EU accuses Iran over nuclear documents Guardian Unlimited
The EU today accused Iran of possessing documents that clearly indicate how to produce nuclear weapons, bringing the country's referral to the UN security council a step closer. Peter Jenkins, Britain's representative on the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Associated Press that a new report showed Tehran was in possession of what appeared to be drawings of the core of an atomic warhead.
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Russian plan for Iran unites IAEA By Mark Heinrich and Louis Charbonneau
Thu Nov 24, 3:22 PM ET



Governors of the U.N. nuclear watchdog broadly agreed on Thursday it was better to explore a Russian compromise over Iran's nuclear activities than to report Tehran to the Security Council, Western board members said.

A text reflecting this was submitted by the European Union's three biggest powers, France, Britain and Germany, and was adopted as part of a statement approved at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board (IAEA).

The statement noted the view of developing country members that Iran was showing more cooperation with IAEA inspectors, but Western powers said it also said Tehran had a long way to go to refute suspicions it had a covert atomic bomb project.

"Calls were made for Iran to resume the negotiating process with the (EU's big three or EU3)," said the statement, prepared by current IAEA chairman Japan and seen by Reuters.

"Support was expressed for the EU3 effort to broaden the basis for international consensus through additional elements ... such as the Russian proposal," it said.

The statement omitted mention of previous threats to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions over suspicions over its nuclear ambitions, a move the United States and EU had been seeking for months.

Tehran denies wanting anything more than civilian nuclear energy. But it acknowledges hiding potentially weapons-related technology from U.N. inspectors for 18 years until 2003.

Diplomats said a decision by the EU and the United States not to press for referral at the meeting had averted a potential clash with Russia and China, which oppose such a move.

Both powers have major energy stakes in Iran but have urged it to be provide more IAEA access to its nuclear sites.

Rarely united previously, they and the Western powers, along with developing countries such as India and South Africa, now seem to agree Russia's proposal offers the best route forward.

RUSSIAN PROPOSAL

Moscow has suggested letting Tehran perform less sensitive uranium processing in Iran and send the converted material to Russia, where a Russian-Iranian joint venture would handle the critical enrichment process. Enrichment can yield fuel for nuclear power stations or bomb-grade uranium fuel.

The EU text said the IAEA's 35-nation board had "unanimous hope ... that the negotiation process could resume, taking into account, among different ideas, the Russian proposals."

Javad Vaeedi, deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran had seen no proposal yet.

"Iran welcomes any proposal that acknowledges its right to have access to peaceful nuclear technology," he told the official news agency IRNA in Vienna.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said enrichment would be the main topic of any future discussions with the Europeans and Russia.

But the EU text cited "broad consensus not to allow Iran in the present circumstances to conduct enrichment-related activities on its soil ... None of the members of the board wishes Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon."

Germany's ambassador to the IAEA, Herbert Honsowitz, told the board session that if Iran began enriching uranium, "it must be absolutely clear that this would immediately put an end to our (diplomatic) efforts."

U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte said only "a short period" should be given for Iran to earn international confidence.

"Just as we join with all in this room in seeking a diplomatic solution ..., (if there is no) verified change in course in Iran, very little more time can pass before the board must make its report to the Security Council," he said.

Western concerns were heightened last month when the Islamic republic's president said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

Diplomats said envoys from Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Iran tentatively planned to meet in December, four months after the EU3 cut off contact with Iran in protest over it ending a suspension in converting uranium for nuclear fuel.

The statement said some IAEA members were disturbed by Iran's disclosure that it got documents from black marketeers describing in part how to build the core of a nuclear bomb.

Peter Jenkins, British envoy to the IAEA, said this clearly reflected a quest for nuclear arms. He warned that while the EU had opted to give Iran more time to weigh Moscow's proposal, the West's forbearance was not unlimited.

"Iran should not conclude that this window of opportunity will remain open in all circumstances," he told reporters.

Mohammad Mehdi Akhunzadeh, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, said the black-market document contained "simple, non-sophisticated information that could be found on the Internet."

A European diplomat said: "The Internet did not exist at the time when they got these (bomb core) papers."

(Additional reporting by Parinoosh Arami and Paul Hughes in Tehran and Paul Taylor in Brussels)



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China Opposes Bringing Iran Before U.N. By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 24, 5:51 AM ET

China stuck to its long-held position Thursday that the dispute over Iran's nuclear program should be resolved through negotiations and not be brought before the U.N. Security Council.

The statement comes as diplomats gathered in Vienna for a 35-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the European Union expected to warn Iran to change its ways or face the threat of referral to the U.N. Security Council.

"We have a consistent position on the Iranian nuclear issue," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao at a briefing.

"For the current stage, we should seek a proper solution within the framework of the IAEA," Liu said. "We don't think it is appropriate now to refer this question to the U.N. Security Council."

At issue is Iran's refusal to give up uranium enrichment, which can be used to generate power but also to make weapons-grade material for nuclear warheads. Iran says it wants only to make fuel, but international concern is growing that the program could be misused.

For months, Iran has relied on Beijing and Moscow, two of the five permanent members of the Security Council, to fend off a U.S.-backed push to have it hauled before the Council.

Currently, Iran's enrichment program is frozen. But negotiations between Iran and France, Britain and Germany — the so-called EU-3 — broke off in August after Iran restarted the conversion of raw uranium into the gas that is used as the feed stock in enrichment.

Liu said China hoped to see "the early restoration of negotiations between Iran and the EU-3 so as to seek a long-term solution acceptable to all parties."




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EU Alleges Iran Possesses Nuclear Designs By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 24, 4:15 PM ET



The European Union accused Iran on Thursday of having documents that show how to make nuclear warheads and joined the United States in warning Tehran it could be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

Iran, meanwhile, suggested it was considering a compromise to reduce tensions.

Britain, in a statement on behalf of the 25-nation bloc, offered new negotiations meant to lessen concerns over Iran's insistence it be in full control of uranium enrichment — a possible pathway to nuclear arms.

"But Iran should not conclude that this window of opportunity will remain open in all circumstances," said a statement read by Peter Jenkins, the chief British delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, outside a closed meeting of the 35-nation board.

Diplomats described the statement as a veiled threat of Security Council referral.

"It won't be open for a great deal longer," Jenkins said later when asked how much time Iran had to influence the language of a report to the Security Council.

The final statement was toned down before being delivered to the media.

An earlier version made available to The Associated Press said: "Failure to make progress" on easing international concerns about Iran's nuclear program "will hasten the day when the board decides that a report to the Security Council must be made."

The United States said separately that Iran cannot avoid referral to the Security Council for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty but added that Washington and its European allies were delaying such a move to give Tehran a chance to defuse fears it wants to make nuclear arms.

"Iran must understand that the report to the council is required and will be made at a time of this board's choosing," said Gregory L. Shulte, the chief U.S. representative to the Vienna-based IAEA.

But, he said, Washington is ready to wait in hopes that "Iran will reverse course and demonstrate" cooperation both with an IAEA probe of its nuclear activities and an international attempt to re-engage it in talks meant to reduce fears about its intentions.

"One thing is clear, no one wants this dangerous regime to acquire the most deadly of weapons," he later told reporters.

With even traditional allies Russia and China increasing pressure on Tehran, the Iranians are "digging themselves deeper into a hole that threatens to collapse around them," he said.

For months, Iran has relied on Beijing and Moscow to fend off a U.S.-backed push to have it hauled before the Security Council. But the Russians are now working with the Americans and Europeans to push a compromise enrichment plan, and officials recently told AP that China also is moving closer to the Western position.

The main issue is Iran's refusal to give up its right to enrichment, which can be used to generate power but also to make weapons-grade material for nuclear warheads. Iran says it wants only to make fuel, but international concern is growing that the program could be misused.

A plan floated in recent weeks foresees moving any Iranian enrichment plan to Russia. There, in theory, Moscow would supervise the process to make sure enrichment is only to fuel levels.

But Iran insists it wants to master the complete fuel cycle domestically. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters in Tehran on Wednesday that, while his country was willing to resume formal talks with key European powers on its nuclear program, "naturally we aim to have enrichment on Iran's territory."

On Thursday, however, a senior Iranian diplomat appeared to soften his country's stance.

"We are considering it," Mohammed Mehdi Akhounzadeh Basti, the chief Iranian delegate to the IAEA, told the AP when asked about the plan to move Iran's enrichment program to Russia.

Fellow delegate Javad Vaidi said, "We are prepared to follow the path of dialogue with other countries, including the EU-3," referring to France, Germany and Britain, the key EU negotiators.

Jenkins focused on new revelations contained in a report drawn up for the board meeting by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, including a finding showing the Iranians in possession of what appeared to be drawings of the core of an atomic warhead. The agency said last week that Iran obtained detailed designs from the black market run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program.

In his statement to the board, also made available to AP, Jenkins said the documents have "no other application than the production of nuclear warheads."

"This reinforces earlier concerns aroused by possible indications of Iranian weaponization activity," he told the board, alluding to a series of findings over the past three years by IAEA experts suggesting that Iran may have experimented with procedures meant to make nuclear weapons.

A separate Iranian statement prepared for the board meeting accused the "U.S. and terrorist groups" of fabricating "false allegations against Iran" in suggesting it was interested in nuclear arms.

It described the find of the warhead documents as a "minor issue" that should not detract from the "tremendous progress achieved by (the) joint cooperation of (the) IAEA and Iran" in clearing up questions about Tehran's nuclear program.



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Iran: A-bomb data available on Net By Louis Charbonneau and Francois Murphy
Thu Nov 24, 3:23 PM ET



Iran attempted to play down the importance of information it received from the black market on making the core of a nuclear weapon and said on Thursday the material was freely available on the Internet.

Last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report that Iran had handed over several pages related to the production of key components of a nuclear weapon.

The United States and European Union said the pages showed Iran's atomic ambitions may include a nuclear arsenal but Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Mohammad Mehdi Akhunzadeh, denied this.

"The information contained in one-and-a-half pages is simple and non-sophisticated information which could be found in (public) literature and on the Internet," Akhunzadeh told a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors.

