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

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

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

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


© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48925

Mad mullahs issue fatwa to use nuclear weapons

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: February 21, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com


An Iranian fatwa (holy edict) permitting the use of nuclear weapons has been issued for the first time. Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, has stated that using nuclear weapons as a counter-measure is acceptable in terms of sharia (Islamic law), depending upon the goal for which the weapons are used.

Up until now, the religious leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran have publicly declared that the use of nuclear weapons are opposed to sharia, maintaining this position to buttress the argument that Iran's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.


Gharavian, a lecturer at the religious schools of Qom, stated that:


One must say that when the entire world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is only natural that, as a counter-measure, it is necessary to be able to use these weapons. However, what is important is the goal they may be used for.


With Iran's President Ahmadinejad openly declaring that Israel must be wiped from the map of the Middle East, we are compelled to ask if Gharavian would consider killing Israeli Jews to be a purpose that sharia would consider acceptable for the use of nuclear weapons?

This fatwa marks a clear signal that the ultra-conservative spiritual leaders in Iran are in full control. Gharavian's statement takes additional importance because he is a disciple of Ayatollah Yazdi, who is also the spiritual mentor of Ahmadinejad. The Jamkaran Mosque in Qom was also the center from which Ayatollah Khomeini based his opposition to the Pahlavi dynasty before he was forced to leave Iran in exile. Devout Shiites believe that the Mahdi, the famous "lost Twelfth Iman," disappeared as a young boy down a well that is now revered within the Jamkaran Mosque.

Ayatollah Yazdi and President Ahmadinejad both profess that the Mahdi will emerge from that same well in his Second Coming, but only following an apocalypse in which the world will go through great calamities and upheavals. In September 2005, when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly, Ahmadinejad mentioned the Mahdi in describing what he considered to be his divinely appointed political mission as president of Iran.

Gharavian's fatwa was published by the IraNews news agency, suggesting that the statement had the official blessing of the Iranian regime. Iran has openly defied the world diplomatic community by deciding unilaterally to resume uranium processing at Isfahan and uranium enriching at Natanz. Now, the Mesbah Yazdi group has given the first public statement that the use of nuclear weapons is authorized on religious grounds, a further defiant step on the road toward Iran's open proclamation that the regime is pursuing nuclear weapons, not simply the peaceful use of nuclear power.

The signs that the radical fundamentalists have regained control of Iran's revolution are abundant. In recent weeks, Ahmadinejad has traveled to Damascus to give Syrian President Bashar Assad his support in the international controversy over Sryian complicity in the assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Hariri. Last summer, before taking over the presidency, Ahmadinejad met in Tehran with Seyed Hassan Nasrollah, the Lebanese leader of the radical terrorist group Hezbollah.

In January this year, Moqtada al-Sadr, the young Iraqi Shiite radical cleric whose "Al-Mahdi Army" engaged in acts of terrorism in April 2004 against U.S. troops in Iraq, visited Tehran and swore to support Iran if the United States or Israel should attack Iran. Hamas member Muhammad Jamal al-Natshah, who was elected to the Palestinian legislature in late January, after being released from Israeli prison, declared that Iran would provide financial support to Hamas if Israel should cut off funds.

Iran is also rushing to conclude with China a $100 billion deal that will allow a Chinese government-controlled oil company to develop the vast oil and natural-gas holdings in Iran's Yadavaran field. The goal is to complete the deal before a U.S.-led motion might cause the Security Council to consider imposing additional sanctions on Iran for violations in their nuclear program.

Iran will hold in euros foreign currency reserves from the sale of oil and natural gas to China. With China's increasing dependency upon Iran for energy resources, the Iranians have suggested that China should diversify into euros a greater portion of their nearly $1 trillion in foreign currency reserves. With approximately 75 percent of China's foreign currency reserves currently held in dollars, a move by the Chinese to the euro could depress the value of the dollar, making more costly the U.S. Treasury's need to sell massive debt into the international markets to maintain our large and growing twin trade and budget deficits.

Now, ahead of the International Atomic Energy Agency's scheduled March 6 meeting in Vienna to vote on referring Iran to the Security Council, the IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei has suggested that Iran might be permitted to enrich a small quantity of uranium for "research and development" purposes. ElBaradei has told diplomats recently that a pilot enrichment program at Natanz is Iran's bottom-line, "a reality" the world may have to learn to live with. With this statement, the prospect looms that Iran may once again have won the negotiating game of chess, by winning the concession of even the IAEA that Natanz and Isfahan can continue operating.

Even should the IAEA vote to send the Iranian portfolio to the Security Council, Russia and China appear ready to veto any meaningful sanctions. In the next few weeks, we will most likely see the United States forced to admit that the Bush administration strategy since the second inauguration of allowing the IAEA and the E.U.-3 to lead negotiations with Iran may simply amount to a waste of time.

Iran has also begun suggesting that the Russian proposal to enrich uranium on Russian soil, possibly with the assistance of an international consortium pledging to provide enriched uranium to Iran will be acceptable, as long as Iran can also continue enriching uranium on Iranian soil. What reason does the world community have to believe that Iran will only enrich a small amount of uranium when Iran has consistently violated agreements with the IAEA?

With Iran and Hamas both declaring that Israel has no legitimate reason to survive and with diplomacy failing to contain the Iranian nuclear program, increasingly the military option is the only option left with any promise of stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons that the mullahs now declare can be used in accordance with Islamic law. What more do we need to see before we conclude that Israel and America are inevitably headed to war with Iran?
Jerome R. Corsi received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972 and has written many books and articles, including co-authoring with John O'Neill the No. 1 New York Times best-seller, "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry." Dr. Corsi's most recent books include "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil," which he co-authored with WND columnist Craig. R. Smith, and "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians."

Iran was not referred to the Security Council for Noncompliance

By Mike Whitney

The public should not be worried about Iran, rather, it should be concerned about the implications of allowing one nation to arbitrarily repeal internationally-accepted treaties and dictate how the world will be run.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12002.htm

US accuses Iran of arming militia: IRAN is providing weapons and training to militias and extremist groups in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, said today.
http://theaustralian.news.com.au/common/st...55E1702,00.html

===
Plan to enrich uranium: Iran, Russia agree on common formula:

Iran and Russia have agreed on the principles of a "common formula" in negotiations in Moscow on a plan to enrich uranium on Russian soil, the head of the Iranian delegation told state television Tuesday.
http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_25791.shtml

===
Gordon Prather: March madness:

How to explain the adoption this week – by a vote of 404-4 – of House Concurrent Resolution 341 "condemning the government of Iran for violating its international nuclear nonproliferation obligations and expressing support for efforts to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council." In particular, what "violations" are they talking about?
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12003.htm


Iran nuke plant 'would survive attack':

IRAN'S uranium enrichment facilities, built in underground bunkers, would survive any military strikes, the Islamic republic's nuclear program director said today.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18234099-23109,00.html


Meshal: Iran's role in Palestine to be expanded :

Hamas' top political leader Khaled Meshal said Tuesday that Iran would play an increasing role in Palestinian affairs and the political future of Palestine.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/685524.html

February 22, 2006
Iran Offers to Aid Palestinian Authority
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:54 p.m. ET

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran on Wednesday offered to help finance a Palestinian Authority run by the Hamas militant group, state radio said in a report prompting Israel to warn it would do all it legally could to stop the Palestinians from receiving the money.

The secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, announced the offer after a meeting with Khaled Mashaal, the political leader of Hamas, the report said.

Larijani said the decision was taken after the United States said it would not provide aid to an authority governed by Hamas until the group renounces violence, recognizes Israel and agrees to abide by existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

''The United States proved that it would not support democracy after it cut its aid to the Palestinian government after Hamas won the elections. We will certainly help the Palestinians,'' Larijani said, according to the radio.

The United States and European Union, which consider Hamas a terrorist group, have said they will halt their grants of hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Palestinian Authority after a Hamas government takes office unless it changes its attitude toward Israel and violence.

Hamas has long called for the destruction of Israel and has refused to negotiate with the Jewish state. Its leaders have refused to change their policies since the group won last month's Palestinian elections by a landslide.

Israel regards Iran as a pariah for its support of militant groups such as Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah, and it accuses Tehran of seeking to produce nuclear weapons -- a charge Iran denies. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently said Israel should be ''wiped out.''

Asked if Israel would try to block the Iranian money, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said that since the money would be going to a ''terrorist'' leadership, ''we would be entitled to use all legal means to prevent that money from reaching its destination.''

In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said he had seen the reports concerning Iran's willingness to finance a Hamas government, but he did not verify them.

''Iran's support of terror and Iran's support of violence as an acceptable way to achieve political aspirations is contrary to the policy and the statements of President Abbas, it's contrary to the policies and statements of the Quartet, it's, frankly, contrary to the actions of the civilized world,'' Ereli said.

On Tuesday, a moderate Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was asked to form a government by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Mashaal and his delegation were in Iran in the latest stop of a tour of Arab and Islamic nations aimed at drumming up support as Israel and the United States move to cut off money to the Palestinians.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Monday called for Muslim nations to provide aid to a Hamas-led government and expressed support for the group's refusal to recognize Israel.

Ahmadinejad also indicated Monday that Hamas should not fear the West's threat to cut off funds.

''Since the divine treasures are infinite, you should not be concerned about economic issues,'' IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying in an apparent reference to Iran's oil wealth.

Israel and the United States have long accused Iran of giving financial and material support to Hamas. But Iran has always replied it gives only moral backing.

Hamas suicide bombers have killed hundreds of Israelis. But the group has respected an informal cease-fire since early last year.

------

AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid in Washington contributed to this report.



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

Michel Chossudovsky: Is the Bush Adminstration Planning a Nuclear Holocaust?:

Will the US launch "Mini-nukes" against Iran in Retaliation for Tehran's "Non-compliance"?
http://tinyurl.com/nnpru

===
Iran Has No WMD — Russia’s Intelligence Chief:

“We have no data that Iran has any nuclear warheads or sufficient amount of plutonium for constructing them,” he said.
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/02/22/noweapons.shtml

===
Iran offers to fund Hamas government:

Iran has offered to help finance the Palestinian Authority under a government run by the militant group Hamas, Iranian state radio reported on Wednesday.
http://tinyurl.com/rjeem

===
Iran comes to Hamas's aid, as Egypt refuses to back Washington:

Egypt rejected US efforts to win its support for a clampdown on aid to the Palestinian Authority when Hamas - officially invited to form a government - takes power.
http://tinyurl.com/mglt8

===
Reaction to Hamas victory is gift to Iran's leaders :

Its regional influence fortuitously boosted by the US invasion of Iraq and the advent of a Shia-dominated government in Baghdad, Iran's leadership is contemplating another unintended gift from Washington: the chance to become a power in Palestine.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldbriefing/st...1715106,00.html

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

The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
by Krassimir Petrov


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

I. Economics of Empires

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


II. Iranian Oil Bourse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


--


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

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

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

February 23, 2006
Iran Wants More Done in Atomic Talks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:05 a.m. ET

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Iran's foreign minister said Thursday that four unspecified issues must be resolved before his country agrees to a proposed Russian solution to the standoff over his nation's nuclear ambitions.

China, meanwhile, was sending an envoy to Tehran in a last-ditch effort to broker a deal before a meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog next month that could start a process leading to possible U.N. Security Council sanctions.

''We are ready to compromise,'' Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters during a brief visit to Indonesia as part of an Asian tour that will take him to Thailand on Friday.

Moscow has proposed moving Iran's enrichment of uranium to Russian soil to assuage international fears that the theocracy could produce atomic weapons. Enrichment is a process that can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or material for a warhead.

Mottaki said that four issues remain unresolved, among them which countries and companies would be involved. But ''if you ask me, the main element is timing and place or places,'' he said, without elaborating.

''We believe that we should move from here to compromise, not go back.''

The United States and other Western governments suspect that Iran's nuclear program is a cover for producing weapons, but Tehran insists it only wants to develop energy.

Russian talks with Iranian officials on the compromise proposal this week ended with no signs of progress. The head of Russia's atomic energy agency was set to travel to Iran on Thursday for further talks on Moscow's proposal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that negotiations were proving difficult.

He said that the Kremlin's offer to enrich uranium in Russia should be ''perfectly acceptable'' to Iran.

''We are not losing optimism,'' Putin said. ''We are waiting for a final response from the Iranian negotiators and we hope for a positive result.''

The International Atomic Energy Agency meets March 6 to discuss the standoff and could start a process leading to a review by the Security Council, which has the authority to impose sanctions on Iran.

China, a commercial partner of Iran that wants to avoid sanctions, announced Thursday that it was sending Vice Foreign Minister Li Guozheng to Tehran on Friday for a three-day visit to discuss the crisis.

''They will exchange views on the nuclear issue,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. ''We will discuss how to resolve this issue ... properly through dialogue and consultation.

''We hope the relevant parties could exercise patience and restraint, and now there's still room for a solution of this issue within the IAEA.''



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

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

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

===
'The vilification of Iran' :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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- Outside View: Russia May Cooperate On Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Outside_Vi...te_On_Iran.html

Washington DC (UPI) Feb 27, 2006 - Can the United States and Russia cooperate on Iran? As with practically any complex political problem, the answer is not going to be monosyllabic; a definite "yes" has to be modified by a defining "if". Russia has received a good deal of criticism in the United States over Iran's nuclear program lately. A lot of this criticism was as scathing as it was unfair, striving to portray Russia as a maverick of the civilized world in blind pursuit of self-interest.

