IRAN: Nuclear showdown
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Monday’s the day the United Nations Security Council is supposed to consider slapping sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
The Washington Post, in a weekend story picked up by the LAT, desribed a stormy meeting in which International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors confronted Iranian officials with documents that purportedly showed Iran worked on sophisticated technologies normally used in a nuclear weapons program:
...the watchdog agency said that Tehran had not credibly explained documents that appeared to point to research programs devoted to uranium processing, high explosives and missile design — all of which can be used in making nuclear weapons.
Iran angrily rejected the documents as forgeries.
Iran is currently cooperating with international inspectors trying to figure out the nature of Iran’s nuclear program. In the past, it has warned that it might cease doing so if the U.N. comes up with more sanctions against Iran.
On Sunday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini refused to take a stance on what would happen in the event of a U.N. vote against Iran. ‘Let the resolution come and then, based on the content, we will decide,’ he told reporters.
Inside Iran more dissent emerged last week against the government’s headlong confrontation over the nuclear issue. Speaking at a foreign policy seminar in Tehran last Wednesday former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani harshly criticized the foreign policy of Presidnet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
There are norms in the world. That does not mean we should be submissive to the world. But we ought to act soft-spokenly and logically. What is the border between interaction, confrontation and submission? Have we managed to agree on these terms? We cannot afford to talk tough with the world. We should behave in a way in the diplomatic world that draws benefit for us and diminishes threat against us.
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Borzou Daragahi in Baghdad