VOA标准英语2011--Analysts Dispute Iran's Uranium-Enrichme

（单词翻译）

Analysts² Dispute Iran's Uranium-Enrichment Claims

The international community has demanded that Iran fully³ acknowledge all of its nuclear related activities, and halt any work toward acquiring nuclear weapons. But Tehran has responded by announcing that it will not only continue to enrich uranium, but also, expand production.
Despite condemnation⁴ from around the globe, Iran says it will continue to enrich uranium. And, in the eyes of many, the Islamic Republic is also working to make these enrichment activities even less visible.
On June 8, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Fereidoun Abbasi, said uranium enrichment would be done at two facilities - though apparently⁵ for different uses.
One facility, at Natanz, will continue to enrich uranium for electrical generation. But another facility, called Fordo, will have a much more controversial purpose. Analyst¹ Corey Hinderstein, with the anti-proliferation group Nuclear Threat Initiative, says the Fordo enrichment will be to a much higher level.
"This is the kind of enrichment that is still not usable in a nuclear weapon, but it gives them a platform from which, if they made a decision to make a nuclear weapon, they could do so in a much shorter amount of time," Hingerstein noted⁶.
The Fardo enrichment facility is within an apparently heavily-fortified, hollowed-out mountain near the city of Qom. And that, according to former weapons inspector⁷ and nuclear analyst David Albright, at the Institute for Science and International Security, does the opposite of assuring the world that Iran's nuclear intentions are peaceful.
"What Iran has done is send a very provocative⁸ signal that it is taking centrifuges - advanced centrifuges - and putting them underground in a site that cannot be bombed," noted Albright. "And then, making materials. They could be, in the end, just that much closer to material that would be used in a nuclear weapon."
Iran nuclear chief Abbasi says the Fardo enrichment site will produce uranium enriched to about 20 percent, to be used in creating medical isotopes⁹. And he says the facility will do this enrichment at three times the previous rate. Corey Hinderstein says she flatly rejects this justification¹⁰.
"They already have about 50 kilograms of this higher enriched - 20 percent – uranium," Hinderstein said. "That is, already, about five years' worth of material for the [Tehran Research medical] reactor¹¹. And, they have no other reactors¹² to use [for creating medical isotopes]. So, the idea that they would need triple this amount on an annual basis just doesn't jibe¹³ with their civilian¹⁴ activities."
Iran's continued work on its nuclear program has caused some to call for military action. But that threat, according to some analysts, only causes Tehran to be even more determined¹⁵ to proceed. And, they say, it's why nothing substantive¹⁶ seems to have come from repeated talks with Iranian officials.
The RAND Corporation recently issued a report on Iran's nuclear program which contained several proposals for the United States and other nations.
One course of action would be to make current sanctions against Iran even tougher, and back that up with a more robust¹⁷ U.S. military presence in the Gulf¹⁸.
Another option would be to combine tougher sanctions with the building of missile defenses by other Persian Gulf countries to neutralize¹⁹ possible Iranian threats.
Yet a third idea set forth²⁰ in the RAND report would go the other direction - relaxing sanctions and perceived military threats in hopes of pulling Iran out of its "bunker" mentality²¹.
One of the RAND study's authors, Ali Reza Nader, says this third approach would have to overcome decades of hostilities²² between Iran and the West.
"One of the options we discussed in the report is diplomacy²³, or engagement - lessening²⁴ Iran's sense of threat from the United States," noted Ali Reza Nader. "Of course, there are various impediments to achieving this from both sides. Building the domestic support for some sort of relationship with Iran and the United States."
Analyst Nader says Tehran's first and foremost imperative²⁵ is to ensure the survival of its regime. He, and the RAND study, say that addressing this primary concern may be the key to finally getting Iran to ease its nuclear ambitions.