- Iran Must Act Before IAEA Meeting
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Must_...EA_Meeting.html

- Outside View: Russia May Cooperate On Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Outside_Vi...te_On_Iran.html

Washington DC (UPI) Feb 27, 2006 - Can the United States and Russia cooperate on Iran? As with practically any complex political problem, the answer is not going to be monosyllabic; a definite "yes" has to be modified by a defining "if". Russia has received a good deal of criticism in the United States over Iran's nuclear program lately. A lot of this criticism was as scathing as it was unfair, striving to portray Russia as a maverick of the civilized world in blind pursuit of self-interest.

UN agency: Iran continues to develop its nuclear program USA Today
Iran is expanding its nuclear program despite the threat of United Nations sanctions, the UN nuclear watchdog agency said Monday. An International Atomic Energy Agency report described Iran's progress in mastering centrifuge technology since Iran ended a voluntary suspension of its uranium enrichment program in January. The report provides new ammunition for the Bush administration to push for action against Iran at the U.N. Security Council. The IAEA board, which meets next week, voted Feb. 4 to report Iran to the council because of questions about its nuclear program. Iran denies it is trying to make weapons. The IAEA report said it cannot make that determination, despite three years of inspections, because it hasn't had Iran's "active cooperation." On Feb. 11, Iranians fed uranium gas into a single centrifuge machine, according to the IAEA. By Feb. 15, they had strung together 10 machines, and by Feb. 22, they had begun testing the vacuum seal on 20 machines linked together. "They are in a rush," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank. Iran intends to begin installing 3,000 centrifuges — machines that spin at high speeds to concentrate uranium — later this year, the IAEA said. It is not known how close Iran is to having the material for a bomb. Estimates have ranged from several years to less than a year. R. Nicholas Burns, the top U.S. diplomat dealing with the Iran issue, said Iran is headed for the Security Council unless it takes "dramatic action to reverse its present course, which is to achieve a nuclear weapons capability." Iran might try to avoid sanctions by agreeing at the last minute to re-suspend its centrifuge work. Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of State for non-proliferation, predicts Iran "will play games, including feigning interest in a Russian proposal" to make fuel for Iranian power plants in Russia. Under that plan, Iran wouldn't be allowed to enrich uranium within Iran but could continue other nuclear work. (Related story: Hopes fade for Iran talks) Iran and Russia announced Sunday that they had agreed "in principle" on such a deal. The Bush administration expressed skepticism. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the administration will not seek harsh sanctions that could hurt the Iranian people.
Iran Report Raises More Suspicions Los Angeles Times
UN Agency Says Iran Gave Few Answers on Nuclear Activity New York Times
Reuters Canada - ABC Online - Hindu - Aljazeera.com - all 1,523 related »

Mubarak says warns US against hitting Iran Yahoo! NEWS
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he had advised the United States against attacking Iran, predicting that Tehran would react through its influence over Shi'ite Muslim communities in Arab countries in the Gulf. In remarks to Egyptian newspaper editors published on Wednesday, Mubarak also said an Israeli attack on Iran was most unlikely because Tehran would respond by launching ballistic missiles at the Jewish state. The United States has declined to rule out military force against Iran, which it says it suspects of working on nuclear weapons under the cover of its civilian nuclear program. Mubarak, speaking on his way back from the Gulf on Monday, said he discussed the consequences of a U.S. attack on Iran with U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who visited Egypt in January. "I said to him word for word: 'Listen to my advice for once.'," Mubarak said, speaking the phrase in English. The remark was published in the state-owned daily al-Gomhuria. Mubarak warned against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. "If an air strike (against Iran) took place, Iraq will turn into terrorist groups more than it is already ... The Gulf area has Shi'ite majorities in many of the states and America is linked to vital interests in this area and has naval facilities," Mubarak said. "Iran spends generously on the Shi'a in every country and these people are prepared to do anything if Iran is hit." Bush plans to address U.S. and coalition forces at Bagram Air Force Base before heading to India, with the Afghanistan stop expected to consume about five hours. Bush was preceded in Afghanistan by both Vice President Dick Cheney and First Lady Laura Bush, who made separate visits of their own. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also has visited. "He has to go,'' said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan. "He's in the neighborhood... Laura Bush went.''

Putin Optimistic Iran Will Return To Nuclear Control Mechanism
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Putin_Opti..._Mechanism.html

Budapest, Hungary (AFP) Mar 01, 2006 - Russia is optimistic that Iranian negotiators will agree to return to an international protocol limiting Tehran's nuclear activities, Russian President Vladimir Putin said here Tuesday. "We are optimists and consider we can come to an agreement with our Iranian interlocutors about returning Iran to the additional protocol," Putin said during a visit to Hungary.

- Politics and Policies: What To Do With Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Politics_a..._With_Iran.html

Washington DC (UPI) Mar 02, 2006 - At a time when rumors of regime change and pre-emptive strikes against Iran are once more the talk of the town in the nation's capital, one man is cautioning against any knee-jerk reaction that might further empower the ruling mullahs in Tehran.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polling Data

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

Threat requiring action now
20%

Threat that can be contained
55%

Not a threat at this time
19%

Not sure
6%



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

EU3-Iran talks end without deal: ministers
Talks between the European Union's top powers and Iran days before a U.N. atomic watchdog board meeting ended on Friday without agreement, ministers said. After the high-level meeting between France, Britain, Germany and Iran in Vienna, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters the Iranians had offered no new ideas on how to allay fears Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons. "Unfortunately we were not able to reach agreement today," Steinmeier told a news conference. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Iran was told it must return to a full suspension of activities linked to uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for power plants or atomic bombs, to win fresh negotiations on trade incentives. The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors will convene on Monday to weigh a report by the IAEA chief saying essentially that Iran has ignored a February 4 call to reimpose a suspension of enrichment work to regain world trust. "We made clear to them that to regain trust they must return to a full suspension of research and development. This is the key to any restoration of confidence," Douste-Blazy said. "We regret that Iran was not able to respond to our conditions without further ado," he said. The Vienna-based board reported Iran to the Council but on the condition the top world body on war and peace issues would not flex its muscle at least until after next week's session.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Moscow for this article.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most experts focus on uranium and ignore Iran's work on plutonium, another bomb fuel, judging it as even further from fruition. Still, nuclear analysts warn against complacency.

"They do have serious problems," said Mohammad Sahimi, a chemical engineer at the University of Southern California who left Iran in 1978. "But we've made mistakes in underestimating the strength of science in Iran and the ingenuity they show in working with whatever crude design they get their hands on."

Centrifuges and Uranium

By all accounts, the oldest and most daunting problem involves centrifuges — temperamental machines whose rotors can spin extraordinarily fast to enrich uranium. After two decades of effort, Iran seems barely out of the starting gate.

All uranium is not equal. One form, uranium 235, easily splits in two, or fissions, in bursts of atomic energy that power nuclear reactors and bombs. Its slightly heavier cousin, uranium 238, does not.

But since uranium 235 accounts for less than 1 percent of all uranium, engineers use centrifuges to separate the two and concentrate the rare form. Uranium enriched to about 4 percent uranium 235 can fuel most reactors; to 90 percent, atom bombs.

In 1987, the Iranians secretly began buying drawings and parts for centrifuges from Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear expert who operated the world's biggest nuclear black market. International inspectors say the deals eventually included parts for about 500 primitive used centrifuges.

Tehran, apparently unhappy with their quality, turned to Moscow. In early 1995, it made a secret deal to buy an entire plant of centrifuges — typically tens of thousands of the spinning machines linked together to slowly increase the level of enrichment.

But after the Clinton administration persuaded Moscow to back out, Iran accelerated its secret drive to copy Dr. Khan's centrifuges. It also started building the huge enrichment plant near Natanz, in central Iran. The pilot factory there was to house 1,000 centrifuges; the main plant would shelter 50,000 machines underground.

In August 2002, Iranian dissidents revealed the existence of the Natanz site, beginning the current confrontation with the West. The next year, Iran agreed to suspend work while negotiating with Europe over the program's fate.

But when operators shut down an experimental cascade of 164 centrifuges at Natanz, about 50 of them broke or crashed, according to a January report by David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington.

Now, the report said, Iran must replace and repair the broken machines and prepare the cascade for operation. Then comes the really hard part: if all goes well, the Iranians must mass-produce thousands of centrifuges and learn to run them in concert, like a large orchestra.

Iran is also struggling to turn concentrated uranium ore, or yellowcake, into uranium hexafluoride, the toxic gas fed into the centrifuges for enrichment. Such conversion is done at a site on the outskirts of Isfahan.

Iran began the conversion effort in the early 1990's, asking China to help build the complex. But in 1997, the Clinton administration persuaded Beijing to stop the deal. The Iranians got blueprints but little else. So they started building on their own.

"From what I saw, everything looked like local manufacturing except for some gauges," said Gary S. Samore, who ran the National Security Council's nonproliferation office during the Clinton administration and who traveled to Isfahan in 2005.

Iran, which tried to hide most of its nuclear sites, voluntarily revealed Isfahan to international inspectors in 2000. But the plant encountered problems during its first runs in early 2004, its output laced with impurities, in particular molybdenum, a silvery element often found in uranium ore.

The contamination, experts say, can ruin delicate centrifuges, reducing their efficiency and cutting short their lifetimes.

The Iranians are working hard to solve the problem. Mark Hibbs of Nuclear Fuel, an industry publication, who broke the molybdenum story, said most experts believed that the Iranians would ultimately succeed. British intelligence, he said, put the time needed at a year and a half, Israeli analysts at two or three months.

Houston G. Wood III, a centrifuge expert at the University of Virginia, said the Iranians might simply learn to cope. "If you're smart enough," he said, "you could probably get by, maybe with decreased efficiency."

Western officials worry that the conversion has a secret side run by a military group seeking to integrate the nuclear program with the design of missiles that could deliver a weapon. In a Jan. 31 report, the I.A.E.A. revealed that it had documentary evidence of a shadowy operation, the Green Salt Project. Tehran dismissed the charge of a hidden military effort as baseless and later called the documents forgeries.

Estimating a Bomb's Birth

Atomic forecasts are driven largely by assessments of technological maturity, sometimes colored by judgments of the risks of guessing wrong.

That may explain the gulf between Israel's claim that the world has as little as six months before the "point of no return" and estimates that an Iranian warhead is many years away.

"We live within Iranian missile range," said a senior Israeli official who has worked on the country's estimates. "Our survival depends on understanding the worst-case scenario." Thus, in the Israeli view, it would be a huge mistake to let the Iranians figure out how to clean up and enrich their uranium.

Israel cites studies like one published in October by the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran." Its timeline is short, one to four years. Iran, it asserted, "lacks for nothing technologically or materially to produce it, and seems dead set on securing an option to do so."

Henry Sokolski, an editor of the report, said neither he nor anyone else could actually produce a truly accurate forecast. "A lot of people are fraudulent, making it sound like a science," he said. "It's not."

He nonetheless defended the report's estimate as reasonable, pointing to Iran's long nuclear history.

Analysts like Mr. Albright and Ms. Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and International Security put the earliest date Iran might produce a weapon at 2009.

To date, the most comprehensive public estimate is by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, an arms analysis group in London. "If Iran threw caution to the wind," John Chipman, the institute's director, said, it might be able to make fuel for a single nuclear weapon by 2010.

Dr. Samore, who edited that report and is now at the MacArthur Foundation, said the Iranians might see political advantage in a more deliberate approach, doing nothing provocative until after 2015 or even 2020.

In his view, he said, Iran would complete the main Natanz plant, installing 50,000 centrifuges and learning to operate them. If successful, it could then enrich uranium to the low levels needed for a nuclear reactor and so comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Then it could rush ahead and produce enough highly enriched fuel for a nuclear arsenal in weeks or months. At full tilt, the report concluded, Natanz could annually churn out material for up to 180 warheads.

Such a "breakout" chain of events worries experts because it leaves the world little or no time to react.

Seeking a Global Strategy

The Bush administration has concluded that even if Iran stops short of assembling a weapon, its ability to produce one on short order would change the politics of the Middle East. So it has been trying, with mixed success, to devise a broader atomic blockade that would turn the unilateral, often clandestine efforts of the past into a far more global effort involving not only Europe but India, China and Russia. In theory, the meeting this week in Vienna is a step in that direction.

But administration officials are also trying to make headway on their own. They have persuaded several of Iran's neighbors — they will not say which ones — to block Iranian cargo flights that appear headed toward North Korea or other potential nuclear suppliers. Last year, that strategy appeared to succeed in at least one case, when China intervened.

In a little-noted speech in February, Robert Joseph, an under secretary of state and one of the administration's leading hawks on Iran, described the tools of denial he was employing, from cracking down on Tehran's finances to depriving Iran of crucial technologies.

But administration officials readily acknowledge that it is next to impossible to build a leak-proof wall. In his speech, Mr. Joseph warned of the "wild card" that Iran could obtain nuclear fuel for a bomb from an outside supplier.

As much as anything, officials worry about the unknown. They note that the United States missed signs that a country was about to go nuclear with the Soviets in the 1940's, the Chinese in the 1960's, India in the 1970's and Pakistan in the 1990's.

"People always surprise us," said a senior nuclear intelligence official who was not authorized to speak publicly. "They're always a little more cunning and capable than we give them credit for."



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China urges renewed talks on Iran nuclear crisis

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing urged Iran on Sunday to resume talks with Russia and the European Union on its nuclear programme as soon as possible, a day ahead of a key meeting of the U.N. atomic watchdog.

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

The Moscow-Tehran Agreement
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/The_Moscow..._Agreement.html

Washington DC (UPI) Mar 04, 2006 - In my Policy Watch column of Feb. 24 ("Iran's Aversion to Russia"), I discussed how Iranian dislike for Russia made it unlikely that Moscow and Tehran would be able to reach an agreement for Russia to enrich uranium for Iran. Less than 48 hours later, a flurry of news reports indicated that Russia and Iran had just reached such an agreement on Feb. 26.

