambassador Thomas Matussek described U.S. pressure for tougher sanctions as ``background music'' that the Europeans and the other Security Council member governments should resist.

``We really are in a very, very difficult and sensitive moment of time and we have to keep working and looking at all the possibilities,'' Matussek said. ``The solution cannot come from the sanctions track.''

The Security Council voted on March 24 to ask all UN member nations to ``exercise vigilance and restraint'' in the supply, sale or transfer of weapons to Iran and to deny Iran training or financial assistance that would be used to procure weapons. The measure said nations and international lenders such as the World Bank should stop giving grants, loans or other financial aid to Iran, except for humanitarian or development purposes.

Russian and Chinese envoys, whose governments have resisted sanctions, reacted cautiously to the IAEA report, repeating their position that a negotiated settlement of the matter is needed.

Paris Talks

Chinese Deputy Ambassador Liu Zhenmin said envoys of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.S. would meet before the end of May in Paris to discuss a diplomatic solution and ``if talks fail, what could we do in the Security Council.''

Other envoys said work in New York on a new resolution would await the June 6-8 Group of Eight summit of major economies in Germany and a meeting before the end of May between Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

``There is nothing much left to impose sanctions,'' Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo of South Africa, a Security Council member said. ``We have to rethink. We have to talk to them.''

`Atmosphere Has Changed'

Matussek said while the U.S. and the European governments don't fully agree on tactics, talks on a new resolution should be easier with Khalilzad leading the U.S. mission. Khalilzad is a Muslim born in Afghanistan who has served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iran.

``With the new ambassador here the atmosphere has changed in the sense that it makes it much easier to think of solutions together, to work as a team,'' Matussek said. ``He is a team player.''

Khalilzad's predecessor as U.S. envoy, John Bolton, was regarded by many diplomats as having a divisive impact on negotiations.

Iran suspended inspector access to military and research sites last year after the IAEA sent the country's case to the Security Council. The IAEA report found that Iran continues to enrich uranium, ignoring a 60-day deadline to stop issued by the Security Council on March 24. Iran has fed uranium gas into more than 1,300 centrifuges at its fortified underground enrichment plant in Natanz, according to the IAEA.

Centrifuges spin at high speeds, separating uranium isotopes that can be used to fuel nuclear power plants or arm an atomic weapon. Iran says it wants the uranium to generate electricity. The U.S. suspects Iran wants to build a bomb.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Varner in United Nations at wvarner@bloomberg.net .

U.S. urges complaint against IAEA chief

By GEORGE JAHN,
Associated Press Writer
Tue May 22,

VIENNA, Austria - The United States wants its allies to join in a formal protest against the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency for suggesting that Iran be allowed to keep some elements of its uranium enrichment program, diplomats said Tuesday.


They said Washington fears the comments from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency could undermine U.N. Security Council's effort to pressure Tehran into fully scrapping enrichment.

The Americans apparently are concerned Mohamed ElBaradei's statements could exacerbate traditional splits between Russia and China and the United States, Britain and France, the three other permanent Security Council members.

While the Western council members have traditionally pushed for tough sanctions on Iran, opposition by Moscow and Beijing has led them to settle for watered-down sanctions less rigid than they originally proposed since the first set was agreed on Dec. 23.

The U.S. mission to the IAEA had no immediate comment beyond confirming that mission head Gregory L. Schulte was in Washington for "consultations."

Diplomats, who insisted on anonymity because of the delicate nature of the issue, spoke to The Associated Press before the release of a report from ElBaradei that could act as a trigger for a third set of Security Council sanctions on Iran.

Their revelations exposed a hardening of positions on how to deal with Iran's enrichment program, which potentially could produce material for nuclear bombs. Iran denies that is its goal, saying it wants only to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that generate electricity.

In public remarks over the past two weeks, ElBaradei said he feels it is too late to force Tehran to scrap its enrichment program as demanded by the Security Council and argued instead for implementing inspection safeguards to prevent an expansion of the program.

"I believe that (U.N.) demand has been superseded by events," ElBaradei told the Spanish newspaper ABC. Instead, he said, "the important thing now is to concentrate on Iran not taking it to industrial scale."

