Claudia:
Why have you linked what seems to be a legitimate commercial solicitation for two large scale, conventional nuclear power plants with an assumed weapons program?
If the solicitation is as open and above board as it seems, it provides even more credence to Iran’s stated intention to build up its nuclear energy program, not a bomb program.
If Iran were to build and operate the two large nuclear plants – and the others that it has stated it intends to build – its enrichment program would be hard pressed to keep up with the demand for fueling those reactors. There would be no spare capacity to divert to other uses. If it has enrichment and no reactors – that is far more cause for concern.
Iran is a large country that has a population of more than 70 million people. More than half of those people are under the age of 25, and many of them are aggressively developing interests in western lifestyles. Those people are rapidly increasing their energy consumption.
Though Iran does have some oil and gas reserves, they know they are not infinite. If they do not develop some other indigenous power sources, they will be net importers within 15 years if current trends continue. That is not a sustainable choice for their economy – it cannot survive without massive changes from dependency on oil and gas revenues.
I think there is a lot more logic on the part of Iran than on the part of the US in this matter, even though I acknowledge that the current elected leaders in Iran are not very nice people.
Many “friends” of the US have long standing animosity towards Iran – and I am not talking about Israel only. Saudi Arabia has been a commercial and political rival of Iran since it was called Persia.
It is in the commercial interest of the Saudis to try to suppress Iran’s energy production capability – perhaps the ruling family’s personal and long lasting friendship with the Bush family is a contributing reason that the president is so adamant about doing something about Iran when he ignores many other similarly led countries.