Russian Experts Predict Iranian Nuclear Bomb In Five Years
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russian_Ex...Five_Years.html

Iran and Qaeda benefit from US in Iraq: congressman:

The U.S. presence in Iraq is hurting the worldwide war on terrorism and benefits only Iran and al Qaeda, U.S. Rep. John Murtha said on Sunday.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12197.htm


Please smile while under the boot:

The self-righteous arrogance with which the West feigns shock at Muslim reactions to humiliation reveals how deeply the colonial attitude runs in the Occident
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12198.htm


War pimp alert: US Diplomat: Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions Will Face Painful Consequences:

In case Iran doesn’t give up its ambitions in sphere of nuclear energy the country should face painful consequences and the USA will be able to use all means in order to counteract the threat coming from the Islamic republic, the US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton announced today
http://tinyurl.com/gl7ws


Iran will stand by rights in case of UN referral or sanctions :

If the nuclear dossier is referred to the UN, Iran will reduce its cooperation with the IAEA and start uranium enrichment, Larijani stated.
http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=299281


War pimp alert:

How we duped the West, by Iran's nuclear negotiator:

The man who for two years led Iran's nuclear negotiations has laid out in unprecedented detail how the regime took advantage of talks with Britain, France and Germany to forge ahead with its secret atomic programme.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12192.htm


Nato may help US airstrikes on Iran:

A former senior Israeli defence official said he believed all Nato members had contingency plans.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly...420-524,00.html

March 6, 2006
Iran Maintains Defiant Stance as Atomic Agency Takes Case
By NAZILA FATHI
TEHRAN, March 5 — Iran on Sunday reiterated its warning that it would begin making nuclear fuel on an industrial scale if the United Nations nuclear agency decided to send its case to the Security Council in its meeting on Monday.

The warning came a day before the start of a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will decide whether to send Iran's case to the Security Council for possible punitive actions.

The agency had demanded last month that Iran suspend its research and development program before the agency's meeting this week. But Iran brushed off the demand. The current Iranian program produces enriched uranium on a small scale. Enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear fuel; highly enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons.

"If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the U.N. Security Council, uranium enrichment will be resumed," Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said at a news conference, referring to large-scale enrichment. "Nuclear research and development are part of Iran's national interests and sovereignty and we will not give them up."

"We will not accept the suspension of our research program," he said, "but we are willing to hold off on large-scale enrichment for a short period of time to remove concerns."

"This is our last proposal to end this standoff," he added.

European negotiators rejected the same proposal on Friday when Mr. Larijani offered it at a meeting in Vienna. "Europe will not accept such an offer because even a research program can give Iran the capability to develop nuclear weapons," said a Western diplomat in Tehran, speaking on condition of anonymity under diplomatic rules.

Justin Higgins, a State Department spokesman, said on Sunday, "This is only the latest in a long series of unhelpful statements and gestures that Iran has made with regard to its nuclear program."

Iran has so far rejected all international proposals for it to abandon its nuclear research program, including one made by Russia last week for uranium to be enriched by Russia on Russian soil and the fuel shipped back to Iran. The Russian proposal was backed by the United States and China.

Iran has warned that any sanctions against it could affect oil prices. But Mr. Larijani said Iran, which is OPEC's second-largest oil producer, would not use "oil as a weapon" because it respected the psychological security of the international community.

"But naturally if they change the situation that will automatically be affected, too," he warned, saying sanctions themselves, without any action by Iran, would affect prices.

He added that "sanctions will not affect us much, and some solutions have been thought about for those which would affect us."

The conservative daily Keyhan reported Sunday that a spy who had passed information to Americans about Iran's nuclear program for the past 10 years had been arrested. It said the man, who was not identified, had been arrested once before on the same charges but was released after he expressed regret.

The newspaper reported that another person accused of spying, an employee of the state telecommunication company, had been arrested and charged with selling fiber-optic telecommunications plans to the United States.

Tough Talk From Bolton on Iran

WASHINGTON, March 5 (Reuters) — John R. Bolton, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday that Iran faced "painful consequences" if it continued secret nuclear activities, and he said the matter would become more difficult to resolve if the international community did not confront it.

Mr. Bolton also reaffirmed that the United States would use "all tools at our disposal" to thwart Iran's nuclear program and was already "beefing up defensive measures."

"The Iran regime must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences," he told 4,500 delegates to the convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobbying group.



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Iran Digs In on Nuclear Program

TEHRAN-On the eve of an IAEA vote on the issue, a top Tehran
official warns against Security Council action, saying the regime
will boost enrichment. By John Daniszewski.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezE...Io30G2B0HLUU0EJ

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC04Ak03.html
The march across Iran's 'red line'
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

On the eve of the International Atomic Energy Agency's meeting on Monday, crunch-time diplomacy has gone into full gear. This includes a high-level meeting between the Iranians and the Europeans that many consider to be the final opportunity to abort the IAEA's imminent decision to complain against Iran to the United Nations Security Council.

Yet all indications are that unless the principal parties agree to
cross their self-described "red lines", there will be no breakthrough and battle will be resumed in the Security Council.

Iran's nuclear fuel cycle is, of course, the eye of the storm, causing the seemingly unbridgeable divide between Iran and the West, with the former insisting on it as a matter of right and the latter insisting against it as a matter of global security.

The "red line" for Washington is Iran's capability to enrich uranium, which if it were permitted could be misused for military objectives.

But, then again, there appear to be two red lines here, one the Iranian possession of nuclear weapons, which US President George W Bush has repeatedly said he will not "tolerate", and a subsidiary red line pertaining to Iran's possession of dual-use technology that can portend a nuclear-armed Iran. With regard to the latter, various US officials, including John Bolton, the country's ambassador to the UN, have said on record it is unacceptable. The two are interrelated, but one can detect subtle "yellowing" of the second red line.

This yellowing is visible in non-official or semi-official pronouncements, such as by former US national security adviser Gary Sick, who has testified in Congress in favor of the "contained, monitored enrichment" option, a position recently endorsed more fully by the International Crisis Group.

And then there is the position of Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, who last month used his proxies to spread the word that "Natanz [Tehran's pilot enrichment plant] is Iran's bottom line, a sovereignty issue, a reality we may have to deal with".

In a sense, the IAEA has crossed its own "red line" by shyly accommodating itself to a limited enrichment program in Iran, and its brave though half-aborted initiative must set an example to the other players in this crisis to transgress their own self-described "red lines".

Unfortunately, Washington is clearly against any such concessions to Iran, which in turn explains the lack of genuine interest on the White House's part for any major breakthrough prior to the IAEA meeting. This is particularly so since talks between Moscow and Tehran have not yielded any results and, instead, prompted some Russian experts to call for more compromises on Russia's part.

In the aftermath of the Moscow talks on Wednesday, the director of Russia's Contemporary Iran Studies Center, Rajab Safarov, told Interfax, "Iran cannot unilaterally make substantial concessions on key and important issues. Therefore, some concessions on Russia's part are necessary. These concessions concern both essential and organizational phases of the uranium-enrichment process."

This week, Iran and Russia agreed in principle on the establishment of a uranium-enriching facility on Russian soil, but this idea appears to be foundering on Moscow's insistence that Iran give up all enrichment activities in Iran, something Tehran is reluctant to do.

And the US is completely opposed to the idea of participation by Iranian scientists in the proposed joint venture in Russia, as requested by Iran, as well as to Iran's related request that the enrichment process occur partly inside Iran.

From Iran's vantage point, there is already a fuel-fabrication plant in Isfahan and there is no need not to put such facilities to good use as part and parcel of a satisfactory formula.

Nevertheless, as for Iran's "red line" of retaining the right to enrich uranium, all signs indicate that despite hardline rhetoric there is a considerable mellowing, or to put it consistently, "yellowing", reflected in Iran's (a) recent pitch to the European Union for a two-year moratorium on enrichment and ( self-limitation to limited "industrial enrichment" along the lines suggested by ElBaradei.

Iran's softening position is born by the imperative to secure foreign nuclear fuel for current and future nuclear projects in light of both Iran's limited natural uranium and the technical problems with the conversion of "yellowcake" to uranium hexafluoride (UF6).

Nevertheless, on Iran's part, overcoming the "red line" verbiage requires a theoretical house-cleaning touching on the entire nuclear strategy of the country. Concerning the latter, an Iranian official involved with negotiations, Hosseini Tash, recently stated that the nuclear issue was a "strategic issue".

Perhaps it would be more apt to say "geo-economic" rather than "strategic" since Iran's official position is that the principal purpose of the nuclear industry is to produce energy. The appellation "strategic" is a misnomer, then, so long as Iran denies the West's allegations that it is engaged in nuclear-weapons production. Also, labeling a purely economic industry as strategic is tantamount to making excess commitment to all its facets as critical components of the country's national-security interests, whereas under the present circumstances this would be stretching it.

Various Israeli and Western intelligence reports indicate that Iran will be able to resolve most if not all of its technical difficulties in the near future, although the estimates vary from several months to a few years. Yet there is no disagreement that in light of Iran's ambitious plans for a rapid expansion of its nuclear program, self-sufficiency is not an option and Iran must actively court partners in its quest to find secure and reliable sources of nuclear fuel.

As a result, Iran has begun to refer approvingly of an international fuel bank and the various proposals for an IAEA-proof multinational arrangement for fuel production inside or outside Iran. The No 1 priority of Iran today is to get the Bushehr power plant up and running, but it faces yet another delay as a result of Russian foot-dragging that has postponed it to either some time this year or early next year. The Russians are committed to building a US$1.2 billion plant at Bushehr.

But with Russia boxing itself in on the US side with respect to the IAEA demand for the resumption of enrichment suspensions in Iran, no one in Iran can feel secure about the current Russian promises of insulating the Bushehr deal from the nuclear crisis, given the various calls from within the US Congress and the US media for a Russian ultimatum to cut off all nuclear cooperation with Iran if it fails to comply with the IAEA's demands. From Iran's vantage point, that is Russia's "red line" that it should never cross.

Of course, breakthrough diplomacy requires a great deal of concessions on both sides - one only needs to look at Camp David for inspiration - and Iran would be ill-advised to sink its head in the sand and to disregard the coming confrontation if it sticks to its "red line".

One option would be to reject the demands to give up the enrichment pilot plant and, instead, to put the facility on "cold standby", as is the case with some similar US facilities, to make sure about a potential fuel supply and to weigh properly the pros and cons of the Russian offer.

Another option is to convert Natanz into an internationally run facility kept by a multinational holding company using state-of-the-art centrifuges kept in "black boxes" with respect to Iranian scientists. The latter option would gradually phase out the Iranian centrifuges and both ease international anxiety about Iran's diversion and satisfy the Iranian quest for a steady supply of nuclear fuel.

But the United States at the moment seems only minimally interested in the various feasible scenarios for "objective guarantees" of a peaceful Iranian nuclear program, setting its eagle eyes on punitive measures against a country that has tormented its "unipolar moment" for nearly three decades.

This is not a risk-free option, however. That is why giving the IAEA more time to exhaust the options short of the Security Council, which is sure to over-politicize the issue and to reduce the room for concessions on Iran's part, is a wise idea that should not be ignored.

The US-EU rush to the Security Council most likely will extinguish the Iranian yellowing of its red line, hardly the desirable outcome for all concerned.

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

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

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?A...L&IssueID=28350

Electronic warfare warning by Tehran

TEHRAN: Iran owns advanced technology in electronic warfare and can combat any such attacks on its military equipment, the head of defence ministry electronics industries said yesterday.

"If our main enemy wants to carry out electronic warfare and jamming operations, our standards are at the Nato level," Ebrahim Mahmou-dzadeh said.

He was also quoted as saying that Iran's radars, passive and active electronic protection "can combat anything that wants to harm us".

In recent months Israel has been dangling the threat of pre-emptive action to stop Iran's disputed nuclear programme - seen by the West as a mask for weapons development.

Meanwhile, analysts say that the Gulf states appear reluctant to get drawn into a US confrontation with Iran given that the region is still licking its wounds from successive wars.

"The region cannot take a new (military) intervention after the Iraq tragedy," said Jassem Al Saadun, head of Kuwait's Al Shall Economic Consultants.

The Gulf states "want to catch their breath, having been drained by years of wars and conflicts," echoed London-based newspaper editor Abdul Bari Atwan.

He was alluding to the devastating 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf war, and the US-led invasion of Iraq of March 2003.

At a meeting in Riyadh on Wednesday, foreign ministers of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) distanced themselves from Washington's tough line on Iran's nuclear programme.

US envoy hints at strike to stop Iran :

Bolton says nuclear plant can be 'taken out'
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12215.htm

===
Bolton warns Iran of ‘painful consequences’:

Speaking at a convention of Jewish-Americans, said it is too soon for the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran but other countries are talking about doing so and Washington is “beefing up defensive measures to cope with the Iranian nuclear threat.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11684031/

===
The USS Ronald Reagan deployed in the Persian Gulf :

The U.S. Fifth Fleet said the USS Ronald Reagan has been deployed for maritime security operations in the Gulf region. The nuclear-powered surface vessel headed a carrier group that contains a guided missile cruiser, two destroyers and support ships.
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/0....107638889.html

===
Jon Snow interviews Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, live in Tehran
http://www.channel4.com/player/playerwindo...=3575&vert=news

===
Can a deal be done?:

A deal over Iran's nuclear programme is possible, according to the UN's chief nuclear watchdog.
http://www.channel4.com/player/playerwindo...=3554&vert=news

===
Washington splits over best policy to halt Iran's nuclear plan:

Visiting MPs were astonished by a lack of consensus on the eve of the crucial nuclear meeting
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2071918,00.html

No Uranium Enrichment Permissible For Iran Says Bolton
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/No_Uranium...ays_Bolton.html

United Nations (AFP) Mar 06, 2006 - The United States on Monday restated its opposition to allowing Iran to proceed with small-level uranium enrichment as part of a compromise to resolve the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program.

