IRAN: Bracing for renewed pressure on nuclear program
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The U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog is set to hand its latest report on Iran’s nuclear program to its governing board on Monday. And word on the street is that the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors’ report will come down somewhat harshly on Tehran, just as the U.N. Security Council is about to start pondering another round of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Today the pro-government Farsi-language Iranian news website Raja News sounded the alarm about the upcoming report:
It seems tomorrow, Monday, the IAEA will submit an announcement that Iran has not cooperated in the verification process of nuclear activities and by using that pretext will add pressure on Iran.
There are no permanent friends in nuclear politics. Though Iranian officials once hailed Egyptian diplomat and IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei as a savior, Raja News now accuses him of ‘fanning the flames’ against Iran. The news agency is close to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s political faction.
The Raja News report doesn’t offer up any sources for its gloomy forecast. But the Reuters news agency, too, in a report out of Vienna on Friday, said diplomats were gearing up for an IAEA assessment that would take Iran to task for stonewalling the agency in its attempts to clear up lingering questions about its nuclear program.
Iran has already confirmed that it has upgraded its nuclear facilities. It has boosted its ability to produce enriched uranium by about 18%, adding 500 machines to the 3,000 it already had working, and it’s installed 500 more. The highly sensitive material can be used to power an electricity plant or, if highly concentrated, fuel an atom bomb. In theory, about 3,000 centrifuges operating continuously for a year can produce enough nuclear material for one bomb.
The U.S. and most Western arms-control experts suspect that Iran is trying at least to acquire the ability to quickly build a nuclear weapon, an allegation Iranian officials vehemently deny.
In a column published by the English-language pro-government Iran Daily, Armin Hedayati writes that the Bush administration is preparing a big push against Iran in the fall but points out that Russia’s tensions with the West over the recent conflict in Georgia could play to Tehran’s advantage:
The rumor mill has it that in this new phase, Bush’s America will try to push for tighter sanctions against Iran in the U.N. Security Council under the pretext that Tehran has refused to respond to a package proposed by six powers. What has increased concerns in the U.S.-led Western camp this time is the possibility of Russia refusing to cooperate with the pro-Israeli West against Iran. The case of Moscow’s change of heart is built primarily on the dangerous developments unfolding in the Caucasus for the past five weeks.
Indeed, there seems to be some kind of coalescing of Moscow’s and Tehran’s interests. Russian, Iranian and Syrian officials met in Moscow Friday for sensitive talks. Moscow and Damascus are planning to reinvigorate a Soviet-era naval base in Tartus along Syria’s Mediterranean coast. And Iran and Russia hope to complete the construction of the light-water nuclear reactor in the Iranian port city of Bushehr.
Right now Russia seems reluctant to sell Iranians and Syrians advanced weapons. But any U.S. or Western pressure on Iran must take into account the reemergence of a newly emboldened Russia trying to project power beyond its borders, and perhaps looking for opportunities to increase its leverage over the West.
— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut and Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran
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