Barbarians With Nuclear Weapons, Part 6
Topic: Nuclear Terrorism
On Tuesday Peter Brookes, a senior fellow for National Security Affairs at the Heritage Foundation wrote of Iran's nuclear weapons cat-and-mouse game with the International Atomic Energy Agency:
The question is: What to do?
The administration clearly has its hands full with Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan and terrorism. Dealing with Iran would be serious business as well. And there is a reasonable argument for letting the EU Three's position of gentle coercion play out a bit more.
Problem is, time is on Iran's side. The longer they can keep the program going, the more progress the mullahs can make toward the bomb.
The prospects for keeping the Iranian Pandora's box closed look pretty bleak. The EU's agreement appears doomed to failure. The Iranian case is particularly troubling because of the regime's sponsorship of international terrorism and its close alliance with Syria, another nuclear aspirant.
Iran has been threatened before about being dragged before the Security Council, but threats demonstrably didn't win compliance. So it's probably high time to actually involve the council.
Multilateral sanctions might do the trick. Economic sanctions can be painful and have worked in the past. Libya is (seemingly) turning over a new leaf because of them. North Korea is begging for aid because of sanctions. And sanctions clearly hurt Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs.
But continued threats, without genuine action, are as meaningless as Iran's promises have proven to be.
Keeping the bomb in the box is a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.
Yet Tuesday night the AP reported the US has acquiesced to European pressure and will attempt to strike cold fear into the mad mullahs with, brace yourself, a not-so-sternly-worded resolution:
Accepting painful compromises, the United States agreed with key European nations on Tuesday to tone down criticism of Iran for its continued nuclear secrecy.
Washington also accepted a draft resolution containing some praise of Tehran's willingness to open its nuclear programs to outside inspection.
Both sides signed off on the draft document prepared for a high-level conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency after days of grueling negotiations aimed at finding the proper mix of praise and criticism.
The United States insists Iran is interested in making nuclear weapons. Washington wanted the meeting to condemn Iran for not fully living up to pledges to reveal all past and present nuclear activities while keeping open options for future involvement by the U.N. Security Council.
France, Germany and Britain, however, wanted to focus on Iranian cooperation with the IAEA that began only after the discovery last year that Tehran had plans to enrich uranium and secretly conducted other tests with possible weapons applications over nearly two decades.
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters negotiations continued on final language. The text of the document still must be approved by all 35 nations of the IAEA board of governors.
Permit me to speak to the IAEA and European and US leadership in the words of the beleaguered history teacher Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High: "Are all you people on dope???"
Does anyone with two brain cells to rub together believe for one moment that Iran will be moved to compliance by anything less than sanctions and the open threat of military action? Does anyone believe that, once the ruling lunocrats have stalled long enough to complete their Manhattan project, they will hesitate for one second before using their shiny new nuclear Islamic bomb(s) on the US and/or Israel?
This problem will be solved only by pervasive, intrusive inspections throughout Iran, something the existing regime will never permit while it has the quite rational hope of achieving nuclear capability by exploiting the IAEA's seemingly infinite patience.
Use our Take Action page to advise President Bush and your representatives of your support for stern measures, including sanctions and military action, to enforce a no-nascent-nukes policy toward Iran.
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Posted by Tim
at 12:43 AM EST
Updated: Monday, April 26, 2004 7:41 AM EDT