http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20060...21845-5181r.htm
Russia, China slam Iran's nuke plans
April 13, 2006
TEHRAN -- The world's leading powers, including Russia and China, joined the United States in expressing heightened concern yesterday over Iran's advancing its nuclear program in defiance of the United Nations.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Washington, urged the U.N. Security Council to take unspecified "strong steps" to preserve its credibility. The Russian government repeated its assertion that force could not resolve the dispute.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton went in more detail than Miss Rice, saying that Washington would seek a Chapter 7 resolution at the council. The chapter deals with threats to peace and allows the use of military force as a response.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran for the first time had succeeded in enriching uranium on a small scale, a key step in generating fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb. He warned yesterday that forcing Iran to suspend its enrichment program would "cause everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians."
The U.N. Security Council has set April 28 as a deadline for Tehran to halt enrichment activity, although no consequences have been specified.
Miss Rice reiterated those demands yesterday.
"This is not a question of Iran's right to civil nuclear power. ... The world does not believe that Iran should have the capability and the technology that could lead to a nuclear weapon," she said, during a welcoming ceremony for President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea in Washington.
Asked whether the council would impose sanctions on Iran, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "That's a possibility as well, that's one option that's available."
Russia and China, key players to the Iran issue with veto rights at the Security Council, have thus far opposed sanctions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that the use of force was no answer to the standoff with Iran.
"If such plans exist, they will not be able to solve this problem. On the contrary, they could create a dangerous explosive blaze in the Middle East, where there are already enough blazes," he said.
Russia and China rejected a Chapter 7 resolution yesterday, indicating that they are not ready to condemn Iran as a threat to international peace and security. "There is no reason for punitive measures yet," Russian Ambassador Andrei Denisov said at the United Nations.
"There is no evidence of noncompliance with the nonproliferation [treaty]."
Representatives of several key council members said yesterday that they do not intend to hold substantive discussions until after they read an upcoming report by Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. oversight agency.
Upon arrival in Tehran late yesterday, Mr. ElBaradei said he hoped to persuade Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities.
"We hope to convince Iran to take confidence-building measures including suspension of uranium enrichment activities until outstanding issues are clarified," he told journalists at the Tehran airport.
"I would like to see Iran come to terms with the request of the international community."
The IAEA chief is scheduled to inspect the site where Iran claims to have enriched uranium in a laboratory by using 164 centrifuges.
Iran signaled its resolve to continue enrichment yesterday. "We will expand uranium enrichment to industrial scale at Natanz," Iranian Deputy Nuclear Chief Mohammad Saeedi told state-run television.
Mr. Saeedi said using 54,000 centrifuges will be able to produce enough enriched uranium to provide fuel for a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant like one Russia is finishing in southern Iran.
Scientists say that many centrifuges could produce enough uranium for more than a dozen atomic bombs each year.
Iranian Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, the armed forces joint chief of staff, said yesterday, "When a people master nuclear technology and nuclear fuel, nothing can be done against them. The West can do nothing and is obliged to extend to us the hand of friendship."
An IAEA diplomat in Vienna, Austria, where the IAEA is based, said U.N. inspectors would brief Mr. ElBaradei on their recent findings at Iranian nuclear sites and on Iran's claim to have enriched uranium by 3.5 percent, a level needed to fuel a nuclear reactor. "This will guide him in his discussions with Iranian leaders," he said.
Mr. ElBaradei will reiterate to Iran recent calls by the IAEA and the Security Council for a halt to all enrichment work, and seek answers to IAEA queries for his next report to the council.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged all parties to return to talks and "cool down the rhetoric." Three European states behind a deal to suspend enrichment, which broke down last year, weighed in with criticism of Iran.
British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said the announcement was "deeply unhelpful" and undermined confidence. His German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said Iran was "going in precisely the wrong direction." French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called it "a worrying step" and Iran should stop its "dangerous activities."
Betsy Pisik contributed to this report from New York.
Full Version: War Against Iran in "Final Planning"
Common Ground Common Sense > Issues that Affect Our Lives > Foreign Policy and National Defense > Foreign Policy & National Defense Issues Archive
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=77004
Talking Sense On Iran
What will the U.S. do about Iran? Sanction? Bomb? Invade?
How about... nothing.
That's right, nothing.
So suggests a Republican member of the U.S. House who has been sounding the alarm in Congress about the rush to act against what he dismisses as nothing more than "the next neocon target."
"There is no evidence of a threat to us by Iran, and no reason to plan and initiate a confrontation with her," argues Representative Ron Paul, the conservative from Texas who has in recent weeks voiced the loudest and most consistent objections to attempts by the Bush administration and its allies in Congress to suggest that U.S. military action may be needed to avert a supposed nuclear threat from the country.
An "Old Right" Republican with a long libertarian streak who has been repeatedly reelected from a Texas district where American flags wave in the breezes blowing off the Gulf of Mexico, and where the word "patriot" is taken seriously by the congressman and his constituents, Paul offers the answer to the despairing question of whether there is anyone in Congress who recognizes that the course proposed by the Bush administration and its neoconservative gurus is one of sheer madness.
Instead of planning an attack, the Texas Republican argues, "There are many reasons not to do so."
In a detailed address delivered on the floor of the House last week, Paul detailed them:
Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and there's no evidence that she is working on one -- only conjecture.
If Iran had a nuclear weapon, why would this be different from Pakistan, India, and North Korea having one? Why does Iran have less right to a defensive weapon than these other countries?
If Iran had a nuclear weapon, the odds of her initiating an attack against anybody-- which would guarantee her own annihilation-- are zero. And the same goes for the possibility she would place weapons in the hands of a non-state terrorist group.
Pakistan has spread nuclear technology throughout the world, and in particular to the North Koreans. They flaunt international restrictions on nuclear weapons. But we reward them just as we reward India.
We needlessly and foolishly threaten Iran even though they have no nuclear weapons. But listen to what a leading Israeli historian, Martin Van Creveld, had to say about this: "Obviously, we don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don't know if they're developing them, but if they're not developing them, they're crazy."
There's been a lot of misinformation regarding Iran's nuclear program. This distortion of the truth has been used to pump up emotions in Congress to pass resolutions condemning her and promoting UN sanctions.
IAEA Director General Mohamed El Baradi has never reported any evidence of 'undeclared' sources or special nuclear material in Iran, or any diversion of nuclear material.
We demand that Iran prove it is not in violation of nuclear agreements, which is asking them impossibly to prove a negative. El Baradi states Iran is in compliance with the nuclear NPT required IAEA safeguard agreement.
We forget that the weapons we feared Saddam Hussein had were supplied to him by the U.S., and we refused to believe UN inspectors and the CIA that he no longer had them.
Likewise, Iran received her first nuclear reactor from us. Now we're hysterically wondering if someday she might decide to build a bomb in self interest.
Anti-Iran voices, beating the drums of confrontation, distort the agreement made in Paris and the desire of Iran to restart the enrichment process. Their suspension of the enrichment process was voluntary, and not a legal obligation. Iran has an absolute right under the NPT (nuclear proliferation treaty) to develop and use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and this is now said to be an egregious violation of the NPT. It's the U.S. and her allies that are distorting and violating the NPT. Likewise our provision of nuclear materials to India is a clear violation of the NPT.
Noting that the same neoconservatives who steered the United States into the quagmire that is Iraq now want to start a new preemptive war with Iran -- not because a fight in needed but in order to achieve the regime change they desire -- Paul says what ought to be the official line of all rational observers of the situation: "Hysterical fear of Iran is way out of proportion to reality."
The Texas Republican, who opposed the rush to war with Iraq in 2002 and remains a steadfast critic of the endeavor, also proposes the rational counter to neoconservative calls for a new war.
With a policy of containment, we stood down and won the Cold War against the Soviets and their 30,000 nuclear weapons and missiles. If you're looking for a real kook with a bomb to worry about, North Korea would be high on the list. Yet we negotiate with Kim Jong Il. Pakistan has nukes and was a close ally of the Taliban up until 9/11. Pakistan was never inspected by the IAEA as to their military capability. Yet we not only talk to her, we provide economic assistance-- though someday Musharraf may well be overthrown and a pro-al Qaeda government put in place. We have been nearly obsessed with talking about regime change in Iran, while ignoring Pakistan and North Korea. It makes no sense and it's a very costly and dangerous policy.
The conclusion we should derive from this is simple: It's in our best interest to pursue a foreign policy of non-intervention. A strict interpretation of the Constitution mandates it. The moral imperative of not imposing our will on others, no matter how well intentioned, is a powerful argument for minding our own business. The principle of self-determination should be respected. Strict non-intervention removes the incentives for foreign powers and corporate interests to influence our policies overseas. We can't afford the cost that intervention requires, whether through higher taxes or inflation. If the moral arguments against intervention don't suffice for some, the practical arguments should.
Intervention just doesn't work. It backfires and ultimately hurts American citizens both at home and abroad. Spreading ourselves too thin around the world actually diminishes our national security through a weakened military. As the superpower of the world, a constant interventionist policy is perceived as arrogant, and greatly undermines our ability to use diplomacy in a positive manner.
Conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, and many of today's liberals have all at one time or another endorsed a less interventionist foreign policy. There's no reason a coalition of these groups might not once again present the case for a pro-American, non-militant, non-interventionist foreign policy dealing with all nations. A policy of trade and peace, and a willingness to use diplomacy, is far superior to the foreign policy that has evolved over the past 60 years.
It's time for a change.
Indeed, it is.
Where to begin? How about with the Democrats in Congress?
Isn't it time for the so-called "opposition party" to start talking as much sense about Iran as a member of the president's own party?
Talking Sense On Iran
What will the U.S. do about Iran? Sanction? Bomb? Invade?
How about... nothing.
That's right, nothing.
So suggests a Republican member of the U.S. House who has been sounding the alarm in Congress about the rush to act against what he dismisses as nothing more than "the next neocon target."
"There is no evidence of a threat to us by Iran, and no reason to plan and initiate a confrontation with her," argues Representative Ron Paul, the conservative from Texas who has in recent weeks voiced the loudest and most consistent objections to attempts by the Bush administration and its allies in Congress to suggest that U.S. military action may be needed to avert a supposed nuclear threat from the country.
An "Old Right" Republican with a long libertarian streak who has been repeatedly reelected from a Texas district where American flags wave in the breezes blowing off the Gulf of Mexico, and where the word "patriot" is taken seriously by the congressman and his constituents, Paul offers the answer to the despairing question of whether there is anyone in Congress who recognizes that the course proposed by the Bush administration and its neoconservative gurus is one of sheer madness.
Instead of planning an attack, the Texas Republican argues, "There are many reasons not to do so."
In a detailed address delivered on the floor of the House last week, Paul detailed them:
Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and there's no evidence that she is working on one -- only conjecture.
If Iran had a nuclear weapon, why would this be different from Pakistan, India, and North Korea having one? Why does Iran have less right to a defensive weapon than these other countries?
If Iran had a nuclear weapon, the odds of her initiating an attack against anybody-- which would guarantee her own annihilation-- are zero. And the same goes for the possibility she would place weapons in the hands of a non-state terrorist group.
Pakistan has spread nuclear technology throughout the world, and in particular to the North Koreans. They flaunt international restrictions on nuclear weapons. But we reward them just as we reward India.
We needlessly and foolishly threaten Iran even though they have no nuclear weapons. But listen to what a leading Israeli historian, Martin Van Creveld, had to say about this: "Obviously, we don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don't know if they're developing them, but if they're not developing them, they're crazy."
There's been a lot of misinformation regarding Iran's nuclear program. This distortion of the truth has been used to pump up emotions in Congress to pass resolutions condemning her and promoting UN sanctions.
IAEA Director General Mohamed El Baradi has never reported any evidence of 'undeclared' sources or special nuclear material in Iran, or any diversion of nuclear material.
We demand that Iran prove it is not in violation of nuclear agreements, which is asking them impossibly to prove a negative. El Baradi states Iran is in compliance with the nuclear NPT required IAEA safeguard agreement.
We forget that the weapons we feared Saddam Hussein had were supplied to him by the U.S., and we refused to believe UN inspectors and the CIA that he no longer had them.
Likewise, Iran received her first nuclear reactor from us. Now we're hysterically wondering if someday she might decide to build a bomb in self interest.
Anti-Iran voices, beating the drums of confrontation, distort the agreement made in Paris and the desire of Iran to restart the enrichment process. Their suspension of the enrichment process was voluntary, and not a legal obligation. Iran has an absolute right under the NPT (nuclear proliferation treaty) to develop and use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and this is now said to be an egregious violation of the NPT. It's the U.S. and her allies that are distorting and violating the NPT. Likewise our provision of nuclear materials to India is a clear violation of the NPT.
Noting that the same neoconservatives who steered the United States into the quagmire that is Iraq now want to start a new preemptive war with Iran -- not because a fight in needed but in order to achieve the regime change they desire -- Paul says what ought to be the official line of all rational observers of the situation: "Hysterical fear of Iran is way out of proportion to reality."
The Texas Republican, who opposed the rush to war with Iraq in 2002 and remains a steadfast critic of the endeavor, also proposes the rational counter to neoconservative calls for a new war.
With a policy of containment, we stood down and won the Cold War against the Soviets and their 30,000 nuclear weapons and missiles. If you're looking for a real kook with a bomb to worry about, North Korea would be high on the list. Yet we negotiate with Kim Jong Il. Pakistan has nukes and was a close ally of the Taliban up until 9/11. Pakistan was never inspected by the IAEA as to their military capability. Yet we not only talk to her, we provide economic assistance-- though someday Musharraf may well be overthrown and a pro-al Qaeda government put in place. We have been nearly obsessed with talking about regime change in Iran, while ignoring Pakistan and North Korea. It makes no sense and it's a very costly and dangerous policy.
The conclusion we should derive from this is simple: It's in our best interest to pursue a foreign policy of non-intervention. A strict interpretation of the Constitution mandates it. The moral imperative of not imposing our will on others, no matter how well intentioned, is a powerful argument for minding our own business. The principle of self-determination should be respected. Strict non-intervention removes the incentives for foreign powers and corporate interests to influence our policies overseas. We can't afford the cost that intervention requires, whether through higher taxes or inflation. If the moral arguments against intervention don't suffice for some, the practical arguments should.
Intervention just doesn't work. It backfires and ultimately hurts American citizens both at home and abroad. Spreading ourselves too thin around the world actually diminishes our national security through a weakened military. As the superpower of the world, a constant interventionist policy is perceived as arrogant, and greatly undermines our ability to use diplomacy in a positive manner.
Conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, and many of today's liberals have all at one time or another endorsed a less interventionist foreign policy. There's no reason a coalition of these groups might not once again present the case for a pro-American, non-militant, non-interventionist foreign policy dealing with all nations. A policy of trade and peace, and a willingness to use diplomacy, is far superior to the foreign policy that has evolved over the past 60 years.
It's time for a change.
Indeed, it is.
Where to begin? How about with the Democrats in Congress?
Isn't it time for the so-called "opposition party" to start talking as much sense about Iran as a member of the president's own party?
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/W_200...4.html#47F651CD
IAEA Chief Leaves Iran Without Deal on Nuclear Freeze
From Friday, April 14, 2006 issue.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei left Iran last night without persuading Tehran to stop uranium enrichment, the New York Times reported (see GSN, April 13).
Diplomats in Europe also said that Iran appears ready to double the size of its production facilities in the coming weeks.
ElBaradei met with Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Iranian Atomic Organization, and Ali Larijani, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator. According to a diplomat familiar with the meeting, ElBaradei told them, “you have achieved your goal, and this would be a good time to pause, and allow negotiations to restart.”
“There wasn't a rejection of this, or an embrace of this. They are very aware that he will be writing a report two weeks from now” to the U.N. Security Council, the diplomat added (Fathi/Sanger, New York Times, April 14).
ElBaradei said that Larijani had recommitted “to provide clarity to outstanding issues before I write my report to the (International Atomic Energy Agency) board by the end of this month.”
He said the time was “ripe” for a political solution to the crisis, the Associated Press reported. Larijani, however, reaffirmed Iran’s stance that it would not again halt enrichment of uranium. “Such proposals are not very important ones,” he told reporters while standing alongside ElBaradei.
ElBaradei said he is unsure as to the extent of the nuclear program, according to AP.
“We have not seen diversion of nuclear material for weapons purposes, but the picture is still hazy and not very clear,” he said.
He added that “lots of activities went unreported” over the last 20 years of Iran’s nuclear program (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press I/Houston Chronicle, April 14).
Intelligence agencies in the United States continue to believe that it would take Iran years to prepare sufficient amounts of enriched uranium for a bomb, USA Today reported today.
“Our timeline hasn't changed,” said Thomas Fingar, chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
Gen. Michael Hayden, the No. 2 U.S. intelligence official, said “we believe that Iran is intent on developing a nuclear weapon.”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan added that President George W. Bush was skeptical about the situation being resolved peacefully “give the regime’s history.”
National Counterproliferation Center chief Kenneth Brill said that Iran’s claims must be separated from its actual capabilities.
“An announcement is one thing,” he said, referring to Iran’s stated plans to build 3,000 centrifuges as the first step in a 54,000-centrifuge cascade.
“It will take several years to build that many centrifuges,” Brill said (John Diamond, USA Today, April 14).
Chinese, European Union, Russian and U.S. officials are expected to meet Tuesday in Moscow for further talks on the nuclear standoff, AP reported.
China announced that Cui Tiankai, assistant to Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, would visit Iran and Russia over the next four days. Russia and China have opposed U.S. efforts to impose sanctions against Tehran.
The U.S. Embassy in Russia said Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns would be in Russia on Monday to meet with the Group of Eight political directors (Associated Press II/New York Times, April 14).
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday the United States “would look at the full range of options” at the Security Council’s disposal in deciding how to deal with Iran, the Associated Press reported.
There will “have to be some consequence” for Iran’s actions, she said after meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay.
“There is no doubt that Iran continues to defy the will of the international community despite the fact that the international community very clearly said stop,” Rice added (Katherine Shrader, Associated Press III/Ohmy News, April 14).
MacKay, for the first time, outlined Canada’s stance on how to deal with Iran, according to a report carried in the Ottawa Citizen.
“I believe Canada is in the position that we do support the international need to respond in one voice, the need to demonstrate to Iran that we very clearly want them to comply on pain of sanctions if sanctions are necessary,” he said.
However, sanctions should only follow a series of “progressive responses” in the next few months.
“I don't think we want to take any drastic steps that would destabilize the very volatile situation right now,” he said. “We do believe it is necessary to start weighing all of these options in very short order” (Peter Morton, Financial Post; Steven Edwards, CanWest News Service/Ottawa Citizen, April 14).
IAEA Chief Leaves Iran Without Deal on Nuclear Freeze
From Friday, April 14, 2006 issue.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei left Iran last night without persuading Tehran to stop uranium enrichment, the New York Times reported (see GSN, April 13).
Diplomats in Europe also said that Iran appears ready to double the size of its production facilities in the coming weeks.
