President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran persists in his almost obsessive hate speech against Israel, including declarations that border on Holocaust denial. While his first statements might have been attributed to political inexperience, continued and even more extreme rhetoric suggests some calculated policy, even if its true purposes are not easy to decipher.
In the weeks preceding the November meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, a comm wpromise proposal in the nuclear realas offered to Iran, according to which Iran would be allowed to continue its work on uranium conversion at Isfahan but would have to move all its enrichment activity to Russia. The idea was to ensure that the uranium shipped back to Iran would be enriched only to the degree necessary for civilian purposes, but not for military use. Iran initially rejected the offer but subsequently said...
On October 27, Iran launched it first satellite. The Sinah-1 was carried by a Russian Kosmos-3M Space Launch Vehicle (SLV), which took off from Plesetsk in northern Russia and also carried seven other satellites for various states and research organizations. Thus, Iran has become the forty-third country in the world to own a satellite.
The election of a new president in Iran does not signify a change in Iranian nuclear policy — Iran is still intent on pursuing a nuclear weapons capability – but it has produced a change in the external trappings of Iranian policy. Under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran has abandoned the niceties of Muhammad Khatami and reverted to the rhetorical style of the Islamic revolution, reminiscent of the Ayatollah Khomeini era. However, the change of tone and of tactics sharply reduces the ability of both Iran and the...
According to an August 2 report in The Washington Post, a recent US intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.
Iranian politics continue to fascinate the rest of the world. Twenty-six years after the Islamic regime came to power, the revolution seems to continue and Iranians are still searching for an appropriate way to realize the aspirations that brought Islamists to power in 1979. In the presidential elections on June 24, the voters chose Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, a man who, more than any other candidate, symbolized adherence to the original principles of the revolution, embodied the changes demanded by the ordinary voters, and reaffirmed the...
A stocktaking of Iran’s “visible” nuclear project is a relatively easy task. Much has been disclosed to the world and subsequently reported about this project. Iran has succeeded in dulling the impact of this information, helped in no small way by the IAEA and some of Iran’s friends, notably Russia. It is therefore important to take note of the extent of this program, its achievements and possible developments in order to eliminate any complacency about Iran’s program and dispel the notion that this has...
On January 12, the European Union resumed trade talks with Iran following an 18-month suspension. On the same day, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors arrived in Iran to investigate suspicions that nuclear weapons-related experiments had been conducted at Parchin army base, near Tehran. According to an Iranian official, the scope of the visit was limited, and not all was open to inspection at the suspect site.
Under heavy European pressure and a threat to refer the Iranian nuclear issue to the UN Security Council, Iran has backed down — at least temporarily. In late November, Iran and the British, French and German governments concluded an agreement regarding Iran’s suspected nuclear activities. According to that agreement, Iran will suspend all its enrichment activities, especially “the manufacture and import of gas centrifuges and their components; the assembly, installation, testing or operation of gas centrifuges;...
As can be seen both from the most recent report (the seventh in the series) by the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA) to his Board of Governors (BOG) and from additional published information, Iran is relentlessly pursuing its quest for nuclear weapons. However, while all the facts warrant a declaration that Iran is in non-compliance with its NPT obligations, there is no indication that the IAEA will issue such a declaration.
Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and in particular since the early 1990s, the Iranian threat has become a key issue in the Middle East, occupying many states within the region and without that see themelves threatened by Iran, some even on a strategic level. The severity of the threat is a function of the Islamic fundamentalist regime and its increising capabilities, both conventional and nonconventional.
