Make no mistake about it: Iran is “feverishly” working on its nuclear program — feverishly working on a program it insists is for peaceful purposes.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports:
The new satellite images released yesterday only brought into sharper focus what was already known: Iran is feverishly continuing construction activity at its nuclear sites and fortifying them deep underground, as if expecting them to be attacked in the future.
And reports like this increase the chance that just that will happen, and probably in the not-too-distant future….from either the American or Israel camps. MORE:
The images were taken by an American research institute with no connection to the government. However the head of the institute, David Albright, is considered one of the world’s leading experts in nuclear weapons proliferation, and in the past worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency and as as a consultant to the government. The institute rented the services of a commercial photography satellite the likes of which are operated by companies from numerous countries, including Israel.
However to the Iranians who believe in conspiracy theories, these distinctions are unimportant. In their eyes, this will be additional proof of the international struggle against its nuclear project, led by the U.S.
The photos in fact underscore what the world has known since 2002, when an Iranian opposition group exposed the site at Natanz. It is there that the Iranians established their uranium enrichment facility, their central facility, which is monitored. It is not impossible that Iran has another site or sites that are concealed, in which it is enriching uranium, unmonitored and unknown to the world.
Add this to the in-your-face official rhetoric from Iran and it seems as if Iran is not just defying the West but trying to force the issue. The question: why?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.