Iran Busted Building Secret "Pilot Plant"

So we have another round of "Do as I say, not as I do" from the Big Dogs.

Appearing before reporters in Pittsburgh [at the G-20 economic summit], President Obama said that the Iranian nuclear program [which has been hidden from international weapons inspectors for years] "represents a direct challenge to the basic foundation of the nonproliferation regime." President Nicholas Sarkozy of France, appearing beside Mr. Obama, said that Iran had deadline of two months to comply with international demands or face increased sanctions.

"The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the entire international community," Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain said, standing on the other side of Mr. Obama. "The international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand."

The extraordinary and hastily arranged joint appearance by the three leaders — and Mr. Obama said that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany had asked him to convey that she stood with them as well — adds urgency to the diplomatic confrontation with Iran over its suspected ambition to build a nuclear weapons capacity. The three men demanded that Iran allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct an immediate inspection of the facility, which is said to be 100 miles southwest of Tehran.

American officials said that they had been tracking the covert project for years, but that Mr. Obama decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered, in recent weeks, that Western intelligence agencies had breached the secrecy surrounding the project. On Monday, Iran wrote a brief, cryptic letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that it now had a "pilot plant" under construction, whose existence it had never before revealed.

In a statement from its headquarters in Vienna on Friday, the atomic agency confirmed that it had been told Monday by Iran that "a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction in the country." The agency said it had requested more information about the plant and access to it as soon as possible. "The agency also understands from Iran that no nuclear material has been introduced into the facility," said the statement said.

Also see: WaPo; CNN.

Don't get me wrong: I don't want Iran having any nukes for multiple reasons, but mostly because I don't want anyone having any nukes. But I remain consistently amazed that the leadership of countries with nuclear weaponry expect other countries to be okay with that power imbalance. International arms negotiations are mystifying to me, and I'm sure there are a lot of people with defense hard-ons [NSFW-ish] who will happily tell me I just don't understand, to which I can only reply, "Good."