Santorum Hypes Iran ‘Threat’

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum warned North Dakota on Wednesday that it was in the cross-hairs of an Iranian attack.

Among the news about Iran that had Americans thinking about that country was an announcement that Iran is making its own nuclear fuel and using it for a reactor.

Iran has a small medical research nuclear reactor, which produces nuclear isotopes for use in chemotherapy. The reactor requires uranium enriched to 19.75 percent to run. Iran announced on Wednesday that it had managed to enrich to that level , and is now installing the homemade fuel plates in the reactor.

The medical reactor was given to Iran by the United States and was inaugurated in 1967. The reactor is being regularly inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure it is being used only for civilian purposes, and the IAEA was present Thursday to watch the insertion of the fuel rod.

The reactor actually has no conceivable military purpose, and its fuel, uranium enriched to 19.75 percent, is used up when run through the reactor, so it cannot be used to make a nuclear warhead. Nuclear bombs need the uranium to be enriched to 95 percent, typically. Iran is not yet able to achieve that level of enrichment, and says it is not trying to.

Iran also unveiled 3000 new centrifuges,which will allow it to make new fuel rods for its civilian nuclear reactors more quickly.

I saw the CNN coverage of the fueling of the nuclear isotopes reactor and was astonished that they kept saying this development was “dangerous” or “ominous.” Actually, it is good news that Iran can make fuel for the research reactor, since it produces isotopes for treating cancer victims.

Iran is permitted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that began being signed in the late 1960s to enrich uranium for peaceful uses such as fueling reactors, but the United States and the UN Security Council have attempted to unilaterally abrogate that right in the case of Iran. Israel is not signatory to the NPT, and has gone for broke to produce some 400 nuclear warheads. To the extent that Iraq wanted a nuclear weapon, it was impelled by competition with Israel; i.e., the Israeli bomb kicked off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Because of the reflection fallacy, the Israelis cannot imagine that Iran is not trying to do what they themselves did. But there is no good evidence for an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and the medical reactor does not point to one!

CNN had P.J. Crowley, the former State Department spokesman on, to explain that Russia and France had offered to supply the LEU needed to run the medical reactor. He did not say why Iran should not make its own fuel, since that is perfectly legal under the NPT.

Ahmadinejad took the occasion to complain about the “hegemonic powers”:

“They built atomic bombs, they built chemical weapons, and today, using their domination of centers of power, both in the arena of economics and politics, they have imposed a modern and complex system of plunder on the world.

In this way, the wealth of nations is systematically plundered and transferred into the pocket of the oppressors of the world. In my view, even more treacherous and more odious than this is their attitude toward science.

It is their approach toward the progress of nations. They monopolize science. They monopolize technologies that originated from that science. Science has to be at the service of the international community…

Look at this very nuclear science; first of all they equated nuclear science to the technology of the bomb. Whenever you mention nuclear science it immediately conjures up the image of a bomb in your mind. Nuclear science and technology are quite useful to humanity and in various aspects of human life.
One of these is radio medicine. Another is radio isotopes which find applications in industry, agriculture, and medicine or generating clean power that is very cheap. It can lead to the speedy progress of nations and provide them with welfare and health and security.

Nevertheless, they (the West) equate all this to the nuclear bomb. At first glance, you might think that this is not very important. Of course, it is; when it is equated to the bomb many of the regulations related to security and constraints and monopoly creating laws are formulated. They impose various restrictions which you are witness to, that after 70-80 years it is only seven or eight nations that enjoy the benefit of nuclear power. The rest of the nations are deprived of it.

Any nation that dares to develop this science and technology is faced with pressures and sanctions on top of insults and much hullaballoo.

In my view, the biggest assault that they made on humanity was the assault on science. Look at what they have done in the arena of Iran’s nuclear episode. How much noise did they make?
How much bad conduct they showed and how impolite they were toward the nation of Iran.
They tried to prevent the progress of the nation of Iran. They launched resolutions and sanctions against us and applied political pressure and launched propaganda against Iran but all to no avail.”

Ahmadinejad highlights the paternalistic attitude of the West toward the nations of the global South, and the constrictions placed on new countries learning to close the fuel cycle (which the NPT permits them to do).

Ironically, Rick Santorum made similar comments, but in the reverse:

“”You have a president who’s not interested in science. He’s interested in politics. Instead of doing something that is in the best interest of creating energy security for our country and economic growth, he plays petty politics and partisan politics and special interest politics…”

Like Ahmadinejad, Santorum puts a high value on energy independence. For him, it lies in the environmentally ruinous Canadian shale oil pipeline that President Obama nixed. For Ahmadinejad, Iran’s energy independence lies in nuclear energy.

For Santorum, the sinister force that is preventing the US from having “science” and being energy independent is Barack Obama, who is beholden to hegemonic special interests.

For Ahmadinejad, the sinister force that prevents Iran from having science and being energy independent is the United States.

Both are conspiracy theorists, and both fail to put their finger on the real path to energy independence and cheap energy, which is renewables like solar and wind.

To sum up, medical nuclear reactor at Isfahan likely not a danger to the people of North Dakota.