The Coalition of the Swilling

It makes more sense when you remember that the ideological center of the socialist/communist movement is in Germany and France, and always has been. The biggest reason they helped us in the cold war was that they resented Russia having the central power in the commintern.

Now, with the dominance of Russia removed from their ideology, they are free to pursue it fully. The biggest threat to their ideology is Americanism, not our politicians, but our dominant political philosophy of libertarian/ liberal government. Anything that helps those that oppose us is good for the socialist international movement.

A reactor is a far car from facilities that can enrich uranium to weapons-grade. So a large-scale reactor in which responsible parties control the input and output doesn't bother me too much.

I'm also not bothered by Iran wanting to invest their petrol dollars into other energy technology. Really that's the point of capitalism: to sell what you can produce cheaply and profitably, in order to buy something more useful.

The problem I have, is that for all their tirades about... whatever... they could just as easily be spending money on solar research. That they want their new energy to be specifically nuclear, suggests to me that they undyingly want to be considered a nuclear power capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

I'm with you, Bings - these must be the same guys who inspired that "higher gas prices will eventually lower gas prices" dude.

Sure, why not?
It worked so well when Clinton authorised sale of two reactors to North Korea it's bound to work out just as well with Iran.

Heck, Bingley, I say let's give 'em a working reactor. How many kilotons do they want (bwahahaha)?

Nobrainer, I know you're far more knowledgeable about these toys than I am, but if you give them cutting-edge reactor technology (it's too much to hope that they Euroturds would send them some spare parts from Chernobyl, I suppose) you have got to be advancing their nuke weapons program, it seems to me. And why on earth would you want to do that? This whole discussion of their 'peaceful' uses of nuke power is such a joke; when you're sitting on that much crude and you are a developing country is it better for your people to build a bunch of oil-fired electricity plants so that they could all get tvs next week and learn about the Great Satan (or even watch "Dallas" re-runs) or is it logical for you to spend billions of dollars and spend many years building nuclear reactors? There is one reason and one reason alone they are doing this, and potentially millions of people are going to die because the Euroturds insist upon showing how courageous and independant they are by opposing the US.

A cutting edge reactor isn't really related to nuke weapons technology.* Reactors themselves use uranium of a purity much lower than that required for weapons. The reactor would likely be sold with a solid Western (American) design. Those are of course much less prone to Chernobylism (the Ruskies we VERY arrogant in their nuclear prowess. This affected their nuclear submarines in a bad way as well.)

The real question of safety goes back to their acquiring and disposal of the nuclear material. If they start re-processing the waste, then there's a major problem. If that possibility cannot be completely negated, then giving them a reactor is not smart.

I also don't blame them for not wanting to build a lot of fossil fuel power plants. Oil is very inefficient. I think they have discovered a very large amount of natural gas. Even then, it is probably more profitable for them to sell the NG and invest in other technologies. As I said, their insistence that the other technologies be nuclear is very troubling. It indicates to me that their "peaceful" nuclear program is just a sham.

If the West can give them nuclear reactors and truly control the inputs and outputs, then I'm not worred. I question the controlability.

*If we gave them breeder reactors that could be a problem. Breeders create more fissionable material than they start with. Such material includes very high grade plutonium.