February 20, 2010
Give the UN credit where it’s due…even though it’s somewhat late in coming to the table. A report issued this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN watchdog for nuclear weapons,
explicitly voiced concern that Iran is trying to make a nuclear bomb, amid signs of fraying relations between the agency's inspectors and authorities in the Islamic Republic.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran last week produced its first batch of 20% enriched uranium, based on scientific data it was given by Iranian officials who plan to use the more highly purified nuclear fuel at a Tehran medical reactor.
The IAEA also said it had not yet resolved questions about documents that suggest Iran was engaged in experiments consistent with a clandestine nuclear program. Iran has called the documents forgeries.
Perhaps now the Obama administration and France will reconsider their respective dismissals of the notion that Iran is now capable of such enrichment. Yesterday, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, commented on the IAEA’s report:
“Mention of ‘Iran’ and ‘nuclear warhead’ in the same breath should stun even the most ardent appeasers out of their stupor.
“Each day responsible nations refuse to act brings an Iranian nuclear weapon one day closer. Years of ‘engagement’, offers of incentives, and empty threats have persuaded the Iranian regime that the U.S. and the West will do nothing to stop them.
“If we are to stop this nightmare from becoming a reality, the United States must immediately implement the strongest sanctions possible on Iran and not wait for other nations, individually or through the UN, to finally do the right thing and step up to the plate on sanctions.
“Iran’s crumbling energy sector is its Achilles’ heel. Congress must send to the President legislation targeting Iran’s import of refined petroleum.
“But the President does not need to wait. He has the authority to fully implement existing sanctions and impose further sanctions by executive order, and he needs to do so now.”
Ros-Lehtinen is the leading Republican co-sponsor of H.R. 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009, which mandates targeted sanctions against the Iranian regime to pressure Iran to suspend its nuclear weapons program, unconventional weapons and ballistic missile development, and support for violent Islamist extremism. The bill imposes sanctions on individuals, businesses, and governments helping Iran import refined petroleum products or contributing to Iran’s ability to develop its petroleum resources. The House overwhelmingly passed H.R. 2194 on December 15, 2009, and the Senate passed related legislation in late January.
Not surprisingly, Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected the report’s findings, claiming his nation does not believe in nuclear weapons and suggesting that the U.S. and Israel are trying to scare Iran’s neighbors so that they might buy weapons:
“Our neighbors know that these are false claims and that America and the Zionist regime are trying to create divisions and divert the attention of the Islamic world from their real enemies, which are the U.S. and Israel.”
Of course, comments from Iran’s president about wiping Israel off the map must have just been a quaint figure of speech.
Not just Israel, but Iran’s other immediate neighbors, also worry about a nuclear Iran:
For centuries, Persia – a heartland of Shiite Islam – has vied for control of the Middle East with the predominantly Sunni Arabs. But ever since Iran's popular revolution of 1979 that unseated the ruthless US-backed Shah Mohammad Pahlavi, Arab leaders have been spooked by thoughts of rebellious sentiment in Iran spilling over into their own backyards.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have always regarded their significant Shiite populations as being vulnerable to influence from Islamic leaders in Iran. The concentration of Saudi Arabia's Shiite population close to the country's crucial oil-producing regions, where any revolt would cause maximum damage to the Saudi economy, has only added to the anxiety felt at times by the ruling family.
They are also concerned about a catastrophic environmental disaster, considering Iran’s main nuclear facility is close to the Persian Gulf and far away from Tehran, the nation’s capital.
A nuclear Iran is no joke. In a rare display of sense, the UN has figured it out. Let’s hope the rest of the world figures it out before it’s too late.
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