For years, there have been questions about Iran's nuclear intentions. While Tehran insists that it is merely pursuing its right to the peaceful uses of the atom as a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), doubts about its ultimate ambitions have ebbed and flowed. On Nov. 8, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world's nuclear watchdog, issued a new report that expressed a "serious concern regarding possible military dimension to Iran's nuclear program." Iran needs to make serious and sincere efforts so that such a concern will be dispelled.
The IAEA and Iran have been engaged in a diplomatic pas de deux for over a decade. It is true that some of the knowledge required to master peaceful uses of the atom can be applied in a military context, there are also specific technologies and procedures that only have a military application. These include miniaturization of various components so that they can fit in a warhead and the creation of precise triggers to create a nuclear chain reaction. The most recent IAEA report points to the possibility that Iran has been engaged in activities related to those technologies.
The IAEA report, presented to the agency's Board of Governors on Nov. 17-18, detailed Iranian efforts allegedly aimed at acquiring those technologies. Relying on intelligence from various member states, the report identifies foreign scientists — former Soviet experts, along with Pakistani and North Korean scientists — who worked with Iranian counterparts to build those parts. It outlines a coordinated and ongoing series of programs that may have lasted over a decade — even though some experts thought the efforts had been suspended as a result of international and domestic pressure (the latter group triggered by concerns that the U.S.-led coalition that defeated Saddam Hussein might not stop in Baghdad). The report also raised a concern about the possible existence of undeclared nuclear facilities and material in Iran.