Iran's ultimate stated goal is running 54,000 centrifuges to churn out enriched uranium — enough for dozens of nuclear warheads a year.

Some members of the IAEA's decision-making 35-nation board share ElBaradei's view. But the U.S. and its closest board allies, including Britain, France, Australia, Canada and Japan, fear such comments could weaken Security Council resolve on punishing Iran for defying the U.N. demand.

Agency officials refused to comment on details of the report ahead of its release to board members and the Security Council. But it was expected to confirm information leaked over the past weeks that Iran has demanded the demand for a suspension of enrichment and expanded that work.

With the council's deadline for Iranian compliance coming Thursday, the report could set the stage for further sanctions against the Islamic republic.

Despite Iranian insistence its nuclear program has only peaceful intentions, it has been hit with two sets of U.N. sanctions because of suspicions bred by nearly two decades of Tehran's clandestine nuclear activities, including questionable black-market acquisitions of equipment and blueprints that appear linked to weapons plans.

The diplomats said Tuesday that the IAEA's report would likely confirm that Iran has assembled more than 1,600 centrifuges at its underground facility at Natanz and is running about 1,300 of them, producing small amounts of uranium enriched to about 5 percent.

While that level is far below the 90 percent needed to produce weapons, the number of centrifuges running — and producing enriched material — is grounds for concern for the Security Council because it documents an expanding and functioning program.

The last report from ElBaradei three months ago put the number of connected centrifuges at around 1,000 and said no enrichment had begun.

One of the diplomats said the report would additionally likely suggest that Iranian experts had ironed out many of the glitches hamstringing enrichment efforts only a few months ago that had caused breakdowns in experimental, smaller-scale centrifuge operations.

"This is a program that is well on its way to full development," he said. "And if they can enrich to 5 percent, there is no potential limit to how high they can enrich.

Iran Flexible in Nuclear Talks

AMMAN, May 21--Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said Iran is ready to show flexibility in nuclear talks with Western powers in order to reach an agreement acceptable to all sides.

Mottaki told Alalam in Jordan that Iran welcomes negotiations "to remove any possible ambiguities and (guarantee) non-diversion of its nuclear activities" without a precondition.

Mottaki has already said "there is a high possibility that a meeting will take place in Spain" between top negotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana sometime between May 22 and May 31.

"In order to reach a comprehensive understanding in nuclear negotiations, we are flexible in the framework of the (UN) regulations," he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting on the Mideast.

"The only price we cannot pay is relinquishing the Iranian nation's right to acquire peaceful nuclear technology since the officials and the government are not allowed by the nation (on a compromise).

از شکاف هسته‌ای تا وداع آلمان با انرژی اتمی

شکاف هسته اتم ابتدا از جنبه نظامی حائز اهمیت بود

انرژی اتمی پس از جنگ جهانی دوم به تدریج به یکی از اجزای سبد تامین انرژی در کشورهای مختلف بدل شد. با بروز بحران نفتی اوایل دهه هشتاد، استفاده از این نوع انرژی در کشورهای غربی شدت و رونق بیشتری گرفت

انرژی اتمی پس از جنگ جهانی دوم به تدریج به یکی از اجزای سبد تامین انرژی در کشورهای مختلف بدل شد. با بروز بحران نفتی اوایل دهه هشتاد و افزایش بهای سوخت‌های فسیلی ، استفاده از این نوع انرژی در کشورهای غربی شدت و رونق بیشتری گرفت. با این همه عوارض محیطزیستی این نوع تولید انرژی و خطرات آن برای انسان و طبیعت از همان ابتدا اعتراضات و انتقاداتی ولو محدود برانگیخت. تشدید تدریجی این حرکت‌ها و مخالفت‌ها سرانجام در برخی از کشورها به صرفنظر کردن از انرژی اتمی منجر شد. اتریش و سوئد و ایتالیا در فاصله 1978 تا 1988 با همه‌پرسی از مردم این نوع انرژی را کنار گذاشتند و کشورهایی همچون استرالیا ، اتریش ، دانمارک ، یونان ، ایرلند و نروژ نیز اصولا علاقه‌ای به استفاده از این نوع انرژی نشان نداده‌اند.

