(Times-UK) Editorial - While Ahmadinejad declares Iran's pacific intentions, that is disingenuous bluster. No disinterested observer can believe that Iran's program is designed purely to generate electricity. Iran pretends to cooperate with the IAEA and comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while withholding salient information and continuing its nuclear developments. It has built a second enrichment facility, near Qom, which should have been declared much earlier. This was the object of the IAEA's criticism last week. The plan to build ten new plants is a new declaration of recalcitrance. Coming from a leader who believes in a literal and imminent apocalypse and who gleefully anticipates the extinction of the Jewish state, it is chilling. The international community, specifically the U.S. and the EU3 (Britain, Germany and France), have been accommodating to a fault to Iran's reasonable needs. Further sanctions will need to bite, and the message from the UN should be single-minded. The multilateral arms control regime will be upheld, or it will be worthless.
2009-12-01 08:53:40Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive