As disagreement arises over ways to handle the Iranian threat of nuclear proliferation, several facts must first be acknowledged before a decision is made.
Fact number one. Iran hid its uranium enrichment program for 18 years. Such covert behavior indicates a level of unlawful activity that is subject to scrutiny.
Fact number two. Iran has been uncooperative with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA’s latest report from November 2011, highlighted several areas of concern, raising suspicion that Iran was in fact pursuing production of nuclear weapons. The report mentioned over ten suspicious areas including weapons testing and experimenting with nuclear weaponry, weaponisation, and in depth intelligence on ballistic warheads.
This led the IAEA to conclude that Iran had carried out activities "relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."
Moreover, the UN Security Council has approached President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to conduct meetings on the nuclear issue with an official letter sent in October. It is still awaiting Tehran’s reply. Previous talks held a last year in Turkey ended without progress.
Fact number three. Iran has continuously refused to comply with Security Council resolutions. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a signatory state has the right to enrich uranium to be used strictly as fuel for civil nuclear power. Any such activity must be conducted under the supervision of the IAEA.
While Iran is under inspection, it maintains its prerogative to enrich uranium claiming that it is doing so for power station fuel and other peaceful purposes. It goes as far as to say that the UN resolutions are politically motivated and unjustified. UN Chief Ban Ki-moon has said that the responsibility is on Iran to prove its good intentions.
Recent meetings between the IAEA and Iran have collapsed, leading Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to declare that no “Pressures, sanctions and assassinations will bear no fruit. No obstacles can stop Iran's nuclear work.”
Fact number four. There is a nuclear reactor plant at Bushehr. This reactor was originally built in the 1970s but only recently finished with help from the Russians. Russia intends to replace the reactors spent fuel with raw fuel, which could potentially be used to make a plutonium-based nuclear bomb.
While the Bushehr plant does not enrich uranium, Russia’s involvement in the development of the facility, alleviates Iran from conducting its own enrichment program.
Fact number five. Tehran is still host to the American-installed research reactor that produces medical isotopes. The reactor is quickly running out of fuel, which has previously been provided from abroad.
Several proposals have been made to remove Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium out of the country and return it as higher-enriched fuel rods. The idea was to get the low-enriched stock out of Iran and prevent it from being potentially used for a nuclear device.
The dangers lie with the actuality that the technology used to enrich uranium to the level needed for nuclear power can also be used to enrich it to the higher level which is used for nuclear explosion. This plan failed when in May of 2010, Tehran announced it had agreed to ship its low-enriched uranium to Turkey. At the same time however, Iran also announced that it would continue to enrich other uranium domestically.
Fact number six. The official enrichment plant is located in a secret underground facility the city of Qom. This underground facility carries out enrichment of higher-grade uranium. The underground enrichment plant, revealed in 2009, is believed to be buried beneath 80 meters of rock and soil as means for providing protection against any military attacks.
The IAEA criticized Iran for creating such a facility, stating that it should have been revealed much earlier. Iran argued that it did not violate any rules for having an underground nuclear plant.
The Iranian Regime has been inconsistent, uncooperative, and dismissive towards Western, UN, and EU appeals to halt its uranium enrichment programs.
More disturbing is that in 2009 Iran said the plant, known as the Fordo fuel enrichment plant, would only enrich uranium up to 5% and would have 3,000 centrifuges.
In June 2011 Iran announced that the purpose of the plant was now to enrich uranium to 20%, as well as carry out research and development. In January 2012 the IAEA confirmed that Iran had started the production of uranium enrichment up to 20% at the plant. A 20% enrichment, or higher-enriched fuel rods, is the necessary amount for producing nuclear weapons.
The aforementioned facts present the daunting truth about Iran’s nuclear intentions. The Iranian Regime has been inconsistent, uncooperative, and dismissive towards Western, UN, and EU appeals to halt its uranium enrichment programs.
The overly popular reply is somewhere along the lines of let us wait and see if Iran complies with additional sanctions. This was reiterated by US Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, who said that an Israeli attack on Iran would be “destabilizing” and “not prudent.”
US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, during his visit to Israel, who said, “I think Israel, like everyone else in the world, should be giving a real chance to the approach we adopted: very serious economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and the readiness to negotiate with Iran.
While the international community decides to wait and see what Iran plans to do next, Iran is a ticking time bomb, pun intended.