On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, uvj at vsnl.com wrote:
> Why Iran is almost completely isolated at IAEA on this question?
Because it reversed direction and stopped cooperating with inspectors. So the IAEA has recommended action -- with the intention of getting inspections resumed. And the IAEA is a careful body, and one of the only that still has credibility in this area, and doesn't make recommendations rashly, so countries tend to follow its lead.
But it is a question of Iran breaking the rules of the old treaty. It is rather a desire on the part of the IAEA to set a precedent for the additional protocol that Iran agreed to voluntarily. The IAEA would like to give the additional protocol binding force of internaitonal customary law. Because everyone, and most of all the IAEA, knows the NPT is in many ways obsolete. Getting the additional protocol accepted as common practice is the only way it can see so far to evolve something more effective without a major refoundation, which it is powerless to bring about itself.
The IAEA has been scrupulously clear, just as it was in Iraq, that has discovered no evidence of a nuclear bomb making program -- but that it also cannot rule it out, and needs more cooperation and inspection privileges in order to do so.
Iran feels that it voluntarily gave up its rights for 2 years expecting a quid pro quo and got nothing. (The oft quoted Iranian proverb is "we gave up a pearl for a candy.") And seems to think, under the very indirect leadership of Ahmadinejad, that these sort of confrontational tactics will get it more.
Which is wrong. And the IAEA referral has made that pretty clear and horrified most intelligent people in Iran. But now national pride is even more bunched up in it that usual.
Michael