Iran's_Nuclear_Threat

Iran's Nuclear Threat Having become one of the most prevalent debates in recent years, Iranian nuclear programs remains as a worrying issue in the world. While American and European officials believe Iran is planning to build nuclear weapons, Iran's leadership says that their goal in developing a nuclear program is to generate electricity without depending on oil supplies. Because of easy transportation and conversion of fossil fuels, many countries still use oil, gas and coal as their main sources of energy. But they are exhaustible resources, and sooner or later they will be depleted. David Peaty (1984) asserted that continued reliance on fossil fuels technology would make countries vulnerable economically in the future. Nuclear energy would be the best alternative source of energy due to large supplies of materials and great power output for long periods of time. Under the terms of Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed in July first 1968, which governs nuclear-energy use around the world, any nation can enrich uranium for civilian nuclear-power reactors (Pan, 2005). But some countries take advantage of this treaty to produce nuclear fuel for weapons to reach their terrorist purposes. I think Iran with its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is one of those countries which try to make nuclear bomb to increase their power in the world and threaten opposing countries. United Nations and other countries should put all their effort to restrain Iran from access to atomic bomb, Otherwise in the near future Iran will turn to a serious threat to the world peace. But what has Iran done to become a threat for the world' In 2003, previous International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director announced he had discovered that Iran was secretly constructing a facility to enrich uranium-a key component of advanced nuclear weapons-near Natans (Calabresi, 2003). Depending on uranium enrichment level a fuel can be made for both nuclear energy and nuclear-weapons program. Iran is using its nuclear program to enrich uranium to higher than necessary for civilian nuclear-energy production (Pan, 2005). This country is one of the signatories to "NPT" treaty and its nuclear activities should be brought under the inspection of International Atomic Energy Agency. According to the agency's report, inspectors have been denied access to series of nuclear activities. Furthermore, Iran had hided some of its atomic facilities near Isfahan, Natanz and Arak, and has refused to answer inspectors' questions on a variety of activities. On Sep 2010, Mr. Obama revealed the existence of the secret underground nuclear plant in Iran (Cohen, 2010). Also, the United Nations' inspectors declared for the first time that they have extensive evidence of past or current undisclosed activities by Iran military to develop a nuclear warhead (Cohen, 2010). As we know, Iran has been the largest enemy of Israel for decades. Recently, in United Nations' gathering president of Iran said that Israel should be wiped off the map. You be the judge; How serious threat is this when you combine it with Iran's urgent development of nuclear weapon' At first, United States and its allies tried to solve the problem diplomatically, but after a long term negotiations Iran denied to halt its nuclear program. Until recently, United Nations Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran, but I doubt that imposing sanctions is tough enough to force Iran to reconsider its nuclear program. In my opinion, what Iran has done is an obvious violation of international laws, and nuclear complex of Iran should be destroyed by a military action before it turns to a threat for the world peace. References Peaty, David. (1984). Discovery: The energy crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Calabresi, Massimo (2003, Mar 08): Iran Nuclear Threat. TIME in partnership with CNN. Retrieved July 8, 2010 from http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0859943064900.html Cohen, Roger (2010, June 10): Iran's Nuclear Program. New York Times. Retrieved July 8, 2010 from http://www.nytimes.com/info/Iran-nuclear-program/ Pan, Ether (2005, Sep 6): Iran: The Nuclear Threat. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved July 8, 2010 from http://www.cfr.org/publication/8830/iran.html