So what is all this talk about enrichment anyway? Enrichment is necessary to get the fissile isotope of uranium (U-235) separated from the far more common but mostly useless U-238 isotope (though U-238 is useful for making plutonium). Basically you’ve got to refine it using a gas centrifuge. Uranium gas is pumped into a cylinder that rotates at high speed, and this action extracts the U-235 from the U-238. This takes a while, so it makes sense to build as many centrifuges as possible that can work in parallel. While reports say that Iran’s centrifuge design and capability are inferior to the West’s, improvement is happening all the time. Better and better centrifuge designs are coming online.

Then the news broke yesterday that the IAEA has concrete evidence that Iran is either currently working on or is hiding the remnants of a nuclear bomb program. These major moves by Iran show exactly how far they have come, on their own, in the nuclear game.
And boy is Russia pissed.

“For about 20 years, the Iranian leadership carried out its clandestine nuclear program without reporting it to the IAEA,” said said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov durign an interview at the Ekho Moskvy radio station in Moscow. “We are very alarmed and we cannot accept this, that Iran is refusing to cooperate with the IAEA.”

Russia’s Atomstroyexport helped build Iran’s first commercial nuclear reactor at Bushehr. I’ve detailed the wonderful deal Russia and Iran cut years ago to build a 20 plant network and have Russia handle all the spent fuel rods from the plants. Of course all this is now out the window, especially since Iran is clearly able now to generate enough fuel themselves.

So Iran doesn’t need Russia anymore. Gee, I wonder if that’s why the former superpower is angry. Iran was supposed to be Russia’s newest cash cow. Its hunger for nuclear technology, vast crude oil-based wealth and totalitarian regime looked like sweetest mix of stupidity and greed Russia could hope for. Sadly it was not the case. Now Russia is not getting the fat cash they wanted and Iran has taken their technology and built their own nuclear program.

But Ivan isn’t so easily crossed – just ask Georgia. In what I believe to be a fit of pique Russia is yet again postponing its delivery of the S-300 air defense missile system to Iran. This is supposedly due to technical issues, but it is obvious that any deployment of this system would pose a problem if it is deemed necessary to commit airstrikes against Iranian targets. Russia, for all its bluster about military options being off the table, is apparently interested in leaving its supposed ally vulnerable to a NATO or Israeli attack.

It is hilarious, though, that Russia is actually taking a harder approach towards Iran than the Europeans. Europe, that supposed super(hero)power in the European Union cape and Euro dollar mask, has only threatened to stop doing some insurance business with Iran. It isn’t even the EU that’s making this threat, rather private insurance companies that are tired of Iran’s duplicitous dealings. The EU found out Iran was blatantly lying to them about their nuclear program during talks a few years ago and did exactly nothing about it. I wonder why Iran doesn’t consider them a threat. You’ll notice there are no chants of ‘Death to The European Union’ at the state-run rallies.

The only real threat to Iran’s power is the United States, as we have annihilated two disgustingly corrupt and evil governments on either side of their pitiful country over the past decade, and Israel, who have shown they are perfectly willing to bomb another sovereign nation’s nuclear experiments. And, thanks to Russia, we both might have a chance to end this charade in Iran before it really begins.

Where does all this come from? The driving need to question, to constantly expand the boundaries of human knowledge and tolerance, is the product of free minds. Any society that devotes itself to personal freedom will give rise to the most flexible and creative minds known to humankind.

Devotion to progress and freedom is commendable, considering the most of the world is still mired in Dark Ages philosophies and sickening religious intolerance. When the iron bars of indisputable religious truth slam shut, you can be sure that a country’s path to success is blockaded.

The Pew Research Center recently released a chilling study. The aptly named “Global Restrictions on Religion” survey found that the majority of the world was still under heavy, state-run, religious repression. Roughly 70 percent of the world is under some kind of religious restriction. Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and (of course) Iran are among the most oppressive. The United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, Japan and South Africa (look how far that nation has come in the last few decades) are among the least oppressive. Notice that line. All our allies (with the marginal Brazil, depending on how President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva feels day to day about white, blue-eyed bankers) on one side, and the most proliferate enemies of freedom on the other. Yes, I know Saudi Arabia is technically an ally of the U.S., but it shouldn’t be. Their reprehensible oppression of women should be enough to cancel any contact with that King-based, atavistic throwback of a government. The same goes for Egypt and Iran, though I hardly need to expend time and energy talking about why Iran should not be treated as an equal member of the world community.

