Iran’s nuclear program has made headlines in the past week, sending the world into a frenzy of discussion about the military capabilities of an unstable Middle Eastern country. News broke last Friday that Iran has been concealing a second, partially built uranium enrichment facility in a mountain near the city of Qom south of Tehran. Iran acknowledged the existence of the site in a letter to the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and understated the facility’s significance claiming that it is only a pilot plant, still under construction, and intended to produce fuel for nuclear power. President Ahmadinejad still professes that his nation is against nuclear weapons and points to the IAEA letter as a defense that Iran is following international nuclear protocol. The IAEA, on the other hand, claims that Iran failed to follow through with the Subsidiary Agreement it agreed to after its main uranium enrichment plant in Natanz was discovered in 2003. The Subsidiary Agreement stipulates that Iran inform the agency of new construction while a facility is still in early stages of design. Iran countered that it rejected this agreement because the Iranian parliament did not ratify it. The IAEA refuses to recognize this repudiation.

Given the dispute surrounding the legality of Iran’s notification, many wonder about Iran’s intentions for this plant. If we give Iran the benefit of the doubt, this plant may be intended to supplement the existing plant in Natanz. The IAEA has admitted that equipment at the plant would be insufficient to enrich uranium to the point of nuclear explosion. At the same time, Iran would have filed proper notification if it had nothing to hide. President Obama has called the second plant “inconsistent” with the peaceful enrichment of uranium for energy.

The American media has reported that President Obama knew about the existence of this second plant before his inauguration last January. Conservative critics maintain that Obama’s confrontation of Iran during a summit of world leaders at the UN was intended to create the most forceful reaction possible. The White House is now seeking harsher sanctions against Iran, targeting banks and the oil and gas industry specifically. While sanctions are attractive against a belligerent nation whose president denies the Holocaust and imprisons political dissenters, some experts wonder if they will work. Many Americans agree that military engagement in a third Middle Eastern nation with no clear-cut exit strategy is out of the question. But sanctions are not necessarily the best alternative. In the New York Times last Friday, Jim Walsh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pointed out that sanctions are most effective against a small country with few resources of its own. As a large country with great oil wealth, Iran hardly fits this description. Moreover, further sanctions from Western countries are most likely to provoke greater rebellion and more dissonance between Iran and the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, Iran and the nations opposed to its nuclear program are making progress in talks in Geneva. This collaboration marks the first time Iran and the US have directly discussed a bilateral issue since breaking relations 30 years ago. Both sides have agreed to delay further negotiations and Iran has pledged to allow inspectors into the facility.