Iran says its nuclear work has medical uses and will produce energy to meet domestic demand. PHOTO: FILE
A report by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Federation of American Scientists said Iran's atomic work could not simply be ended or “bombed away" and that diplomacy was the only way to keep it peaceful.
"It is entangled with too much pride - however misguided - and sunk costs simply to be abandoned," the report's authors, Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group and Carnegie's Karim Sadjadpour, said of Iran's five-decade-old nuclear programme, which began under the US-allied shah.
"Given the country's indigenous knowledge and expertise, the only long-term solution for assuring that Iran's nuclear programme remains purely peaceful is to find a mutually agreeable diplomatic solution," the report said.
Iran says its nuclear work has medical uses and will produce energy to meet domestic demand and complement its oil reserves.
The United States and other states suspect Iran is covertly seeking a nuclear arms capability. Israel has threatened military action to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring atom bombs. Tehran denies pursuing nuclear weapons.
The US and its allies have demanded that Iran curb its enrichment of uranium and have imposed increasingly tough sanctions on Iran's energy, banking and shipping sectors that have cut Iranian oil exports by more than half since 2011.
Iran and six world powers are due to meet in Kazakhstan this week in hopes of finding a solution to the standoff. Their last meeting in February failed to achieve a breakthrough.
The report, entitled "Iran's Nuclear Odyssey: Costs and Risks", seeks to tabulate the opportunity costs of the nuclear programme, and puts these at "well over $100 billion" in terms of lost foreign investment and oil revenues.
Relatively small uranium deposits will keep Iran from being fully self-sufficient in nuclear energy, it said, while Tehran has neglected to maintain existing infrastructure and develop other resources that could better secure its energy needs.
For instance, Iran's 1,000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear reactor, which came onstream in 2011 after repeated delays, accounts for just 2 percent of its electricity production, while about 15 percent of "generated electricity is lost through old and ill-maintained transmission lines", the report said.
Iran has vast oil and gas reserves, but sanctions have forced major Western firms to abandon the petroleum sector, making crucial upkeep difficult. Iran's solar and wind energy sectors have also gone undeveloped, the report said.
"No sound strategic energy planning would prioritise nuclear energy in a country like Iran," the report said.
"Instead of enhancing Iran's energy security, the nuclear programme has diminished the country's ability to diversify and achieve real energy independence."
The authors recommended that outside powers engage with Iranians through "grassroots public diplomacy" and make clear what they could gain by compromise.
"The Iranian people have been largely absent from the nuclear discussion," they wrote. "While US officials and members of Congress frequently speak of 'crippling sanctions', they rarely impress upon Iranians the concrete costs of their country's nuclear policies and the potentially myriad benefits of a more conciliatory approach."
A lasting deal would have to include commitments by Iran to abstain from activities vital to weapons production, which could give confidence that Iran could continue to enrich uranium to low levels needed for power generation, it said.
"There is virtually no chance that Iran will abdicate what it and many developing countries now insist is a right - a right to enrichment," the report said.
Negotiators should also discuss less politically charged topics such as nuclear safety cooperation and alternative energy options for Iran, "increasing the chances of breaking free of zero-sum games and creating win-win opportunities", it said.
COMMENTS (12)
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Dear cautious, It would be a compliment to say that the US/ZION/NATO combo do not like me. The only thing you have on Iran, who has never attacked anybody in the last few hundred years, is a result of the indoctrination we/you have been subjected to for the last 70 years or so. You really should stop drinking Kool-Aid, and start using your own thinking processes. At the end of the day the only advantage I may have over you is that I know what the guys at the top are up to and I am taking steps to protect myself from them. If anybody is not they must be low functioning. For example, Henry Kissinger is quoted by General Alexander Haig as saying: “Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy”. Additionally, General Douglas MacArthur is quoted as follows: “Our Government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear and kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour with the cry of grave national emergency..or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind"..our leaders.
@Sexton Blake. You can evade all you want - the facts are clear. Iran is under sanction by the UN not just the US and both China and Russia have voted for those sanctions. The only people on the planet that seem to favor Iran these day are Pakistani's - not surprising since you are tied with Iran as the least popular country on the planet. It's pretty bad when a country is less popular than either N Korea or Israel. . http://tribune.com.pk/story/380329/iran-pakistan-israel-most-negatively-rated-countries-globally-bbc-poll/
@cautious: Dear cautious, You got it wrong again in regard to UN Security Council voting procedures. However, the US has severely contaminated several countries with nuclear weapons, and the UN has meekly allowed it to happen, so how can any right minded person take the US/UN seriously? If, what the US is doing is legal, and I know it is not, who would want legality? I do not think anybody is trashing the US. Merely explaining the way it is. In recent times the US has attacked 37 countries, and killed many millions of people. Ignore these dreadful illegal killings, most of them Muslim, if you wish, and I know you will.
@Sexton Blake. It always amazes me that Muslims who want to trash the USA seem to overlook the obvious - in case you were not aware a UN sanction requires the approval of the entire UN Security Council which include China and Russia.
@cautious: Dear cautious, You have to be kidding me? You obviously get all your data from the CIA manual, and what is even worse I think you believe it. One only has to look at the dreadful things the US/Zionist/NATO group have been up to over the last few years, and the UN lets them get away with it. At best, what the aforesaid group has been up to only has a pseudo legality about it, and has a total lack of morality. I could say more, but PT usually will not print it if I spell it out in detail.
why a country like Iran needs Nuclear energy, while having vast natural energy preserves. After all Electricity will be 2.5 to 4 times expensive comparative to Gas powered plants. For medical reasons IAEA can provide under International monitory.
Gulam Rasool"Kuldeep sharma" New Delhi
@cautious: Dear cautious, You have to be kidding me? You obviously get all your data from the CIA manual, and what is even worse I think you believe it. One only has to look at the dreadful things the US/Zionist/NATO group have been up to, which includes killing and injuring millions of people, over the last few years, and the UN lets them get away with it. At best, what the aforesaid groups have been doing only has a pseudo legality about it, and even under those rules has a total lack of morality. Also, I thought the US signed the convention, and they have created a radio-active wasteland in Fallugah, Iraq through using nuclear material.
@Sexton Blake. UN sanctions have nothing to do with development of peaceful nuclear technology - that's a std Muslim mantra which has no substance. Sanctions are in place because Iran has been caught lying/violating the NPT agreement they signed. UN sanctions don't apply to Israel because Israel never signed the NPT - same as Pakistan.
Well, the first state to be question for nuclear weapons is Israel. Only than Iran can be.
@cautious: Dear cautious, Why do you continually keep regurgitating US/Zionist propaganda? Further, if you approve of UN sanctions against Iran for so-called development of nuclear technology, would you approve of sanctions against Israel?
“No sound strategic energy planning would prioritise nuclear energy in a country like Iran,” . That's been obvious since day one. Iran's vast oil wealth makes nuclear energy not only unnecessary but vastly more expensive. When you add a history of supporting terrorist, ongoing rhetoric talking about eliminating Israel, pattern of lying to IAEA and attempted purchasing of nuke weapon technology you can't blame the UN security council for implementing sanctions.
Why not present genuine analysis written by local writers rather than regurgitate and recycle articles written for Western consumption by Western entities?