Speaking to reporters, spokesman Richard Boucher remarked:
"We don't see the economic or any other rationale for a country like Iran to try to generate power with nuclear energy, given that... they flare off way more gas every year than they could get energy from nuclear power plants of the kind that they're talking about."
The Bush administration is now doing everything it possibly can at the UN to stop Iran's program over fears that it may be used to produce nuclear weapons. (The IAEA scolded the Bush administration back in September 2006 saying part of its case against Iran is "outrageous and dishonest.")
Now, considering that the state department apparently believes that countries with vast oil resources don't really need nuclear power, what are we to make of this news?
TRIPOLI – The United States will help Libya generate nuclear electricity, the North African country said on Monday, in an announcement appearing to herald a further improvement in ties with the West.
There was no immediate comment from Washington, which has been repairing ties with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi since he began a series of moves in 2003 aimed at ending decades of international isolation for his oil and gas exporting country.
Libya's official Jana news agency said an agreement between the two countries would be signed shortly.
It would include building a nuclear power plant, helping develop water desalination capacity, joint research and technical projects and training Libyan technicians in the United States.
[...]
Fears over finite oil and gas supplies and climate change have pushed nuclear power into the limelight as a way of producing energy and cutting emissions of carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming.
Libya has proven oil reserves of 39 billion barrels, enough for 60 years at current production rates. Its largely unexploited gas reserves are estimated at 53 trillion cubic feet.
Gaddafi, who Ronald Reagan once called "the mad dog of the Middle East" back in the day when he was busy supporting terrorists, has undergone an apparent conversion in his advancing years so he's now on the US's "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" list.
But, wait a minute, as recently as 2005 it was reported that Libya was allegedly getting uranium hexafluoride from North Korea after Gaddafi said he'd given up his weapons programs:
The nuclear material that North Korea may have exported to Libya was uranium hexafluoride. This is not fissile material but can be enriched into weapons-grade material if it is fed into nuclear centrifuges. Thus, it is considered material that could eventually be used in weapons, making the discovery of the sale disturbing to U.S. officials.
No big deal though, since the US government always acts based on its own interests in the end:
CAIRO, May 15 [2006] -- The normalization of U.S.-Libya relations is a natural marriage of an American administration desperate for friends and oil in the Middle East and a government that needs to open its economy to the outside world, Arab and exiled Libyan observers said Monday.
The announcement was called proof that promotion of democracy is no longer a top priority of the Bush administration, which is grappling to hold Iraq together and has turned attention toward building alliances against a hostile Iran over its nuclear program. Libya has been ruled by Moammar Gaddafi since he seized power in 1969.
[...]
The United States lifted its economic embargo against Libya in 2004, and since then, at least six U.S. oil companies have resumed drilling and exploration that had been suspended in 1986. Libya possesses the world's eighth-largest oil reserves, but the U.S. embargo had driven down production by keeping new equipment and technology out of the country.
Since Gaddafi is cooperating with the IAEA inspections and has surrendered Libya's components (the power of which the Bush administration vastly overestimated in 2004) one question still remains: why is there a double standard in dealing with Iran?
March 5, 2007
Dr. ElBaradei said that to date in Iran, the Agency had "not seen any diversion of nuclear materials... nor the capacity to produce weapons usable materials". He said that these were also "important elements in assessing the situation, assessing the risk, and understanding how to address the Iranian question".
The Director General reiterated his call for a "timeout" regarding the Iranian nuclear issue, saying he hoped talks could resume on the matter. "That´s the only way in my view to achieve a durable solution to the issue."
There hasn't been a "time out" of course. The US government is forcefully seeking a second UN security council resolution to impose more sanctions on Iran, which has become a very hard sell, and Iran's president is now saying that he wants to address the UN security council about his program.
Meanwhile, the official Bush administration position remains a refusal to talk to Ahmadinejad unless he stops enriching uranium while it continues an embargo on Iran's banks as well. Iran's government considers that tactic as "harassment" while Hans Blix called in February for those who are aggressively pushing for more sanctions to stop "humiliating" Iran by demanding that it cease its programs before it will be dealt with:
His warning came as top members of the UN Security Council met in London to consider additional sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, a key nuclear process.
He said the package of economic and political incentives put forward in June 2006 by the US and key European countries, which was later endorsed by the council, did not mention the key issue of security guarantees for Iran or adequately address the possibility of US diplomatic recognition if Tehran renounces enrichment.
"The first incentive, I think, is to sit down with them in a direct talk rather than saying to them 'you do this, thereafter we will sit down at a table and tell you what you get for it'," Mr Blix said.
"That's getting away from a humiliating neo-colonial attitude to a more normal (one). People have their own pride whether you like them or don't," he told a media briefing ahead of a conference on Weapons Threats and International Security organised by a Washington-based research institute on domestic and international challenges.
[...]
"This is in a way like telling a child, first you will behave and thereafter you will be given your rewards," he said.
"And this, I think, is humiliating. The Iranians have resisted all the time saying, no, we are willing to talk, we are willing to talk about the suspension of enrichment, but we are not for suspension before the talks. I would be surprised if a poker player would toss away his trump card before he sits down at the table. Who does that?" he asked.
The stalemate continues.
They talked to Gaddafi. Why won't they talk to Ahmadinejad?
Related:
Military action against Iran would backfire on Israel, report warns
Libyan Nuclear Weapons
Flashback to 2004: IAEA Leader's Phone Tapped
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