…at least, they’re not that f*cking stupid.
Warren Hoge and David Sanger write in the New York Times “there is considerable concern” that Iran will withdraw from the NPT.
Perhaps. But there’s some evidence that the Iranians realize they’d be painting a target on themselves if they took such a drastic step.
Hassan Rowhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, discussed the matter 11 February before an audience of university students. According to ISNA:
Talking about the legal and political consequences of Iran leaving the NPT, Rowhani said: The consequences will be of a political and legal nature. From a legal point of view any country for the sake of its national security and interests, can leave the NPT providing that it gives 90 days notice to the UN. However, from a political viewpoint, it means that it is preparing to build nuclear bombs.
He added: Americans were trying to prove that Iran was after nuclear bombs and they would have been proved right, if we had left the NPT.
Rowhani stated: Currently we are not in a normal situation. Americans are levelling accusations against us and if we decide to leave the NPT, then Americans will be proved right and the initial outcome of such action will be the referring of our dossier to the UN Security Council.
Indeed, it is worth pointing out that Iran has some less-drastic options. For example, Tehran can:
- Stop adhering to its IAEA additional protocol and revert back to its original safeguards agreement. The additional protocol hasn’t yet been ratified, so Tehran may argue that it’s not doing anyting illegal.
- End the suspension of its enrichment program. Iran’s not legally obligated to continue the suspension and may believe that it will not face strong penalties for doing so.
Obviously, Iran would be violating its November 2004 agreement with the EU3 and could be referred to the UNSC. But Tehran may ultimately risk it, especially if things are bad enough for Iran to contemplate withdrawing from the NPT. If the international community doesn’t think that the Iranians have any current nuclear activities that violate their safeguards agreement, Tehran may emerge relatively unscathed from any UNSC proceedings.
It is, therefore, imperative to convince Iran that it will be better off reaching an agreement with the EU3 than not.
Let us all hope that cool heads prevail on both side of this problem. Between the neo’s and the hard-ball mullah’s, we could see that proposed super spike in oil prices dwarfed, and the economy in more poop than a pig lagoon. Has anyone simulated what might happen if a refinery or two were converted into radioactive particles??????
Paul, do you have a full cite (or even better, full text) on that ISNA quote? It’s a nice demonstration that the Iranians aren’t, well, f*cking stupid, and I’d like to cite it…
Under the EU3 agreement they were entitled to finish uranium conversion activities they already started (at least that’s what you wrote) and maybe want to complete this UC batch as a legal (albeit politically risky) way to make their statement against EU stall tactics ?
I don’t know what “UC batch” you’re referring to. It is the case that Iran was allowed to finish converting the batch of yellowcake it had started converting prior to the Nov 2K4 suspension agreement. But they finished that a while ago and their suspension agreement is pretty clear that they can’t do any more conversion.