U.S. sabotages Iran's nuclear program

Following are excerpts from a talk by Ardeshir Ommani, delivered at WESPAC on March 5, entitled “U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Iran and Iran’s Nuclear Program.” Ardeshir is co-founder of the recently-formed American-Iranian Friendship Committee. The full talk is available on the Workers World web site at “U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Iran and Iran’s Nuclear Program.”.

Iran’s interest in nuclear energy, research and know-how began in the mid-1960s under the direct tutelage of the U.S., within the framework of turning Iran the way of Israel, into a regional and nuclear power for containing the movement of Arab Socialism and its orientation towards the Soviet Union.

With the technical assistance of the U.S., the first nuclear research facility, the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC), was built in Tehran University in 1967, and managed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), which was founded in 1974.

Immediately after the founding of TNRC, the U.S. sold a five-megawatt research reactor to Iran. It was installed at the Amira bad Technical College in Tehran, and runs on 93-percent highly-enriched uranium. The reactor could produce up to 600 grams of plutonium per year in its spent fuel.

Simultaneously, the U.S. sold hot cells to Iran which could be used for separating plutonium from the spent fuel, and then used for the production of atomic bombs.

The question that remains to be asked is why the U.S. sold the hot cells to the Shah.

Iran became a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on July 1, 1968, which went into effect on March 5, 1970. Article IV of the treaty states that “Nothing in the Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.”

Furthermore, Article IV continues that “All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy...”

U.S. backs Shah’s nuclear plans

According to declassified U.S. government documents, cited extensively by Moham mad Sahimi, professor and chair of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California, in his authoritative paper “Iran’s Nuclear Program,” Washington in the mid-1970’s advised “Iran to expand her non-oil energy base” by reasoning that “Iran needed not one but several nuclear reactors to acquire the electrical capacity that the Stanford Research Institute” paper in 1973 “had proposed, and expressing interest in U.S. companies’ participation in Iran’s nuclear energy projects.”

Emboldened by Washington’s encouragement, the Shah planned to build 23 nuclear power plants throughout the country. No authority in the U.S., France or West Germany disputed the Shah’s extensive and expensive projects on the basis of the fact that Iran was rich in oil and natural gas deposits, the reasoning that [U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza] Rice recently provided for the redundancy of plans for nuclear energy in Iran.

At the time of the Shah, the only reason that the plan for the construction of such a huge project could not be enacted was that the price of oil on the world market fell considerably, and the Shah’s government was not financially capable of paying for it.

However, in 1974, the Shah’s government signed a contract with West Ger many’s Kraftwerk Union, a subsidiary of Siemens, to begin the construction of two 1,200-megawatt nuclear reactors at Bushehr, a city in the southwestern part of Iran. Soon the Atomic Energy Organi zation of Iran signed a contract with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for training the first group of Iranian nuclear engineers.

Meanwhile, West Germany, France, Britain and the U.S. trained thousands of nuclear specialists from around the world. Iranian nuclear personnel received their training in Italy, Belgium and Canada, as well as the U.S.

Mark D. Skootsky, in his June 1995 research paper on U.S. Nuclear Policy Toward Iran, writes that “while these specialists were being trained in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in order to achieve the Shah’s plan for 23 nuclear power reactors, the knowledge they gained could also have been used for a secret nuclear weapons program,” as it was in India.

According to Mohamad Sahimi, the classified documents mentioned above contained the information that in an address to an October 1977 symposium called “The U.S. and Iran, an Increasing Partnership,” Sydney Sober, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, proudly announced that the Shah’s government was about to purchase eight more nuclear reactors from the U.S.

Revolution fuels U.S. hostility

By 1979, when the Iranian Revolution toppled the pro-U.S. regime, the Shah had reached agreements for a total of six nuclear power reactors from France, West Germany and the U.S.

Two 1,200-megawatt German light-water power reactors at Bushehr were partly finished. Reactor Number 1 was 90-percent complete and 60 percent of its equipment was also installed, while Num ber 2 was 50-percent complete.

During the 1980s, the Iran-Iraq war brought heavy damage to the core areas of both reactors.

After the Iran-Iraq war, the Islamic Republic of Iran under President Rafsan jani re-initiated Iran’s nuclear energy program and immediately approached Kraft werk Union to complete the Bushehr project or ship the reactor components and technical documents that Iran had paid for.

However, the German government and Kraftwerk, under U.S. pressure, refused to honor the contract or even return the money. Left in the cold, Iran filed a lawsuit in 1996 with the International Com merce Commis sion (ICC) asking $5.4 billion compensation. The case is still unsettled.

On May 5, 1987, Iran and Argentina signed agreements concerning the delivery of enriched uranium. The $5.5-million deal would have provided Iran with a new core for its U.S.-purchased, five-megawatt research reactor at Tehran University so that the reactor would operate on 20 percent enriched uranium. The contract also included the Argentine export of the 20-percent enriched uranium to Iran.

In September 1980, the International Atomic Energy Agency approved the transfer of 115.8 kilograms of uranium, which was within the IAEA safeguards.

Although the U.S. was unsuccessful in blocking Argentina from selling the 20-percent enriched uranium to Iran, it succeeded in preventing that country from fulfilling other aspects of its contractual obligation with Iran in early 1992. Again, under heavy pressure from the U.S., Argentina backed out of the deal by the end of that year.

As early as the mid-1980s, writes Sahimi, “A consortium of companies from Argen tina, Germany and Spain submitted a proposal to Iran to complete the Bushehr- Number 1 reactor, but huge pressure by the United States stopped the deal. The U.S. pressure also stopped in 1990 Spain’s Nation al Institute of Industry and Nuclear Equipment [from completing] the Bushehr project.”

After exhausting all avenues in the West in search of finding a country or a company that would not be intimidated by the threats of the U.S. and begin the work on Bushehr’s nuclear energy project, Iran turned to the Soviet Union, and then Russia, to finish the job.

As long as the Shah was a partner of Israel and a puppet of the United States, it could engage in developing all sorts of nuclear energy and devices. But after the revolution, Iran does not deserve and cannot be trusted with any technological, economic and social advancement, according to Washington and Tel Aviv.

Furthermore, countries like Iran, Iraq, Venezuela and 80 percent of humanity have to be kept backward so that they don’t ever dream of independence, equality, social change and especially revolution. People engaged in such changes will be branded by the U.S. empire as “terrorists, despots, dictators and rogue nations” to be disposed of.

Ommani has been an activist in the anti-war and anti-imperialist struggle for over 40 years, including against the Vietnam War. He was a co-founder of the Iranian Students Association in the 1960s, which contributed to the overthrow of the Shah, a U.S. puppet. He directly participated in the movements inside Iran that culminated in the 1979 revolution. Ommani is still very active in the anti-war movement and has collaborated with the International Action Center in the struggle against the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq.