The United States, Russia and France, it was revealed Tuesday, have jointly issued a letter highly critical of Iran’s decision to produce higher-grade enriched uranium as part of its nuclear program. The missive rightly condemns Iran’s willful violation of multiple United Nations sanctions. It also indicates a rare unanimity of purpose between nations often at loggerheads over other global diplomatic issues. The latter is a clear indication of the alarm with which seasoned diplomats view current events in Iran.
The confidential Feb. 12 letter, made available to The Associated Press, was addressed to Yukiya Amano, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and questioned the rationale for Iran’s decision to begin production of the high-enriched uranium. Tehran says an increase is necessary if projects with a peaceful intent — the making of medical isotopes, for example — are to move forward. Other nations say that response hides the truth.
The truth, those nations fear, is that any increase in Iran’s ability to produce highly enriched uranium is another step forward in its on-going campaign to produce nuclear weapons. That prospect rightly worries the letter’s signatories and other world leaders.
Those worries previously have been addressed in a variety of ways. The most prominent are the three sets of U.N. sanctions currently in place against Iran. The sanctions, though, seem to have served little purpose. “They know that resolutions are not worth a penny and have no effect,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday when he confirmed that Iran would expand its enrichment capability despite nearly solid global opinion against doing so.
It is that disregard of established law and diplomacy that is so worrisome. Indeed, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal jointly called the production of higher-grade uranium “a provocative move in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions.” Mrs. Clinton added that the “increasingly disturbing and destabilizing actions” by Iran “will result in increasing isolation.”