The Secretary General of the UN stated Iran must provide the United Nations with a confidence that their enrichment of uranium is for civil, peaceful purpose.
Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) — Iran hasn’t proven to the world that it has been developing nuclear technology exclusively for peaceful purposes, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.
“We still do not have full confidence what the real intention of the Iranian government is up to as far as their nuclear programs,” Ban said in an interview.
Now, this is not going to be easy for Iran to do at all - I’m not sure how it is possible. There is certainly no way to prove you are only using enriched uranium as fuel in your power-generating reactors without a great deal of oversight. The level of oversight Iran has bristled at in the past. Inspections alone will not be enough to accomplish this. The implication here is the United Nations - certainly most western governments - are going to remain suspicious of a nation which opens its parliamentary sessions with “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”; which supports terrorist organizations; and which has materially contributed to activities to perpetuate instability in Iraq. This is especially difficult when the “vindicative proof” Iran has stopped making weapons is coming under question (again - enriched uranium is dual use - take the questions with a grain of salt).
My thinking is that this statement by Secretary-General Moon has less to do with the extent of Iran’s nuclear ambition and more to the intent of Iran’s geopolitics in general. I am not a nuclear materials expert, but it would seem Iran is in the same boat Iraq was in. They have dual-use programs which have the capacity to produce weapons. Since their rhetoric is extremely violent in nature, it must be reasonably assumed they intend to make good on their threats.
What might clear all of this up - inject some confidence in the international community - is for Iran to make some definitive overtures of peace. Sign a peace agreement with Israel or the United States - and offer to re-establish full diplomatic relations. Iran could display a “we are sovereign, Islamic, and in disagreement with much of your western values - yet we are a nation at peace” relationship within the international community and the burden of proof of their peaceful intentions for enriched uranium would diminish greatly.
However, that would be like asking the KKK to make an overture of good intent to the NAACP, wouldn’t it? Things like this don’t help much either.
Subscribe to NPI
