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History of the West’s encouragement of Iran’s nuclear programme

Hypocritical Threats Against Iran On a Pedestal of Nuclear Immorality by SAUL LANDAU, CounterPunch 21 Sept 12,   The U.S. government gave U.S. nuclear-energy companies a green light to sell their knowledge and technical support to Iran. With their blessings, the Shah also established close ties to European companies, who hustled to Teheran to do business. Germany’s Erlangen/Frankfurtand Kraftwerk Union AG helped Iran build its first plants, and earned substantial profits. In 1975, the Europeans arranged a joint venture of Siemens AG and AEG to construct a $6 billion pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant in Iran.

In 1974, Eurodif a French, Belgian, Spanish and Swedish conglomerate sold a uranium enrichment plant to Iran.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford signed a directive offering Tehran the chance to buy a complete nuclear fuel cycle and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel.Dick Cheney was then White House Chief of Staff and Donald RumsfeldSecretary of Defense. Ford’s strategy paper said the “introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.”
The Shah also signed a nuclear cooperation agreementwith apartheid South Africa under which Iranian oil money financed the development of South African fuel enrichment technology in return for South African enriched uranium.

Why, after such a history, would anyone act surprised that Iran wants to continue its nuclear program? Indeed, a 1974 CIA proliferation assessment stated “If [the Shah] is alive in the mid-1980s … and if other countries [particularly India] have proceeded with weapons development we have no doubt Iran will follow suit.”…. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/21/on-a-pedestal-of-nuclear-immorality/

September 22, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, Iran