IAEA: Iran Has Finger on Nuclear Trigger
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denounced the IAEA's report as politicized lies, then promised to blast Israel and the West back into the Stone Age. (Photo: Caren Firouz/Reuters)
Iran is in hot water and Israel is at the boiling point over findings of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report expected to be released to the United Nations this week. The IAEA, according to diplomats who have previewed the report, has documented evidence that Iran’s nuclear energy program is well along a path toward weaponization.
Iran both denied hostile intentions for its atomic energy, and threatened to unleash Armageddon.
The IAEA believes that Iranian scientists have made significant strides toward assembling and testing a nuclear device, violating Tehran’s 2003 agreement to halt nuclear weapons research. Intelligence indicates that Iranian developers were assisted by former Soviet weapons scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko and by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program. North Korea is also believed to have contributed expertise or materials, all of which adds up to Iran possessing the technology, and perhaps a prototype, for an R265 generator. The R265 is an intricate trigger that controls the split-second detonations of high explosives needed to set off a nuclear device.
“The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic one,” said Israeli President Shimon Peres Sunday.
Iran both denied hostile intentions for its atomic energy, and threatened to unleash Armageddon. Iran’s foreign minister, who is also its former top nuclear official, denounced the IAEA report’s intelligence as “counterfeit,” “100 percent political” and assembled “under pressure from foreign powers.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened his country’s nuclear capacity to question, and made his intentions perfectly clear: “Yes, we have military capabilities that are different from any other country in the region,” rattled Ahmadinejad. “Iran is increasing in capability and advancement and therefore we are able to compete with Israel and the West, and especially the United States. Now Israel and the U.S. fear Iran’s capability. They are trying to gather international support for a military operation to stop [Iran's] role. Iran will not permit [anyone making] a move against it.”
An attack on Iran “would be a very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences,” warned Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister on Monday.
Whether Iran is bluffing (pretending to possess greater lethal abilities than it does) or sandbagging (downplaying its atomic strength) is beside the point. Any time three nuclear weapon-wielding countries—The U.S., Israel and Russia—raise their hackles is one more reason to push for a Countdown to Zerø.
From the Washington Post:
“One of the problems with open threats of military action is that it furthers the drift toward a military conflict and makes it more difficult to dial down tensions,” said Peter Crail, a nonproliferation analyst with the Arms Control Association, a Washington advocacy group. “It also risks creating an assumption that we can always end Iran’s nuclear program with a few airstrikes if nothing else works. That’s simply not the case.”
“There can be no military solution to the Iranian nuclear problem,” said Russia’s Lavrov, “just like there can be none for any other problem in the modern world.”
Sources: Israel Hayom | Al Jazeera | Washington Post | Jakarta Globe
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