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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 3-Aug-05
Iran's plan to develop nuclear fuel is "irreversible"

Web Log - August, 2005

Iran's plan to develop nuclear fuel is "irreversible"

France calls it a "major international crisis"

On Tuesday, Iran sent the following statement to the International Atomic Energy Commission:

"Extraneous pressures prevented timely and serious consideration by E3 [Germany, France and Britain]/EU of this proposal which has the potential of providing a framework in which concerns of all sides are reasonably allayed. ...

Iran made it clear in Geneva that any proposal by the E3/EU must incorporate E3/EU's perception of objective guarantees for the gradual resumption of the Iranian enrichment programme, and that any attempt to turn objective guarantees into cessation or long-term suspension were incompatible with the letter and spirit of the Paris Agreement and therefore unacceptable to Iran. ...

Against all its sincere efforts and maximum flexibility, Iran has not received a proposal as of today, and all public and diplomatic information, particularly the letter of 29 July 2005 of the E3 Ministers, indicate that the content of the eventual proposal will be totally unacceptable.

We have been informed that the proposal not only fails to address Iran's rights for peaceful development of nuclear technology, but even falls far short of correcting the illegal and unjustified restrictions placed on Iran's economic and technological development, let alone providing firm guarantees for economic, technological and nuclear co-operation and firm commitments on security issues. ...

It is now self-evident that negotiations are not proceeding as called for in the Paris Agreement, due to E3/EU policy to protract the negotiations without the slightest attempt to move forward in fulfilling their commitments under the Tehran or Paris Agreements. ...

In light of the above, Iran has decided to resume the uranium conversion activities at the UCF in Isfahan on 1 August 2005."

The response from EU members has been sharp.

"The Iranian affair is very serious," said French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy. "It could be the start of a major international crisis."

"Were Iran to resume currently suspended activities, our negotiations would be brought to an end and we would have no option but to pursue other courses of action," said a letter from the EU to Iran. "We therefore call upon Iran not to resume suspended activities or take other unilateral steps."

Although not specifically mentioned, the "other unilateral steps" will be to refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council. The UN may vote to impose some sort of sanctions on Iran, which should leave Iran quaking in their collective boots, assuming that the sanctions aren't vetoed by Russia or China.

The EU's concern is that Iran will be enriching plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. Iran says it's only interested in nuclear electric power plants.

As I've previously explained, Iran is in a "generational awakening" period, which means that the nation will be in a period of severe political conflict caused by a "generation gap" between the liberal college students and hard-line mullahs.

Although there is much inter-generational political conflict, news stories in recent months have made it clear that there's one thing that all the generations agree on: They all want Iran to have nuclear weapons. They want them for national prestige, and they want them for security purposes.

It's interesting to compare Iran's situation, from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, to that of North Korea.

The North Korea nuclear non-proliferation talks have been going on now for 8 days, and are now pretty much deadlocked.

Like Iran, there never was any chance at all that North Korea was going to give up it's nuclear weapon development plans. The only reason that North Korea is participating at all is that they hope to get food and financial aid, without having to give up their nuclear weapons.

But North Korea, in a generational crisis period, is planning to use the weapons in a war. The purpose of the war would be to reunite with South Korea, under North Korean control, and also to gain revenge against Japan for its humiliation of Korea before and during WW II. (My own unsubstantiated speculation is that China and North Korea are already planning a joint campaign against Japan.)

But Iran, in a generational awakening period, is not planning to go to war, even against Israel. Iran will do everything it can to keep its armed forces out of war.

If Iran gets nuclear weapons, the issues will be quite different. Iran will not want to go to war with Israel, but would be willing to provide nuclear weapons to anti-Israeli militia groups like Hizbullah.

Israel is quite well aware of this, so nuclear weapons in Iran would cause Israel to take some sort of action to protect itself. I cannot guess what this action will be, but it could involve bombing some facilities in Iran. Recall that in 1982 Israel bombed and destroyed a factory in Iran which they believed could manufacture nuclear weapons.

Conflict risk level for next 6-12 months as of: 30-May-2005
W. Europe 1 Arab Israeli 2
Russia Caucasus 2 Kashmir 1
China 2 North Korea 3
Financial 3 Bird flu 3
Key: 1=green 1=Low risk 2=yellow 2=Med 3=red 3=High 4=black 4=Active

A recurrence of such a bombing could well trigger a major Mideast war.

So the problem with Iranian nuclear weapons is that they'll destabilize the balance of power in the Mideast, and cause a chain reaction leading to a major war. And that doesn't even count the other problem - that the nuclear weapons might be used on Israel or on Europe or American bases.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the Mideast is replaying the prelude to the genocidal war between Arabs and Jews of the late 1940s, when Palestine was partitioned and the state of Israel was created, and a new genocidal war between Arabs and Jews is not far off. Since there's no guarantee that Israel would survive, this would trigger the "clash of civilizations" world war. (3-Aug-05) Permanent Link
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