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SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — The showdown over Iran’s nuclear program is likely to accelerate in 2013 as sanctions tighten, Israel threatens military strikes, and the centrifuges keep spinning. While most attention will be focused on the two most oft-discussed sites of uranium enrichment — Natanz and Fordow — a third site on the gulf could prove to be this year’s most dangerous nuclear wild card.

Tucked between two sleepy coastal fishing villages, the Bushehr nuclear power plant has long been seen as the “acceptable” face of Iran’s nuclear program. Built by Russian engineers and monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is already producing electricity, and most nuclear experts agree that it does not merit the same level of concern over weaponization as Iran’s other nuclear sites.

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My Comment: I was born in Russia, so when Chernobyl occurred it impacted me directly. Fortunately ... I was working in China, and I made sure that I stayed away .... actually .... I ended applying for (and being accepted) as an immigrant to Canada .... becoming a citizen a few years later and bringing my family a few years after that. Unfortunately .... many did not have that opportunity, and had to suffer the consequences .... the biggest one being the impact that the nuclear accident had on the health of the unborn and young children. In my own family all of my cousin's children had health problems .... from St. Petersburg, to Moscow, to southern Ukraine .... and I ended up becoming their main source in sending vitamins, medicines, etc., for their kids. That was not a good time, and I shudder to this day when I think about it.

Now I am reading about the possibility of a Chernobyl on the Persian Gulf. Sighhh .... I can tell you from personal experience that it will impact everything. The price of oil, a massive health crisis that will strain the regions health services, a mass migration of people away from the affected zone .... in short .... a disaster that will take decades (if not centuries) to resolve. The last paragraph of this New York Times commentary sums it up perfectly ....

.... The I.A.E.A. should focus on the safety of the Bushehr plant with the same eye for detail that it uses to detect any weaponization program. Hundreds of thousands of lives depend on it, as do world oil markets, the global economy, and the world’s collective security.