As the crisis intensifies over Iran's race to develop nuclear weapons, the EU seems determined to repeat the credulous mistakes of the past. France Germany and Britain are studying a letter delivered by Tehran yesterday in which it pledged to suspend temporarily 'nearly all' uranium enrichment activities. They certainly need to study the fine print, because we've been here before. It's not just that Iran has strung the international community along on this matter for the past 18 years, but as the New York Times reports, Iran has promised something very similar before -- and it turned out to be bogus:

'The foreign ministers of the three countries brokered a deal, announced with much fanfare in Tehran 13 months ago. In it, Iran agreed to suspend its production of enriched uranium, which can be used in nuclear energy or nuclear weapons programs, and to submit to more intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities. After Iran violated the agreement, officials from the three countries acknowledged that the deal had been made too hastily and that the language of the final accord was too vague and open to misinterpretation.'

It is of course no coincidence that Iran has made this promise ten days before the IAEA is due to decide whether to refer Iran to thew UN Security council for possible sanctions. Iran's good faith on this matter therefore seems highly unlikely. But as this piece on US News points out, even if it was referred to the Security Council sanctions would probaly be blocked by China and Russia, which is helping Iran huild its nuclear reactor. There is also a suggestion, made by Henry Sokolski, Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Centre, that the EU deal is worse than useless because it would actually accelerate the making of a nuclear bomb because of its guarantee of a supply of fresh light-water-reactor fuel:

'Fresh, lightly enriched light-water-reactor fuel is far closer to being bomb grade than is natural uranium. If Iran were to seize the fuel and divert it--as it probably could without IAEA inspectors' immediate knowledge--Iran could reduce five-fold the level of effort it would need to make bomb-grade material: With the centrifuges Iran admits having, it could make a bomb's worth of fuel in roughly nine weeks as opposed to a year. This suggests that the IAEA's current cycle of inspections at Bushehr--once every three months--is woefully inadequate. Second, so long as Iran and other aspiring bomb-makers have a right to pursue all the activities necessary to get them within days of a bomb, they will have the upper hand in negotiations. Certainly, with Iran's enrichment facilities in place and its right to operate them uncontested, Tehran could suspend enrichment operations--as it has just agreed to do--and yet be free to resume them any time it wants. The worry now is that Iran will simply buy time with the European Three, to push for permission to exercise its right to enrich while building up its covert capabilities to do so.'

Nevertheless, President Bush apears to have given the EU initiative his blessing. This is because any military option to destroy Iran's nuclear programme is said to be logistically, as well as politically, extremely difficult. The problem is, Iran knows it. The US strategy has been to use Iraq to help strengthen the Iranian dissidents and thus topple the mullahs. But Iraq is not yet pacified, and time is running out. So what can or should be done?

Posted by melanie at November 15, 2004