Construction Activities at Military Site Fuel Latest Round of Iranian Nuclear Fears

Western Officials Assume Iran 'Has Something to Hide'

A satellite image showing two small buildings on a military base have been bulldozed is nothing that unusual, but paranoia and the endless imaginations of the hawks on Iran have spun the demolitions into “proof” that Iran is up to something sneaky.

The military base in Parchin, the center of Iran’s conventional missile development, is constantly the target of suspicion, with crudely drawn images of secret things that might be within serving as the smoking gun that proves it is related to the non-existent nuclear weapons program.

The speculation has been enough to have the IAEA pushing for admission to the site. Iran is loath to allow this, because its safeguards agreement doesn’t oblige it to give them access to military sites and because the secret results of IAEA visits tend to be leaked pretty quickly, leading to assassinations.

Now satellite evidence of any changes at the site are the new proof that Iran “has something to hide,” though of course all of the evidence is entirely speculative, and the narrative being built first only to have officials try to interpret the facts to match these assumptions.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.