Nothing Clear on Nuclear Iran

Iranian President Mahmoud AhmadinejadThe nuclear world grows a bit larger with a new report from Iran. If you’ve been following, there are a lot of nuclear strategic moves being made around the world- North Korea has recently said that they will not resume 6 party talks about their nuclear activities unless first they get bilateral conversations with the U.S. The U.S. said ok, anything that moves toward resuming those 6 party talks they will agree to. Pyongyang is into it, and talks will resume soon. Obama recently changed the make-up of an Eastern Europe missile defense shield, meant initially to defend against long-range Iranian missile attacks. The shield will not take its proposed Bush-era form, but will instead become a series of short and middle range missile defense systems.

Either way, the goal is to protect against Iranian attack- and that kind of attack is now even more of a focus with the recent announcement from senior officials at the UN nuclear monitoring agency that they believe Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb.

That’s an atomic cloud in the mind, for sure. While Al Jazeera reports that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapon programme in Iran,” many western countries the U.S., France and Britain have long suspected Iran of having both the capability and the plans to create nuclear weapons.

Iran insists, over and over, even through 3 UN sponsored visits and investigations, none of which have revealed anything but peaceful nuclear activities and peaceful uranium enrichment.

Iran, for their part, is not bowing or buckling under international pressure. There is a meeting coming up among world powers on October 1 and many from the West are expected to ask some difficult questions to Iran- and they want straight answers.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, has refused to rule out the development of nuclear weapons and recently told NBC News, that he would "never" stop work on peaceful nuclear programmes. He reiterated that nuclear weapons were "not a part of our programmes and plans.”

Hillary Clinton has asserted that Iran needs to answer “head on” concerns about their nuclear program. Well, that will certainly be a heated meeting. The IAEA issue of a statement that they have “no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapon programme in Iran” leads to only more questions- where are the Western powers getting this intelligence?  

The agency attempted to clarify its position:

"Information from a variety of sources ... is critically assessed by a team of experts working collectively in accordance with the agency's practices. The IAEA reiterates that all relevant information and assessments that have gone through the above process have already been provided to the IAEA Board of Governors in reports of the director general."

Um, thanks guys.

Much controversy now swirls around the possible existence of a “secret annex” report with secret, confidential information that the IAEA is not releasing right now-

This all has the air of a mystery novel, an international spy thriller- and that would be exciting except for the massive tension that exists between western nations and Iran.

Whether there is secret knowledge, are secret reports, or there will be secrets turned answers at the October 1 meeting, this issue is sure to continue on and grow in importance.