Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Aspettando una Chernobyl iraniana

December 21, 2005
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn't just
Israel's problem, Amir Taheri writes in the Jerusalem Post today:
Iran's first nuclear power station, expected to go on stream next year, 
is located at the Bushehr Peninsula on the Persian Gulf. The whole 
region is one of the most active earthquake zones in the world. A study 
by Stanford University, conducted in the 1970s under the Shah, warned 
that tremors measuring more than seven on the Richter scale could 
destroy the nuclear power station as designed by the German company Siemens.
The project, abandoned in 1978 and half destroyed by Iraqi bombing in 
1980, was revived in 1989 with the help of Russian companies. Teheran 
claims that design changes have been made and that the future power 
station would resist tremors of more than seven on the Richter scale. 
That claim, however, is disputed in a report presented by the 
Seismological Institute in Teheran to President Khatami in 2000. 
Attempts at holding a parliamentary hearing on the report over the past 
five years have been scotched by both Khatami and Ahmadinejad on the 
grounds of "national security."
THE GCC Arabs have every reason to be worried. Between 40 and 100 per 
cent of the GCC states' population live in areas that would be directly 
affected by any nuclear catastrophe at Bushehr. Qatar, sticking out like 
a thumb across the Persian Gulf, is located just opposite the Iranian 
nuclear power station. More than 80 per cent of the GCC's oilfields are 
also within the radius of danger.
Since the Persian Gulf is a shallow body of water - nowhere deeper than 
90 metres - any nuclear pollution could inflict damage lasting 
centuries. An "incident" of the kind seen at Chernobyl could halt 
shipping and cut the flow of almost 25 per cent of the world's daily 
supply of oil. It could also render the offshore gas deposits of Qatar 
and Iran, the second largest in the world, unusable for centuries. As 
al-Attiyah has pointed out such an incident could inflict "incalculable 
damage" on all aspects of the environment in the Persian Gulf, the 
Arabian Peninsula and parts of the Indian Subcontinent. Iran itself 
would be less affected because less than 10 per cent of its population 
lives along the coastline.
Even more worrisome for the GCC Arabs is the fact that all of the 25 
nuclear power stations that Iran plans to build in the next decade or so 
will be located in areas close to GCC territory. The second Iranian 
nuclear power station is under construction at Dar-Khuwayn on the River 
Karun in Khuzestan, a stone-throw from both Kuwait and Iraq. The third, 
still in the drawing room, is to be built on the Jask Peninsula on the 
Gulf of Oman, opposite the Sultanate of Oman.
Dotting an earthquake-prone zone with so many nuclear power stations is 
reason enough for concern. But the problem does not end there. It is now 
certain that the Islamic Republic is determined to build an arsenal of 
nuclear weapons, launching an arms race with unforeseeable consequences. 
It is unlikely that all those concerned would sit back and watch as Mr. 
Ahmadinejad pushes the region towards environmental risk and, perhaps, 
even war.
Posted by jkelly at 03:09 PM

Mirco Romanato wrote:
Ma allora i giapponesi? Sono seduti sulla zona a maggior rischi sismico del
mondo (altro che Iran) e di centrali nucleari ne hanno a bizzeffe ( e
quando c'è un terremoto oltre che non danneggiarsi minimamente si
spengono) . Ritenta sarai più fortunato.

Mirco Romanato wrote:
Molti arabi "moderati" (Arabia Saudita Egitto e Turchia) non aspettano altro
che l'atomica iraniana per poter sviluppare i loro arsenali senza troppi
patemi usa, per poi rivolgerli non contro l'Iran ma contro Israele. A quel
punto Israele si ritroverebbe circondata da potenze nucleari minacciose e
la sua esistenza sarebbe veramente in discussione. Politica lungimirante
quella mussulmana.