He said the documents were "incomplete" and argued that handing the documents to the IAEA was in itself "a clear indication of Iran's full transparency with the IAEA."

But Western diplomats and analysts disagreed.

"The Iranian explanation is laughable and not credible. It's classified information. It's about metallurgy and how to machine uranium successfully into spheres for a nuclear weapon," William Peden, a Greenpeace nuclear analyst, told Reuters.

A European diplomat pointed out that the Internet did not even exist at the time Iran got the documents.

Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, told reporters: "This is not information Iran downloaded from the Internet. This is information that they obtained, according to the IAEA, from a nuclear trafficking network that has provided a nuclear weapons design to at least one other country (Libya)."

Iran says it received the documents from an illicit procurement network linked to disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, whose agents met with Iranian officials in 1987 while the Iran-Iraq war was raging.

Tehran says it wants only civilian energy from its nuclear development program.

It acknowledges hiding potentially weapons-related technology from U.N. inspectors for 18 years until 2003 but says it was given these particular documents without having requested them and did nothing with them.

A European diplomat questioned Iran's claim to transparency and said Iran had claimed for months it had received only a one-page offer after the 1987 meeting with agents of Khan before it suddenly said it had found a large box of documents.




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Wisdom prevailed at UN atomic meeting: Iran cleric
Fri Nov 25, 2005 6:17 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Influential Iranian cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Friday the U.N. nuclear watchdog's latest statement on Iran's disputed atomic program was a step in the right direction but still had elements of "harassment".

The International Atomic Energy Agency decided on Thursday not to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions in order to give Russia time to broker a compromise deal under which Moscow would enrich Iran's processed uranium.

"This time a kind of wisdom, precaution, and an avoidance of adventurism prevailed over the IAEA meeting," Rafsanjani told worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran.

The mid-ranking cleric heads the powerful Expediency Council which arbitrates in constitutional disputes.

Iran has been risking referral to the Council after failing to convince the world that its nuclear scientists are working on fuel for power stations rather than bombs.

Western diplomats say Tehran could guarantee that the uranium would only be enriched to the low level needed for power stations, and not to the higher weapons-grade, by allowing Russia to act a middle man and conduct the nuclear fuel work.

Rafsanjani, president from 1989 to 1997, made no specific reference to this proposal.

"There are some points in the communiqué that betray a vestige of harassment," he said.

The IAEA statement noted that Western powers reckoned Tehran had a long way to go to refute suspicions it had a covert atomic bomb project.

It also said some IAEA members were disturbed by Iran's disclosure that it got documents from black marketeers describing in part how to build the core of a nuclear bomb.

"We will never accept being bullied and it is not worth you bullying us," Rafsanjani added.



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Iran’s hard-line president called for the Bush administration to be tried on war crimes charges related to Iraq and denounced the West for its stance on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, state-run television reported today.

“You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq should be tried as war criminals in courts,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an apparent reference to the US.

Ahmadinejad didn’t elaborate, but he was apparently referring to the US military’s use of artillery shells packed with depleted uranium, which is far less radioactive than natural uranium and is left over from the process of enriching uranium for use as nuclear fuel.

Since the 2003 start of the Iraq war, US forces have reportedly fired at least 120 tons of shells packed with depleted uranium, which is an extremely dense material used by the US and British militaries for tank armour and armour-piercing weapons. Once fired, the shells melt, vaporise and turn to dust.

“Who in the world are you to accuse Iran of suspicious nuclear armed activity?” asked the Iranian president during a nationally televised ceremony marking the 36th anniversary of the establishment of the volunteer Basij paramilitary force.

Iran has been under intense pressure to curb its nuclear programme, which the US claims is part of an effort to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies such claims and says its nuclear programme is peaceful and aimed at generating electricity. But it insists that it has the right to develop its nuclear programme, including enrichment of nuclear fuel.

On Thursday, the 35-board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency met on Iran’s nuclear file after the US and Europe warned of UN Security Council action, accusing Iran of having documents that show how to produce parts of nuclear warheads.

Iran has temporarily stopped its enrichment programme, but negotiations between it and Britain, France and Germany broke off in August after Tehran unfroze another part of its programme – the conversion of raw uranium into the gas that is used as the feeder stock in enrichment.

Iran has also rejected European calls to halt work at its uranium conversion facility near city of Isfahan in central Iran.

Ahmadinejad rejected Western concerns over his country’s nuclear programme.

“They say Iran has to stop its peaceful nuclear activity since there is a probability of diversion while we are sure that they are developing and testing (nuclear weapons) every day,” Ahmadinejad said.

“They speak as if they are the lords of the world.”

Ten killed as quake shakes villages Scotsman
Ten people were killed and at least 70 injured when a 5.9-magnitude earthquake levelled seven villages in southern Iran, the country's state-run television said. Heidar Alishvandi, governor of Qeshm Island was quoted as saying that rescue teams were deployed to the affected areas.
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The ties that tangle Iraq and Iran:

What stands out is that Washington resorted to grandstanding in order to cover up the accelerating collapse of its regional policy in Iraq, which surely casts a shadow on the US capacity to force its will on the Iran nuclear issue.
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EU agrees to renewed dialogue with Iran on nuclear programme
By Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Published: November 28 2005 02:00 | Last updated: November 28 2005 02:00

European Union foreign ministers delivered a letter in Tehran yesterday agreeing to renewed talks over Iran's nuclear programme.


The move, in response to a request sent earlier this month by Ali Larijani, Iran's top security official, came after the EU and US stepped back from pressing last week's meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Tehran to the UN Security Council. The semi-official Mehr news agency reported that talks could begin around December 10.

In Barcelona Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy representative, said: "A letter has been conveyed to Iran this afternoon [by] the three countries (UK, France and Germany) plus myself. In that letter we offered the Iranians to have conversation, dialogue, to see if we have enough common basis to start negotiations."

European diplomats acknowledge that last week's meeting did not produce a united front to censure Iran but maintain that the pressure remains on Tehran to comply and that it is important to continue to seek a dialogue. Iranian officials and politicians have publicly hardened opposition to a Russian proposal that EU diplomats believe could offer a compromise guaranteeing Iran would not divert enriched uranium into nuclear weapons. Hamid-Reza Asefi, the foreign ministry spokesman, said yesterday any talks would centre on the "materialisation of nuclear fuel production in Iran", apparently ruling out Moscow's suggestion that Iran enrich uranium in Russia. His remarks came after leading parliamentary deputies attacked the proposal. Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a member of parliament's security and foreign policy commission, said Iran could not rely on another country "to supply its nuclear energy needs".

The conservative Kayhan newspaper, a long-term critic of talks with the EU, hailed the IAEA meeting as a victory resulting from Iran's "position of honour and dignity".

"Much to the joy of the United States and its allies, Iran has on several occasions retreated from its inalienable right to peaceful nuclear technology," Kayhan said. "All these setbacks [for Iran] never gained the expected results [but] instead made the opponents even more voracious and aggressive. . . "

In a similar tone, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad told western nations on Saturday that they had "no right to tell Iran to cease its peaceful nuclear activities" and called for war crime charges against President George W. Bush.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad was addressing a rally of the Basij, an official militia, which claimed that 9m members had formed human chains across Iran to show willingness to defend the country from foreign attack. State television aired footage of the Basij rally shot by Fox News, the US station recently allowed access to Iran.

A European diplomat admitted that the EU faced a challenge in convincing Iran that time for a compromise was limited.

This is not information Iran downloaded from the Internet. This is information they obtained … from a nuclear-trafficking network that has provided a nuclear-weapon design to at least one other country.
—U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte, responding to Tehran’s defense that nuclear-weapon design information it purchased from the Khan network was “nonsophisticated information” that could easily be obtained online.







U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte last week dismissed Tehran’s claim that documents obtained from former Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan were readily available through open sources (Joe Klamar/Getty Images).

Iran Wins Reprieve, West Concedes Uranium Conversion

By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire

VIENNA — Iran received a diplomatic reprieve late last week as the European Union and the United States agreed to defer their push to report the Iranian nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council (see GSN, Nov. 23).

Officials gathering here at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board elected to allow more time for reinvigorated negotiations between Iran and France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the three largest EU nations, which have been spearheading an effort to resolve the nuclear crisis...Full Story



North Korea Seeks U.S. Compensation for Scrapped Light-Water Reactor Project

Pyongyang today asked for “political and economic” compensation after last week’s decision by an international consortium to scrap a light-water nuclear reactor project in North Korea, Reuters reported (see GSN, Nov. 23)...Full Story



German Proliferator Receives Prison Sentence

A German court on Thursday sentenced a man to seven years and three months in prison for smuggling dual-use equipment to Pakistan, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 28)...Full Story

Monday, November 28, 2005




Iran Wins Reprieve, West Concedes Uranium Conversion


By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire



VIENNA — Iran received a diplomatic reprieve late last week as the European Union and the United States agreed to defer their push to report the Iranian nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council (see GSN, Nov. 23).

Officials gathering here at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board elected to allow more time for reinvigorated negotiations between Iran and France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the three largest EU nations, which have been spearheading an effort to resolve the nuclear crisis.

Still, while leaving open a “window of opportunity” for continued talks, British Ambassador Peter Jenkins cautioned that the opening would not “stay open forever or under all circumstances.”

Next Round of Talks

While the agency board meetings have often served as the main forum for the international community to discuss Iran’s nuclear ambitions, last week’s meeting was overshadowed by an agreement for renewed EU-Iran talks, which are scheduled for early next week.

Diplomats here told Global Security Newswire that the precise schedule remains to be set but that the meetings would take place Dec. 6 or Dec. 7, most likely in Vienna or possibly Moscow.

The Moscow option has indicated the growing involvement of Russia in a possible resolution to the crisis, which began two years ago, when Iran acknowledged concealing an extensive nuclear program for nearly 20 years. Tehran has steadfastly declared its programs to be peaceful, but the long-time clandestine nature of the program, combined with a still-unsatisfied nuclear agency, has fueled continued Western suspicion of Iran’s nuclear aims.

