ABSTRACT
Revolutionary Iran lacks the technological ability to make nuclear weapons, but key members of the regime have expressed a definite interest in acquiring them. Iraqi fears of Iran’s nuclear intentions lay behind Iraq’s air raids late in November 1987 against Iran’s unfinished nuclear power plant at Bushehr. Iran tried to extract propaganda advantages from the attacks by claiming they would have ‘the same radiological consequences as Chernobyl’, but Western experts have expressed their doubts because the Bushehr plant is still far from complete. Iran started a modest programmer of nuclear research in 1958, when it established a nuclear research centre at Tehran University. Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Shah justified his interest in nuclear technology as a necessary part of Iran’s plan for conserving oil. Iran’s oil wealth and its access to uranium give it some bargaining power for the future.
