February 20, 2006
EU Says Iran Must Change Atomic Stance
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:25 p.m. ET

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian and Iranian officials agreed Monday to hold more talks on Moscow's offer to enrich uranium for Tehran, a compromise proposal considered a final opportunity for the Islamic regime to avoid the threat of international sanctions over its nuclear program.

The office of presidential Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov, who hosted the Iranian delegation, issued a terse statement that the Russian and Iranian negotiators had agreed to continue talks, several news agencies reported. The statement did not elaborate.

The ITAR-Tass news agency said the Iranian delegation was expected to leave Moscow on Tuesday. Calls to the Iranian Embassy in Moscow went unanswered Monday evening.

In Brussels, Belgium, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said talks with Iran's foreign minister failed to make progress in resolving the West's standoff with the Islamic republic over its nuclear program.

Solana said Iran's ''substantive position has not changed.'' Speaking after a 90-minute meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Solana said, ''They have to be much more constructive.''

The Russian offer, backed by the United States and Europe, was widely seen as the last chance for Iran to address the West's concerns before a March 6 meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which could start a process leading to punishment before the U.N. Security Council.

The council has the power to impose economic and political sanctions.

But Iran has adamantly defended its right to maintain a domestic enrichment program, seen by the United States and other Western nations as a cover-up for a suspected weapons program.

Before the Moscow talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sought to lower expectations.

''Honestly speaking, we have modest expectations, but we will make every effort to avoid an escalation of the situation and the use of force,'' Lavrov told a government meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin in televised comments.

The top Iranian negotiator, Ali Hosseinitash, deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said he believed an agreement was possible. He cautioned, however, against linking the Russian plan to demands for Iran to restore a freeze on uranium enrichment, Russian news agencies reported.

''The negotiations with Russia do not foresee any preconditions,'' Hosseinitash said, according to ITAR-Tass. He added that there was no link ''between the moratorium on uranium enrichment and talks on the Russian plan.''

Mottaki said in Brussels that Tehran was looking for a ''peaceful solution'' to the impasse and was ready to listen to ''new ideas.''

''We express our readiness for negotiations based on justice and a comprehensive compromise. We want to peacefully solve the problem,'' he said after talks with Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht.

''We believe that the time of threats is over. The (U.N.) Security Council should not be considered as a tool of some countries ... We are here to hear any new plans, any new proposal, any new ideas.''

The Iranians have blown hot and cold over Moscow's initiative, under which Iran's enrichment activities would take place on Russian soil to ensure no uranium is diverted for nuclear weapons. Enrichment is a process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or material for a warhead.

The Russian foreign minister said Iran could conduct all nuclear activities on its own soil once the IAEA had resolved its concerns about the Iranian nuclear program.

Lavrov said last week the Russian proposal is conditional on Iran giving up all enrichment activity, including small-scale efforts it started last week. The EU and the United States also insist that Tehran reimpose a freeze on all enrichment.

Analysts said a concrete result likely would emerge from further talks later in the week, when the head of Russia's atomic energy agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, visits Iran.

Experts have said Iran would like its scientists to have access to the Russian enrichment facility and hope to retain the right to conduct part of the enrichment process at home. But former Russian Atomic Energy Minister Viktor Mikhailov told the Vremya Novostei daily in Monday's editions that the entire facility would be off-limits to the Iranians.

IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei recently suggested that the international community might have no choice but to accept small-scale enrichment on Iranian soil as a condition for Tehran to agree to move its full program abroad, a diplomat familiar with ElBaradei's position said Sunday on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Iranian presidential spokesman Gholamhossein Elham, speaking in a news conference Monday, welcomed the IAEA proposal on small-scale enrichment inside Iran as a ''positive step'' toward resolving the dispute but said any restrictions on Tehran's right to access nuclear energy were unacceptable.



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

http://theaustralian.news.com.au/common/st...55E1702,00.html

US accuses Iran of arming militia
From correspondents in Baghdad
20feb06

IRAN is providing weapons and training to militias and extremist groups in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, said today.

"Iran has a mixed policy towards Iraq," he told a news conference.
On the one hand it had good state-to-state relations with the Shiite-dominated government, but it has "another policy as well which is to work with some militias, to work with some extremist groups, to provide training and to provide weapons, directly or indirectly," Mr Khalilzad said.

"Iraqis are increasingly concerned about the role Iran is playing."

US authorities are particularly worried about the growing influence of Shiite militias which are alleged to have infiltrated Iraq's interior ministry.

Khalilzad also slammed a call made last week by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki for British forces, belonging to the US-led coalition, to leave southern Iraq, saying this was "uncalled for interference" in Iraq's internal affairs.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari also said yesterday that Mr Mottaki's calls were "unacceptable", adding that "only the Iraqi Government is allowed to decide the fate of these troops".

Iran's attempt to stir trouble could be linked to attempts to distract public opinion away from the nuclear question, the ambassador said, referring to international fears Tehran is seeking to built an atomic weapon.

© The Australian

U.S. Ambassador Criticizes Iran's Role in Iraq

By Nelson Hernandez

BAGHDAD, Feb. 20 -- Iran is playing "a negative role" in Iraq by providing weapons, training and other support to militias and insurgent groups that interfere in Iraqi politics, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq said at a news conference on Monday.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=8580

February 21, 2006
March Madness

by Gordon Prather
Gholamali Haddad-Adel, "speaker" of Iran's parliament – in Cuba, last week – dismissed the possibility of a U.S. preemptive attack against Iran, finding it "impossible" to believe that the U.S. would want "to repeat the experience of Iraq."

"We hope the United States is not so stupid," he said.

Presumably, Haddad-Adel meant to say, "We hope that President Bush, his vice president, his secretary of state, and his ambassador to the United Nations are not so stupid."

Now, some or all of the above may be stupid. But their stupidity is not what Haddad-Adel and the rest of the world need to concern themselves with.

It's their sanity.

As well as the sanity of a majority of congresspersons.

Up until the eve of Bush's preemptive invasion of oil-rich Iran's Islamic neighbor – oil-rich Iraq – Bush et al. repeatedly stressed that "we" wanted to settle – through "diplomatic means, if at all possible" – the international crisis triggered by revelations by "Slam Dunk" Tenet that Iraq had reconstructed its nuclear weapons program.

But by March 2003, on-the-ground inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency knew – and so reported to the UN Security Council – that there was no indication whatsoever of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.

Moreover, polls show that the majority of Americans now know what Tony Blair knew four years ago: Bush was determined to depose Saddam Hussein no matter what the IAEA inspectors found or didn't find.

Why?

Well, most Americans are still puzzled about why.

But most Americans now realize that Bush lied to them – that he didn't preemptively attack Iraq because he believed Saddam had nukes he planned to give to terrorists.

Of course, congressional leaders knew that all along.

And most congresspersons should have at least suspected when they voted overwhelmingly for the authorization to use military force against Iraq that the presumption was false that

"Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations…"

So how to explain the adoption this week – by a vote of 404-4 – of House Concurrent Resolution 341 "condemning the government of Iran for violating its international nuclear nonproliferation obligations and expressing support for efforts to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council."

In particular, what "violations" are they talking about?

"Whereas Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated, '[i]t is obvious that if Iran cannot be brought to live up to its international obligations, in fact, the IAEA Statute would indicate that Iran would have to be referred to the UN Security Council'…."

Okay, what "international obligations" is Condi talking about?

Well, it's not clear. But, Condi does refer to the IAEA Statute. So the House assumes she must be referring to the Safeguards Agreement that Iran concluded with the IAEA way back in 1973.

"Whereas on February 4, 2006, the IAEA Board of Governors reported Iran's noncompliance with its IAEA safeguards obligations to the Security Council…."

But the House is mistaken. The IAEA Board didn't report any such thing. In fact, the Board didn't report anything.

Rather, the IAEA Board requested [.pdf] that Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei report to the Security Council the absolutely outrageous and discriminatory demands that the Board had made on several occasions, calling on Iran to – among other things – implement "transparency measures,"

"which extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol, and include such access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual-use equipment, certain military-owned workshops, and research and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations."

As of this writing, ElBaradei has made no such report and is unlikely to do so before late March. By then, of course, Bush will probably have already launched a preemptive attack against Iran.

What will be his authority?

"[Congress] calls on all members of the United Nations Security Council … to expeditiously consider and take action in response to any report of Iran's noncompliance in fulfillment of the mandate of the Security Council to respond to and deal with situations bearing on the maintenance of international peace and security…."

What Security Council mandate is Congress talking about?

Apparently the same one Bush didn't have when he "took action" against Iraq.

March madness.

http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/194842

Report: US plans to attack Iran's nuke facilities
A US military action against Iran's nuclear facilities has entered a practical stage, according to a Saudi newspaper. The report, published Sunday by al Watan daily, claims the American intelligence identified 23 nuclear facilities in Iran while intelligence bodies of other countries added to the list eight facilities. All of these are expected to targeted by US warplanes if diplomatic efforts to stop Iran's nuclear facilities fail.

According to the report, the US army will need five days to one week to complete the strike. However, US military experts claim the attack should be carried out no later than January 2007, because on that time Iran's nuclear development enters the "red phase", i.e. the nuclear facilities would be dangerous to strike due to fear of radiation.

The report adds the US has decided that Israel will not be directly involved in the strike. However, the Bush administration will allow Israel to retaliate if attacked by long range Iranian missiles. Based on US intelligence reports, Iran has at least 20 mobile launchers for this kind of missiles.


© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publi...icle_3371.shtml

Is Iran Next?
by William Norman Grigg
March 6, 2006

The Bush administration's crusade to "democratize" the Middle East is zeroing in on Iran's nuclear ambitions. The result could be devastating — but the worst need not happen.
As the current crisis with Iran unfolds, discussion of a possible war is tinted with a sense of déjà vu and burdened with a feeling of inevitability. Once again, the Bush administration issues grim warnings about the prospect of "weapons of mass murder" falling into the hands of a deranged ruler heading a terrorist-sponsoring regime. Once again, the administration lobbies the UN Security Council, rather than Congress, for "authority" to wage a war it insists is necessary to preempt a dire global threat. And the Iranian regime's defiant militancy apparently leaves little reason to hope that the anticipated war — which even hawkish observers believe would be devastating — can be avoided.

However, there are sound reasons to believe that war can and will be avoided. First of all, the Bush administration confronts a severe shortage of military assets to deal with Iran. It is also in a strategic straitjacket as a result of the removal of Saddam Hussein; the resulting power vacuum has been filled by Iraqi allies of Tehran, an "axis of evil" regime.

