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Article: Controlling Iran's nuclear program: the country's slow and indirect progress toward developing nuclear weapons cunningly skirts international nonproliferation rules. Careful diplomacy can stop Iran from achieving this destabilizing capability.
- Article from:
- Issues in Science and Technology
- Article date:
- March 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 National Academy of Sciences. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The world would be a more dangerous place with nuclear weapons in Iran. A Persian power with a keen sense of its 2,500-year history, Iran occupies a pivotal position straddling the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The country has the largest population in the Middle East, the world's third largest oil reserves, the second largest natural gas reserves, and aspirations to again become the region's major power. Add nuclear weapons to the mix, and the likelihood of trouble increases significantly.
There is no evidence that Iran currently possesses any nuclear devices or even enough fissile material (highly enriched uranium or plutonium) to produce nuclear weapons. ...