Moscow has proposed a compromise solution in which it would host a Russian-Iranian facility to enrich uranium to low levels for use in Iranian nuclear power plants.

The success of this proposal remains uncertain. While Iranian diplomats here said they were considering the Russian offer, other officials in Tehran said Iran would insist on having the uranium-enrichment facility on its territory.

“Any proposal that contains producing nuclear fuel inside Iran will be supported by Iran,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi yesterday, the Associated Press reported.

While the Russian proposal focuses on the location of enrichment sites, it tacitly accepts Iran’s intention to convert mined uranium into a gaseous form to make it ready for enrichment.

In a significant concession, the EU nations and the United States have retreated from opposing Iran’s uranium conversion program. Earlier this year, the EU halted talks with Iran after Tehran restarted its conversion facility, but that opposition has faded with the prospect of enrichment taking place outside Iran.

For its part, the United States has made an evolutionary leap in policy. During the Clinton administration and the beginning of the Bush administration, the United States leaned heavily on Russia to end Moscow’s nuclear cooperation with Iran. Russia has nearly completed building a nuclear power plant in Iran at Bushehr and has agreed to supply the fuel for that reactor. Today, Washington appears to have no problem with that relationship and sees such an arrangement as an acceptable path to preventing Iran from acquiring the means to make nuclear weapons, according to officials here.

U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte sidestepped the policy change Thursday.

“I’m a very bad historian on that,” he told reporters.

Hemispheres

Although the forum for Iran has switched to the next week’s talks, Western nations still seized the opportunity here to continue accusing Iran of having nuclear-weapon ambitions.

In particular, many nations drew attention to a single sentence in a recent report by agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei that said Iran had admitted receiving documents “on the casting and machining of enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms.” The documents came from the international nuclear-smuggling network led by former Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who provided Iran with much of its uranium enrichment technology.

While ElBaradei is politically prevented from drawing conclusions from the data the agency gathers, agency member states are not.

As for uranium shaping, “such a process has no application other than the production of nuclear warheads,” said British Ambassador Jenkins on behalf on the European Union.

He criticized Iran for revealing the documents only this year, long after Tehran pledged full cooperation with the agency.

“It is disturbing that a state which practiced a policy of concealment for 18 years should be so reluctant to demonstrate that it no longer has anything to hide. This reluctance makes Iran’s claim that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful in nature ring hollow,” Jenkins said.

Iran sought to soften the disclosure’s blow by arguing that it had never requested the documents and that Khan had simply included them in a package of other material.

Furthermore, “the information contained in one-and-a-half pages is simple and nonsophisticated information which could be found in open literature and [the] Internet,” said Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Akhondzadeh in his statement to the board Thursday.

He complained also that “it has become the usual practice by the U.S. and terrorist groups supported by this state to fabricate false allegations against Iran.”

U.S. Ambassador Schulte disagreed with Akhondzadeh’s assessment of the documents.

“This is not information that Iran downloaded from the Internet. This is information that they obtained, according to the IAEA, from a nuclear-trafficking network that has provided a nuclear-weapon design to at least one other country,” he told reporters, referring to Khan’s supply of design information to Libya.

Agency officials also privately expressed concern about the documents to GSN, saying they had no purpose but to manufacture nuclear weapons.

British Ambassador Jenkins initiated a minor disturbance on the board when he asked ElBaradei to deliver copies of the documents to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council for examination.

“It would be helpful if the director general could arrange for the document to be seen by experts from the five nuclear-weapon states,” he said in the British statement to the board on Thursday.

A number of non-nuclear nations quickly objected, however, complaining that providing access to only a portion of the board would be discriminatory. Led by South Africa, the non-nuclear states also argued that such a move “would undermine the director general’s independence and authority,” said one diplomat in the boardroom.

Eventually, Jenkins stepped back and said the United Kingdom was simply offering its services to the agency.

Security Council Report

At its meeting in September, the board found Iran to be in noncompliance with its nuclear safeguards obligations, a finding that U.S. officials have argued must lead eventually to the board reporting Iran to the U.N. Security Council. By giving the EU-Iran talks more time, Washington and the EU agreed not to push for such a report at last week’s meeting.

The report was still inevitable, said Schulte.

“The report to the Security Council will come, and it will come at a time of our choosing,” he said. “And that time will be soon if Iran continues to defy the board’s calls to cooperate fully with the IAEA.”

Nobel Prize

In other business, the board agreed to spend the agency’s share of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on a fund to train cancer treatment professionals in developing nations. ElBaradei and the agency were awarded 5 million Swedish kronor each last month in recognition of their work toward world peace.

ElBaradei’s portion would go toward funding orphanages in Egypt, according to an agency spokeswoman.

Time Running Out on Iran's Nuclear Compliance, U.S. Envoy Says
State's Schulte cites "crisis in confidence over" Iran's nuclear intentions



Iran’s continuing failure to comply with international nuclear nonproliferation obligations has created a “crisis in confidence” over its nuclear program intentions, U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) November 24.

Schulte is the U.S. permanent representative to the IAEA. The IAEA Board of Governors is meeting November 24-25 in Vienna, Austria.

In September, the IAEA board found Iran not in compliance with its international nuclear safeguards obligations but deferred submitting a required report to the United Nations to give Iran time “to take positive steps” that could be reflected in that report, Schulte told the board. (See related article.)

Since then, Schulte said, Iran “has failed on each and every count” to meet requests in a September IAEA resolution calling for more cooperation.

Schulte said a November 18 report from the IAEA director general “underscores that the IAEA’s concerns about Iran’s past nuclear activities are growing instead of diminishing,” citing seven specific examples of noncooperation.

Schulte said the United States was willing to support a request from the so-called EU-3, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, “to defer for a short period” the required report to the U.N. Security Council on Iran’s cooperation and compliance efforts. The EU-3 has been the lead negotiator with Iran over its nuclear program.

Schulte also said the United States, which is not negotiating directly with Iran, welcomed Russia’s efforts to encourage Iran to return to meaningful negotiations.

“But the [IAEA] Board cannot and should not have unlimited patience if we seek to re-establish confidence about Iran’s program, as well as demonstrate that states cannot simply ignore their IAEA and other nuclear nonproliferation obligations, Schulte said. “Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability is a danger to all of us.”

For more information about U.S. policy see Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

Following is the text of Schulte’s remarks:





U.S. Statement
IAEA Board of Governors Meeting November 24-25, 2005
Agenda Item 3 ©
Other Safeguards Implementation Issues
Iran

Mr. Chairman,

On behalf of the United States, I would like to express my government’s appreciation for the hard work of the Director General and the IAEA Safeguards Department to monitor and report to the Board the status of Iran’s implementation of its safeguards obligations. In particular, my delegation appreciates the Agency’s efforts to investigate all unresolved issues with Iran, including concerns about possible undeclared nuclear activities. Similarly, we appreciate the Agency’s efforts to verify Iran’s suspension commitments, which, as the Director General has informed us, Iran continues to violate.

September 24 Resolution

Mr. Chairman,

Two months ago, the Board of Governors adopted a resolution that made two important findings. First, we found that Iran’s many breaches and failures of its obligations to comply with its safeguards agreement constituted noncompliance as described in Article XII.C of the IAEA Statute. Second, we found that the long history of deception and concealment of Iran’s nuclear activities, the nature of those activities, and the absence of confidence in Iran’s peaceful nuclear intentions, have given rise to questions that are within the competence of the UN Security Council. Both of these findings are cause to report Iran to the UN Security Council. However, we chose instead to give Iran time to take positive steps that could then be reflected in the content of the requisite report. With that goal in mind, the September resolution urged Iran to take a number of steps, including:

· to provide the Agency with the extended transparency requested by Dr. ElBaradei in his September report, including access to individuals, documents relating to procurement, dual use equipment, certain military owned workshops, and research and development locations;

· to re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related activity, including uranium conversion;

· to reconsider the construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak;

· to promptly ratify and implement an Additional Protocol;

· to continue acting as if the Protocol is in force pending its ratification;

· and finally, to observe fully its commitments and return to the negotiating process.

The Director General’s November 18 Report

Mr. Chairman,

On the basis of Dr. ElBaradei’s November 18 report, one cannot avoid the conclusion that Iran has failed on each and every count to meet this Board’s requests. Even on the fundamental issue of Iran’s transparency and cooperation with inspections, Iran is continuing its long-held practice of choosing one or two areas for limited, selective, and incomplete cooperation, and then claiming the Agency’s needs have been fully met. Moreover, the Director General’s report underscores that the IAEA’s concerns about Iran’s past nuclear activities are growing instead of diminishing, and emphasizes that “Iran’s full transparency is indispensable and overdue.” For example:

· The IAEA still seeks information, documentation, and access related to military workshops, the Physics Research Centre, the Lavisan-Shian site, and specific individuals associated with those efforts.

· Documents described in the IAEA report – documents that Iran previously said did not exist regarding the 1987 offer of centrifuge technology by a proliferation network – raise new issues, including information Iran received on casting and machining hemispheres of enriched uranium, characteristic of weapons components and opening up a new field of safeguards enquiry.

· The IAEA is still seeking information on the scope of Iran’s P-1 and P-2 centrifuge programs, and continues to find implausible Iran’s claims that it undertook no work on P-2 designs between 1995 and 2002.

· Operation of the Esfahan uranium conversion facility is picking up, with the latest batch of yellowcake introduced into the facility on November 16, despite calls for re-suspension by the Board. The new batch of conversion is reportedly 50 percent larger than the previous batch.

· Construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak continues, despite calls for reconsideration by the Board.

· There has been no resolution of questions concerning uranium mining, Iran’s past activities with polonium and beryllium, or the scope and history of Iran’s plutonium separation experiments.

· Rather than ratifying the Additional Protocol, Tehran has orchestrated through the Iranian Parliament a threat that appropriate and responsible Board action to address Iranian noncompliance, which is fully in accord with the IAEA Statute, will lead to even less Iranian cooperation with the IAEA.

Mr. Chairman and fellow delegates, we can draw only one conclusion: Iran is not taking seriously the legitimate international concerns that have arisen over its covert nuclear programs and continued stonewalling.