Bad as the present situation is on the ground in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian regime, according to the Bush administration's own intelligence estimates, is years away from acquiring the means to build even a single nuclear weapon. And that assumes that Tehran is involved in a secretive effort to develop nukes. The chief "evidence" in support of that proposition has been provided by an Islamo-Marxist terrorist group that seeks to supplant the existing Iranian regime — and that, once in power, could actually be even worse.

While the Bush administration and those who echo its party line would have us believe that war with Iran is both imperative and impending, a realistic appraisal of the situation yields a different conclusion. War is avoidable and would be counterproductive.

Order of Battle

The ongoing war in Iraq has tied up nearly all of our available manpower and resources. Iran is a mountainous nation four times larger than Iraq (roughly the size of Alaska) with a population of roughly 70 million — nearly two-thirds of which is younger than 30. Unlike Iraq, Iran has a viable air force and a relatively homogenous population that does not necessarily support its government, but would unite against a foreign aggressor. The nation absorbed an estimated one million casualties in its war with Iraq during the 1980s, a conflict in which the aggressor, Saddam's Iraq, received material and military aid from both the United States and the Soviet Union.

The removal of Saddam's regime resulted in a new government aligned with Tehran. The new Iraqi parliament is dominated by the United Iraqi Alliance, created with the blessing of the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (a near physical twin of the late, unlamented Ayatollah Khomeini). The alliance includes the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is headquartered in Iran. SCIRI is led by Abdel Aziz-Hakim, who spent 20 years in Iranian exile as a guest of the Tehran regime. SCIRI's Iranian-funded military arm, the Badr Brigades, includes many veterans of the Iran-Iraq war (on the Iranian side).

The alliance also includes the Dawa Party, led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr; Dawa's military affiliate is the Mahdi Army, which was formed in 2003. The Mahdi Army survived a three-week assault conducted by U.S. Marines in Najaf in November 2004. Sadr paid a high-profile visit to Iran in late January as a gesture of support in Tehran's escalating confrontation with the United States. "If any Islamic state, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is attacked," warned Sadr's spokesman during the visit, "the Mahdi Army would fight inside and outside Iran." Mahdi Army loyalists have insinuated themselves in key positions throughout the new Iraqi military and police. Sadr has also opened diplomatic channels with Syria's Bashar Assad, who rules another nation targeted by Washington for "regime change."

British journalist Andrew Cockburn, who has covered the Persian Gulf for over a decade, believes that the occupation of Iraq has left the United States strategically checkmated in any potential military conflict with Iran. "Jimmy Carter presented Iran with 52 hostages," writes Cockburn. "George Bush has done a lot better, sending 130,000 Americans across the ocean as guarantees of his administration's good behavior toward the Islamic Republic."

Military analyst William Lind concurs that Tehran has the strategic initiative. "It can shut down its own oil exports and, with mining and naval action, those of Kuwait and the Gulf States as well," writes Lind. "It can ramp up the guerilla wars both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. It could also do something that would come as a total surprise to Washington and cross the Iran-Iraq border with four to six divisions, simply rolling up the American army of occupation in Iraq. Syria might well join in, knowing that it is only a question of time before it is attacked anyway. We have no field army in Iraq at this point; our troops are dispersed fighting insurgents. A couple dozen Scuds on the Green Zone [the Coalition's headquarters in Baghdad] would decapitate our leadership."

Is War Inevitable?

Grim and forbidding as such scenarios may be, hawkish analysts and commentators insist that the alternative — "the world's most destructive weapons in the hands of clerical radicals who might use them," in the Wall Street Journal's words — is immeasurably worse.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the 1970s-era radical student movement that helped overthrow the Shah and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, subscribes to an apocalyptic strain of Islam: "We must prepare ourselves to rule the world and the only way to do that is to put forth views on the basis of the return" of the Shi'ite Muslim Messiah, the "Mahdi" or "Hidden Imam."

Ahmadinejad has stated that Israel should be "wiped off the map," has questioned the historic authenticity of the Jewish Holocaust, and has claimed that a divine "aura" emanated from him during his speech before the UN General Assembly last fall. He seems almost perfectly cast in the role of the Mad Megalomaniac from the Middle East. In fact, neo-conservative war hawk Michael Ledeen, an "Iran-Contra" figure notorious for his tight connections to shadowy individuals in the intelligence community, has whimsically suggested that "the CIA managed to recruit this guy from central casting [to be] the perfect person to get the West to take the Iranian threat seriously."

With Iranian public opinion catalyzing behind a figure seen as a modern Persian incarnation of Adolf Hitler, the atmosphere is being tuned for a potentially devastating war.

"The unavoidable reality is that we now need urgently to steel ourselves to the ugly probability that diplomacy will not now suffice: one way or another, unconscionable acts of war may now be unavoidable," lamented prominent British commentator Gerard Baker in the Times of London. "Those who say war is unthinkable are right. Military strikes, even limited, targeted and accurate ones, will have devastating consequences for the region and for the world. They will, quite probably, entrench and harden the Iranian regime. Even the young, hopeful democrats who despise their theocratic rulers and crave the freedoms of the West will pause at the sight of their country burnt and humiliated by the infidels. A war, even a limited one, will almost certainly raise oil prices to recession-inducing levels" — with $150 a barrel oil a realistic possibility. Yet allowing Iran to go nuclear, Baker continues, would be "a threshold moment in the history of the world, up there with the Bolshevik Revolution and the coming of Hitler."

Niall Ferguson, a British historian teaching at Harvard University, offered an even bleaker prediction in a January 15 essay for the London Telegraph. Written from the vantage point of a hypothetical "future historian," Ferguson's essay posits Iran's acquisition of nuclear capability in the very near future, a 2007 nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel, a humiliating retreat from Iraq by U.S. forces overwhelmed by Iranian-backed militias, and a four-year war between a U.S.-led coalition and Iranian-backed Shi'ite forces.

These disheartening assessments, it should be understood, are offered by two commentators who support the idea of a military strike against Iran — and who apparently overlook the fact that Israel's strength provides a major deterrence in the region.

The Worst "Best-case Scenario"

If these projections could be taken as worst-case scenarios, what would a best-case scenario look like? The Iran Policy Committee (IPC), a high-octane beltway think-tank composed of prominent military and diplomatic figures, offers what it considers to be a suitable alternative to either "appeasement" of Iran or preemptive warfare against it.

"For too long, Washington has been divided between those who favor engagement with and those who support military strikes against the Iranian regime," stated the IPC in US Policy Options for Iran, a report published roughly a year ago that has gained an audience in Washington during the present crisis. "The Committee stresses the potential for a third alternative: Keep open diplomatic and military options, while providing a central role for the Iranian opposition to facilitate regime change."

While the IPC advocates regime change rather than a military assault, they justify their plans in much the same way as the neo-cons do. Reiterating a key theme recited by the Bush administration in the build-up to war with Iraq, the IPC insists that "time is on Iran's side. The world cannot wait for proof 'beyond a reasonable doubt' of an Iranian bomb. The risks of delay are too high. The international community should be prepared to act on the recent discoveries of evidence of weapons-related nuclear activities. Discoveries over the past two years, along with the revelations by Iranian opposition groups that Iran is developing a nuclear trigger, constitute 'clear and present evidence' of illicit activities that, unless halted, may lead to bomb-making."

What Revelations?

"In December 2004," continues the group's report, "Iran's main opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), uncovered a new missile program secretly pursued by Iran, as well as a program to develop a nuclear warhead. The new secret missile, produced at the Hemmat Missile Industries Complex in northeast Teheran, is named Ghadar, NCRI reported. North Korean experts are believed to be assisting the Iranian program at this complex."

The activist arm of the NCRI is a guerrilla group called the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), or "People's Mujahideen." The Iran Policy Council claims that the MEK has "an impressive network in Iran, where it has been gathering intelligence on Iran's nuclear weapons program as well as its activities in Iraq." In fact, according to the Bush administration, the NCRI/MEK alone is responsible for uncovering vital evidence of Iran's secret nuclear weapons program — evidence that was somehow concealed from inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) during its inspection of Iranian nuclear facilities.

"Iran has concealed its … nuclear program," stated President Bush during a July 16, 2005, White House press conference. "That became discovered, not because of their compliance with the IAEA or [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty], but because a dissident group pointed it out to the world, and [that] raised suspicions about the intentions of the program.

On January 20, the Jerusalem Post reported another discovery by the NCRI — a "hot press" and a "hot iso-static press" supposedly kept at a secret site 25 miles west of Tehran. "These machines are able to simultaneously use pressure and heat to produce uranium spheres for production of nuclear bombs," stated NCRI spokesman Dowlat Nowrouzi in London. "Both of these machines are banned items."

Iran insists that it has been in compliance with its treaty obligations and that it seeks to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The key evidence contradicting that claim has been produced by the MEK and its Paris-based political front, the NCRI. Several members of Congress, including Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), want to provide material assistance and support for the MEK as a presumptive government-in-exile for a liberated Iran.

The Iran Policy Council insists that the MEK should play a "central role" in regime change in Iran. In fact, once regime change is accomplished, the nuclear threat will become moot, asserts the IPC, since "the nature of the regime in Teheran is of greater import than its nuclear weapons capability: An Iran with representative institutions with a nuclear weapons capability would not be as destabilizing as nuclear weapons in the hands of the unelected, expansionist theocracy."

The problem with all of this is that the MEK — which the Bush administration regards as its key source on Iran's clandestine nuclear ambitions, and which stands to benefit from "regime change" in Iran — has been officially listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department since 1997. Before the Iraq War, the Bush administration pointed to MEK camps in Iraq as evidence of Saddam's support of terrorism.

Profile of an "Ally"

The MEK was created in 1965 as part of a Soviet-sponsored international terrorist network that waged wars of "national liberation" throughout the developing world. Human Rights Watch, which describes the MEK as an "urban guerrilla group," points out that the group's ideology is a Muslim variation on "liberation theology." In Latin America, liberation theology was Marxism-Leninism wrapped in Christian symbolism and language. MEK's version makes similar cynical use of Islam. As noted by Human Rights Watch:

The organization's founding trio focused their initial thrust on creating a revolutionary ideology based on their interpretation of Islam that could fuel an armed struggle by persuading masses of people to rise up against the government. This ideology relied heavily on an interpretation of Islam as a revolutionary message compatible with modern revolutionary ideologies, particularly Marxism.... In addition to religious texts, the group also studied Marxist theory at length.

