The panic button on Iran is being pressed again. A report by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), suggests that Iran has taken more significant steps towards developing a nuclear weapon. At the same time, the warnings from Israel are coming thick and fast, reminding us that, if necessary, it will bomb Iran's nuclear research facilities. All this is grist for the mill for the doomsayers who believe it won't be long before countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt decide to develop their own bomb.
Lost in the mists is the fact that the US encouraged the ambition of the Shah of Iran to develop a nuclear industry and gave it the capability of enriching uranium, albeit for civilian electrical needs.
Whatever happens in Iran, the world has to find a way to put a stop to the nuclear countries giving to perhaps would-be proliferators the means to enrich uranium, even if the purpose is only to develop an alternative source of energy.
Most of the world is now willing, by and large, to abide by arrangements like the 2009 deal between the US and the United Arab Emirates which led to the latter passing a law banning the construction of enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities in exchange for access to a reliable source of nuclear fuel. Strangely, the US is now shooting itself in the foot in the less strict deals it is today negotiating with Jordan, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.
The conventional opinion is that civilian nuclear co-operation does not lead to the proliferation of nuclear armaments. Many scholars argue that nuclear weapons spread when states have a demand for the bomb, not merely when they have the technical capacity to build it. But they are wrong
A country that is helped with building power reactors and has its scientists trained abroad is on the road to building a bomb, if it wants to. The biggest reason is that scientists cannot help themselves.