NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/08/24/world/international-us-iran-nuclear.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=IAEA&st=cse

After visiting the UN in Vienna and receiving a lecture from a member of the IAEA, this article has a lot more relevance and is of more pertinent interest to me. I, somehow, feel connected to what the IAEA is doing and I understand more of what the agency is asking from Iran.
The UN and international community in general has been having problems with Iran’s uranium enriching process, Iran has been suspect to be creating weapons from their enriched uranium (mostly because Iran has refused the IAEA to inspect its nuclear technology). Iran has been part of the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), as a member you must agree not to use enriched uranium to create nuclear weapons. Iran has been in compliance with the treating until recent years, in which it has failed to meet certain IAEA inspections.
This article is mainly about how Iran will comply with IAEA and US demands to inspections and upholding the NPT. The IAEA is currently in Iran doing inspections on Arak, their heavy water reactor site. The point of the IAEA is not to see through disarmament of nations with nuclear weapons; however, the goals of the IAEA are to make sure that nuclear technology is used for peaceful purposes. The IAEA works with countries and does inspections to see that enriched uranium is not used to make weapons and offers consultations to nations that are part of the IAEA to practice peaceful uses of nuclear technology.
In Iran, the IAEA is inspecting its nuclear reactor sites to make sure that the enriched uranium is not used for weapons. Tehran insists that it is using the nuclear technology for electricity and not for weapons like the international community thinks. The West is still very skeptical of what is going on in Iran. Hopefully, the findings of the IAEA will ease the tension between the West and Iran.
The IAEA is essentially a powerless agency since even if it did find that Iran was using their enriched uranium for weapons, the IAEA has no power or jurisdiction to make Iran stop. They can only strongly advise against it. The disarmament or prevention of nuclear weapon production will have to be done either through diplomatic means by other nations, mostly likely the West, or if diplomatic means do not work it will probably end in violence and the eschewal and issuance of more sanctions on Iran from the international community. This could have many negative consequences, just as Germany got ousted after World War I, this could build up to the creation of devastating effects.
Furthermore, the recent controversial elections in Iran have resulted in even more apprehension of meeting diplomatic compromises between the West and Iran. The US, Britain, France, and Germany are urging fellow Security Council nations: Russia and China to place sanctions on Iran and pressure them to stop their uranium enrichment program. Hopefully these sanctions will be effective and violence will not have to be resorted to. Due to the IAEA’s inability to police and carry out consequences for noncompliance, this may turn into a crisis between nations instead of an episode to safeguard the international community.