HAS IRAN SPURNED A SERIOUS, OR CYNICAL, U.S. OFFER REGARDING ITS NUCLEAR PROGRAM?
In response to our post, “Is the U.S. ‘Offer’ to Iran on Medical Isotopes a Pretext for More Coercive Action?”, it was suggested on another website that the current worldwide shortage of medical isotopes is only temporary and that, therefore, the Obama Administration’s offer to ensure that Iran has the opportunity to purchase medical isotopes on the world market is both serious and well-motivated. We thought that these points deserved a response and further amplification from us, particularly in light of the Western media’s easy penchant for accepting at face value the Obama Administration’s claim that its generous “offers of engagement over Iran’s nuclear ambitions” have been “spurned” by Tehran. In a narrow sense, the current shortage of medical isotopes is likely to be temporary, in that the return of Canadian and Dutch reactors to service later this year will boost the supply of Molybdenum-99. But this kind of shortage is now occurring on a regular basis—there were similar “tempora
