The Iran Counter-Proliferation Act

The US “Iran Counter-Proliferation Act” a pending legislation being rushed in the Senate by the Israeli Lobby and neoconservative supporters. This Act threatens a cultural embargo on all things Iranian and safety of international air trasportation. This act along with a proposed third round of U.N. sanctions are marshaled by our Administration against Iranian people.


It is irrelevant that IAEA and our own US intelligence agencies have stated that Iran is not developing nuclear bomb and had stopped the process since 2003. Our national experts know well that Iran is not capable to make nuclear bomb; Iran had not have enriched uranium (80% or higher U-235 to U-238 isotopes). IAEA had stated that Iran has enriched small quantities of natural uranium to less than 5%. This is the enrichment level required for a civilian nuclear power plant.

Then what is the objective of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act?

The objective of this Act is to pressure Iranian people to stop nuclear fuel cycle activities. The function of nuclear fuel cycle is production of fuel for power plants producing electrical energy and radioactive isotopes for use in medicine, agriculture, and educational research. The present US administration asserts that once Iranian people have learned about use of the fuel production technique for fuel production, it would be a smaller step to enrich the fuel from less than 5% to more than 80% and make nuclear bomb. Thus, the title of the act “counter-proliferation” refers to stopping Iranian people to learn about nuclear physics, nuclear chemistry and engineering. But, Iranian scientists and engineers already know the nuclear science and engineering of uranium fuel cycle.

Our government rationale is comparable to arguing that teaching sciences in our high schools and colleges would give students the knowledge to make bomb. Thus, if we follow the purpose of the counter-proliferation logic, all teaching of sciences should be stopped!

Will the act stop Iranian people to advance in science and engineering of nuclear fuel cycle? No. The Act will only make life harder for some of the people in Iran. The Act will adversely affect any civilized political rapprochement between our government and Iranian people. Many experts in international politics suggest:

1. Stop harassing Iranian people, threatening them, and making life harder for the ordinary people.
2. Start talking unconditionally with Iranian government. Our actions only further embed Iranian government into Russian and Chinese spheres of influences.
3. Instability in Iran will drag the entire Middle East into very unstable region. Israel and the United States would not benefit from this instability.
4. Iranians are friendly to the people of the United States; escalation of hostility will change the friendly to very unfriendly people.
5. Israel, backed by the United States, must stop threatening Iran. These threats will adversely affect Israel. Survival of Israel is dependent on stability of the Middle East.