(Satellite image after 2003 Bam, Iran earthquake; photo courtesy of Digital Globe)
Yesterday I mentioned that Freedom House and the Progressive Policy Institute had launched a new Iran Strategy Task Force to look at Iran’s human rights record and raise awareness and concerns about Iran’s conventional military capabilities. Task Force co-chair Josh Block mentioned that the group would purposely steer away from the “nuclear” questions regarding Iran.
Given what we have seen in Japan after a devastating earthquake and the triggered nuclear disaster, I wondered out loud whether or not there might be concerns building among Iran’s citizens about their country’s rapid embrace and deployment of a large nuclear energy program with potential nuclear warhead supporting capacity.
After all, Japan is one of the world’s leading nuclear technology leaders with highly sophisticated management systems. Iran is no where near Japan’s level of nuclear sophistication.
But Iran and Japan both have suffered from very large earthquakes.
Today, an exiled Iran religious scholar, Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, expressed some of these exact concerns in a very interesting interview on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
I’d encourage the Iran Strategy Task Force to build into its considerations of human rights concerns the notion of broad public nuclear safety.
— Steve Clemons
23 comments on “Iran’s Earthquakes & Nuclear Safety Concerns”