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The willingness of the U.S. and Europe to make a deal has always been compromised by Iran's unpredictability. At this point, there are few outside Tehran who consider its behavior anything but destabilizing, if not sinister. The West is operating on the assumption that the Iranians are trying to develop the technology and expertise required for building a bomb as rapidly as possible--and that given the regime's support for terrorism, its stated desire to destroy Israel and the prospect of a new arms race in the Middle East, the world can't afford to let them succeed. Yet there is still nothing close to unanimity on what that means in practice. History has already shown how difficult it is to curb the nuclear ambitions of a state that is determined to get the Bomb. Witness the examples of India, Pakistan and North Korea, all of which have openly defied international strictures against acquiring nuclear weapons. With so much bluster on all sides, here is a breakdown of the issues at the heart of Iran's showdown with the West--and what is at stake for the world in the outcome.
What Does Iran Want?
THAT DEPENDS ON WHOM YOU ASK. WHAT IS clear is that Iran has pursued a nuclear program for decades, ever since the U.S. first fed the Shah's appetite for reactors. Experts generally believe that Tehran has coveted the Bomb as well. Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, signed by Iran in 1968, the country is legally entitled to build reactors and make enriched uranium fuel as a source of energy, as long as it abides by treaty rules and allows the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor what it is doing. Iran has consistently denied that it intends to scale up fuel-grade enriched uranium into the purer weapons-grade component of a bomb. Iranians say they have the same rights as other countries to technology and are just looking out for their long-term energy future.
The trouble is, almost no one believes that's all Iran is after. Iran had concealed clandestine efforts to make enriched uranium from IAEA inspectors for two decades, until its secret lab at Natanz was exposed by an exile opposition group in 2002. Iran eventually owned up to the deception, telling the IAEA that since the West had denied Iran reactors for decades, it had to go underground to become self-sufficient in fuel. The revelations led the IAEA to put seals on Iran's test centrifuges while Britain, France and Germany tried to negotiate guarantees that Iran's nuclear program could never be shifted to weapons production--an effort that the U.S. backed after initial hesitation. But those talks collapsed in January when Iran refused to abandon its insistence that it retain the rights to proceed with enrichment. The Iranians broke the seals on their most sensitive equipment and vowed to press ahead. According to diplomats and U.S. officials, experts from the IAEA have reported that Iran is on the verge of assembling and operating a 164-centrifuge cascade, machinery that has peaceful applications but can also eventually be used to make fuel for a bomb.