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Tehran Deceives While Completing Its Nukes

[Washington Times] James G. Zumwalt - Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, leaving office in 2005, boasted how, during his two-year tour, he had deceived the Western powers. In his recent book The Rise of Nuclear Iran, author Dore Gold details how Rowhani bragged: "When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan" (where the fuel conversion for Iran's nuclear weapons program took place). The Isfahan project had not yet begun when talks with the Europeans had, but it was completed while those talks continued. Gold explains Rowhani's diplomatic deception: "Thus, while Rowhani sat at the negotiating table, participating in the first trial run of the West's engagement with it over the nuclear question, Iran quietly moved from having no uranium conversion capability whatsoever to actually completing its clandestine conversion plant." With Tehran most likely less than a year away from the finish line in its race to achieve nuclear weapons capability, why would it choose to negotiate now - as it enters the home stretch - to stop its program? It hasn't - Iran again only seeks to buy what little remaining time it needs to make its nuclear weapons program a fait accompli. The writer is a Marine veteran of the Persian Gulf and Vietnam wars.
2009-09-21 08:00:00
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