Next Iran?

Last Wednesday US Secretary of State Colin Powell (he holds the office until his successor's appointment is confirmed by Congress) suddenly spoke about “new intelligence” indicating that Iran was not only planning to produce enriched uranium (which it is entitled to do for peaceful uses under international agreements) but was also testing a long range missile with a nose cone capable of carrying a nuclear warhead made from that enriched uranium.

Subsequently conflicting reports circulated in Washington, some saying that the intelligence was “very solid” and others claiming that it was based on a single unverified source.

These developments take place against the background of persistent and partially successful efforts by Britain and other European nations to persuade the Iranian government to permit inspection of its nuclear processing facilities by the International Atomic Energy Authority in order to establish that its enriched uranium will be used only for electricity generation, as it claims.

The United States is sceptical and wants Iran to be reported to the UN Security Council for being in breach of nuclear weapons control treaties.
The similarity of this situation to the early stages of the debate about whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and the role of the UN Inspectors in finding them is worrying. Once again Mr Powell is apparently using evidence that has not been sufficiently checked.

No one questions that blocking the proliferation of nuclear weapons is of the first importance; but the lessons learnt over Iraq must be applied to whatever approach is taken.

Remember, with Iraq and North Korea, Iran was one of Mr Bush's “axis of evil” countries.