Israel Hints at Military Action Against Iran:

Israel is threatening to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear program. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has hinted that Israel is preparing for military action against Iran's nuclear facilities.
http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/article_004747.php

===
Rice says time for talking with Iran is over:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday there was strong international consensus against Iran's nuclear plans and time had run out for talking to Tehran.
http://tinyurl.com/8aevc

===
Iran threatens to restart full-scale enrichment if referred to U.N. Security Council :

Iran will immediately retaliate if referred to the U.N. Security Council next week by forging ahead with developing a full-scale uranium enrichment program, a senior envoy said Monday.
http://tinyurl.com/b4f49

===
Senator Hillary Clinton Takes Money from Pro-Regime Iranians:

Senator Hillary Clinton yesterday accused President George W. Bush of mishandling the threat from Iran while she's been accepting money from supporters of the renegade Iranian regime.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11649.htm

===
Hillary Clinton, War Goddess :

She wants permanent bases in Iraq – and threatens war with Iran
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8428

===
Joe Lieberman: U.S. Prepared for Iran Strike:

Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday that the U.S. is prepared to deal with the Iranian nuclear crisis militarily - even if the war in Iraq continues to require a substantial American troop commitment.
http://tinyurl.com/a4ktc

===
Military assault on Iran could cost U.S. dearly :

Diplomats around the world keep repeating the mantra: There is no military option when it comes to slowing, much less stopping, Iran's presumed ambitions to get the Bomb.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/22/news/strike.php#

===
Iran's Really Big Weapon:

This could be a far more profoundly punishing blow to American interests than Iran's ability to manufacture a crude atom bomb that would have little credibility until it became small and stable and reliable enough to be delivered on some putative target.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11653.htm

===
Mike Whitney : Iran’s Oil-exchange threatens the Greenback :

This is why Bush and Co. are planning to lead the nation to war against Iran. It is straightforward defense of the current global system and the continuing dominance of the reserve currency, the dollar.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11654.htm

January 23, 2006
U.S. and Europe Run Into New Obstacles on Iran
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:16 p.m. ET

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran will immediately retaliate if referred to the U.N. Security Council next week by forging ahead with developing a full-scale uranium enrichment program, a senior envoy said Monday.

The comments by Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh, a senior envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, reflected Iran's defiance in the face of growing international pressure over its nuclear program. Enrichment can be used in electricity production but it also is needed in making uranium-based nuclear weapons.

Separately, Iran's top nuclear negotiator planned to travel to Moscow on Tuesday for a high-level session as talks intensified surrounding a proposal to have Iran's uranium enriched in Russia, then returned to Iran for use in the country's reactors -- a compromise that would provide more oversight and ease tensions.

Ending a 15-month commitment, Iran removed IAEA seals from equipment Jan. 10 and announced it would restart experiments, including what it described as small-scale enrichment -- a move that led key European countries to call for an emergency session of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency's board of governors Feb. 2.

The Europeans also began drafting a basic text for a resolution calling for the Security Council to press Tehran to reimpose its total freeze on enrichment and ''to extend full and prompt cooperation to the agency'' in its investigation of suspect nuclear activities -- though it stops short of asking the council to impose sanctions.

Soltaniyeh, in comments to The Associated Press, warned against referral, suggesting such a ''hasty decision'' would backfire.

Whether Iran's suspension of its full-scale enrichment program remains in effect ''depends on the decision of Feb. 2,'' he said. Asked if that meant Iran would resume efforts to fully develop its nascent enrichment activities if the board votes for referral at that meeting, he said, ''yes.''

Iran insists its nuclear ambitions do not go beyond wanting to generate fuel, but concerns are growing its main focus is trying to make nuclear weapons -- something more than three years of IAEA investigations have failed to prove or disprove.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, meanwhile, rejected a request by the United States and several other member nations for a full report on the agency's investigation into Iran's nuclear program, signaling his resistance to ratcheting up pressure on Tehran.

In a letter dated Friday, Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. representative to the IAEA, asked ElBaradei to prepare a written report on the ''status of IAEA efforts to investigate indications of an Iranian nuclear weapons program'' and on other activities Washington says are a cover for such a program. Supporting letters from the other countries also asking for a special report were dated Monday.