ElBaradei met with Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Iranian Atomic Organization, and Ali Larijani, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator. According to a diplomat familiar with the meeting, ElBaradei told them, “you have achieved your goal, and this would be a good time to pause, and allow negotiations to restart.”
“There wasn't a rejection of this, or an embrace of this. They are very aware that he will be writing a report two weeks from now” to the U.N. Security Council, the diplomat added (Fathi/Sanger, New York Times, April 14).
ElBaradei said that Larijani had recommitted “to provide clarity to outstanding issues before I write my report to the (International Atomic Energy Agency) board by the end of this month.”
He said the time was “ripe” for a political solution to the crisis, the Associated Press reported. Larijani, however, reaffirmed Iran’s stance that it would not again halt enrichment of uranium. “Such proposals are not very important ones,” he told reporters while standing alongside ElBaradei.
ElBaradei said he is unsure as to the extent of the nuclear program, according to AP.
“We have not seen diversion of nuclear material for weapons purposes, but the picture is still hazy and not very clear,” he said.
He added that “lots of activities went unreported” over the last 20 years of Iran’s nuclear program (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press I/Houston Chronicle, April 14).
Intelligence agencies in the United States continue to believe that it would take Iran years to prepare sufficient amounts of enriched uranium for a bomb, USA Today reported today.
“Our timeline hasn't changed,” said Thomas Fingar, chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
Gen. Michael Hayden, the No. 2 U.S. intelligence official, said “we believe that Iran is intent on developing a nuclear weapon.”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan added that President George W. Bush was skeptical about the situation being resolved peacefully “give the regime’s history.”
National Counterproliferation Center chief Kenneth Brill said that Iran’s claims must be separated from its actual capabilities.
“An announcement is one thing,” he said, referring to Iran’s stated plans to build 3,000 centrifuges as the first step in a 54,000-centrifuge cascade.
“It will take several years to build that many centrifuges,” Brill said (John Diamond, USA Today, April 14).
Chinese, European Union, Russian and U.S. officials are expected to meet Tuesday in Moscow for further talks on the nuclear standoff, AP reported.
China announced that Cui Tiankai, assistant to Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, would visit Iran and Russia over the next four days. Russia and China have opposed U.S. efforts to impose sanctions against Tehran.
The U.S. Embassy in Russia said Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns would be in Russia on Monday to meet with the Group of Eight political directors (Associated Press II/New York Times, April 14).
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday the United States “would look at the full range of options” at the Security Council’s disposal in deciding how to deal with Iran, the Associated Press reported.
There will “have to be some consequence” for Iran’s actions, she said after meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay.
“There is no doubt that Iran continues to defy the will of the international community despite the fact that the international community very clearly said stop,” Rice added (Katherine Shrader, Associated Press III/Ohmy News, April 14).
MacKay, for the first time, outlined Canada’s stance on how to deal with Iran, according to a report carried in the Ottawa Citizen.
“I believe Canada is in the position that we do support the international need to respond in one voice, the need to demonstrate to Iran that we very clearly want them to comply on pain of sanctions if sanctions are necessary,” he said.
However, sanctions should only follow a series of “progressive responses” in the next few months.
“I don't think we want to take any drastic steps that would destabilize the very volatile situation right now,” he said. “We do believe it is necessary to start weighing all of these options in very short order” (Peter Morton, Financial Post; Steven Edwards, CanWest News Service/Ottawa Citizen, April 14).
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/...60414-voa01.htm
Iran Rejects UN Appeal for Nuclear Freeze
By VOA News
14 April 2006
Iran has rejected an appeal from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency to suspend its uranium enrichment activities.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani met with IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in Tehran Thursday. Afterward he said such demands are not important.
ElBaradei said Iran reiterated its promise to clarify outstanding issues regarding its nuclear program. He said he has yet to confirm Iran's claim of enriching uranium to a level used in nuclear power plants - a breakthrough Tehran announced Tuesday.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran could face escalating international penalties if it ignores a U.N. Security Council demand to halt its nuclear work. She said one option is the chapter seven resolution of the U.N. charter, which could allow for sanctions against Iran.
Last month, the Security Council gave Iran 30 days to suspend uranium enrichment. The IAEA chief is expected to report to the U.N. body on Iran's compliance by April 28.
The United States accuses Iran of running a secret nuclear weapons program - a charge Tehran denies.
China's Assistant Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai is to begin Friday, a trip to Iran and Russia in an attempt to defuse the Iranian nuclear issue.
Iran Rejects UN Appeal for Nuclear Freeze
By VOA News
14 April 2006
Iran has rejected an appeal from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency to suspend its uranium enrichment activities.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani met with IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in Tehran Thursday. Afterward he said such demands are not important.
ElBaradei said Iran reiterated its promise to clarify outstanding issues regarding its nuclear program. He said he has yet to confirm Iran's claim of enriching uranium to a level used in nuclear power plants - a breakthrough Tehran announced Tuesday.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran could face escalating international penalties if it ignores a U.N. Security Council demand to halt its nuclear work. She said one option is the chapter seven resolution of the U.N. charter, which could allow for sanctions against Iran.
Last month, the Security Council gave Iran 30 days to suspend uranium enrichment. The IAEA chief is expected to report to the U.N. body on Iran's compliance by April 28.
The United States accuses Iran of running a secret nuclear weapons program - a charge Tehran denies.
China's Assistant Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai is to begin Friday, a trip to Iran and Russia in an attempt to defuse the Iranian nuclear issue.
QUOTATION FOR THE DAY
THE INEVITABILITY OF CONFLICT CAN BECOME ONE OF ITS MAIN CAUSES.
--Joseph S. Nye Jr., ?Fear of Chinese Guns: Best Defense Is Not to Offer Any Offense (San Francisco Chronicle, April 9)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...ING9JI4LOQ1.DTL
US COMMITTED TO DIPLOMACY ON IRAN - WYNDHAM HARTLEY (BUSINESS DAY, SA, APRIL 11): Cape Town US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes yesterday insisted that the US wanted a diplomatic resolution to the increasingly heated row with Iran over its nuclear capability.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/nati...x?ID=BD4A184353
IRAN, NOW EDITORIAL (NATIONAL REVIEW): We should massively increase our pro-democracy broadcasts into Iran, both by funding U.S.-based Farsi satellite-TV networks and by exercising a modicum of intelligence in our Voice of America programming. VOA officials act like they're running the Columbia School of Journalism, but "balance" should count for a lot less than inspiring the Iranians to rouse themselves against tyranny and explaining to them the value of what we have over against what they don't have. We should also send them the message -- through both broadcasts and the utterances of our diplomatic establishment -- that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons will only isolate them and entrench the mullahs they so despise.
http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/ed...00604130746.asp
EU'S PUBLIC DIPLOMACY DISASTER - HOSSEIN DERAKHSHAN (EDITOR: MYSELF -- A WEBLOG ON IRAN, TECHNOLOGY AND POP CULTURE, APRIL 12): Iran's public diplomacy's success in selling its dangerous nuclear plans to even moderates in Iran means that the EU has really failed. The EU failed to get their message to Iranian people that they are not against Iran's producing nuclear energy.
http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/015169.shtml
PRESIDENT WARNS OPPOSITION AGAINST ANTI-IRAN PROPAGANDA (IRNA, IRAN, APRIL 12): President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Wednesday said that if the hostile groups further continue their propaganda and psychological war against Iran the nation will hate them forever and they can never expect to have mutual relations.
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0...26839150213.htm
TEHRAN EXPANDS PUBLIC OUTREACH - ILAN BERMAN (IRAN DEMOCRACY MONITOR, NO. 7, APRIL 12): Iran's state-controlled broadcasting sector is branching out in a different direction. Ezzattolah Zarghami, the head of Iran's official Voice of the Islamic Republic and Vision of the Islamic Republic radio and television stations, has revealed that government plans are underway for the establishment of a new public diplomacy vehicle: an English-language news station.
http://www.afpc.org/idm/idm7.shtml (SCROLL DOWN LINK FOR ITEM)
PREVENTING TURKEY'S POPULAR SLIDE AWAY FROM THE WEST - SONER CAGAPTAY (POLICYWATCH #1093, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY): Through high-level meetings, the best way of getting opinions across to the Turkish elite, and through public diplomacy, Washington should tell Turks that Turkey belongs to the West and that the United States and Turkey share secular democratic values and an interest in fighting terrorism. In terms of public diplomacy efforts, eliminating the Voice of America?s Turkish services, as proposed in the 2007 budget, would be dangerous at a time when al-Jazeera has plans to start a Turkish broadcast.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2458
VIA
http://eccentricstar.typepad.com/
STATE DEPARTMENT LOSES KOREA EXPERTS - BY SEUNG-RYUN KIM (DONGA, SOUTH KOREA, APRIL 14): James Foster, the incumbent Korean Office director at the State department, is expected to be replaced. Foster might be recorded as the first diplomat to open his home to Korean correspondents. Since February 2005, he has invited Korean correspondents in Washington to dinner in small groups. Three or four diplomats at the DOS Korean Office also attended the dinner meetings. The meetings were for putting into practice ?public diplomacy, which has particularly been emphasized by the Bush administration.
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?...d=2006041405418
KREMLIN TAKES STEPS TO POLISH RUSSIA'S IMAGE ABROAD: TACTIC COMES AMID US CRITICISM AS G8 SUMMIT NEARS - TOM PARFITT (BOSTON GLOBE APRIL 11): President Putin has faced calls in recent weeks to ratchet up public diplomacy to improve Russia's international standing. Some elites in Moscow are worried the set-piece meeting of Group of Eight leaders in St. Petersburg in July could be a public relations disaster if the United States keeps up what is perceived here as an ''information war" on Russia. Igor Panarin, a professor from the foreign ministry's diplomatic academy, says: ''There is so much ignorance about Russia in the US: we need to appoint at least a deputy foreign minister to coordinate our own public diplomacy drive."
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/ar...s_image_abroad/
RUMSFELD: THE MEDIA WAR ON TERROR - MARK THOMA (ECONOMIST'S VIEW, APRIL 9): We are getting beaten on the media playing field, losing the battle "for the hearts and minds of [Muslims] not because of our capabilities, but because of our actions.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economis...eld_we_nee.html
SOFTENED TONE OF JIHAD PROPAGANDA CONVEYS THE SAME BITTER MESSAGE - COLIN FREEMAN (TELEGRAPH.CO.UK, APRIL 8): Major Mike Motley: "My fear is that some of the people here do believe in conspiracy theories," he said. "Both US and Iraqi forces are extremely vulnerable to insurgent propaganda."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html
ON THE GROUND, IT'S A CIVIL WAR: THE DEBATE OVER WHAT TO CALL IRAQ'S WAR IS LOST ON MANY IRAQIS AS SHADOWY SHIITE MILITIAS AND SUNNI INSURGENTS WAGE THEIR DEADLY CONFLICT - AAMER MADHANI (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, APRIL 14)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ack=1&cset=true
DOWN A DANGEROUS ROAD: LIKE LEBANON IN THE '70S, IRAQ MAY BE DESCENDING INTO CIVIL WAR. WORSE, IT THREATENS TO TAKE THE REGION WITH IT - DAVID HIRST (LOS ANGELES TIMES, APRIL 14)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions
OFFICIALS CONFIDENT ABOUT DATA ON IRAN: ARMS ASSESSMENTS CALLED FAR BETTER THAN THOSE ON IRAQ - SIOBHAN GORMAN (BALTIMORE SUN, APRIL 14)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationwor...-home-headlines
NO MILITARY SOLUTION - WILLIAM D. HARTUNG (BALTIMORE SUN, APRIL 14): Iran will be unlikely to compromise on its nuclear program while it is being threatened with destruction. Those administration officials who see bombing Iran as a prelude to regime change should step back and make room for pragmatic anti-nuclear diplomacy.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines
IRAN: THE LOGIC OF DETERRENCE - CHRISTOPHER LAYNE (AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE): Tehran's quest for nuclear weapons is a rational response to a real threat, which makes diplomacy a more prudent option than regime change.
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_04_10/cover.html
IN CASE IRAN NEEDS A SQUEEZE - MONITOR'S VIEW (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, APRIL 14): Sanctions have long been a tool of diplomacy to avoid war. And Iran has shown it will talk seriously under economic duress. The UN and the West don't have an easy choice.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0414/p08s01-comv.html
WHERE DO WE MEDDLE NEXT A HALF-CENTURY OF PROTECTING OUR INTERESTS - MICHAEL KINSLEY (WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 14): So we marched in and got rid of the Taliban. Then we marched into Iraq and got rid of Saddam Hussein. Now we're -- well, we haven't figured out what, but we're hopping mad and gonna do something, dammit, about Iran.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041301664.html
BUSH'S BLUSTER: WHAT GOOD ARE U.S. THREATS AGAINST IRAN WHEN THE WHOLE WORLD HAS LOST ITS TRUST IN OUR GOVERNMENT? - JOE CONASON (SALON)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/04/14/iran/
WHAT'S GOING ON IN IRAN?: SYNERGISM OF THE NEO-CONS - KAMRAN MATIN (COUNTERPUNCH): The Iranian people have to pursue their own independent struggle for freedom and social justice independently and in spite of the western imperialism's agenda for regime-change in Iran.
http://www.counterpunch.org/matin04132006.html
IF YOU LIKED THE IRAQ WAR, YOU'LL LOVE THE IRAN WAR - CENK UYGUR (HUFFINGTON POST, APRIL 14): If you thought things were bad now, wait till Iran retaliates against our air strikes by bombing Israel. When Israel strikes back, the whole Middle East will have to get sucked into the war. And then the fun really starts.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/i...ar_b_19097.html
AFTER DIPLOMACY FAILS: THINK IMAGINATIVELY ABOUT IRAN - MARK HELPRIN (WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 13): Our problem in Iraq has been delusion and lack of foresight. Iran is bigger and more powerful. What a pity it would be either to do nothing or once again to lurch forward with neither strategy nor thought.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041201659.html
UNACCEPTABLE?: IS THE AMERICA OF 2006 MORE WILLING TO THWART THE UNACCEPTABLE THAN THE FRANCE OF 1936? - WILLIAM KRISTOL (WEEKLY STANDARD): It is not moral progress to put off serious planning for military action to a later date, probably in less favorable circumstances, when the Iranian regime has been further emboldened, our friends in the region more disheartened, and allies more confused by years of fruitless diplomacy than they would be by greater clarity and resolution now.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/095mzmiq.asp
TO BOMB, OR NOT TO BOMB: THAT IS THE IRAN QUESTION - REUEL MARC GERECHT (WEEKLY STANDARD): What we are dealing with in the Islamic Republic's ruling revolutionary elite is a politer, more refined, more cautious, vastly more mendacious version of bin Ladenism. It is best that such men not have nukes, and that we do everything in our power, including preventive military strikes, to stop this from happening.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/100mmysk.asp
THE FATEFUL HOUR HAS ARRIVED - CAROLINE GLICK (JERUSALEM POST, APRIL 13): The battle to prevent the world's most dangerous regime, Iran, from attaining the most dangerous weapons known to man has begun. The moment has arrived for President George W. Bush to make clear if he is, in the final analysis, the leader of the free world or its undertaker.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull
TARGET: IRAN -- YES, THERE IS A FEASIBLE MILITARY OPTION AGAINST THE MULLAHS' NUCLEAR PROGRAM - THOMAS MCINERNEY (WEEKLY STANDARD)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/101dorxa.asp
NUCLEAR HOSTAGE CRISIS - MICHAEL RUBIN (WALL STREET JOURNAL, APRIL 14): The cost of any military strike on Iran would be high, although not as high as the cost of the Islamic Republic gaining nuclear weapons.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1144979986...in_commentaries
PAID SUBSCRIPTION
NEOCONS TURN UP HEAT FOR IRAN ATTACK - JIM LOBE (ANTIWAR.COM)
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=8852
DEMOCRACY IN THE ARAB WORLD, A U.S. GOAL, FALTERS - HASSAN M. FATTAH (NEW YORK TIMES, APRIL 10)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world/mi...0democracy.html
MORE QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY
PEOPLE CAN QUESTION MY JUDGMENT OR HIS JUDGMENT, BUT THEY SHOULD NEVER QUESTION THE DEDICATION, THE PATRIOTISM AND THE WORK ETHIC OF SECRETARY RUMSFELD.
--Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; cited in Associated Press, Analysis: Criticism Mounts vs. Rumsfeld (New York Times, April 14)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Rumsfeld-Generals.html
A MILITARY COUP IN THIS COUNTRY RIGHT NOW WOULD PROBABLY HAVE A MODERATING INFLUENCE.
--Commentator Fred Kaplan, The Revolt Against Rumsfeld: The Officer Corps Is Getting Restless (Slate)
http://www.slate.com/id/2139777/
THE INEVITABILITY OF CONFLICT CAN BECOME ONE OF ITS MAIN CAUSES.
--Joseph S. Nye Jr., ?Fear of Chinese Guns: Best Defense Is Not to Offer Any Offense (San Francisco Chronicle, April 9)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...ING9JI4LOQ1.DTL
US COMMITTED TO DIPLOMACY ON IRAN - WYNDHAM HARTLEY (BUSINESS DAY, SA, APRIL 11): Cape Town US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes yesterday insisted that the US wanted a diplomatic resolution to the increasingly heated row with Iran over its nuclear capability.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/nati...x?ID=BD4A184353
IRAN, NOW EDITORIAL (NATIONAL REVIEW): We should massively increase our pro-democracy broadcasts into Iran, both by funding U.S.-based Farsi satellite-TV networks and by exercising a modicum of intelligence in our Voice of America programming. VOA officials act like they're running the Columbia School of Journalism, but "balance" should count for a lot less than inspiring the Iranians to rouse themselves against tyranny and explaining to them the value of what we have over against what they don't have. We should also send them the message -- through both broadcasts and the utterances of our diplomatic establishment -- that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons will only isolate them and entrench the mullahs they so despise.
http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/ed...00604130746.asp
EU'S PUBLIC DIPLOMACY DISASTER - HOSSEIN DERAKHSHAN (EDITOR: MYSELF -- A WEBLOG ON IRAN, TECHNOLOGY AND POP CULTURE, APRIL 12): Iran's public diplomacy's success in selling its dangerous nuclear plans to even moderates in Iran means that the EU has really failed. The EU failed to get their message to Iranian people that they are not against Iran's producing nuclear energy.
http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/015169.shtml
PRESIDENT WARNS OPPOSITION AGAINST ANTI-IRAN PROPAGANDA (IRNA, IRAN, APRIL 12): President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Wednesday said that if the hostile groups further continue their propaganda and psychological war against Iran the nation will hate them forever and they can never expect to have mutual relations.
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0...26839150213.htm
TEHRAN EXPANDS PUBLIC OUTREACH - ILAN BERMAN (IRAN DEMOCRACY MONITOR, NO. 7, APRIL 12): Iran's state-controlled broadcasting sector is branching out in a different direction. Ezzattolah Zarghami, the head of Iran's official Voice of the Islamic Republic and Vision of the Islamic Republic radio and television stations, has revealed that government plans are underway for the establishment of a new public diplomacy vehicle: an English-language news station.
http://www.afpc.org/idm/idm7.shtml (SCROLL DOWN LINK FOR ITEM)
PREVENTING TURKEY'S POPULAR SLIDE AWAY FROM THE WEST - SONER CAGAPTAY (POLICYWATCH #1093, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY): Through high-level meetings, the best way of getting opinions across to the Turkish elite, and through public diplomacy, Washington should tell Turks that Turkey belongs to the West and that the United States and Turkey share secular democratic values and an interest in fighting terrorism. In terms of public diplomacy efforts, eliminating the Voice of America?s Turkish services, as proposed in the 2007 budget, would be dangerous at a time when al-Jazeera has plans to start a Turkish broadcast.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2458
VIA
http://eccentricstar.typepad.com/
STATE DEPARTMENT LOSES KOREA EXPERTS - BY SEUNG-RYUN KIM (DONGA, SOUTH KOREA, APRIL 14): James Foster, the incumbent Korean Office director at the State department, is expected to be replaced. Foster might be recorded as the first diplomat to open his home to Korean correspondents. Since February 2005, he has invited Korean correspondents in Washington to dinner in small groups. Three or four diplomats at the DOS Korean Office also attended the dinner meetings. The meetings were for putting into practice ?public diplomacy, which has particularly been emphasized by the Bush administration.
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?...d=2006041405418
KREMLIN TAKES STEPS TO POLISH RUSSIA'S IMAGE ABROAD: TACTIC COMES AMID US CRITICISM AS G8 SUMMIT NEARS - TOM PARFITT (BOSTON GLOBE APRIL 11): President Putin has faced calls in recent weeks to ratchet up public diplomacy to improve Russia's international standing. Some elites in Moscow are worried the set-piece meeting of Group of Eight leaders in St. Petersburg in July could be a public relations disaster if the United States keeps up what is perceived here as an ''information war" on Russia. Igor Panarin, a professor from the foreign ministry's diplomatic academy, says: ''There is so much ignorance about Russia in the US: we need to appoint at least a deputy foreign minister to coordinate our own public diplomacy drive."
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/ar...s_image_abroad/
RUMSFELD: THE MEDIA WAR ON TERROR - MARK THOMA (ECONOMIST'S VIEW, APRIL 9): We are getting beaten on the media playing field, losing the battle "for the hearts and minds of [Muslims] not because of our capabilities, but because of our actions.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economis...eld_we_nee.html
SOFTENED TONE OF JIHAD PROPAGANDA CONVEYS THE SAME BITTER MESSAGE - COLIN FREEMAN (TELEGRAPH.CO.UK, APRIL 8): Major Mike Motley: "My fear is that some of the people here do believe in conspiracy theories," he said. "Both US and Iraqi forces are extremely vulnerable to insurgent propaganda."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html
ON THE GROUND, IT'S A CIVIL WAR: THE DEBATE OVER WHAT TO CALL IRAQ'S WAR IS LOST ON MANY IRAQIS AS SHADOWY SHIITE MILITIAS AND SUNNI INSURGENTS WAGE THEIR DEADLY CONFLICT - AAMER MADHANI (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, APRIL 14)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ack=1&cset=true
DOWN A DANGEROUS ROAD: LIKE LEBANON IN THE '70S, IRAQ MAY BE DESCENDING INTO CIVIL WAR. WORSE, IT THREATENS TO TAKE THE REGION WITH IT - DAVID HIRST (LOS ANGELES TIMES, APRIL 14)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions
OFFICIALS CONFIDENT ABOUT DATA ON IRAN: ARMS ASSESSMENTS CALLED FAR BETTER THAN THOSE ON IRAQ - SIOBHAN GORMAN (BALTIMORE SUN, APRIL 14)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationwor...-home-headlines
NO MILITARY SOLUTION - WILLIAM D. HARTUNG (BALTIMORE SUN, APRIL 14): Iran will be unlikely to compromise on its nuclear program while it is being threatened with destruction. Those administration officials who see bombing Iran as a prelude to regime change should step back and make room for pragmatic anti-nuclear diplomacy.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines
IRAN: THE LOGIC OF DETERRENCE - CHRISTOPHER LAYNE (AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE): Tehran's quest for nuclear weapons is a rational response to a real threat, which makes diplomacy a more prudent option than regime change.
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_04_10/cover.html
IN CASE IRAN NEEDS A SQUEEZE - MONITOR'S VIEW (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, APRIL 14): Sanctions have long been a tool of diplomacy to avoid war. And Iran has shown it will talk seriously under economic duress. The UN and the West don't have an easy choice.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0414/p08s01-comv.html
WHERE DO WE MEDDLE NEXT A HALF-CENTURY OF PROTECTING OUR INTERESTS - MICHAEL KINSLEY (WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 14): So we marched in and got rid of the Taliban. Then we marched into Iraq and got rid of Saddam Hussein. Now we're -- well, we haven't figured out what, but we're hopping mad and gonna do something, dammit, about Iran.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041301664.html
BUSH'S BLUSTER: WHAT GOOD ARE U.S. THREATS AGAINST IRAN WHEN THE WHOLE WORLD HAS LOST ITS TRUST IN OUR GOVERNMENT? - JOE CONASON (SALON)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/04/14/iran/
WHAT'S GOING ON IN IRAN?: SYNERGISM OF THE NEO-CONS - KAMRAN MATIN (COUNTERPUNCH): The Iranian people have to pursue their own independent struggle for freedom and social justice independently and in spite of the western imperialism's agenda for regime-change in Iran.
http://www.counterpunch.org/matin04132006.html
IF YOU LIKED THE IRAQ WAR, YOU'LL LOVE THE IRAN WAR - CENK UYGUR (HUFFINGTON POST, APRIL 14): If you thought things were bad now, wait till Iran retaliates against our air strikes by bombing Israel. When Israel strikes back, the whole Middle East will have to get sucked into the war. And then the fun really starts.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/i...ar_b_19097.html
AFTER DIPLOMACY FAILS: THINK IMAGINATIVELY ABOUT IRAN - MARK HELPRIN (WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 13): Our problem in Iraq has been delusion and lack of foresight. Iran is bigger and more powerful. What a pity it would be either to do nothing or once again to lurch forward with neither strategy nor thought.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041201659.html
UNACCEPTABLE?: IS THE AMERICA OF 2006 MORE WILLING TO THWART THE UNACCEPTABLE THAN THE FRANCE OF 1936? - WILLIAM KRISTOL (WEEKLY STANDARD): It is not moral progress to put off serious planning for military action to a later date, probably in less favorable circumstances, when the Iranian regime has been further emboldened, our friends in the region more disheartened, and allies more confused by years of fruitless diplomacy than they would be by greater clarity and resolution now.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/095mzmiq.asp
TO BOMB, OR NOT TO BOMB: THAT IS THE IRAN QUESTION - REUEL MARC GERECHT (WEEKLY STANDARD): What we are dealing with in the Islamic Republic's ruling revolutionary elite is a politer, more refined, more cautious, vastly more mendacious version of bin Ladenism. It is best that such men not have nukes, and that we do everything in our power, including preventive military strikes, to stop this from happening.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/100mmysk.asp
THE FATEFUL HOUR HAS ARRIVED - CAROLINE GLICK (JERUSALEM POST, APRIL 13): The battle to prevent the world's most dangerous regime, Iran, from attaining the most dangerous weapons known to man has begun. The moment has arrived for President George W. Bush to make clear if he is, in the final analysis, the leader of the free world or its undertaker.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull
TARGET: IRAN -- YES, THERE IS A FEASIBLE MILITARY OPTION AGAINST THE MULLAHS' NUCLEAR PROGRAM - THOMAS MCINERNEY (WEEKLY STANDARD)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/101dorxa.asp
NUCLEAR HOSTAGE CRISIS - MICHAEL RUBIN (WALL STREET JOURNAL, APRIL 14): The cost of any military strike on Iran would be high, although not as high as the cost of the Islamic Republic gaining nuclear weapons.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1144979986...in_commentaries
PAID SUBSCRIPTION
NEOCONS TURN UP HEAT FOR IRAN ATTACK - JIM LOBE (ANTIWAR.COM)
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=8852
DEMOCRACY IN THE ARAB WORLD, A U.S. GOAL, FALTERS - HASSAN M. FATTAH (NEW YORK TIMES, APRIL 10)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world/mi...0democracy.html
MORE QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY
PEOPLE CAN QUESTION MY JUDGMENT OR HIS JUDGMENT, BUT THEY SHOULD NEVER QUESTION THE DEDICATION, THE PATRIOTISM AND THE WORK ETHIC OF SECRETARY RUMSFELD.
--Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; cited in Associated Press, Analysis: Criticism Mounts vs. Rumsfeld (New York Times, April 14)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Rumsfeld-Generals.html
A MILITARY COUP IN THIS COUNTRY RIGHT NOW WOULD PROBABLY HAVE A MODERATING INFLUENCE.
--Commentator Fred Kaplan, The Revolt Against Rumsfeld: The Officer Corps Is Getting Restless (Slate)
http://www.slate.com/id/2139777/
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0414/dailyUpdate.html
Poll: Americans stung by Iraq, wary of attacking Iran
Growing pessimism about the war is coloring attitudes about confronting Tehran over its nuclear program.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
A new Bloomberg/LA Times poll released Wednesday shows that Americans' "pessimism about Iraq has deepened," and may be creating doubts about how the White House plans to stop Iran's nuclear program from developing. Bloomberg News reports that 56 percent of Americans now believe Iraq is engaged in a civil war, and only 37 percent believe President Bush when he says things are improving in the country. More important, only 48 percent now support military action against Iran if it doesn't stop its nuclear enrichment program, down from 57 percent in January, and 40 percent now oppose military action - up from 33 percent.
Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington who has studied US strategy in Iraq, said Americans' disillusionment with Bush's handling of the war has influenced their thinking on Iran.
"Three or four years ago, the American public might have had such overwhelming confidence in the US military and the Bush administration that it would have essentially taken their word that they could execute a strike effectively, and that it would be worth the overall cost," O'Hanlon said. "While the military remains well-regarded, we are also more painfully aware of the limits of its capabilities in certain situations," he said.
The poll, which surveyed 1,357 American adults by telephone April 8-11 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, also found that a majority of Americans, 54 percent, no longer trust President Bush to make the right decision when it comes to choosing whether or not to go to war with Iran.
An editorial in the Houston Chronicle picks up on the theme of Iraq influencing decisions about Iran. The paper argues that mistakes repeatedly made by the Bush administration about Iraq mean most of the sticks that the US has to use against Iran won't work (sanctions, military attacks). So perhaps it's time to tone down the rhetoric and try a different, but still tough, approach
Unlike Saddam Hussein before he was overthrown, Iran is not boxed in and defenseless. Its oil reserves provide a rising stream of petrodollars with which to finance its economy and its rogue regime's support for terrorism, animosity toward Israel and naked desire for nuclear weapons. Its military reach threatens US interests throughout the region and beyond.
Iranian officials claim they wish to use nuclear energy only for civilian purposes, although there was no need for Iran to end UN monitoring or enrich its own fuel. At this juncture, perhaps the best US tactic is to take them at their word, while making clear that development of nuclear weapons would bring consequences so dire that only a few zealots on either side could wish for them.
On Monday, Iran claimed it had joined the international nuclear club, successfully mastering nuclear technology. Richard Gwyn, foreign affairs columnist for the Toronto Star says the good thing about Iran's claim is that "it is, almost certainly, a lie."
This week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that "uranium with the desired enrichment for nuclear power" had been achieved. A day later, a senior Iranian atomic energy official declared that mass production of enriched uranium (by 54,000 centrifuges rather than the mere 164 supposedly already operating) would start soon.
No expert believes a word of this. Iran does have able scientists. But its technology and engineering capabilities are crude. Its oil industry is exceptionally inefficient. Its civil airplanes constantly break down. Nuclear analysts believe it will take Iran at least five years, and quite possibly 15, to develop a single, crude bomb.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that other experts also believe that the Iranian statement was little more than political posturing.
The UN nuclear watchdog agency already knew that Iran was capable of, and had done, some enrichment on a smaller scale than that announced Tuesday, said Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. In addition, there is no evidence the country has brought the 164-centrifuge chain at its Natanz facility on line in any kind of sustained way, he said. A "one-shot" test may have little meaning, he said.
The Post also quotes a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who says that Iran has a recent history of exaggerating its military prowess. Recently it said that it has developed new weapons - "including missiles invisible to radar and super-fast torpedoes." But weapons experts say almost all of the technology appears to be Russian in origin.
The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that US hints of military action may actually be designed as a negotiating tactic to put pressure on Iran, and to show China and Russia that the Bush administration remains resolved to get Iran to "abandon its nuclear program." If sanctions are used against Iran, one might be to stop oil imports to the country. Although Iran produces much of the world's oil, it has insufficient refining capacity, and needs to import oil for its own use.
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) has spoken out in favor of that option, which could be enforced by a naval quarantine, as President John Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis four decades ago.
"The critical thing is we should not start any shooting," Kirk said. "This is a political struggle as much as a military one, and I think the side that shoots first weakens its political case."
The Times of London reports that the US will renew its push for sanctions when world leaders meet next week to discuss Iran's uranium enrichment program.
Poll: Americans stung by Iraq, wary of attacking Iran
Growing pessimism about the war is coloring attitudes about confronting Tehran over its nuclear program.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
A new Bloomberg/LA Times poll released Wednesday shows that Americans' "pessimism about Iraq has deepened," and may be creating doubts about how the White House plans to stop Iran's nuclear program from developing. Bloomberg News reports that 56 percent of Americans now believe Iraq is engaged in a civil war, and only 37 percent believe President Bush when he says things are improving in the country. More important, only 48 percent now support military action against Iran if it doesn't stop its nuclear enrichment program, down from 57 percent in January, and 40 percent now oppose military action - up from 33 percent.
Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington who has studied US strategy in Iraq, said Americans' disillusionment with Bush's handling of the war has influenced their thinking on Iran.
"Three or four years ago, the American public might have had such overwhelming confidence in the US military and the Bush administration that it would have essentially taken their word that they could execute a strike effectively, and that it would be worth the overall cost," O'Hanlon said. "While the military remains well-regarded, we are also more painfully aware of the limits of its capabilities in certain situations," he said.
The poll, which surveyed 1,357 American adults by telephone April 8-11 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, also found that a majority of Americans, 54 percent, no longer trust President Bush to make the right decision when it comes to choosing whether or not to go to war with Iran.
An editorial in the Houston Chronicle picks up on the theme of Iraq influencing decisions about Iran. The paper argues that mistakes repeatedly made by the Bush administration about Iraq mean most of the sticks that the US has to use against Iran won't work (sanctions, military attacks). So perhaps it's time to tone down the rhetoric and try a different, but still tough, approach
Unlike Saddam Hussein before he was overthrown, Iran is not boxed in and defenseless. Its oil reserves provide a rising stream of petrodollars with which to finance its economy and its rogue regime's support for terrorism, animosity toward Israel and naked desire for nuclear weapons. Its military reach threatens US interests throughout the region and beyond.
Iranian officials claim they wish to use nuclear energy only for civilian purposes, although there was no need for Iran to end UN monitoring or enrich its own fuel. At this juncture, perhaps the best US tactic is to take them at their word, while making clear that development of nuclear weapons would bring consequences so dire that only a few zealots on either side could wish for them.
On Monday, Iran claimed it had joined the international nuclear club, successfully mastering nuclear technology. Richard Gwyn, foreign affairs columnist for the Toronto Star says the good thing about Iran's claim is that "it is, almost certainly, a lie."
This week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that "uranium with the desired enrichment for nuclear power" had been achieved. A day later, a senior Iranian atomic energy official declared that mass production of enriched uranium (by 54,000 centrifuges rather than the mere 164 supposedly already operating) would start soon.
No expert believes a word of this. Iran does have able scientists. But its technology and engineering capabilities are crude. Its oil industry is exceptionally inefficient. Its civil airplanes constantly break down. Nuclear analysts believe it will take Iran at least five years, and quite possibly 15, to develop a single, crude bomb.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that other experts also believe that the Iranian statement was little more than political posturing.
The UN nuclear watchdog agency already knew that Iran was capable of, and had done, some enrichment on a smaller scale than that announced Tuesday, said Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. In addition, there is no evidence the country has brought the 164-centrifuge chain at its Natanz facility on line in any kind of sustained way, he said. A "one-shot" test may have little meaning, he said.
The Post also quotes a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who says that Iran has a recent history of exaggerating its military prowess. Recently it said that it has developed new weapons - "including missiles invisible to radar and super-fast torpedoes." But weapons experts say almost all of the technology appears to be Russian in origin.
The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that US hints of military action may actually be designed as a negotiating tactic to put pressure on Iran, and to show China and Russia that the Bush administration remains resolved to get Iran to "abandon its nuclear program." If sanctions are used against Iran, one might be to stop oil imports to the country. Although Iran produces much of the world's oil, it has insufficient refining capacity, and needs to import oil for its own use.
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) has spoken out in favor of that option, which could be enforced by a naval quarantine, as President John Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis four decades ago.
"The critical thing is we should not start any shooting," Kirk said. "This is a political struggle as much as a military one, and I think the side that shoots first weakens its political case."
The Times of London reports that the US will renew its push for sanctions when world leaders meet next week to discuss Iran's uranium enrichment program.
Iran President Again Lashes Out at Israel
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.
"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."
Ahmadinejad provoked a world outcry in October when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."
On Friday, he repeated his previous line on the Holocaust, saying: "If such a disaster is true, why should the people of this region pay the price? Why does the Palestinian nation have to be suppressed and have its land occupied?"
The land of Palestine, he said, referring to the British mandated territory that includes all of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, "will be freed soon."
He did not say how this would be achieved, but insisted to the audience of at least 900 people: "Believe that Palestine will be freed soon."
"The existence of this (Israeli) regime is a permanent threat" to the Middle East, he added. "Its existence has harmed the dignity of Islamic nations."
The three-day conference on Palestine is being attended by officials of Hamas, the ruling party in the Palestinian territories.
Iran has previously said it will give money to the Palestinian Authority to make up for the withdrawal of donations by Western nations who object to Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence. But no figure has been published.
On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had successfully enriched uranium using a battery of 164 centrifuges, a significant step toward the large-scale production of enriched uranium required for either fueling nuclear reactors or making nuclear weapons.
The United States, France and Israel accuse Iran of using a civilian nuclear program to secretly build a weapon. Iran denies this, saying its program is confined to generating electricity.
The U.N. Security Council has given Iran until April 28 to cease enrichment. But Iran has rejected the demand.
The chief of Israeli military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, was quoted Wednesday as saying Iran could develop a nuclear bomb "within three years, by the end of the decade."
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions or Comments
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By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.
"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."
