Life, Liberty and Nuclear Energy

Life, Liberty, and Nuclear Energy

On July 1, 1968 Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act—which gives the “inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”—allowing Iran the right to nuclear energy.

But Iran’s nuclear ambitions have surged in the last year, and so has international skepticism of the country’s “peaceful” nuclear program. Iranian officials have stated repeatedly that they are developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but the United States government, along with the United Nations, have their doubts.

Ahmadinejad’s spokesmen Mohammed pushed a grassroots response to the question of why Iran does not want nuclear technology.

“Iran has many atomic bombs, the atomic bombs are the people,” Mohammed said, alluding to the power of a unified people.

Though Iran has repeatedly stated that it does not intend to become a nuclear power, journalist Ali defended Iran’s right to acquire nuclear technology by asking why Iran is under so much scrutiny for its nuclear program when Israel is thought to have the only nuclear arsenal in the middle-east due to a slip of the tongue by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on a German television station last December.

Reuters has since deleted the story, while the Associated Press did not write any stories pertaining to this incident.

“A country that has got some 200 nuclear weapons and never allows any inspection or questioning of its own program coming and speaking against Iran’s nuclear program is complete hypocrisy,” Ali said. “Israel is truly trying to get Iran into the military conflict, which could cost dearly for Iran. Israel has repeatedly threatened [to attack] Iran, and they have even spoke of using nuclear weapons.”

In 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found Iran to be non-compliant with the NPT because it had failed to disclose information about its civilian uranium enrichment.
“It is not illegal to [not] report [information about nuclear facilities] until you reach the stage of enrichment,” Sadeghi said. “[Iranian officials] thought there would be no resistance. The also didn’t report their facilities because of Israel’s attack on Iraqi nuclear sites in the early 1980s. [The officials] thought that they should keep it secret until they were at a stage where they had to legally report it.”

For Iran, developing nuclear energy is a primarily motivated by a faltering economy that is dependent on a finite supply of oil.

Iran is the fourth largest exporter of crude oil, with 45 percent of its GDP coming from oil and gas revenue.