Yesterday President Bush began banging the war drums again about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and invoking WWIII. That is the last thing we or the world needs.
The key to preventing Iran from developing their own nuclear weapons is to provide for monitoring their uranium enrichment activities. A concentration of 5% uranium is needed for use as fuel in a nuclear reactor like the one the Russians are helping the Iranians build. The concentration needed for a nuclear weapon is 96%. To concentrate uranium from 5% to 96% is no easy task. It requires thousands of centrifuges and even then takes a great deal of time to produce 96% pure uranium. Thus the way to insure Iran is not making bombs is to monitor their uranium processing.
What Bush should be doing is working with the Russians and the IAEA to develop an agreement with Iran to station IAEA and Russian technicians at the uranium processing sights to monitor the concentration of uranium being produced by Iran.
Why would Russia or Iran agree to such a process? For an agreement with the U.S. that we will not attack nor allow Israel to attack their nuclear facilities so long as the monitors certify the uranium being produced by Iran does not exceed 5% concentration levels. That would protect the ongoing Russian interest in doing business with Iran and would allow Iran to complete and operate their nuclear facility to produce electricity.
In order to get Russia, which is the key to this agreement to cooperate with the U.S., Bush must stop threatening to install the missile defense system in former soviet satellites. He must develop an atmosphere between the U.S. and Russia that will allow such an agreement to be established. The Russians hold the cards with the Iranians- Iran needs Russia to complete their reactor and to provide essential maintenance and technical support to operate it in the future. If we or Israel were to attack the reactor the Russians are helping the Iranians build, there is no assurance that would stop the uranium concentration process if that is being conducted deep underground.
Such an agreement does run the risk of the Iranians operating concentration facilities that are not known to the monitors. However by keeping track of all uranium ore that comes into to Iran it should be possible to detect an effort to divert that ore to the production of weapons grade uranium because the amount of uranium ore that would be needed to produce enough 96% pure uranium for weapons should be detectable. At the same time we must work with the Russians to control existing weapons grade materials that were part of the old Soviet Union. Even if we prevent the production of new fissionable material by Iran, we must also prevent Iran or any one else from obtaining existing supplies to prevent the construction of a nuclear weapon by Iran of any other terrorist group!
What ever the risks are in using this approach they are a lot less then risking WWIII like Bush talked about yesterday in his news conference.