Iran: 2/10/2012-2/16/2012

This week has been one of the more eventful ones for Iran. Iran’s nuclear power plant has finally gone operational. After weeks and years of preparation, Iran now holds the ability to enrich their uranium. Although they say they will merely enrich the uranium to use it for their energy program and not enrich it to weapons-grade uranium, the question is still remains in the air. The IAEA will be visiting again next week, and hopefully this time they will actually negotiate. Late last week, word was passed around that Iranian President Ahmadinejad was ready to begin negotiations, but this was meant with news that several Israeli diplomats in Georgia, and India were attempted to be assassinated. Whether it was Iran behind these attacks is still a major concern. Nonetheless this has put another huge dent in the road, as well as the fact that this week President Ahmadinejad told the European Union that Iran plans to stop sending oil to the EU long before the European Union planned on boycotting the Iranian oil this summer. This has led the USS Abraham Lincoln, a United States Aircraft carrier, to make a second pass through the waters near the Strait of Hormuz as a message to the Iranians saying that any attempts to close the Strait would be met with force.

                                            http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-02-14/news/31057574_1_suicide-attack-hormuz-strait

 Right at the end of last week, all seemed that the Iranians would finally be giving in to negotiations over their nuclear energy/weapons program, but this week has seen a lot more action than was hoped for. Hopefully with the IAEA visiting Iran, for the second time this month, next week, additional progress can be made on negotiations before one more small mishap creates an international catastrophe.