The United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in its most recent report in February, declared for the first time that they have obtained extensive evidence that "raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile." The report indicated that Iran told inspectors it was preparing to make its uranium into a metallic form -- a step necessary for making the core of an atom bomb despite Tehran's categorical claim of general research.
In his introductory statement to the agency's Board of Governors today, the IAEA's new Director General, Yukiya Amano said that the UN nuclear watchdog cannot confirm that Iran has not turned some of its nuclear material toward weapons purposes. These alarmingly nefarious and clandestine activities belie the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei's preposterous claims on 19 February that "our religious principles and beliefs consider such weapons to be a symbol of destruction that is forbidden."
President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address, described the threat of nuclear weapons as "perhaps the greatest danger to the American people" and promised that Iran's leaders would face new consequences for their defiance of international obligations.
His appeal to Iran's rulers a year ago to "unclench their fists" clearly fell on deaf ears. It turns out Tehran's tyrants have been busy using their fists to brutally, albeit unsuccessfully, suppress the pro-democracy uprising at home, while defying their commitments internationally.
Thus it came as no surprise when they responded to the latest ultimatum to diplomatically resolve the longstanding nuclear standoff with a counter-ultimatum. In his speech at Freedom Square on the anniversary of Iranian Revolution, as chants of "Death to Dictator" were being heard, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Iran a nuclear state. He announced that Iran has mastered enriching to 20 percent--something the IAEA report confirmed--and has the ability to enrich to 80% which is a weapons usable grade. Tehran is clearly in breach of UN Security Council's several resolutions calling for suspension of Iran's enrichment program.
Washington is reportedly working on a set of economic sanctions to dissuade Iran from further enrichment, while acknowledging that, contrary to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, Iran is still pushing ahead with nuclear weapons development.
Apparently it would take a diplomatic miracle to bring Russia and China on board with tough sanctions. Russia was among the few countries to endorse Ahmadinejad's disputed election grab in June; hence the chants of "down with Russia" in recent anti-government protests. And China recently rushed its delivery of advanced anti-riot armored trucks to the ayatollahs' embattled regime.
That being said, a true appreciation of the nationwide uprising in Iran would breathe new life into the power of sanctions. The David and Goliath battle raging in Iran, at its core, is a struggle for democracy, popular sovereignty and rule of law in place of theocracy, tyranny and rogue behavior. The outcome will definitively determine the future of Iran's nuclear weapons program, and that is the key element the West needs to comprehend.
The last three decades have shown that sanctions alone are not enough to compel the regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program. The regime's leadership rightly believes that it is in the midst of a do-or-die struggle against an increasingly empowered opposition. Backing down in any arena, particularly the very visible nuclear deadlock would be lethal.
Slogans chanted by the protesters across Iran, such as "Death to Khamenei," "Death to the Dictator," and "No to Gaza, No to Lebanon, I will die for Iran," make it clear that Iranians seek not just an end to the religious dictatorship; they also want an end to its rogue behavior abroad. Their chant "freedom is our inalienable right" is a direct jab at Ahmadinejad's favorite phrase, "nuclear energy is our inalienable right." Despite turning Tehran into a big garrison last Thursday, and despite the unprecedented wave of arrests, torture, and execution of dissidents in recent months, hundreds of thousands braved the massive clampdown and marched against the supreme leader all over the country, calling for an end to the clerical dictatorship.
It is further reassuring that the opposition movement People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) seeks a nuclear-free Iran. This group has repeatedly exposed Tehran's nuclear weapons secrets at great risk to its network in Iran. The group has "a pretty good record," according to Frank Pabian, Senior Nonproliferation Infrastructure Analyst at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. "They're right 90 percent of the time," he told the New York Times in January.
In this framework, the triumph of groups opposed to the regime is a much surer way to defuse the nuclear threat and end the Tehran-sponsored bloodshed in Iraq and the region. Indeed, it should be President Obama's Iran policy linchpin.