In 1970, 13 members of the MEK received training (most likely under Soviet supervision) at PLO camps in Jordan and Lebanon. Upon their return, the PLO-trained MEK cadres shared their newly acquired skills with their comrades, and the group embarked on a wave of attacks and bombings intended to bring down the Shah. During one rampage, MEK terrorists killed several U.S. military personnel and contractors who were working in Iran. The group suffered some attrition from gun battles, arrests, and executions. It survived long enough to lend its support to the Khomeini revolution, including the seizure of American hostages in October 1979. But it was purged from Khomeini's coalition in 1981 and much of its leadership was driven into exile.

Beginning that year, the MEK began a hit-and-run guerrilla war against the Iranian regime in the hope of triggering a popular uprising. When that proved unsuccessful, the group set up the NCRI in Paris. In 1985, notes Human Rights Watch, the MEK's "leadership was transformed when Masoud Rajavi announced his marriage to Maryam Uzdanlu.... The husband and wife team became co-leaders" of the MEK and announced an "ideological revolution."

All of the group's members were required to undertake an individual "ideological revolution" by engaging in Maoist-style "self-criticism" sessions. Adherents were expected to listen raptly "to radio messages and explanations provided by [their] commanders" in order to "gain a deep insight into the greatness of our new leadership, meaning the leadership of Masoud and Maryam.... To believe in them as well as to show ideological and revolutionary obedience to them." By 1987, the MEK had acquired "all the main attributes of a cult," writes Iranian scholar Ervand Abrahamian, with Masoud Rajavi claiming the titles Rahbar (leader) and Imam-i hal (the Present Imam), and the forerunner to the impending second advent of the Mahdi.

Expelled from France in 1986, Masoud Rajavi was welcomed in Baghdad, where he and his followers built a "National Liberation Army" that joined the Iran-Iraq war on Saddam's side. The MEK's plan to "liberate" Iran reads a great deal like the U.S. neo-conservative fantasy of a "cakewalk" in Iraq. As quoted by Human Rights Watch:

We will not be fighting alone; we will have the people on our side. They are tired of this regime, and … they have every incentive to get rid of it forever. We will only have to act as their shields, protecting them from being easy targets for the [revolutionary] guards. Wherever we go there will be masses of citizens joining us, and the prisoners we liberate from jails will help us lead them towards victory. It will be like an avalanche, growing as it progresses.

When the war ended in 1988 without victory for Iraq or the "National Liberation Army," the MEK leadership imposed yet another "ideological revolution" on its followers, this one involving forced mass divorces and torture of those suspected of espionage or ideological deviation. Following the first Gulf War, the MEK collaborated in Saddam's crackdown on Shi'ites and Kurds.

In 2003, U.S. forces disarmed MEK fighters who operated several camps within 60 miles of the Iranian border. Rather than treating them as terrorists, the Bush administration designated the MEK fighters as "protected" persons under the Geneva Convention. Amazingly, the Bush administration rebuffed an offer from Iran to exchange MEK leaders for al-Qaeda suspects being held in Tehran.

The Way Out

The MEK "has tried to establish itself as the Iranian equivalent of Ahmad Chalabi's 'government in exile,' the Iraqi National Congress [INC]," writes Iranian expatriate Reza Aslan, author of No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. "Like the INC before the [Iraq] war, the MEK has advocates in the highest levels of government. And like the INC, the MEK has been inundating the US intelligence community with uncorroborated and, according to some intelligence officials, highly suspect information meant to encourage the White House to carry out the same policy of regime change in Iran that it did in Iraq."

At this point, there simply are no good alternatives in dealing with Iran. An unsuccessful military attack, or even a successful one, could have catastrophic consequences. Swapping out the current Iranian regime for one run by a Marxist cult would not result in a net improvement. And the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is — not to put too fine a point on the matter — unnerving. Perhaps the good news in all of this is found in the fact that our chief "evidence" of an active Iranian nuclear weapons program comes from the MEK.

Military disengagement from the Middle East, coupled with a serious effort to achieve energy independence, would be the best alternative. Advocates of war with Iran focus on Ahmadinejad's hostile intentions toward Israel. But Israel is a regional superpower, boasting a nuclear arsenal and the most formidable conventional military in the Middle East; it is quite capable of protecting its own interests, as we should protect ours.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2.../8/154740.shtml


The Apocalyptic Vision of Iranian President Ahmadinejad
Arnaud de Borchgrave
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006
The man in charge of hoodwinking the Western powers about Iran's now
18-year-old secret nuclear program believes the apocalypse will happen in
his own lifetime. He'll be 50 in October.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Shi'ite creed has convinced him lesser
mortals can not only influence but also hasten the awaited return of the
12th Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect holds that
this will be Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet
Muhammad. He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the 9th century, at
age 5. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and
pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good
and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.

"The ultimate promise of all Divine religions," says Ahmadinejad, "will be
fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam], who
is heir to all prophets. He will lead the world to justice and absolute
peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last
repository, the promised one." He reckons that the return of the Imam, AWOL
for 11 centuries, is only two years away.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is
governed by the conviction that the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by
"the creation of chaos on Earth." He has fired Iran's most experienced
diplomats and scores of other officials, presumably those who don't share
his belief in apocalyptic conflagration.


The Iranian leader's finger on a nuclear trigger would be disquieting under
any circumstances. Positively alarming would be a nuclear weapon in the
hands of a man who badgers Israel, the U.S. and the European Union in belief
that a pre-emptive aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will hasten
the return of the missing Mahdi. Such an attack presumably would trigger
anti-Western mayhem throughout the Middle East.

When he became Iran's sixth president since the 1979 revolution last summer,
Mr. Ahmadinejad decided to donate $20 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a
popular pilgrimage site where the faithful can drop their missives to the
"Hidden Imam" in a holy well. Tehran's working-class faithful are convinced
the new president and his Cabinet signed a "compact" pledging themselves to
precipitate the return of the Mahdi - and dropped it down Jamkaran's well
with the Mahdi's zip code.

In Mr. Ahmadinejad's eyes, Iran is strong, with oil inching up to $70 a
barrel and America, dependent on foreign oil, is weak. He has said publicly
America and Europe have far more to lose than Iran if the U.N. Security
Council votes for tough economic sanctions. He also figures if Israeli
and/or U.S. warplanes strike Iran, all he has to do is give the U.S. a hard
time in Iraq as American forces prepare to withdraw.

Moving two or three Iranian divisions into Iraq and activating Shi'ite
suicide bombers and hit squads throughout the region would not be too hard
for a country that fought an 8-year war against Iraq (1980-88) and had no
compunction about giving thousands of youngsters a key to paradise and 72
virgins before sending them across Iraqi minefields.

A top Ahmadinejad officer, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Kossari, who heads the
political watchdog, or Security Bureau, of Iran's armed forces, recently
taunted the U.S. when he bragged "we have identified all the weak points of
our enemies" and have sufficient cannon fodder -- i.e., suicide operation
volunteers -- "ready to strike at these sensitive locations." Iranian
television recently broadcast an animated film for Iranian children
glorifying suicide bombers.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&...d=21&m=2&y=2006
Tuesday, 21, February, 2006 (22, Muharram, 1427)


Iran, Oil and Euros: The War Scenario
Gwynne Dyer, Arab News

Here’s the scenario. On March 20 Iran opens a new “bourse” (exchange) on which countries all over the world can buy and sell oil and gas not only for dollars but also for euros. It also establishes a new oil “marker” (oil pricing standard) based on Iranian crude and denominated in euros, in open rivalry to the existing West Texas Intermediate, Norway Brent and UAE Dubai markers, all of which are calculated in US dollars.

The Iranian bourse is an instant success with countries and companies that are unhappy about having to hold huge amounts of overvalued US dollars to finance their oil transactions, all of which must presently be conducted in that currency. Very large sums start to shift from the dollar to the euro, although exactly how much is unknown because the US Federal Reserve System (by pure coincidence, of course) has chosen late March as the time to stop publishing the data that would make it easy to know how fast the hemorrhage was.

But the US government knows, and is deeply alarmed by the danger that the dollar may be losing its status as the world’s only reserve currency. Given the huge deficits that plague the US economy, the US dollar’s value would collapse if other countries began to see it as just another currency, so the euro must be prevented from emerging as an alternative reserve currency. In practice, that means the Iranian experiment with a euro-denominated oil bourse must be stopped — and the only way to do that is to attack Iran.

Some of the scenario-mongers would change the sequence of events and have the US launch a “preventive” attack against Iran before it even opens the bourse. An alternative scenario has Washington persuading Israel to do the dirty work of actually launching air strikes against Iran. But a lot of people are genuinely worried that the whole crisis over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program is being whipped up to give Washington cover for a strike against Iran that is really meant to halt the bourse.

In support of this thesis, they argue that a similar initiative by Saddam Hussein, who began insisting that Iraq’s oil exports be paid for in euros in 2000, led directly to the US invasion of 2003. The Iranians are going much further, and they will be punished too. How seriously should we take this argument?

Although final details on the way the Iranian oil bourse will operate are still lacking, it’s clear that a euro-denominated oil exchange could catch on, and would indeed challenge the US dollar’s unique advantages as the world’s sole reserve currency. However, it is less clear that the Bush administration actually knows or cares about this.

There is no real evidence linking Saddam Hussein’s demand to be paid in euros for Iraq’s oil with the subsequent US invasion of Iraq. Those two events occurred almost three years apart, and in any case Saddam merely asked to have the checks made out in euros, so to speak. Iraq’s actual oil sales continued to go through the New York or London exchanges and to be conducted in dollars.

Besides, those were the early years of the Bush administration, and US dollar was much less vulnerable because the twin US deficits on the federal budget and the foreign trade account had not yet had time to swell to their present massive size. The euros-for-oil story is just one of many motives that people have proposed to explain the Bush administration’s attack on Iraq, given that Saddam had neither terrorist ties nor weapons of mass destruction, but it fails to convince.

The rapidly deteriorating financial position of the United States probably does explain the Federal Reserve’s announcement that on March 24 it will stop publishing data on the M3 money supply, which tracks how many US dollars are held by foreigners. If you are worried about a panic flight from the dollar, then you want to keep any downward trend in overseas holdings of US dollars out of public sight. But the Fed might well be doing this around now even if no Iranian oil bourse were on the horizon, and no dramatic conclusions need to be drawn from it.

