(Wall Street Journal) David Albright and Bruno Tertrais - Despite great expectations that Tehran would clear up suspicions about its past and possibly current nuclear-weapons development, Iran has so far clarified little. Alarm bells should be going off in the West. A prerequisite for any final agreement is for Iran to address nuclear-weapons questions raised by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. If Iran is able to successfully evade questions about a weapons program now, when biting sanctions are in place, why would it address them later when these sanctions are lifted? What use will an agreement be if Iran can hide a capacity to secretly build nuclear bombs? It is critical to know whether Iran had a nuclear-weapons program in the past, how far the work on warheads advanced and whether it continues. Without clear answers, outsiders will be unable to determine how fast the Iranian regime could construct a nuclear weapon. Mr. Albright, a former UN inspector in Iraq, is the president of the Institute for Science and International Security. Mr. Tertrais is a senior research fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris.
2014-05-15 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive