ABSTRACT
Iran's nuclear dossier, currently before the UN Security Council for ultimate resolution, contains a tangled web of bilateral and regional issues involving mainly Washington and Israel, with some peripheral global implications. Iran's Atomic Energy Organization was created with the explicit task of replacing oil and gas for power generation. Western government analysts, nuclear scientists, UN inspectors and anti-regime activists differ widely in their estimates, according to their own ideological predilections and presuppositions. In the same year, an American firm, the Stanford Research Institute, was hired by the Iranian government for assistance in the design and construction of nuclear plants. An International Atomic Energy Agency report issued at the end of January 2006 said it had found evidence suggesting a link between Iran's officially peaceful nuclear-research program and its military work on high explosives and missiles under a so-called Green Salt Project. Iran's nuclear program has become a vexing international drama at center stage on the global scene.
