02-13-06,9:14am

With the accord adopted against Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Saturday due to pressures exerted by the United States, George W. Bush is once more irresponsibly and unnecessarily pushing humankind toward a delicate situation portending conflict.

The IAEA Board of Governors’ decision to take the Iranian nuclear issue to the UN Security Council is part of Washington’s plan to have this body impose sanctions on Teheran. This would be a first step in the US “justifying” later military aggression against the Islamic Republic, a firm anti-imperialist stronghold, and taking control of the Middle Eastern nation’s huge hydrocarbon reserves.

According to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty signed by Iran, all countries are entitled to develop the nuclear energy for peaceful objectives. That country claims its right to enrich uranium to generate electricity, but the United States, supported by the allied Western powers (France, Great Britain and Germany, represented by the European Union) are denying this prerogative of Iran – they allege that Iran intends to produce atomic weapons. However, no evidence supporting this charge has been produced, despite the Persian country’s position which maintained its nuclear facilities under the IAEA supervision until this past Sunday, when it rescind that stance in response to the unfair decision taken by that entity.

The arbitrary decision is also reinforced by available 2005data showing that worldwide there are 441 active nuclear reactors generating electric energy in 31 countries. Of these, 104 are located in the United States, 59 in France, 23 in the United Kingdom and 18 in Germany. Meanwhile, Iran possesses one sole unit which is not yet in operation; work on it has been confined to preliminary research.

This does not taking into consideration Washington, Paris and London’s own nuclear arsenals contain thousands of atomic weapons. The former not only threatens to launch these anytime it considers it necessary, but has also used them – causing monstrous genocidal destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But the double standard being applied by Washington and its allies was unveiled most clearly in the Vienna meeting, when they rejected a proposal made by a group of countries from the Third World to create a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East. The West used the flimsy excuse that this “was not the theme of the discussion.” The real reason for this denial is that one of the countries in the region is Israel, which –in complicity with the United States and the other Western powers– has skirted UN agreements on nuclear issues and has equipped itself with an arsenal estimated at being at least 200 atomic bombs. The self-professed masters of the earth feel the need to maintain their position as world policeman and support Tel Aviv in that strategic region.

Disagreement among the country members of the Board of Governors –which had to postpone discussion on the issue for three days, two more than foreseen– and the importance of the issue, made it wiser to grant more time to diplomacy rather than give in to the language of force. This latter implies taking the case to the Security Council, since this body will not be able to discuss the issue after March 6, the date in which the IAEA Secretary General Mohamed El Barade will introduce the report to the agency on the Iranian nuclear program.

However, the United States was interested in hurrying a decision, due to its calculated interest in frustrating a Russian initiative which would be negotiated by that country and Iran on February 16. That initiative is based on the creation of an international consortium under the United Nations’ supervision which would offer uranium enrichment services to other countries, including Iran.

The Kremlin’s proposal, regardless of its limitations pointed out by Teheran, could not satisfy Washington as being a way out of the present crisis and offering paths for future international cooperation. Such cooperation is the sole rational solution to great challenges –such as the nuclear issue– which are matters of life and death for the human species.