JUST SHOCKING

Well, surely you will stagger back from your computer screens in disbelief when I tell you this -- but it seems that UN inspectors have concluded that the Iranians have been lying through their teeth all along about their nuclear program. (And isn't it interesting that despite all the attention paid by the broadcast nets today to the story about Chalabi's possible links to Iranian intelligence, nobody thought to use that as a quick seque point for a sentence or two mentioning this? But I digress.) The bottom line is the Iranians are just flat busted.

The Iranians insist that they are seeking to enrich uranium simply to produce commercial nuclear power, but the atomic energy agency's report cites continuing evidence that Iran misled inspectors with many of its early claims, especially on questions about where it obtained critical components.

Lets face it, this is the agency that gave North Korea a clean bill of health not too long ago. So if they've figured it out, it must be really obvious.

Last night a senior administration official in Washington said the questions raised in the agency report ran so deep that there was little chance that Iran could seek to have the inquiry into its nuclear activities closed at the June meeting of the agency in Vienna, as Iranian officials had previously demanded. The Iranians had told several European nations that they planned to suspend their operations "on the way to cessation of producing nuclear materials."

"Not only is there no meaningful suspension," said the administration official, "but there are activities that can only be explained as moving forward to enrichment."

I like that "demand" part. Just the same, the agency says there's no "unambiguous" evidence of a weapons program (just all the circumstantial evidence you'd ever want, apparently.)

But it turns out the Iranians were quite the busy bees:

The atomic energy agency's report, obtained from diplomatic officials, said three workshops in Iran were making centrifuge parts despite Tehran's claim to have suspended uranium enrichment and related activities on April 9.

But wait, this gets even better:

Finally, the report said Iran's explanation for how its earlier P-1 centrifuges became contaminated with highly enriched uranium appeared to be false. The Iranians said the contamination had been on the equipment when it arrived from abroad. Investigators have said the centrifuges came from Pakistan.

That's right, Pakistan. There is evidence linking the Iranian program to the hanky-panky coming from A.Q. Khan's merry band.

Not to worry though. Because, boy, now they've done it. Now the soup is in the fire for sure.

The agency could judge Iran in violation of nuclear nonproliferation accords and send the case to the United Nations Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

Maybe this will at least convince the Europeans that it's time to do something. Because the last time we pushed, remember, the Foreign Ministers of Britain, France, and Germany flew to Tehran to make nice, got a very pretty agreement out of them, which allowed the Iranians to buy time. This report leaves the Europeans looking foolish, hopefully foolish enough to feel embarassed and to back our play at the UN.

Because nothing that's being said about this whole thing makes any sense on face:

While able to confirm the suspension at three workshops, the agency found three others, all belonging to private companies, that have continued to operate. The companies say they have not been compensated by Iran's own atomic energy organization, and thus cannot stop producing.

Have you ever heard of a business saying that since they weren't being paid they couldn't stop producing the particular item? So, really, how plausible is that story?

And, speaking of our having trouble getting approval to take this to the Security Council, the inspectors have additionally found evidence pointing to Russia (yes, Russia, that Russia, permanent Security Council member) as a possible source for the uranium.

We cannot (and never were going to) intervene militarily in Iran. But we can damn well stop the State department from "exploring" better relations with the mad mullahs, and we can press the Europeans (maybe we can make fun of them. They push us on Iraq, we just say, yeah, yeah, problems in Iraq. Pause. So, how'd your deal with the mullahs go?) And we can look for every way possible to encourage and support the reformers.

Comments

[EGC7]

Sure, WE aren't going to intervene militarily in Iran, but the Israelis have a pretty good track record when it comes to making nuclear reactors dissappear...Hmmm.