In order to believe that the US government is planning an attack on Iran to head off the challenge to the dollar that a euro-based Iranian oil bourse would represent, you must first believe that the Bush administration actually worries about such things, and there is little proof that it does. It certainly should, but if it truly did, would it have pushed through the biggest tax cuts in American history? The Bush administration is reckless enough to contemplate an attack on Iran, but it is too ignorant about fiscal and monetary matters to worry about such esoteric matters as the potential connections between a shift to euros in the oil market, foreign investor confidence in the US dollar, and the sustainability of the massive US budget and trade deficits. As Vice President Dick Cheney said to former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill when the latter protested over the huge Bush tax cuts (an issue on which he later resigned): “Ronald Reagan proved that budget deficits don’t matter.”

If the US does attack Iran, it will be for other motives.

http://www.energybulletin.net/12125.html
Published on 18 Jan 2006 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 18 Jan 2006.

The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
by Krassimir Petrov


How to deceive friends and influence people: Oil crisis lies...

I. Economics of Empires

A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations. The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military. One part of the subject taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire; the other part went to strengthen the military dominance necessary to enforce the collection of those taxes.

Historically, taxing the subject state has been in various forms—usually gold and silver, where those were considered money, but also slaves, soldiers, crops, cattle, or other agricultural and natural resources, whatever economic goods the empire demanded and the subject-state could deliver. Historically, imperial taxation has always been direct: the subject state handed over the economic goods directly to the empire.

For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly, through inflation. It did not enforce the direct payment of taxes like all of its predecessor empires did, but distributed instead its own fiat currency, the U.S. Dollar, to other nations in exchange for goods with the intended consequence of inflating and devaluing those dollars and paying back later each dollar with less economic goods—the difference capturing the U.S. imperial tax. Here is how this happened.

Early in the 20th century, the U.S. economy began to dominate the world economy. The U.S. dollar was tied to gold, so that the value of the dollar neither increased, nor decreased, but remained the same amount of gold. The Great Depression, with its preceding inflation from 1921 to 1929 and its subsequent ballooning government deficits, had substantially increased the amount of currency in circulation, and thus rendered the backing of U.S. dollars by gold impossible. This led Roosevelt to decouple the dollar from gold in 1932. Up to this point, the U.S. may have well dominated the world economy, but from an economic point of view, it was not an empire. The fixed value of the dollar did not allow the Americans to extract economic benefits from other countries by supplying them with dollars convertible to gold.

Economically, the American Empire was born with Bretton Woods in 1945. The U.S. dollar was not fully convertible to gold, but was made convertible to gold only to foreign governments. This established the dollar as the reserve currency of the world. It was possible, because during WWII, the United States had supplied its allies with provisions, demanding gold as payment, thus accumulating significant portion of the world’s gold. An Empire would not have been possible if, following the Bretton Woods arrangement, the dollar supply was kept limited and within the availability of gold, so as to fully exchange back dollars for gold. However, the guns-and-butter policy of the 1960’s was an imperial one: the dollar supply was relentlessly increased to finance Vietnam and LBJ’s Great Society. Most of those dollars were handed over to foreigners in exchange for economic goods, without the prospect of buying them back at the same value. The increase in dollar holdings of foreigners via persistent U.S. trade deficits was tantamount to a tax—the classical inflation tax that a country imposes on its own citizens, this time around an inflation tax that U.S. imposed on rest of the world.

When in 1970-1971 foreigners demanded payment for their dollars in gold, The U.S. Government defaulted on its payment on August 15, 1971. While the popular spin told the story of “severing the link between the dollar and gold”, in reality the denial to pay back in gold was an act of bankruptcy by the U.S. Government. Essentially, the U.S. declared itself an Empire. It had extracted an enormous amount of economic goods from the rest of the world, with no intention or ability to return those goods, and the world was powerless to respond— the world was taxed and it could not do anything about it.

From that point on, to sustain the American Empire and to continue to tax the rest of the world, the United States had to force the world to continue to accept ever-depreciating dollars in exchange for economic goods and to have the world hold more and more of those depreciating dollars. It had to give the world an economic reason to hold them, and that reason was oil.

In 1971, as it became clearer and clearer that the U.S Government would not be able to buy back its dollars in gold, it made in 1972-73 an iron-clad arrangement with Saudi Arabia to support the power of the House of Saud in exchange for accepting only U.S. dollars for its oil. The rest of OPEC was to follow suit and also accept only dollars. Because the world had to buy oil from the Arab oil countries, it had the reason to hold dollars as payment for oil. Because the world needed ever increasing quantities of oil at ever increasing oil prices, the world’s demand for dollars could only increase. Even though dollars could no longer be exchanged for gold, they were now exchangeable for oil.

The economic essence of this arrangement was that the dollar was now backed by oil. As long as that was the case, the world had to accumulate increasing amounts of dollars, because they needed those dollars to buy oil. As long as the dollar was the only acceptable payment for oil, its dominance in the world was assured, and the American Empire could continue to tax the rest of the world. If, for any reason, the dollar lost its oil backing, the American Empire would cease to exist. Thus, Imperial survival dictated that oil be sold only for dollars. It also dictated that oil reserves were spread around various sovereign states that weren’t strong enough, politically or militarily, to demand payment for oil in something else. If someone demanded a different payment, he had to be convinced, either by political pressure or military means, to change his mind.

The man that actually did demand Euro for his oil was Saddam Hussein in 2000. At first, his demand was met with ridicule, later with neglect, but as it became clearer that he meant business, political pressure was exerted to change his mind. When other countries, like Iran, wanted payment in other currencies, most notably Euro and Yen, the danger to the dollar was clear and present, and a punitive action was in order. Bush’s Shock-and-Awe in Iraq was not about Saddam’s nuclear capabilities, about defending human rights, about spreading democracy, or even about seizing oil fields; it was about defending the dollar, ergo the American Empire. It was about setting an example that anyone who demanded payment in currencies other than U.S. Dollars would be likewise punished.

Many have criticized Bush for staging the war in Iraq in order to seize Iraqi oil fields. However, those critics can’t explain why Bush would want to seize those fields—he could simply print dollars for nothing and use them to get all the oil in the world that he needs. He must have had some other reason to invade Iraq.

History teaches that an empire should go to war for one of two reasons: (1) to defend itself or (2) benefit from war; if not, as Paul Kennedy illustrates in his magisterial The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a military overstretch will drain its economic resources and precipitate its collapse. Economically speaking, in order for an empire to initiate and conduct a war, its benefits must outweigh its military and social costs. Benefits from Iraqi oil fields are hardly worth the long-term, multi-year military cost. Instead, Bush must have went into Iraq to defend his Empire. Indeed, this is the case: two months after the United States invaded Iraq, the Oil for Food Program was terminated, the Iraqi Euro accounts were switched back to dollars, and oil was sold once again only for U.S. dollars. No longer could the world buy oil from Iraq with Euro. Global dollar supremacy was once again restored. Bush descended victoriously from a fighter jet and declared the mission accomplished—he had successfully defended the U.S. dollar, and thus the American Empire.


II. Iranian Oil Bourse

The Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate “nuclear” weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American Empire. That weapon is the Iranian Oil Bourse slated to open in March 2006. It will be based on a euro-oil-trading mechanism that naturally implies payment for oil in Euro. In economic terms, this represents a much greater threat to the hegemony of the dollar than Saddam’s, because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for Euro to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the U.S. dollar altogether. If so, then it is likely that almost everyone will eagerly adopt this euro oil system:

· The Europeans will not have to buy and hold dollars in order to secure their payment for oil, but would instead pay with their own currencies. The adoption of the euro for oil transactions will provide the European currency with a reserve status that will benefit the European at the expense of the Americans.

· The Chinese and the Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the new exchange, because it will allow them to drastically lower their enormous dollar reserves and diversify with Euros, thus protecting themselves against the depreciation of the dollar. One portion of their dollars they will still want to hold onto; a second portion of their dollar holdings they may decide to dump outright; a third portion of their dollars they will decide to use up for future payments without replenishing those dollar holdings, but building up instead their euro reserves.

· The Russians have inherent economic interest in adopting the Euro – the bulk of their trade is with European countries, with oil-exporting countries, with China, and with Japan. Adoption of the Euro will immediately take care of the first two blocs, and will over time facilitate trade with China and Japan. Also, the Russians seemingly detest holding depreciating dollars, for they have recently found a new religion with gold. Russians have also revived their nationalism, and if embracing the Euro will stab the Americans, they will gladly do it and smugly watch the Americans bleed.

· The Arab oil-exporting countries will eagerly adopt the Euro as a means of diversifying against rising mountains of depreciating dollars. Just like the Russians, their trade is mostly with European countries, and therefore will prefer the European currency both for its stability and for avoiding currency risk, not to mention their jihad against the Infidel Enemy.

Only the British will find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They have had a strategic partnership with the U.S. forever, but have also had their natural pull from Europe. So far, they have had many reasons to stick with the winner. However, when they see their century-old partner falling, will they firmly stand behind him or will they deliver the coup de grace? Still, we should not forget that currently the two leading oil exchanges are the New York’s NYMEX and the London’s International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), even though both of them are effectively owned by the Americans. It seems more likely that the British will have to go down with the sinking ship, for otherwise they will be shooting themselves in the foot by hurting their own London IPE interests. It is here noteworthy that for all the rhetoric about the reasons for the surviving British Pound, the British most likely did not adopt the Euro namely because the Americans must have pressured them not to: otherwise the London IPE would have had to switch to Euros, thus mortally wounding the dollar and their strategic partner.

At any rate, no matter what the British decide, should the Iranian Oil Bourse accelerate, the interests that matter—those of Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, and Arabs—will eagerly adopt the Euro, thus sealing the fate of the dollar. Americans cannot allow this to happen, and if necessary, will use a vast array of strategies to halt or hobble the operation’s exchange:

· Sabotaging the Exchange—this could be a computer virus, network, communications, or server attack, various server security breaches, or a 9-11-type attack on main and backup facilities.

· Coup d’état—this is by far the best long-term strategy available to the Americans.

· Negotiating Acceptable Terms & Limitations—this is another excellent solution to the Americans. Of course, a government coup is clearly the preferred strategy, for it will ensure that the exchange does not operate at all and does not threaten American interests. However, if an attempted sabotage or coup d’etat fails, then negotiation is clearly the second-best available option.

· Joint U.N. War Resolution—this will be, no doubt, hard to secure given the interests of all other member-states of the Security Council. Feverish rhetoric about Iranians developing nuclear weapons undoubtedly serves to prepare this course of action.

· Unilateral Nuclear Strike—this is a terrible strategic choice for all the reasons associated with the next strategy, the Unilateral Total War. The Americans will likely use Israel to do their dirty nuclear job.