Russia Offering Deal Which Includes Iranian Enrichment
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_Off...Enrichment.html

March 7, 2006
U.S. Firm Against Iran Nuclear Enrichment
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:40 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration told Iran on Tuesday that enrichment of nuclear fuel on Iranian territory was unacceptable as Russia appeared to close ranks with the United States over Tehran's nuclear program.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered the tough message -- but shied away from warning of immediate U.N. sanctions -- after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

At a joint State Department news conference, Lavrov said there was no compromise in sight with Iran. Russia has been negotiating with Iran and has proposed enriching fuel on Russian soil for Iran's energy need.

''We will see what is necessary to do in the Security Council,'' Rice said. She said there was still time for Iran to change its ways.

From the State Department, Rice and Lavrov were headed to the White House for a meeting with President Bush. Earlier in the day, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the U.S. expects the U.N. Security Council to move forward to rebuke Tehran for its disputed nuclear program.

''The international community has spelled out what Iran must do -- that means suspend all enrichment activity,'' McClellan said.

Meanwhile, a diplomat in Vienna, Austria, where the International Atomic Energy Agency is meeting, told The Associated Press that Iran is offering to suspend full-scale uranium enrichment for up to two years. The offer reflected Tehran's attempts to escape Security Council action over the activity, which can be used to make nuclear arms.

The diplomat, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue, said Tehran's offer was made Friday by chief Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani in Moscow in the context of contacts between Iran and Russia on moving Tehran's enrichment program to Russia. But Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Tuesday his country was not prepared to freeze small-scale enrichment.

Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech Tuesday to a pro-Israel lobbying group that Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and warned that the issue may soon go before the Security Council.

''The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences,'' Cheney said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

''We join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,'' Cheney said.

He said the U.S. ''is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime.'' In the past the U.S. has said it has no intention of using military force for now, but has declined to completely rule it out.

The Bush administration is getting closer to a U.N. Security Council rebuke of Iran, but the latest round of diplomacy shows the United States needs the help of Cold War foe Russia to close the deal.

Lavrov's meeting with Bush in the Oval Office is a rarity. U.S. presidents customarily receive foreign heads of state in the presidential office, but seldom invite a lower-ranking official such as a foreign minister for a meeting there.

''This is an issue of confidence with the international community,'' McClellan said. ''The regime has shown it cannot be trusted. It hid its nuclear activities for two decades from the international community. It has refused to comply with its international obligations. This is about the regime and its behavior. That's what this is about and that's what our focus is.''

Russia, which has veto power as one of the permanent members of the Security Council, is perhaps Tehran's most important ally and business partner. Russia also has crafted a potential compromise to head off sanctions or other punishment of Iran.

China, which also has veto power on the Security Council, is appealing for further negotiation. ''Iran should cooperate closely with the IAEA to settle the nuclear dispute,'' Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said Tuesday in Beijing at a news conference. ''There is still room for settlement of the issue in the IAEA.''

The United States won a diplomatic coup in February when Russia went along with the U.S.-backed effort to report Iran to the council, but had to agree to a delay of at least a month before the council could take any action. That window is closing without the progress Russia hoped to claim on its proposed nuclear compromise.

It is not clear, however, that Moscow will support a U.S. move for penalties against Iran.

------

Associated Press Writer George Jahn contributed to this report from Vienna.

^------

On the Net:

State Department: http://www.state.gov



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

http://csmonitor.com/2006/0307/dailyUpdate.html?s=mesdu
World > Terrorism & Security
posted March 7, 2006 at 11:00 a.m.

IAEA: Deal on Iran's nuclear program close

ElBaradei says a deal is possible, but US is skeptical of new negotiations.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says a deal with Iran on its nuclear program is possible, and may be concluded within several days.
The Washington Post reports the new proposal would see Russia giving Iran enough slightly enriched uranium to run its nuclear generators for civilian purposes, but not enough to build a nuclear weapon. But the Russian proposal would also allow Iran to conduct small-scale uranium enrichment under strict perimeters set by the UN and the IAEA.

In return, the diplomats said, Iran would be asked to recommit to in-depth IAEA probes of its program on short notice. Iran canceled such investigations last month after the IAEA's 35-nation board put the UN Security Council on alert by passing on Iran's nuclear dossier.
EUobserver, an independent European Union news site, reports that the Russian proposal had "divided" supporters of UN sanctions against Iran for its program. Germany was cautiously in favor of Russia's idea, while Britain and France were against, and continued to support the US position.



03/06/06

Iraq's different Paces

03/03/06

Hamas in Russia for talks with senior officials

03/02/06

Report: A democratic China could be 'great risk' to Asia





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Germany is the one that "could most live with a pilot enrichment plant in Iran," a European diplomat told Reuters, adding however that Berlin would never allow Tehran to break EU unity in the standoff.
A US state department spokesman rebuffed the idea of small-scale enrichment on Iranian soil, saying "You can't be just a little pregnant."

The New York Times reports that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called ElBaradei on Monday to tell him the US could not support the proposal, which still has not been made public. US officials also said that Russian diplomats told them that no formal proposal was on the table. The US wants to get past the IAEA meeting and on to the UN Security Council, but officials worry that the Russian proposal is meant to slow down that process.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that John Bolton, US ambassador to the United Nations, told some British MPs that the US will use strategic airstrikes or a special forces raid against some Iranian targets if the country doesn't stop its program.

In Washington, the MPs spoke to the sometimes-controversial US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. And they quoted him saying: "We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down."
In response, one of Iran's senior commanders said his country would become a killing field for any enemy aggressor.

Time magazine reports, however, that observers should not be misled by all the rhetoric - there's not likely to be any kind of serious confrontation yet.
There's unlikely to be any kind of showdown any time soon for one overarching reason — there is simply little appetite among the key players in the dispute to escalate matters. The IAEA had already in principle decided, at its previous board meeting in January, to refer Iran to the Security Council, yet Monday's meeting — expected to last up to three days — is still expected to offer Tehran another 30 days in which to cut a deal. Veto-wielding Security Council members Russia and China remain resolutely opposed to sanctions, which conflict with their own national economic interests, and it's not immediately clear exactly what outcome the US — which currently holds the rotating Security Council chair — would seek from a Council discussion on the Iran issue.
The Associated Press reports that while the US talks tough, the reality is that it will still need the help of Russia in order to convince the UN Security Council to pursue sanctions against Iran. Russia is Iran's most important business partner, and political ally.
On both Iran and Hamas, the United States needs Russian acquiescence, if not outright support. That may make it more difficult for the administration to press Lavrov very hard over what Rice recently called a disturbing erosion of democratic guarantees in post-Soviet Russia. US officials insist they will not give Russia a pass.
"There are areas where ... we differ, and we think we can have a frank and candid exchange of views with them on those subjects," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday. "We're certainly going to continue to make clear our concerns about those areas where we do have problems."

The Los Angeles Times reports that in Iran itself, the issue is seen as one of "nationalism mixed with a feeling that Iran too often has been treated as an exception to the rules of international relations." Even those opposed to the hard-line fundamentalist regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad support Iran's drive to produce nuclear power.
Linda Heard, writing in the Arab News, says that the feeling in much of the Middle East is that the US is using a double standard toward Iran's nuclear policy.

While the US and its European allies are demanding Iran’s compliance, the American president has himself flouted the terms of the NPT by offering nuclear technology to nuclear-armed India, which is not a signatory.
On the other hand, Iran has abided by the treaty’s chapter and verse and there is as yet no smoking gun to indicate it is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. George Bush makes no apology for this glaring double standard other than to point out that India is a democracy, which presumably means it should be trusted ... However, America’s hallowed democracy standard does not apply to Hamas, which was fairly elected to govern the Palestinian people. If the US has its way, Hamas is to be starved out of office.

Also on Monday, two other countries called for more time for a negotiations. Agence-France Presse reports that China called on Iran to cooperate with the IAEA immediately, but also called for restraint on all sides. The Hindustan Times reports that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Parliament that India "did not favour a confrontation" or "coercive" methods to settle the problem.

Rumsfeld Accuses Iran on Iraq Forces
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

Raising a new complaint about Iran, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused Tehran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to stir trouble inside Iraq.

At the same time, he rejected the idea that Iraq has slipped into civil war, asserting that media reports have overstated recent violence there.

Rumsfeld offered few details concerning his allegation of interference by Iran, which fought a nearly decade-long war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s and shares a largely unguarded border.

"They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq," he told a Pentagon news conference. "And it is something that they, I think, will look back on as having been an error in judgment."

He did not elaborate except to say the infiltrators were members of the Al Quds Division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the network of soldiers and vigilantes whose mandate is to defeat threats to the 1979 Islamic revolution. The Al Quds Division is responsible for operations outside Iranian territory.

Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials have previously complained of Iranian complicity in the movement of explosives and bomb-making material across the border into Iraq, but Rumsfeld had not mentioned Iranian forces before.

He initially said the infiltrators were doing "things that are harmful to the future of Iraq," but later when asked specifically whether they were gathering intelligence or fomenting violence, Rumsfeld said he did not know what their mission was.

Appearing with Rumsfeld, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that although there have been indications of Iranian-manufactured weapons coming into Iraq, "the most recent reports have to do with individuals crossing the border." He said he had an estimate of the number but declined to reveal it.

Pace said he did not know whether the Iranians were sent by their government. Asked the same question, Rumsfeld replied, "Of course. Quds force, the Revolutionary Guard, doesn't go milling around willy-nilly, one would think."

In the unclassified portion of its report to Congress last month on Iraq, the Pentagon made no mention of interference from Iran. It noted, however, that progress in building an Iraqi border police force has lagged behind expectations and said it suffers from corruption, "ghost" employees, and absenteeism among employees.

Rumsfeld also was asked about violence in Iraq since an attack last month on a revered Shiite mosque touched off a wave of reprisals between religious sects.

"I do not believe they are in a civil war today," Rumsfeld said. However, he added, "There has always been a potential for civil war."

The secretary spoke nearly two weeks after the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra, which was followed by the deaths of hundreds of Iraqis. Hoping to keep Iraqi efforts to form a unity government moving forward, U.S. officials have acknowledged concern about the violence but have repeatedly denied that they fear a full-scale civil war was erupting.

Rumsfeld acknowledged that the attack on the mosque had delayed efforts to form a government in which Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds would share power.

"Their efforts to fashion a unity government that will represent all elements of their society is clearly being delayed by the situation in Iraq," Rumsfeld said. But he also asserted that Iraqi leaders had thus far passed the test of holding the country together and containing insurgents' efforts to ignite a civil war.

"They have to be fully aware that if this does not work, they and all of the people who have supported them lose everything, if this turns into a civil war. They can't want that," he said. "My impression is they will sort through this and fashion a government" that rules from the center.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil



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.


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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC08Ak02.html
THE ROVING EYE
The old lovers' nuclear tango
Commentary by Pepe Escobar

The already frail nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was bombed to oblivion last week by US President George W Bush - immolated On the altar of a strategic relationship with India to counteract the emergence of China. Meanwhile, the US threatens to punish Iran because the Islamic Republic is a full member of the NPT. This is the (surrealist) way geopolitics works.

Bush in India imperiously buried all international norms - enshrined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the NPT and the United Nations. He proclaimed himself as the nuclear emperor - the only one who decides who has the right to nuclear power and who doesn't.

Defending the Indian deal, Bush said that nuclear power was a renewable energy source (which it's not) and that the deal would help to alleviate global demand for crude oil. The Iranian leadership also argues it needs nuclear power to alleviate its own dependence on crude oil. This is the way geopolitical enemies coincide.

It takes a world-weary aristocrat to put things in perspective. In the remarkable Blood & Oil (Random House), exiled Prince Manucher Farmanfarmaian of the Qajar royal family (which ruled Persia for 140 years before the Pahlavi dynasty) writes that the long, lurid drama between the United States and Iran "is a tango between two old lovers who now only know how to face each other with knives in their teeth". The knives are out and may soon reach the UN Security Council.

Farmanfarmaian knows the tango by heart. Just after World War I, his second cousin - the last of the Qajar line - was the first shah to fall under the faded British Empire (the British wanted a dictator). The British then chose Reza Shah - whom our aristocrat wickedly describes as "a soldier who had worked for my father". Then the American empire via the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) toppled nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh (a cousin of Farmanfarmaian's father), which led to great friend of America Shah Reza Pahlavi's reign and his toppling by ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who dubbed the former American friend "the Great Satan". No wonder that since 1979 the former lovers have been at each other's throats.

The Natanz unfinished melody
The nuclear tango is worthy of a soundtrack by Astor Piazzolla. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the lead singer, is now certain that the imbroglio cannot be solved until next week. Not so fast, said spurned lover Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state. Washington's strategy is more military marching band than tango. It regards the IAEA board meeting convened this Monday in Vienna as a mere formality; the only thing that matters is immediately to turn the matter to the UN Security Council.

Not so fast, say the Russians, experienced former players in the Great Game in Central Asia alongside the British Empire, now interfering with the tango with a loud Russian techno beat. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is on Mission Impossible in Washington, meeting with Rice and Bush and trying to convince them that a last-minute Russian proposal is the only peaceful way out.

A Belgian diplomat close to the EU-3 (France, Germany and Britain) negotiations in Brussels has confirmed to Asia Times Online that the Europeans knew about the Russian proposal since last Friday. The proposal was discussed by the Russians and Iranians in Tehran.

"The Russians offered something we [in Europe] were not able to agree on. What the Russians describe as 'limited research activities' by Iran means that the Iranians don't do industrial research and don't produce enriched uranium at their plant in Natanz for at least seven years, maybe nine or 10."

