Chaos over West’s Iran policy: US intelligence stutters over nuclear programme and Iran rejects uranium exchange proposal
US led efforts to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons descended into chaos today as it emerged that Iran had rejected proposals to ship enriched uranium out of the country to prevent Tehran from processing it to weapon’s grade and the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) indicated a merely partial reversal of its infamous 2007 “estimate” that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.
Iran’s rejection of the uranium plan was conveyed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna while developments at the NIC emerged from an exclusive report by the Reuters news agency which quoted unnamed officials as saying they now believed that Iran was researching a nuclear weapons programme but not necessarily developing one:
“Basically, we’re talking about research (resuming) — not about the Iranians barrelling full steam ahead on a bomb program,” a U.S. official was quoted by Reuters as saying on condition of anonymity.
Taking these two developments together, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Western policy on Iran’s nuclear programme has all but fallen apart.
Against the background of a US president whose foreign policy smacks of weakness to every dictatorship in the world, Ahmadinejad and company must now be laughing their socks off. Every broken promise on their nuclear programme has elicited next to nothing in terms of meaningful sanctions, and the leading US intelligence gatherers are telling the president that there’s no real urgency about a weapons programme in any case.
At this stage in the game this is no laughing matter. The nuclear ambitions of an Islamist despotism which has genocidal intentions against Israel, which is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, which has hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East and which poses a long term threat to the security of the wider West are simply being allowed to press forward without threat or hindrance.
There are no easy solutions to this problem. But the way things are going, it looks more and more certain that we are now sleep walking our way to a nuclear armed Iran.
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I strongly recommend two very impressive books on the subject for anyone wishing to understand what is going on in more detail.
The first is by Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations and one of the country’s foremost strategic and political thinkers. To read about and/or purchase “The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Continues to Defy the West”, click here:
The second is by leading Middle East analyst Emanuele Ottolenghi whose “Under a Mushroom Cloud: Europe, Iran and the Bomb” can be read about and/or purchased here:
January 20th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
It looks like the path is being set for this century’s second decade: the decline of Europe,US (isolationism and decline),the competing interest of the emerging economic powers of China, Russia and India, and Iran as an instrument to start facilitating the change.
January 20th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
So Iran’s claims that “Mossad” assassinated their nuclear physicist is doubly funny.
January 20th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Thank you for yet another interesting article, Mr. Shepherd.
The Western policy regarding Ahmadinejad and Co. has once again proved to be too naive.
Israel can now safely say “told you so” to the West, as it’s long ago learnt that the “nice” approach wouldn’t work here.
These are not people who you can rationally talk or negotiate with.
Now the million-dollar question (or should i say the nuclear-bomb question) is whether (and if yes then when) will the West wake up before the non-return point.
If we do find ourselves with nuclear-armed Iran (and probably some other Arab countries that will follow), Western policies for such a reality should be already in place. Currently it seems that no such policies even exist…
January 20th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
I just want to say that nowhere in the British media has there been a mention about the fantastic humanitarian work now being carried our in Haiti by the Israelis. They have a modern field hospital fully equipped there and no country has more experience in dealing with trauma on this scale