· Unilateral Total War—this is obviously the worst strategic choice. First, the U.S. military resources have been already depleted with two wars. Secondly, the Americans will further alienate other powerful nations. Third, major dollar-holding countries may decide to quietly retaliate by dumping their own mountains of dollars, thus preventing the U.S. from further financing its militant ambitions. Finally, Iran has strategic alliances with other powerful nations that may trigger their involvement in war; Iran reputedly has such alliance with China, India, and Russia, known as the Shanghai Cooperative Group, a.k.a. Shanghai Coop and a separate pact with Syria.

Whatever the strategic choice, from a purely economic point of view, should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum, it will be eagerly embraced by major economic powers and will precipitate the demise of the dollar. The collapsing dollar will dramatically accelerate U.S. inflation and will pressure upward U.S. long-term interest rates. At this point, the Fed will find itself between Scylla and Charybdis—between deflation and hyperinflation—it will be forced fast either to take its “classical medicine” by deflating, whereby it raises interest rates, thus inducing a major economic depression, a collapse in real estate, and an implosion in bond, stock, and derivative markets, with a total financial collapse, or alternatively, to take the Weimar way out by inflating, whereby it pegs the long-bond yield, raises the Helicopters and drowns the financial system in liquidity, bailing out numerous LTCMs and hyperinflating the economy.

The Austrian theory of money, credit, and business cycles teaches us that there is no in-between Scylla and Charybdis. Sooner or later, the monetary system must swing one way or the other, forcing the Fed to make its choice. No doubt, Commander-in-Chief Ben Bernanke, a renowned scholar of the Great Depression and an adept Black Hawk pilot, will choose inflation. Helicopter Ben, oblivious to Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression, has nonetheless mastered the lessons of the Great Depression and the annihilating power of deflations. The Maestro has taught him the panacea of every single financial problem—to inflate, come hell or high water. He has even taught the Japanese his own ingenious unconventional ways to battle the deflationary liquidity trap. Like his mentor, he has dreamed of battling a Kondratieff Winter. To avoid deflation, he will resort to the printing presses; he will recall all helicopters from the 800 overseas U.S. military bases; and, if necessary, he will monetize everything in sight. His ultimate accomplishment will be the hyperinflationary destruction of the American currency and from its ashes will rise the next reserve currency of the world—that barbarous relic called gold.


--


Recommended Reading
William Clark “The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War in Iraq”
William Clark “The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target”

About the Author
Krassimir Petrov (Krassimir_Petrov@hotmail.com) has received his Ph. D. in economics from the Ohio State University and currently teaches Macroeconomics, International Finance, and Econometrics at the American University in Bulgaria. He is looking for a career in Dubai or the U. A. E.

Also by this author
“China’s Great Depression”
“Masters of Austrian Investment Analysis”
“Austrian Analysis of U.S. Inflation”
“Oil Performance in a Worldwide Depression”
See: www.financialsense.com/editorials/petrov/main.html

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/for.../02/07/8250445/

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB28Ak03.html
Iran's fate still in US hands
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

This week, the highly anticipated status report on Iran by Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will be released, ahead of a crucial IAEA meeting set for March 6, and all parties to the Iran nuclear crisis are involved in ferocious last-minute diplomacy.

The whirlwind global diplomacy includes the visit to Tehran by China's vice minister of foreign affairs, Lu Guozheng, and the Middle East trip of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to whip up Arab support for the US stance against Iran.

This coincides with the dangerous escalation of Sunni-Shi'ite conflict bordering on civil war in Iraq, bound to benefit Rice's agenda of heightening the perception by Sunni Arabs of the Iran threat, given that none of the Arab states that are currently members of the IAEA's board of governors sided with Iran at the last meeting that saw Tehran's nuclear dossier referred to the United Nations Security Council.

It is noteworthy that the statement of Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued last Thursday forcefully condemned attacks on Sunni mosques in Iraq in retaliation for an attack on a Shi'ite shrine. "I see it necessary to strongly request from the grieving Shi'ites in Iran, Iraq and elsewhere in the world to refrain from any hostile action toward their Muslim brethren. Surely there are hands at work seeking to provoke the Shi'ites against the mosques and other revered places of the people of Sunni faith. Any such action is aiding the enemies of Islam and is forbidden by sharia [Islamic law]."

Nevertheless, there is now a double-edged sword in Iraq's connection to the Iranian nuclear crisis: just as Iran has been using its influence in Iraq as a lever with the West, the United States can now turn the tables and use the growing Sunni tide against Shi'ites to its advantage in the nuclear crisis.

There is some good news from Tehran, though. Iranian officials announced on Sunday an "agreement in principle" with Russia on the idea of a joint nuclear-fuel venture on Russian soil. Establishing the facility in Russia would give that country some control over the the uranium.

The head of Russia's atomic-energy agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, was, however, more circumspect than his Iranian counterpart at a press conference. He limited himself to mentioning continuing talks in Moscow this week and a guarantee of a Russian supply of fuel for the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, that Russia is building.

He did say later, though, that "the majority of technical and financial issues pertaining to the joint enrichment project in Russia have been solved".

This, in turn, raises an important question: What about the moratorium on Iranian enrichment activities, which a mere 10 days ago was set as a precondition for the Russian proposal by Russia's officials? There are growing indications of a possible breakthrough on this thorny question, in light of a recent report by the Brussels-based organization International Crisis Group endorsing the notion of "delayed limited enrichment" by Iran. [1]

Conceptually, then, the gap between the parties in this crisis appears to be narrowing, and barring unforeseen circumstances, such as "incriminating" news about Iran's nuclear activities in light of another IAEA visit to Iran to inquire about the so-called "Green Salt" project, we can be guardedly optimistic about a breakthrough. [2]

Still, the bottle remains half-empty, and as of this writing many important details still need to be ironed out. The devil of the Russian proposal is, after all, in the details. Even Kiriyenko admitted in his press conference that the Russian proposal entailed a time-consuming chain of activities involving a whole network backed by a "study".

The scope of Iran's managerial involvement and technical participation are two related issues of tremendous concern to the US, which supports only financial participation by Iran, and it remains to be seen whether the White House will endorse any potential deal between Tehran and Moscow in the near future.

In some respects, then, the ball is at present in the US court: an inflexible US attitude could torpedo the Russian deal and force the issue at the UN Security Council, probably with less Russian backing, as Moscow for the moment favors the resolution of the issue within the IAEA framework. But that may be diplomatic maneuvering not sustainable after a collapse of Iran-Russia talks.

A flexible US response, on the other hand, could put a cap on this unpredictable crisis and allow the United States to have a proactive role, even with respect to future Iranian nuclear programs. Concerning the latter, Iran has recently referred favorably to the US-backed idea of an international fuel bank, and Iran's chief negotiator, Ali Larijani, has explicitly mentioned some recent ideas put forward by US scientists (see Asia Times Online, Closing the doors to nuclear diplomacy, February 22).

Larijani, in a recent interview with Al-Arabiya, stated that Iran was still studying certain recent proposals made by US scientists, such as the use of "automatic centrifuges" for low-enriched uranium.

Indeed, in an ideal scenario, the US could offer support to Iran in such important areas as nuclear-waste management. Compared with Russia, which has a less than desirable record on nuclear-waste management, particularly during the Cold War, the US has advanced technology and experience that it could conceivably share with Iran and thus help the cause of Iran's nuclear environmentalism.

A US role in low-level waste in Iran?
At present, the US has a couple of low-level nuclear-waste facilities - the Savannah River site in South Carolina and the Hanford site in Richland, Washington - and it passed a low-level-waste act in 1980 that could be instructional for Iranian lawmakers.

The US has shut down several sites, including one in Idaho, because of such problems as ground contamination and poor safety standards, again, all of which could be instructional for Iran. As of now, after decades of a nuclear program in Iran, there is no legislation on nuclear waste and, sadly, no nuclear environmentalism either. This is despite the presence of many environmentalist organizations in Iran focusing on pollution and other related issues.

Hypothetically, if Iran and the US were to allow a sudden U-turn in their present hostile relations and seriously to contemplate a gradual normalization, then the idea of some token US participation in the Iranian nuclear program should not be ignored.

This could begin in the area of nuclear-waste management, particularly since an Iran-Russia agreement on the return of spent fuel from the Bushehr plant to Russia covers only intermediate and high-level nuclear waste, and hence there is room for some US involvement deemed politically safe in the current environment.

At a minimum, the US could assist with facilitating a consulting role by US scientists and nuclear-waste experts with Iran's atomic-energy agency; the latter would certainly benefit from US experience, such as in the interim storage of nuclear waste.

David Lochbaum, in his book Nuclear Waste Disposal Crisis (PennWellBooks, 1996), has noted that post-Chernobyl studies have shown that Russian safety analysis "tends to place greater emphasis on prevention and early mitigation of selected design-basis accidents than it does on the consequences and mitigation of severe accidents beyond the design basis of the plant".

Another author, Raymond Murray, in his book Understanding Radioactive Waste (Battelle Press, 1994), has stated that only by means of a sophisticated computer program "can the performance of a disposal facility be predicted accurately". This, in turn, raises the question: Why shouldn't the US consider assisting Iran as it has such know-how?

Toward nuclear environmentalism in Iran
As Iran persists in its ambitious plan to expand its nuclear program through the purchase of several new reactors, among other things, the issues of license requirements and contingency plans for crisis prevention, environmental protection and the like will gain greater prominence. And again, these are areas where US nuclear experience and knowledge could be used.

The bottom line of the United States' concern about Iran's nuclear program should not just be about militarization, but about nuclear safety as well.

What is needed in Iran today, in addition to a nuclear-waste act, is a nuclear-waste fund, to underwrite fully the costs of disposal programs not covered by the agreement with Russia on the return of spent fuel, including the training of a whole new cadre of nuclear environmentalists.

But that is future thinking and, for now, the political crisis over Iran's nuclear program has first to be resolved.

Notes
1. According to the International Crisis Group, the delayed limited enrichment plan would work as follows: "The wider international community, and the West in particular, would explicitly accept that Iran cannot only produce peaceful nuclear energy but has the right to enrich domestically; in return, Iran would agree to a several-year delay in the commencement of its enrichment program, major limitations on its initial size and scope, and a highly intrusive inspections regime."

2. "Green Salt" is a term given to uranium tetrafluoride (UF4), which is a mid-point state in the process of converting uranium ore into the UF6 uranium fuel used in nuclear plants or, alternatively, further enriched for weapons-grade uranium. In essence, it is a section of the fuel cycle that Iran had not divulged. Word of the "Green Salt" project first emerged in a summary of investigations by a deputy to IAEA head ElBaradei given to a February 2-4 IAEA board meeting that resulted in a vote to report Iran's case to the UN Security Council. Western intelligence has linked this uranium-processing project to missile warhead design and tests with high explosives, although the basis for these charges remains highly debatable.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He is also author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction (forthcoming).

