William Burr of the National Security Archives at George Washington University has an article coming out in the January 2009 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist entitled "A Brief History of the US-Iranian nuclear negotiations" which concentrates almost excusively on the pre-1979 nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran.
It shows that even before the revolution, the Iranian government was primarily concerned with securing assured nuclear fuel supplies, and rejected any effort to treat Iran as a defacto "second class" member of the NPT.
He concludes in this article:
The apprehension about nuclear proliferation in South Asia and the Middle East that may have encouraged the Shah to think about a nuclear option did not vanish with his overthrow, however. Significantly, the same nationalism that informed Iran’s stance toward nuclear technologies under the monarchy and emphasized Iran’s “full right” to reprocess and concerns about “second-class” status foreshadowed Iran’s present-day claims about nuclear “rights” under the NPT. And ironically, U.S. enmity toward Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution has critically impacted the regime’s security calculations, increasing its interest in nuclear deterrence.
The similarity of the IRanian position before and after the revolution is striking to me, which is probably why the same Akbar Etemad, the Shah's nuclear negotiator cited in this article, has recently told TIME magazine:
With the Shah, we also came to the conclusion that Iran was in great need of nuclear energy because our population was steadily growing and our gas and oil will run out. That's why even though I was in the old regime, I should be fair to the new regime because they are following the same line.
Anyway it is a good article however I have a number of criticisms:
First, William Burr uncritically promotes the notion that nuclear weapons proliferation and the risk of Iran developing a nuclear weapons "option" was really the motivating force behind US "concerns" over Iran's nuclear program. There is no reason to automatically accept this as being the true motivation behind US policy and this assumption should be questioned before being posited as a fact. Note how he's willing to question the Shah's motivations, but not the US's. It can easily be argued that the US "concern" about nuclear weapons proliferation was as always just a pretext meant to allow the US to dominate the nuclear fuel industry, thereby gaining immense political/economic power that comes from monopolizing the future's sole source of power. The assumption that Burr makes that the US is solely interested in preventing nuclear weapons proliferation is therefore not adequately examined.
Second, his conclusion that Iran's emphasis on nuclear "rights" (note Burr's use of quotation marks as if Iran's rights are somehow a joke) is really about Iran's alleged interest in nuclear "deterrence" is not adequately supported. Quite the contrary, if Iran were seeking a nuclear deterrent (=nuclear weapons) then why would the Iranians offer recently to operate their nuclear enrichment program as joint ventures with foreign governments, and why would the also offer to place additional restrictions on the program beyond the requirements of the NPT -- for example, to enforce strict limits on the level of enrichment and to turn all of their uranium into fuel rods so none could be even theoretically used to make bombs? So again, the assumption Burr makes that Iran is seeking a nuclear deterrent is not supported either.
The third issue is how Burr overlooks the role of Israel in this process.
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