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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gamesmistress who wrote (50250)	6/14/2004 11:26:10 AM
From: gamesmistress	Respond to of 793977

This could be a wild card in the election. So could Saddam's trial. Coddling the Mullahs The world shrugs as Iran builds its nuclear bomb. Monday, June 14, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT If Iran goes nuclear within the next year or two, don't blame the inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Earlier this month Mohammed ElBaradei's U.N. team issued yet another damning report on the mullahs, describing a pattern of deception and non-cooperation that all but screams "bomb program." But the international community, with the apparent acquiescence of the Bush Administration, is treating it all as a matter of indifference. OK, that's a mild overstatement. IAEA member states have been going through the motions required by their inspection process. But when they meet today in Vienna the consuming issue will be whether to "deplore" Iran's deceptions or note them with "serious concern." The Iranians are protesting that they consider even those words as all but a casus belli, but they are reported to be privately pleased as punch that the IAEA will yet again fail to refer them to the U.N. Security Council for sanction. For the record, here's a sample of what the latest IAEA report says: • "The information provided to date by Iran has not been adequate" to explain the origin of traces of near-weapons-grade uranium found by inspectors. • "Important information about the P-2 centrifuge [uranium enrichment] program has frequently required repeated requests, and in some cases continues to involve changing or contradictory information"; and • "Iran's postponement until mid-April of the visits originally scheduled for mid-March . . . resulted in a delay in the taking of environmental sample and their analysis." Or to put that all in context, inspectors had found multiple traces of 36% enriched uranium, which has no civilian use. Iran has not offered a satisfactory explanation. Iran had also lied about having a sophisticated P-2 uranium enrichment program of the kind peddled by Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. It turns out the Iranians have sought magnets for thousands of such centrifuges. Iran has not been able to explain experiments with polonium-210, a radioactive element primarily useful as a bomb trigger. Most incriminating of all, the Iranians barred access to sites for a month while they almost certainly sanitized them. Remember that Iran is a petroleum-rich country that doesn't need nuclear power and whose former president has declared that "the world of Islam" should acquire the bomb so it can threaten the existence of Israel and thwart American "colonialism" in the Middle East. On Saturday, AP quoted Iran's foreign minister as declaring that Iran "has to be recognized by the international community as a member of the nuclear club. This is an irreversible path." All of this has finally provoked even the U.S. State Department to declare that Iran's nuclear activities "are in no way peaceful" and "specifically designed to create weapons." We've heard a disturbing number of quiet remarks in Washington and other Western capitals recently to the effect that the world will just have to "get used to" the idea of the Iranians having nukes. Have these people thought through the consequences of such resignation? With the presumed American security umbrella suddenly jeopardized by the mullahs' bomb, the political calculations of every Mideast government would change. Many countries may conclude they themselves have no choice but to go nuclear, and the world could be off to another nuclear arms race. Last year the U.S. deferred to the Europeans as they brokered an inspection agreement with Iran that the mullahs have since violated with impunity. In other words, the "multilateral" diplomatic path is failing. The question is whether anyone important is going to admit this reality. If not, we at least hope Washington is preparing covert and military options to sabotage the Iranian program, and to step up aid to those Iranians wishing a fundamental change in their terror-sponsoring regime. History will not look kindly on the leaders who let Iran get the bomb on their watch. opinionjournal.com