In a written reply dated Monday, ElBaradei said ''a detailed report'' would only be available in March, the next scheduled meeting of the IAEA board. Instead, he offered an ''update brief'' for the Feb. 2 meeting, to be read by a deputy.

The exchange in the letters, which were made available to AP, reflected differences between ElBaradei and the United States and its key allies over the handling of the Iran nuclear issue.

Diplomats close to the agency -- who demanded anonymity for divulging confidential information -- said the IAEA chief was unhappy about the push for a special board meeting and would have preferred to wait until the scheduled March session, when he hopes to end a more than three-year probe of Iran's nuclear dossier.

Iran repeatedly has said it is willing to offer guarantees that its nuclear program won't be used to manufacture weapons. But it has so far refused to give up what it calls its clear rights under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel.

In Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov encouraged Tehran to adopt a position that would help ease tensions.

''We count on discussing with you the so-called nuclear problem, around which the situation is currently being heightened,'' Lavrov said at the start of a meeting with Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari. ''We hope that our Iranian friends will choose a position that helps to ease tension and renew negotiations.''

Iran's top negotiator, Ali Larijani, will meet in Moscow with top Russian officials, including Russia's Security Council head Igor Ivanov, the council's press service said. Ivanov visited Iran last year.

Russia, which has veto power in the U.N. Security Council, has close ties with Tehran and is building Iran's first nuclear power reactor, but has been moving closer to the Western position on Iran and is reluctant to let the issue cause a major rift in its relations with the United States and Europe.



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press Home

January 23, 2006
Rice: Time Is Now to Take Iran Before U.N.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:13 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday ''the time has come'' to send Iran before the U.N. Security Council over its disputed nuclear program, but she seemed to acknowledge that U.N. action may not be swift.

Iran warned that it would intensify its nuclear development if referred to the Security Council.

''It has been our belief, and it is that of the Europeans as well and a number of other states, that the time has come for referral'' to the United Nations body, Rice said following a meeting with Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini.

Calling the case for referral ''very strong,'' Rice said the United States will push for it at a special meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency early next month.

She would not speculate on what action the Security Council might take, or comment on whether the United States would be satisfied with an outcome less punitive than international economic sanctions.

''The Security Council can then take up the matter at a later time, but the referral absolutely has to be made,'' Rice said.

On another topic, Rice was guarded about how the United States would proceed if, as expected, the militant and political group Hamas gains a substantial or dominant foothold in Palestinian elections this week.

Rice repeated U.S. policy that Hamas is a terrorist organization, and she said Washington will not change that position. At the same time, she said Hamas poses a ''practical problem'' for the U.S.-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Hamas has not renounced violence and does not recognize Israel's right to exist.

''It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that it's hard to have negotiations with a party that you do not recognize its right to exist,'' Rice said.

Israel, the U.S. and other nations are trying to come up with an approach to a Palestinian government with a large Hamas component. U.S. officials say they will not deal directly with Hamas members, but they suggest Washington would not shun the entire government.

On Iran, although Rice stressed the strength of international resolve to stop Iran's march toward possible nuclear weapons, she was reminded that even strong military allies may not share the United States' preference for harsh repercussions for Tehran.

Fini said he agrees that Iran's case should go to the Security Council, which could take a range of steps up to broad trade sanctions or an oil embargo. But Fini began remarks on Iran by noting that Italy is Iran's largest European trading partner, a reminder that economic measures against the oil exporter would have consequences far beyond Iran.

''The Security Council will evaluate the issue, we hope, with flexibility and with political farsightedness,'' Fini said.

European nations that have been negotiating with Iran began drafting a referral resolution that stops short of asking the Security Council to impose sanctions. The draft resolution asks the body to press Tehran to reinstate a freeze on uranium enrichment and to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency investigation of suspect nuclear activities.

Iran claims its nuclear program is entirely devoted to developing the technology needed to make nuclear energy. The United States claims Iran is hiding a weapons program, or ambitions for one, and that its past deceptions warrant review by the Security Council.

Ending a 15-month hiatus during negotiations with European countries over a way to ensure Iran cannot make a bomb, Tehran removed IAEA seals from nuclear equipment Jan. 10 and announced it would restart experiments.

