Tehran's Game

From IBD:

Posted 3/6/2006
Nuclear Arms: Iran passes a crucial deadline this week for its nuclear program. Not that it seems to care. In fact, it thinks it's pulled the wool over the West's eyes.

As the West awaits word on whether Iran will halt its insane march to nuclear power status, we learn that Tehran is having a big laugh at our expense. Iran's leaders, clearly relishing the spotlight and the West's eagerness to accommodate them, have decided they can flout international law and build a nuclear weapon without interference.

According to an account in The Telegraph, a U.K. newspaper, Iran's former top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, bragged at a recent closed meeting of Iran's Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution that Tehran has duped the West into believing Iran has no nuclear program. Especially gullible, he said, were the so-called EU3: Britain, France and Germany

"From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, 'The Iranians are lying and deceiving you, and they have not told you everything,' " Rowhani is quoted as saying. "The Europeans used to respond, 'We trust them.' "

In fact, as Rowhani noted, Iran went forward with its plan to re-equip its Isfahan nuclear plant to enrich uranium for ultimate use in a nuclear device even after Iran's covert nuclear program was first revealed in 2002. The Iranians have lied repeatedly and broken the law.

They ran into trouble, however, after Libya secretly negotiated a deal with the U.S. and Britain to give up its illicit nuclear program. As Rowhani acknowledges, Iran got some of its high-tech centrifuges from the same source — Pakistan's rogue atomic dealer A.Q. Khan.

Knowing this, does anyone doubt Iran's ultimate intentions?

Iran claims it wants nuclear technology solely for "peaceful" purposes. Yet it rejects every offer to provide the country with technology for peaceful purposes, with checks and balances that would satisfy the global community's legitimate concerns.

That's why we were surprised Monday to hear Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, say he was "very much hopeful" that a deal with Iran could be struck. ElBaradei believes talks between Moscow and Tehran about basing Iran's nuclear enrichment activities on Russian soil will answer all questions about Iran's intent.

But after reading Rowhani's comments, it appears that's not the case. Iran's program has been designed to yield a nuclear bomb. And once it has one, it might use it against Israel, Europe or both. It will also be in a position to slip crude nukes into the hands of the growing number of terrorist groups that hang their hats in Tehran.

The U.S., alone, has remained unswayed by Iran's lies and propaganda. For that, we can thank John Bolton, who has justified the faith that President Bush showed last year by making him our ambassador to the United Nations.

On Monday, the IAEA prepared to hand the issue over to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose economic or other sanctions. One option the Security Council does not have, however, is doing nothing. As Bolton put it over the weekend: "The longer we wait, the harder it will be to solve."

Bolton also vowed that regardless what the U.N. does, the U.S. will use "all the tools" it has to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. "All the tools." When Iranian leaders stop gloating, they might ponder all that might entail.