Iran Goes Nuclear with Russian Help and Western SiIran Goes Nuclear with Russian Help and Western Silence
Berlin — Iran’s drive to jump-start an operational nuclearprogram reached a turning point today. Speaking of Iran’s Bushehrnuclear power plant, Vladislav Bochkov, a spokesman for the Russianstate company Rosatom which constructed the plant, said, “This means that a nuclear reaction has begun. This is one of the final stages in the physical launch of the reactor.”
In other words, it is business as usual for Iran’s mad dash to become anuclear powerhouse. The international community, particularly the Obamaadministration, simply ignores the Russian-Iranian duo’s nuclear plantin the southwestern port town of Bushehr. As part of its “reset”strategy with the Russians, the Obama administration appears to havechalked up the Bushehr plant to a harmless desire for Iranian civiliannuclear energy. President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton’s naïvedeparture point is that the Russians can housebreak any renegade Iranianmilitary proliferation activity at Bushehr.
Given that the Russian government has consistently watered downsanctions against Iran for its illicit nuclear program, and that itscountry’s gas and oil companies continue to violate U.S. Energysanctions targeting Tehran, one wonders what the Obama administration’s“reset” policy has achieved.
The Islamic Republic’s road to becoming a nuclear civilian power (and —absent tough Western action — a soon-to-be-military nuclear actor)meandered through Russia with help from its Western nuclear-technology enablers.
Lax export-control laws in Germany, for example, allowed the famous“atom brothers” to transport vital nuclear technology via Russia toIran. The Germans delivered “the project of a control system for thepolar crane” to be utilized for the reactor’s dome in Bushehr.
The instability associated with the plant, including woefully inadequate safety measures and Bushehr’s vulnerability to shifting plate tectonics, has not rankled the international community either.
Bushehr’s active operation will breed new inspiration for Iran toadvance its nuclear-weapons program. The nuclear reaction at Bushehrought to be a day that shook the world, rather than a news item thatdrifts off into media and political oblivion. Perhaps President Obamawill reset his reset strategy with Russia and clamp down on one ofIran’s greatest nuclear enablers.