There is a continuous and totally irrational rant from Conservative Chicken-Hawks regarding oil-rich Middle Eastern countries who they claim are seeking Nuclear WMD's, first Iraq and now Iran. To any thinking rational human being with an iota of intelligence and a sense of recent history, this looks like deja-vu all over again.

That Iraq's Saddam Hussein had , at one point, some nuclear ambitions is true. The Israeli Military bombed Iraq's Osirisk Nuclear Reactor before the fuel rods could be installed and the plant made operational. Under the terms of the agreement that brought Russian cooperation in the construction of Osirisk, the Iraqi's did not have control of the nuclear fuel cycle. The later Bush administration fraudulent claims regarding uranium yellowcake from Niger, as well as those aluminum tubes totally unsuitable for centrifuges but reasonable for missile construction, are two key tenets for justification for optional preemptive invasion The extent of the Iraqi nuclear ambitions have always been questioned, except by USA Chicken-Hawks and the Israeli's, who will neither confirm nor deny their nuclear WMD capacity, nor are signatories to the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The situation regarding Iran and their nuclear ambitions, on the other hand, is far more contentious. The Iranians are signatories to the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and have allowed UN inspectors as much access as required under that treaty. The Iranian nuclear program is homegrown, based upon domestic sources of uranium, and ostensibly civilian in nature. Thus far, their refinement of uranium has been limited to 5%, suitable only for civilian use. On top of which, Iranian domestic supply of uranium ore has high concentrations of molybdenum, making it unsuitable using the gas centrifuge process for refinement into weapons grade uranium. The Iranians want to have control over their civilian nuclear fuel cycle, which appears to be a sticking point with the USA's Chicken-Hawks and the Israelis.

But the Iranians do have a point. The UN NNP Treaty does allow countries to control their nuclear fuel cycle. And the USA Chicken-Hawks have strangled the Iranian economy for decades with sanctions against further Western involvement in Iran's oil and natural gas refining capacity. Iran, sitting on fully 1/2 of the world's known oil reserves, has been forced to import a large portion of their refined petroleum fuels -- both diesel and gasoline. They do not have the domestic refining capacity to meet domestic needs. The economic stranglehold is so severe that Iran is converting vehicles over to the use of natural gas, plentiful there, in order to maintain a domestic economy. Iran's strategic switch to nuclear power plants for electricity would free up their petroleum refining capacity for use in their domestic economy.

The USA's policy makers and the AIPAC, Israel's powerful political arm here, would be better served to focus on the real threat to world peace, Pakistan, who holds the mantle of being the world's only Islamic nuclear (WMD) power. Pakistan has a very unstable government, with a large minority of the population under the influence of Islamic religious fundamentalists in the form of al Queda and the Taliban, creations respectively of the USA's CIA and Pakistan's ISI. Pakistan has proven to be rather devious in their territorial ambitions, particularly regarding Kashmir. OTOH, Iran has neither threatened nor militarily invaded any of its neighbors for over 2,000 years. Can either Israel, or the USA for that matter, make such a claim?

Scott Ritter, a well-respected former UN weapons inspector, has a lot to say in these matters:
[radioislam.org/us-war-for-israel/bush-iran-war.htm]