Instead, Russia and Iran, in a joint venture, would produce enriched uranium in Russia, monitored by the IAEA, to generate electricity. The Iranian press is reporting that Iran would agree to negotiate the suspension of industrial-scale enrichment for two years, not nine or 10, and as long as it can go on with its own nuclear research. ElBaradei himself recognized that the uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz is "the sticking point". But for the Bush administration, the Russian proposal is still anathema.

Washington wants by all means a "presidential statement" (a degree lower than a resolution) exclusively focused on the negative (my former lover has been cheating, now it must behave). But the whole point is that the IAEA inspectors have not found any proof that Iran is violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty. So Washington's obsession on Iran being officially reprimanded on the world stage does reek of tango betrayal. European diplomats know there's no support for a UN resolution. Russia and China have already made it clear. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has released a statement saying the involvement of other UN organizations (that would mean the Security Council) is not welcomed. NAM is in favor of diplomacy within the confines of the IAEA.

Iranians see the most important points of the IAEA report as Paragraph 53 ("All the declared nuclear material has been accounted for") and Paragraph 44 ("The enrichment process at Natanz is covered by agency safeguards containment and surveillance measures"). Thus the Iranian view that ElBaradei's concerns are political, not technical; there is no legal or technical basis for the dossier to be referred to the Security Council. The Iranians also point out that the IAEA spent 27 years clearing up the nuclear "ambiguities" of Japan. Compared with that, three years investigating Iran is not much.

The "presidential statement" sought by Washington would mean in practice that Iran has to give up - with nothing in return - all of its rights under the terms of the NPT. Once again, the IAEA report - after three years of investigation - told the agency's 35 board members it has not found "any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices".

The overall perception in Iran is that the nation will never accept being humiliated as a pariah - especially when there is no evidence that it is deceiving the IAEA. Americans and some Europeans would do well to study some history. This is a proud nation, according to Farmanfarmaian, "that rebuffed the Romans in the 3rd century and took the Emperor Valerian prisoner, a country that redefined the Arabs' Islam and made it its own".

Killer instincts
The US$250 billion question (the cost of the occupation of Iraq so far, and counting) is how Iran's possible humiliation on the world stage can be engineered by the Bush administration as the first step toward another "shock and awe" attack.

Bush himself has warned on the record that a military strike "is not off the table". Both the CIA and the State Department are in favor of applying a lot of pressure all of the time - but no air strikes or Special Forces on the ground, at least not in the immediate future. The Pentagon wants a military-enforced embargo.

Significantly, the most hawkish of hawks had to be the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. In a speech, not by accident, at the annual convention of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel US lobby, he said Iran's nuclear program could be "taken out".

So a classic old-lovers-with-knifes-in-their-teeth tango keeps rambling on. Now it has expanded to a tango for two couples: the US plus the EU-3 on one side of the dance floor, and Russia and ElBaradei on the other.

There's some possibility of intermingling as Germany, part of the EU-3, has show signs of agreeing with experimental enrichment in Iran. Nobody - the IAEA, the UN, NAM, the EU-3, the Muslim world, the world at large - wants to see blood on the dance floor. If only the former lovers would get rid of those knives.

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

- Iran Boosts Gulf Presence With Locally-Made Submarine
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Boost..._Submarine.html

Tehran (AFP) Mar 07, 2006 - Iran's armed forces have deployed a new locally-built submarine in Gulf waters, state television reported Tuesday. The vessel is named the Nahang, meaning whale, and was "built by specialists in the Iranian defence ministry and has the capability to carry multipurpose weapons for different missions", Rear Admiral Sajjad Kouchaki said.

War pimp alert:

Report: Israelis in Iran Hunting Nukes :

The soldiers are on a mission to prevent the Iranians from succeeding in their bid to develop a nuclear weapon. They are involved in locating uranium enrichment facilities in Iran, according to the British Sunday Times, and are currently based in neighboring northern Iraq. The United States is supporting the move, says the paper.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=99700

===
Sounds familiar:

Iranian bombshell? :

Bush Administration officials are readying a new intelligence briefing for council members on Tehran's weapons programs. It will rely mainly on circumstantial evidence, much of it from documents found on a laptop purportedly purloined from an Iranian nuclear engineer and obtained by the CIA in 2004. U.S. officials insist the material is strong but concede they have no smoking gun.
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/arti...hp?storyid=6074

===
Drumbeat sounds familiar :

US fears about Iranian nukes, discussed in Vienna yesterday, are hardly the whole story. Washington is compiling a dossier of grievances against Tehran similar in scope and seriousness to the pre-war charge-sheet against Iraq.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12237.htm

Iran threatens new 'killing fields' in nuclear row:

John Bolton, the hawkish US Ambassador to the United Nations, warned that the republic faced "painful consquences" if it refused to comply. In response, the deputy head of Iran's armed forces retorted: "Iran’s armed forces, through their experience of war, will turn this land into a killing field for any enemy aggressors."
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12229.htm

===
Iran deploys home-made submarine in Gulf waters :

“The submarine is fully adapted to the Persian Gulf,” he said, adding that the Iranian navy was pursuing a policy of deterrence in the strategic waters — home to the world’s largest oil reserves. No further details on the submarine were given.
http://tinyurl.com/ezs2a

===
Serious technical challenges slow Iran's nuclear efforts :

Interviews with many of the world's leading nuclear analysts and a review of technical assessments show that Iran continues to wrestle with serious problems that have slowed its nuclear ambitions for more than two decades.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/05/news/iran.php

===
Iran and US: Diplomacy or war?:

The IAEA recently stated it "has not seen any [Iranian] diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons", a charge made by the Bush administration.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/460...C4CC9F29627.htm

===
In case you missed it?

U.S. endorsed Iranian plans to build massive nuclear energy industry:

In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford signed a directive that granted Iran the opportunity to purchase U.S. built reprocessing equipment and facilities designed to extract plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel.
http://teamliberty.net/id229.html

March 8, 2006
Iran Warns 'Harm and Pain' if U.S. Pushes Sanctions
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN and JOHN O'NEIL
WASHINGTON, March 8 — A crucial meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency opened today with a statement from Tehran that it would cause "harm and pain" to the United States if it pushes the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.

The threat came a day after Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the United Nations Security Council would "impose meaningful consequences" on Iran if it proceeded with uranium enrichment activities, and the Bush administration put an end to talk of compromise with Iran as floated by Russia.

The Iranian statement was delivered to the atomic agency's board of governors, which met in Vienna. "The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain," the statement said, news services reported. "So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll."

In an interview with Reuters, Javad Vaeedi, a senior nuclear negotiator for Iran, said that Tehran would not immediately retaliate by restricting oil imports.

"We will not use the oil, but in other situations we will have to review the situation, adjust our policy and approach to conform to the new situation," Mr. Vaeedi said.

In a televised interview, Iran's ambassador to the atomic agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, noted that members of the nonaligned movement said, in a statement delivered by Malaysia, that the involvement of the Security Council should be avoided at this time.

"We should not let U.S. unilateral policy take multilateral diplomacy hostage," Mr. Soltanieh said.

In its statement to the atomic agency's board, the United States said the Security Council's "first step" should be to call on Iran to cooperate fully with the agency's inspectors.

But the administration's tough language pressing the Tehran government to return to a suspension of its enrichment program left unclear what the Security Council would do when it takes up Iran's case next week. The administration's goal is to win consent for a statement by the Security Council president calling on Iran to cooperate with the demand for a freeze on its nuclear activities.

Despite Mr. Cheney's comments, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ruled out an early push for sanctions.

"There is still time, of course, for the Iranians to react," Ms. Rice said after meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, at the State Department. "But we have been very clear that we did not think that as a first matter, we would try to move to sanctions in the first step of the Security Council."

The Russians have been pushing for a proposal to let Iran join with Russia in enriching uranium for nuclear fuel on Russian soil. But European diplomats said Monday that the Russians had also floated the idea of letting Iran continue a small amount of uranium enrichment in Iran as a face-saving compromise.

Iran maintains that it has the right to enrich uranium for fuel for nuclear energy, but the United States and the three European nations involved in the negotiations charge that Iran has used its civilian energy program to hide a weapons program. Western experts say even small-scale, experimental enrichment poses a threat.

Russia's proposal drew American criticism the moment it came up in Vienna, home of the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Monday. Ms. Rice telephoned Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency's director, who had disclosed that a possible compromise was in the offing, telling him that the United States was opposed to it, various officials said.

On Tuesday, the Russian proposal all but disappeared, apparently under American and European pressure. Indeed, Foreign Minister Lavrov said Tuesday, as Ms. Rice nodded in agreement, that no such proposal ever existed.

"There is no compromise new Russian proposal," he said. The proposal for the joint Iranian-Russian enrichment on Russian soil "is not a new one," he added. "It was welcomed by all participants of the process, and there is no compromise proposal, and there could not be any compromise proposal."

After Mr. Lavrov's comments, three Western diplomats, asking not to be identified by country because their governments did not want to appear to criticize Russia, said they thought that either Mr. Lavrov was pulling back a trial balloon, or the Russians who had floated the compromise in Vienna did so without authorization.

Some said that in their experience, lower-level leaders of the Russian Foreign Ministry were very eager to avoid a confrontation with Iran and to exploit Iran's impasse with the West, while Mr. Lavrov and the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, were more concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Mr. Cheney, speaking Tuesday to an overflow crowd of nearly 5,000 applauding guests at a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, used blunt language that seemed to hint of military action or possibly the overthrow of the government in Tehran, though he mentioned neither option explicitly.

"For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime," he said of Iran. "And we join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

He also said "America supports as well the democratic aspirations of the people of Iran" and the removal of what he called its current "fanatical regime."

Administration officials said Mr. Cheney, one of the strongest advocates of the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq, had more recently promoted a drive to bring Iranian scholars and students to America, blanket the country with radio and television broadcasts and support Iranian political dissidents.

That $85 million State Department program is being overseen by Elizabeth Cheney, a principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, who is also the vice president's daughter.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday at a Pentagon news conference that Iran had recently been infiltrating paramilitary personnel into Iraq "to do things that are harmful."

He described the Iranian personnel as members of the Al Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, which he said conducts terrorist operations. But intelligence officials say evidence of involvement by Iran's paramilitary in the violence in Iraq is not clear.

The board of the International Atomic Energy Agency has been meeting in Vienna this week to discuss the issue of Iran. Dr. ElBaradei has, on one hand, assailed Iran for concealing its nuclear activities and said he could not certify that it was not pursuing a weapons program.

On the other hand, he has expressed hope for a compromise, fearing that Tehran will walk away entirely from cooperating with the agency.

United Nations diplomats say they expect the Council to support a statement by its president calling on Iran to cooperate with the West, rather than passing a formal resolution. Such a statement would not require a vote but would be backed implicitly by all 15 members of the Council.

Steven R. Weisman reported from Washington for this article and John O'Neil from New York. David S. Cloud contributed reporting from Washington.



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Iran report goes to top UN body :

A UN report on Iran's nuclear programme is being forwarded to the UN Security Council for consideration of possible punitive action. The UN nuclear watchdog took the decision after debating it in Vienna.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4786968.stm

===
Iran Offers to Suspend Uranium Enrichment:

The diplomat told The Associated Press the offer was made Friday by chief Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani in Moscow in the context of contacts between Iran and Russia on moving Tehran's enrichment program to Russia.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1695870

===
Pimping a war:

US says Iran has enough uranium gas to make 10 nuclear weapons:

The United States alleged Wednesday that Iran has enough uranium gas to make -- if sufficiently enriched -- 10 nuclear weapons and has called for new inspections in the Islamic Republic.
http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id=6469

===
Israel will have to act on Iran if UN can't:

If the U.N. Security Council is incapable of taking action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself, Israel's defense minister said on Wednesday.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12249.htm

===
Iran’s military prepared to defend against attacks - DM :

“If anyone shows aggression to the Iranian nation’s rights, Iran will wipe the dark stain of regret on their foreheads”.
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/arti...hp?storyid=6136

===
Iran threatens reprisals if punished in nuclear row:

Iran warned the United States on Wednesday it could inflict "harm and pain" to match whatever punishment Washington persuaded the U.N. Security Council to dole out for Tehran's refusal to give up atomic research.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12248.htm

===
'US Cannot Use Gansi Base for Iran' :

Kyrgyzstan Minister of Foreign Affairs Alikbek Ceksenkulov said the United States can not use Gansi Military Base for a possible attack on Iran.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt...060307&hn=30602

March 9, 2006
Threats Rattle at Nuclear Meeting on Iran
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
VIENNA, March 8 — Negotiating over Iran's nuclear program has come to resemble an endless session of global poker. In the latest round, played Wednesday in the boardroom of the international nuclear agency here, distrust beat diplomacy.

The Iranian side upped the ante by blaming the United States for Iran's predicament — consideration of its nuclear activities in the United Nations Security Council next week — and threatened retaliation.

"The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain," Javad Vaeedi, a senior Iranian nuclear negotiator, told reporters at the end of the meeting. "But it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wants to pursue that path, let the ball roll."

The threat did not seem to be an off-hand remark. The threat was contained, in almost the same wording and with the same mixed metaphor, in Iran's speech to the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency and in a separate formal statement. In Iran meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that those who wanted to "violate the rights of the Iranian nation will quickly regret their actions."

But underscoring the fluid nature of Iran's policy making, even Iran's envoy in Vienna dodged when asked what letting the ball roll meant — perhaps using oil as a weapon or destabilizing the region, for example. Ali Asghar Soltainyeh, Iran's ambassador to the agency, said the matter would be "carefully" studied back home.

Wednesday's meeting was Iran's last chance to promise to curb its nuclear activities and avoid judgment by the Security Council.