The Way Forward

Mr. Chairman,

Given Iran’s record of willfully disregarding the Board’s requests, it would have been appropriate for this Board to adopt this week a resolution reporting Iran to the UN Security Council required under Articles XII.C and III.B.4. We believe a majority of Board members would support taking that step, even right now. But, just as we join with all in this room in seeking a diplomatic resolution, we likewise are willing to support the request of our EU-3 colleagues again to defer for a short period the required report to the Council. We do so in the sincere hope that Iran will reverse course and demonstrate it will meet its obligations and commitments before the report to the Security Council must be made.

Iran must understand that the report to the Council is required and will be made a time of this Board’s choosing. We again urge Iran to re-engage in good faith with the Eu-3 on the basis of the Paris Agreement. For their part, it is clear the EU-3 are working hard to broaden the international consensus about how to address the crisis in confidence Iran has created. In that context, we welcome Russia’s efforts to encourage Iran to return to negotiations, and the ideas that Russia has put on the table.

But the Board cannot and should not have unlimited patience if we seek to re-establish confidence about Iran’s program, as well as demonstrate that states cannot simply ignore their IAEA and other nuclear nonproliferation obligations. Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability is a danger to all of us. The September resolution addressed the requirement for a report to the Security Council, while still providing Iran some time to change course. Two months have passed since that resolution was adopted. The question for all of us is: How long can we give Iran to meet its obligations before we report to the Security Council? This question is before us at a time when the Director General continues to be unable to assure us that there are no more hidden elements to Iran’s program, especially its centrifuge efforts. If so, how can we know that such covert efforts are not proceeding even now? The Director General has also now reported, despite previous Iranian denials, that Iran did indeed receive at least one document indicative of a weapons end-use.

The United States, and, we believe, a majority of Board members, are prepared to conclude that, absent a verified change of course in Iran, very little more time can pass before the Board must make its report to the UN Security Council. The Board will need to see Iran return to negotiations with the EU-3 on the basis of the Paris Agreement, and the Board will need to see that Iran is providing the full transparency that the IAEA has requested. We hope Iran will finally realize that the burden is squarely on it to do exactly what the Board has asked in hopes of rebuilding confidence. If Iran does not do so, this Board will have to choice but to make a report to the Security Council that reflects the need for further action. Failure to do so would undermine the authority and credibility of the Agency and hinder its efforts to investigate Iran’s nuclear program.

Mr. Chairman,

I close by requesting that Iran’s noncompliance be formally included on the agenda of our next meeting, that the Director General provide a follow-up written report to the Board in advance of that meeting, and that the Agency make available to the public the Director General’s November 18 report.

Thank you.






Created: 24 Nov 2005 Updated: 24 Nov 2005

Time Running Out on Iran's Nuclear Compliance, U.S. Envoy Says
State's Schulte cites "crisis in confidence over" Iran's nuclear intentions



Iran’s continuing failure to comply with international nuclear nonproliferation obligations has created a “crisis in confidence” over its nuclear program intentions, U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) November 24.

Schulte is the U.S. permanent representative to the IAEA. The IAEA Board of Governors is meeting November 24-25 in Vienna, Austria.

In September, the IAEA board found Iran not in compliance with its international nuclear safeguards obligations but deferred submitting a required report to the United Nations to give Iran time “to take positive steps” that could be reflected in that report, Schulte told the board. (See related article.)

Since then, Schulte said, Iran “has failed on each and every count” to meet requests in a September IAEA resolution calling for more cooperation.

Schulte said a November 18 report from the IAEA director general “underscores that the IAEA’s concerns about Iran’s past nuclear activities are growing instead of diminishing,” citing seven specific examples of noncooperation.

Schulte said the United States was willing to support a request from the so-called EU-3, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, “to defer for a short period” the required report to the U.N. Security Council on Iran’s cooperation and compliance efforts. The EU-3 has been the lead negotiator with Iran over its nuclear program.

Schulte also said the United States, which is not negotiating directly with Iran, welcomed Russia’s efforts to encourage Iran to return to meaningful negotiations.

“But the [IAEA] Board cannot and should not have unlimited patience if we seek to re-establish confidence about Iran’s program, as well as demonstrate that states cannot simply ignore their IAEA and other nuclear nonproliferation obligations, Schulte said. “Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability is a danger to all of us.”

For more information about U.S. policy see Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

Following is the text of Schulte’s remarks:





U.S. Statement
IAEA Board of Governors Meeting November 24-25, 2005
Agenda Item 3 ©
Other Safeguards Implementation Issues
Iran

Mr. Chairman,

On behalf of the United States, I would like to express my government’s appreciation for the hard work of the Director General and the IAEA Safeguards Department to monitor and report to the Board the status of Iran’s implementation of its safeguards obligations. In particular, my delegation appreciates the Agency’s efforts to investigate all unresolved issues with Iran, including concerns about possible undeclared nuclear activities. Similarly, we appreciate the Agency’s efforts to verify Iran’s suspension commitments, which, as the Director General has informed us, Iran continues to violate.

September 24 Resolution

Mr. Chairman,

Two months ago, the Board of Governors adopted a resolution that made two important findings. First, we found that Iran’s many breaches and failures of its obligations to comply with its safeguards agreement constituted noncompliance as described in Article XII.C of the IAEA Statute. Second, we found that the long history of deception and concealment of Iran’s nuclear activities, the nature of those activities, and the absence of confidence in Iran’s peaceful nuclear intentions, have given rise to questions that are within the competence of the UN Security Council. Both of these findings are cause to report Iran to the UN Security Council. However, we chose instead to give Iran time to take positive steps that could then be reflected in the content of the requisite report. With that goal in mind, the September resolution urged Iran to take a number of steps, including:

· to provide the Agency with the extended transparency requested by Dr. ElBaradei in his September report, including access to individuals, documents relating to procurement, dual use equipment, certain military owned workshops, and research and development locations;

· to re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related activity, including uranium conversion;

· to reconsider the construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak;

· to promptly ratify and implement an Additional Protocol;

· to continue acting as if the Protocol is in force pending its ratification;

· and finally, to observe fully its commitments and return to the negotiating process.

The Director General’s November 18 Report

Mr. Chairman,

On the basis of Dr. ElBaradei’s November 18 report, one cannot avoid the conclusion that Iran has failed on each and every count to meet this Board’s requests. Even on the fundamental issue of Iran’s transparency and cooperation with inspections, Iran is continuing its long-held practice of choosing one or two areas for limited, selective, and incomplete cooperation, and then claiming the Agency’s needs have been fully met. Moreover, the Director General’s report underscores that the IAEA’s concerns about Iran’s past nuclear activities are growing instead of diminishing, and emphasizes that “Iran’s full transparency is indispensable and overdue.” For example:

· The IAEA still seeks information, documentation, and access related to military workshops, the Physics Research Centre, the Lavisan-Shian site, and specific individuals associated with those efforts.

· Documents described in the IAEA report – documents that Iran previously said did not exist regarding the 1987 offer of centrifuge technology by a proliferation network – raise new issues, including information Iran received on casting and machining hemispheres of enriched uranium, characteristic of weapons components and opening up a new field of safeguards enquiry.

· The IAEA is still seeking information on the scope of Iran’s P-1 and P-2 centrifuge programs, and continues to find implausible Iran’s claims that it undertook no work on P-2 designs between 1995 and 2002.

· Operation of the Esfahan uranium conversion facility is picking up, with the latest batch of yellowcake introduced into the facility on November 16, despite calls for re-suspension by the Board. The new batch of conversion is reportedly 50 percent larger than the previous batch.

· Construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak continues, despite calls for reconsideration by the Board.

· There has been no resolution of questions concerning uranium mining, Iran’s past activities with polonium and beryllium, or the scope and history of Iran’s plutonium separation experiments.

· Rather than ratifying the Additional Protocol, Tehran has orchestrated through the Iranian Parliament a threat that appropriate and responsible Board action to address Iranian noncompliance, which is fully in accord with the IAEA Statute, will lead to even less Iranian cooperation with the IAEA.

Mr. Chairman and fellow delegates, we can draw only one conclusion: Iran is not taking seriously the legitimate international concerns that have arisen over its covert nuclear programs and continued stonewalling.

The Way Forward

Mr. Chairman,

Given Iran’s record of willfully disregarding the Board’s requests, it would have been appropriate for this Board to adopt this week a resolution reporting Iran to the UN Security Council required under Articles XII.C and III.B.4. We believe a majority of Board members would support taking that step, even right now. But, just as we join with all in this room in seeking a diplomatic resolution, we likewise are willing to support the request of our EU-3 colleagues again to defer for a short period the required report to the Council. We do so in the sincere hope that Iran will reverse course and demonstrate it will meet its obligations and commitments before the report to the Security Council must be made.

Iran must understand that the report to the Council is required and will be made a time of this Board’s choosing. We again urge Iran to re-engage in good faith with the Eu-3 on the basis of the Paris Agreement. For their part, it is clear the EU-3 are working hard to broaden the international consensus about how to address the crisis in confidence Iran has created. In that context, we welcome Russia’s efforts to encourage Iran to return to negotiations, and the ideas that Russia has put on the table.

But the Board cannot and should not have unlimited patience if we seek to re-establish confidence about Iran’s program, as well as demonstrate that states cannot simply ignore their IAEA and other nuclear nonproliferation obligations. Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability is a danger to all of us. The September resolution addressed the requirement for a report to the Security Council, while still providing Iran some time to change course. Two months have passed since that resolution was adopted. The question for all of us is: How long can we give Iran to meet its obligations before we report to the Security Council? This question is before us at a time when the Director General continues to be unable to assure us that there are no more hidden elements to Iran’s program, especially its centrifuge efforts. If so, how can we know that such covert efforts are not proceeding even now? The Director General has also now reported, despite previous Iranian denials, that Iran did indeed receive at least one document indicative of a weapons end-use.

