adminmanners. Africa in its entirety faces serious electricity shortages that need urgent intervention to save its people from a crisis that is not only threatening Africa’s economic and political stability but its industry and food production, as well.
Besides developing their one nuclear energy plants, African countries could as well be making serious money from selling uranium to those countries whose projects will have been approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But with the kind of suspicion in the world, uranium mining and subsequent nuclear projects are very delicate. They are egg issues.
To the ordinary thinker, it might defy all logic that African countries that have vast uranium deposits and could generate hundred times their current electricity generation capacity and export to others, are still battling to generate enough for their own consumption.
However, to the knowledgeable, nuclear power has become a delicate issue ever since the Second World War, where history taught the world to strictly use nuclear energy for responsible purposes. It needs just one person to abuse nuclear energy to turn the world into hell.
No one, including the tinniest of all countries, is safe from abuse of nuclear, hence nuclear power in the form of weaponry should always be in very responsible hands.
Ever since Iran started its nuclear project, everyone from Africa to Europe and Asia has shown great concern, in the negative and indeed in the positive.
For that reason Iran has been under US sanctions and has defiantly denied developing nuclear bombs, saying it was trying to develop electricity. But who knows the truth? The US and its Western Europe allies seem to be tightening the sanctions, every hour, pushing Tehran to the other extreme, at the expense of everyone.
Iran is a good example of the sensitivity of the nuclear issue, yet Iran is not the only country in the world with the potential to use nuclear power for energy purposes.
But everyone in the world is with Iran. Everyone wants to know what exactly is going on in Iran and whether Tehran is genuinely trying to use nuclear energy for power generation and not making nuclear bombs.
Iran has been at the world centre stage for too long, and it is time that the issue of its nuclear programme be followed and concluded fairly and transparently.
If Tehran doesn’t start real negotiations over its nuclear programme (INP) and continues to manoeuvre, put forward new proposals and reject already agreed solutions, it will be very difficult for the “countries-sympathisers of Iran” seeking to facilitate agreement on INP to oppose further strengthening of the sanctions against Tehran.
Tehran should in practice demonstrate the movement towards the IAEA and six-nation group in order to avoid a stalemate and avert strengthening supporters of a military solution to the INP in Israeli and “American government”. If Iran shows tangible steps to improve transparency of its nuclear programme the six-nation group will get a powerful argument to convince the West of the need to adjust its policy towards Tehran.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the progress in solving Iran’s nuclear problem could be achieved only through talks.
Both sides should be flexible and that applies more to Iran and not less to the EU and the US. All proposals are already on the table and now the most important task is just to find the most amicable solution.
According to experts, large-scale military operation against Tehran can weaken the position of the local government but will not lead to a change of regime. It will harden the regime.
Through military intervention, the creation of nuclear weapons will be drawn back by about four years, but thereafter Iran will be strongly motivated to create real nuclear charges. What should also be taken into account is size of Iranian territory, its population and high level of nationalism, which means this military operation would require more resources than the sum spent in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years.
The US and EU engagement into such a war will just stir anti-Western sentiments and can cause a series of attacks on Americans and Europeans worldwide.
Moreover, invasion to Iran most likely will lead to the strengthening of the Muslim State alliance on the basis of Islamic fundamentalism.
In the end, analysis of the entire issue around Iran and its nuclear projects puts the world on a delicate pedestal as the world will be divided between Iran and its allies.
The US’s big brother attitude and its tactic of hiding behind the anti-terrorist campaign, that in essence is a purge of those who disagree with its policies and principles, makes other countries very sympathetic to Iran.
The other aspect is that Iran has become very close and friendly to many countries that do not like US policies, that do not like US big brother attitude and that do not like US regime change antics.
The truth of the matter is that there is need for a win-win situation and a long-term understanding and long-term solution to Tehran’s nuclear projects and subsequent, stand-off with US.
On the other hand, countries that have uranium know they are sitting on huge monies and will soon, rather than later, start using unorthodox means to mine uranium and sell it clandestinely.
One way or the other, the world should soon find a solution for Iran. — DayAfrica.com
Dr Antonio Antonio is a Mozambican political scientist based in Maputo. He write for DayAfrica.com
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