Nuclear Roulette
The problem is that the IRI's priorities do
not suite the needs of the nation or the security of the world
September 9, 2004
iranian.com
The question of the Islamic Republic of Iran's apparent eighteen-year
covert activity to acquire the full cycle of nuclear capability,
albeit for "peaceful applications", is the most talked
about urgent foreign policy dilemma on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the past few months, leading up to the upcoming September
13th International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board meeting,
a slew of increasingly dogmatic statements have been issued
by the functionaries of the Tehran regime.
To heighten the importance of a resolution to the "crisis" Israel
has let it be known that she will not stand idle while a fundamentalist
regime with the publicly stated goal of "annihilating" the
Jewish state becomes a nuclear power, more so since it also
has a ballistic missile delivery system to actuate its doomsday
threat.
As it has become the custom of the IAEA, few weeks prior to
every board meetings the details of its upcoming "confidential" reports
are usually dribbled out by multiple unnamed sources with differing
agendas. Based on those tidbits, one can surmise that last
year's deal between the big three EU foreign ministers who
traveled to Tehran and the Islamic regime has come to naught.
The crux of the Sa'dabad memorandum was for Tehran to immediately
freeze and eventually forgo indigenous production activity
of refining fissile material in lieu of Western equipment and
technical assistance in the application of the civilian nuclear
technology.
 With the discovery of Islamic regime's
ongoing domestic manufacturing of an advanced centrifuge than
was admitted to, thanks to an opposition group's sleuthing
and not the IAEA nor any Western intelligence agency's findings,
the last nail was put into the coffin of the memorandum.
That is where things stand now; Tehran is bickering on the
wording of the signed memorandum and is reinterpreting the
definition of "is" and the troika is reminding Tehran
of what it could gain by abiding it.
If the regime's past actions offer any clues to its future behavior,
it is almost a certainty that in face of a united and resolute opposition,
to buy time, it will back down. Just as it did after vehemently denying
that it "will ever sign the additional protocol" to NPT (Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty) it did so with a whimper. Therefore,
the question is not whether the fundamentalist Islamic regime can be
compelled to signs this, that or the other memorandum, treaty or amendment,
the germane query is to what end.
If the aim were to change or modify regime's behavior through
the signing of such legal instruments, clearly it has been
an exercise in futility. And if delaying the imposition of
a fundamental change to the equation is the goal, it might
soon be a penny short and a day late.
The fundamentalist regime's lobbyists and some others try to formulate
the equation in a way that any plausible answer except their desired
one seems moot. They claim that the majority of Iranians of all
political persuasions crave a nuclear armed Iran, if for no other reason
than for nationalistic pride, therefore, any regime in Iran would pursue
this national mandate.
This assertion is made in light of the fact that conducting
any unauthorized public opinion survey is a punishable crime
in the Islamic Republic, a former regime loyalist and a hostage
taker is currently languishing in jail for precisely such "crime",
ergo, any substantiating survey is tainted by the virtue of
being a regime approved and messaged data.
It is further opined that any and all attempts to curb the "research
for peaceful purposes" activities of the Islamic regime
would force it to pull out of the NPT and do as the North Koreans
did. This too is disingenuous for myriad of reasons, least
of which being that the Islamic Republic needs every dime of
its export earnings to pay for its rent-a-supporters who have
long lost the ideological zeal to defend it without pay.
Some also erroneously claim that to alleviate the current
black and brownouts nuclear powered electric generation would
be the cheapest method. Aside from the serious flaw in the
cost analysis of nuclear vs. traditional methods, what they
fail to take into account, as the survivors of the Bam earthquake
of nine months ago can testify to it from th eir ramshackle
tents, Iran is an earthquake prone country.
The idea of building such potentially catastrophic facilities
should it leak after one of the many earthquakes, is just playing
Russian Roulette with lives of not only the current generation
of inhabitants of Iran and neighboring countries, but also
forfeiting the future use of the effected areas and all
their natural resources for years to come. Iran is blessed
with abundance of oil, gas, wind, sun and fantastic brains
to use them equitably for power generation.
The problem is that the current fundamentalist regime's priorities do
not suite the needs of the nation or the security of the world. It is
high time to forget the foolhardy dream of this regime being reformable
in any of its many skins, be it hard line, pragmatic, pragmatic conservative,
pragmatic fanatic or the dreamiest of them all, reformist. All the rest
have been tried and failed miserably; it is time, high time, to try the
best.
 For the price of a few cruise missiles many indigenous
democratic movements in Iran can be helped in their noble endeavor. This
regime is loathed by the Iranians and by their capable hands
it will be discarded. Outside help would expedite this eventuality
much sooner than the often missing-the-boat inept Western intelligence
agencies can ever fathom.
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