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EDITORIAL: Iran's risky path(News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 18--United States leaders have worked for decades to slow or halt nuclear proliferation, and to reduce the number of countries in possession of what used to be generally called "the bomb." Not surprisingly, perhaps, Iran's leaders are choosing the opposite path, and they recently made a scary announcement. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proudly said his country had "joined the club of nuclear countries" by enriching uranium. Oh, the fiery president says it's all about a nuclear energy reactor, but there's an understandable fear that Iran might well be seeking to develop nuclear weapons. The position of the United States and Great Britain, and it's the right one, is that uranium enrichment must stop. When a country -- or rather, its unpredictable president -- has recklessly threatened other nations, when that country is in a constant state of instability, when it dwells on its hatred of Israel, that country cannot be trusted with any process that could lead to weapons of mass destruction. The privilege of developing nuclear reactors can be supported by other nations only when the country in question demonstrates beyond a doubt that energy is all it's after. Iran merely reacts with inflammatory rhetoric and resentment. Ahmadinejad shows no signs of conciliation with his neighbors, and the country's hard-line secular and religious leaders have shown little interest in compromise. Given this context and history, are Iran's president and his lieutenants to be trusted with developing the potential for nuclear weapons -- weapons they might well use without a moment's hesitation? They are not. American officials can't go this opposition route alone, of course, and President Bush's foreign policy has not won him much confidence of late at home or abroad. So it's good to see that the United Nations appears alert to the problem and ready to step in. And it's good that the rest of the world, at least most of it, seems to understand the potential dangers here. |