Britain, France and Germany finally woke up and smelled the cappucino. Iran is angling to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel, but blowing off negotiated promises allowing United Nations inspectors to ensure it's used for commercial power, not nuclear weapons. All this at the same time a new fundamentalist Iranian president says Israel should be wiped from the map of the world, and the Holocaust never happened. Let's face it: Iran is the central hub in the axis of evil. But that realization alone doesn't yield an effective U.S. energy policy. More on Iran from The Boston Globe (free reg. req.):

The government in Tehran insisted that its nuclear program is intended only to develop fuel for a power plant and that it has the right to do so under international law. Enriched uranium, however, can also be used to make nuclear weapons. In recent years, Iran raised suspicions after inspectors discovered that it had kept parts of its enrichment program secret. As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran is allowed to conduct nuclear enrichment for peaceful purposes, but must declare its activities and allow inspections.

Yesterday, European diplomats said the failure of negotiations were a blow to Europe's three largest powers, who have long hoped that economic incentives and the promise of better relations with the West would persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear enrichment program. Calling for referral to the (U.N.) Security Council was, in essence, an adoption of a hard-line approach long favored by the United States. Two years ago, US officials initially withheld support from the EU negotiations with Iran because Washington was skeptical that Tehran would ever agree to give up its sensitive nuclear programs. But when Rice became secretary of state, she backed the effort, arguing that if the talks failed, the Europeans would then support the US call for harsher action, as now appears to be happening.

Not that much of anything will come from the U.N. here, but that's the next step in a long dance. This Christian Science Monitor editorial points out that while Iran's current belligerence on inspections stems in large part from abundant oil revenues, the mullahs nonetheless have worries that may provide an opening for compromise. Yes, I suppose the glass is one-quarter full.

This NYT editorial outlines the current Iranian threat quite well, then naively collapses into the "we must jabber more" mode, with no mention of other strategies. Blogger Gina Cobb says, "Iran: There's No Sense Talking It To Death." Victor Davis Hanson gives a trenchant analysis on the whole kerfuffle, contemplating a U.S. air strike on Iran, and concluding we need "an energy policy that collapses the global oil price."

Well, yeah. And that would seem to involve developing some viable alternatives to oil, wouldn't it? Renewable fuels will help; so will an increase in networked collaboration - isn't the phrase "telecommuting" so 1993? OK....let's see, what else? Oh, yeah! More natural gas, "clean coal," and, ah, nuclear power, especially in oil-importing countries.

TECHNORATI TAGS: IRAN, URANIUM, NUCLEAR, UNITED NATIONS, AIR STRIKE, ENERGY POLICY

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at January 13, 2006 11:18 AM

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