User:TransUtopian/Nuclear program of Iran part

Iranian viewpoint
Iranians say there is currently no evidence that Iran is using its nuclear power capabilities to produce nuclear weapons, and the known facilities do not have the capability to produce weapons grade material. Any other use outside peaceful energy production would be a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran ratified in 1970.

Iran says that nuclear power is necessary for a booming population and rapidly industrializing nation. It points to the fact that Iran's population has more than doubled in 20 years, the country regularly imports gasoline and electricity, and that burning fossil fuel in large amounts harms Iran's environment drastically.

Additionally, Iran wishes to diversify its sources of energy, which will eventually become depleted. In taking a stance that the Shah expresses decades ago, Iranians feel its valuable oil should be used for high value products, not simple electricity generation. Iran also raises financial questions, claiming that developing the excess capacity in its oil industry would cost it $40 billion, let alone pay for the power plants. Harnessing nuclear power costs a fraction of this, considering Iran has supplies of accessible uranium ore.

Dr. William O. Beeman, Brown University's Middle East Studies program professor, who spent years in Iran, says that the Iranian nuclear issue is a unified point of their political discussion:


 * The Iranian side of the discourse is that they want to be known and seen as a modern, developing state with a modern, developing industrial base. The history of relations between Iran and the West for the last hundred years has included Iran's developing various kinds of industrial and technological advances to prove to themselves--and to attempt to prove to the world--that they are, in fact, that kind of country.


 * The nuclear-power issue is exactly that. When Iranians talk about it, and talk about the United States, they say, "The United States is trying to repress us; they're trying to keep us down and keep us backward, make us a second-class nation. And we have the ability to develop a nuclear industry, and we're being told we're not good enough, or we can't". And this makes people furious--not just the clerical establishment, but this makes the person on the street, even 16- and 17-year-olds, absolutely boil with anger. It is such an emotional issue that absolutely no politician could ever back down on this question.

Dr. William O. Beeman also points out that the United States policy towards the Iranian nuclear program has shifted greatly from the 1970s:


 * "White House staff members, who are trying to prevent Iran from developing its own nuclear energy capacity and who refuse to take military action against Iran "off the table", have conveniently forgotten that the United States was the midwife to the Iranian nuclear program 30 years ago.


 * Every aspect of Iran's current nuclear development was approved and encouraged by Washington in the 1970s. President Gerald Ford offered Iran a full nuclear cycle in 1976. Moreover, the only Iranian reactor currently about to become operative, the reactor in Bushehr, was started before the Iranian revolution with U.S. approval, and cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium".

The Iran based newspaper Baztab recently reported that the United States had provided 5 kg of 19.7% enriched uranium to Iran before the revolution. The 1979 revolution marked a turning point in US policy, justified by a government that was becoming more fundamentalist and anti-Western. This previous involvment provided foreign countries the opportunity to keep tabs on the progress of the Iranian program, but since 1979 foreign involvement in the program is virtually null.

After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its plans to restart its nuclear program using indigenously-made nuclear fuel, and in 1983 the IAEA even planned to provide assistance to Iran under its Technical Assistance Program to produce enriched uranium. An IAEA report stated clearly that its aim was to “contribute to the formation of local expertise and manpower needed to sustain an ambitious programme in the field of nuclear power reactor technology and fuel cycle technology”. However, the IAEA was forced to terminate the program under U.S. pressure. 

Iran has a legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a right which in 2005 the U.S. and the EU-3 began to assert had been forfeited by a "clandestine" nuclear program that supposedly came to light in 2002. In fact, Iran's enrichment program was openly discussed on national radio, and IAEA inspectors had even visited Iran's uranium mines. . Iranian politicians compare its treatment as a signatory to the NPT with three nations that have not signed the NPT: Israel, India, and Pakistan. Each of these nations developed an indigenous nuclear weapons capability: Israel by 1968, India by 1974 and Pakistan by 1990.

All ground inspections of Iran have shown the same evidence; Iran is using its nuclear capabilities in context of the NPT and has not pursued nuclear weapons. However, there is evidence that Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan provided Iran with nuclear technology. The United States accuses Iran of seeking the "capacity" to build bombs, or obtaining technology which "could be" used to make bombs. In Paragraph 52 of his November 2003 report the Director-General of the IAEA confirmed that "to date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to above were related to a nuclear weapons program." After one more year and over tens of thousands of man-hours of inspections, El Baradei again confirmed in Paragraph 112 of his November 2004 report that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities." On January 31st 2006, the IAEA reported that "Iran has continued to facilitate access under its Safeguards Agreement as requested by the Agency...including by providing in a timely manner the requisite declarations and access to locations."

Zbigniew Brzezinski
From a speech delivered by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski on October 12, 2004, at the Johns Hopkins University entitled Threats, Dangers, and Uncertainties, which was sponsored by the Office of Force Transformation and the United States Navy as part of seminar series called the National Security in the 21st Century – Rethinking the Principles of War:


 * "Already a younger generation [in Iran] wants greater modernization in the society. This younger generation is more nationalistic than religious, and they want to play a role in the government. They want nuclear weapons if Israel has them and that is not an illegitimate view. Iran is now a serious country with a serious role and it does not have a record of irrational aggression".

However, the President of Iran recently called for Israel to be "wiped off the map"

Mordechai Vanunu
Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu on Iranian nuclear program:
 * "Under the control of the IAEA, Iran does not pose any threat. Western experts perfectly know the nature of the Iranian nuclear program, contrary to Israel, which does not let anyone enter its nuclear facilities. That is why Iran decided to take a step forward and to tell the world: “You can not demand more transparency from us while closing your eyes to what is happening in Israel!” As long as the world continues to ignore Israel’s atomic weapons, they will not have the moral authority to say anything about Iran. If the world is really concerned, if they want to put an end to nuclear proliferation, then they have to start from the beginning, that is, Israel".

Fatwas about production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons on August 9, 2005. The text of the fatwa has not been released although it was referenced in an official statement at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. 

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on October 31, 2003, that Grand Ayatollahs, like Ayatollah Yousef Sanei, and Iranian clerics led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have repeatedly declared that Islam forbids the development and use of all weapons of mass destruction. SFGate.com quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying: "The Islamic Republic of Iran, based on its fundamental religious and legal beliefs, would never resort to the use of weapons of mass destruction. In contrast to the propaganda of our enemies, fundamentally we are against any production of weapons of mass destruction in any form."

On February 16, 2006, the reformist Internet daily Rooz reported for the first time that an extremist cleric from Qom had issued what the daily called "a new fatwa," which states that "shari'a does not forbid the use of nuclear weapons."; However, on February 21, 2006, the same cleric denied such reports quoting him as saying that the use of nuclear weapons is allowed. The cleric restated that Islam forbids use of nuclear weapons in an interview with IRNA