چرنوبیل، نقطه عطف

به ویژه حادثه نیروگاه اتمی چرنوبیل که به مرگ عده زیادی از اهالی و پخش و نشر مواد رادیوآکتیو در فضای منطقه منجر شد تاثیر مهمی در بروز دیدگاه‌های منفی نسبت به استفاده از انرژی اتمی ایجاد کرد. اختلالات گاه خطرناک در کار این یا آن نیروگاه در سطح بین‌المللی و همچنین مشکل لاینحل دفن بی‌ خطر زباله‌های اتمی نیز در تشدید این بدبینی بی‌تاثیر نبوده است.

در آمريکا توسعه صنايع مربط به انرژی اتمی متوقف شده و از سال ۱۹۷۳ که‌ آخرين نيروگاه هسته‌آی ساخته شد به رغم مواضع مثبتی که گهگاه در باره لزوم گسترش کاربرد انرژی اتمی اعلام می شود چرخشی در توقف ساخت چنين نيروگاه‌هايی ايجاد نشده است.

در سال‌های گذشته آمريکا ظرفيت متنابعی از توليد برق را با کمک نيروگاه‌های غيرهسته ای ايجاد کرده است. تنها در فاصله ۱۹۹۹ تا ۲۰۰۲،‌ ۱۴۴ هزار مگاوت به ظرفيت شبکه برق آمريکا افزدوه شده است. برای توليد چنين ميزانی از برق به بيش از ۱۰۰ نيروگاه اتمی نياز است. تا آنجا که به سال‌ها و دهه‌های آتی مربوط می‌شود نيز، انتظار نمی رود که در بازارانرژی آمريکا دانشمندان اتمی اين کشور نقشی ايفا کنند. محققان آژانس اطلاعاتی انرژی ، وابسته به دولت ايالات متحده، در گزارش چشم‌اندازها انرژی که اواخر سال ۲۰۰۵ انتشار داده‌اند شفاف و بی هيچ ابهامی بر اين نکته تاکيد کرده‌اند:" بعيد است که تا سال ۲۰۲۵ ما شاهد ورود نيروگاه هسته‌ای جديدی به شبکه برق آمريکا باشيم."

شک یازده سپتامبر

با این همه، حوادث یازده سپتامبر و پس از آن باعث شد که آمریکا و اروپا به وابستگی خود به نفت و گاز مناطق بی‌ثبات و پیش‌بینی‌ناپذیری مانند خاورمیانه و روسیه نگاه منفی تازه‌ای پیدا کنند. در همین حال بحث در مورد اثرات مخرب استفاده از انرژی‌های فسیلی بر جو زمین هم در این سال‌ها شدت و حدت بیشتری یافته است. همه این عوامل، به علاوه برخی انگیزه‌ها و منافع اقتصادی، استفاده از انرژی اتمی را به عنوان یکی از انرژی‌های جایگزین دوباره در محور بحث‌ها قرار داده است. فنلاند سال 2002 به ایجاد یک نیروگاه اتمی جدید تصمیم گرفت. بعد از حادثه چرنوبیل این اولین باری بود که یک کشور اروپایی چنین تصمیمی اتخاذ می‌کرد. فرانسه نیز در سال‌های اخیر تصمیم مشابه‌ای گرفته است.

نقطه عطف رویکرد دوباره به انرژی اتمی، در سال 2006 درجریان اجلاس رهبران گروه هشت در سنت پترزبورگ بروز کرد. در یکی از بیانیه‌های این اجلاس کشورهای شرکت‌کننده بر لزوم استفاده گسترده از انرژی اتمی آشکارا تاکید نهادند. تنها آلمان بود که از امضای این بیانیه خودداری کرد. این کشور با تغییر قانون اتمی خود در سال 2002 گام در راه صرفنظرکردن از انرژی اتمی گذاشته است. به این ترتیب در آلمان هیچ نیروگاه اتمی دیگری نخواهد ساخت و نیروگاه‌های موجود آن نیز به تدریج تا سال 2021 خاموش خواهند شد.