Ahmadinejad provoked a world outcry in October when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."
On Friday, he repeated his previous line on the Holocaust, saying: "If such a disaster is true, why should the people of this region pay the price? Why does the Palestinian nation have to be suppressed and have its land occupied?"
The land of Palestine, he said, referring to the British mandated territory that includes all of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, "will be freed soon."
He did not say how this would be achieved, but insisted to the audience of at least 900 people: "Believe that Palestine will be freed soon."
"The existence of this (Israeli) regime is a permanent threat" to the Middle East, he added. "Its existence has harmed the dignity of Islamic nations."
The three-day conference on Palestine is being attended by officials of Hamas, the ruling party in the Palestinian territories.
Iran has previously said it will give money to the Palestinian Authority to make up for the withdrawal of donations by Western nations who object to Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence. But no figure has been published.
On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had successfully enriched uranium using a battery of 164 centrifuges, a significant step toward the large-scale production of enriched uranium required for either fueling nuclear reactors or making nuclear weapons.
The United States, France and Israel accuse Iran of using a civilian nuclear program to secretly build a weapon. Iran denies this, saying its program is confined to generating electricity.
The U.N. Security Council has given Iran until April 28 to cease enrichment. But Iran has rejected the demand.
The chief of Israeli military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, was quoted Wednesday as saying Iran could develop a nuclear bomb "within three years, by the end of the decade."
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions or Comments
Privacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright/IP Policy - Ad Feedback
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1158
Iran Flaunts Low-Level Enrichment to Conceal High-Powered Weaponizaton Plant
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
April 14, 2006, 7:27 PM (GMT+02:00)
Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim of Iranian success in low-level uranium enrichment was more bombastic than frank. Before springing his disclosure at a sacred mausoleum in the northern town of Mashhad on April 11, DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources disclose he paid a stealthy visit to Neyshabour in Khorassan, 38 kms to the southeast.
There, he inspected a project he omitted to mention in his Mashhad speech about low-level enrichment, namely, a top-secret plant under construction that is designed to run 155,000 centrifuges, enough to enrich uranium for 3-5 nuclear bombs a year.
This is Project B, or the hidden face of the enrichment plant open to inspection at Natanz.
This plant, due for completion next October, is scheduled to go on line at the end of 2007. According to our intelligence sources, running-in has begun at some sections of the Neyshabour installation, which is located 600 km northeast of Tehran. DEBKAfile’s sources reveal too that the Neyshabour plant has been built 150 m deep under farmland covered with mixed vegetable crops and dubbed Shahid Moradian, in the name of a war martyr as obscure as its existence.
Already hard at work at Iran’s most ambitious nuclear project are hundreds of Iranian engineers, experts and assistants under the instruction of foreign specialists in the technology of centrifuge operation. Neyshabour is guarded day and night by the special Revolutionary Guards Corps elite Ansar al-Mahdi unit.
In Moscow Thursday, April 13, US assistant secretary of state on arms control Stephen Rademaker calculated that, with 54,000 centrifuges, the Iranians could produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb in 16 days. He was referring to the statement by Iran’s deputy nuclear chief Mohammed Saeed, who said his government planned to expand its enrichment program to 54,000 centrifuges from the 164 used in the small scale process announced Tuesday.
According to this reckoning, the Neshabour installation, when ready to go in three years, will have three times the capacity of Natanz and be able to turn out 9-15 bombs a year.
The clerical rulers in Tehran have long suspected the Americans or Israelis would eventually bomb Natanz out of existence. Therefore, four years ago, they began constructing its mirror - albeit on a far larger scale – in order to push ahead uninterrupted with enrichment for weapons, regardless of objections from the West, Israel and Arab neighbors.
Russian experts completed the initial plans in 2003 and construction began in early 2004. In late 2005, Bulgarian transport planes delivered tens of thousands of centrifuges from Belarus and Ukraine; they were transported directly to Neyshabour. In January 2006, 23 Ukrainian engineers arrived to start installing the equipment, joined in February by 46 Belarusian nuclear experts who are working in shifts to prepare the 155,000 P-1 and P-2 centrifuges for operation.
This compares with 60,000 in Nathanz – of which 40,000 are accessible for inspection while 20,000 are hidden in closed subterranean chambers.
Neyshabour, however, still needs to undergo experimental stages, according to our Iranian sources. It is far from sure that the Ukrainian and Belarusian experts will be able to put together a well-synchronized centrifuge project that is workable in the long term.
The Natanz project was long slowed by serious malfunctions in running the centrifuges purchased from Pakistan. They were only partially overcome lately. Now, Tehran needs three years to work in secret and in peace from outside interference and international inspections to achieve its first N-bomb.
Tehran’s “success” in enriching uranium, announced with fanfare last Tuesday, actually happened, according to our sources, eight months ago. Ahmadinejad timed his “disclosure” to achieve two goals:
One, as a fait accompli that would force the world to acknowledge that Iran had joined the world’s nuclear club as its eighth member, and two, to signal that the Islamic republic was close to achieving a nuclear weapon and capable of retaliating forcibly to international threats of penalties. Teheran’s grandiose war games two weeks ago were staged for the same purpose.
Russian and Chinese sources have their own interpretation of Tehran’s motives. They believe the Iranian president’s announcement was a knee-jerk reaction to the approaching UN Security Council deadline and the press reports of an approaching US military strike against its nuclear facilities. According to their theory, his bellicose stance was the prelude to a climb-down; Tehran would now announce its national objective has been accomplished and a line could be drawn on further advances.
DEBKAfile’s Iranian experts dismiss this theory as contrary to the mind-set of the Islamic republic’s rulers. They are convinced that Tehran sought the universal condemnation it encountered; it proved to the Iranian public that in a hostile world, Iran is fully justified in its go-it-alone program for arming their country with a nuclear weapon.
Iran Flaunts Low-Level Enrichment to Conceal High-Powered Weaponizaton Plant
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
April 14, 2006, 7:27 PM (GMT+02:00)
Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim of Iranian success in low-level uranium enrichment was more bombastic than frank. Before springing his disclosure at a sacred mausoleum in the northern town of Mashhad on April 11, DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources disclose he paid a stealthy visit to Neyshabour in Khorassan, 38 kms to the southeast.
There, he inspected a project he omitted to mention in his Mashhad speech about low-level enrichment, namely, a top-secret plant under construction that is designed to run 155,000 centrifuges, enough to enrich uranium for 3-5 nuclear bombs a year.
This is Project B, or the hidden face of the enrichment plant open to inspection at Natanz.
This plant, due for completion next October, is scheduled to go on line at the end of 2007. According to our intelligence sources, running-in has begun at some sections of the Neyshabour installation, which is located 600 km northeast of Tehran. DEBKAfile’s sources reveal too that the Neyshabour plant has been built 150 m deep under farmland covered with mixed vegetable crops and dubbed Shahid Moradian, in the name of a war martyr as obscure as its existence.
Already hard at work at Iran’s most ambitious nuclear project are hundreds of Iranian engineers, experts and assistants under the instruction of foreign specialists in the technology of centrifuge operation. Neyshabour is guarded day and night by the special Revolutionary Guards Corps elite Ansar al-Mahdi unit.
In Moscow Thursday, April 13, US assistant secretary of state on arms control Stephen Rademaker calculated that, with 54,000 centrifuges, the Iranians could produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb in 16 days. He was referring to the statement by Iran’s deputy nuclear chief Mohammed Saeed, who said his government planned to expand its enrichment program to 54,000 centrifuges from the 164 used in the small scale process announced Tuesday.
According to this reckoning, the Neshabour installation, when ready to go in three years, will have three times the capacity of Natanz and be able to turn out 9-15 bombs a year.
The clerical rulers in Tehran have long suspected the Americans or Israelis would eventually bomb Natanz out of existence. Therefore, four years ago, they began constructing its mirror - albeit on a far larger scale – in order to push ahead uninterrupted with enrichment for weapons, regardless of objections from the West, Israel and Arab neighbors.
Russian experts completed the initial plans in 2003 and construction began in early 2004. In late 2005, Bulgarian transport planes delivered tens of thousands of centrifuges from Belarus and Ukraine; they were transported directly to Neyshabour. In January 2006, 23 Ukrainian engineers arrived to start installing the equipment, joined in February by 46 Belarusian nuclear experts who are working in shifts to prepare the 155,000 P-1 and P-2 centrifuges for operation.
This compares with 60,000 in Nathanz – of which 40,000 are accessible for inspection while 20,000 are hidden in closed subterranean chambers.
Neyshabour, however, still needs to undergo experimental stages, according to our Iranian sources. It is far from sure that the Ukrainian and Belarusian experts will be able to put together a well-synchronized centrifuge project that is workable in the long term.
The Natanz project was long slowed by serious malfunctions in running the centrifuges purchased from Pakistan. They were only partially overcome lately. Now, Tehran needs three years to work in secret and in peace from outside interference and international inspections to achieve its first N-bomb.
Tehran’s “success” in enriching uranium, announced with fanfare last Tuesday, actually happened, according to our sources, eight months ago. Ahmadinejad timed his “disclosure” to achieve two goals:
One, as a fait accompli that would force the world to acknowledge that Iran had joined the world’s nuclear club as its eighth member, and two, to signal that the Islamic republic was close to achieving a nuclear weapon and capable of retaliating forcibly to international threats of penalties. Teheran’s grandiose war games two weeks ago were staged for the same purpose.
Russian and Chinese sources have their own interpretation of Tehran’s motives. They believe the Iranian president’s announcement was a knee-jerk reaction to the approaching UN Security Council deadline and the press reports of an approaching US military strike against its nuclear facilities. According to their theory, his bellicose stance was the prelude to a climb-down; Tehran would now announce its national objective has been accomplished and a line could be drawn on further advances.
DEBKAfile’s Iranian experts dismiss this theory as contrary to the mind-set of the Islamic republic’s rulers. They are convinced that Tehran sought the universal condemnation it encountered; it proved to the Iranian public that in a hostile world, Iran is fully justified in its go-it-alone program for arming their country with a nuclear weapon.
http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/farmer/in...1840.xml&coll=1
QUOTE
Bush's band of war-happy simpletons
John Farmer
Friday, April 14, 2006
Reports that the Bush administration is considering a nuclear strike on Iran may not frighten the mad mullahs in Tehran, but it will scare the hell out of many Americans here at home.
It's hard to believe that with one military venture gone bad in Iraq and a world that now sees Washington as the greatest threat to peace, the Bushies would contemplate attacking a second nation, this time with tactical nukes. Which prompts two questions: Are these guys obsessed with a messianic sense of world mission that has robbed them of common sense? Or are they just plain nuts?
And the answers are yes and possibly so.
Some years ago, a Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey produced a Washington novel called "Seven Days in May" in which a cabal of Pentagon generals plans to depose the nation's civilian leaders and militarize foreign policy. It was a page-turner of a yarn. But they got it all wrong, for now we have the real thing -- and the seizure of power is by Bush civilians in the Pentagon, determined to ignore or overrule the more cautious instincts of the generals and militarize U.S. foreign policy.
Writing in the current issue of the New Yorker, Sy Hersh, perhaps the best investigative reporter of my time, recounts a conversation with a Pentagon adviser who worries about "a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians" -- the neoconservatives around Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who, with Vice President Dick Cheney as their enabler, authored the misadventure in Iraq.
Some generals are considering resignation as a means of protest, the adviser told Hersh. It's "a juggernaut that has to be stopped," the adviser added.
What's fascinating about these neocons is their obsession with the use of force as old men when, as young men, many of them --notably Cheney -- managed to avoid service in Vietnam. In their youth, when it might have mattered for their country, they never fired a shot in anger. (In Cheney's case, considering his marksmanship, that was not all bad.)
The whole Iranian matter is fraught with awful irony and echoes of mistakes made in Iraq. Consider, for example, the irony of America inflicting a nuclear strike on the people of Iran in the name of stopping nuclear proliferation. Are the Bushies totally insensate? Or are they simply stupid?
Within hours of an American attack on Iranian nuclear sites, U.S. embassies across the globe would be under assault -- maybe even in flames -- and American tourists and diplomats and businessmen and women would have to run for cover. But how would Bush or Cheney or the civilian neocons in the Pentagon appreciate this possibility? They've lived lives immunized by privilege and draft deferments from the costs of war. The tragedy is that they've fallen heir to the greatest military power in history -- with no grasp of how to use it wisely.
There seems little doubt that the regime in Iran is led by theological fascists -- sane perhaps, but reckless. Our European allies, who live much closer to the Iranian threat than we do, are just as worried about the prospect of a nuclear Iran, maybe more. But they'll treat Bush as an international leper if he strikes Iran without United Nations sanction -- especially if he resorts to nuclear weapons.
Jack Straw, the Britain's foreign minister, said last year that a Western military strike on Iran would be "inconceivable." Europe is rightfully concerned about nuclear weapons in the hands of an Islamic regime in the grip of apocalyptic theological politics. But it wants no part of the Bush-Cheney desire for regime change in Tehran.
We're plagued in Iran by lousy intelligence, as we were in Iraq. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is, from all appearances, a certifiable loony, denying the Holocaust and pledging to "wipe Israel off the map." But he may not really be in charge. And it's hard to believe that the one thought to the real leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, would subject his people to sanctions, isolation, even a nuclear threat without privately pursuing every diplomatic avenue even as Ahmadinejad blusters.
Trouble is, the Bushies don't seem to know how to orchestrate the mix of diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, military threats and -- but only finally -- force. For example, they seem hell-bent on repeating the mistake they made in Iraq of not waiting for the International Atomic Energy Agency to reach a judgment on Iran's nuclear capacities and intentions.
It may be seen as surprising that the voices of reason and restraint in this Iran question, as Hersh reports it, are the generals. But it shouldn't be. After all, it was George Washington who warned against the dangers of a standing peacetime army, and Dwight Eisenhower who alerted us to the danger of the military-industrial complex. Having seen it, they know the horror of war.
And what about the neocons, our home-front heroes -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, the civilians they've recruited like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Stephen Hadley -- who orchestrated the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war and foreign regime change?
They should never again be allowed anywhere near the instruments and agencies of the American government.
John Farmer
Friday, April 14, 2006
Reports that the Bush administration is considering a nuclear strike on Iran may not frighten the mad mullahs in Tehran, but it will scare the hell out of many Americans here at home.
It's hard to believe that with one military venture gone bad in Iraq and a world that now sees Washington as the greatest threat to peace, the Bushies would contemplate attacking a second nation, this time with tactical nukes. Which prompts two questions: Are these guys obsessed with a messianic sense of world mission that has robbed them of common sense? Or are they just plain nuts?
And the answers are yes and possibly so.
Some years ago, a Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey produced a Washington novel called "Seven Days in May" in which a cabal of Pentagon generals plans to depose the nation's civilian leaders and militarize foreign policy. It was a page-turner of a yarn. But they got it all wrong, for now we have the real thing -- and the seizure of power is by Bush civilians in the Pentagon, determined to ignore or overrule the more cautious instincts of the generals and militarize U.S. foreign policy.
Writing in the current issue of the New Yorker, Sy Hersh, perhaps the best investigative reporter of my time, recounts a conversation with a Pentagon adviser who worries about "a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians" -- the neoconservatives around Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who, with Vice President Dick Cheney as their enabler, authored the misadventure in Iraq.
Some generals are considering resignation as a means of protest, the adviser told Hersh. It's "a juggernaut that has to be stopped," the adviser added.
What's fascinating about these neocons is their obsession with the use of force as old men when, as young men, many of them --notably Cheney -- managed to avoid service in Vietnam. In their youth, when it might have mattered for their country, they never fired a shot in anger. (In Cheney's case, considering his marksmanship, that was not all bad.)
The whole Iranian matter is fraught with awful irony and echoes of mistakes made in Iraq. Consider, for example, the irony of America inflicting a nuclear strike on the people of Iran in the name of stopping nuclear proliferation. Are the Bushies totally insensate? Or are they simply stupid?
Within hours of an American attack on Iranian nuclear sites, U.S. embassies across the globe would be under assault -- maybe even in flames -- and American tourists and diplomats and businessmen and women would have to run for cover. But how would Bush or Cheney or the civilian neocons in the Pentagon appreciate this possibility? They've lived lives immunized by privilege and draft deferments from the costs of war. The tragedy is that they've fallen heir to the greatest military power in history -- with no grasp of how to use it wisely.
There seems little doubt that the regime in Iran is led by theological fascists -- sane perhaps, but reckless. Our European allies, who live much closer to the Iranian threat than we do, are just as worried about the prospect of a nuclear Iran, maybe more. But they'll treat Bush as an international leper if he strikes Iran without United Nations sanction -- especially if he resorts to nuclear weapons.
Jack Straw, the Britain's foreign minister, said last year that a Western military strike on Iran would be "inconceivable." Europe is rightfully concerned about nuclear weapons in the hands of an Islamic regime in the grip of apocalyptic theological politics. But it wants no part of the Bush-Cheney desire for regime change in Tehran.
We're plagued in Iran by lousy intelligence, as we were in Iraq. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is, from all appearances, a certifiable loony, denying the Holocaust and pledging to "wipe Israel off the map." But he may not really be in charge. And it's hard to believe that the one thought to the real leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, would subject his people to sanctions, isolation, even a nuclear threat without privately pursuing every diplomatic avenue even as Ahmadinejad blusters.
Trouble is, the Bushies don't seem to know how to orchestrate the mix of diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, military threats and -- but only finally -- force. For example, they seem hell-bent on repeating the mistake they made in Iraq of not waiting for the International Atomic Energy Agency to reach a judgment on Iran's nuclear capacities and intentions.
It may be seen as surprising that the voices of reason and restraint in this Iran question, as Hersh reports it, are the generals. But it shouldn't be. After all, it was George Washington who warned against the dangers of a standing peacetime army, and Dwight Eisenhower who alerted us to the danger of the military-industrial complex. Having seen it, they know the horror of war.
And what about the neocons, our home-front heroes -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, the civilians they've recruited like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Stephen Hadley -- who orchestrated the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war and foreign regime change?
They should never again be allowed anywhere near the instruments and agencies of the American government.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0414-06.htm
QUOTE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 14, 2006
11:46 AM
CONTACT: Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Doug Gordon (202) 225-5871 (o)
(202) 494-5141 ©
Kucinich Demands Answers From Administration About US Troops In Iran
Sends Letter To The President
WASHINGTON - April 14 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), Ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, sent the following letter to President George W. Bush today about the presence of US troops in Iran:
Dear President Bush:
Recently, it has been reported that U.S. troops are conducting military operations in Iran. If true, it appears that you have already made the decision to commit U.S. military forces to a unilateral conflict with Iran, even before direct or indirect negotiations with the government of Iran had been attempted, without UN support and without authorization from the U.S. Congress.
The presence of U.S. troops in Iran constitutes a hostile act against that country. At a time when diplomacy is urgently needed, it escalates an international crisis. It undermines any attempt to negotiate with the government of Iran. And it will undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts at the U.N.
