“All options are on the table,” U.S. president George Bush said in an August 12 interview on Israeli television, when asked if Washington would consider launching a military assault against Iran. “The use of force is the last option for any president. You know, we’ve used force in the recent past to secure our country,” he added, referring to the U.S. invasion and occupation of neighboring Iraq.

On August 10, at the demand of the Iranian government, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) removed the seals on the Isfahan uranium conversion facility and Tehran resumed work there, monitored by IAEA “inspectors.” The site converts raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride gas, which at the next stage is fed into centrifuges for enrichment. A second facility at Natanz, where the process is completed, remains closed.

On August 5 Paris, Berlin, and London attempted to forestall the move, delivering an “offer” they had promised since last fall. They demanded that Iran make a “binding commitment not to pursue fuel cycle activities other than the construction and operation of light water power and research reactors.”

This would mean closing a number of Iran’s nuclear facilities. The document demands that Iran stop construction of its heavy water research reactor at Arak, which it says “gives rise to proliferation concerns.”

The three powers demanded that Tehran allow “IAEA inspectors to visit any site or interview any person they deem relevant to their monitoring of nuclear activity in Iran.”

After shutting down its fuel cycle facilities, Iran would then be allowed, the imperialist proposal states, to purchase fuel for its nuclear plants from outside suppliers “at normal market conditions” provided the Iranian government agrees to “commit to returning all spent fuel elements of Iranian reactors to the original supplier immediately after the minimum cooling down period.” Carrying out these demands would keep Iran dependent on imperialist powers for developing needed energy sources—precisely the dependence Iran seeks to loosen.

In exchange for meeting this demand, the European powers offered preferential trade agreements in a wide range of industries.

Paris, Berlin, and London made it clear this was in fact an ultimatum, simultaneously announcing their call for an emergency meeting of the IAEA board of governors to discuss possible economic sanctions if Tehran did not accede to the demands.

“Iran must honor the commitments it has made… suspending all activity, conversion, treatment, and enrichment of uranium,” said French prime minister Dominique de Villepin before delivering the imperialist demands. “The [UN] Security Council will be called on if Iran refuses to comply.”

The Iranian government rejected the deal. “What the Europeans have presented is basically not a proposal but an insult to the Iranian nation,” said newly elected Iranian president Mahmood Ahmadinejad August 8.

The day after the Isfahan facility was restarted, the IAEA’s 35-member board of governors met in an emergency meeting and unanimously adopted a resolution demanding that Iran suspend “all enrichment related activities.”

In response, Iran’s representative to the IAEA, Cyrus Nasseri, said the board’s statement was the “most absurd manifestation of irony” given that the meeting was taking place on the 60th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nasseri noted that the only government that has unleashed nuclear weapons “has now assumed the role of the prime preacher in the nuclear field while ever expanding its nuclear weapons capability.”

“In Iran it will not be long before we will have to utilize all our fossil fuel resources for domestic purposes,” Nasseri said. Nuclear power is the “alternative for the future not only for Iran but for the whole world,” he said.
 
 
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