Iran announces progress on atomic power plant

By Fredrik Dahl TEHRAN,
Reuters, May 20, 2007


Iran has started building its first domestically-made atomic power plant, a senior official announced on Saturday, and Tehran's foreign minister said nuclear talks with the EU were likely in Spain this month.

The deputy head of the atomic energy agency said the planned facility would have a capacity of 360 megawatt (MW), in a statement underlining Iran's determination to press ahead with its nuclear program despite Western suspicions.

"In the next decade Iran will be one of the most talked-about countries in the world regarding domestic nuclear energy," Mohammad Saeedi of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

Iran is in a deepening standoff with major powers over its nuclear program which the West fears is aimed at making warheads. Tehran says it wants only to produce electricity.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who has taken a lead role in Western contacts with Iran, has said it would "probably take years" to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Solana, a Spaniard, last met Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Turkey on April 25-26 and agreed to hold more talks in the next few weeks.

"There is a high possibility that it (a meeting) will take place in Spain," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the ILNA news agency.

He suggested it would be held sometime between May 22 and May 31. The official IRNA news agency had earlier said May 31 was the agreed date.

Ferguson: Iran Making Substantial Nuclear Progress (cfr.org)

Interviewee:	Charles D. Ferguson
Interviewer:	Lionel Beehner

May 18, 2007

Download Audio MP3

Charles D. Ferguson, fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, says Iran “is much further along in its nuclear program than many experts were predicting.” The evidence stems from a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, which suggests that Tehran has made substantial progress in its uranium-enrichment activities. Ferguson says “there are still a lot of ifs” about Iran’s technical ability to enrich uranium. He argues that three-thousand is the “number to keep in mind”—the number of operational centrifuges necessary “to in principal [give Iran] the capability to make weapons-grade uranium within a year.”

“That’s the threshold we should try to prevent Iran from crossing,” he says, adding that Iran, which barring setback could have two-thousand centrifuges running by the start of summer, may be two-thirds of the way there.

Ferguson says Washington’s demand that Iran first suspend its enrichment activities as a precursor to direct negotiations “has been a futile effort.” Instead, he suggests a framework that emphasizes “shared responsibilities”—that is, Tehran must ensure its program is peaceful and maintain rigorous safeguards, while Washington must provide security assurances and back away from sanctions aimed at toppling the Iranian regime.

Finally, Ferguson maintains that Iran does not want to run afoul of international frameworks like the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. “Iran wants to appear to remain a responsible international player and responsible actors stay within their treaty commitments,” he says. “Iran probably wants to walk up to a latent capability to make nuclear bombs within the treaty and they don’t want to show their hand yet.”

Critic of Iran’s Nuclear Policy Is Charged With Spying

By NAZILA FATHI, Published: May 3, 2007

TEHRAN, May 2 — A prominent critic of Iran’s nuclear policies over the past two years was arrested this week on spying charges, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported Wednesday.

The critic, Hossein Moussavian, who served as a senior nuclear negotiator until President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, was arrested after he appeared before a court Monday evening, Fars reported.

“He was arrested because of his ties with foreigners and for giving them information” about the country’s nuclear program, the news agency said, quoting an “informed source.” Mr. Moussavian is being interrogated, the source told Fars, and will not be released soon.

His arrest precedes a scheduled meeting of Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the international conference on Iraq in Egypt on Thursday.

At the time of his arrest, Mr. Moussavian was working at the Strategic Research Center, a research organization affiliated with the Expediency Council, which is headed by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president.

Iran has been locked in a dispute with the United Nations Security Council over its enrichment of uranium, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes but Western nations fear will be used in a bomb. The Security Council has passed two resolutions since December demanding that Iran cease enrichment and it imposed sanctions when it refused.

The next deadline for compliance is at the end of May. Mr. Moussavian had warned in an interview with the ISNA news agency earlier this year that the government should not ignore the United Nations resolutions, saying that they were mandatory for all United Nations members.

He also said the country would be pursuing its current nuclear policy even if a more moderate figure than Mr. Ahmadinejad had been elected president. That seemed to place responsibility for the policy squarely on the country’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final word on all state matters.