Bush trying to isolate Iran diplomatically

The Tribune India:

US President George Bush may have launched a failed drive to isolate Iran diplomatically and force it to face United Nations sanctions if it refuses to give up its efforts to develop its own nuclear technology, according to senior officials of the State Department.

Amid the widespread belief that Washington’s efforts at this juncture might be too little, too late, Mr Bush has lobbied in this regard with Chinese President Hu Jintao as well as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. He also intends undertaking a similar exercise with the Russian President Vladmir Putin on Friday.

At the very core are Iran’s right to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. These are technologies that can be used to make fuel for nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons.

Even as Tehran insists that it is legally permitted to develop those technologies for peaceful purposes under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the US and certain other countries believe Iran wants to use them to build nuclear weapons.
Mr Bush’s discussion with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Iran also centred around its concerns but India’s averment of its stand that it is against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and assurance to play a “positive role” at the September 18 meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency has satisfied the US President.

Earlier this week, Mr Bush wondered in Washington why Iran required civilian nuclear power as they are awash with hydrocarbons. At the same time it is the right of a government to want to have a civilian nuclear programme. Nevertheless, Mr Bush insisted that Iran should not be allowed to gain technical skill that would enable it to make weapons. The US President observed that “it is very important for the world to understand that Iran with a nuclear weapon will be incredibly destabilising.”

US Under Secretary of State for political affairs R. Nicholas Burns described Iran as probably the most important issue being discussed on the margins of the UN General Assembly session. READ MORE

The Bush administration is worried about what they perceive as the mood shift in Tehran. Shortly before President Ahmadinejad took office last month, Iran announced that it would end the freeze on nuclear development activities it had agreed to in November during the negotiations with Britain, France and Germany or the EU-3.

With the IAEA Board of Governors scheduled to meet on Monday, the US is actively trying to immediately force a vote to send the Iran case to the UN Security Council though “no one has actually decided on that as yet.”