Israel's defense minister implied over the weekend that if diplomacy fails with Iran, Israel could resort to military action to defend itself from a nation whose leader, hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has said the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.

European diplomats have reacted with alarm. Fini called Ahmadinejad's statements unacceptable but added: ''Being equally firm, we want to stress and reiterate to our Israeli friends that the only way to guarantee peace and security is the diplomatic route.''

Rice said that while President Bush always reserves the right to use force, U.S. military action against Iran ''is not on the agenda because we have committed to the diplomatic course.''



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

IRAN NUKES - SPECIAL

- Bush Warns Iran On Israel
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Bush_Warns..._On_Israel.html

Manhattan (AFP) Jan 23, 2006 - US President George W. Bush said Monday that the United States would defend Israel against any Iranian threat and that the world could not risk being "blackmailed" by a nuclear-armed Tehran.

- Iran Stands By Threat Of Retaliation
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Stand...etaliation.html

- Walker's World: Can Iran Nukes Be Stopped
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Walkers_Wo...Be_Stopped.html

- UN Referral For Iran 'Absolutely' Necessary
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/UN_Referra..._Necessary.html

- Russia Calls On Iran To Change Tack On Nuke Standoff
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_Cal...e_Standoff.html

- Chirac And Merkel Hold Talks On EU, Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Chirac_And...On_EU_Iran.html

- Iran Threatens To Carry Out Enrichment On Industrial Scale
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Threa...rial_Scale.html

- Iran Denies Transferring ForEx Reserves
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Denie...x_Reserves.html

Walker's World: The price for stopping Iran nukes
By Martin Walker
UPI Editor
Published January 23, 2006


HERZLIYA, Israel -- A rumble of alarm went through the hall when Israel's annual Herzliya security conference was told Sunday that any diplomatic settlement to halt Iran's nuclear development plans would probably have to include an Israeli commitment to a nuclear-free Middle East.

Sir Michael Quinlan, the former top official at Britain's Ministry of Defense, was spelling out the terms and procedures that would almost certainly be required -- short of military action -- to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. And as he went through the list, which included the kinds of economic damage the world might have to face if economic sanctions were to be credible, a gloom settled over the conference.


China, Russia and India would probably have to be persuaded to risk significant financial loss, he began.

Then the United States, NATO and Israel would probably be required to give security guarantees to Iran that there would be no attempt at regime change, along with pledges of no support for any Iranian opposition group that was not prepared to work through democratic and peaceful means.

There would probably have to be further security guarantees to Iran's neighbors and other Middle Eastern powers, if a grand bargain to keep Iran nuclear-free were to work. And then there would also be the very big but unavoidable question of Israel's own nuclear capability.

Israel has long cultivated a policy of deliberate ambiguity on its nuclear status, pledging only that it would never "be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East." But it is an open secret that Israel possesses an arsenal of well over a hundred nuclear weapons that can be delivered by the flexible and highly survivable triad of Jericho missiles, strike aircraft, and cruise missiles fired from Israel's Dolphin class submarines.

It is hard to conceive of any circumstances in which Israel would surrender its nuclear capability, its ultimate deterrent against a sea of potentially hostile neighbors, many of whom -- like the new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- openly call for Israel's obliteration from the map.

Even to discuss the matter would require the most cast-iron international guarantees of Israel's borders and its security, along with the clearest and most open commitment from the United States. And given Israel's history, such as the way the Lyndon Johnson Administration in the weeks before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war ducked its promise to keep open the Gulf of Aqaba, any such American promises would be viewed with great and understandable skepticism.

But in his precise and methodical way, Quinlan explained just how difficult a negotiated international solution to the Iran crisis would be. And he went on to question whether the United States would be able to assemble against Iran the kind of international diplomatic and military coalition it crafted for the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. But without such a threat of international solidarity against it, backed up by a United Nations mandate, diplomacy would not be credible and Iran would not be easy to convince.

"Efficacy and legitimacy are inseparable," Quinlan stressed.

This was not what the Israeli policy-makers and officials and members of the Knesset (Israel's parliament) in the audience wanted to hear.

"The time for talking is over," said Ephraim Sneh, who chairs the Knesset's committee on strategic doctrine. "We should start focused and effective sanctions, beginning with refined oil products. Iran is dependent on imports for 40 percent of its gasoline."

