The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Iran on the brink?
When a partisan publication such as the New York Times reports things are bad with Iran, you can rest assured they are pretty bad indeed:
Iran refused today to abandon plans to operate uranium enrichment equipment that could be used either for energy purposes or in a nuclear bomb-making project, European and Iranian officials said.
The Iranian refusal threatened to scuttle a nuclear agreement that Iran reached 10 days ago with France, Britain and Germany to freeze all of Iran's uranium enrichments activities, European officials said. It also gave new ammunition to the Bush administration, which contends that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program and cannot be trusted.
The impasse coincided with the opening of crucial meetings to review Iran's nuclear program at the International Atomic Energy Agency here, the United Nations nuclear monitoring body that has the authority to refer Iran to the United Nations for possible censure or sanctions.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency chief, said in a speech today that Iran has so far failed to meet its pledge to freeze uranium enrichment in full because of its insistence on operating 20 centrifuges for research.
Centrifuges are machines that spin at supersonic speed to purify or enrich uranium for use in nuclear reactors. But when uranium is enriched to a very high degree, it can be used in a nuclear weapon.
Noting Iran's long history of concealment of its nuclear activities, Dr. ElBaradei also said: "A confidence deficit has been created, and confidence needs to be restored. Iran's active cooperation and full transparency is therefore indispensable."
He also expressed the hope that the dispute would "resolve itself" by Friday, and one of his aides said Dr. ElBaradei was pressing the Iranians to back down.
But the new Iranian demand, included in two formal letters to the agency, has caught the Europeans in a bind.
On the one hand, the Europeans have stated that their deal must stand as is and have told the Iranians that an exemption for any reason is unacceptable.
On the other hand, they are eager to salvage their hard-won deal and have already softened language in a draft resolution critical of Iran's nuclear activities that is to be passed by the 35 countries that make up the agency's governing board.
"Someone is going to have to back down," one Western diplomat involved in the negotiations said. "Both Iran and the Europeans are in a very tough spot right now."
In a blow to the Bush administration's efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear activities, France, Britain and Germany have rejected more than a dozen American proposals for a more harshly worded resolution against Iran, diplomats involved in the negotiations said.
Among the rejected proposals was a threat to take Iran to the Security Council for possible censure or even sanctions if it resumed any enrichment-related work, the diplomats said.
The Europeans told the Americans that such a threat would be incompatible with their agreement with Iran, which requires Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities in return for possible rewards that would be negotiated over time.
Another proposal rejected by the Europeans was a much softer amendment that would have welcomed Iran's decision on the suspension of its enrichment activities as a "confidence-building measure" but also would have formally notified the Security Council of the agreement reached with the Europeans. For the Americans, that move at least would have put the Iran nuclear issue on the Security Council's agenda and made it easier to debate the matter there.
American officials said they were told that their proposals would go against the spirit of the recent accord. When the American delegation questioned the wisdom of that approach, they were repeatedly told by their European allies that the United States would have to trust them.
France, Britain and Germany, which are leading the drafting of the resolution, said they would not formally introduce it for consideration by the 35 countries unless the agency could certify that Iran had frozen all of its enrichment activities.
European officials said they were convinced that the Iranians were using their demand to perform enrichment research as a bargaining chip to wrest last minute concessions in the resolution.
"We think it's grandstanding," one British official said. "But the Iranians should know there is no room for exceptions. The agreement is set in concrete."
Indeed, members of the Iranian delegation suggested to reporters and other delegates that they would be willing to drop their new demand in exchange for a weaker resolution.
But the European trio was sufficiently alarmed that it told a meeting of delegations of the world's major industrialized countries today that the deal would be "null and void" unless the Iranians relented, participants in the meeting said.
How easy will it be to take out the known sites...and will we do so? This may be one of the most important questions in this war on Iranian jihadists.
Iran refused today to abandon plans to operate uranium enrichment equipment that could be used either for energy purposes or in a nuclear bomb-making project, European and Iranian officials said.
The Iranian refusal threatened to scuttle a nuclear agreement that Iran reached 10 days ago with France, Britain and Germany to freeze all of Iran's uranium enrichments activities, European officials said. It also gave new ammunition to the Bush administration, which contends that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program and cannot be trusted.
The impasse coincided with the opening of crucial meetings to review Iran's nuclear program at the International Atomic Energy Agency here, the United Nations nuclear monitoring body that has the authority to refer Iran to the United Nations for possible censure or sanctions.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency chief, said in a speech today that Iran has so far failed to meet its pledge to freeze uranium enrichment in full because of its insistence on operating 20 centrifuges for research.
Centrifuges are machines that spin at supersonic speed to purify or enrich uranium for use in nuclear reactors. But when uranium is enriched to a very high degree, it can be used in a nuclear weapon.
Noting Iran's long history of concealment of its nuclear activities, Dr. ElBaradei also said: "A confidence deficit has been created, and confidence needs to be restored. Iran's active cooperation and full transparency is therefore indispensable."
He also expressed the hope that the dispute would "resolve itself" by Friday, and one of his aides said Dr. ElBaradei was pressing the Iranians to back down.
But the new Iranian demand, included in two formal letters to the agency, has caught the Europeans in a bind.
On the one hand, the Europeans have stated that their deal must stand as is and have told the Iranians that an exemption for any reason is unacceptable.
On the other hand, they are eager to salvage their hard-won deal and have already softened language in a draft resolution critical of Iran's nuclear activities that is to be passed by the 35 countries that make up the agency's governing board.
"Someone is going to have to back down," one Western diplomat involved in the negotiations said. "Both Iran and the Europeans are in a very tough spot right now."
In a blow to the Bush administration's efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear activities, France, Britain and Germany have rejected more than a dozen American proposals for a more harshly worded resolution against Iran, diplomats involved in the negotiations said.
Among the rejected proposals was a threat to take Iran to the Security Council for possible censure or even sanctions if it resumed any enrichment-related work, the diplomats said.
The Europeans told the Americans that such a threat would be incompatible with their agreement with Iran, which requires Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities in return for possible rewards that would be negotiated over time.
Another proposal rejected by the Europeans was a much softer amendment that would have welcomed Iran's decision on the suspension of its enrichment activities as a "confidence-building measure" but also would have formally notified the Security Council of the agreement reached with the Europeans. For the Americans, that move at least would have put the Iran nuclear issue on the Security Council's agenda and made it easier to debate the matter there.
American officials said they were told that their proposals would go against the spirit of the recent accord. When the American delegation questioned the wisdom of that approach, they were repeatedly told by their European allies that the United States would have to trust them.
France, Britain and Germany, which are leading the drafting of the resolution, said they would not formally introduce it for consideration by the 35 countries unless the agency could certify that Iran had frozen all of its enrichment activities.
European officials said they were convinced that the Iranians were using their demand to perform enrichment research as a bargaining chip to wrest last minute concessions in the resolution.
"We think it's grandstanding," one British official said. "But the Iranians should know there is no room for exceptions. The agreement is set in concrete."
Indeed, members of the Iranian delegation suggested to reporters and other delegates that they would be willing to drop their new demand in exchange for a weaker resolution.
But the European trio was sufficiently alarmed that it told a meeting of delegations of the world's major industrialized countries today that the deal would be "null and void" unless the Iranians relented, participants in the meeting said.
How easy will it be to take out the known sites...and will we do so? This may be one of the most important questions in this war on Iranian jihadists.
