-------------------------------------------------------- http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20060214_ctbee.d71e3fc.html IRAN'S NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT APPROVED BY U.S. IN 1970s WILLIAM BEEMAN, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL - Every aspect of Iran's current nuclear development was approved and encouraged by Washington in the 1970s. President Gerald Ford offered Iran a full nuclear cycle in 1976. Moreover, the only Iranian reactor currently about to become operative -- the reactor in Bushire (also known as Bushehr) -- was started before the Iranian revolution with U.S. approval, and cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium. The Bushire reactor, a "light-water" reactor, produces Pu240, Pu241, and Pu242. Although these isotopes could theoretically be weaponized, the process is extremely long and complicated, and untried. To date, no nuclear weapon has ever been produced with plutonium produced with the kind of reactor at Bushire. Moreover, the plant must be completely shut down in order for the fuel rods to be extracted -- making the process immediately open to inspection and detection. Other possible reactors in Iran are far in the future. . . Donald Weadon, an international lawyer active in Iran during that period, points out that after 1972, and the oil crisis, the United States was rabidly pursuing investment opportunities in Iran, including selling nuclear-power plants. He writes that "the Iranians were wooed hard with the prospect of nuclear power from trusted U.S.-backed suppliers, with the prospect of the reservation of significant revenues from oil exports for foreign and domestic investment." American dissimulation on this point reveals some interesting motives on Washington's part. Iran under the Shah was as much of a threat to its neighbors -- including Iraq -- as it might be said to be today; its nuclear ambitions then could have been inflated and denigrated in exactly the same way that they are being inflated and denigrated today. But the United States was blissfully unconcerned. The big difference today is that Iran is now perceived to be a threat to Israel, and this fuels much of the threat of military action. . . The mantra "Iran must not get nuclear weapons" has been repeated so often now that most people have come to believe that Iran has them, or is getting them. This implication is completely unproven. The tragedy would be that in the end the United States may goad Iran into a real nuclear-weapons program. The Iranians may reason that since they are being punished for the crime, they may as well commit it. [William O. Beeman is a Brown University professor of anthropology and Middle East Studies] -- -------------------------------------------------------- http://cyberjournal.org "Escaping the Matrix: how We the People can change the world": http://escapingthematrix.org/ Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?date=01Jan2007&lists=newslog Subscribe to low-traffic list: mailto:•••@••.••• ___________________________________________ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
