Doug Lorimer
Speaking four days after Iran reactivated its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, US President George Bush told Israeli state television on August 12 that the US was determined "to make sure that Iran does not have a [nuclear] weapon" and that if diplomacy failed, "All options are on the table".
Asked if this included the use of military force, Bush responded: "The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country." This was a clear reference to the March 2003 US invasion of Iran's Arab neighbour Iraq — an invasion that Bush justified at the time by falsely claiming Iraq was secretly trying to build a nuclear weapon, in violation of its commitments under the nuclear weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Bush's implicit threat to carry out an Iraq-style invasion of Iran came in the wake of the breakdown of negotiations between Iran and the European Union — represented by Britain, France and Germany, the so-called EU-3 — over Iran's plans to develop the ability to enrich uranium, rather than having to rely on imported enriched uranium to fuel its nuclear power industry.
Iran's electricity needs are expected to double in the next 20 years to about 60,000 megawatts annually.
Iran has large oil reserves and the world's largest reserves of natural gas after Russia. However, Tehran wants to use these resources to maximise Iran's export income, and is planning to generate about 7000 megawatts of electricity from nuclear power plants for Iran's 68 million people.
Prior to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the US-installed dictatorship of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Washington had urged Iran to maximise its ability to export oil and gas by embarking on a program of producing electricity from nuclear power plants.
With Washington's backing, the Shah's government awarded a contract to Kraftwerk Union (a subsidiary of the German Siemens engineering firm) in 1974 to build two 1200-megawatt nuclear reactors at Bushehr, construction of which ceased when the Shah's regime was overthrown.
During its 1980-88 US-backed war against Iran, Iraq bombed the Bushehr plant six times. After the war ended, Tehran asked Kraftwerk Union to complete the Bushehr project. However, under
US pressure, Kraftwerk Union refused.
In March 1990, the Soviet Union signed an agreement with Tehran to complete the Bushehr project and build an additional two reactors in Iran. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia took over responsibility to complete the Bushehr project and to supply uranium to fuel the reactors.
In 1985, however, Iran had discovered a deposit of 5000 tonnes of uranium ore. Rather than import enriched uranium, Tehran decided to build a plant, at Isfahan, to convert powderised uranium ore ("yellowcake") into uranium hexafluoride gas, and a commercial-scale uranium enrichment facility, at Natanz, thus making the country self-sufficient in its nuclear fuel supply.
The NPT allows Iran to legally build any nuclear facility intended solely for peaceful purposes, including one for uranium enrichment, so long as it is declared to, and safeguarded by, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.
However, as part of laying the propaganda groundwork for a future Iraq-style invasion to restore a pro-US regime that will enable US corporations to take over Iran's huge oil and gas resources, Washington claims that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program.
IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei and his IAEA inspectors have been put into the same position as they — and Hans Blix's UN biological and chemical weapons inspectors — were in the lead-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq — chasing down every detailed allegation and suspicion raised by US officials.
Despite years of go-anywhere, see-anything inspections, ElBaradei has repeatedly told the 35-member-country IAEA board of governors that his inspectors have found nothing to indicate that Iran now has, or has ever had, or intends to have, a nuclear weapons program.
Yet Washington has continued to attempt to get the IAEA board to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for alleged breaches of the NPT and the IAEA safeguards agreement.
In an effort to see whether it could gain access to the EU's nuclear energy technology, last November Iran agreed to talks with the EU-3 to find a "mutually acceptable long-term arrangement" that would provide "objective guarantees" to the EU that Iran's nuclear program was exclusively for peaceful purposes, guarantee future EU-Iranian nuclear, technological and economic "cooperation", and provide "firm commitments" by the EU to Iran "on security issues".
While the EU-Iran negotiating agreement reaffirmed Iran's "inalienable right" under the NPT to acquire and operate — subject to the IAEA safeguards regime — any and all nuclear fuel-cycle facilities, Tehran agreed to suspend its uranium conversion activities, and invited the IAEA to verify that suspension, while the negotiations were being conducted.
US officials declared that the US would "support" the EU-3's negotiations, but indicated that if they failed, Washington would expect the EU to support its attempts to get the IAEA board to refer Iran to the UN Security Council.
In the negotiations, the EU-3 asked that Iran come up with a set of "objective guarantees" that went beyond the IAEA safeguards regime. Iran did so, asking an international team of experts, including, US scientists, to recommend such "objective guarantees".
On March 23, Iran offered a package of "objective guarantees" to the EU-3. The nine-page letter outlining this package was later posted, at Iran's request, on the IAEA website. Included in the package was a proposal for an unprecedented "continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at the conversion and enrichment facilities".
When the EU-3 failed to respond to Iran's proposals, Tehran announced that it would resume its uranium conversion activities at Isfahan, and requested the IAEA "be prepared for the implementation of the safeguards-related activities in a timely manner prior to the resumption" of these activities.
This announcement finally forced a response from the EU-3, which included an offer of an "assured supply of [nuclear] fuel over the coming years". But in return, the EU demanded that Iran make "a binding commitment not to pursue fuel cycle activities other than the construction and operation of light water power and research reactors", that is, to permanently renounce uranium conversion and enrichment.
In an attempt to blackmail Iran into accepting the EU-3 demands, EU officials called for an emergency meeting of the IAEA. On August 3, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the world would face a "major international crisis" if Iran rejected the EU's proposals. If Tehran didn't, and resumed uranium conversion, "then it is certain that the international community will ask the Security Council to intervene".
As it did prior to the US invasion of Iraq, the US corporate media has parroted the lies about Iran's nuclear program peddled by US officials.
The August 9 New York Times, for example,reported that "Iran has admitted to deceiving inspectors for 17 years about many of its activities, and the United States argues that those deceptions effectively negate its right to a full nuclear program and that they provide a basis for international sanctions". Iran, however, has made no such "admission" — it has only admitted to having disagreements with the IAEA on what the safeguards agreement required it to report to the IAEA.
The same day's Washington Post went further, running an editorial arguing that Iran's rejection of the EU-3 demands that Iran give up uranium conversion and enrichment proved that its aim is to build nuclear weapons: "Now there is no further room for obfuscation, and no further reason to give Iranians the benefit of the doubt: The real aim of the Iranian nuclear program is nuclear weapons, not electric power. Those in Washington and elsewhere who have always believed that the Iranians want nuclear weapons have a right to feel that their skepticism was justified ... Now, any steps taken to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons will have international credibility."
On the eve of the IAEA emergency board meeting, both EU and US officials had told reporters that their dispute with Iran could be taken to the UN Security Council, where international sanctions could be imposed on Tehran as punishment.
This, of course, was sheer bluster, since nothing Tehran had done breached the IAEA safeguards agreement. Indeed, last November the IAEA board had adopted a resolution recognising that Iran's suspension of uranium conversion activities was "not a legally binding obligation".
As a result, the most that the EU and the US could get from the emergency IAEA board meeting on August 11 was a resolution that expressed "serious concern" about Tehran's decision to resume uranium conversion activities, but contained no reference to a possible transfer of the issue to the UN Security Council.
From Green Left Weekly, August 24, 2005.
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