Furthermore, it places U.S. troops occupying neighboring Iraq in greater danger. The achievement of stability and a transition to Iraqi security control will be compromised, reversing any progress that has been cited by the Administration.
It would be hard to believe that such an imprudent decision had been taken, but for the number and variety of sources confirming it. In the last week, the national media have reported that you have in fact commenced a military operation in Iran. Today, retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner related on CNN that the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA, Aliasghar Soltaniyeh, reported to him that the Iranians have captured dissident forces who have confessed to working with U.S. troops in Iran. Earlier in the week, Seymour Hersh reported that a U.S. source had told him that U.S. marines were operating in the Baluchi, Azeri and Kurdish regions of Iran.
Any military deployment to Iran would constitute an urgent matter of national significance. I urge you to report immediately to Congress on all activities involving American forces in Iran. I look forward to a prompt response.
Sincerely,
Dennis J. Kucinich
Member of Congress
APRIL 14, 2006
11:46 AM
CONTACT: Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Doug Gordon (202) 225-5871 (o)
(202) 494-5141 ©
Kucinich Demands Answers From Administration About US Troops In Iran
Sends Letter To The President
WASHINGTON - April 14 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), Ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, sent the following letter to President George W. Bush today about the presence of US troops in Iran:
Dear President Bush:
Recently, it has been reported that U.S. troops are conducting military operations in Iran. If true, it appears that you have already made the decision to commit U.S. military forces to a unilateral conflict with Iran, even before direct or indirect negotiations with the government of Iran had been attempted, without UN support and without authorization from the U.S. Congress.
The presence of U.S. troops in Iran constitutes a hostile act against that country. At a time when diplomacy is urgently needed, it escalates an international crisis. It undermines any attempt to negotiate with the government of Iran. And it will undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts at the U.N.
Furthermore, it places U.S. troops occupying neighboring Iraq in greater danger. The achievement of stability and a transition to Iraqi security control will be compromised, reversing any progress that has been cited by the Administration.
It would be hard to believe that such an imprudent decision had been taken, but for the number and variety of sources confirming it. In the last week, the national media have reported that you have in fact commenced a military operation in Iran. Today, retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner related on CNN that the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA, Aliasghar Soltaniyeh, reported to him that the Iranians have captured dissident forces who have confessed to working with U.S. troops in Iran. Earlier in the week, Seymour Hersh reported that a U.S. source had told him that U.S. marines were operating in the Baluchi, Azeri and Kurdish regions of Iran.
Any military deployment to Iran would constitute an urgent matter of national significance. I urge you to report immediately to Congress on all activities involving American forces in Iran. I look forward to a prompt response.
Sincerely,
Dennis J. Kucinich
Member of Congress
Britain took part in mock Iran invasion
Pentagon planned for Tehran conflict with war game involving UK troops
Julian Borger in Washington and Ewen MacAskill
Saturday April 15, 2006
The Guardian
British officers took part in a US war game aimed at preparing for a possible invasion of Iran, despite repeated claims by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, that a military strike against Iran is inconceivable.
The war game, codenamed Hotspur 2004, took place at the US base of Fort Belvoir in Virginia in July 2004.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman played down its significance yesterday. "These paper-based exercises are designed to test officers to the limit in fictitious scenarios. We use invented countries and situations using real maps," he said.
The disclosure of Britain's participation came in the week in which the Iranian crisis intensified, with a US report that the White House was contemplating a tactical nuclear strike and Tehran defying the United Nations security council.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who sparked outrage in the US, Europe and Israel last year by calling for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth, created more alarm yesterday. He told a conference in Tehran in support of the Palestinians: "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."
The senior British officers took part in the Iranian war game just over a year after the invasion of Iraq. It was focused on the Caspian Sea, with an invasion date of 2015. Although the planners said the game was based on a fictitious Middle East country called Korona, the border corresponded exactly with Iran's and the characteristics of the enemy were Iranian.
A British medium-weight brigade operated as part of a US-led force.
The MoD's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which helped run the war game, described it on its website as the "year's main analytical event of the UK-US Future Land Operations Interoperability Study" aimed at ensuring that both armies work well together. The study "was extremely well received on both sides of the Atlantic".
According to an MoD source, war games covering a variety of scenarios are conducted regularly by senior British officers in the UK, the US or at Nato headquarters. He cited senior military staff carrying out a mock invasion of southern England last week and one of Scotland in January.
However, Hotspur took place at a time of accelerated US planning after the fall of Baghdad for a possible conflict with Iran. That planning is being carried out by US Central Command, responsible for the Middle East and central Asia area of operations, and by Strategic Command, which carries out long-range bombing and nuclear operations.
William Arkin, a former army intelligence officer who first reported on the contingency planning for a possible nuclear strike against Iran in his military column for the Washington Post online, said: "The United States military is really, really getting ready, building war plans and options, studying maps, shifting its thinking."
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The foreign secretary has made his position very clear that military action is inconceivable. The Foreign Office regards speculation about war, particularly involving Britain, as unhelpful at a time when the diplomatic route is still being pursued."
After the failure of a mission to Tehran on Thursday by Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Russia announced a diplomatic initiative yesterday. It is to host a new round of talks in Moscow on Tuesday with the US, the EU and China.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1754307,00.html
Pentagon planned for Tehran conflict with war game involving UK troops
Julian Borger in Washington and Ewen MacAskill
Saturday April 15, 2006
The Guardian
British officers took part in a US war game aimed at preparing for a possible invasion of Iran, despite repeated claims by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, that a military strike against Iran is inconceivable.
The war game, codenamed Hotspur 2004, took place at the US base of Fort Belvoir in Virginia in July 2004.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman played down its significance yesterday. "These paper-based exercises are designed to test officers to the limit in fictitious scenarios. We use invented countries and situations using real maps," he said.
The disclosure of Britain's participation came in the week in which the Iranian crisis intensified, with a US report that the White House was contemplating a tactical nuclear strike and Tehran defying the United Nations security council.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who sparked outrage in the US, Europe and Israel last year by calling for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth, created more alarm yesterday. He told a conference in Tehran in support of the Palestinians: "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."
The senior British officers took part in the Iranian war game just over a year after the invasion of Iraq. It was focused on the Caspian Sea, with an invasion date of 2015. Although the planners said the game was based on a fictitious Middle East country called Korona, the border corresponded exactly with Iran's and the characteristics of the enemy were Iranian.
A British medium-weight brigade operated as part of a US-led force.
The MoD's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which helped run the war game, described it on its website as the "year's main analytical event of the UK-US Future Land Operations Interoperability Study" aimed at ensuring that both armies work well together. The study "was extremely well received on both sides of the Atlantic".
According to an MoD source, war games covering a variety of scenarios are conducted regularly by senior British officers in the UK, the US or at Nato headquarters. He cited senior military staff carrying out a mock invasion of southern England last week and one of Scotland in January.
However, Hotspur took place at a time of accelerated US planning after the fall of Baghdad for a possible conflict with Iran. That planning is being carried out by US Central Command, responsible for the Middle East and central Asia area of operations, and by Strategic Command, which carries out long-range bombing and nuclear operations.
William Arkin, a former army intelligence officer who first reported on the contingency planning for a possible nuclear strike against Iran in his military column for the Washington Post online, said: "The United States military is really, really getting ready, building war plans and options, studying maps, shifting its thinking."
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The foreign secretary has made his position very clear that military action is inconceivable. The Foreign Office regards speculation about war, particularly involving Britain, as unhelpful at a time when the diplomatic route is still being pursued."
After the failure of a mission to Tehran on Thursday by Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Russia announced a diplomatic initiative yesterday. It is to host a new round of talks in Moscow on Tuesday with the US, the EU and China.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1754307,00.html
Found via Digby:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_...504674614060703
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_...504674614060703
QUOTE
Bush's Secret War
by digby
Colonel Sam Gardiner is the retired colonel who taught at the National War College, the Air War College and the Naval Warfare College and who found more than 50 instances of demonstrably false stories planted in the press in the run up to the war, back in 2003. He was just on CNN:
I really think it's possible that Bush and Rummy have already got a secret war going on, one that has not been revealed to congress in any form. It's designed that way. Bush is not going to fire Rummy --- he can't. He's already committed himself to this thing. This could be the ultimate action of the unitary executive.
digby 4/14/2006 01:08:00 PM
by digby
Colonel Sam Gardiner is the retired colonel who taught at the National War College, the Air War College and the Naval Warfare College and who found more than 50 instances of demonstrably false stories planted in the press in the run up to the war, back in 2003. He was just on CNN:
- CLANCY: Well, Colonel Gardiner, from what you're saying, it would seem like military men, then, might be cautioning, don't go ahead with this. But what are the signs that are out there right now? Is there any evidence of any movement in that direction?
GARDINER: Sure. Actually, Jim, I would say -- and this may shock some -- I think the decision has been made and military operations are under way.
CLANCY: Why?
GARDINER: And let me say this -- I'm saying this carefully. First of all, Sy Hersh said in that article which was...
CLANCY: Yes, but that's one unnamed source.
GARDINER: Let me check that. Not unnamed source as not being valid.
The way "The New Yorker" does it, if somebody tells Sy Hersh something, somebody else in the magazine calls them and says, "Did you tell Sy Hersh that?" That's one point.
The secretary[sic] point is, the Iranians have been saying American military troops are in there, have been saying it for almost a year. I was in Berlin two weeks ago, sat next to the ambassador, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. And I said, "Hey, I hear you're accusing Americans of being in there operating with some of the units that have shot up revolution guard units."
He said, quite frankly, "Yes, we know they are. We've captured some of the units, and they've confessed to working with the Americans."
The evidence is mounting that that decision has already been made, and I don't know that the other part of that has been completed, that there has been any congressional approval to do this.
My view of the plan is, there is this period in which some kinds of ground troops will operate inside Iran, and then what we're talking about is the second part, which is this air strike.
CLANCY: All right. You lay this whole scenario, but there are still a lot of caution flags that one would see out here.
GARDINER: Sure. True.
CLANCY: If they do decide on a military option...
GARDINER: Right?
CLANCY: ... what's the realistic chance of success? What's your -- your prognosis for that kind of reaction here?
GARDINER: Yes. Let me give you two answers to that. First of all, the chance of getting the facilities and setting back the program, I think the chances go from maybe two years to actually accelerating the program. You know, we could cause them to redouble their efforts. That's on one side.
The other side is this sort of horizontal escalation by the Iranians.
My assessment is -- and it's because of regime problems at home -- that if we strike, they're likely to want to blame Israel. Now that's -- because that sells well at home.
Blaming Israel means that there's a chance that we could see Hezbollah, Hamas targeting Israel. We could very easily see this thing escalate into a broader Middle East war, particularly when you add Muslim rage.
You know, if you take the cartoon problem and multiply it times a hundred -- you know, the Danish cartoons, you could see how we could end up very quickly with a very serious problem in the Middle East.
CLANCY: Former U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner. Not a very rosy outlook here. A man who thinks the decision may have already been made.
Thank you for being with us.
GARDINER: Certainly.
I really think it's possible that Bush and Rummy have already got a secret war going on, one that has not been revealed to congress in any form. It's designed that way. Bush is not going to fire Rummy --- he can't. He's already committed himself to this thing. This could be the ultimate action of the unitary executive.
digby 4/14/2006 01:08:00 PM
Iran denies reports it will open euro oil exchange
20/03/2006 19:15
TEHRAN, March 20 (RIA Novosti) - Iran denied Monday media reports that it was to open a euro-based oil exchange.
"We have no information on opening an oil exchange in the free economic zone on Kish Island [southern Iran]," a spokesman for the Iranian Oil Ministry told RIA Novosti.
He said the ministry would have had been informed if the exchange had opened.
The spokesman said the exact date of the oil exchange opening on Kish Island was still unknown.
Some media reported Monday that oil would be traded exclusively in the European currency at the Iranian exchange.
Experts said the transition to euro from dollar in payments for oil could cause a default of the U.S. currency. All oil deals are currently made in dollars, allowing Washington to maintain permanent demand for the national currency.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20060320/44575239.html
Maybe BushWar in Iran is the reason that March 20 has come and gone with no IOB.
20/03/2006 19:15
TEHRAN, March 20 (RIA Novosti) - Iran denied Monday media reports that it was to open a euro-based oil exchange.
"We have no information on opening an oil exchange in the free economic zone on Kish Island [southern Iran]," a spokesman for the Iranian Oil Ministry told RIA Novosti.
He said the ministry would have had been informed if the exchange had opened.
The spokesman said the exact date of the oil exchange opening on Kish Island was still unknown.
Some media reported Monday that oil would be traded exclusively in the European currency at the Iranian exchange.
Experts said the transition to euro from dollar in payments for oil could cause a default of the U.S. currency. All oil deals are currently made in dollars, allowing Washington to maintain permanent demand for the national currency.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20060320/44575239.html
Maybe BushWar in Iran is the reason that March 20 has come and gone with no IOB.
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Apr 15 2006, 09:22 AM)
Maybe BushWar in Iran is the reason that March 20 has come and gone with no IOB.
Even though they have already built it:
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=577092006
QUOTE
Sun 16 Apr 2006
Blair refuses to back Iran strike
BRIAN BRADY
WESTMINSTER EDITOR
TONY Blair has told George Bush that Britain cannot offer military support to any strike on Iran, regardless of whether the move wins the backing of the international community, government sources claimed yesterday.
Amid increasing tension over Tehran's attempts to develop a military nuclear capacity, the Prime Minister has laid bare the limits of his support for President Bush, who is believed to be considering an assault on Iran, Foreign Office sources revealed.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is calling on the United Nations to consider new sanctions against Tehran when the Security Council meets next week to discuss the developing crisis. Blair is expected to support the call for a "Chapter 7" resolution, which could effectively isolate Iran from the international community.
But, in the midst of international opposition to a pre-emptive strike on Tehran, and Britain's military commitments around the world, the government maintains it cannot contribute to a military assault. "We will support the diplomatic moves, at best," a Foreign Office source told Scotland on Sunday. "But we cannot commit our own resources to a military strike."
Meanwhile, a new report on the Iran crisis has warned that neo-conservatives in the Bush administration are on "collision course" with Tehran.
The Foreign Policy Centre (FPC), often referred to as Blair's "favourite think-tank", will appeal for a greater effort to find a diplomatic solution in a report to be published later this week. FPC director Stephen Twigg, formerly a Labour minister, explained: "It is essential UK policy on Iran is well informed... We want to engage with the various reformist elements in Iran, both inside and outside the structures of power.
"There is potential for political dialogue, economic ties and cultural contacts to act as catalysts for the strengthening of civil society in Iran."
While the sense of crisis over Iran has been escalated by the fiery rhetoric between Tehran and the West - particularly Washington - many within the British government are now convinced that the impasse can be resolved by repeating the same sort of painstaking diplomatic activity that returned Libya to the international fold.
The approach contrasts sharply with the strategy employed during the run-up to the war in Iraq, when ministers repeatedly issued grim warnings to Saddam Hussein over the consequences of not falling in line with their demands.
"The only long-term solution to Iran's problems is democracy," said Alex Bigham, co-author of the FPC report. "But it cannot be dictated, Iraq-style, or it will backfire. Iran may seem superficially like Iraq but we need to treat Iran more like Libya. Diplomatic engagement must be allowed to run its course. There need to be bigger carrots as well as bigger sticks."
However, the conciliatory language was not reflected in the approach from Washington, where senior figures in the Bush administration remain keen to stress the danger of Tehran's intentions.
In a declaration aimed at America's allies as much as Iran, Rice claimed the Security Council's handling of the Iranian nuclear issue would be a test of the international community's credibility. "If the UN Security Council says: 'You must do these things and we'll assess in 30 days,' and Iran has not only not done those things, but has taken steps that are exactly the opposite of those that are demanded, then the Security Council is going to have to act."
Rice dismissed Iran's declaration that it is only interested in enriching uranium for use in civil nuclear power facilities, saying the international community must remain focused on the potential military applications of this technology.
"The world community does not want them to have that nuclear know-how and that's why nobody wants them to be able to enrich and reprocess on their territory, getting to the place that they can produce what we call a full-scale nuclear plant to be able to do this," she said.
Rice reiterated that President Bush has not taken any option off the table, including a military response, if Iran fails to comply with the demands of the international community.
Blair refuses to back Iran strike
BRIAN BRADY
WESTMINSTER EDITOR
TONY Blair has told George Bush that Britain cannot offer military support to any strike on Iran, regardless of whether the move wins the backing of the international community, government sources claimed yesterday.
Amid increasing tension over Tehran's attempts to develop a military nuclear capacity, the Prime Minister has laid bare the limits of his support for President Bush, who is believed to be considering an assault on Iran, Foreign Office sources revealed.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is calling on the United Nations to consider new sanctions against Tehran when the Security Council meets next week to discuss the developing crisis. Blair is expected to support the call for a "Chapter 7" resolution, which could effectively isolate Iran from the international community.
But, in the midst of international opposition to a pre-emptive strike on Tehran, and Britain's military commitments around the world, the government maintains it cannot contribute to a military assault. "We will support the diplomatic moves, at best," a Foreign Office source told Scotland on Sunday. "But we cannot commit our own resources to a military strike."
Meanwhile, a new report on the Iran crisis has warned that neo-conservatives in the Bush administration are on "collision course" with Tehran.
The Foreign Policy Centre (FPC), often referred to as Blair's "favourite think-tank", will appeal for a greater effort to find a diplomatic solution in a report to be published later this week. FPC director Stephen Twigg, formerly a Labour minister, explained: "It is essential UK policy on Iran is well informed... We want to engage with the various reformist elements in Iran, both inside and outside the structures of power.
"There is potential for political dialogue, economic ties and cultural contacts to act as catalysts for the strengthening of civil society in Iran."
While the sense of crisis over Iran has been escalated by the fiery rhetoric between Tehran and the West - particularly Washington - many within the British government are now convinced that the impasse can be resolved by repeating the same sort of painstaking diplomatic activity that returned Libya to the international fold.
The approach contrasts sharply with the strategy employed during the run-up to the war in Iraq, when ministers repeatedly issued grim warnings to Saddam Hussein over the consequences of not falling in line with their demands.
"The only long-term solution to Iran's problems is democracy," said Alex Bigham, co-author of the FPC report. "But it cannot be dictated, Iraq-style, or it will backfire. Iran may seem superficially like Iraq but we need to treat Iran more like Libya. Diplomatic engagement must be allowed to run its course. There need to be bigger carrots as well as bigger sticks."
However, the conciliatory language was not reflected in the approach from Washington, where senior figures in the Bush administration remain keen to stress the danger of Tehran's intentions.
In a declaration aimed at America's allies as much as Iran, Rice claimed the Security Council's handling of the Iranian nuclear issue would be a test of the international community's credibility. "If the UN Security Council says: 'You must do these things and we'll assess in 30 days,' and Iran has not only not done those things, but has taken steps that are exactly the opposite of those that are demanded, then the Security Council is going to have to act."
