Iran to Face UN Security Council

The five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council have decided that Iran’s nuclear ambitions need to be checked. Monday, the foreign ministers of the US, UK, France, Russia and China met and agreed to refer the case to the Security Council after the International Atomic Energy Agency issues a formal report in March. Iran suggested that that would end all diplomacy on the matter. Quite the reverse is true; this is when a settlement becomes possible.

There is no doubt that Iran is after The Bomb. As this journal has said time and again, the country is a pile of sand floating on a sea of oil; petroleum to Tehran is the 21st century version of coals to Newcastle. Moreover, the country has had delusions of grandeur since Alexander of Macedon crushed Darius III at Guacamole in the fourth century BC. The current president, the knuckle-dragging mullah’s-boy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a Fascislamic zealot of the highest order. Besides, Iran lives in a nuclear neighborhood, near Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel (and the US nuclear subs are in the Indian Ocean).

The trouble is finding a justification (a legal step above a pretext) for the UN to act. Iran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and therefore, has agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons. However, the treaty clearly states Iran can develop nuclear energy. Until Iran engages in an act of moving from energy to weaponry, it is hard to see why can’t legally do as it is doing.

The Russians, for reasons that are entirely selfish, have suggested a solution that Iran should grab with both hands. In order to make a modern nuclear power plant work better than the very first models, uranium must be enriched, which increases the concentration of the U-235 isotope. This also comes in handy when one is looking for two sub-critical masses of fissionable material to slam together in The Bomb. The Russians have offered to do all of the Iranians’ enrichment for them on Russian soil.

While giving up an immediate road to a fission weapon, Iran will get off the US-IAEA hook, create some electricity for its growing population, and be able to declare victory. Further down the road, it can always point to a record of good behavior, take over its own enrichment, and then build The Bomb it wants. Preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon is virtually impossible; the UN would be better served looking for a way to reduce Iran’s desire for building one. But as Dr. Einstein said, “Politics is more difficult than physics.”


© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home