Don’t Bomb Iran

In March 2005, Iran says it made a detailed proposal to the west, drawn up with advice from independent western scientists, to satisfy western concerns that Irans uranium enrichment program could lead to a weapons program. They claim the West never even responded to this proposal. In particular, they offered binding legislation never to build a bomb, and to

a. Continued implementation of the Additional Protocol; and

b. Continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at the conversion and enrichment facilities to provide unprecedented added guarantees.

This March 2005 offer was revealed in a very detailed explanation of their position in a full page advertisement advertisement in the New York Times in November 2005… section 4.2 says:

4.2 On March 23, 2005, in a clearly stated desire to salvage the Paris Agreement, Iran offered a collection of solutions for objective guarantees suggested by various independent scientists and observers from the United States and Europe.
The package included:

1. Strong and mutually beneficial relations between Iran and the EU/EU3,
which would provide the best guarantee for respect and the concerns of each side;

2. Confinement of Iran’s enrichment program, in order to preclude through objective technical guarantees any proliferation concern:

a. Open fuel cycle, to remove any concern about reprocessing and
production of plutonium;

b. Ceiling of enrichment at LEU level;

c. Limitation of the extent of the enrichment program to solely meet the contingency fuel requirements of Iran’s power reactors;

d. Immediate conversion of all enriched Uranium to fuel rods to preclude even the technical possibility of further enrichment;

e. Incremental and phased approach to implementation in order to begin with the least sensitive aspects of the enrichment program and to graduallymove to enrichment as confidence in the program would be enhanced;

3. Legislative and regulatory measures

a. Additional Protocol;

b. Permanent ban on the development, stockpiling and use of nuclear
weapons through binding national legislation;

c. Enhancement of Iran’s export control regulations;

4. Enhanced monitoring

a. Continued implementation of the Additional Protocol; and

b. Continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at the conversion and enrichment facilities to provide unprecedented added guarantees.