Doug Lorimer
United Nations inspectors have found no clear evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran, according to a report circulated to the board of governors of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The Iranian government says it needs to develop nuclear power-generating technology to help meet Iran's growing demand for electricity and to utilise the country's huge oil resources to earn export revenues to fund economic development. US officials, however, claim Iran has a secret nuclear-weapons program, in violation of its commitments under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). They also allege that Iran is three to five years away from building a nuclear bomb.
In making this accusation, Washington is trying to lay the groundwork for a future US-led Iraq-style invasion of Iran. The accusation that Iraq had a secret nuclear program was one of the reasons given for the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
If such a future US-led invasion of Iran was successful, and Washington could win its current counterinsurgency war in Iraq, the US capitalist rulers would secure their political control over one of the world's major oil producing regions.
Furthermore, installation of politically stable pro-US puppet regimes in Baghdad and Tehran would open the way to the privatisation of Iraq's and Iran's nationalised oil industries. This would enable US corporations to reap vast profits from the export of the Persian Gulf's huge oil resources, substantially boosting their position against their European and Japanese corporate rivals.
US oil corporations were booted out of Iran after the Iranian people overthrew the US-backed autocracy of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in February 1979.
Last October, under heavy pressure from the French, German and British governments, Iran agreed to allow unannounced IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities and to temporarily suspend the construction of centrifuge equipment that could be used to enrich uranium. In exchange, the three European Union governments agreed not to refer to US allegations that Iran was violating the NPT to the Security Council.
IAEA inspectors followed up "intelligence" tips provided in June by the US government. The September 1 Washington Post reported that diplomats who had been briefed on the inspectors' report said the US-supplied information did not lead to any discoveries, and that "several tips have yet to be fully explored and others were considered too vague".
The IAEA report, which the diplomats said will note improved cooperation from the Iranians in recent months, will be discussed at a September 13 IAEA board meeting in Vienna. The diplomats told the Post that Washington lacks enough support from the IAEA's other 34 members to send the issue to the Security Council, which could impose international sanctions against Iran. But US officials have made it clear they will continue to push for such an outcome.
According to the Reuters news agency, the IAEA inspectors' report said Tehran's explanation for the discovery of traces of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) at the Natanz enrichment plant and Kalaye Electric Company — that the particles came from contaminated machinery purchased abroad and were not enriched in Iran at Natanz or Kalaye — was "plausible", but needed further investigation.
US officials claim the traces of HEU show that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program. "We continue to believe that they have a clandestine nuclear weapons program", a US State Department official who asked not to be named told Reuters on September 1.
However, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Hamid Reza Asefi dismissed such charges. In an official statement released on September 1, he said: "There are some minor issues remaining which we hope will be solved in the future although some are trying to make a fuss and create a negative atmosphere about Iran."
Leading figures in US Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign seized on the IAEA report to denounce the Bush administration for being "soft" on Iran. The IAEA report shows "a leading state sponsor of terrorism is yet another step closer to nuclear weapons capability", Susan Rice, Kerry's senior national security adviser, told reporters on September 3. "Yet the Bush administration has stood on the sidelines while this nuclear program has advanced ... It is past time for this administration to develop a tough and effective strategy for dealing with Iran."
Washington's "Iran policy right now on the nuclear issue is to get the Europeans fired up enough to go to the council", Flynt Leverett, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center and a former staff member of the National Security Council in the Bush administration, told the September 1 Washington Post. "But short of a sighting of a mushroom cloud, I don't think there is anything in this report that can get the board to vote for a Security Council referral. I just don't think that's where the Europeans or the other people on the board are right now."
From Green Left Weekly, September 15, 2004.
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