Does Iran need a “peaceful atom”?

On August 28, representatives of the IAEA announced the imminent resumption of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program for the first time since Hassan Rouhani was elected President of Iran.

The news from Vienna came five days later, after the new Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad confirmed the country's adherence to the old course: abandoning the nuclear program should not be expected. Moreover, Russia will again help Tehran in the next batch of the "big nuclear game": there are rumors that Moscow is going to build a second nuclear power plant in Iran - in addition to Bushehr.

What does this mean? First of all, the hopes of many observers for some breakthrough in the nuclear dossier after the election of a new president can be safely written off as scrap. Rouhani does not betray himself and the ruling clergy one iota. While still chairman of the Supreme National Security Council and chief negotiator on the Iranian atom, he professed the task of reducing tensions with the West, but in reality he was only trying to buy time for Tehran to build its own atomic bomb. The same is now.

Tehran does not get tired of talking about its right to a peaceful atom, referring to the fact that a station in Bushehr will open in the near future, and in 2014 a new nuclear reactor will start operating in Arak. But it is precisely this reactor that will allow Iran to produce the plutonium needed to create weapons. The main thing now for Tehran (and therefore for the newly elected president) is to divert attention from Arak. Because as soon as nuclear fuel is brought to this station, it will be impossible to bomb it because of the danger of radiation leakage.

The problem is that Iran has absolutely no need to develop a peaceful atom. Neither in terms of economics, nor in terms of energy. Back in the time of the Shah, a special budget planning commission conducted studies on Iranian energy for 20 years ahead. Conclusion: to develop the oil and gas industry, forgetting about the atom. Iran has the second proven gas reserves in the world after Russia. And there is absolutely no uranium, which Iran today secretly buys from Zimbabwe. The shah, however, did not agree with the conclusions of the commission at that time, and then the ayatollahs continued his work, for whom the possession of a bomb is the only guarantee of existence.

In fact, all the resources of the country are aimed at this. And cooperation with Moscow in the nuclear field, it seems, is still the same screen behind which there is nothing. Judge for yourself: the contract for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr was signed in 1995, the station was supposed to start operating in 1999. It has been 14 years, but Bushehr has not yet produced a single kilowatt of energy! No one knows how much Tehran paid Moscow for a station that will probably never work.

The project of a new "peaceful" nuclear power plant is nothing more than an attempt to once again bring discord into the negotiations in the 5 + 1 format (five permanent members of the UN Security Council + Germany) and buy Moscow's vote in the UN Security Council. And there, you look, the bomb will be in the hands. Well, then Moscow, along with the IAEA and various other inspectors, can certainly be sent to hell.