More warning signs over Iran

In a new report today, the International Atomic Energy Agency made its most straight forward statement yet over Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

According to the new 9 page report, the Agency stated that Iran has shown a willful lack of cooperation with efforts to inspect the country’s nuclear ambitions. The argument has been going on for some time now, as Iran insists that it is merely looking to improve it’s country energy while the West (especially America) insists that the country is looking to develop weapons of mass destruction with their nuclear endeavors.

The Agency’s report seemed to really be effected by documents that showed that the country’s military had definitely been playing a role in the country’s nuclear program, and that there was evidence that the Iranians have moved into working with explosives, uranium processing and a missile warhead design — activities that it said could be used towards eventually developing nuclear weapons.

Iran, of course, denied the reports and claimed that the documents were forged, which is no surprise coming from the country that has been refusing to let inspectors visit all of their nuclear research sites.

Whether or not you believe that Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons is up to you to decide, but the real question is what should the world do to move to prevent the country from getting the weapons that they may or may not be looking to develop? There are really only two options here. The first being to negotiate with the country to try to work out some way to convince Iran that nuclear weapons are not in their best interest. The second method is the one that George Bush has decided to take, which is to refuse to talk to the country at all, and hope that sanctions will prevent it from getting the weapons. Gee, if memory serves me correct, I think that was the same method Bush decided was the right way to go with North Korea too… and we all know how that worked out.

Unlike Bush’s policy (and the same one that McCain has promised to follow if he becomes the next President), there are a handful of large and powerful countries that have decided to have talks with Iran to try to prevent what I believe to be the inevitable entrance of the country into the nuclear power countries.

Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are all looking to hold talks with Iran. Foreign ministers from all of those countries are going to be visiting Iran to try to work out a deal to convince the country to stop moving forward with its nuclear plans.

Which policy is the more effective one? Once again, that decision is yours to make… me personally, I think it’s always better to negotiate before a problem develops instead of waiting for the problem to be in your face, but who really knows. As for Bush, nothing will change his perspective, so at least while he is in office do not expect to read any news about America and Iran sitting down to discuss the problems between the two countries. The only way that will happen any time soon is if America wakes up and elects Barack Obama this November.

What are your thoughts? Should America try to work with Iran before a problem develops, or wait until after and then claim there was nothing we could have done? Maybe I am just missing something very obvious here, but from my point of view I, once again, just can’t seem to figure out what is going through Bush’s mind.

image from Meantoons

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