For example, the MEK, a long-exiled opposition movement, does not ask for money or arms, much less troops. It does demand, as do a large bi-partisan group of Members of Congress, that at this critical juncture it not be shut out of the Iran policy debate. To be sure, comprehensive sanctions meant to cripple the regime's economic, diplomatic, and above all security apparatus, would prove effective only when they are implemented within the framework of a new policy aimed at empowering the movement for change.
The wheels of change to end the reign of the clerics are rolling; it is only a matter of time. One protester recently described the regime's heightened show of force in the streets of Tehran as "the last efforts of a dying state in denial." The opposition's triumph will close Tehran's nuclear dossier and end its regional mischief-making once and for all. President Obama should accelerate his gradual shift away from Tehran's ruthless rulers and stand with the Iranian people. This would bring U.S. policy in line with his State of the Union promise that "America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity."
Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of "The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis" (Palgrave MacMillan). Jafarzadeh exposed the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in 2002 which triggered the UN inspection of Iranian nuclear sites.
Follow Alireza Jafarzadeh on Twitter: www.twitter.com/A_Jafarzadeh
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Labor unrest and economic anxiety may not be among the headlines coming out of Iran since the controvers
Every week, unofficial sources of informatio
Similar promises were also reportedly made last week by the director of a large steel plant, also in Isfahan, after workers announced the beginning of a hunger strike to protest large discrepanc
You have to control your appetite for political power!
2. MEK never engaged “in violence within Iran against their own people”. MEK are freedom fighters targeted the “military apparatus of dictators” in the past. Furthermor
3. It is the Iranian government that use violence against the Iranian people in form daily execution, eliminatin
"Near the end of the war with Iran during 1980-88, Baghdad armed the MEK with military equipment and sent it into action against Iranian forces. In 1991, it assisted the Government of Iraq in suppressin
@@@
Actually, what the report does is list already reported and investigat
Google his "Read the IAEA Reports on Iran".
First of all IAEA interpret heavy water as nuclear material, this is a lie.
IAEA other argument that Iran cannot withdraw from some voluntary code 3.1 which is only applied to Iran is absurd.
Code 3.1 was imposed to Iran under treat of Bush. With this code in place Iran could not have peaceful nuclear program.
US should stop politicize an internatio
Iran threatenin
Being surrounded by the U.S. military on its Eastern, Western, and Southern borders. Being surrounded by nuclear weapons states, Pakistan, Russia, Israel and India!!
I know that the shameless "ministry of propaganda and disinforma
Ever since he revealed the two major nuclear sites, Natanz and Arak in 2002, the Europeans, and later on the US, have wasted invaluable time in futile negotiatio
One is reminded of Sir Winston Churchill'
Let's bring to a halt this monologue and embark on a real dialogue with the organized opposition
Alex
The fact that America, Israel and Britain have been caught lying time and time again over the past decade just seems to wash right off them.
That would be the "man bites dog" story of the year.
NEW YORK — Families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and a 1983 bombing of U.S. Marines in Lebanon are seeking to hold Iran accountabl
A lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan seeks to enforce a $2.6 billion judgment against the Islamic Republic of Iran awarded by a federal court in Washington
Lawyers for families of victims of the 2001 terror attacks are seeking to force the government of Iran to pay damages for supporting terrorism.
No lawyers have represente
I bet they have stong links to Al-CIAda as well.
Are you really going to fall for the same schtick all over again?
Mr. Jafarzadeh
USAF Brig. Gen. Harold Price was wounded in a May 1972 ass assination attempt.
The first success in the assa ssination campaign was the murder of Lt. Col. Louis Lee Hawkins, a U.S. Army comptrolle
A car carrying U.S. Air Force officers Col. Paul Shaffer and Lt. Col. Jack Turner was trapped between two cars carrying terr orists. They told the Iranian driver to lie down and then shot and killed the Americans. Six hours later a woman called reporters to claim the PMOI carried out the attack as retaliatio
A car carrying three American employees of Rockwell Internatio
I have references for all these and thousands more of Iranians.
Additional
See the thing with Muslims is - they're honest! And if they wanted them they would just say "yeah, we're building them, what are you gonna do about it?"
On the other hand, how many times have western government
Let their supporters speak amoung themselves
There is no evidence that MEK (under Rajavi leadership
Do you really want another Iraq x 100?