Rice dismissed Iran's declaration that it is only interested in enriching uranium for use in civil nuclear power facilities, saying the international community must remain focused on the potential military applications of this technology.
"The world community does not want them to have that nuclear know-how and that's why nobody wants them to be able to enrich and reprocess on their territory, getting to the place that they can produce what we call a full-scale nuclear plant to be able to do this," she said.
Rice reiterated that President Bush has not taken any option off the table, including a military response, if Iran fails to comply with the demands of the international community.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....USA-ARTICLE.xml
QUOTE
Former officials warn against US attack on Iran
Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:35pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to America's interests than the war with Iraq, former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote in Sunday's New York Times.
In an op-ed article co-authored with Steven Simon, a former State Department official who also worked for the National Security Council, Clarke wrote reports that the Bush administration is contemplating bombing nuclear sites in Iran raised concerns that "would simply begin a multi-move, escalatory process."
Iran's likely response would be to "use its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world, including inside the United States," Clarke and Simon warned.
"Iran has forces as its command far superior to anything Al Qaeda was ever able to field," they said, citing Iran's links with the militant group Hezbollah.
Iran could also make things much worse in Iraq, they wrote, adding "there is every reason to believe that Iran has such a retaliatory shock wave planned and ready."
President George W. Bush might then sanction more bombing, Clarke and Simon said, hoping Iranians would overthrow the Tehran government. But "more likely, the American war against Iran would guarantee the regime decades more of control."
The authors concluded by warning that "the parallels to the run-up to the war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was 'No war plan on my desk' despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion."
Congress "must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well," they said.
Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:35pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to America's interests than the war with Iraq, former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote in Sunday's New York Times.
In an op-ed article co-authored with Steven Simon, a former State Department official who also worked for the National Security Council, Clarke wrote reports that the Bush administration is contemplating bombing nuclear sites in Iran raised concerns that "would simply begin a multi-move, escalatory process."
Iran's likely response would be to "use its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world, including inside the United States," Clarke and Simon warned.
"Iran has forces as its command far superior to anything Al Qaeda was ever able to field," they said, citing Iran's links with the militant group Hezbollah.
Iran could also make things much worse in Iraq, they wrote, adding "there is every reason to believe that Iran has such a retaliatory shock wave planned and ready."
President George W. Bush might then sanction more bombing, Clarke and Simon said, hoping Iranians would overthrow the Tehran government. But "more likely, the American war against Iran would guarantee the regime decades more of control."
The authors concluded by warning that "the parallels to the run-up to the war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was 'No war plan on my desk' despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion."
Congress "must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well," they said.
Senator Dianne Feinstein's L.A. Times op-ed about Iran:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...home-commentary
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...home-commentary
QUOTE
Confronting Iran
Will we learn from our mistakes and apply tough diplomacy -- or rely once again on the failed doctrine of preemption?
By Dianne Feinstein
DIANNE FEINSTEIN is California's senior U.S. senator.
April 15, 2006
TEHRAN THIS WEEK claimed that it had enriched uranium, a first step toward nuclear weapons capability. The question now is whether the Bush administration has learned from its mistakes in Iraq, or will it set our nation on a road that leads to military confrontation with Iran?
No one concerned about U.S. national security wants Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons capability. It would be a destabilizing force in the Middle East and throughout the world. That's exactly why we need strong American leadership, working toward a verifiable diplomatic solution.
Instead, the administration reportedly is intent upon relying on the failed doctrine of preemption and new Pentagon planning that stokes the prospect of military conflict. If this is true, Americans ought to be deeply concerned.
The doctrine of preemption, first articulated by President Bush at West Point in June 2002, was spelled out in the September 2002 National Security Strategy: "The greater the threat, the greater the risk of inaction — and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves."
Just a few weeks ago, the doctrine was reiterated in the latest National Security Strategy. According to this document, the U.S. may use force before it is attacked because the nation cannot afford to "stand idly by as grave dangers materialize." Yet it is the doctrine itself that is dangerous.
First, it demands that our intelligence be right — every time. This is difficult, if not impossible, in the shadowy world of terrorism and WMD. As we've seen in Iraq, intelligence not only can be wrong, it can be manipulated. Our nation's credibility and stature have taken a huge hit as a result, and the U.S. is in no position to garner support in the international community for military confrontation based on preemption.
Second, the doctrine of preemption may lead to a less stable world in general — especially if our adversaries believe they are safe from preemptive action only if they possess nuclear weapons. Iran has no doubt noted the difference in our dealings with North Korea, which possesses nuclear weapons, and Iraq, which the administration believed was still developing them. So the administration may have encouraged the very proliferation it is seeking to prevent.
Third, an overreliance on preemption can lead to the downplaying of diplomacy. By the administration's own account, Iran is years away from possessing nuclear weapons; there is time to engage in forceful diplomatic action.
The dangers inherent in preemptive action are only multiplied by reports that the administration may be considering first use of tactical, battlefield nuclear weapons in Iran: Specifically, nuclear "bunker busters" to try to take out deeply buried targets.
There are some in this administration who have been pushing to make nuclear weapons more "usable." They see nuclear weapons as an extension of conventional weapons. This is pure folly.
As a matter of physics, there is no missile casing sufficiently strong to thrust deep enough into concrete or granite to prevent the spewing of radiation. Nuclear "bunker busters" would kill tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people across the Middle East.
This would be a disastrous tragedy. First use of nuclear weapons by the United States should be unthinkable. A preemptive nuclear attack violates a central tenet of the "just war" and U.S. military traditions.
There is no question that in the post-9/11 era, a full range of policy options for dealing with new and uncertain events should be on the table. But in my view, nuclear options cannot be considered as an extension of conventional options.
So what steps should the United States be taking?
The U.S. should engage Iran diplomatically. So far, England, France and Germany have led the negotiated effort to halt Iran's uranium enrichment, while Russia has explored other alternatives. It is time for the U.S. to lead such efforts, not stand by.
We must push for a complete halt to Iran's enrichment activities and full access to all nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency. If Iran refuses, international sanctions should follow, and inspections with U.N. forces if necessary.
At the same time, the U.S. needs to build international alliances to create a unified front opposed to Iran's quest for nuclear weapons.
The United States should learn the lesson of Iraq. It should not make the same mistake twice. There is broad agreement that Iran cannot be allowed to proceed with its nuclear programs and continue to flout the international community. Now is the time for tough diplomacy, joined by our allies, not a premature military confrontation that could include nuclear devastation.
Will we learn from our mistakes and apply tough diplomacy -- or rely once again on the failed doctrine of preemption?
By Dianne Feinstein
DIANNE FEINSTEIN is California's senior U.S. senator.
April 15, 2006
TEHRAN THIS WEEK claimed that it had enriched uranium, a first step toward nuclear weapons capability. The question now is whether the Bush administration has learned from its mistakes in Iraq, or will it set our nation on a road that leads to military confrontation with Iran?
No one concerned about U.S. national security wants Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons capability. It would be a destabilizing force in the Middle East and throughout the world. That's exactly why we need strong American leadership, working toward a verifiable diplomatic solution.
Instead, the administration reportedly is intent upon relying on the failed doctrine of preemption and new Pentagon planning that stokes the prospect of military conflict. If this is true, Americans ought to be deeply concerned.
The doctrine of preemption, first articulated by President Bush at West Point in June 2002, was spelled out in the September 2002 National Security Strategy: "The greater the threat, the greater the risk of inaction — and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves."
Just a few weeks ago, the doctrine was reiterated in the latest National Security Strategy. According to this document, the U.S. may use force before it is attacked because the nation cannot afford to "stand idly by as grave dangers materialize." Yet it is the doctrine itself that is dangerous.
First, it demands that our intelligence be right — every time. This is difficult, if not impossible, in the shadowy world of terrorism and WMD. As we've seen in Iraq, intelligence not only can be wrong, it can be manipulated. Our nation's credibility and stature have taken a huge hit as a result, and the U.S. is in no position to garner support in the international community for military confrontation based on preemption.
Second, the doctrine of preemption may lead to a less stable world in general — especially if our adversaries believe they are safe from preemptive action only if they possess nuclear weapons. Iran has no doubt noted the difference in our dealings with North Korea, which possesses nuclear weapons, and Iraq, which the administration believed was still developing them. So the administration may have encouraged the very proliferation it is seeking to prevent.
Third, an overreliance on preemption can lead to the downplaying of diplomacy. By the administration's own account, Iran is years away from possessing nuclear weapons; there is time to engage in forceful diplomatic action.
The dangers inherent in preemptive action are only multiplied by reports that the administration may be considering first use of tactical, battlefield nuclear weapons in Iran: Specifically, nuclear "bunker busters" to try to take out deeply buried targets.
There are some in this administration who have been pushing to make nuclear weapons more "usable." They see nuclear weapons as an extension of conventional weapons. This is pure folly.
As a matter of physics, there is no missile casing sufficiently strong to thrust deep enough into concrete or granite to prevent the spewing of radiation. Nuclear "bunker busters" would kill tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people across the Middle East.
This would be a disastrous tragedy. First use of nuclear weapons by the United States should be unthinkable. A preemptive nuclear attack violates a central tenet of the "just war" and U.S. military traditions.
There is no question that in the post-9/11 era, a full range of policy options for dealing with new and uncertain events should be on the table. But in my view, nuclear options cannot be considered as an extension of conventional options.
So what steps should the United States be taking?
The U.S. should engage Iran diplomatically. So far, England, France and Germany have led the negotiated effort to halt Iran's uranium enrichment, while Russia has explored other alternatives. It is time for the U.S. to lead such efforts, not stand by.
We must push for a complete halt to Iran's enrichment activities and full access to all nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency. If Iran refuses, international sanctions should follow, and inspections with U.N. forces if necessary.
At the same time, the U.S. needs to build international alliances to create a unified front opposed to Iran's quest for nuclear weapons.
The United States should learn the lesson of Iraq. It should not make the same mistake twice. There is broad agreement that Iran cannot be allowed to proceed with its nuclear programs and continue to flout the international community. Now is the time for tough diplomacy, joined by our allies, not a premature military confrontation that could include nuclear devastation.
IRAN NUKES
- Iranian Suicide Squads Ready To Hit US British Targets
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iranian_Su...sh_Targets.html
London (AFP) Apr 16, 2006 - Iran has formed battalions of suicide bombers to hit American and British targets if its nuclear installations are attacked, The Sunday Times newspaper said. According to Iranian officials, 40,000 trained suicide bombers were ready to strike, the British weekly broadsheet said.
- US-Iran Facing Clash Dead Ahead
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Iran_Fa...Dead_Ahead.html
- US Analysts Detail War Plans Against Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Analyst...ainst_Iran.html
- Top Iranian Commander Warns US Against Military Attack
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Top_Irania...ary_Attack.html
- Iranian Suicide Squads Ready To Hit US British Targets
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iranian_Su...sh_Targets.html
London (AFP) Apr 16, 2006 - Iran has formed battalions of suicide bombers to hit American and British targets if its nuclear installations are attacked, The Sunday Times newspaper said. According to Iranian officials, 40,000 trained suicide bombers were ready to strike, the British weekly broadsheet said.
- US-Iran Facing Clash Dead Ahead
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Iran_Fa...Dead_Ahead.html
- US Analysts Detail War Plans Against Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Analyst...ainst_Iran.html
- Top Iranian Commander Warns US Against Military Attack
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Top_Irania...ary_Attack.html
IRAN NUKES
- Pentagon Declines Comment On Report Of Iran Strike Plans
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Pentagon_D...rike_Plans.html
Washington (AFP) Apr 18, 2006 - The Pentagon declined to comment Monday on a report that US military planning for Iran began in 2002 and has been continually updated since. "This is the United States Defense Department. We plan for all sorts of things," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
- Iran 'Ready For War' But Seeks Peace
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Ready...eeks_Peace.html
- War With Iran Will Do US More Damage, Ex-Officials Warn
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/War_With_I...cials_Warn.html
- Iran's Real Nuclear Power
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Irans_Real...lear_Power.html
- Pentagon Declines Comment On Report Of Iran Strike Plans
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Pentagon_D...rike_Plans.html
Washington (AFP) Apr 18, 2006 - The Pentagon declined to comment Monday on a report that US military planning for Iran began in 2002 and has been continually updated since. "This is the United States Defense Department. We plan for all sorts of things," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
- Iran 'Ready For War' But Seeks Peace
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Ready...eeks_Peace.html
- War With Iran Will Do US More Damage, Ex-Officials Warn
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/War_With_I...cials_Warn.html
- Iran's Real Nuclear Power
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Irans_Real...lear_Power.html
For those who missed it, the following is Steven Simon's op-ed article in Sunday's NYT (co-written with Richard Clarke) warning about an intemperate approach to Iran. It makes eminent sense. As with Iraq, however, the open question is whether the ultimate decision-makers are listening.
April 16, 2006
Op-Ed Contributors
Bombs That Would Backfire
By RICHARD CLARKE and STEVEN SIMON
WHITE HOUSE spokesmen have played down press reports that the Pentagon has accelerated planning to bomb Iran. We would like to believe that the administration is not intent on starting another war, because a conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to our interests than the current struggle in Iraq has been. A brief look at history shows why.
Reports by the journalist Seymour Hersh and others suggest that the United States is contemplating bombing a dozen or more nuclear sites, many of them buried, around Iran. In the event, scores of air bases, radar installations and land missiles would also be hit to suppress air defenses. Navy bases and coastal missile sites would be struck to prevent Iranian retaliation against the American fleet and Persian Gulf shipping. Iran's long-range missile installations could also be targets of the initial American air campaign.
These contingencies seem familiar to us because we faced a similar situation as National Security Council staff members in the mid-1990's. American frustrations with Iran were growing, and in early 1996 the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, publicly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government. He and the C.I.A. put together an $18 million package to undertake it.
The Iranian legislature responded with a $20 million initiative for its intelligence organizations to counter American influence in the region. Iranian agents began casing American embassies and other targets around the world. In June 1996, the Qods Force, the covert-action arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, arranged the bombing of an apartment building used by our Air Force in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans.
At that point, the Clinton administration and the Pentagon considered a bombing campaign. But after long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favorably for the United States.
While the full scope of what America did do remains classified, published reports suggest that the United States responded with a chilling threat to the Tehran government and conducted a global operation that immobilized Iran's intelligence service. Iranian terrorism against the United States ceased.
In essence, both sides looked down the road of conflict and chose to avoid further hostilities. And then the election of the reformist Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran in 1997 gave Washington and Tehran the cover they needed to walk back from the precipice.
Now, as in the mid-90's, any United States bombing campaign would simply begin a multi-move, escalatory process. Iran could respond three ways. First, it could attack Persian Gulf oil facilities and tankers — as it did in the mid-1980's — which could cause oil prices to spike above $80 dollars a barrel.
Second and more likely, Iran could use its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world, including inside the United States. Iran has forces at its command that are far superior to anything Al Qaeda was ever able to field. The Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah has a global reach, and has served in the past as an instrument of Iran. We might hope that Hezbollah, now a political party, would decide that it has too much to lose by joining a war against the United States. But this would be a dangerous bet.
Third, Iran is in a position to make our situation in Iraq far more difficult than it already is. The Badr Brigade and other Shiite militias in Iraq could launch a more deadly campaign against British and American troops. There is every reason to believe that Iran has such a retaliatory shock wave planned and ready.
No matter how Iran responded, the question that would face American planners would be, "What's our next move?" How do we achieve so-called escalation dominance, the condition in which the other side fears responding because they know that the next round of American attacks would be too lethal for the regime to survive?
Bloodied by Iranian retaliation, President Bush would most likely authorize wider and more intensive bombing. Non-military Iranian government targets would probably be struck in a vain hope that the Iranian people would seize the opportunity to overthrow the government. More likely, the American war against Iran would guarantee the regime decades more of control.
So how would bombing Iran serve American interests? In over a decade of looking at the question, no one has ever been able to provide a persuasive answer. The president assures us he will seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis. And there is a role for threats of force to back up diplomacy and help concentrate the minds of our allies. But the current level of activity in the Pentagon suggests more than just standard contingency planning or tactical saber-rattling.
The parallels to the run-up to to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.
Richard Clarke and Steven Simon were, respectively, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
April 16, 2006
Op-Ed Contributors
Bombs That Would Backfire
By RICHARD CLARKE and STEVEN SIMON
WHITE HOUSE spokesmen have played down press reports that the Pentagon has accelerated planning to bomb Iran. We would like to believe that the administration is not intent on starting another war, because a conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to our interests than the current struggle in Iraq has been. A brief look at history shows why.
Reports by the journalist Seymour Hersh and others suggest that the United States is contemplating bombing a dozen or more nuclear sites, many of them buried, around Iran. In the event, scores of air bases, radar installations and land missiles would also be hit to suppress air defenses. Navy bases and coastal missile sites would be struck to prevent Iranian retaliation against the American fleet and Persian Gulf shipping. Iran's long-range missile installations could also be targets of the initial American air campaign.
These contingencies seem familiar to us because we faced a similar situation as National Security Council staff members in the mid-1990's. American frustrations with Iran were growing, and in early 1996 the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, publicly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government. He and the C.I.A. put together an $18 million package to undertake it.
The Iranian legislature responded with a $20 million initiative for its intelligence organizations to counter American influence in the region. Iranian agents began casing American embassies and other targets around the world. In June 1996, the Qods Force, the covert-action arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, arranged the bombing of an apartment building used by our Air Force in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans.
At that point, the Clinton administration and the Pentagon considered a bombing campaign. But after long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favorably for the United States.
While the full scope of what America did do remains classified, published reports suggest that the United States responded with a chilling threat to the Tehran government and conducted a global operation that immobilized Iran's intelligence service. Iranian terrorism against the United States ceased.
In essence, both sides looked down the road of conflict and chose to avoid further hostilities. And then the election of the reformist Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran in 1997 gave Washington and Tehran the cover they needed to walk back from the precipice.
Now, as in the mid-90's, any United States bombing campaign would simply begin a multi-move, escalatory process. Iran could respond three ways. First, it could attack Persian Gulf oil facilities and tankers — as it did in the mid-1980's — which could cause oil prices to spike above $80 dollars a barrel.
Second and more likely, Iran could use its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world, including inside the United States. Iran has forces at its command that are far superior to anything Al Qaeda was ever able to field. The Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah has a global reach, and has served in the past as an instrument of Iran. We might hope that Hezbollah, now a political party, would decide that it has too much to lose by joining a war against the United States. But this would be a dangerous bet.
Third, Iran is in a position to make our situation in Iraq far more difficult than it already is. The Badr Brigade and other Shiite militias in Iraq could launch a more deadly campaign against British and American troops. There is every reason to believe that Iran has such a retaliatory shock wave planned and ready.
No matter how Iran responded, the question that would face American planners would be, "What's our next move?" How do we achieve so-called escalation dominance, the condition in which the other side fears responding because they know that the next round of American attacks would be too lethal for the regime to survive?
