The IAEA’s latest report on Iran, leaked today to a number of media outlets, has sparked a wild array of stories and speculation, though it appears to say very little. CNN’s headline “IAEA: Iran still enriching uranium” perhaps says it all, as there was no one who actually thought they had stopped.
Still, taking nothing about Iran and turning it into a massive scare piece has become something of a cottage industry within Western journalism, and within hours Britain’s Telegraph was announcing “Iran on brink of nuclear weapon” because the IAEA report noted that low level uranium enrichment had continued and its stockpile of low-enriched uranium had, of course, grown.
Other stories seized on the usual “matters of concern” in these reports, including the IAEA’s complaint that Iran had vetoed some of its proposed inspectors, something Iran has every right to do.
The White House was quick to declare the report “troubling” and insisted it proved Iran was “closer to a nuclear weapons capability,” something that does not appear to be supported by its content. And while Iran complained that the tone was less impartial than it had been under Mohamed ElBaradei, they insisted the report was vindication that reaffirmed that they were complying with the IAEA’s rules.
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano leaked this report to the press but it isn't available on the IAEA website, so we can't read it to verify the charges it supposedly makes. Amano, when he was appointed, claimed that he we de-politicize the position but apparently he has done just the opposite.
Iran has the same rights as every soveriegn state to peaceful use of nuclear technology and hardly needs to learn from a bullying superpower about proliferation, paricularly when it is a signatory to NPT. The US would do itself a favor to mind its own business – and that includes holding its rogue protege Israel to account for its clandestine nuclear arsenal.
That said, Iran, as indeed any other state, should has a right to defend itself. If Israel can get away with a nuclear arsenal and defy international scrutiny, why shouldn't every other state? The Iranians have done the honorable thing in signing the NPT. Dare the US require the same of Israel before it threatens non-nuclear states with consequences?
Couldn't have said it better myself. Israel is noyhing but a warmongering troublemaker.
The IAEA Report hasn't been officially released yet therefore it doesn't exist.
The Report, if it exists, probably says, although it hasn't been reported in the scary "news" stories, as in past reports, that "the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran." Verifying the non-diversion of nuclear fuel is the ONLY legal NPT function of the IAEA — all the other speculation is extralegal political fluff ordered by the US.
Paragraph 1 of Article III of the Treaty reads as follows:
"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. . ."
Remember, this is a treaty, a voluntary contract, and it is not any basis for some UN Agency to run rampant in the country signing the treaty making all sorts of allegations.
Regarding inspectors, the Safeguards Agreement states:
AGENCY INSPECTORS
Article 9
(a) (i) The Agency shall secure the consent of the Government of Iran to the designation of Agency inspectors to Iran.
(ii) If the Government of Iran, either upon proposal of a designation or at any other time after a designation has been made, objects to the designation, the Agency shall propose to the Government of Iran an alternative designation or designations.
There are 150 IAEA inspectors performing a continuing surveillance of Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities and Iran has objected to two of them, as is its right.