Iran's Nuclear Ambitions

One of the major diplomatic issues in today's world concerns Iran, and that country's determination to pursue what it calls a peaceful nuclear energy program, but many observers call a covert nuclear weapons program.

Iran's official position is that it wants to meet its country's energy needs without using up its oil supply, one of the underpinnings of its economy. The U.S., Europe, and especially skittish neighbors like Israel and Saudi Arabia, think Iran is developing the bomb instead.

Current estimates put Iran at least a year from nuclear weapons capacity and two to five years from a workable bomb, but the Netanyahu administration in Israel is determined not to let that happen. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has announced his preference that Israel be wiped off the map, and Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat, to which military force may be an appropriate answer.

The nuclear development program in Iran has been around since before the 1979 revolution, but it was stalled for a long time and only restarted in 2005, when Ahmadinejad gained the presidency. The nuclear issue is a core tenet of Ahmadinejad's leadership; he has stated, "Nuclear energy is the scientific achievement of the Iranian nation."

The Obama administration in the U.S. has taken a diplomatic approach to the issue, hoping to contain Iran without resorting to military force. Iran briefly agreed to allow its uranium to be exported to Russia for processing, under the supervision of the U.N. Security Council, but later backtracked on the deal. The U.N. has imposed sanctions, primarily targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guards, but these sanctions do not appear to be slowing down the nuclear program. 

However, the Stuxnet computer worm has caused considerable irritation at Iran's nuclear facilities. The worm attacked the computers controlling the centrifuges at Iran's nuclear processing center in Natanz, and also the turbines at Iran's nuclear reactor in Bashehr. While the virus infiltrated other computers, it only did damage to those two sites. The U.S. and Israel have officially denied involvement.

It is clear from the recent motorcycle attacks on two Iranian scientists, in which motorcyclists attached magnetic bombs to their car windows, killing one and wounding another, that the hostilities over Iran's nuclear program are certain to continue until some resolution can be reached. Iran may not want a war, but neither does it want to back down in the face of the international community after such a protracted standoff. Whether diplomacy will ultimately succeed remains to be seen.