Bloodied by Iranian retaliation, President Bush would most likely authorize wider and more intensive bombing. Non-military Iranian government targets would probably be struck in a vain hope that the Iranian people would seize the opportunity to overthrow the government. More likely, the American war against Iran would guarantee the regime decades more of control.
So how would bombing Iran serve American interests? In over a decade of looking at the question, no one has ever been able to provide a persuasive answer. The president assures us he will seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis. And there is a role for threats of force to back up diplomacy and help concentrate the minds of our allies. But the current level of activity in the Pentagon suggests more than just standard contingency planning or tactical saber-rattling.
The parallels to the run-up to to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.
Richard Clarke and Steven Simon were, respectively, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
IN THE RUBBLE - TOM ENGELHARDT (TOM DISPATCH, APRIL 16): Even as they stand in the rubble of their world, top Bush officials remain quite capable of making decisions that will export ruins to, say, Iran and create further chaos in the oil heartlands of the planet as well as here at home.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=77789
US RELEASES SATELLITE IMAGES OF IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITY PEOPLE'S DAILY (BEIJING, APRIL 17)
http://english.people.com.cn/200604/17/eng...417_258938.html
IS IRAN PREPARING FOR WAR? EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, APRIL 17): Iran and its terrorist allies are playing a very dangerous game indeed.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060416-103028-6653r.htm
MENACING HINDSIGHT - TOD LINDBERG (WASHINGTON TIMES, APRIL 18): Iranian threats must not be ignored.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060417-094711-4589r.htm
HE RUNS IRAN, WE RUN - MARK STEYN (WASHINGTON TIMES, APRIL 17): That's how it goes with the Iranians. The more they claim they've gone nuclear, the more U.S. intelligence experts -- whoops, where are my quote marks? -- the more US intelligence "experts" insist no, no, it won't be for another 10 years yet.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200604...03032-2261r.htm
THE PENTAGON PREPS FOR IRAN - WILLIAM M. ARKIN (WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 16): Iran needs to know -- and even more important, the American public needs to know -- that no matter how many experts talk about difficult-to-find targets or the catastrophe that could unfold if war comes, military planners are already working hard to minimize the risks of any military operation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041401907.html
IRAN'S RECKLESS LEADERSHIP EDITORIAL (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, APRIL 17): The president of Iran is playing right into the hands of the hawks within the Bush administration who have designs on a military strike against the country.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...EDGIOI9FK51.DTL
YOU WANNA TALK? LET'S TALK: THE CASE FOR NEGOTIATING WITH IRAN - FRED KAPLAN (SLATE, APRIL 17)
http://www.slate.com/id/2139845/
IRAN CARROTS AND STICKS : U.S. HARDLINERS' PUBLIC BRANDISHING OF MILITARY STICKS HAS ALREADY WEAKENED THE U.S. CASE AND UNDERMINED INTERNATIONAL WILLINGNESS TO SQUEEZE IRAN - JEFFREY LAURENTI (MOTHER JONES, APRIL 17)
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/colu...and_sticks.html
BOMBS THAT WOULD BACKFIRE - RICHARD CLARKE AND STEVEN SIMON (NEW YROK TIMES, APRIL 16): Attacking Iran would invite terrorist reprisals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/opinion/...%2fContributors
RISKING THE ULTIMATE BLOWBACK: DON'T BLITZ IRAN - BRIAN CLOUGHLEY (COUNTERPUNCH, APRIL 15/16)
http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley04152006.html
IRAN'S SITTING DUCK - MICHAEL LEVI (NEW YORK TIMES, APRIL 18): Taking nuclear weapons decisively off the table would reinforce the taboo against the bomb, and make American actions to oppose proliferation more effective.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/18/opinion/18levi.html
ARE YOU READY TO TRUST BUSH AS HE TACKLES NUCULER IRAN? - LEONARD PITTS JR. (BALTIMORE SUN, APRIL 16)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines
READING TEHRAN - AZAR NAFISI (WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 16): It is when they discover this "other Iran" -- enigmatic, humorous, self-critical and sensual -- that Americans will celebrate the differences that make each culture unique but also experience the shock of recognition, discovering how much they have in common with Iranians.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041401895.html
-British government sources say the prime minister will support diplomatic moves, but not military actions.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0418/dailyUpdate.html?s=mesdu
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=77789
US RELEASES SATELLITE IMAGES OF IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITY PEOPLE'S DAILY (BEIJING, APRIL 17)
http://english.people.com.cn/200604/17/eng...417_258938.html
IS IRAN PREPARING FOR WAR? EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, APRIL 17): Iran and its terrorist allies are playing a very dangerous game indeed.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060416-103028-6653r.htm
MENACING HINDSIGHT - TOD LINDBERG (WASHINGTON TIMES, APRIL 18): Iranian threats must not be ignored.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060417-094711-4589r.htm
HE RUNS IRAN, WE RUN - MARK STEYN (WASHINGTON TIMES, APRIL 17): That's how it goes with the Iranians. The more they claim they've gone nuclear, the more U.S. intelligence experts -- whoops, where are my quote marks? -- the more US intelligence "experts" insist no, no, it won't be for another 10 years yet.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200604...03032-2261r.htm
THE PENTAGON PREPS FOR IRAN - WILLIAM M. ARKIN (WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 16): Iran needs to know -- and even more important, the American public needs to know -- that no matter how many experts talk about difficult-to-find targets or the catastrophe that could unfold if war comes, military planners are already working hard to minimize the risks of any military operation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041401907.html
IRAN'S RECKLESS LEADERSHIP EDITORIAL (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, APRIL 17): The president of Iran is playing right into the hands of the hawks within the Bush administration who have designs on a military strike against the country.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...EDGIOI9FK51.DTL
YOU WANNA TALK? LET'S TALK: THE CASE FOR NEGOTIATING WITH IRAN - FRED KAPLAN (SLATE, APRIL 17)
http://www.slate.com/id/2139845/
IRAN CARROTS AND STICKS : U.S. HARDLINERS' PUBLIC BRANDISHING OF MILITARY STICKS HAS ALREADY WEAKENED THE U.S. CASE AND UNDERMINED INTERNATIONAL WILLINGNESS TO SQUEEZE IRAN - JEFFREY LAURENTI (MOTHER JONES, APRIL 17)
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/colu...and_sticks.html
BOMBS THAT WOULD BACKFIRE - RICHARD CLARKE AND STEVEN SIMON (NEW YROK TIMES, APRIL 16): Attacking Iran would invite terrorist reprisals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/opinion/...%2fContributors
RISKING THE ULTIMATE BLOWBACK: DON'T BLITZ IRAN - BRIAN CLOUGHLEY (COUNTERPUNCH, APRIL 15/16)
http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley04152006.html
IRAN'S SITTING DUCK - MICHAEL LEVI (NEW YORK TIMES, APRIL 18): Taking nuclear weapons decisively off the table would reinforce the taboo against the bomb, and make American actions to oppose proliferation more effective.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/18/opinion/18levi.html
ARE YOU READY TO TRUST BUSH AS HE TACKLES NUCULER IRAN? - LEONARD PITTS JR. (BALTIMORE SUN, APRIL 16)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines
READING TEHRAN - AZAR NAFISI (WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 16): It is when they discover this "other Iran" -- enigmatic, humorous, self-critical and sensual -- that Americans will celebrate the differences that make each culture unique but also experience the shock of recognition, discovering how much they have in common with Iranians.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041401895.html
-British government sources say the prime minister will support diplomatic moves, but not military actions.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0418/dailyUpdate.html?s=mesdu
U.S. refuses to denie report of Iran strike plans:
The Pentagon declined to comment Monday on a report that US military planning for Iran began in 2002 and has been continually updated since.
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=119385
===
Gordon Prather: Busting empty bunkers:
Military planners told the White House that if they wanted to be sure to destroy the underground uranium-enrichment bunker at Natanz – which is to eventually hold those 50,000 gas-centrifuges, but is now empty – they'd have to nuke it.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12766.htm
===
Prominent U.S. Physicists Send Warning Letter to President Bush:
Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely irresponsible” and warning that such action would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.”
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12769.htm
===
Fallout: The human cost of nuclear catastrophe:
Flash presentation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,1748554,00.html
The Pentagon declined to comment Monday on a report that US military planning for Iran began in 2002 and has been continually updated since.
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=119385
===
Gordon Prather: Busting empty bunkers:
Military planners told the White House that if they wanted to be sure to destroy the underground uranium-enrichment bunker at Natanz – which is to eventually hold those 50,000 gas-centrifuges, but is now empty – they'd have to nuke it.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12766.htm
===
Prominent U.S. Physicists Send Warning Letter to President Bush:
Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely irresponsible” and warning that such action would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.”
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12769.htm
===
Fallout: The human cost of nuclear catastrophe:
Flash presentation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,1748554,00.html
Bombs That Would Backfire
By RICHARD CLARKE and STEVEN SIMON
The parallels to the run-up to to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12761.htm
===
The US, Iran and the End of the International Order
By Jussi Sinnemaa
As the IAEA has repeatedly acknowledged, Iran is not in violation of any of her legal obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In fact, Iran has allowed far more intrusive international inspections of her nuclear facilities than required by the NPT. Iran remains the only country to have done so.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12762.htm
By RICHARD CLARKE and STEVEN SIMON
The parallels to the run-up to to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12761.htm
===
The US, Iran and the End of the International Order
By Jussi Sinnemaa
As the IAEA has repeatedly acknowledged, Iran is not in violation of any of her legal obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In fact, Iran has allowed far more intrusive international inspections of her nuclear facilities than required by the NPT. Iran remains the only country to have done so.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12762.htm
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD18Ad02.html
China, Russia welcome Iran into the fold
By M K Bhadrakumar
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which maintained it had no plans for expansion, is now changing course. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members. SCO's decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement. Conceivably, SCO would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15.
Speaking in Beijing as recently as January 17, the organization's secretary general Zhang Deguang had been quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying: "Absorbing new member states needs a legal basis, yet the SCO has no rules concerning the issue. Therefore, there is no need for some Western countries to worry whether India, Iran or other countries would become new members."
The SCO, an Intergovernmental organization whose working languages are Chinese and Russian, was founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO's change of heart appears set to involve the organization in Iran's nuclear battle and other ongoing regional issues with the United States.
Visiting Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi told Itar-TASS in Moscow that the membership expansion "could make the world more fair". And he spoke of building an Iran-Russia "gas-and-oil arc" by coordinating their activities as energy producing countries. Mohammadi also touched on Iran's intention to raise the issue of his country's nuclear program and its expectations of securing SCO support.
The timing of the SCO decision appears to be significant. By the end of April the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to report to the United Nations Security Council in New York regarding Iran's compliance with the IAEA resolutions and the Security Council's presidential statement, which stresses the importance of Iran "reestablishing full, sustained suspension of uranium-enrichment activities".
The SCO membership is therefore a lifeline for Iran in political and economic terms. The SCO is not a military bloc but is nonetheless a security organization committed to countering terrorism, religious extremism and separatism. SCO membership would debunk the US propaganda about Iran being part of an "axis of evil".
The SCO secretary general's statement on expansion coincided with several Chinese and Russian commentaries last week voicing disquiet about the US attempts to impose UN sanctions against Iran. Comparison has been drawn with the Iraq War when the US seized on sanctions as a pretext for invading Iraq.
A People's Daily commentary on April 13 read: "The real intention behind the US fueling the Iran issue is to prompt the UN to impose sanctions against Iran, and to pave the way for a regime change in that country. The US's global strategy and its Iran policy emanate out of its decision to use various means, including military means, to change the Iranian regime. This is the US's set target and is at the root of the Iran nuclear issue."
The commentary suggested Washington seeks a regime change in Iran with a view to establishing American hegemony in the Middle East. Gennady Yefstafiyev, a former general in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, wrote: "The US's long term goals in Iran are obvious: to engineer the downfall of the current regime; to establish control over Iran's oil and gas; and to use its territory as the shortest route for the transportation of hydrocarbons under US control from the regions of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea bypassing Russia and China. This is not to mention Iran's intrinsic military and strategic significance."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: "I would not be in a hurry to draw conclusions, because passions are too often being whipped up around Iran's nuclear program ... I would also advise not to whip up passions."
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's nuclear power agency and a former prime minister, said Iran was simply not capable of enriching uranium on an industrial scale. "It has long since been known that Iran has a 'cascade' of only 164 centrifuges, and obtaining low-grade uranium from this 'cascade' was only a matter of time. This did not come as a surprise to us."
Yevgeniy Velikhov, president of Kurchatov Institute, Russia's nuclear research center, told Tier-TASS, "Launching experimental equipment of this type is something any university can do."
By virtue of SCO membership, Iran can partake of the various SCO projects, which in turn means access to technology, increased investment and trade, infrastructure development such as banking, communication, etc. It would also have implications for global energy security.
The SCO was expected to set up a working group of experts ahead of the summit in June with a view to evolving a common "energy strategy" and jointly undertaking pipeline projects, oil exploration and related activities.
A third aspect of the SCO decision to expand its membership involves regional integration processes. Sensing that the SCO was gaining traction, Washington had sought observer status at its summit meeting last June, but was turned down. This rebuff - along with SCO's timeline for a reduced American military presence in Central Asia, the specter of deepening Russia-China cooperation and the setbacks to US diplomacy in Central Asia as a whole - prompted a policy review in Washington.
Following a Central Asian tour in October by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Washington's new regional policy began surfacing. The re-organization of the US State Department's South Asia Bureau (created in August 1992) to include the Central Asian states, projection of US diplomacy in terms of "Greater Central Asia" and the push for observer status with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) should be seen in perspective.
US diplomacy is working toward getting Central Asian states to orientate toward South Asia - weaning them away from Russia and China. (Hamid Karzai's government in Kabul has also failed to respond to SCO's overtures but has instead sought full membership in SAARC.)
But US diplomacy is not making appreciable progress in Central Asia. Washington pins hopes on Astana (Kazakhstan) being its pivotal partner in Central Asia. The US seeks an expansion of its physical control over Kazakhstan's oil reserves and formalization of Kazakh oil transportation via Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, apart from carving out a US role in Caspian Sea security.
But Kazakhstan is playing hard to get. President Nurusultan Nazarbayev's visit to Moscow on April 3 reaffirmed his continued dependence on Russian oil pipelines.
Meanwhile, Washington's relations with Tashkent (Uzbekistan) remain in a state of deep chill. The US attempt to "isolate" President Islam Karimov is not working. (Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is visiting Tashkent on April 25.) Again, Tajikistan relies heavily on Russia's support. In Kyrgyzstan, despite covert US attempts to create dissensions within the regime, President Burmanbek Bakiyev's alliance with Prime Minister Felix Kulov (which enjoys Russia's backing) is holding.
The Central Asians have also displayed a lack of interest in the idea of "Greater Central Asia". This became apparent during the conference sponsored by Washington recently in Kabul focusing on the theme.
The SCO's enlargement move, in this regional context, would frustrate the entire US strategy. Ironically, the SCO would be expanding into South Asia and the Gulf region, while "bypassing" Afghanistan.
This at a time when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is stepping up its presence in Afghanistan. (General James L Jones, supreme allied commander Europe, said recently that NATO would assume control of Afghanistan by August.)
So far NATO has ignored SCO. But NATO contingents in Afghanistan would shortly be "surrounded" by SCO member countries. NATO would face a dilemma.
If it recognizes that SCO has a habitation and a name (in Central Asia, South Asia and the Gulf), then, what about NATO's claim as the sole viable global security arbiter in the 21st century? NATO would then be hard-pressed to explain the raison d'etre of its expansion into the territories of the former Soviet Union.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)
China, Russia welcome Iran into the fold
By M K Bhadrakumar
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which maintained it had no plans for expansion, is now changing course. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members. SCO's decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement. Conceivably, SCO would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15.
Speaking in Beijing as recently as January 17, the organization's secretary general Zhang Deguang had been quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying: "Absorbing new member states needs a legal basis, yet the SCO has no rules concerning the issue. Therefore, there is no need for some Western countries to worry whether India, Iran or other countries would become new members."
The SCO, an Intergovernmental organization whose working languages are Chinese and Russian, was founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO's change of heart appears set to involve the organization in Iran's nuclear battle and other ongoing regional issues with the United States.
Visiting Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi told Itar-TASS in Moscow that the membership expansion "could make the world more fair". And he spoke of building an Iran-Russia "gas-and-oil arc" by coordinating their activities as energy producing countries. Mohammadi also touched on Iran's intention to raise the issue of his country's nuclear program and its expectations of securing SCO support.
The timing of the SCO decision appears to be significant. By the end of April the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to report to the United Nations Security Council in New York regarding Iran's compliance with the IAEA resolutions and the Security Council's presidential statement, which stresses the importance of Iran "reestablishing full, sustained suspension of uranium-enrichment activities".
The SCO membership is therefore a lifeline for Iran in political and economic terms. The SCO is not a military bloc but is nonetheless a security organization committed to countering terrorism, religious extremism and separatism. SCO membership would debunk the US propaganda about Iran being part of an "axis of evil".
The SCO secretary general's statement on expansion coincided with several Chinese and Russian commentaries last week voicing disquiet about the US attempts to impose UN sanctions against Iran. Comparison has been drawn with the Iraq War when the US seized on sanctions as a pretext for invading Iraq.
A People's Daily commentary on April 13 read: "The real intention behind the US fueling the Iran issue is to prompt the UN to impose sanctions against Iran, and to pave the way for a regime change in that country. The US's global strategy and its Iran policy emanate out of its decision to use various means, including military means, to change the Iranian regime. This is the US's set target and is at the root of the Iran nuclear issue."
The commentary suggested Washington seeks a regime change in Iran with a view to establishing American hegemony in the Middle East. Gennady Yefstafiyev, a former general in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, wrote: "The US's long term goals in Iran are obvious: to engineer the downfall of the current regime; to establish control over Iran's oil and gas; and to use its territory as the shortest route for the transportation of hydrocarbons under US control from the regions of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea bypassing Russia and China. This is not to mention Iran's intrinsic military and strategic significance."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: "I would not be in a hurry to draw conclusions, because passions are too often being whipped up around Iran's nuclear program ... I would also advise not to whip up passions."
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's nuclear power agency and a former prime minister, said Iran was simply not capable of enriching uranium on an industrial scale. "It has long since been known that Iran has a 'cascade' of only 164 centrifuges, and obtaining low-grade uranium from this 'cascade' was only a matter of time. This did not come as a surprise to us."
Yevgeniy Velikhov, president of Kurchatov Institute, Russia's nuclear research center, told Tier-TASS, "Launching experimental equipment of this type is something any university can do."
By virtue of SCO membership, Iran can partake of the various SCO projects, which in turn means access to technology, increased investment and trade, infrastructure development such as banking, communication, etc. It would also have implications for global energy security.
The SCO was expected to set up a working group of experts ahead of the summit in June with a view to evolving a common "energy strategy" and jointly undertaking pipeline projects, oil exploration and related activities.
