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François Nicoullaud was a member of the French diplomatic service from 1964 to 2005. He served in Chile, Berlin, Bombay as Consul general, and as French ambassador to Hungary and to Iran as well as at the French mission to the UN. He served also in Paris, mainly in the fields of non-proliferation and international culture and development, as well as in the ministries of Interior and Defence. Since the end of his appointment in Tehran (2001–2005), François Nicoullaud has closely followed the Iranian situation, writing numerous articles for French and international newspapers and reviews. He is also the author of an essay on Iran, “The Turban and the Rose,” published in 2006.
Let us assume that nobody will bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, at least for quite a while. There is no Iranian nuclear test in the offing. Until now, the inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have uncovered no diversion of declared stocks of uranium for use in a nuclear explosive device. Of course, clandestine activities could always take place in some remote stretch of the vast Iranian territory, unknown to the inspectors of the Vienna Agency.
