Iran is actively producing enriched uranium using gas-centrifuges, with some tests indicating the presence of weapons-grade uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly ruled that Iran has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), leading to sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. Despite these violations, Iran continues to refuse full access to IAEA inspectors, raising concerns about its nuclear intentions. The geopolitical focus on Iran is contrasted with the established nuclear capabilities of Pakistan, which has not used its nuclear arsenal despite being a known ally of the United States.
PREREQUISITESPolicy analysts, international relations scholars, nuclear non-proliferation advocates, and anyone interested in the geopolitical implications of nuclear weapons development in the Middle East.
Several reasons. For one thing, Pakistan has had nukes for 3 decades now and hasn't used them yet (thanks, in part, to a MAD-like situation with India). So it's the known evil vs. the unknown evil. Second, Pakistan is an ally (at least on paper) while Iran isn't. And conversely, Israel is a much closer political ally (or better stated, there are much more powerful groups lobbying for Israel in the US Govt) to the US than India is.lunarmansion said:Who cares when it will have the bomb. Scarier countries like Pakistan already have it and are in the danger of becoming an Afghanistan.
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Why are people so obsessed with Iran?
I'm sorry Gokul, but I don't see any good reason against Iran here. Hasn't Iran respected all legal international treaties it has ratified ?Gokul43201 said:Several reasons. For one thing, Pakistan has had nukes for 3 decades now and hasn't used them yet (thanks, in part, to a MAD-like situation with India). So it's the known evil vs. the unknown evil. Second, Pakistan is an ally (at least on paper) while Iran isn't. And conversely, Israel is a much closer political ally (or better stated, there are much more powerful groups lobbying for Israel in the US Govt) to the US than India is.
humanino said:I'm sorry Gokul, but I don't see any good reason against Iran here. Hasn't Iran respected all legal international treaties it has ratified ?
I am right now on the IAEA web site. I don't find any document supporting your claims. I am specifically referring to violation by Iran of any international treaty it has ratified. Can you please point me out just one ? I'll keep searching in the meantime.vociferous said:No, the IAEA has several times ruled that Iran has violated the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the UN Security council has imposed sanctions upon Iran for its violations.
humanino said:I am right now on the IAEA web site. I don't find any document supporting your claims. I am specifically referring to violation by Iran of any international treaty it has ratified. Can you please point me out just one ? I'll keep searching in the meantime.
humanino said:Anything I read sums up to : "the West suspects Iran may be using to create fuel for a nuclear weapon.". That's no violation of any treaty to me. From what I gather of the documents you provide...
"pledge from the six countries to establish full relations and economic cooperation with Iran", "willful lack of cooperation, particularly in answering allegations", those are no accusation of violation of any treaty.
Look, I'm not a native english speaker but here is your own reference :
"Between the indications of weapons work, which would[/size] constitute a violation of Iran’s treaty obligations and Iran’s blatant violations of Security Council resolutions, there is strong reason for Iran’s file to remain open both in New York and in Vienna.”
"That means that the country may[/size] be producing enriched uranium"
Now, can you tell the difference ? They have nothing, it's as simple...
Please note that, I asked you when Iran did that, where I could find the information, and I recevied answers that it's obvious, but there is nothing. Just "may"s and "would"svociferous said:if Iran continues its obstinate stonewalling, the IAEA will have no choice but to declare that Iran is in abeyance of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Gokul43201 said:Second, Pakistan is an ally (at least on paper) while Iran isn't.
humanino said:Why would IAEA be so nice with Iran, ...
Exactly, that's my point : I read here claims that Iran has violated international treaties, but the truth is, there is no proof of this, just suspicions, therefore, the IAEA has not officially declared they found Iran guilty.seycyrus said:In short the IAEA has done just about everything that it COULD do!
Saying it louder won't make it more sound. I am trying to be objective, as I have read and quoted the references which were pointed to me. You BTW in your first version of your post were pointing me there :russ_watters said:That isn't true. The citations were presented to you and you just choose to ignore them.
[...]
Quite clearly, you are not willing to be objective here.
Please provide me with the references which will allow me to agree with this statement.Like it or not, the IAEA is charged with deciding whether someone violates the NPT and they decided that Iran has.
It's the same everywhere. They have nothing but "would"s and "may"s...The United States and some members of the European Union have accused Iran of using this program to help covertly develop nuclear weapons, which would be in violation of article II of the NPT.
I'm sorry, you can call me non-objective if you like, and I can claim that I just don't understand english, but I simply don't see anything firm against them.The Iranian nuclear program has been controversial although the development of a civilian nuclear power program is explicitly allowed under the terms of the NPT, there have been allegations that Iran has been illicitly pursuing a nuclear weapons program, in violation of the NPT.