The United States, and, we believe, a majority of Board members, are prepared to conclude that, absent a verified change of course in Iran, very little more time can pass before the Board must make its report to the UN Security Council. The Board will need to see Iran return to negotiations with the EU-3 on the basis of the Paris Agreement, and the Board will need to see that Iran is providing the full transparency that the IAEA has requested. We hope Iran will finally realize that the burden is squarely on it to do exactly what the Board has asked in hopes of rebuilding confidence. If Iran does not do so, this Board will have to choice but to make a report to the Security Council that reflects the need for further action. Failure to do so would undermine the authority and credibility of the Agency and hinder its efforts to investigate Iran’s nuclear program.

Mr. Chairman,

I close by requesting that Iran’s noncompliance be formally included on the agenda of our next meeting, that the Director General provide a follow-up written report to the Board in advance of that meeting, and that the Agency make available to the public the Director General’s November 18 report.

Thank you.






Created: 24 Nov 2005 Updated: 24 Nov 2005

- Iranian FM Denounces Nuclear Apartheid
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iran-05zzzzzzu.html

Paris (AFP) Nov 30, 2005 - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki accused Western powers of imposing a form of "nuclear apartheid" by denying Tehran the right to nuclear technology, in a French newspaper column published Wednesday.

- Iran EU Nuclear Talks To Start In Two Weeks
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iran-05zzzzzzv.html

- Revolutionary Guardsman Wins Top Iran Security Post
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iran-05zzzzzzw.html

- N Korean Military Seeks Tougher Stance
http://www.spacewar.com/news/korea-05zzzzzx.html

haron: Iran nukes may require military response
By Joshua Brilliant
UPI Israel Correspondent
Published December 1, 2005

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday Israel and other countries couldn't accept an Iran with a nuclear bomb, adding Tehran's program could be stopped by military means.

Iran has been Israel's main foe since 1979, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini deposed the Shah. Iran has vowed to eradicate the Jewish state.

The nuclear issue came up Thursday at an annual meeting with the Israel Editors' Committee in Tel Aviv.

Sharon stressed Israel and other countries "cannot accept a situation in which Iran will have a nuclear weapon. That is clear to us, known to us and we are also making all the preparations necessary in order to be ready for such situations."

The meeting with the editors is an annual event held around the anniversary of the Nov. 29, 1947, United Nations decision to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Shortly before the meeting, the Maariv newspaper ran a red banner headline quoting a "senior security source" as saying Israel by itself couldn't cope with Teheran.

"We shall have to put up with a nuclear Iran," the unnamed source said.

"I do not see any force in the world, today, that could reverse the situation -- namely Iran becoming nuclear ... and there will be no alternative but to put up with the emerging situation," he added.

Sharon suggested the editors be skeptical over reports by anonymous sources, though the context indicated the source was, indeed, high.

"Israel is not helpless and it is taking all the necessary steps," the prime minister asserted.

He did not go into detail, but in recent years Israel has acquired long-range F-15I aircraft, developed its Arrow anti ballistic missile system mainly to intercept missiles with nuclear warheads and has recently ordered two more Dolphin Class submarines from Germany. Foreign reports suggest the three German made submarines Israel already has give it a second-strike capability. That is, the ability to destroy the enemy even after absorbing his first strike. It launched spy satellites into space, indicating it has powerful missiles.

However, Sharon reiterated Israel's long-standing policy that stresses Israel is not at the forefront of the struggle with Iran.

"The danger is not only to Israel but to the Middle East and many other countries in the world," he said.

Israeli security sources have often noted that Iran is developing missiles that can reach Europe.

"That is why the effort underway today, with the U.S. leadership, is an effort that all the free states who understand the terrible danger (of a nuclear Iran) must share," Sharon said.

Israel is "in very close contact with other countries leading this struggle," he added.

Asked whether the international community has a military option, should all the diplomatic efforts fail to stop Iran, Sharon said: "Yes, definitely."

He said he was "sure that before anyone goes for such (military) steps, every effort would be made to pressure Iran to stop this activity."

In 1981 Israel destroyed Iraq's Osiraq reactor and thereby prevented Saddam Hussein from developing an Iraqi nuclear bomb, but Iran has learnt the lesson and reportedly dispersed and fortified its facilities.

Israel is particularly vulnerable to a nuclear attack because it is a small country (it is slightly smaller than New Jersey) and its population is concentrated in the center.

In a paper the Institute for Contemporary Affairs published in Jerusalem Thursday, professor Gerald Steinberg wrote, "There is no basis for accepting the Iranian claim that it is not seeking nuclear weapons or the assertion that a nuclear Iran is not dangerous."

Iran's leaders have repeatedly declared they aim to destroy Israel, he noted.

Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, publicly repeated that threat in October 2005. "A few weeks earlier, the streets of Teheran were filled by missiles on parade, decorated with posters declaring the intention to "wipe Israel off the map," Steinberg wrote.

The diplomatic option is still a serious one largely because Iran "seeks to be part of the international community and not (be) a rogue state or a member of the 'axis of evil,'" he wrote.

International pressure has increased as India, whom Teheran considered a supporter, backed the International Atomic Energy Agency's decision in September, which said Iran has not complied with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Russia and China, who had traditionally been Iran's allies, suddenly ceased to support it, Steinberg noted.

"The Iranian leadership has taken some measures and engaged in negotiations that only make sense when seen as efforts to avoid sanctions. It is also dependent to a degree on foreign technology for its nuclear weapons and missile development programs," Steinberg wrote.

Technically Iran's nuclear program includes developing a nuclear fuel cycle, and it seeks an ability to produce highly enriched uranium that is primarily useful for producing bombs, Steinberg wrote.

"In the Iranian case we have clear and detailed evidence of nuclear weapons efforts, not speculation or extrapolation. IAEA inspectors have samples of enriched uranium and other materials," Steinberg stressed.

"It could take two years, five years, or even 10," until Iran is seen as a de facto nuclear weapons state. It has reportedly been facing technical difficulties.

Nevertheless, Chief of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, Wednesday reportedly told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Iran has already produced 45 tons of gas needed to make enriched uranium. The time for diplomatic efforts to bloc Iran's nuclear program is running out. In his address to the Cabinet Sunday, he reportedly spoke of few months before Iran makes a critical decision on how to move on with its research and development program.

Iran buys Russian surface to air missiles: paper
Fri Dec 2, 2005 2:55 AM ET



MOSCOW (Reuters) - Iran has signed a deal to buy Russian tactical surface-to-air missile systems, a Russian newspaper reported on Friday.

Iran is to buy 29 TOR-M1 systems, designed to bring down aircraft and guided missiles at low altitudes, said the Vedomosti daily, citing Russian defense sources close the deal.

The deal is the biggest sale of Russian defense hardware to Iran for about 5 years, the newspaper said. It did not say how much the order was worth.

Defense industry officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Tehran is under intense international pressure after failing to convince the United States and others its nuclear scientists are working on fuel for power stations rather than bombs.

Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear power station at Bushehr.



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Iran To Buy Air Defence Systems From Russia
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iran-05zzzzzzza.html

Moscow (AFP) Dec 02, 2005 - Iran has agreed to purchase 29 mobile air defence systems from Russia in a contract worth more than 700 million dollars (600 million euros), Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS said Friday, quoting an unnamed top defence ministry official.

Israel Voices Worry Over Iran Russia Missile Deal
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iran-05zzzzzzzb.html

Iran's patience running out over nuclear issue:

Iran's patience regarding Western opposition to its nuclear program is wearing thin and Tehran will give the EU only a few months to settle the issue through talks, the country's chief nuclear negotiator said on Sunday.
http://tinyurl.com/9dmgp

Iran: Measures taken to sell oil in euros :

The Chairman of the Majlis Energy Commission, Kamal Daneshyar said here, on Friday, that preparatory measures have been taken to sell oil in euros instead of dollar, adding that such a measure is quite positive and should be taken as soon as possible.
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=260851

Iran's strength in weakness
By Spengler

Once upon a time, an ex-soldier with no credentials but his belief in his own destiny joined a fanatic movement. Against all odds, he won an election, purged his opponents, and outfoxed the powers that surrounded his country. Western elites have not yet accepted that an Austrian corporal bested them, preferring to regard the events of 1933-1945 as an inexplicable aberration. What will they make of the blacksmith's son and Revolutionary Guard bully-boy Mahmud Ahmedinejad of Iran?

In just five months, Iran's president has seized the balance of power in Mesopotamia, foiled a global campaign to slow its nuclear weapons program, and forced Washington to entreat Iran for negotiations cap in hand. After Tehran rejected a first American offer, US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad repeated the request on December 1.

As I wrote on October 25 (A Syriajevo in the making?), the US depends on Iran to maintain stability in Iraq, giving Iran in turn sufficient leverage to thwart American efforts to stop its nuclear weapons program. Asia Times Online's correspondents have provided compelling evidence to support this conjecture in the meantime. [1] Israel's military leaders now take it for granted that Iran will become a nuclear power, Stratfor reported on December 1. [2]

Just after September 11, I picked a bone with Sir John Keegan's claim that "in this war of civilizations, the West will prevail" (Sir John Keegan is wrong: radical Islam might win, October 12, 2001):
Readers who reproached me for using the word "racism" to qualify Washington's orientation toward the Islamic world should read Keegan's essay carefully. Here we have the upright Westerner against the underhanded Oriental. Kipling (who wrote vividly about the sneakiness of the British in the Great Game) would blush. It's all completely, totally, revoltingly wrong. The West confronts not a throwback to medieval Islam, but a Westernized version of Islam transformed into a totalitarian political ideology.
Until Ahmedinejad's ascent, however, no Islamist leader had emerged with the cunning and capacity to exploit the West's confusion. Iran seemed the least likely venue for Islamist leadership. With 15% inflation and 11% unemployment, Iran seemed vulnerable in early 2005 - almost as vulnerable, one might add, as Germany was in early 1933 when Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor.