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing .)

U.S. senator: Iranian nuclear threat is biggest since Cold War:

“The Iranian threat to the world is the biggest since the Cold War,” Senator John Mccain told ABC television on Sunday.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3221299,00.html

===
'The vilification of Iran' :

In the current campaign against Iran, another parallel strikes me: We asked Saddam Hussein to "prove a negative" when we insisted he prove that he did not have weapons of mass destruction. Now we are asking Iran to prove another negative: that it is not developing nukes.
http://tinyurl.com/r4eyz

===
Europe scorns Iran’s nuclear ‘deal’ with Russia :

France, Germany and Britain on Monday sought to increase international pressure on Iran, dismissing Tehran’s announcement that it had reached a “basic agreement” with Russia over its controversial nuclear programme.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/14f9a2e8-a7ba-11d...00779e2340.html

===
IAEA: Iran appears determined to expand uranium enrichment program :

In a confidential report made available to The Associated Press, also suggested that unless Iran drastically increased its cooperation with an agency probe, the agency would not be able to establish whether past clandestine activities were focused on making nuclear arms.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/2...gency-iran.html

===
Charley Reese: It's Usually About Money:

Conflicts are often about money. One factor that might account for the Bush administration's hostility toward Iran is Iran's plan to open a bourse – an oil exchange – in March in which Iranian oil will be sold for euros, not dollars.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12097.htm

February 28, 2006
U.N. Agency Says It Got Few Answers From Iran on Nuclear Activity and Weapons
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
VIENNA, Feb. 27 — Iran has accelerated its nuclear fuel enrichment activities and rejected demands of international inspectors to explain evidence that had raised suspicions of a nuclear weapons program, according to a report by a United Nations agency. That could make it easier for the United States and its European partners to seek punitive action in the Security Council.

But the assessment, contained in an 11-page report released Monday by Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, made no definitive judgment about whether the program was peaceful, or intended to create the capacity to produce weapons. That surprised some governments and even some agency officials who had predicted that the report would be harsher.

The report laid out a long list of fresh examples in which Iran has stonewalled the agency, responding with incomplete and ambiguous answers and refusing repeated requests to turn over documents and information.

It called it "regrettable and a matter of concern" that Iran has not been more forthcoming after three years of intensive agency verification.

In an indication that Iran is prepared to take a tougher line against the agency and even against the United States, Iran told inspectors on Sunday that documents obtained by American intelligence suggesting links between Iran's nuclear activities and its missile program were forgeries, the report said.

The documents make reference to a secretive entity in Iran called the Green Salt Project, and seem to suggest that the project established "administrative interconnections" between Iran's uranium processing, high explosives and missile warhead design. If accurate, the documents would be the first to tie what Iran says is its purely civilian nuclear program to military activities.

But those allegations "are based on false and fabricated documents," Iranian authorities were quoted as telling an agency inspection team on Sunday, an assertion that came after months of pledges by Iran to provide information on the matter. They also declared that no such project had ever existed.

The report, released to the 35 countries that sit on the agency's decision-making board, also left unclear whether the Iranians had taken possession of copies of the disputed Green Salt documents, which would seem to be a necessary step if Tehran were to subject them to serious forensic examination and pass judgment on their authenticity.

But the shift in the Iranian position seemed intended to call into question the reliability of American intelligence reports on Iran, and to remind the international community of the far-reaching American intelligence failure in overstating Iraq's nuclear program in the months before the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A senior administration official in Washington, who declined to speak on the record because of the delicate nature of the intelligence, said that Iran had been shown only a limited number of documents from the laptop computer that American intelligence agencies had obtained from an Iranian source.

"We knew they would question the credibility of the intelligence," the official said, "but the other countries that have seen it can judge for themselves."

In another development, Iran informed the agency that it was planning at the end of this year to set up 3,000 centrifuges that enrich uranium as it moves toward industrial-scale enrichment, ignoring international demands that it return to a freeze on its uranium enrichment activities at its vast facility at Natanz, the report said. That would be enough to make a weapon if all technical problems were resolved.

The site is eventually to hold 50,000 of the machines, which would give Iran the technical ability to purify large amounts of uranium for either nuclear reactors or atomic bombs.

The report also documents a number of contradictions between claims by Iranian authorities and the inspectors' evidence.

An example of the serious discrepancies found by the atomic agency center on Iranian research on plutonium, one of the main fuels of nuclear arms. The report said the agency took a number of Iranian plutonium disks to Vienna for analysis of their makeup.

The investigators found a major disagreement between the disks and what was said to be the solution from which they were made. The analysis revealed that eight of the disks had "significantly lower" amounts of plutonium 240. That finding is important because plutonium 240 is considered a pollutant in the making of nuclear arms, and nuclear engineers work hard to limit its presence.

The report made no link between the plutonium 240 finding and its potential usefulness for making nuclear arms. Rather, in the agency's usual understated style, it simply noted the discrepancy.

"The story is not as straight as it has been presented to us," said a senior official with knowledge of the agency's investigation.

As for its enrichment activities, the report added that Iran forged ahead with the program by feeding uranium gas in mid-February into a research cascade of 10 centrifuges that process it into enriched uranium. On Feb. 22, it said, Iran tested a 20-machine cascade that is now ready to receive the uranium gas.

Under a November 2004 agreement with Britain, France and Germany, Iran agreed voluntarily to freeze all of its uranium conversion, enrichment and reprocessing activities.

But when promised economic and political rewards in exchange for the freeze were not forthcoming, Iran broke the agreement, first by restarting uranium conversion last August and then by beginning tests of enriching uranium on Feb. 11, feeding the toxic, gaseous form of the element into a single centrifuge and then expanding the program.

Despite the wealth of new information about Iran's nuclear activities, the report concluded that the agency "has not seen any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices." It reiterated, however, the analysis of past reports that it "is not at this point in time in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran."

The United States, Britain, France and a number of other governments have been strongly critical of Dr. ElBaradei for not taking a tougher stance against Iran.

But he is said to be determined to have the agency continue to play a leading role in negotiations with Iran and have as much access on the ground in Iran as possible, and is reluctant to turn Iran against him or the agency he heads, said a number of Vienna-based officials who speak with him regularly.

In recent weeks, he has even told member states that the world might have to accept the fact that Iran will not capitulate to agency demands that it renew a freeze of its enrichment activities, a stance that has enraged the United States in particular, the officials said.

But Dr. ElBaradei's report is certain to be used by the United States and the Europeans to push for a resolution critical of Iran when the agency board meets next week. On Feb. 4, the board voted to report Iran's nuclear case to the Security Council, a move that reflects increasing suspicion around the world that Iran is determined to develop nuclear weapons.

William J. Broad contributed reporting from New York for this article, and David E. Sanger from Washington.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=8610

February 28, 2006
A Way Out for Iran?
China may have it
by Gordon Prather
The Bush-Cheney Pentagon is reportedly putting finishing touches on a plan to preemptively nuke Iran for insisting on its inalienable right – guaranteed by (a) the Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, ( the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and © their Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA – to enjoy the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Meanwhile, the Bush-Cheney Department of Energy just announced plans to form a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, through which the U.S. "will work with other nations possessing advanced nuclear technologies to develop new proliferation-resistant recycling technologies in order to produce more energy, reduce waste, and minimize proliferation concerns."

"Additionally, these partner nations will develop a fuel services program to provide nuclear fuel to developing nations, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of abundant sources of clean, safe nuclear energy in a cost-effective manner in exchange for their commitment to forgo enrichment and reprocessing activities, also alleviating proliferation concerns."

Meanwhile, Bush-Cheney have managed to get the IAEA Board to "request" [.pdf] that Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei report to the UN Security Council that the Board has "required" Iran to – among other outrageous things – "reestablish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development."

So far, ElBaradei has resisted making such a report, apparently because he feels this egregious overreaching of authority by the Board could result in serious damage to the IAEA as an institution and to the NPT itself.

Now, you might suppose that if Iran quickly signed up for the Bush-Cheney GNEP – as a developing nation, forgoing enrichment and reprocessing activities – Bush-Cheney would be foiled, compelled to postpone nuking Iran indefinitely.

Wrong!

You see, as with Iraq, Bush-Cheney and the neo-crazies are determined to effect regime-change in Iran. For them, any excuse will do. But they know you soccer moms will have to be convinced that the mullahs are developing nukes to give to Islamic terrorists to ship to a U.S. port (run by the United Arab Emirates) for detonation.

Bush-Cheney know perfectly well – because ElBaradei has repeatedly told them – there is no indication that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The CIA has told Bush-Cheney that it will take the Iranians at least five years to get an industrial-scale uranium-enrichment facility operational, and another five years to make enough weapons-grade uranium to make a nuke or two.

Is there nothing Iran can do to forestall the Bush-Cheney preemptive attack?

Well, perhaps.

You see, largely because of former President Jimmy Carter and other eco-wackos, the U.S. has ceased to be a supplier of nuclear power plants, first-rate or otherwise. Hence, one of the principle goals of the GNEP is to team with existing suppliers of first-rate nuclear power plants.

Bush-Cheney "would like to develop, in partnership with other nations, advanced reactors that are passively safe, that could have a lifetime of the reactor cores, that are possibly meltdown-proof, that can be built on a modular basis, can perhaps even be factory built, shipped to a country and deployed."

You bet they would.

But is such an advanced reactor possible?

You bet!

China will actually begin construction of such a revolutionary nuclear reactor this year near Weihai, in eastern China's Shandong province. The 190-megawatt prototype "pebble-bed" nuclear reactor is expected to be generating electricity in 2010.

A pebble-bed reactor is like a giant, radiation-shielded, self-contained gumball machine, containing hundreds of thousands of billiard-ball-sized fuel elements, together with hundreds of thousands of billiard-ball-sized carbon moderators.

In operation, hundreds of the balls are continually removed (robotically) from the bottom of the gumball machine, checked (robotically) for remaining fissile-material content, logged, and reintroduced (robotically) into the top of the machine.

Once the gumball machine begins operation, it never again needs external refueling throughout its 50-plus-year continuous operating life.

The coolant, helium gas, which is chemically and physically inert, is forced down through the pebble-bed from top to bottom. Exiting through a closed loop, the hot helium gas drives electric generators before being cooled and reintroduced to the top of the machine.

The proliferation-proof, meltdown-proof pebble-bed technology development began in Germany more than 30 years ago and was continued in South Africa, but has apparently now been perfected in China.

