Word: uranium
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...report from the UN nuclear watchdog that could not certify that Iran's nuclear program is strictly, as Tehran claims, for civilian energy purposes. The council could discuss the matter as early as next week and present Iran with an ultimatum to comply with IAEA demands that it suspend uranium enrichment activities. But IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei urged all parties to cool the rhetoric and apply themselves to the search for an agreement: On Tuesday, Vice President Dick Cheney threatened "meaningful consequences" for Iran's defiance, while Iran's ambassador to the IAEA warned that Iran was equally capable...
...Still, the Bush Administration hopes the Iranians, confronted with the prospect of UN action, will buckle and accept the Western insistence that Iran cannot be permitted to enrich uranium on its own soil (because this technology and industrial capacity would allow it also to create the fissile fuel necessary for a nuclear weapon). If Tehran remains defiant, the U.S. and its allies have an uphill task of persuading a reluctant international community to impose sanctions, or else consider some form of military strike that risks provoking a catastrophic backlash without even necessarily guaranteeing the elimination of Iran's nuclear activities...
...Diplomatic solutions, by nature, have to allow both sides to claim some sort of victory, and the best contender had looked to be a Russian proposal to enrich uranium for Iran's reactors on Russian soil. Iran was always iffy about that proposal, but when Russia sought to sweeten the deal by allowing for some limited enrichment for research purposes in Iran, the U.S. balked. (Permitting any enrichment activity would allow Iran to perfect its techniques, and also provide it with cover for procuring nuclear technology that could aid a bomb program.) Once it became clear that the U.S. wouldn...
...plans to share with allies what it claims is new evidence that Iran's real intent is to build nuclear weapons, rather than simply a civilian energy program; and Iran defiantly warns that if the matter is referred to the Security Council, it will resume industrial-scale uranium enrichment - the activity that most concerns the West, given that it can be used both for civilian reactor fuel and to create weapons-grade material...
...allies are confronted by the difficulties in mustering support for sanctions against Iran, much less any form of military action, Iran's defiant posture should also be read with a measure of skepticism. Despite Tehran's insistence on exercising its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, the New York Times reports that Iran is as much as ten years away from being able to perfect the kind of industrial-scale enrichment that Tehran has threatened in exchange for Security Council referral. And while its nuclear stance is remarkably popular across the political spectrum at home, even building a bomb...