American regional experts without exception expected Iran's regime to crumble from within. Daniel Pipes, for example, stated in 2003, "I compare Iran today to the Soviet Union under [Leonid] Brezhnev. Yes, the state is strong and threatening, but the people don't believe in it anymore. It's a hollow, hollow regime, in other words." [3]

As late as April, Michael Ledeen forecast political disintegration "in Iran, where near-constant demonstrations, protests, and even armed attacks against the institutions of the Islamic Republic have raged ... Iranians no longer require excuses to show their hatred of the mullahcracy." [4]

Reuel Marc Gerecht, the American Enterprise Institute's resident Iran scholar, insisted throughout that America had nothing to fear from the Shi'ites. With just a bit of covert support for Iranian dissidents, Ledeen insisted, the regime would collapse. Western analysts spent their time with the intellectuals of Tehran, who party at Western-style clubs and wear lipstick under their burkhas - the equivalent of judging Germany's temper in 1933 from the vantage point of Berlin cabarets.

They ignored the groundswell of support from the rural poor and the Tehran slums that gave Ahmedinejad an overwhelming margin of victory in the June presidential elections. It took the new president just a few months to put paid to dissidents and moderates, placing hundreds of his Revolutionary Guard comrades in the key positions of Iran's bureaucracy, and purging 40 ambassadors from the diplomatic corps. Hitler was no more ruthless in consolidating power during the weeks following his ascension to the Kanzleramt in March 1933.

It is with grudging respect that I compare Ahmedinejad to Hitler, who bluffed a weak hand into a nearly winning game. Like Hitler, Ahmedinejad evinces a superior cunning born of the knowledge that he has nothing to lose. The position of the Iranian regime is weak; in the long term, it is hopeless.

Within a generation, both Iran's oil and demographic resources will be exhausted. Impending demographic collapse, I have argued in the past, impels Iran towards an imperial design (Demographics and Iran's imperial design, September 13). Iran's elderly dependent population will soar to nearly 30% from just 7% today by mid-century, the consequence of the country's collapsing birth rate. The demographic disaster will hit just as oil exports dry up during the 2020s. To break out of the trap, Iran must make an all-or-nothing bet during the present generation.

Western historians typically portray Hitler as a megalomaniacal lunatic who nearly conquered the world through a series of regrettable accidents. But Hitler took into account his own weakness with greater clarity than the British or Russians. Three weeks after he provoked World War II by invading Poland, Hitler told German military commanders:
We have nothing to lose, but much indeed to gain. As a result of the constraints forced upon us, our economic position is such that we cannot hold out for more than a few years. [Hermann] Goering can confirm this. We have no other choice, we must act ... At no point in the future will Germany have a man with more authority than I. But I could be replaced at any moment by some idiot or criminal ... The morale of the German people is excellent. It can only worsen from here. [5]
Hitler knew very well that his command economy could crack. He coveted the industrial capacity of Western Europe, the granaries of Eastern Europe and the oil of Romania. Iran covets the oil of southeastern Iraq, western Saudi Arabia and the Islamic republics of the former Soviet Union and proposes to annex or at least control it through satrapies on the ancient Persian model. Asia Times Online's Pepe Escobar outlined the Iranian strategy in a September 10 dispatch from Tehran (Iran takes over Pipelineistan).

Thanks to America's ideological obsession with democracy, Iran is close to control of Iraq's oil-rich Shi'ite regions. On December 4, Iraq's Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a de facto endorsement of the pro-Iranian religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, pushing his country further into the Iranian sphere of influence. Sistani's appeal for support for religious parties ruins the prospects of Washington's favored politicians, the secular Shi'ites Iyad Allawi and Ahmad Chalabi.

Iran's proxy warrior Muqtada al-Sadr, meanwhile, now holds the balance of military power in Iraq, as I predicted in the October 25 article. As the New York Times' Edward Wong reported on November 27:
Wielding violence and political popularity as tools of his authority, Mr Sadr, the Shi'ite cleric who has defied the American authorities here since the fall of Saddam Hussein, is cementing his role as one of Iraq's most powerful figures. Just a year after Mr Sadr led two fierce uprisings, the Americans are hailing his entry into the elections as the best sign yet that the political process can co-opt insurgents. But his ascent could portend a darker chain of events, for he continues to embrace his image as an unrepentant guerrilla leader even as he takes the reins of political power. Mr Sadr has made no move to disband his militia, the thousands-strong Mahdi Army. In recent weeks, factions of the militia have brazenly assaulted and abducted Sunni Arabs, rival Shi'ite groups, journalists and British-led forces in the south, where Mr Sadr has a zealous following.
A year ago, America still had the option to partition Iraq into a Kurdish north, a Sunni center and a Shi'ite south. Now that Iran has reinforced Muqtada's militia with evident American tolerance, partition might well lead to Iranian control of the resulting Shi'ite rump state. Iran's leaders are the same hard men who did not blink at a million casualties during Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and such tactics as driving hordes of boys into minefields. America simply does not have the stomach for this sort of warfare.

The only potentially successful maneuver at Washington's disposal would be to repeat Britain's colonial policy of the 1920s, enlisting and arming elements of the old Ba'ath regime to battle it out with the Shi'ites until both sides are bled white. But I do not think Washington has either the intent or the competence to execute an imperial scheme of this nature.

Under the circumstances, does anyone seriously doubt that Iran will develop nuclear weapons capability? Not the Israelis, it appears. Stratfor, an Internet-based intelligence service, cites "a report in the daily newspaper Maariv, which quoted a senior security source as saying, 'We shall have to put up with a nuclear Iran'. The unnamed source added that, 'I do not see any force in the world today that could reverse the situation - namely Iran becoming nuclear ... and there will be no alternative but to put up with the emerging situation'."

Despite Tehran's anti-Israel rhetoric, a nuclear Iran does not necessarily represent an existential threat to the Jewish state. Israel almost certainly possesses thermonuclear weapons hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, as well as the capability to deliver them via submarine-launched cruise missiles.

Nor do the Tor M-1 anti-aircraft and anti-missile missiles that Iran reportedly ordered from Russia last week represent a decisive threat to American or Israeli capabilities. Nonetheless, Russia's evident willingness to upgrade Iran's weapons capability reflects another unintended result of Washington's ideological campaign for democratization. America has offered open support for the "color revolutions" in parts of the former Soviet Union, beginning with Ukraine's "Orange" revolution last year and continuing through the "Yellow" revolution in Kyrgyzstan last spring. The unpleasant regimes Washington helped replace gave way to equally unpleasant regimes, except with greater instability.

Russian President Vladimir Putin fears instability on Russia's borders, but he cannot persuade Washington to desist from stirring the pot. Russian military cooperation with Iran provides him with a bargaining chip to use against Washington's designs on what Putin considers a Russian sphere of influence. Even though Russia has more to fear from an imperial Iran than Washington, American blundering in the former Soviet Union has given Tehran additional room to maneuver. And Iran's leaders have played the divisions among their prospective enemies masterfully, again calling to mind the Austrian corporal who nearly destroyed the West.

Notes
[1] See for example The ties that tangle Iraq and Iran by M K Bhadrakumar on November 29.

[2] Emerging Shift in Israel's Iran Policy

[3] Taking a Tougher Approach to Syria

[4] The Revolution Continues

[5] Ansprache Adolf Hitlers vor den Oberbefehlshabern auf dem Obersalzberg

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing .)

Iran 'unilaterally' rejects nuclear deal: France
Mon Dec 5, 2005 9:23 AM ET



By Maria Novak

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Iran has "unilaterally" rejected a Russian proposal to resolve its standoff with the West over fears it may be trying to develop nuclear weapons, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Monday.

Iran has said its nuclear program will enrich uranium only to a level suitable for civilian atomic-power reactors but the United States and European Union fear Tehran will use the same technology to make bomb-grade material.

To minimize that possibility, Moscow proposes taking in Iranian uranium for enrichment and then returning it to Iran. But Tehran has said it will accept only ideas to resolve the dispute that allow it to conduct a full nuclear fuel at home.

"The Russians have made a proposal to Iran for the possibility of a joint venture for enriching nuclear material for Iran. But the Iranians, in a way, have unilaterally refused this," Douste-Blazy told reporters during an international conference in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana.

"The Europeans wish to give time to negotiations so as to show the Iranians that what we precisely want is to achieve something through negotiations," he said. "We are not trying to humiliate them. But so far Iran has said 'no' to everything."

The Islamic republic rejects suspicions that it is bent on making atomic bombs. It says its nuclear project aims solely to generate electricity. But Iran hid its nuclear work from U.N. inspectors for 18 years until 2003, raising alarm in the West.

Talks between Iran and the EU trio of Britain, Germany and France spearheading diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis are to resume within weeks, diplomats say, but differences over agenda appear to be holding things up.

The EU3-Iran dialogue broke down in August when Iran removed U.N. seals at its Isfahan nuclear facility and began processing uranium, the stage prior to uranium enrichment.

"We want to give every chance for negotiations. We have done all our utmost to resume negotiations and bring them (Iran) back within the international community," Douste-Blazy said.

Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, told Reuters on Sunday that Tehran's patience regarding Western opposition to its nuclear program was wearing thin and it would give the EU only a few months to settle the matter through talks.

Asked how long Iran's patience and its commitment to a two-year-old voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment activities would last, he said: "A few months. We have a limited time framework for talks."

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), decided at a board meeting last month to put off a vote on referring Iran for possible U.N. sanctions in favor of giving time for Russian diplomacy to bear fruit.

But Western leaders on the board also warned their patience was not unlimited, citing a September board resolution finding Iran in non-compliance with safeguards provisions of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Tehran is a signatory.



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By HENRY MEYER, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 19 minutes ago



Russia has struck a deal to sell short-range, surface-to-air missiles to Iran, the defense minister said Monday, confirming reports that have raised concern in the United States and Israel.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov didn't give details. But Russian media have said that Moscow agreed in November to sell $1 billion worth of weapons to Iran, including up to 30 Tor-M1 missile systems over the next two years.

"A contract for the delivery of air defense Tor missiles to Iran has indeed been signed," Ivanov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

"This unequivocally will not change the balance of forces in the region," Ivanov added. Tor M1 missiles are short-range, surface-to-air missiles already used by several other armed forces, including China.

The reports last week prompted expressions of concern from the U.S administration and Israel, which considers Iran to be its biggest threat. Israeli concerns recently were heightened after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged that Israel be "wiped off the map."