A third aspect of the SCO decision to expand its membership involves regional integration processes. Sensing that the SCO was gaining traction, Washington had sought observer status at its summit meeting last June, but was turned down. This rebuff - along with SCO's timeline for a reduced American military presence in Central Asia, the specter of deepening Russia-China cooperation and the setbacks to US diplomacy in Central Asia as a whole - prompted a policy review in Washington.
Following a Central Asian tour in October by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Washington's new regional policy began surfacing. The re-organization of the US State Department's South Asia Bureau (created in August 1992) to include the Central Asian states, projection of US diplomacy in terms of "Greater Central Asia" and the push for observer status with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) should be seen in perspective.
US diplomacy is working toward getting Central Asian states to orientate toward South Asia - weaning them away from Russia and China. (Hamid Karzai's government in Kabul has also failed to respond to SCO's overtures but has instead sought full membership in SAARC.)
But US diplomacy is not making appreciable progress in Central Asia. Washington pins hopes on Astana (Kazakhstan) being its pivotal partner in Central Asia. The US seeks an expansion of its physical control over Kazakhstan's oil reserves and formalization of Kazakh oil transportation via Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, apart from carving out a US role in Caspian Sea security.
But Kazakhstan is playing hard to get. President Nurusultan Nazarbayev's visit to Moscow on April 3 reaffirmed his continued dependence on Russian oil pipelines.
Meanwhile, Washington's relations with Tashkent (Uzbekistan) remain in a state of deep chill. The US attempt to "isolate" President Islam Karimov is not working. (Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is visiting Tashkent on April 25.) Again, Tajikistan relies heavily on Russia's support. In Kyrgyzstan, despite covert US attempts to create dissensions within the regime, President Burmanbek Bakiyev's alliance with Prime Minister Felix Kulov (which enjoys Russia's backing) is holding.
The Central Asians have also displayed a lack of interest in the idea of "Greater Central Asia". This became apparent during the conference sponsored by Washington recently in Kabul focusing on the theme.
The SCO's enlargement move, in this regional context, would frustrate the entire US strategy. Ironically, the SCO would be expanding into South Asia and the Gulf region, while "bypassing" Afghanistan.
This at a time when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is stepping up its presence in Afghanistan. (General James L Jones, supreme allied commander Europe, said recently that NATO would assume control of Afghanistan by August.)
So far NATO has ignored SCO. But NATO contingents in Afghanistan would shortly be "surrounded" by SCO member countries. NATO would face a dilemma.
If it recognizes that SCO has a habitation and a name (in Central Asia, South Asia and the Gulf), then, what about NATO's claim as the sole viable global security arbiter in the 21st century? NATO would then be hard-pressed to explain the raison d'etre of its expansion into the territories of the former Soviet Union.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)
- Ahmadinejad Says Iran Army Will Cut Off Hand Of Aggressor
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Ahmadineja..._Aggressor.html
Tehran, Iran (AFP) Apr 19, 2006 - Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Tuesday that Iran would "cut off the hand of any aggressor", as the Islamic republic's army put on a show of strength in their annual military parade.
- Big Powers Meet As Questions Mount Whether Iran Will Turn Into Iraq
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Big_Powers..._Into_Iraq.html
- Some Experts Suspect Iranian Nuclear Program More Advanced Than Thought
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Some_Exper...an_Thought.html
- No Agreement Among Powers On Iranian Sanction
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/No_Agreeme...n_Sanction.html
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Ahmadineja..._Aggressor.html
Tehran, Iran (AFP) Apr 19, 2006 - Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Tuesday that Iran would "cut off the hand of any aggressor", as the Islamic republic's army put on a show of strength in their annual military parade.
- Big Powers Meet As Questions Mount Whether Iran Will Turn Into Iraq
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Big_Powers..._Into_Iraq.html
- Some Experts Suspect Iranian Nuclear Program More Advanced Than Thought
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Some_Exper...an_Thought.html
- No Agreement Among Powers On Iranian Sanction
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/No_Agreeme...n_Sanction.html
US Pressuring Russia To Drop Weapons Sale To Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Pressur...le_To_Iran.html
Moscow (AFP) Apr 19, 2006 - Russia is coming under US pressure to cancel a contract to deliver Tor-M1 mobile air defence systems to Iran due to concerns about Tehran's nuclear programme, a respected business daily reported Tuesday.
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Pressur...le_To_Iran.html
Moscow (AFP) Apr 19, 2006 - Russia is coming under US pressure to cancel a contract to deliver Tor-M1 mobile air defence systems to Iran due to concerns about Tehran's nuclear programme, a respected business daily reported Tuesday.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/ar...st_iran?mode=PF
US expected to press for sanctions against Iran
Tension over nuclear development may lead to a freeze on assets
By Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters | April 18, 2006
MOSCOW -- The United States will press other major world powers today to consider what it calls targeted sanctions against Iran as an April 30 deadline nears for Tehran to demonstrate to the UN that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons.
World crude oil prices topped $70 a barrel yesterday, the highest level in nearly eight months, amid heightened market fears that Washington might consider military action against Iran.
Speculation that the United States may be laying the groundwork for possible force is widely expected to be dismissed today at a meeting in Moscow of officials from the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia.
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has further roiled the nuclear debate by declaring that his country is testing a centrifuge that could be used to more speedily create fuel for power plants or atomic weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been unable to verify Iran's assertion that its program is entirely peaceful, said yesterday that it would send a team of inspectors to Iran within two days to try to make a determination.
Officials at the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog agency based in Vienna, refused to comment on the new statement about the centrifuges.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States wants the Security Council to be ready to impose targeted measures such as a freeze on assets and visa curbs. It is not seeking restrictions on oil and gas sales, to avoid creating hardships for the Iranian people.
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said yesterday that Iran would not halt its program but would cooperate with UN inspectors as the April 30 deadline approaches for the IAEA to issue a report on Iran's compliance.
''We have always signified our willingness to allow inspectors to come to Iran and visit our nuclear sites. If there are still questions and ambiguities that need to be answered, then these should be answered," he said.
Some analysts familiar with Iran's nuclear technology said yesterday that Ahmadinejad might be deliberately exaggerating Iran's capabilities, either to boost his political support or to persuade UN watchdogs to back off.
''He was likely posturing for his own political advantage and playing to national sentiment. We have to remember that the nuclear issue is very popular in Iran," said Khalid R. al-Rodhan, an Iran nuclear analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The UN Security Council has demanded that Iran cease enrichment work, which the United States and some allies suspect is meant to produce nuclear weapons. But Russia and China, two of the council's five veto-holding members, have opposed punishing Iran. Russia's Foreign Ministry said yesterday that the Kremlin would insist today on a diplomatic solution to the standoff.
Ahmadinejad last week said for the first time that Iran is testing a P-2 centrifuge for enriching uranium. Such a device would be a vast improvement over the P-1 centrifuges that Iran says it has used to do small-scale enrichment.
Iran previously told the agency it gave up work on P-2 centrifuges three years ago. But the IAEA and some independent groups question whether Iran might have a parallel, secret nuclear program.
''If the statements prove to be true, it would be a very serious concern," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Material from the Associated Press was included in this article.
US expected to press for sanctions against Iran
Tension over nuclear development may lead to a freeze on assets
By Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters | April 18, 2006
MOSCOW -- The United States will press other major world powers today to consider what it calls targeted sanctions against Iran as an April 30 deadline nears for Tehran to demonstrate to the UN that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons.
World crude oil prices topped $70 a barrel yesterday, the highest level in nearly eight months, amid heightened market fears that Washington might consider military action against Iran.
Speculation that the United States may be laying the groundwork for possible force is widely expected to be dismissed today at a meeting in Moscow of officials from the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia.
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has further roiled the nuclear debate by declaring that his country is testing a centrifuge that could be used to more speedily create fuel for power plants or atomic weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been unable to verify Iran's assertion that its program is entirely peaceful, said yesterday that it would send a team of inspectors to Iran within two days to try to make a determination.
Officials at the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog agency based in Vienna, refused to comment on the new statement about the centrifuges.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States wants the Security Council to be ready to impose targeted measures such as a freeze on assets and visa curbs. It is not seeking restrictions on oil and gas sales, to avoid creating hardships for the Iranian people.
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said yesterday that Iran would not halt its program but would cooperate with UN inspectors as the April 30 deadline approaches for the IAEA to issue a report on Iran's compliance.
''We have always signified our willingness to allow inspectors to come to Iran and visit our nuclear sites. If there are still questions and ambiguities that need to be answered, then these should be answered," he said.
Some analysts familiar with Iran's nuclear technology said yesterday that Ahmadinejad might be deliberately exaggerating Iran's capabilities, either to boost his political support or to persuade UN watchdogs to back off.
''He was likely posturing for his own political advantage and playing to national sentiment. We have to remember that the nuclear issue is very popular in Iran," said Khalid R. al-Rodhan, an Iran nuclear analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The UN Security Council has demanded that Iran cease enrichment work, which the United States and some allies suspect is meant to produce nuclear weapons. But Russia and China, two of the council's five veto-holding members, have opposed punishing Iran. Russia's Foreign Ministry said yesterday that the Kremlin would insist today on a diplomatic solution to the standoff.
Ahmadinejad last week said for the first time that Iran is testing a P-2 centrifuge for enriching uranium. Such a device would be a vast improvement over the P-1 centrifuges that Iran says it has used to do small-scale enrichment.
Iran previously told the agency it gave up work on P-2 centrifuges three years ago. But the IAEA and some independent groups question whether Iran might have a parallel, secret nuclear program.
''If the statements prove to be true, it would be a very serious concern," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Material from the Associated Press was included in this article.
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=8874
April 19, 2006
Amid Threats, Some Republicans Seek Talks on Iran
by Jim Lobe
Amid a new escalation in threats between the United States and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, some prominent Republicans are calling for the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to engage Tehran in direct talks.
At the same time, indications that Tehran may itself be hoping to engage Washington have been growing steadily, despite the incendiary rhetoric of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad directed primarily against Israel, which Bush has pledged to defend.
Whether moderate voices in both capitals, as well as similar urgings by foreign powers that are increasingly worried about the regional and global repercussions of a possible U.S. attack on Iran, will prevail remains very uncertain, particularly given their history of mutual demonization since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The current heated rhetoric between them makes the possibility of their sitting down together for a negotiation of all outstanding issues – along the lines of a much-talked-about "grand bargain" several years ago – appear more remote than ever.
Indeed, the rhetoric appeared to get even more heated Tuesday when Bush, asked explicitly about recent published reports that the U.S. is planning for a possible nuclear strike against targets in Iran, refused to rule it out, even as he stressed that his administration wants "to solve this issue diplomatically, and we're working hard to do so."
"All options are on the table," he declared in what one expert described as a virtually unprecedented threat by a U.S. president to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.
Bush's remarks followed a threat voiced earlier Tuesday by Ahmadinejad during an annual military parade. The Iranian army, he said, "will cut off the hands of any aggressors and will make any aggressor regret it."
In spite of the by now well-established cycle of threat and counter-threat, however, cooler heads from within ruling circles on both sides are raising their voices, particularly in the wake of alarming – though still unconfirmed – reports earlier this month that U.S. military planning for attacks, including nuclear strikes, against Iran has moved beyond its contingency phase.
Last week, for example, two former senior State Department officials who served during Bush's first term came out in favor of comprehensive negotiations with Tehran.
In a column published by London's Financial Times (FT), Richard Haass, who served as director of the Department's Policy Planning Office and was a top Middle East adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2001 until 2003, argued that an attack, particularly with nuclear weapons, would prove counterproductive to a range of U.S. interests and called for direct talks with Iran.
"Given [the] potential high costs [of an attack], Washington should be searching harder for a diplomatic alternative, one that entails direct U.S. talks with Iran beyond the narrow dialogue announced on Iraq," wrote the current president of the influential Council on Foreign Relations, in reference to Bush's decision earlier this year to authorize Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to engage Iran in talks strictly limited to Iraq.
A possible deal, he went on, would permit Iran to retain a small, heavily monitored uranium enrichment program, in return for which it "would receive a range of economic benefits, security guarantees, and political dialogue."
Washington would have nothing to lose from such an exercise, said Haass, who also served as the top Middle East aide to former President George H.W. Bush during the first Gulf War. "Presenting a fair and generous offer would … make it easier to rally international support for escalation against Iran if diplomacy is rebuffed," he argued.
Haass' suggestions were echoed the next day by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who told the FT that he, too, favored comprehensive talks with Iran. While he left the administration when Powell resigned, Armitage has long been a personal favorite of Bush's and is considered a leading candidate to succeed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld if he resigns or is forced out.
"It merits talking to the Iranians about the full range of our relationship … everything from energy to terrorism to weapons to Iraq," Armitage said, adding that Washington could afford to be patient "for a while" because Tehran is still at least several years from obtaining a nuclear device.
On Sunday, the long-standing Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, also weighed in on a much-watched public-affairs television program, ABC's This Week.
"I think that would be useful," he said when asked about the possibility of direct talks. He added that Washington should engage Iran about its role as a major energy exporter in particular, suggesting that the two countries have interests in common. "There are issues there," he said, "which ironically, we may come out on the same side with some of the Iranians."
While none of the three is considered part of Bush's inner circle, their views are taken seriously by many Republicans on Capitol Hill, particularly given the growing concern among the party's lawmakers that the situation in Iraq may cost it control of one or even both houses of Congress in the November elections.
"'Realists' like Armitage and Lugar have been vindicated by [events in] Iraq so their credibility has risen at the same time that Bush's and [Vice President Dick] Cheney's keeps falling," said one congressional aide whose boss is a Republican. "People are much more receptive to their views now even if they're still hesitant about speaking out."
Pro-dialogue forces also appear to be active in Tehran, even if they can hardly be heard over the more radical Ahmadinejad, who, despite his limited authority in foreign policy and the nuclear program, is largely depicted in the media here as the public face of Iran.
Thus former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was defeated by Ahmadinejad in last year's runoff elections but who nonetheless retains key posts in the regime, said just last week that the proposed talks between Iran and the U.S. over Iraq could lead to a more comprehensive dialogue. He also reportedly asked Saudi Arabia to help mediate between Tehran and Washington.
And in a move first reported by the FT but still shrouded in mystery, Mohammad Nahavandian, a senior aide to Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council who also serves as the regime's chief negotiator on nuclear issues, qu
April 19, 2006
Amid Threats, Some Republicans Seek Talks on Iran
by Jim Lobe
Amid a new escalation in threats between the United States and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, some prominent Republicans are calling for the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to engage Tehran in direct talks.
At the same time, indications that Tehran may itself be hoping to engage Washington have been growing steadily, despite the incendiary rhetoric of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad directed primarily against Israel, which Bush has pledged to defend.
Whether moderate voices in both capitals, as well as similar urgings by foreign powers that are increasingly worried about the regional and global repercussions of a possible U.S. attack on Iran, will prevail remains very uncertain, particularly given their history of mutual demonization since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The current heated rhetoric between them makes the possibility of their sitting down together for a negotiation of all outstanding issues – along the lines of a much-talked-about "grand bargain" several years ago – appear more remote than ever.
Indeed, the rhetoric appeared to get even more heated Tuesday when Bush, asked explicitly about recent published reports that the U.S. is planning for a possible nuclear strike against targets in Iran, refused to rule it out, even as he stressed that his administration wants "to solve this issue diplomatically, and we're working hard to do so."
"All options are on the table," he declared in what one expert described as a virtually unprecedented threat by a U.S. president to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.
Bush's remarks followed a threat voiced earlier Tuesday by Ahmadinejad during an annual military parade. The Iranian army, he said, "will cut off the hands of any aggressors and will make any aggressor regret it."
In spite of the by now well-established cycle of threat and counter-threat, however, cooler heads from within ruling circles on both sides are raising their voices, particularly in the wake of alarming – though still unconfirmed – reports earlier this month that U.S. military planning for attacks, including nuclear strikes, against Iran has moved beyond its contingency phase.
Last week, for example, two former senior State Department officials who served during Bush's first term came out in favor of comprehensive negotiations with Tehran.
In a column published by London's Financial Times (FT), Richard Haass, who served as director of the Department's Policy Planning Office and was a top Middle East adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2001 until 2003, argued that an attack, particularly with nuclear weapons, would prove counterproductive to a range of U.S. interests and called for direct talks with Iran.
"Given [the] potential high costs [of an attack], Washington should be searching harder for a diplomatic alternative, one that entails direct U.S. talks with Iran beyond the narrow dialogue announced on Iraq," wrote the current president of the influential Council on Foreign Relations, in reference to Bush's decision earlier this year to authorize Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to engage Iran in talks strictly limited to Iraq.
A possible deal, he went on, would permit Iran to retain a small, heavily monitored uranium enrichment program, in return for which it "would receive a range of economic benefits, security guarantees, and political dialogue."
Washington would have nothing to lose from such an exercise, said Haass, who also served as the top Middle East aide to former President George H.W. Bush during the first Gulf War. "Presenting a fair and generous offer would … make it easier to rally international support for escalation against Iran if diplomacy is rebuffed," he argued.
Haass' suggestions were echoed the next day by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who told the FT that he, too, favored comprehensive talks with Iran. While he left the administration when Powell resigned, Armitage has long been a personal favorite of Bush's and is considered a leading candidate to succeed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld if he resigns or is forced out.
"It merits talking to the Iranians about the full range of our relationship … everything from energy to terrorism to weapons to Iraq," Armitage said, adding that Washington could afford to be patient "for a while" because Tehran is still at least several years from obtaining a nuclear device.
On Sunday, the long-standing Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, also weighed in on a much-watched public-affairs television program, ABC's This Week.
"I think that would be useful," he said when asked about the possibility of direct talks. He added that Washington should engage Iran about its role as a major energy exporter in particular, suggesting that the two countries have interests in common. "There are issues there," he said, "which ironically, we may come out on the same side with some of the Iranians."
While none of the three is considered part of Bush's inner circle, their views are taken seriously by many Republicans on Capitol Hill, particularly given the growing concern among the party's lawmakers that the situation in Iraq may cost it control of one or even both houses of Congress in the November elections.
"'Realists' like Armitage and Lugar have been vindicated by [events in] Iraq so their credibility has risen at the same time that Bush's and [Vice President Dick] Cheney's keeps falling," said one congressional aide whose boss is a Republican. "People are much more receptive to their views now even if they're still hesitant about speaking out."
Pro-dialogue forces also appear to be active in Tehran, even if they can hardly be heard over the more radical Ahmadinejad, who, despite his limited authority in foreign policy and the nuclear program, is largely depicted in the media here as the public face of Iran.
Thus former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was defeated by Ahmadinejad in last year's runoff elections but who nonetheless retains key posts in the regime, said just last week that the proposed talks between Iran and the U.S. over Iraq could lead to a more comprehensive dialogue. He also reportedly asked Saudi Arabia to help mediate between Tehran and Washington.
And in a move first reported by the FT but still shrouded in mystery, Mohammad Nahavandian, a senior aide to Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council who also serves as the regime's chief negotiator on nuclear issues, qu