Last month, the agency voted by an overwhelming majority to report Iran's case for judgment to the Security Council, but gave Iran a grace period of one final month to take remedial steps before the Security Council would take action.

Instead of giving in, Iran held firm to its position that it had the sovereign right to continue to make small amounts of nuclear fuel for research purposes at its vast uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.

Consideration of the Iran case by the agency on Wednesday was a diplomatic ritual. It came toward the end of the regularly scheduled quarterly session of the board, in which several nuclear issues were discussed. A number of board members, as well as Iran, delivered speeches on Iran's nuclear crisis, but no formal resolution was introduced.

Iran's oil minister, Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh, delivered a very different message in Tehran. He assured an edgy oil market that Iran would continue to export crude even if economic sanctions were imposed. His remarks underscored the fluid nature of Iran's policy making.

Noting that sanctions "could affect" the oil market and raise prices, "it will not affect our decision to continue our supply," he told reporters on the fringes of a meeting of OPEC oil ministers. "Oil flow is continuing. The exports will not be stopped."

But the Bush administration was quick to focus on Iran's threats. "Provocative statements and actions only further isolate Iran from the rest of the world," the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said in New Orleans.

Iran's threats came a day after Vice President Dick Cheney declared, without any specifics, that the Security Council would "impose meaningful consequences" on Iran if it proceeded with uranium enrichment activities. He did not indicate how he was able to predict the outcome of Security Council deliberations before the body even met.

The Bush administration's envoy to the nuclear agency, Gregory L. Schulte, kept up the fierce tone on Wednesday, telling reporters, "The leadership in Tehran has thus far chosen a course of flagrant threats and phone negotiation."

Uncertainty about Iran's intentions, coupled with persistent threats from Washington about punitive measures against Iran, prompted pleas for caution and a return to negotiations.

"Everybody is looking forward to a political settlement," Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency's director and the most recent recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, told reporters Wednesday in Vienna at the end of the meeting on Iran. He added: "What we need at this stage is cool-headed approaches. We need for people to lower the rhetoric."

Dr. ElBaradei called on Iran to resolve outstanding issues of concern and restore the world's confidence "to get out of the hole that we're in today."

He underscored that in the long term, the United States held the key to building Iran's trust with the world. Stressing that it was a personal view, he said that once security issues began to be discussed with Iran, "the U.S. should be engaged into a dialogue."

In Washington, R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, said action against Iran in the Security Council would start early next week.

The first step will be a "strong statement" about Iran, which means a statement by the Council president that lacks the force of a formal resolution. But Mr. Burns said that if the Iranian government did not "accede to the wishes of the international community, then of course we would have to look at possible targeted sanctions, which a number of countries are already beginning to explore."

The sanctions "will be specifically targeted to pressure the regime and Iran's nuclear and missile programs, rather than hurting the great majority of innocent Iranians," he said.

The outcome of Wednesday's meeting was a setback for Russia, which is opposed to using the Security Council as a vehicle to punish Iran. In recent days, Russia floated — then withdrew under American pressure — a face-saving proposal to restart negotiations that would have allowed Iran to conduct some small-scale uranium enrichment eventually.

In his speech to the board on Wednesday, Russia's ambassador, Grigory V. Berdennikov, called on Iran to "fully cooperate" with the nuclear agency "without delay" so that its case could be dealt with in a "normal, routine" way inside the I.A.E.A.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said Wednesday after meeting with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, that "I don't think sanctions as a means to solve a crisis has ever achieved a goal in the recent history."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML

March 8, 2006
Security Council Powers Study Strategy on Iran Crisis
By REUTERS
Filed at 11:38 p.m. ET

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The dispute over Iran's nuclear program moved to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday where the five permanent members met for the first time in search of a plan for Iran to shelve its nuclear ambitions.

Most diplomats agree the 15-nation council would issue a statement urging Iran to comply with resolutions taken by the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But the statement's contents are still in dispute and the five nations with veto power -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- intend to meet again on Friday before the issue is referred to the full council next week.

In Vienna, the IAEA board ended a meeting on Iran's nuclear program that opened the way for Security Council action. IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei then sent a February 27 report on Iran to council members.

But Russia seemed to rule out tough council measures. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said sanctions against Iran would be ineffective and military action was not a solution.

``I don't think sanctions as a means to solve a crisis have ever achieved a goal in the recent history,'' Lavrov told reporters after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Russia is generally opposed to using Security Council mandates to punish Iraq. ``We should all strive for a solution which would not endanger the ability of the IAEA to continue its work in Iran, while of course making sure that there is no danger for the nonproliferation regime,'' Lavrov said.

In Beijing, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing called for more negotiations, saying, ``There is still room for cooperation'' and ``we support the European Union and Russian engagement with Iran.'' China is known to oppose sanctions.

Germany, Britain and France, the European negotiators with Iran, agree that diplomacy is not finished. But in a statement in Vienna they made clear that Iran's lack of cooperation with the IAEA ``has made Security Council action inevitable.''

BRITISH PROPOSALS

Britain suggested the council should ask for a report from the IAEA within 14 days on whether Iran had made any progress in complying with its requests, diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

IAEA demands include that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment-related activities, which Western nations fear is a cover for bomb-making.

But Russia's U.N. Ambassador Andrei Denisov said 14 days was too short and warned that the controversy should not ``spin out of control of the IAEA.''

In New York, Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry would not give any details and said his country and France wanted ``an incremental approach.''

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said the council would follow a ``gradual approach'' that would be ''reversible if Iran goes back to suspension.''

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who chaired the meeting, told reporters, ``We talked about the role and reaction of the Security Council to the continued Iranian violation of the (nuclear) Nonproliferation Treaty.''

``It has been a core element of our position since I have been working on this that Iran has to cease enrichment activities. And I think what comes next is the word 'period,''' Bolton said.

In Washington, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told a congressional committee that the United States wanted a binding Security Council condemning Iran as well as sanctions if Tehran did not comply.

He also indicated that if action failed in the Security Council the United States would look elsewhere.

``It's going to be incumbent upon our allies around the world, and interested countries, to show that they are willing to act, should the words and resolutions of the United Nations not suffice,'' Burns said.

Iran's reaction in Vienna was fierce. It blamed the United States for its insistence on Security Council action.

``The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain,'' Javad Vaeedi, a senior Iranian nuclear negotiator, told reporters. ``But it is also susceptible to harm and pain.

``So if the United States wants to pursue that path, let the ball roll,'' he said.



Copyright 2006 Reuters Ltd. Home

Iran Hints at Using Oil as Its Weapon

VIENNA - As the stage was set for a high-stakes U.N. Security
Council debate next week on possible sanctions for Iran's nuclear
program, Tehran warned the United States that it too could inflict
"harm and pain" and hinted its weapon could be oil. By Alissa J.
Rubin.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezN...Io30G2B0HL7A0E8

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC10Ak04.html
Iran's turn for a 'coalition of the willing'
By Ehsan Ahrari

The Bush administration has conducted a calculated three-tiered campaign either to force Iran to lower its "threat potential" with regard to its nuclear program or, failing that, to bring about a regime change in Tehran. And within these tiers, other layers are unfolding that confirm Washington's unwavering determination to
resolve the matter, one way or the other, one plodding step at a time.

This is illustrated by the latest wrinkle in the crisis.

On Wednesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) wrapped up a two-day meeting by deciding to forward a report on Iran by its head, Mohamed ElBaradei, to the United Nations Security Council. The report found that after nearly three years of inspections, the IAEA remained unable to rule out the possibility that Iran still had secret nuclear activities, which could include work related to uranium enrichment and efforts to adapt weapons to carry a nuclear bomb.

Referral to the UN has always been the United States' goal in the years of international wrangling over Iran's nuclear program, which the US is convinced is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, something Tehran vigorously denies.

But now that moment has come, the US has to tread carefully. Russia and China, two of the permanent Security Council members with veto powers, along with the US, France and Britain, cannot be counted on to go along with any moves to impose direct UN sanctions on Iran.

Instead, as US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns told a congressional committee, the United States wanted a non-binding presidential statement to "condemn" Iran when the Security Council meets next week as Iran "directly threatens vital American interests". After that, he said, the US would move to a binding Chapter 7 resolution designed to "isolate" Tehran and "hopefully influence its behavior".

This, much like "the coalition of the willing" that invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, would involve the United States' allies "to show that they are willing to act [by imposing sanctions against Iran], should the words and resolutions of the United Nations not suffice", as Burns put it.

So the saga continues, all in line with the United States' orchestrated plan to see the matter through in terms of its three-tier strategy.

Tier 1: The European connection
This approach allowed the European Three (Britain, France and Germany - EU-3) to conduct the diplomatic campaign to persuade Iran to forgo its uranium-enrichment program, something that Tehran says it is entitled to under its nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty rights.

The US never had any doubts that Iran would not listen to the Europeans. What was important was that this diplomatic campaign served a purpose, which was to create a semblance that, unlike in the case of Iraq in 2003, the administration of President George W Bush was not obsessed with carrying out a military operation to stop Iran in the potential development of nuclear weapons.

However, such an option was never far from the thinking of the US or its Israeli allies.

Tier 2: War of words
This involves gradually ratcheting up threatening and accusatory rhetoric toward Iran regarding its nuclear program and about its "real" intentions in Iraq.

US Vice President Dick Cheney continued his share of this campaign when he spoke to the pro-Israeli American-Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday: "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course [of enriching uranium], the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences."

Cheney continued, "For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime. And we join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

The phrase "keeping all options on the table" has become a euphemism to threaten Iran with military action, either from the US or from Israel. Bush has used the phrase on a number of occasions.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld added his bit on Tuesday by accusing Iran of dispatching the Al-Quds Division of its Revolutionary Guard to "stir trouble inside Iraq". This division is understood to conduct military-style operations aimed at destabilizing a government - much like the US Special Forces - outside Iran. Even though Iran is suspected of influencing the outcome of Iraqi elections, that was the first time that any American official had accused it of using the Al-Quds Division.

The question is, why the ratcheting up of this rhetoric against Iran now? The most likely answer is that Iran and Syria have remained the most obvious targets of US criticism for all the insurgency-related trouble it is encountering in Iraq.

There is little doubt that such criticism has basis. At the same time, one has to remain highly conscious of the insatiable desire of US officials to find a scapegoat for their country's inability to tackle effectively the Iraqi insurgency.

A second reason might be that, by accusing Iran of using its own version of "special forces" in Iraq, the US might also be getting ready to indulge itself in "tit-for-tat" activities. American journalist Seymour Hersh accused the Bush administration several months ago of using Special Forces to monitor nuclear sites inside Iran. There have also been reports that Israel's Mossad is involved in similar activities by using Iraqi territory to launch espionage operations in Iran.

Iran has always been an influential actor in Iraq. The commonality of Shi'ite religion is its chief basis. From the perspectives of realpolitik, Iraq tried to influence the politics of Iran - or at least its Sunni minority population - while Iran regularly and unsuccessfully tried to influence Iraqi Shi'ites during the rule of Saddam.

Now that Shi'ites have emerged as the dominant group in Iraq, the influence of Iran is likely to be a permanent feature of Iraqi politics. That is a reality with which the Bush administration is having quite a bit of a problem, especially at a time when sectarian warfare is intensifying.

Tier 3: The bear and the panda
The third tier of the US campaign against Iran is to deal with, and neutralize, the positions of Russia and China.

Russia: Moscow belatedly decided to side with the US in terms of having Iran's dossier referred to the UN. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was in Washington on Tuesday, assuring Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that his country had decided to drop its proposal of allowing Iran to undertake small-scale nuclear enrichment on Iranian soil.

It seems President Vladimir Putin is no mood to irritate Bush further, so soon after making another highly controversial decision of inviting Hamas leaders to Moscow for consultations.

However, Russia has made it clear that it does not favor sanctions against Iran. "I don't think sanctions as a means to solve a crisis have ever achieved a goal in recent history," Lavrov was reported in the media as saying.

And interestingly, Lavrov said the discussions of how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions reminded him of the run-up to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. "It looks so deja vu, you know," he said. "I don't believe we should engage in something which might become self-fulfilling prophecy."

China: Beijing remains a wild card in this episode. Thus far, it has made no objections about referring Iran to the UN Security Council. How it will behave now that this has happened is unclear. However, as in the case of Russia, it is hard to say whether China will stay quiet once the US decides to turn up the heat on Iran.

Given Russia's attitude, and the uncertainty of which way China might jump, the US has been forced to go the "alliance-building" route in terms of having sanctions imposed on Iran.

Tier 1 in this drama has played itself out, with the European initiative having served its purpose of appearing to give diplomacy a chance. The rhetoric of Tier 2 will continue unabated ("no options are off the table", "meaningful consequences"). With the US seeking action beyond the UN, Tier 3 now sees China and Russia to some extent sidelined.

So we move on to Tier 4: the building of another "alliance of the willing", with Lavrov's warnings of deja vu ringing in the ears.

Ehsan Ahrari is the CEO of Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based defense consultancy. He can be reached at eahrari@cox.net or stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online. His website: www.ehsanahrari.com.

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

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC10Ak01.html
Why Iran's oil bourse can't break the buck
By F William Engdahl

A number of writings have recently appeared with the thesis that the announced plans of the Iranian government to institute a Tehran oil bourse, perhaps as early as this month, is the real hidden reason behind the evident march to war on Iran by the Anglo-American powers. The thesis is simply wrong for many reasons, not least that war on Iran has been in planning since the 1990s as an integral part of the United States' Greater Middle East strategy.

More significant, the oil-bourse argument is a red herring that diverts attention from the real geopolitical grounds behind the march toward war that have been detailed on this website, including in my piece, A high-risk game of nuclear chicken, which appeared in Asia Times Online on January 31.

