Nuclear proliferation looms, II

We wrote in Monday’s issue of the Daily Wire that
rising oil prices and worries about global warming lead more and more countries
to consider - or, rather, reconsider - nuclear power generation as an
alternative. More than forty countries have already informed the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that they were embarking on the planning work
necessary for building nuclear reactors. There is little doubt that what drives
these countries is the need for plentiful energy - and in some desert
countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Libya, the need for
water: These countries are planning to build large nuclear reactor to support
large water desalination plants. There is also evidence that the Middle Eastern
countries among those interested in developing nuclear power do so because of
the growing fear of an ever-more-assertive (and, when you hear what its leaders
have to say about Israel, foul-mouthed) Iran - a country which will become even
more assertive when it begins to produce nuclear weapons sometime during 2010.
We note that neighbors of Iran — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey - do not
share the sanguine views of analysts in the U.S. intelligence community that
Iran has “halted” its nuclear weapons program; but then, as we reported, the
bosses of the U.S. intelligence community - CIA director Michael Hayden and
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates - also let it be known that that wacky
conclusion, contained in the December 2007’s National Intelligence Estimate and
publicized by the Bush administration, was nonsensical. The development of
nuclear capability for peaceful purposes makes it much easier for a country to
cross the thin line - very thin line - separating civilian and military nuclear
 capabilities.

The Washington Post’s Joby
Warrick agrees. He writes
that, yes, the U.S. intelligence agencies have
concluded that Iran halted its research into making
nuclear weapons five years ago, but the Islamic republic still seeks to make
enriched uranium with centrifuges at its vast underground facility at Natanz.
It is now operating about somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 centrifuges and
plans to increase the number to 50,000. Iran insists, implausibly, that the
uranium will be used only to make electricity, but the United States and its European allies have
sought to dissuade Tehran from pursuing the technology by
pushing ever-tougher sanctions through the UN Security Council. AsIran’s
neighbors, convinced that a nuclear-armed Tehran is now likely, are keeping their
own options open, nuclear experts say. Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general
of the IAEA, has likened the pursuit of “latent” nuclear capability
to buying an insurance policy. “You don’t really even need to have a
nuclear weapon,” ElBaradei said