So, I am still waiting for proof that the IAEA has called Iran's activities illegal. "serious concern" is not the same "illegal" and it does make a big difference.The May 2008 IAEA ReportAccording to the report, the IAEA has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, and Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and accountancy reports, as required by its safeguards agreement.
Iran had installed several new centrifuges, including more advanced models, and environmental samples showed the centrifuges "continued to operate as declared", making low-enriched uranium. The report also noted that other elements of Iran's nuclear program continued to be subject to IAEA monitoring and safeguards as well, including the construction of the heavy water facility in Arak, the construction and use of hot cells associated with the Tehran Research Reactor, the uranium conversion efforts, and the Russian nuclear fuel delivered for the Bushehr reactor.
The report stated that the IAEA had requested, as a voluntary "transparency measure", to be allowed access to centrifuge manufacturing sites, but that Iran had refused the request. The IAEA report stated that Iran had also submitted replies to questions regarding "possible military dimensions" to its nuclear program, which include "alleged studies" on a so-called Green Salt Project, high-explosive testing and missile re-entry vehicles. According to the report, Iran's answers were still under review by the IAEA at the time the report was published. However, as part of its earlier "overall assessment" of the allegations, Iran had responded that the documents making the allegations were forged, not authentic, or referred to conventional applications.
The report stated that Iran may have more information on the alleged studies, which "remain a matter of serious concern", but that the IAEA itself had not detected evidence of actual design or manufacture by Iran of nuclear weapons or components. The IAEA also stated that it was not itself in possession of certain documents containing the allegations against Iran, and so was not able to share the documents with Iran.
I posted that before realizing there was a better reference already posted. Post #10, the first link is a report on Iran's violations straight from the horse's mouth.humanino said:You BTW in your first version of your post were pointing me there :
NPT Iran section on wiki
No (it's a broken link), but a little bit of effort on your part would be nice. It takes five seconds to copy and paste "UN Security Council Resolution 1737" into the search bar of your browser and pull it up: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8928.doc.htmI went there, and tried to download the reference [28]UN Security Council Resolution 1737 with two different browsers. I am not responsible for daccessdds.un.org accepting only microsoft products.
This is really mind-boggling to me. Your linked source acknowledges the fact of Iran's violations!:I provided the link to the video which raised this question to me. I'm ready to hear any otherwise argument, but have not seen any so far, except for the reference to wikipedia which you deleted.
yes, Iran is violating those resolutions.
First of all, you guys have the burden of proof issue backwards here. Here's the text of the NPT: http://disarmament.un.org/wmd/npt/npttext.html Article 3, sect 1 says:Gokul43201 said:Russ, a problem here is that no one seems to be able to point out clearly which regulations of the NPT were violated by Iran, and how and when they were violated.
I think the argument can be sewn up once and for all, as soon as this is done.
In other words, the treaty requires cooperation with the IAEA in order to verify compliance. Lack of cooperation is itself a violation.1. Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes to accept safeguards, as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agency’s safeguards system, for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfilment of its obligations assumed under this Treaty with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
Here, Iran was caught red-handed violating it's obligations and had no choice but to acknowledge their previous lie/violation.23. On 9 October 2003, Iran further acknowledged that, contrary to its previous statements, practically all of the materials important to uranium conversion had been produced in laboratory and bench scale experiments (in kilogram quantities) between 1981 and 1993 without having been
reported to the Agency. These activities were carried out at TNRC and ENTC.
Here's the summary of all the findings:43. During their visit in July 2003, Agency inspectors were provided with drawings of the IR-40. Contrary to what would have been expected given the declared radioisotope production purpose of the facility, the drawings contained no references to hot cells. The Agency raised this issue during that visit, particularly in light of open source reports of recent efforts by Iran to acquire from abroad heavy manipulators and leaded windows designed for hot cell applications. The Agency indicated to the Iranian authorities that, given the specifications of the manipulators and windows which were the subject of those reports, a design for hot cells should have existed already and that therefore the hot cell, or cells, should already have been declared, at least on a preliminary basis, as part of the facility or as a separate installation.
44. In its letter of 21 October 2003, Iran acknowledged that two hot cells had been foreseen for this project. However, according to the information provided in that letter, neither the design nor detailed information about the dimensions or the actual layout of the hot cells was available yet, since they did not know the characteristics of the manipulators and shielded windows which they could procure. On 1 November 2003, Iran confirmed that it had tentative plans to construct at the Arak site yet another building with hot cells for the production of radioisotopes. Iran has agreed to submit the relevant preliminary design information with respect to that building in due course.
