Iran's nuclear threat.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The Bush administration has shown uncharacteristic restraint in its dealings with Iran, allowing European nations to take the lead in efforts to curtail the Islamic republic's nuclear weapons development program. Iran's latest provocation, however, moves events past the point at which the United States, along with Russia and China, can delegate this problem to others. A concerted response from the U.N. Security Council, backed by the threat of sanctions, is required.

On Tuesday, Iran removed seals on its uranium enrichment plant, in violation of a 2004 agreement with Great Britain, France and Germany. Iran invited officials of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency to witness the removal; to have done otherwise would have automatically triggered Security Council action. Iran claims its enrichment activity is for research purposes related to energy development, which technically is allowed under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Yet an abundance of evidence supports fears that Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons. The IAEA reported two years ago that Iran had been conducting an unreported enrichment program for decades, had separated plutonium and had secretly imported equipment and material. Last year, the IAEA said Iran had received technical assistance from A.Q. Kahn, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, that would have no use except in bomb-making. The IAEA concluded in September that Iran's actions "constitute noncompliance" with its rules, resulting in a mandatory report to the Security Council - but no deadline for the report is specified.

Iran has been able to probe the boundaries of the nonproliferation regime, knowing that Russia, China or both were likely to veto any meaningful Security Council resolutions. That left the Europeans to offer economic incentives in hopes of inducing Iran to set its nuclear ambitions aside. This week's violation, coming on the heels of Iran's opening of a uranium conversion facility last August, leaves those hopes in tatters.

Iran's ability to play Security Council members off against each other, however, may be nearing exhaustion. Russia offered to enrich uranium for use in Iranian research and energy programs; the offer was refused. This further evidence of Iran's quest for nuclear weapons prompted Moscow to express alarm, suggesting that Russia will judge the dangers of a nuclear Iran to outweigh the economic advantages it gains through trade and arms sales. China is a leading purchaser of Iranian oil, but it, too, has no interest in raising nuclear tensions in the Mideast.

The Security Council members also understand that the absence of effective diplomatic and economic pressure makes a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities more likely. Israel, which currently has an unacknowledged but universally known nuclear monopoly in the Mideast, has acted pre-emptively before, when it destroyed an Iraqi nuclear facility in 1981. The United States has supplied weaponry that could be used in a similar strike against Iran. In view of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hostile statements toward Israel, and Iran's interest in acquiring Russian defenses for its nuclear facilities, Israel's patience with ineffectual international attempts to halt Iran's weapons development programs is stretching thin.

Now, in the immediate wake of Iran's flouting of its earlier agreement, is the time for the Security Council to demand that Iran shut down its uranium enrichment plant and submit to IAEA inspections and monitoring. A failure to comply should bring sanctions, with the backing of a world united in its recognition of the danger presented by a nuclear Iran.