Should Iran Be Allowed Nuclear Power?

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The whole arguments - if we can call them such - are based on, (1) Iran wastes energy, and if it does not, it will not need nuclear energy, and (2) sheer propaganda, half truths, and exaggerations.

Let's take up the first one. We are a nation that drives SUVs that devour gasoline like there is no tomorrow. We are a nation that, with 4% of the world's population, consumes 25% of the total energy of the world. We are a nation that has so far wasted $600 billion on the invasion of Iraq (and the waste is continuing, probably until we have wasted $3 trillions) while the good people of New Orleans languished, and while 49 million people and 5 million children are uninsured. We are a nation that rewards the Wall Street's greed with over $1 trillion in handouts. Yet, the expert allows himself to lecture about the "wastes" in Iran's consumption of energy. The argument is really "strong."

Iran, like any nation, has some wastes in its energy consumption. But, the most important reason for importing gasline is that, its explosive population growth in the 1980s was not accompanied with constructing enough refinaries to produce enough gasoline. Why? Simply because the U.S.' sanctions have prevented it.

Iran's huge natural gas rerserves have remained undeveloped, because in large part the U.S. sanctions that have scared foreign companies to invest in Iran's oil and gas industry. So, on the one hand, the U.S. argues that Iran has a lot of oil and gas reserves to produce energy, but, on the other hand, has prevented their development. The U.S. has tried hard to prevent even the construction of a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India - a pipeline dubbed the Peace Pipeline by Geroge Perkovich of the Carnegioe Endowment. Yet, the expert lectures us about Iran's "wastes."

Most importantly, we "lecture" Iran, a proud nation with 4000 years of written history and many glorious contributions to human cuivilization, about its wastes. I supposed we have forgotten that Iran is a sovereign nation. Iran, and only Iran, can decide how and where to invest and develop. It neither needs lecturing nor patronizing.

But, the expert does not end the lecture there. He also presents half truths, half-baked half truths, and exaggerations. Consider the followings:

He says that Iran has refused to comply fully with the safeguards inspections of the IAEA.

The reality? After the most intrusive inspections of any NPT member state in the entire history of the IAEA, the agency could identify only 6 MINOR breaches of Iran's Safeguards Agreement, none of which was found by the IAEA to "further a military purpose," in the precise language of the SG Agreement. And, in its February 2008 report, the IAEA declared the suue of the 6 breaches as resolved.

The expert also claims that Iran refuses to comply fully with the Additional Protocol of its SG Agreement.

I suggest that the expert first take a crash course on such Agreement and equip himself with the required knowledge, and then make a statement about them.

(i) The AP is NOT part of the original SG Agreement that Iran signed with the IAEA. Its signing is VOLUNTARY. Iran, as a sovereign nation, has the right to refuse signing the AP, if it chooses to.

(ii) But, Iran did, in fact, signed the AP in October 2003, part of the Sa'ad Abad Agreement between Iran and the three European nations (Britain, France, and Germany). Although international laws allow Iran not to carry out the provisions of the AP BEFORE IT IS RATIFIED BY IRAN'S PARLIAMENT, Iran did, in fact, carry out its obligations on a VOLUNTARY basis until February 2006. Then, since negotiations with the EU-3 did not go anywhere, Iran suspended its VOLUNTARY compliance with the AP, to which it is fully entitled, as the AP has not been ratified yet.

So, the whole claim about Iran not complying fully with the SG Agreement and the AP is simply false.

Why did Iran stop its VOLUNTARY compliance? Because, as a European diplomat said, "we offered Iran a beautiful but empty box of chocolates." They wanted Iran to give up HARD FACTS ON THE GROUND in return for some vague promises in the distant future.

(iii) The expert claims that, since Iran has dispersed its nuclear facilities around Iran, it just indicates its evil intentions. 

Here is the essence of the "argument": Because the U.S. has made it clear that Iran should not have any enrichment at all, and has tried to prevent it since 1985, the "stupid" Iranians learned  their lesson from destruction of Iraq's Osirak's reactor by Israel - OUR ALLY - and dispersed their facilties! That goes to show that they have evil intentions. Yes, they should have built their facilities in such a way that they would be sitting ducks for foreigners attacking them.

Well, I have some news: Iranians may be anything, but not stupid!