For a scientific process where the peaceful and non-peaceful applications overlap, it is prudent for the NPT to be structured with a burden-of-proof on the state wishing to develop nuclear power. Logic dictates that if the nuclear research is peaceful, then there is no reason to keep it secret and violate the requirement for oversight.D. Findings
45. Iran’s nuclear programme, as the Agency currently understands it, consists of a practically complete front end of a nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium mining and milling, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, heavy water production, a light water reactor, a heavy water research reactor and associated research and development facilities.
46. Iran has now acknowledged that it has been developing, for 18 years, a uranium centrifuge enrichment programme, and, for 12 years, a laser enrichment programme. In that context, Iran has admitted that it produced small amounts of LEU using both centrifuge and laser enrichment processes, and that it had failed to report a large number of conversion, fabrication and irradiation activities involving nuclear material, including the separation of a small amount of plutonium.
47. Based on all information currently available to the Agency, it is clear that Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with respect to the reporting of nuclear material and its processing and use, as well as the declaration of facilities where such material has been processed and stored. In his June and August 2003 reports to the Board of Governors (GOV/2003/40 and GOV/2003/63), the Director General identified a number of instances of such failures and the corrective actions that were being, or needed to be, taken with respect thereto by Iran.
48. Since the issuance of the Director General’s last report, a number of additional failures have been identified. These failures can be summarized as follows:
(a) Failure to report:
(i) the use of imported natural UF6 for the testing of centrifuges at the Kalaye Electric
Company in 1999 and 2002, and the consequent production of enriched and
depleted uranium;
(ii) the import of natural uranium metal in 1994 and its subsequent transfer for use in
laser enrichment experiments, including the production of enriched uranium, the
loss of nuclear material during these operations, and the production and transfer of
resulting waste;
(iii) the production of UO2, UO3, UF4, UF6 and AUC from imported depleted UO2,
depleted U3O8 and natural U3O8, and the production and transfer of resulting
wastes;
(iv) the production of UO2 targets at ENTC and their irradiation in TRR, the
subsequent processing of those targets, including the separation of plutonium, the
production and transfer of resulting waste, and the storage of unprocessed
irradiated targets at TNRC;
(b) Failure to provide design information for:
(i) the centrifuge testing facility at the Kalaye Electric Company;
(ii) the laser laboratories at TNRC and Lashkar Ab’ad, and locations where resulting
wastes were processed and stored, including the waste storage facility at Karaj;
(iii) the facilities at ENTC and TNRC involved in the production of UO2, UO3, UF4,
UF6 and AUC;
(iv) TRR, with respect to the irradiation of uranium targets, and the hot cell facility
where the plutonium separation took place, as well as the waste handling facility
at TNRC; and
(c) Failure on many occasions to co-operate to facilitate the implementation of
safeguards, through concealment.
I let that go before because it isn't necessary to debunk the video (the guy acknowledges the violations himself), but I really hope you can see why that guy's opinions are not reliable. He isn't claiming that Iran didn't violate the NPT or UNSC resolutions (he acknowleges they did), he's challenging the legitimacy of the organizations and treaties themselves. Obviously, that's a crackpot idea and a complete non-starter: Iran ratified the treaty and the UN charter. It is bound by them by it's own choice.humanino said:I provided the link to the video which raised this question to me.
If I am the leader of a country that wants nuclear capability only for power generation, I would do my darndest to be as transparent as possible with my operations, I would make sure I didn't make any statements that would make the world wary of my intentions and I would not engage in ridiculously idiotic military one-upmanship like the affair with the Royal Navy.humanino said:Let me try to clarify my position : assume that you are the leader of a proudly independent country, who genuinely only want nuclear electricity.
Because the reserves won't last forever?quadraphonics said:There's also the question of why a country with one of the largest proven oil reserves on the planet would so desperately want nuclear power generation.
Because it is in the interests of any country to reduce dependence of foreign sources when it comes to vital national security interests like energy. That's the current thrust in the US, after all.And then there's the point that one does not need to have a complete nuclear fuel cycle in order to generate nuclear power; one can easily import fuel enriched elsewhere, and this is in fact what most countries do, as it is easier, cheaper, and does not arouse any suspicion whatsoever. In fact, the United States and various European countries have already offered to guarantee Iran a supply a nuclear fuel, if they will give up internal enrichment. This, then, raises the question of why Iran would pursue a confrontational, expensive policy instead of the various cheaper, better options open to it (invest in oil infrastructure and build gas-fired plants, or just import nuclear fuel).