US: Iran Can't Buy More Uranium

From World Threats, there is a very disconcerting issue. The West, including the United States and Britain, are attempting to stop uranium from going to Iran. But this comes after Iran has enriched much of what it already had.

Before Christmas, Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office sent out a confidential request for its diplomats in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Brazil, all major uranium producers, to lobby governments not to sell uranium products, specifically yellow cake, to Iran.

Iran’s stock of yellow cake, acquired from South Africa in the 1970s under the Shah’s original civil nuclear power program, has almost run out. Iran is developing its own uranium mines, but does not have enough ore to support a sustained nuclear program.

The request, news of which emerged after an international investigation by The Times, was part of a drive by six countries — the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Australia and Canada — to choke off supplies of uranium to Iran. It is a move that, while unlikely to cripple any effort to develop a bomb, would blunt its ambitions and help to contain the threat, sources told the Times.