Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Egypt Vs Iran -- is there a difference

On Monday Egypt announced their plans to begin developing Nuclear Energy power plants.

To quote an article by the AP "President Hosni Mubarak said the aim was to diversify Egypt's energy resources and preserve its oil and gas reserves for future generations. In a televised speech, he pledged Egypt would work with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency at all times and would not seek a nuclear bomb.

But Mubarak also made clear there were strategic reasons for the program, calling secure sources of energy "an integral part of Egypt's national security system."

At what point does the aim to diversify fuel needs become an integral part of security.- according to the Egypt State Information Service, Oil production accounts for 92% of all fuel, and as of 2006, they discovered even more sites, so, even long term, i am not really worried about Egypt suddenly becoming dependant on other countries for fuel needs.

In a discussion on the BBC World Service programme World have your Say"

Most of the calls were concerned with 2 main issues:
Firstly - are they really prepared for the long term secure storage of spent nuclear rods - -can they guarantee that militant factions wont be able to get them and turn them into weapons (after all, they don't actually need to do much to make it dangerous)

and secondly- the regime, currently its stable, moderate and peaceful, but who is to say that in a few years time, when the reactor is going live, or in times after, that Egypt does not have a leader akin to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose anti-everything rhetoric, in the words of Nick "the scariest man in power".

With one popular view being that more Muslim countries are leaning towards the extreme ideals,(I am not getting into a discussion on the religious leanings of Israel) do we want Egypt to have this capability. They state, in the same AP article above that they will be doing it with the full cooperation and assistance of the IAEA, which, in comparison with Iran's attitude, is definitely more promising.

Of course, it is hard to question why anyone in the middle east should not have it when Israel is allegedly storing the 6th largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world.

Your thoughts ?

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