If, as planned, similar units are produced modularly in factories in China, by 2020 China will be the world's only supplier of first-rate nuclear power plants.

So how can Iran forestall an imminent Bush-Cheney attack?

Sign up, before the next IAEA Board meeting, to be China's first customer.

Bush: We shall not let Iran have the means, the knowledge to make nuclear weapon. This would destabilize the world

March 1, 2006, 1:19 PM (GMT+02:00)

US President George W. Bush spoke on this issue with unprecedented clarity when he made an unannounced first visit to Afghanistan Wed. March 1.

Tight security surrounded his five-hour visit to Kabul and the US base at Bagram, and his talks with President Hamid Karzai. Bush was also due to open the new US Embassy before flying off to India and Pakistan.

Tuesday, US Lt.-Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the US Senate in Washington that insurgents represent a greater threat to Afghan government authority across the country today than at any point since the Taliban government's overthrow in Oct. 2001. He predicted an upsurge of Taliban operations in the spring after a fourfold increase of suicide attacks in 2005 compared with 2004.

Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.

Tehran, Moscow agree in principle on a joint uranium enrichment venture on Russian soil – as DEBKAfile predicted Feb. 24. Russia rescues Tehran from UN Security Council penalties

February 27, 2006, 12:45 PM (GMT+02:00)

The accord was announced Sunday, Feb. 26, by Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, after two days of talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Kiriyenko at the Bushehr nuclear reactor.

DEBKAfile reports: The Russians, by going along with Iran’s demands, have rescued the Islamic Republic from the threat of a US-European-Israel complaint to the UN Security Council. Referral of Iran’s nuclear breaches of the NPT was to have taken place after the critical IAEA board session in Vienna March 6.

Now, the Russian delegate will be able to ask for time to work on the details of the Moscow-Tehran accord. The Iranians will thus buy several precious months to continue to process uranium – their main objective in engaging in diplomacy in the first place. The hands of Washington, the EU and the UN are meanwhile tied over referral to the Security Council by the shadow of Russian veto hanging over any resolution penalizing Iran.

Moscow has thus delivered a sharp setback to the US-Israeli drive to put spokes in the wheels of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

DEBKAfile adds: Kirienko leads a Kremlin faction that advocates breaking ranks with Washington and Europe and striking out for a bilateral Moscow-Tehran deal that under certain conditions releases the brakes on the Islamic republic’s nuclear program,. President Vladimir Putin would have preferred to go along with the West. He was overruled by the Kirienko faction.

Our military sources report that by pulling off this accord in principle with Iran, Kirienko frees Iran to enrich uranium up to weapons grade. Israel is thus confronted with a potential strategic threat as grave - or graver - than the Hamas rise to power in Palestinian government.

In the space of a month, the two developments have tightened the Iranian noose around the Jewish state.

DEBKAfile reported earlier that the Russian go-it-alone initiative had aroused deep concern in Washington, Jerusalem and Vienna. They feared to that to succeed, Kirienko would bow to a deal that permitted hands-on Iranian involvement in the manufacturing process and decisions on quantities of the joint uranium enrichment venture in Russia. This would remove the safeguards demanded by the US and Europe against the Russian-Iranian enterprise turning out weapons-grade uranium.

According to information reaching Washington and Jerusalem, Kirienko also favors letting Iran continue enrichment at home simultaneously with the Russian-hosted enterprise.

American and Israeli suspicions were first aroused, according to our intelligence sources, by the odd behavior of Gholam Reza Aghazadeh’s delegation upon its arrival in Moscow Monday, Feb. 20, to discuss the joint plant in Russia. Its maneuvers had the appearance of a decoy operation to mystify and draw attention away from the real action elsewhere. A bulletin at the end of the day reported no progress, followed by a continuation Tuesday, which the Iranians abruptly left without explanation. Then, too, an Iranian official demanded that resumed diplomacy with the European Union take place separately with each government instead of with a joint UK-French-German delegation.

Washington took this as a declaration of divorce between the Tehran-Moscow track and Iran’s dealings with Europe and the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna and a full stop to the international drive for diplomatic action to arrest Iran’s progress toward a bomb.

Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/...em/itemID/11070

Angus Reid Global Scan : Polls & Research
Use Diplomacy on Iran Case, Say Americans
March 3, 2006

Iran: Sanctions or war?
The country’s nuclear program has spawned an international debate.
(Angus Reid Global Scan) – Many adults in the United States think military action against Iran is unwarranted at this point, according to a poll by the New York Times and CBS News. 55 per cent of respondents believe Iran is a threat that can be contained with diplomacy now, and 19 per cent say the country is not a menace to the U.S.

After being branded as part of an "axis of evil" by U.S. president George W. Bush in January 2002, Iran has contended that its nuclear program aims to produce energy, not weapons. Only 20 per cent of respondents believe Iran is a threat to the U.S. that requires military action now.

In November 2004, the Iranian government announced a voluntary suspension of its uranium enrichment program following international pressure. In August 2005, Iran resumed uranium conversion activities at the Isfahan facility. In January, Iran removed the international seals from the Natanz site.

In his Jan. 31 State of the Union address, Bush said Iran "is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions, and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons. America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats."

On Mar. 1, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said a report prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could not prove that Iran is attempting to produce nuclear weapons, adding, "Iran (...) is exercising its right to possess nuclear technology with peaceful intentions. We are opposed to nuclear weapons."

The IAEA has said that the "lack of cooperation on the part of Iranian authorities" does not allow the body to effectively conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear activities taking place inside the country.

Polling Data

Which comes closer to your opinion—Iran is a threat to the United States that requires military action now, Iran is a threat that can be contained with diplomacy now, or Iran is not a threat to the United States at this time?

Threat requiring action now
20%

Threat that can be contained
55%

Not a threat at this time
19%

Not sure
6%



Source: The New York Times / CBS News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,018 American adults, conducted from Feb. 22 to Feb. 26, 2006. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

Premature Capitulation
Don’t Endorse Pilot-Scale Enrichment in Iran


By George Perkovich

As Iran pushes the international community to the brink of crisis over its nuclear program, eminent organizations and individuals will propose “compromises” as if the burden is not on Iran to rectify its serious nuclear transgressions. Compromise will be appealing compared to war, which is the alternative that many observers and UN Security Council members believe Washington would pursue. But there are many alternatives short of war, and the wrong “compromise” today will only lead us all back to the brink tomorrow.

The leading compromise proposal is for the international community to endorse Iran’s operation of a small research and development facility for enriching uranium. Iran would run an agreed number of centrifuges – less than 500 under the International Crisis Group plan released this week – while suspending fuller-scale applications of this technology until the International Atomic Energy Agency can resolve the serious doubts that Iran’s nuclear activities have been and will be exclusively for peaceful purposes.

This is a bad idea, albeit the menu to choose from does not include any good options. (Endorsing enrichment in a country with Iran’s still unresolved nuclear record and threatening international behavior would be unwise even if enrichment made economic sense; the fact that Iran has no need for homemade nuclear fuel makes the proposal even more suspect.)

Allowing Iran to operate a pilot-scale enrichment plant would give Iranian engineers all the opportunity they need to master this technology. Once this is done, Iran has jumped the major hurdle on the route to acquiring nuclear weapons.

Proponents of pilot-scale enrichment as the least-bad option assume that Iran does not or will not have secret facilities to conduct enrichment beyond the declared pilot facility that would be heavily monitored. Iran’s failure after three years to give the IAEA an adequate explanation of what happened with the advanced centrifuge designs that Iran purchased on the black market indicates that, at least in the past, undeclared actors and facilities operated in the nuclear program. Still, proponents of the pilot-scale option argue plausibly that there is no proof that Iran now has secret facilities. Because Iran seems willing to create a major crisis and limit the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors if pilot-scale enrichment is not allowed, the hope is that giving Iran what it wants will motivate Tehran to allow intrusive inspections that will in turn deter any effort to use secret facilities to apply the knowledge gained in the pilot-scale plant.

Unfortunately, an internationally endorsed pilot-scale plant reduces the odds of detecting secret activities in several ways. If inspectors or spies detect suspicious procurement of parts or communications or other evidence related to enrichment, Iran can argue that the legitimate plant explains it. When no enrichment is allowed, any evidence is decisive; when some enrichment is allowed, all evidence may be ambiguous.

Iran’s potential to break out of the nonproliferation treaty and move fullspeed to building nuclear weapons would grow greatly once it has mastered enrichment technology. Again, proponents of the pilot-scale fallback recognize this; they just think there is no better alternative.

But the pilot-scale alternative only postpones for a little while the hard dilemmas and dangers posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran has behaved according to a very clear logic since its major nonproliferation violations were detected in 2002. Indeed, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 through 2005, Hasan Rowhani, has explained that Iran’s strategy has been to suspend only those activities that it was not ready to undertake. Once the technologists have been prepared to take a new step in acquiring the capability to produce fissile materials, they have taken it and essentially dared the international community to stop them. This happened in 2004, in August 2005 with the re-starting of the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, and in January 2006 with the end of suspension of uranium enrichment. In the Isfahan case, Iran crossed a redline established by the EU-3 and seems to have managed to erase it from the consciousness of many observers.

Iran’s behavior and articulated strategy warn clearly that once it has mastered pilot-scale enrichment it will seek to do more, and will break any agreement to the contrary. A crisis, no less dire than the current one will emerge, only then Iran will be much closer to having the capability to make bomb fuel than it is today. There is no evidence that Iranian leaders are prepared to make a strategic decision not to acquire the capability to make nuclear weapons. The pilot-scale option enables Tehran to avoid this decision and proceed as it wishes.

Perhaps there is nothing the U.S. or others in the international community can do to persuade Iranian leaders to eschew their quest for dual-use facilities. But how would we know? The U.S. has not joined directly into the negotiating process with France, Germany and the United Kingdom, so Iran has not been able to factor its interests viz a vis the U.S. None of Iran’s interlocutors, including the IAEA and its director general, has posed costs or benefits of sufficient magnitude and certainty to move Iranian decision-makers away from the path they are on.

Given the inadequacy of threats and inducements mustered thus far, many observers leap to the assumption that military attacks must be the alternative to acquiescence. Memories of the Bush Administration’s run up to the Iraq war still loom large. When President Bush says banally (and unnecessarily) “we’re not taking any option off the table,” listeners leap to the conclusion that war is on. But discussions with a wide range of U.S. officials betray keen awareness that military attacks on Iran would probably result in a worse situation than we face today, and would not solve the strategic problem posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions and support of terrorist organizations.

