 VIENNA - The UN nuclear watchdogÂ’s mixed assessment on IranÂ’s disputed nuclear activities suggests Teheran is willing to do only just enough to stave off further UN sanctions, analysts said on Friday.
“Iran has again provided just enough cooperation to try to buy a further reprieve from an additional Security Council resolution,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on non-proliferation at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. “It certainly is not enough for the US and Europe, for whom Iran’s ongoing current activity is more problematic than the lingering questions about the past,” Fitzpatrick told AFP.
“However, the level of cooperation Iran showed may be enough for Russia and China.”
| Undoubtedly it will be, since all three are partners in this escapade. |
While the United States has vowed in the wake of the report to press ahead with its drive for additional sanctions, China and Russia, who are also permanent members of the UN Security Council, are reluctant to back such a motion. In fact, according to the IranÂ’s official news agency IRNA on Friday, Russia has informed the IAEA that it is poised to deliver the first consignment of fuel for a nuclear power plant under construction at Bushehr on IranÂ’s Gulf coast.
| Once they get paid, of course. |
Simon Barrett, director and Iran expert at the London-based think tank, International Media Intelligence Analysis (IMIA), also believed that Iran was “simply buying time.” Teheran “wants to prove they’re cooperating with the UN, while at the same time expanding their enrichment activities. That brings them closer to the nuclear bomb.”
| Boy howdy that's a tough call. Buying time, you think? What was your first clue? |
An official close to the IAEA said the watchdogÂ’s inspectors had been able to confirm for the first time IranÂ’s claim that it had 3,000 centrifuges enriching uranium. That is the number scientists believe is sufficient, in ideal conditions, to produce enough enriched uranium in one year to make a single nuclear bomb.
In the report sent to its 35-member board on Thursday, the IAEA found that Iran had taken important strides in revealing the extent of its nuclear programme. But it was still defying UN demands that it suspend uranium enrichment and had also refused to sign the so-called Additional Protocol, a key document allowing unrestricted inspections. That made it difficult for IAEA inspectors to be certain there were no undeclared nuclear activities in Iran, the report complained.
| Which means they really have no clue what's going on in Iran, just as they had no clue in Libya, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan ... |
Indeed, the agency’s knowledge of Iran’s current nuclear activities was “diminishing”, the report warned. Trying to extract information from Iran was like trying to crack a nut, an IAEA official said. “You have to ask for the precise piece of information to get at it. It’s not thrown at you,” he said.
| We have a president who knows how to crack nuts ... |
The United States, which has long been pushing for further sanctions against Teheran, said the findings proved that Iran was just “stringing the IAEA along.”
In a telephone interview with AFP, the US ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, said: “Maybe they’ve shed some additional light on activities in the 80s and 90s, but we know less and less about what they’re doing in 2007.” Like every other country, Iran had “an obligation to cooperate with the IAEA. They don’t have the right to make that obligation conditional,” Schulte said.
The next step to further sanctions will come later this month with a second report by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. If SolanaÂ’s report finds that Iran is not cooperating sufficiently, the UN Security Council could vote for additional sanctions.
| Solana will fudge just enough to get the Euros off the hook, and even if he doesn't, Russia and or China will veto anything the Security Council tries to do. |
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, also believed that sanctions alone were not the answer. “The US and other states must recognise that sanctions alone will not convince Iran to comply or suspend its programme,” he told AFP. “Such pressure must be accompanied by direct engagement on a broad range of issues if a resolution to the crisis is to be achieved any time soon.”
| There's a simpler solution. Daryl doesn't know what it is, but we do. |
Kimball acknowledged that while the report showed progress in some important areas, “troubling questions” remained. “From this point forward, it is vital that Iran accelerate and enhance its cooperation with the IAEA to address the other issues in the workplan and agree to abide by the Additional Protocol in order to diminish concern and suspicion about the purpose of its enrichment and heavy water reactor projects,” Kimball said.
| Or else .. what, exactly? Problem with the do-gooders, the UN, the IAEA and the Dhimmicrats is that they aren't willing to say what, exactly, and then mean it. The Mad Mullahs™ know that and so work goes on. |
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