The Situation in Iraq is slowly settling down, the inverse is happening in Iran. With the understanding that a latter-day Iran (Persia) will be part of an a Gogian confederacy, it is a nation worth watching. In recent months, while the world was watching Iraq, Iran has been quietly changing course. They have stepped up their nuclear arms program, while alienating themselves from the rest of the world. This month’s article will look at the current situation in Iran in an attempt to see if they have moved closer to the prophecies regarding the latter days.
Nuclear arms
Does Iran require nuclear energy? According to Oilwatch.com, Iran ranks fifth in the world for nations with oil reserves. As of January, 2002, they possessed some 90 million barrels of oil reserves, slightly behind Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE and Kuwait. Despite these huge reserves, Iran has been actively pursuing a nuclear program, one that would put them in the forefront of nuclear development. According to the New York Times, May 8, 2003, “It’s not just that Iran is speeding up its nuclear plans,” an administration official said. “It’s also that we’ve only recently learned some things about their program that have been going on for two years. Of greatest concern is the recent disclosure that Iran has built a uranium enrichment plant at Natanz in central Iran, a site not known to nuclear experts until last year.”
The site contains large underground structures believed by intelligence experts to contain centrifuges used in producing highly enriched uranium, a fuel for nuclear weapons. The Natanz site is said by experts to be more worrisome than the Russian-assisted nuclear reactor at the Persian Gulf city of Bushehr, which they say has the potential of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
In February, Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, led a team of inspectors to Natanz. But American officials said the visit was not a formal inspection, and that El Baradei at first seemed reluctant to pronounce the site a nuclear-weapons facility.
As is the usual case, Iran maintains that the Natanz site is to be used for peaceful purposes, one that would provide nuclear energy rather than nuclear arms. This exact position was reiterated this week by Iran’s nuclear energy director.
In contrast, American officials say that a recent evaluation of what El Baradei found in February, as well as other intelligence information, has convinced American and other experts that Natanz is so obviously a weapons facility that the International Atomic Energy Agency can be persuaded to act on it.
The New York Times reported: “We were surprised by the scale of the discoveries by the director general. We knew that Iran was working on a centrifuge program. But we were surprised by the number of centrifuge pieces waiting to be assembled. They had a hundred-plus centrifuges built, and they were building more.”
Russian involvement
On April 23, 2003, Russia and Iran finalized a deal that calls for all spent fuel rods from the not-yet-activated Bushehr reactor to be sent back to Russia for reprocessing. As reported in Stratfor-on-line: “The construction of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor, built with Russian assistance, is nearing its final stages. Tehran has agreed to return spent fuel rods from the reactor back to Russia for reprocessing rather than doing so in Iran, where it might have been able to extract plutonium for possible use in a program to build weapons of mass destruction.”
Russian aid is key to the Iranian nuclear program, since Russia is one of the few countries that will assist Iran. Both countries, however have been under extreme pressure for Iran to return the used fuel rods, and Moscow — aggressively lobbied by the Bush administration — threatened to squash the deal should Iran refuse.
Support of terrorists
Iran continues to support Israel’s current number one enemy, Hezbollah. The United States is also trying to get Iran to stop backing Hezbollah and other militant groups linked to terrorist acts against Israel and American targets around the world. Administration officials and other experts say the Iran problem will be a major subject in coming days because it has the potential to destabilize the region.
We continue to watch developments with great interest as the Lord brings the nations into line in preparation for his return and the establishment of the kingdom. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One