Fixating on the shadow of military strikes is an excuse for avoiding the hard problem of mustering international unity to confront and persuade Iran to build a nuclear energy program that inherently reassures the international community that Iran will be a constructive, not a threatening, power on the world stage. This means unity in offering more positive incentives than Washington has contemplated, and more determined political and economic pressure than Russia, China, India and others have been willing to endorse. The volume of public warnings over the obvious dangers of military attack is so high compared to discussions of political-economic strategies that one detects an avoidance of responsibility for international stewardship.

To sharpen the point, imagine if President Bush unequivocally said that there is no military solution to the strategic challenge posed by Iran, and the U.S. will conduct no military operations against Iran unless Iran or its agents attack U.S. or friendly forces. Many would not believe such a declaration, which means there is nothing the U.S. can do in this regard, but if war is set aside does it make any sense now to open the door to uranium enrichment in Iran? Again, why is war being posed as the alternative to be avoided now? Why should Iranian decision-makers and public be spared from facing a higher set of costs in maintaining the current nuclear-weapon-option strategy? Why not hold the line at the critical point of uranium enrichment and offer Iran a higher set of benefits for switching to a nuclear energy policy that the world can live with?

Even leading organizations and individuals that incline toward the pilot-scale-enrichment “compromise” recognize that it is undesirable. What is the imperative to fall back now? Doesn’t it make more sense to seriously try the diplomacy of inducements and pressure by bringing the U.S. off the sidelines and directly into the multilateral negotiations with Iran?


George Perkovich is the Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. For the latest proliferation news and resources, visit the Carnegie Proliferation News website, www.ProliferationNews.org.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Click here [or visit http://www.carnegieendowment.org/resources...?fa=newsletters] to go to the Newsletter signup page to subscribe or unsubscribe. For questions and comments, please contact proliferationnews@carnegieendowment.org.

March 4, 2006
Iran Softens Tone, but Talks With Europeans on Nuclear Program End in Bitterness
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
VIENNA, March 3 — If diplomacy were a courtship, the rendezvous between Iran and Europe in a Viennese mansion on Friday could be called a failed seduction.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, had asked for urgent talks with his former European negotiating partners, promising new ideas aimed at both restarting the negotiations and keeping Iran's nuclear case out of the United Nations Security Council.

But in nearly two hours of early morning talks, the Iranians rejected the Europeans' key demand for resuming the relationship: a return to an indefinite freeze on making enriched uranium, which can be used either to produce electricity or to make bombs.

The Europeans made their disappointment clear. "We were unable to reach agreement," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany announced tersely to reporters. Mr. Steinmeier, the host of the meeting at his ambassador's residence, offered Iran a stark ultimatum: either stop enriching uranium and "return to the table of negotiations," or face judgment before the Security Council.

Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, who had canceled a trip to Kiev, Ukraine, to attend, was just as blunt, calling the failure to reach agreement "unfortunate."

So were the other two European officials, the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, and John Sawers, the political director of the British foreign office, who had taken the place of the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who was ill.

The Iranians, according to participants in the talks, were visibly rattled. Mr. Larijani had come in with a new conciliatory tone. Gone was the combative talk about Iran's sovereign right to enrich uranium as a signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Rather, Mr. Larijani expressed sympathy for the European approach and support for the need to build confidence on all sides, so talks could continue under a November 2004 agreement with France, Germany and Britain. That agreement froze Iran's enrichment-related activities in exchange for potential political and economic rewards.

To that end, he said that Iran would be willing to implement a two-year moratorium on industrial-scale uranium enrichment and recommit itself to a more thorough inspection of its facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

However, continuation of the small-scale uranium enrichment operation that Iran restarted last month at its vast Natanz facility, and which Iran says is for research purposes, was nonnegotiable.

The Europeans, who spoke on condition of anonymity under diplomatic rules, said they were not surprised. But they responded with a quiet ferocity that has been unusual in their dealings with Iran.

Mr. Steinmeier rejected Mr. Larijani's request that the two sides announce publicly that "progress" had been made. He also brushed off Mr. Larijani's objection to public statements by the Europeans that no agreement had been reached.

The German foreign minister even said that since there was no progress to report, it made no sense for Mr. Larijani to join in the brief encounter with the news media on the steps of the ambassador's residence.

In an apparent protest, the Iranian delegation, which had pitched its flag next to those of Britain, France, Germany and the European Union, carried it away before the Europeans made their statements.

The dispute moves next to the session of the 35-country board of the International Atomic Energy Agency that will open in Vienna on Monday. In early February, the board overwhelmingly voted to report Iran's case to the Security Council, a move that reflected increasing suspicion that Iran was determined to develop nuclear weapons. The resolution allows Security Council action against Iran after a delay of at least a month.

It is not yet certain whether the board will try to pass another resolution next week, or whether one would be needed before the Security Council acts.

While the Europeans, together with the United States and a number of other countries, seem to be eager to have the Security Council take up the Iran issue, Russia is extremely reluctant.

Like the Europeans, the Russians had demanded that Iran stop uranium enrichment at Natanz. When Mr. Larijani was in Russia on Thursday, the Russians rejected the same offer he later presented to the Europeans, participants in Friday's meeting said.

But Russia does not support sending the matter to the Security Council, for fear that it would set off an irrevocable march toward punitive measures.

Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said Friday there was still time before the nuclear agency's board meeting to reach an agreement, one that would keep the agency at the center of efforts to resolve the confrontation.

"If the issues are sent to the Security Council, we are concerned that this would lead to escalation of the situation," Mr. Lavrov said, speaking in English, in an interview with American news organizations in Moscow. "I know how the Security Council works: you start with a soft reminder, then you call upon, then you require, then you demand, then you threaten. It will become a self-propelling function."

The Russians are negotiating with Iran on a possible face-saving joint venture, in which Russia would enrich Iran's uranium on Russian soil, under Russian control.

That procedure would allow Iran to continue to operate its Isfahan plant, which converts raw uranium into a form that is ready to be enriched, but not to master enrichment technology.

Contradicting Mr. Steinmeier, who said in Vienna that "time is running out," Mr. Lavrov said there was still time to resolve the crisis. But he acknowledged that he had no clear idea of how to proceed if Iran insisted on defying the agency's demands.

"I am very frank with you," he said. "I don't have an answer. I don't think anybody else has an answer."

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Moscow for this article.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

March 5, 2006
As Crisis Brews, Iran Hits Bumps in Atomic Path
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
When Iran defiantly cut the locks and seals on its nuclear enrichment plants in January and restarted its effort to manufacture atomic fuel, it forced the world to confront a momentous question: How long will it be before Tehran has the ability to produce a bomb that would alter the balance of power in the Middle East?

Iran's claims that it is racing forward with enrichment have created an air of crisis as the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency prepares to meet tomorrow in Vienna before the United Nations Security Council takes up the Iran file for possible penalties.

Yet behind the sense of immediate alarm lies a more complex picture of Iran's nuclear potential. Interviews with many of the world's leading nuclear analysts and a review of technical assessments show that Iran continues to wrestle with serious problems that have slowed its nuclear ambitions for more than two decades.

Obstacles, the experts say, remain at virtually every step on the atomic road. The most significant, they add, involve the two most technically challenging aspects of the process — converting uranium ore to a toxic gas and, especially, spinning that gas into enriched atomic fuel.

According to the analysts, the Iranians need to do repairs and build new machines at a prototype plant before they can begin enriching even modest quantities of uranium. And then, for a decade, they would have to mass produce 100 centrifuges a week to fill the cavernous industrial enrichment halls at Natanz. What is more, the gas meant to feed those machines is plagued by impurities.

The perception gap was underscored in February when Tehran issued a stark warning. By late this year, Iranian officials said, they would begin installing nearly 3,000 centrifuges at the giant Natanz plant, buried deep underground to withstand attack. That many centrifuges, international inspectors knew, could make fuel for up to 10 nuclear warheads every year.

In Washington and Europe, the announcement was dismissed as an empty boast. "Maybe they can move that fast," said a senior American official who tracks Iran's program but who declined to be named because it is an intelligence matter. "But they would need lots of help, luck and prayer."

Tehran maintains that it has every right to master the atomic basics in pursuit of a peaceful program of nuclear power. But more and more countries have come to view that as a cover story.

Estimates of just when Iran might acquire a nuclear weapon range from alarmist views of only a few months to roughly 15 years. American intelligence agencies say it will take 5 to 10 years for Iran to manufacture the fuel for its first atomic bomb. Most forecasters acknowledge that secret Iranian advances or black market purchases could produce a technological surprise.

Conservative forecasts often take into account not only the technical difficulties but also a political judgment: that Tehran will run for the finish line — making its first bomb — only when it can rapidly produce a large arsenal.

A further uncertainty is defining the exact point at which Iran's nuclear program would become an unstoppable threat. While most analysts identify the greatest danger as when Iran can produce nuclear fuel — the hardest part of the bomb venture, far more difficult than designing a warhead — others, particularly the Israelis, say the tipping point may come earlier, when Tehran has accumulated a critical mass of atomic knowledge.

For all the bluster and anxiety of the moment, Iran's atomic history is a conundrum of delay: given its wealth of atomic scientists and oil revenues, why was Tehran unable to succeed years ago?

After all, it took only three years for the United States to build the world's first atom bomb. It took Pakistan and North Korea, poor by Western standards, roughly a decade to get enough material for their first nuclear devices. Iran, by most estimates, has been moving toward the same objective for at least two decades.

Some of Iran's nuclear troubles can be traced to wavering political commitment by mullahs more interested in creating a theocracy than unlocking the secrets of the atom. And many top scientists fled after the Islamic revolution of 1979.

But the United States created other obstacles. In the 1990's, it pressured Russia, China and other nations to end deals that would have given the Iranian program a jump-start. Some of those maneuvers were covert; some played out in the press.

"In retrospect, we impeded a lot more of their progress than we knew," said Robert J. Einhorn, a central player in nuclear diplomacy in the Clinton administration and the early days of the Bush administration.

In Washington and around the world, assessments of Iran's technological maturity have driven deliberations over what to do. American and Israeli planners have quietly debated the possibility and the risks of military strikes, including whether they would be more effective soon or only after Iran has built a much larger infrastructure.

At least publicly, though, the Bush administration has followed a different strategy than it did with Iraq. After the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction there, President Bush has never argued that Iran poses an imminent threat, and his aides have called for diplomacy.

"There are still certain techniques and pieces of know-how that we do not believe that they have," Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, said in February.

Most experts focus on uranium and ignore Iran's work on plutonium, another bo