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 ela