Iran Announces Plans for Highly Enriched Uranium
Posted February 8th, 2010 at 5:05pm in American Leadership 
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Iran’s government announced that it was pushing ahead with plans to enrich uranium to 20 percent levels, ostensibly to fuel a research reactor.
The latest Iranian zig zag came only days after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran was open to a deal on exchanging some of its stockpile of low enriched uranium for fuel for a research reactor that the United Nations offered last year. Ahmadinejad suggested that he had made the decision to escalate Iran’s enrichment efforts because western powers failed to accept Iran’s counter-offer: “We gave them two-to-three months’ time for such a deal. They started a new game and now I (ask) Dr Salehi to start work on the production of 20 percent fuel using centrifuges.” Salehi was in the audience at the ceremony.
Iranian nuclear official Ali Asghar Soltanieh today told the Associated Press that Tehran will shortly begin to further enrich some of its 1.8 ton stockpile of low enriched uranium to produce fuel for a research reactor that it claims produces medical isotopes. Such a step would also bring Iran much closer to producing more highly enriched uranium that could be used to arm a nuclear weapon.
By threatening to expand its uranium enrichment program by enriching at higher levels, the Iranian regime deliberately flaunts its defiance of five United Nations Security Council resolutions and three sets of sanctions. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner reacted strongly to the latest Iranian ploy: “This is real blackmail. The only thing that we can do, alas, is apply sanctions given that negotiations are not possible.” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was meeting with French officials in Paris, also expressed exasperation with Tehran. Gates stated that the Obama Administration still wanted to “try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue” but added: “The only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track, but it will require all of the international community to work together.”
Meanwhile Iran’s government remains acutely aware that some western officials may see a different path ahead for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. Air Force commander Heshmatollah Kassiri announced that Iran is developing a sophisticated air defense system that will be unveiled “in the near future.” Kassiri warned that: “The country’s air defenses are strong enough to confront the enemies … and we will never let them get close to our sensitive nuclear centers.”
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6 Responses to “Iran Announces Plans for Highly Enriched Uranium”
Ozzy6900, CT on February 8th, 2010 at 6:10pm said:
So how much rope do we give Iran? Remember Adolf Hitler? We gave him Poland and Czechoslovakia thinking that would quiet him but we were wrong. Iran has no intention of stopping yet we are letting them just go ahead. President Obama is just another Neville Chamberlain letting the devil himself run a-mock. Why is it politically wrong to put a stop to Iran or even to say put a stop to them?
A. Roberts, Kansas City,Mo. on February 9th, 2010 at 6:52am said:
Iran has been stolen from its good people. When is the International Community going to step up and help the hard working good citizens to get thir country back.
Everyone knows this uranium enrichment program is a threat by a thug who is foolish enough to use it for his own benefit. If the world is ever going to be safe all the leaders of the world pull your collective heads out of the sand and do something before its to late and a lot of innocent people die… GET IT ON!!!!!
stirling, Pennsylvania on February 9th, 2010 at 10:28am said:
This president is an “apeaser” who is all words, no action. The problem is you can sanction the bat snot out of a dictator or whatever Iran qualifies as and they will just laugh if they don’t belive you have the muscle, or will to back it up. Iran is playing a game of chicken with the west, and so far it’s worked for them. Iran is the bully in the school playground. If someone would just stand up and punch them in the mouth they might have the decency to sit down.
Drew Page, IL on February 9th, 2010 at 1:53pm said:
Based on our President’s close relationship with the Iranian leader, his penchant for diplomacy and his considerable skills in this area, I am certain that we have nothing to worry about. In the unlikely event that diplomacy doesn’t work however, we can rest assured that President Obama will prevail upon our good friends and allies in the U.N.to issue a “serious resloution” to Iran. Seeing how well such resloutions worked with Sadam Hussein, that should have Ahmedinejad quaking in his boots.
The real problem is not how we will react to Iraan, but rather how we will react to Isreal, when it takes matters into its own hands. .
Jeanne Stotler,Woodbridge, Va on February 9th, 2010 at 8:43pm said:
it’s a pretty sad world when a 15 YO knows that this Pres. just talks and produces no answers. My 15Yo grandson told me this yesterday, he as LISTENED where so many only heard that he promised this and that but NEVER said HOW or what the COST would be. There are still those who will follow BHO blindly and not know where he is leading, hope they wake up before it’s too late and I hope there are many more 15 YO’s who are paying attention to whats going on today.
Drew Page, IL on February 10th, 2010 at 9:40am said:
Diplomacy can be very effective if the party with whom you are dealing knows you have the strength and the will to resort to “politics by other means”, if necessary.