In 1996, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, two neo-conservatives later to play an important role in formulation of Bush administration's Pentagon policy in the Middle East, authored a paper for then newly elected Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That advisory paper, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", called on Netanyahu to make a "clean break from the peace process". Perle and Feith also called on Netanyahu to strengthen Israel's defenses against Syria and Iraq, and to go after Iran as the prop of Syria.

More than a year before President George W Bush declared his "shock and awe" operation against Iraq, he made his now-infamous January 2002 State of the Union address to Congress in which he labeled Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, as a member of the "axis of evil" trio. This was well before anyone in Tehran was even considering establishing an oil bourse to trade oil in various currencies.

The argument by those who believe the Tehran oil bourse would be the casus belli, the trigger pushing Washington down the road to potential thermonuclear annihilation of Iran, seems to rest on the claim that by openly trading oil to other nations or buyers in euros, Tehran would set into motion a chain of events in which nation after nation, buyer after buyer, would line up to buy oil no longer in US dollars but in euros. That, in turn, goes the argument, would lead to a panic selling of dollars on world foreign-exchange markets and a collapse of the role of the dollar as reserve currency, one of the "pillars of Empire". Basta! There goes the American Century down the tubes with the onset of the Tehran oil bourse.

Some background considerations
That argument fails to convince for a number of reasons. First, in the case of at least one of the oil-bourse theorists, the argument is based on a misunderstanding of the process I described in my book, A Century of War, regarding the creation in 1974 of "petrodollar recycling", a process with which then-US secretary of state Henry Kissinger was deeply involved, in the wake of the 400% oil-price hike orchestrated by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The US dollar then did not become a "petrodollar", although Kissinger spoke about the process of "recycling petrodollars". What he was referring to was the initiation of a new phase of US global hegemony in which the petrodollar export earnings of OPEC oil lands would be recycled into the hands of the major New York and London banks and re-lent in the form of US dollar loans to oil-deficit countries such as Brazil and Argentina, creating what soon came to be known as the Latin American debt crisis.

The dollar at that time had been a fiat currency since August 1971 when president Richard Nixon first abrogated the Bretton Woods Treaty and refused to redeem US dollars held by foreign central banks for gold bullion. The dollar floated against other major currencies, falling more or less until it was revived by the 1973-74 oil-price shock.

What the oil shock achieved for the sagging dollar was a sudden injection of global demand from nations confronted with 400% higher oil-import bills. At that time, by postwar convention and convenience, as the dollar was the only reserve currency held around the world other than gold, oil was priced by all OPEC members in dollars as a practical exigency.

With the 400% price rise, nations such as France, Germany and Japan suddenly found reason to try to buy their oil directly in their own currencies - French francs, Deutschmarks or Japanese yen - to lessen the pressure on their rapidly declining reserves of trade dollars. The US Treasury and the Pentagon made certain that did not happen, partly with some secret diplomacy by Kissinger, bullying threats, and a whopping-big US military agreement with the key OPEC producer, Saudi Arabia. At that time it helped that the shah of Iran was seen in Washington to be a vassal of Kissinger.

The point was not that the US dollar became a "petro" currency. The point was that the reserve status of the dollar, now a paper currency, was bolstered by the 400% increase in world demand for dollars to buy oil. But that was only a part of the dollar story. In 1979, after the accession to power of the ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran, oil prices shot through the roof for the second time in six years. Yet, paradoxically, later that year the dollar began a precipitous free-fall, not a rise. It was no "petrodollar".

Foreign dollar-holders began dumping their dollars as a protest against the foreign policies of the administration of US president Jimmy Carter. It was to deal with that dollar crisis that Carter was forced to bring in Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve in 1979. In October 1979 Volcker gave the dollar another turbocharge by allowing interest rates in the US to rise some 300% in weeks, to well over 20%. That in turn forced global interest rates through the roof, triggered a global recession, mass unemployment and misery. It also "saved" the dollar as sole reserve currency. The dollar was not a "petrodollar". It was the currency of issue of the greatest superpower, a superpower determined to do what it needed to keep it that way.

The F-16 dollar backing
Since 1979 the US power establishment, from Wall Street to Washington, has maintained the status of the dollar as unchallenged global reserve currency. That role, however, is not a purely economic one. Reserve-currency status is an adjunct of global power, of the US determination to dominate other nations and the global economic process. The United States didn't get reserve-currency status by a democratic vote of world central banks, nor did the British Empire in the 19th century. They fought wars for it.

For that reason, the status of the dollar as reserve currency depends on the status of the United States as the world's unchallenged military superpower. In a sense, since August 1971 the dollar is no longer backed by gold. Instead, it is backed by F-16s and Abrams battle tanks, operating in some 130 US bases around the world, defending liberty and the dollar.

A euro challenge?
For the euro to begin to challenge the reserve role of the US dollar, a virtual revolution in policy would have to take place in Euroland. First the European Central Bank (ECB), the institutionalized, undemocratic institution created by the Maastricht Treaty to maintain the power of creditor banks in collecting their debts, would have to surrender power to elected legislators. It would then have to turn on the printing presses and print euros like there was no tomorrow. That is because the size of the publicly traded Euroland government-bond market is still tiny in comparison with the huge US Treasury market.

As Michael Hudson explains in his brilliant and too-little-studied work Super Imperialism, the perverse genius of the US global dollar hegemony was the realization, in the months after August 1971, that US power under a fiat dollar system was directly tied to the creation of dollar debt. The US debt and the trade deficit were not the "problem", they realized. They were the "solution".

The US could print endless quantities of dollars to pay for foreign imports of Toyotas, Hondas, BMWs or other goods in a system in which the trading partners of the United States, holding paper dollars for their exports, feared a dollar collapse enough to continue to support the dollar by buying US Treasury bonds and bills. In fact in the 30 years since abandoning gold exchange for paper dollars, the US dollars in reserve have risen by a whopping 2,500%, and the amount grows at double-digit rates today.

This system continued into the 1980s and 1990s unchallenged. US policy was one of crisis management coupled with skillful and coordinated projection of US military power. Japan in the 1980s, fearful of antagonizing its US nuclear-umbrella provider, bought endless volumes of US Treasury debt even though it lost a king's ransom in the process. It was a political, not an investment, decision.

The only potential challenge to the reserve role of the dollar came in the late 1990s with the European Union decision to create a single currency, the euro, to be administered by single central bank, the ECB. Europe appeared to be emerging as a unified, independent policy voice of what French President Jacques Chirac then called a multipolar world. Those multipolar illusions vanished with the unpublicized decision of the ECB and national central banks not to pool their gold reserves as backing for the new euro. That decision not to use gold as backing came amid a heated controversy over Nazi gold and alleged wartime abuses by Germany, Switzerland, France and other European countries.

Since the shocks of September 11, 2001, and the ensuing declaration of a US "global war on terror", including a unilateral decision to ignore the United Nations and the community of nations and go to war against a defenseless Iraq, few countries have even dared to challenge dollar hegemony. The combined defense spending of all nations of the EU today pales by comparison with the total of current US budgeted and unbudgeted military spending. US defense outlays will reach an official, staggering level of US$663 billion in the 2007 fiscal year. The combined annual EU spending amounts to a mere $75 billion, and is tending to decline, in part because of ECB Maastricht deficit pressures on its governments.

So today, at least for the present, there are no signs of Japanese, EU or other dollar holders engaging in dollar-asset liquidation. Even China, unhappy as it is with Washington's bully politics, seems reluctant to rouse the American dragon to fury.

The origins of the oil bourse
The idea of creating a new trading platform in Iran to trade oil and to create a new crude-oil benchmark apparently originated with the former director of the London International Petroleum Exchange, Chris Cook. In a January 21 article in Asia Times Online (What the Iran 'nuclear issue' is really about), Cook explained the background. Describing a letter he had written in 2001 to the governor of the Iranian Central Bank, Dr Mohsen Nourbakhsh, Cook explained what he advised then:
In this letter I pointed out that the structure of global oil markets massively favors intermediary traders and particularly investment banks, and that both consumers and producers such as Iran are adversely affected by this. I recommended that Iran consider as a matter of urgency the creation of a Middle Eastern energy exchange, and particularly a new Persian Gulf benchmark oil price.

It is therefore with wry amusement that I have seen a myth being widely propagated on the Internet that the genesis of this "Iran bourse" project is a wish to subvert the US dollar by denominating oil pricing in euros.

As anyone familiar with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will know, the denomination of oil sales in currencies other than the dollar is not a new subject, and as anyone familiar with economics will tell you, the denomination of oil sales is merely a transactional issue: what matters is in what assets (or, in the case of the United States, liabilities ) these proceeds are then invested.
A full challenge to the domination of the US dollar as the world central-bank reserve currency entails a de facto declaration of war on the "full-spectrum dominance" of the United States today. The mighty members of the European Central Bank Council well know this. The heads of state of every EU country know this. The Chinese leadership as well as the Japanese and Indians know this. So does Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Until some combination of those Eurasian powers congeal in a cohesive challenge to the unbridled domination of the United States as sole superpower, there will be no euro or yen or even Chinese yuan challenging the role of the dollar. The issue is of enormous importance, as it is vital to understand the true dynamics bringing the world to the brink of possible nuclear catastrophe today.

As a small ending note, a good friend in Oslo recently forwarded me an article from the Norwegian press. At the end of December, Sven Arild Andersen, director of the Oslo bourse, announced he was fed up with depending on the London oil bourse trading oil in dollars. Norway, a major oil producer, selling most of its oil into euro countries in the EU, he said, should set up its own oil bourse and trade its oil in euros. Will Norway - a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - become the next target for the wrath of the Pentagon?

F William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press). He can be reached through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

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

Iran refuses to back down on nuclear research :

"The people of Iran will not accept coercion and unjust decisions by international organisations ... the era of bullying and brutality is over," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1727316,00.html
===
Congress of Arab parties voices support for Iran's nuclear right :

Secretary-General of the Congress of Arab Parties Abdul Aziz al-Seyyed told reporters at a press conference held at the end of the three-day session that Iran was being targeted by big powers because it was a regional power with policies that did not please these powers.
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-22/0603088680164811.htm

===
Iran ready for uranium enrichment in Turkey::

Iran is prepared to agree to the enrichment of uranium for its civilian nuclear program and subsequent recycling of spent nuclear fuel in Turkish territory, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency reported Thursday.
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/03/09/1443734.htm

===
White House Linked to Mitch Wade Iran Group?:

Mitchell Wade -- the guy who paid off Duke Cunningham for help bagging contracts -- registered as the 'registered agent' for an outfit called the "Iranian Democratization Foundation."
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000045.php

- US To Seek Strong Statement Against Iran Before Security Council
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_To_Seek...ty_Council.html

Washington (AFP) Mar 10, 2006 - The United States will seek a "strong" UN Security Council statement against Iran's nuclear programme, the White House said Thursday as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Iran Washington's biggest challenge.

- Iran Digs In For Confrontation With United States
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Digs_...ted_States.html

Iran's President Warns West Will Suffer
By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer

Iran's hard-line president on Thursday warned the West will suffer more than his country if it tries to stop Tehran's nuclear ambitions, vowing to press ahead with the program as the confrontation moved into the U.N. Security Council.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments came as Tehran struck an increasingly threatening tone, with the top Iranian delegate to the U.N. atomic watchdog agency warning a day earlier that the United States will face "harm and pain" if the Security Council becomes involved.

"They know that they are not capable of causing the least harm to Iranian people," Ahmadinejad said during a visit to Iran's western province of Lorestan, according to the ISNA news agency. "They will suffer more."

Ahmadinejad did not elaborate. Some diplomats saw the comments as a veiled threat to use oil as a weapon, though Iran's oil minister ruled out any decrease in production. Iran also has leverage with extremist groups in the Middle East that could harm U.S. interests.

The move to the U.N. Security Council takes the standoff to a new level, but how much it escalates depends heavily on the council's first steps.

The five permanent members with veto power — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — debated on Thursday how tough an action to take over Iran's nuclear program, which Washington says aims to produce atomic weapons. Iran denies that claim, saying it intends only to generate electricity.

The council could consider sanctions, but that seemed unlikely due to opposition by Russia and China. Instead, the first response will likely be a nonbinding presidential statement.

Britain has proposed that the statement ask International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei to report back in two weeks on Iran's compliance with IAEA resolutions.

The toughest talk so far has come from Washington, where U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the United States wants the statement to include some condemnation of Iran. He said the U.S. may eventually seek a so-called Chapter 7 resolution, which can be enforced with military action.

Burns suggested Wednesday that Washington would also urge its allies to move beyond the Security Council and impose targeted sanctions against Iran if it doesn't clear up the doubts surrounding its nuclear program.

Russia, however, warned against dropping the diplomatic approach with Iran and — in a sign of its reluctance to condemn its ally, Tehran — said even the two-week deadline proposed by Britain was too short.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Iraq was a timely reminder of what can happen when the world turns its back on diplomacy.

"We don't want to be the ones to remind (everyone) who was right and who was not in Iraq, although the answer is obvious," Lavrov said in an interview on Russian state television, remarks that highlighted a deep rift with Washington over how to handle the standoff.

Former Israeli armed forces chief Moshe Yaalon said Thursday that Israel has the capacity to strike Iran and delay its nuclear program by several years, Israel TV reported.

Yaalon told the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, a single assault would not be enough, and Israel was not limited to an air attack, a possible reference to submarine-fired missiles.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang urged the international community to "maintain restraint and patience" with regard to the Iran nuclear issue.

Iran has threatened in the past to end negotiations with Russia over a compromise proposal and restart full uranium enrichment — a key step in the nuclear process that the West is trying to persuade it to give up — if it is referred to the Security Council.