The study from the Pew Institute reinforces something I have been telling people for years. Those oppressive countries (several of which are centers for the Muslim extremism the western world has been fighting for years) hate the free world because we allow for dissention through our freedom, and we still succeed as nations. The idea of anything aside from tyrannical enforcement of arch-conservative religious and political maxims frightens the rulers of countries like Indonesia and Iran. They know they have no tool aside from punishment to wield against their citizens. They are flabbergasted that a nation like the United States or Japan can allow for all this freedom, the existence of diverse ideas and conflicting ideologies, and not turn into a gibbering heap of death and destruction. They wonder why the tolerant countries flourish, nurturing some of the most brilliant minds in the world, while they are unable to progress in the sciences.

Well, wonder no more. When you quash the ability of your citizens to think and act on their own, one of two things will happen. Citizens beaten over the head with utterly arbitrary unquestionable rules will either shut up and hide their genius or flee the country as quickly as possible. Need an example? Look at the brain drain that happened in the former Soviet Bloc in the 1980s and 1990s. Look at the brain drain going on in Iran today.

Want to build the next revolutionary supercollider, Indonesia? Want to be responsible for the next DaVinci or Einstein, Saudi Arabia? Give people the freedom to question religion and you might have a chance. I am sure it will be difficult for you to give up despotism, but in the end it is the only way to make yourself relevant in the years to come.

Iran Sentences American Journalist to 8 Years in Prison.

The journalist in question, Roxana Saberi, was born in North Dakota to an Iranian father and a Japanese mother. She has lived in Tehran for the last six years, working as a freelance reporter for the BBC and NPR and finishing off a Master’s degree on Iranian Studies.

A few days ago, in a one day trial held behind closed doors, a judge in the Revolutionary Court condemned her to eight years in prison for (get this) espionage. Yes, evidently she was working for the United States government. What’s the proof? No one knows. Even her lawyer seemed a bit confused about the whole thing. He did catch a lucky break though, as he was allowed to be in the court room with his client for the trial. Supposedly there will be an appeal, though it is doubtful the sentence will change unless significant international pressure is brought to bear.

Of course the United States denied she is a spy, but that’d be par for the course no matter what, so it hardly seems worth mentioning. It is pretty plain to see that Roxana Saberi is most likely just another victim of the mentally repressive Iranian state.

The government wanted her arrested because she is a dissident voice, a supposed perpetrator of “soft” revolution. She is guilty of the greatest sin in Iranian media: not towing the official state line. Since the fresh wave of conservatism rose in Iran, marked by the rise to power of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (and I say rise to, not election to, for specific reasons) the state has waged war on non-state controlled media, either driving it out of business or imprisioning individual journalists and editors. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) cites at least six journalists imprisoned for crimes as nebulous as “propaganda against the regime”.

The best part is Iranian officials initially didn’t even bother coming up with a fake reason to arrest Saberi. They busted her buying booze.

In late February of this year she was imprisoned for purchasing a bottle of wine. It is a crime to buy or sell alcohol in Iran, though it is easy enough to do through the black market. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi said Saberi reported that, “she said that she had bought a bottle of wine and the person that sold it had reported it and then they came and arrested her.”

Her intital charge does not warrant imprisonment. Saberi was locked up for the alcohol violation though, until they found something better to charge her with. Qashqavi would later admit that the whole booze bust was entrapment, though that doesn’t seem to matter in Iran (what a shock!).

How are we expected, as an open and freedom-based society, to work with a government that has this sort of draconian mentality? I already know that the western world gets no benefit from happy, shiny relations with Iran. The only party that benefits is Iran itself. Does anyone honestly think that by legitimizing these oppressive rulers with political attention and trade deals we are making the correct move? Just because Iran exists does not mean we need to do business with them, and I’d really like to say that the United States did business with one less anachronistic, Sharia-ridden tyranny.

My concern does not stem from the potential for appeasement of the arch-conservative Shia regime of the Ayatollah. Mere days before his Nowruz message President Obama extended US sanctions on Iran for another six months, saying the country presented an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the well-being of the United States and its allies. The Nowruz message itself, careful not to lay blame on the average citizens for the repeated incendiary statements and actions originating in Iran, did remind all parties that greatness as a nation does not extend from the ability to sow destruction. The implication, I feel, is fairly clear. Continued support of terrorism and power by force is not something the major powers of the world will tolerate for long.

