Bronwen Maddox says reining-in Iran's ambitions could also help others to explore alternative fuels in this article in TimesOnline, with thanks to Interested.
IN FOUR months of extravagantly bad-tempered diplomacy, Iran’s new President has pulled off one small success. He has sidestepped a fight with the rest of the world tomorrow over his country’s nuclear plans.That shows a flicker of an instinct for self-preservation by President Ahmadinejad — one of the few compliments that it is possible to pay him since his election in June.
The reprieve, even if temporary, may have a wider benefit, too. It may sketch out an answer to a problem growing more obvious by the day: how to prevent the world’s renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power leading to the spread of nuclear weapons...
One senior European official said it was reassuring that there was "a great deal of common ground". All the countries agreed that there should be a "significant gap in the fuel cycle" — Iran should not be allowed to master all the techniques for making reactor fuel, which would also give it the expertise for making weapons. The plan for the moment, then, is to push Russia’s proposal of a fortnight ago. Iran would be allowed to prepare uranium in the form of gas, but enrichment of uranium into reactor fuel and reprocessing of fuel rods (another route to a bomb) would be done in Russia.
We’ll see. Iran has avoided rejecting this, a move one European official called "tactically sensible". But it also wants to press ahead with its enrichment plant at Natanz...
At worst the Russian proposal has taken the heat off Iran. But at best it will have pointed the way to a solution for other countries wanting an alternative to expensive gas and oil...
Bush made the wrong call with Russia. The heat needs to stay ON.
Aid and Comfort to the Enemy:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20292
Yet another busy day, stay safe everyone!
Nuclear is the fuel of the future - so what? - Iran has to be shut down now.
A new nuclear crusade could be enriching...
Constaninople, you couldn't be more wrong. Iran's nuke program is nothing like Iraq's was in 1981. Osirak was above ground, centralized and included nearly all of the working laboratories for Saddam's nuclear weapons program. It was a sitting duck target with minimal defense installations. By contrast, Iran's program is dispersed, much of it underground, possibly deep inside mountains, and all of it well defended.
Add to that the fact that the whole region is different than it was 25 years ago. The Arabs now have much better radar technology and Iran even has a spy satellite hovering over Israel.
Also, Israel's present leadership is nothing like Menachim Begin's. It is timid, afraid of "world opinion" and a lap dog for foggy bottom. While the IDF have been conducting excersizes with Iran's nuclear sites in mind, politically, Israel will not risk a repeat of the universal condemnation it received as thanks for destroying Osirak in 1981. Plus, Iran controls Hizbullah, with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles aimed at Israel from Lebanon. In 1981, Israel had the security zone in Lebanon to minimize this threat, but today, Hizbullah is capable of doing serious damage to numerous northern Israel population centers. This fact is not lost on Israel, and any strike at Iran would have to be accompanied by a fairly large scale ground incursion into Lebanon. This could bring Syria into action. In short, this is no four-jet overnight operation. It would look more like a small war, and it would look like Israel started it, similar to 1967 (even though in both cases the actions were/would be pre-emptive).
Nor does it appear that Israel's March '06 election will change that. I am fairly sure that if Israel looked in 1981 like it looks today, Osirak would have been unmolested, and Saddam would have long ago gone nuke.
A more serious and realistic way to deal with a nuclear Iran, which is inevitable, is for Israel to continue to develope its second-strike capability by continuing to build its nuke-capable submarine fleet. Iran's president has expressed his willingness to absorb a one-for-one exchange of nukes with Israel, in which both would suffer five million casualties, destroying Israel, but leaving a viable Iran. By making sure that second-strike capabilities would obliterate Iran, Israel can preserve its WMD deterent.
"Iran's new president has pulled off one small success. He has sidestepped a fight with the rest of the world over his country's nuclear plans".
I don't think Iran has sidestepped a fight, I think the rest of the world has sidestepped a fight. These European diplomats are so pathetic. How can they think that Russia will be of assistance when Russia is the one providing most of the technology? Do you ever think these "diplomats" will take this to the security council or will they allow Iran to simply runn out the clock?
Let's face the fact that Iran is going to get the bomb and act accordingly.
Iran should be told that we will hold them responsible for any detonation of nuclear weapons by terrorists against a US city regardless of whether we can prove that it was their bomb. I can imagine Iran subcontracting to a jihadist group to blow up a US city and then denying they had anything to do with it.
Iran should be made aware that radioactive fallout from nuking Israel would impact all the surrounding Arab states as well as the Palastinians. Isreal should also inform them that there would be massive retaliation against all of Iran as well as Palestine and even Mecca. Even this might not be enough to effect these fanatical jihadists.