Iranian officials did not repeat those threats Thursday, a day after the IAEA held an intense debate over a critical report that accused Iran of withholding information on its nuclear program, possessing plans linked to nuclear weapons and refusing to freeze uranium enrichment.

Soon after the meeting ended, ElBaradei said he would send the report to the Security Council within 24 hours.

"The people of Iran will not accept coercion and unjust decisions by international organizations," Ahmadinejad said, according to state television. "Enemies cannot force the Iranian people to relinquish their rights."

"The era of bullying and brutality is over," he added.

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all state matters, also was defiant, telling a group of clerics that Iran would not drop its nuclear ambitions, state television reported.

"Authorities are obliged to continue toward achieving advanced technology, including nuclear energy. The people and the government will resist any force or conspiracy," he said.

He charged that Washington was looking for an excuse to continue what he called a psychological war against his country.

"This time they have used nuclear energy as an excuse. If Iran quits now, the case will not be over. The Americans will find another excuse," he said.

___

Associated Press writers George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, and Nick Wadhams at the United Nations contributed to this report.



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.

Iran Rejects Russian Uranium Proposal

By Karl Vick

TEHRAN, March 12 -- Iran said Sunday it has rejected a Russian proposal to enrich uranium on its behalf, closing the door on an option that offered a possible diplomatic solution to international concerns over Tehran's nuclear program.

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

- Defiant Iran Threatens To Quit Nuclear Treaty
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Defiant_Ir...ear_Treaty.html

Tehran (AFP) Mar 13, 2006 - Iran on Sunday threatened to walk out of an international atomic treaty, as it continued to insist on its right to conduct sensitive nuclear activities ahead of a key meeting of the UN Security Council.

- Iran Nuke Talks Center At UN
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Nuke_...nter_At_UN.html

http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?Do..._page=index.cfm


March 3, 2006
Newest IAEA report on Iran cites continued concerns in anticipation of full UNSC consideration



[click here for “IAEA formally refers Iranian matter to UN Security Council,” Feb. 27, 2006]


[click here for “IAEA on Iran: recent and pending action and legal parameters,” Feb. 2, 2006]


With UN Security Council (UNSC) referral already underway, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei on Feb. 27, 2006, circulated to the IAEA Board of Governors the latest IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program, in anticipation of the board’s upcoming meeting beginning March 6, 2006.


(The report is officially restricted unless and until the board votes to make it public. Nevertheless, portions are set out in news reports, and the entire report may be downloaded from http://www.iranwatch.org/international/IAE...port-022706.pdf.

Update March 8, 2006: copy released to public now available on IAEA web site: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents...gov2006-15.pdf)


Egyptian lawyer ElBaradei’s language is cautious, but nevertheless voices continued concern and unanswered questions. The report cited Iran’s recent decision to resume nuclear fuel cycle activities, the violation of the 2004 Paris Agreement with Europe that brought Europe to temporarily drop diplomatic efforts and back UNSC referral. With respect to other issues, the IAEA report’s bottom line assessment appears to be that there has been partial cooperation sufficient to account for all previously discovered nuclear materials; the IAEA is not able to conclude the Iranian program is entirely peaceful and therefore licit; with respect to specific items under review there still are unanswered questions either because of a lack of full and active cooperation or because assessments and investigation are simply still ongoing; and the legal and corresponding investigative frameworks need to be strengthened.


Some of the report’s major points include:


With respect to that body of known nuclear materials Iran previously has declared or been forced to declare, all have been accounted for.
The IAEA is unable to conclude there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.
Iran possesses a “generic document” related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components, which Iran has agreed to keep under IAEA seal, and has opened to on-site examination; Iran refuses to provide a copy, and denies it requested it from foreign sources.
There is lack of clarification about the role of the military in Iran’s nuclear program, including with respect to recently obtained information received by the agency concerning alleged weapon studies that could involve nuclear material.
The IAEA believes it lacks legal authority to undertake the full scope of activities necessary to resolve the Iranian matter and ensure that ongoing questions will not continue being raised.
Even if Iran complies with its safeguards agreement as well as the unratified Additional Protocol that level of investigative intensity would not go far enough .
Ongoing IAEA assessments will be delayed by Iran’s lack of full cooperation, such as evidenced by Iran’s Feb. 6, 2006, decision to stop following the signed but unratified Additional Protocol (recall that the Additional Protocol is the latest generation of safeguards and provides moderately more intrusive and expansive inspections but does not go as far as what the IAEA board requires of Iran in its Feb. 4, 2006, board resolution reporting Iran to the UNSC).
There is an inadequacy of information available on Iran’s centrifuge enrichment program.
There still is not a full explanation for the presence of highly enriched uranium on some of the Iranian equipment.
Without active cooperation by Iran the matter cannot be resolved, implying that with its current level of authority the IAEA is not able to accomplish that goal on its own if Iran wished to thwart efforts to investigate it.
The report states:

53. … Although the Agency has not seen any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, the Agency is not at this point in time in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran. The process of drawing such a conclusion, under normal circumstances, is a time consuming process even with an Additional Protocol in force. In the case of Iran, this conclusion can be expected to take even longer in light of the undeclared nature of Iran’s past nuclear programme, and in particular because of the inadequacy of information available on its centrifuge enrichment programme, the existence of a generic document related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components, and the lack of clarification about the role of the military in Iran’s nuclear programme, including, as mentioned above, about recent information available to the Agency concerning alleged weapon studies that could involve nuclear material.


“Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Report by the Director General,” International Atomic Energy Agency, GOV/2006/15, Feb. 27, 2006,
http://www.iranwatch.org/international/IAE...port-022706.pdf


The report further states:


54. It is regrettable, and a matter of concern, that the above uncertainties related to the scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear programme have not been clarified after three years of intensive Agency verification. … Iran’s full transparency is still essential. Without full transparency that extends beyond the formal legal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol — transparency that could only be achieved through Iran’s active cooperation — the Agency’s ability to reconstruct the history of Iran’s past programme and to verify the correctness and completeness of the statements made by Iran, particularly with regard to its centrifuge enrichment programme, will be limited, and questions about the past and current direction of Iran’s nuclear programme will continue to be raised. Such transparency should primarily include access to, and cooperation by, relevant individuals; access to documentation related to procurement and dual use equipment; and access to certain military owned workshops and R&D locations that the Agency may need to visit in the future as part of its investigation.


Evidence of enriched uranium on centrifuges


The IAEA previously detected contamination from both low-enriched uranium (LEU) and highly enriched uranium (HEU) on Iranian centrifuge equipment. Iran argued the contamination occurred outside Iran before Iran obtained the equipment. The IAEA believes that the some evidence supports Iran’s claim with respect to some of the HEU particles but that the matter is still not fully resolved:



… the origin of some HEU particles, and of the LEU particles, remains to be further investigated … Due to the fact that it is difficult to establish a definitive conclusion with respect to the origin of all of the contamination, it is essential to make progress on the scope and chronology of Iran’s experiments with UF6 in its centrifuge enrichment programme.


Need to strengthen nonproliferation regime


With respect to the overall investigation, part of the crux of the situation is that IAEA safeguards traditionally were aimed at essentially auditing known activities and materials, to account for their whereabouts, uses, and disposition. The Additional Protocol was aimed to provide moderately more proactive inspections but still does not provide open-ended authority of the kind the IAEA board has determined is needed to resolve the Iranian matter.


The UNSC, in contrast, has broad authority to engage any situation impacting international peace and security, to investigate and to require appropriate solutions. Under the text of the UN Charter, the UNSC hypothetically could require any kind of inspections. One interesting legal question would be how easily the UNSC could require Iran to give up nuclear energy, but clearly that proposal is not presently on the table, even though there appears to be international consensus that Iran should not have an indigenous nuclear fuel cycle. Note that negotiations between Iran and Russia on a joint enrichment project in Russia have generated a sense of partial cooperation analogous to the IAEA investigations, with Iran at times speaking favorable of the Russian proposal, but nevertheless refusing to foreclose the possible of also having purely Iranian enrichment projects located purely within Iran.


In any event, for the IAEA the next stage could be for the UNSC to strengthen the IAEA’s legal and investigative framework, in the process seeking to demonstrate the capacity of the UN system, working in synergy with other multilateral efforts, to “nip in the bud” any security and other challenges the Iranian matter poses.


Sources and further reading:


“Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Report by the Director General,” International Atomic Energy Agency, GOV/2006/15, Feb. 27, 2006,
http://www.iranwatch.org/international/IAE...port-022706.pdf


“FACTBOX-Key points of UN atomic watchdog report on Iran,” Reuters, Feb. 28, 2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type
=topNews&storyID=2006-02-28T181019Z_01_L28589764_
RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml &related=true


George Nishiyama, “Iran: Russia link counters mistrust raised by UN report,” Reuters, Feb. 28, 2006,
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle....opNews&storyID=
2006-02-28T185724Z_01_L28111746_
RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-IRAN.xml


“Tehran fails to dispel IAEA 'concern',” Financial Times, Feb. 28, 2006 http://news.ft.com/cms/s/426d2364-a7fe-11d...00779e2340.html


“IAEA Safeguards Overview: Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements and Additional Protocols,” International Atomic Energy Agency, http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheet...g_overview.html

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/1...hange_again.php
It's Regime Change, Again
Tom Porteous
March 10, 2006


Tom Porteous is a freelance writer and analyst who was formerly with BBC Africa and served as Conflict Management Advisor for Africa with the British Foreign Office.

Make no mistake. The current posture and policy of the United States are leading inexorably towards a military showdown with Iran that could have profoundly negative consequences for Iran, for the region and for the United States.

For all the studied vagueness and ambiguity of senior United States and European officials, for all the talk of a long diplomatic process, of economic sanctions and political isolation, at the end of this road lies the opening of another front in America's "Long War."

The Egyptian IAEA chief, Mohammed ElBaradei, implicitly acknowledged the high risks at stake when he appealed to both Western and Iranian leaders on March 7 to "lower the rhetoric" and adopt a "cool-headed approach." But, as the Iranian dossier now moves to the U.N. Security Council, there is little sign of such an approach either in Tehran or in Washington.

"The Iranian regime needs to know," Dick Cheney told the annual policy conference of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington on March 7, "that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences. For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime. And we join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

Pressed by reporters on whether Cheney's "meaningful consequences" meant military action, hapless White House press spokesman Scott McClellan insisted that the vice president was merely "stating our policy".

But Cheney's message, delivered with symbolic, if not verbal, precision against the backdrop of a massive graphic of the Israeli national flag merging into the Stars and Stripes, was clear enough: the United States will use military force if diplomacy and economic pressure do not persuade the Iranian government to back down.

Two days later, on March 9, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice further raised the temperature, reiterating her claim that Iran is the Middle East's "central banker for terrorism."

"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," she said, "whose policies are directed at developing a Middle East that would be 180 degrees different than the Middle East that we would like to see develop."

The problem with the United States' confrontational approach to Iran is that it is based on a misreading of the internal situation in Iran and on an over-confident assessment of the strategic position of the United States in the region in the aftermath of the U.S. military invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Diplomatic pressure, far from bringing about a change of heart in Tehran, is already strengthening the domestic political position of the hardliners around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and reinforcing their determination to press ahead with their nuclear enrichment plans in defiance of the United States, Europe and Israel. Furthermore, President Bush's nuclear deal with India has significantly undermined the diplomatic argument against Iran by blowing a hole in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Because of the size of Iran's shadow economy and its relative economic self-sufficiency, any economic sanctions against Iran will be ineffective and could further bolster the hardliners' internal political standing. Furthermore, as Iranian officials have pointed out, Iran's status as a major oil producer means that it is in a position to retaliate to economic sanctions in kind, pushing up the price of oil.

The scarcely veiled threat of U.S. military action is no more likely to deter Iran's hardliners. Ahmadinejad calculates, correctly, that a full-scale invasion of Iran is out of the question and that United States or Israeli air strikes would simply help to strengthen Iran's political position in the region and provide a pretext for further consolidation at home (e.g. a crackdown on political opponents). Furthermore, Iran could respond to military action by piling the pressure on the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, and on Israel from Lebanon and Palestine.

The absence of a cool-headed approach to the crisis on the part of Ahmadinejad and his supporters seems to be based on a very cool calculation of their own factional political interests within Iran's political maze and of Washington's strategic difficulties in the region.

All this points in one direction: at some point in the not too distant future, once the diplomatic process at the U.N. is exhausted and economic sanctions have failed to get the Iranians to change their tune, there won't be any options left on Washington's table except military ones. And Iran's leaders are probably right in their assessment that those options are not good ones.

U.S. firepower could do a lot of physical damage and might even put back Iran's nuclear programme by a few years. But it would also do a lot of political damage: to the prospects of political reform in Iran; to the stability of Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider region; and to U.S. political and strategic standing in the world.

The United States is making the same mistakes with regard to Iran as those which it made with regard to Iraq. The consequences are likely to be just as fraught, and perhaps even more damaging.

Although several leading members of the neo-conservative movement, which provided the theoretical and intellectual underpinning for the invasion of Iraq, have now recanted and admitted they were wrong about Iraq, the prospect of U.S. military action against Iran is not getting the critical attention it deserves.

Washington has missed several good opportunities in recent years to engage with Iran and to influence internal Iranian politics in a positive and peaceful manner. It is unlikely that any more will present themselves now or that this U.S. administration will seek to engage in bold, transformational diplomacy with the Iranian government. That would count as appeasement in Washington's current political vocabulary.

So there is no serious debate about the credible alternatives to military action in Iran. The United States is drifting unnecessarily towards military confrontation with the largest and richest state in the Middle East, with grave implications for the future of Western relations with the Muslim world. And everyone is busily pretending that it is not happening.

Copyright © 2006 Tom Porteous