Bush
Targets Iran
By Paul Koring
Globe and Mail
09 May, 2003
U.S. President George W.
Bush shifted targets yesterday, saying that Iran must be stopped from
developing nuclear warheads.
"One of the things we
must do is work together to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction," the President said. He made the statement only weeks
after the United States waged a war to topple the Iraqi regime, and
in the midst of a standoff with North Korea another "axis
of evil," terrorist-supporting, rogue state over its nuclear-weapons
program.
The President delivered his
remarks after foreign leaders from the "coalition of the willing,"
which backed Mr. Bush in his war against Iraq, paraded through Washington
this week.
"I've always expressed
my concerns that the Iranians may be developing a nuclear [weapons]
program," Mr. Bush said at an Oval Office meeting with the Emir
of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
The Bush administration is
pushing hard to have Tehran declared in violation of the nuclear Non-proliferation
Treaty by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a move opposed by
Russia, the main nuclear supplier to the Islamic theocracy.
The intensified rhetoric
against Tehran seems to indicate that the Bush administration is ready
for another confrontation over the intentions of what it regards as
a rogue state bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
"Our concern is about
the potential acquisition of nuclear weapons by a state that's a known
supporter of terrorism," U.S. State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher said yesterday. "It's been something that the President
talked about. It's why he talked about the axis of evil. We all understand
this to be one of the most dangerous combinations of our age,"
he added.
Iran insists its nuclear
program is solely for peaceful purposes, although that echoes the claims
of other nations, such as India and Pakistan, which secretly developed
nuclear weapons under the guise of pursuing reliable electricity supplies.
Skeptics point out that Iran,
with some of the world's largest oil and natural-gas reserves, hardly
needs nuclear reactors to generate electricity.
"We completely reject
Iran's claim that it's doing this for peaceful purposes," Mr. Boucher
said, adding that Iran is building an uranium-enrichment plant and a
heavy-water plant. Enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, which
can be recovered from a heavy-water reactor, can be used to build nuclear
warheads.
"There's no economic
justification for a state that's rich in oil and gas, like Iran, to
build hugely expensive nuclear fuel-cycle facilities," Mr. Boucher
said. "Iran flares off more gas annually than the equivalent energy
its desired reactors would produce."
The Bush administration says
that Tehran tried to conceal its reactor programs, acknowledging them
only after opposition groups made them public.
Washington is pressing other
nations on the IAEA board to declare Iran in violation of the Non-proliferation
Treaty, a move that could shift the issue to the United Nations Security
Council.
Britain, Mr. Bush's strongest
backer in the war against Iraq, also supports Washington's position
on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Other members of the 35-nation IAEA board
including Canada, France, Germany and Russia, which all opposed
Mr. Bush's decision to wage war to topple Saddam Hussein's regime
have not indicated a position.
The IAEA is due to report
on its assessment of Iran's nuclear program next month.
"We'll wait and see
what it says," Mr. Bush said yesterday.
The White House is already
grappling with its policy toward Tehran. Iran and the United States
have been at loggerheads for more than two decades, since the Iranian
revolution and the subsequent 444-day hostage drama, when the U.S. embassy
was overrun in Tehran and diplomats seized. There have been glimmers
of co-operation in recent years, especially during the U.S.-led war
to oust the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 2001.
Iran and the United States
are jockeying for influence in Iraq, with Tehran backing Shia radicals
seeking an Islamic government, and Washington struggling to nurture
a multiethnic federal democracy.
As for relations with Tehran,
the Bush administration remains locked in an internal debate over whether
to overtly support Iranian student protesters inside the country in
the hope that they will eventually topple the governing mullahs or attempt
to engage the so-called moderates who are promising reform.