Last month, the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, published a new report full of incriminating evidence that Iran intends to use it’s nuclear program to produce weapons. Long story short, not good news. Except, that in one of my classes, I had just been assigned a collaborative feature story, and my partner, Saideh, writes about social and political issues in the Middle East. We were trying to think a topic that would combine her political interests and my science leanings, when this Iranian nuclear expose broke. Perfect!
So, instead of keeping the long story short, we wrote a long story on the controversial history of Iran’s nuclear program. You can find the story here, (on Bestthinking.com) We (tried to) explain what we can infer from the evidence that the IAEA inspectors found, where the fine line between commercial nuclear power and weaponization lies, the history of international support and sanctions, and the political implications of the new report. I learned a lot researching this story, and I think that knowing about the history of the nuclear program really informs how we can think about the situation going forward. Understanding the science is really the key to understanding the political implications on this issue, so it was fun to combine forces on this project.
Xylem 