Top politicians in Israel have ratcheted up the tough talk against Iran, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called for a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear installations. Such a strike would be similar to a 1981 attack, ordered by then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin, that destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor.

"I will continue the tradition established by Menachem Begin, who did not allow Iraq to develop such a nuclear threat against Israel, and by a daring and courageous act gave us two decades of tranquility," Netanyahu told the daily newspaper Maariv. "I believe that this is what Israel has to do."

Interfax said the Tor-M1 system could identify up to 48 targets and fire at two targets simultaneously at a height of up to 20,000 feet.

On Saturday, an influential Iranian official played down the deal, telling the official Islamic Republic News Agency that Tehran has been trading arms with many countries and would continue to do so.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, without commenting on the reported missile sale, also said Saturday that all Russian weaponry supplied to Iran is purely for defensive purposes.

However, a senior Bush administration official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject, said last week that any arms sale to Iran is a source of concern. The official would not say whether Russia had advised the United States of any negotiations with Iran.

The United States and Russia are supporting efforts by the European Union to persuade Iran to halt development of nuclear weapons in exchange for economic incentives, such as trade opportunities.

Russia, which has a long and lucrative relationship with Iran, has offered to try to resolve a key dispute by offering to enrich uranium for an Iranian civilian nuclear energy program as a safeguard against Iran using enrichment for weapons purposes.




Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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Iran Plans to Build Two More Reactors

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A22



ISTANBUL, Dec. 5 -- Iran plans to build two nuclear power plants in addition to the reactor expected to go online next year, officials and government news services said Monday.

The announcement, emphasizing the country's long-standing claim that its nuclear program is meant only for generating electricity, signaled the government's determination to proceed with a program that skeptics say might also produce atomic weapons.

"We plan to construct two more nuclear power plants," said Ali Larijani, Iran's chief negotiator on nuclear issues. "We will do it through an international tender. It is part of meeting our electricity needs. It is not a secret issue."

Larijani spoke with reporters after state television reported that the Iranian cabinet had approved the construction of a 1,000-kilowatt plant in southwestern Khuzestan province, the site of the country's richest oil fields. Reports carried by state-controlled media emphasized that the plant would be built "using local technology," language apparently intended to dampen Western hopes of persuading Iran to outsource the most sensitive elements of a nuclear program -- uranium enrichment -- to Russia.

Russia already is building an Iranian nuclear plant that is nearing completion at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf. Iran plans to begin work on a second plant at the same site later this year, and its parliament has called for the eventual construction of as many as 20 plants.

In Moscow, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters that Russia would sell an air defense missile system to Iran, the Reuters news agency reported. The mobile Tor-M1 system can target aircraft and guided missiles operating at low and medium altitudes, perhaps including unmanned U.S. intelligence aircraft sent into Iranian airspace from neighboring Iraq. Russian news reports said Iran would pay $700 million for 29 vehicle-based systems, each armed with tracking radar and eight missiles.

U.S. officials were sharply critical of the purchase. "We certainly do not feel that this is a sale that would serve the interests of us or the region," State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli said Monday.

The board of the International Atomic Energy Agency is considering a U.S. request to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program.

In an attempt to break an impasse in Iran's negotiations with Europe, Russia has proposed enriching uranium for Iran's nuclear energy program, thereby denying Iran the ability to independently produce weapons-grade material.

Iran has been cool to the suggestion. Larijani said the next round of talks with Britain, France and Germany would be "win-win. Having enrichment on our soil in Iran and assuring Europe that there will be no diversion in Iran's nuclear program."

Abbas Milani, an Iran analyst at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said Iran's hard-line press has been gloating over the agreement by European negotiators to resume talks, even though Iran broke an earlier agreement by resuming uranium conversion, a prelude to enrichment.

"Basically the underlying tone is: 'We told you so. If you stand up to the West, they'll buckle,' " Abbas said.

Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seeking to break an impasse with parliament over the appointment of an oil minister, nominated the acting head of the ministry to the position on Sunday. Conservative lawmakers had rejected three previous nominations to the post, responsible for overseeing production that accounts for 80 percent of Iran's export revenue.

Some Iranian lawmakers said the acting minister, Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh, has a reputation as a credible insider who knows the bureaucracy. Others, however, complained that Ahmadinejad, in his three months in office, has polarized conservatives who control Iran's government and failed to consult with lawmakers who must approve his choice.

Staff writer Dafna Linzer in Washington contributed to this report.


© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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Iran warns Israel

Tehran not an easy target, says Larijani; to pursue building N-power plant

TEHRAN: Iran on Monday warned Israel of "heavy consequences" if its nuclear installations were attacked by the Jewish state, after a former Israeli premier suggested Israel should take an aggressive stance toward Iran.

"The Islamic republic is a tough target and there would be heavy consequences," said Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

He was speaking after former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel needed to "act in the spirit" of the late premier Menachem Begin, who ordered an air strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.

"I view the development of the Iranian nuclear (programme) as a paramount threat and as a real danger to the future of the state of Israel," Netanyahu told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper. "Israel needs to do everything to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear threat against it," said Netanyahu. But Larijani said Iran, which maintains its nuclear programme is peaceful, was not afraid of an attack.

"Comparing Iran and Iraq is an error, because Iran is not an easy target. You should not pay attention to such rude comments by Israeli officials," he told a news conference. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said Iran’s response to such an attack would be "devastating and unbearable".

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Netanyahu’s arch rival, said last week that Israel would never allow its arch-enemy Iran to come into possession of nuclear weapons.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caused an international backlash in October when he called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map".

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in September found Iran in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, paving the way for the matter to be referred to the UN Security Council if Iran does not halt nuclear fuel work and cooperate fully with an IAEA investigation. Iran has insisted that its nuclear programme is merely designed to meet domestic energy needs.

Meanwhile Iran’s government has given the go-ahead for the construction of a nuclear power plant in the south-western province of Khuzestan using "domestic technology", Iranian media said on Monday.

The official IRNA news agency said the plan was approved during a cabinet meeting headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Absolutely no further details were given. Iran has already announced plans to build 20 nuclear power plants to produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity within the next 20 years, and officials have said they would soon open an international tender for two of them.

Meanwhile, Larijani reiterated that Tehran would not give up its ambition to produce its own nuclear fuel, dismissing a proposal for the Islamic republic to conduct sensitive enrichment work abroad. Ali Larijani nevertheless said Iran would give a chance to negotiations on easing suspicions of a nuclear weapons drive before ending a freeze on uranium enrichment-which makes reactor fuel but can be extended to military purposes.

The News International, Pakistan

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL02Ak03.html
Iran and the US exit strategy in Iraq
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Iran may be a member of the "axis of evil" according to the Bush administration, but increasingly it has become clear that it also holds a key to the riddle of a working strategy for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.

At least, that is the impression one gets by the recent statement by the US envoy to Iraq, reflected in Newsweek, regarding President George W Bush's authorization of a dialogue with Iran. Consequently, the question of future detente between Iran and the US has now gained new currency, as well as urgency.

Zalmay Khalilzad is, of course, no stranger to dialogue with Iran
and, in fact, can take credit for making deals with Teheran in Afghanistan, particularly at the Bonn summit of Afghan factions, which shaped the nature of Kabul's government after its liberation from the yoke of the Taliban in 2001.

Recently, a revolutionary guard commander in Iran boasted to this author that he and an American general met in a tent at Baghram airport outside Kabul and reached an agreement on the number of Northern Front forces entering Kabul, thus averting the much feared bloodbath.

Currently, the US must map out two exit strategies, one for Afghanistan and one for Iraq, and in more ways than one the two are interrelated, not the least because in both countries, sharing long, porous borders with Iran, there cannot be durable peace and stability without input from Iran.

Contrary to the prevalent, superficial analyses of today's Iran, the foreign policy of that country toward the "new" Iraq and "new" Afghanistan features all the essential ingredients of good neighborly relations warranting an alternative assessment of the Islamic Republic as "rogue" and/or "axis of evil".

In view of the steady expansion of trade and economic cooperation between Iran and its two neighbors under American occupation, there are ample grounds for perceiving Iran as a regional bastion of stability directly benefiting from the political and geostrategic windfall of the downfall of two hostile regimes in Kabul and Baghdad and their replacement with rather benign alternatives.

Needless to say, on the con side there are new national security worries for Iran generated as a result of the unprecedented Americanization of regional politics over the past few years, and crafting a balance between the positive and negative ramifications of post-September 11, 2001 developments in Iran's vicinity is difficult, given the fluid and at times uncertain nature of the political-security circumstances surrounding Iran.

One thing is for sure. Compared to the 1990s, when the fear of Iraq's nuclearization ran rampant in Iran, especially when Saddam Hussein ceased his cooperation with the United Nations inspection of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, today Iran has virtually no such fear and, hence, can recalibrate its defense strategies and the weapons needs of those strategies.

Equally certain is Iran's disdain for a re-Talibanization of Afghanistan and, similarly, the resurgence of Ba'athism and anything remotely similar to that within Iraq. Consequently, the rising chorus for American withdrawal, affecting the US Congress, cannot but raise new concerns and anxieties inside Iran, irrespective of the official, anti-American ideology that has been somewhat heightened on the rhetorical level by the new president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad. This brings us to a consideration of the nature of Iran's new anti-Americanism, vividly demonstrated by the marching millions across Iran chanting "death to America" recently.

The limits of Iran's new anti-Americanism
Iran's new president has wasted little time in whipping up anti-Americanism in Iran, accusing the US of committing war crimes in his latest speech. Ahmadinejad's comments regarding the US military's extensive use of depleted uranium in Iraq has hit a raw nerve in the American media and, interestingly, the CNN broadcast of his speech carried a little blurb at the bottom that "natural uranium" is more dangerous than depleted uranium.

But, of course, most Iraqis or Afghanis are not in proximity of natural uranium and the reported 210 tons of uranium-contaminated shells that the US military has so far fired in Iraq alone will without the slightest doubt cause serious health risk to the civilian population for a long time to come, particularly in the poor, working-class sections of Baghdad and other towns that have seen the firing might of the US war machine.

