Word: iaea
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Then earlier this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) learned that Iran was cheating on nukes. Since it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1970, Iran is allowed to pursue peaceful nuclear development under the watchful eyes of the IAEA. But in August 2002 exiled dissidents revealed that Iran had secretly built an underground uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz equipped with centrifuges that could spin out weapons-grade uranium. If not stopped, the plant could give Iran enough enriched uranium for two bombs a year, with the first available by the end of the decade (says...
...drugs and weapons - a move that would almost certainly provoke North Korea to raise the ante through some new reckless gesture. And North Korea announced that it was steaming ahead on its nuclear weapons program, repeatedly claiming it had reprocessed all of the spent fuel rods previously under IAEA seal at Yongbyon, which would provide enough fissile material for up to six bombs. (North Korea is believed to have built one or two crude nuclear bombs during the 1990s...
...powers - including Britain's prime minister Tony Blair - and also, possibly, by the efforts of Jordan's King Abdullah to facilitate back-channel communication between Washington and Tehran. Unlike North Korea, which, if anything, exaggerates its nuclear weapons capability, Iran insists it has no clandestine bomb program. But IAEA investigations have found evidence of secret uranium enrichment facilities, and the UN nuclear watchdog had put Iran on notice to sign an agreement accepting more intrusive inspections by October 31, or else. Again, although hawkish elements in the Bush administration had favored a more vigorous pursuit of "regime-change" in Tehran...
...regime-change" saber-rattling in Washington and the recent history of Iraq will certainly have helped the Europeans play "good cop" to Washington's out-of-control guy, and also may have helped sway the internal Iranian debate on the nuclear question. Although hard-liners have urged defiance of IAEA demands, President Mohammed Khatami's reformists have warned that failure to comply with the IAEA demands, even if they are deemed unfair in Tehran, would put the Islamic Republic in mortal danger, because the consequences of defiance would be ruinous sanctions and even, possibly...
...Like the details President's offer on North Korea, the specifics of Iran's agreement with the EU leaders - and its enforcement via the IAEA - remain to be seen. For those who see the problem as the regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang, rather than as the specifics of what they hold in their arsenals, an outcome that leaves each intact and more integrated into the international community is far from satisfactory. But just as Iraq may have provided a warning to Iran and North Korea of the fate that could await them - although its not quite clear whether Pyongyang drew...