I think the real tragedy here may be born out of the naïve, albeit well-intentioned, wish to do business with a state that has no intetion to be an active part of a global and democratic community. Despite often-cited elections, Iran is no democracy. It is run by an Ayatollah. Period. A closed circle of power, brought about by a complex election system, all but guarantees power is vested in this one man. The Ayatollah is supposedly appointed and regulated by a directly elected body, the Council of Experts, but all meetings are kept secret and this Council has never flexed any of the supposed muscle it has. This might be because all directly elected candidates must first be vetted by the Guardian Council. This Council is half appointed by the Ayatollah and half elected by the judiciary, though all candidates are offered up by the head of the judiciary who is (you guessed it!) appointed by the Ayatollah. Check out this page to further explore the vagaries of Iranian democracy.

So what’s my point? I want to explicitly illustrate that the United States is not dealing with a democracy, replete with elected leaders that reflect the feelings of the populace. We are dealing with a despotic state posing as a democracy.

And here’s where the irony comes in. The sad thing is we’ve dealt directly with Iranian despots before, and the results were seriously lacking.

Remember the Shah? The United States was best buddies with Iran under his rule. This relationship is one of the biggest reasons we have a problem with the current government of Iran. When we cut a deal to work with the despotic leader of Iran we alienated the Islamic government that overthrew it. Are we going to make this same mistake again?

The majority of Iran’s population is comprised of young men and women. There is overwhelming evidence that they are unhappy with the current state of their country. Hopefully they can affect some positive change in the years to come, and wouldn’t it be great if we can say that the United States was never allied with the dictatorial theocracy that ran their country? We have a chance to prove that we are primarily interested in freedom and self-expression, and want all people around the world to have a say in government.

In the next 20 years Iran might be going through another revolution, and I hope we’re not caught on the wrong side of freedom yet again simply because the Obama administration wants to score some points in the land of international politics.

They built the first Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr (at a one billion dollar price tag), which is due to come online later this year. Bushehr was originally part of a 20 plant network, though this ambitious plan has fallen by the wayside. Still, there is much talk of building a network of medium-sized reactors across the county, should Bushehr prove to be an effective and efficient supplement to Iran’s energy needs. I wonder who will be first in line to fill that contract?

Above and beyond this, Russia is in the middle of cutting a deal with Iran to supply ten years of nuclear fuel for the Bushehr plant. Has everyone forgotten that the original deal to build the Bushehr plant came with a guarantee that Russia would manufacture the rods and Iran would be required to return the spent fuel to the Federation? With Russia supplying the rods for the reactors, one has to wonder what all those centrifuges in Nataz are for?

Of course Iran is busy touting that they don’t need Russia’s help to finish building these reactors. It claims that even if Russia decides to leave tomorrow Iran’s nuclear plant will go online as promised. But why would Russia throw away this potential cash cow? Iran’s need for nuclear know how (accepting that it is only for peaceful uses) will only increase over time, and Atomstroexport is ideally situated to supply everything the Islamic Republic requires.

The partnership between Russia and Iran is decades old. For years Russia has supplied Iran with military hardware, especially its line of Sukhoi and MiG airplanes. Russia recently decided to freeze out a deal to sell the advanced S300 anti-missile defense system to the Shia-dominated state (a move that pleased Washington), but that might just be the sort of double-talk we’re hearing all over again from post-Soviet Moscow. Russia has repeatedly affirmed it will sell weapons to Iran and plans to extend no new sanctions against the Middle Eastern state.

From day to day it seems the Russian attitude towards Iran waffles, but its support of Iran never ultimately evaporates. Staunch despotism, clothed in Communist colors, has morphed into bloodthirsty state-run capitalism, and oddly the agenda remains the same. I suppose since the Russian government is still the only one making any money the plan wouldn’t change. Three cheers for government nationalization. All you Barack Obama fans should look into this fun trend (and what it does for the power of federal government) very carefully.

Events in South Ossetia should have shown the world how dependable the modern Russian state is when it comes to keeping its word. Making deals with Russia is an exercise in futility, particulaly when it threatens the bank accounts of the government. Trying to trade a missile shield in Europe for Russian aid in the Middle East sounds good on paper, but we should really stick with our tried and true allies in Europe. Depending on Moscow to deal with Iran on terms favorable to American and European goals isn’t in the cards, no matter what we offer to sweeten the deal.