This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/6166
December 11, 2013
November 26, 2013 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – According to the Reuters news agency, Iran didn't wait very long to demonstrate just how badly the West, prodded by Team Obama, got burned in the recently concluded nuclear agreement with the terrorist state of Iran.
"…Iran will press on with construction at a nuclear reactor site at Arak, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said on Wednesday, despite an agreement with Western powers to halt activity...'The capacity at the Arak site is not going to increase. It means no new nuclear fuel will be produced and no new installations will be installed, but construction will continue there' Zarif told parliament in translated comments broadcast on Iran's Press TV...." [source, Iran will continue construction at Arak nuclear site - Zarif, Reuters]
According to the terms of the draft document, " Iran announces that it will not make any further advances of its activities at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (1), Fordow (2), or the Arak reactor (3), designated by the IAEA as IR-40…"
Iran however sees this language as placing no real-world constraints on its development of the Arak heavy water reactor, with Zarif stating, "The capacity at the Arak site is not going to increase. It means no new nuclear fuel will be produced and no new installations will be installed, but construction will continue there,"
Arak is important because one of the isotopes it will produce is plutonium, giving Iran a second pathway to producing enough fissionable material to construct nuclear weapons.
Historically, heavy water reactors are really useful for two purposes, to produce isotopes useful in medicine and to produce plutonium for weapons.
Iran claims that the unit was constructed with the sole purpose of obtaining medically useful isotopes.
Upon investigation, this claim is transparently specious since offers to assist Iran in purchasing the isotopes it might need from international, and controlled sources were made three years ago by the United States and other countries,
"The United States and other nations seeking to restrain Iran's nuclear ambitions are offering to help the Islamic republic purchase medical isotopes on the international market, administration officials said Tuesday. The offer, officials said, is meant to persuade Iran to halt its controversial push to produce fuel for a medical research reactor…" [source, Glenn Kessler, Iran gets offer on medical isotopes , Washington Post]
Tehran rejected the offer out of hand. Its refusal was immediate and curt:
"…Iran will not suspend its sensitive high level enrichment in return for radioisotopes as offered in a letter by three world powers to the UN atomic watchdog, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday…"We will not examine offers which lead to the shutting down of Tehran reactor," said the spokesman, in an almost word-for-word repetition of a statement he made on February 10…" [source, Iran refuses to stop enrichment in return for isotopes, AFP]
Cutting through Iran's not-so-impenetrable rhetoric is easy. The country wants a heavy water reactor for the sole purpose of producing plutonium for bomb making. Foreign Minister Zarif's statement regarding Arak [or IR 40 as the IAEA refers to it] means that the Mullocracy will never willingly agree to terminate its second pathway to building nuclear weapons.
Even defenders of Iran's nuke program have to admit that Zarif's clarification removes all ambiguity as to the purpose of this reactor. The fact is that facility will continue to be operated over the next 6 months as if there were no agreement whatsoever.
Zarif's statement, though not unexpected, is revelatory in it proves Iran's intention is to produce nuclear weapons. At the same time is also demonstrates Mr. Obama's duplicity and his total lack of concern regarding maintenance of U.S. national security vis à vis the machinations of Iran's Islamic dictatorship.
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http://www.pipelinenews.org/2013/nov/27/U-S-ndash-Iran-Deal-Already-Effectively-Dead.html
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/6166