However, beyond such disturbing developments, the US's destruction of Saddam's regime and its replacement with a Tehran-friendly, Shi'ite-led political system constitutes, in fact, manna from heaven for Iran, thus laying the groundwork for a fresh start in troubled US-Iran relations.

Curiously, the rise of a militant anti-American president in Iran may actually serve this process for two reasons: (a) Iran is no longer bothered by elite factionalism hampering its diplomacy, and ( Iran's hardline politicians at the helm mirror to some extent their neo-conservative adversaries in Washington.

This is not to suggest that Iran's new surge of anti-Americanism is a mere ploy for domestic consumption, although there is an element of truth to that and the emotional and ideological basis for reinventing Iran's foreign policy (see Reinventing Iran's Foreign Policy , Asia Times Online, October 7); rather, the complexity of this new anti-Americanism can be best captured by viewing it through different prisms, ie, the ideological-religious, national interests, and regional and international considerations and proclivities of the Iranian system.

On the one hand, Iranian hostility toward American "hegemony" is a legacy of the Islamic revolution of 1979, receiving new shock treatment by the interventionist policies of the White House since September 11, 2001. The US may be actively engaged in selling its image in the Middle East as "Muslim-friendly", but unfortunately the "image repackaging" can only go so far, notwithstanding the facts of a sizeable military presence, say occupation, of two Muslim states, not to mention the powerful presence of the US military throughout the Persian Gulf and the Central Asia region minus Iran.

Hence, the symptoms of anti-Americanism can be found aplenty nowadays not simply among the clerical ruling elites of Iran, but also among a large segment of the population, which may be fascinated by the US superpower, yet at the same time resents its unilateralism and interventionism, as well as its selectiveness regarding democratization or nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. For example, Israeli nuclear arms are tolerated by the US, as is the continued pattern of pre-modern rule in the oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf.

Nonetheless, the pitiful excesses of Iran's Americaphobia need mentioning. For one thing, the recent congressional calls for American troop withdrawal from Iraq have unnerved the ruling Iranians, bringing a strong dose of reality into the very midst of their public denunciations of the US. The fact is that a blanket Iranian objection to the US military presence complicates Iran's Iraq policy, which has been geared to sustain the new, Shi'ite-led status quo that is constantly put in grave danger by the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

With certain Iraqi Shi'ites aligning themselves with the US power, which has "liberated" them from decades of Ba'athist oppression, an Iranian ambivalence toward the US military presence in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, has been manifested at official and semi-official levels. Consequently, a structural limit of Iran's anti-Americanism can be seen here, precisely as a result of fears of Iraq's breakup or descent into the quagmire of inter-religious fratricide favoring the anti-Shi'ite extremist Sunnis in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, overriding the ideological antipathy toward the "Great Satan".

This means that blind, diabolical opposition to the US is not really in Iran's geopolitical interests, at least for the moment, since neither Iran, nor any other regional power, can possibly fill the vacuum of departed American power - power that in any case has been inadvertently serving Iran's interests.

Functional or dysfunctional anti-Americanism?
A question worth pondering is whether the new Iranian anti-Americanism is dysfunctional when analyzed through the prism of Iran's national interests. Is it, in other words, irrational or self-disserving? The answer must consider a conflated and confusing recent history whose momentum, toward increasing or decreasing the risks to Iran's national security interests, is difficult to gauge in the light of contradictory impulses that ran in diametrically opposed directions with respect to the US threats against Iran.

Despite these contradictions, the fact that the American "enemy" has sent to history's dustbin two of Iran's foremost local enemies, replacing them with Iran-friendly substitutes, impinges on any concerted efforts in Iran today to make renewed anti-Americanism a big staple of collective identity.

Consequently, if left unchecked, the virulent anti-American political rhetoric in Iran runs the risk of causing policy rigidities resistant to pragmatic consideration of shared interests with the Western superpower that necessitate a partial overlap in terms of regional politics. Some of today's anti-Americanism in Iran may be inevitable, but the character and intensity of it militates against the logic of detente, given those shared interests between Tehran and Washington.

Certainly, one clear testing ground for breakthrough diplomacy between the two countries is the current negotiation over Iran's nuclear program, given the renewed willingness of Iran to engage in nuclear talks with Washington's European partners.

There is already a soft linkage between the nuclear and the regional security issues, prompted most recently by the exchange of accusations and counteraccusations by Tehran and London (which has taken the lead in questioning Iran's nuclear intentions), and this linkage may grow even more pronounced, depending on the outcome of the nuclear talks.

Doubtless, Washington's and London's willingness to acknowledge Iran's regional clout and its constructive role in regional peace and stability would play a catalytic role in changing the hostile attitudes and stereotypes about the US within the Islamic Republic. With concerns about an anti-Shi'ite resurgence in Iraq at its peak, Iran today can ill afford the side-effects of a dysfunctional anti-Americanism precluding meaningful dialogue between the two countries, especially on the grand topic of America's exit strategy for Iraq.

Iran's place in the US exit strategy
In contemplating an exit strategy, the US government must be able to rely on the stalwart participation by Iran that has hitherto been lacking, at least publicly.

With the uneven evolution of a new Iraqi army and police force plagued by factionalism, desertion and mistrust, not to mention the deleterious effects of the potent insurgency defying the might of the US and its coalition partners, an American withdrawal from Iraq is only possible when the internal forces of the country are relatively capable of maintaining peace and national unification without the benefit of the American military.

To open a caveat here, last year at a Persian Gulf conference on regional security, this author was surprised to hear from more than one Arab expert that in their opinion Iran's "rogue behavior" was meant to stimulate America's continued presence in Iraq to safeguard Shi'ite political gains, the argument being that the "Iran threat" would make it harder for the US to leave.

Whether we are speaking of a few years or several years from now, let's say 2008 or 2010 to 2012, a future US withdrawal from Iraq will most likely not happen overnight but rather through a logical sequence in phases, whereby the phased reduction of troops will eventually culminate in a complete or near complete exit from the Iraqi theater.

That is why it is essential that all of Iraq's neighbors, above all Iran but also Syria, be incorporated within the exit strategy, otherwise the risk of an Iranian spoiler role, partly through its armed influence, such as with Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq, may grow larger and larger.

Fortunately, this is a recognized fact by the old hands in Iraq's new political infrastructure, including its Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, who in his recent visit to Iran exceeded himself in emphasizing Iran's important role in regional stability.

The Iraqi Kurds have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo shaped along federalist lines, and have to reckon with potential Turkish intervention to frustrate their ultimate hope of independence in case of Iraq's breakup, in which case Iran can be an effective counterweight to Turkey.

Meanwhile, all of Iraq's neighbors seem committed to preventing Iraq's splintering into de facto mini-states warring among themselves while breeding Islamist terrorism, which explains Iran's continuous participation in the various gatherings of Iraq's neighbors (plus Egypt).

In the end, the paradox of US-Iran games of strategy, now nearly three decades old, may produce a net result of simultaneous competition and cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan, tantamount to making Iraq a joint American-Iranian client state.

With several noted politicians, including Ahmad Chalabi, willing to play the compliant helper in this rather odd but ultimately realistic scenario that is dictated less by the political taste of actors involved than by the cold realities on the ground, the Iraqi client state will be for the foreseeable future empowered by two seemingly hostile forces.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-authored "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume X11, issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing .)

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For U.S. and Iran, Threats or Promise?
(Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star, Lebanon - Opinion)

Wednesday, December 7
The flashpoint now in American-Iranian ties is the dispute over Iran's nuclear aims and capabilities, which demands greater diplomatic efforts by all concerned. Fortunately, three European powers - France, Britain and Germany - are deeply engaged in negotiating an arrangement that would allow Iran to complete its plans for a nuclear power industry, while also assuaging Western fears that Iran might clandestinely divert some of the fuel from its power plants to create nuclear weapons.

Iran for its part is supremely bitter about the duplicity that it suffered at the hands of the West, when contracts signed in 1975 to purchase a nuclear power plant from Germany and relevant fuel from France were not honored - due to U.S. pressure, it says - after the Iranian revolution that overthrew the shah in 1979. Iranians have many good reasons to feel vulnerable, and therefore to demand confidence-building measures from the West, in return for their moves to build trust. Tehran is surrounded by American troops and NATO bases in all directions, with large contingents in Afghanistan and Iraq. It feels the world left it to suffer on its own when Iraq attacked it in 1980 and used chemical weapons against its troops. It feels that its peaceful intentions have been demonstrated in its signing of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its allowing the IAEA to undertake 12,000 person-days of inspections in the past 10 years, including permanent inspectors at its Isfahan plant.

Most of the core issues at play are political, not technical. They are about American policies in the Middle East as a whole, and Iran's sense of dignity and sovereignty. They are also about mutual trust and mistrust, emanating from actual policies by both sides rather than any imagined sense of the other's sinister aims. A healthy, non-belligerent Iranian-American bilateral relationship is crucial for resolving or tempering many other conflicts and tensions in the Middle East, as well as for global stability and non-proliferation.

World Impatient Over Iran Nuclear Program Says ElBaradei
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iran-05zzzzzzzg.html

Beirut (AFP) Dec 07, 2005 - The world is starting to lose patience with Iran over its nuclear activities but military action is not the solution, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog said in remarks published Wednesday.

-

Iran Risks Jeopardising Nuclear Talks Says France
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iran-05zzzzzzzh.html

Iran's president says move Israel
Iran's conservative president has said that Israel should be moved to Europe.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that if Germany and Austria felt responsible for the Jewish Holocaust, they should give up land to make room for Israel.

"You oppressed them, so give a part of Europe to the Zionist regime so they can establish any government they want," he said on a visit to Mecca.

The president's remarks were quickly condemned by Israel and the US.


"This is not the first time, unfortunately, that the Iranian president has expressed the most outrageous ideas concerning Jews and Israel," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.
"He is not just Israel's problem. He is a worry for the entire international community," he added.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Iranian leader's comments "further underscore our concerns about the regime".

"And it's all the more reason why it's so important that the regime not have the ability