"The only way that the United States and Europe will act against Iran is if they know, if they are absolutely convinced, that Israel itself will act -- even if it means a full-scale war in the Middle East," said Arieh Eldad, another member of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense committee.

Israelis, already deeply alarmed by the prospect of the terrorist-backing Hamas being elected into power in this week's Palestinian elections, can hardly bring themselves to believe that the rest of the world might not see Iran as quite the evident nuclear menace that Israel perceives. For Israel, so small a state that one nuclear weapon could spell annihilation, the threats of Iran's new President to "wipe Israel off the map" are a clear, imminent and mortal threat to its existence.

Indeed, Quinlan went on, the rest of the world might agree that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable. But the word "unacceptable" had two meanings in international life. There was Saddam Hussein's 1991 invasion of Kuwait, which was "unacceptable" and it was reversed. But there was also the "unacceptable" way the Soviet Union had imposed its sway over Eastern Europe after 1945, and however appalling, that had to be accepted.

"I regretfully believe that ultimately Iran's nuclear weapon would be 'unacceptable' in the second sense," Quinlan said quietly, and a dreadful hush fell over the Herzliya conference room, a place that all present knew would be within the destruction zone of a nuclear weapon exploded over Tel Aviv.

Israeli defense chief threatens to stop Iran's nuke plans
By Abraham Rabinovich
The Washington Times
Published January 23, 2006


JERUSALEM -- Israel's defense minister hinted strongly over the weekend that his country would act unilaterally if necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Shaul Mofaz, who hails from the same hometown as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also warned the Iranian leader that his policies risked bringing destruction to his own people.


"I want to address President Ahmadinejad, who is from the city where I was born," said Mr. Mofaz at the opening session Saturday of the Herzliya Conference, an annual strategic seminar.

"I address you as someone who leads his country with an ideology of hate, terror and anti-Semitism. I suggest you look at history and see what happened to others who tried to wipe out the Jewish people. In the end, they brought destruction on their own people."

Mr. Mofaz said Israel was relying "at present" on international efforts to forestall Iran's nuclear efforts, but suggested that it would take the matter into its own hands if necessary.

"Israel is not prepared to accept the nuclear arming of Iran and it must prepare to defend itself, with all that that implies," he said.

The warning was the sharpest yet by an Israeli leader. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who remains in a coma after a stroke three weeks ago, had been circumspect on the subject, saying the issue was not one on which Israel was taking the lead.

Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, head of the Israeli armed forces, was cautious when asked to respond to Mr. Mofaz' remarks.

"I am not going to deal with the solutions to the Iranian nuclear problem," he said. "Israel is not helpless -- that it is enough of an answer."

Iran's state-controlled news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as dismissing the Israeli remarks as part of "a psychological war" and as "child's play."

Both Mr. Mofaz and Mr. Ahmadinejad hail from the city of Garmsar, southeast of Tehran, which Mr. Mofaz left at age 9 with his family in 1957 to emigrate to Israel. Mr. Ahmadinejad was born there in 1956, so the pair apparently resided in proximity for a year.

Mr. Mofaz's mention of his Iranian roots might have been intended to counter Mr. Ahmadinejad's call for Israelis to be "sent back" to Europe. Half of Israeli Jews hail from the Muslim world, including Iran.

In addition to Mr. Mofaz, Israeli President Moshe Katsav was born in Iran, as was a former Air Force commander, Eitan Ben-Eliyahu. Gen. Halutz, the present chief of staff, has partial Iranian roots as well.

Mr. Mofaz's remarks were sharply criticized by some Israelis, including a former Likud Defense Minister Moshe Arens.

"This issue is too sensitive for public threats," he said.

The Likud chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yuval Steinitz, accused Mr. Mofaz of electioneering.

January 24, 2006
Bombs Kill Eight in Iranian Oil City
By REUTERS
Filed at 9:08 a.m. ET

AHVAZ, Iran (Reuters) - Bombs ripped through a bank and government building in the southern Iranian oil city of Ahvaz on Tuesday, killing eight people in a region that has seen intermittent bombings and rioting since April.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been due to visit the city on Tuesday, but his office said he canceled the trip on Monday night because of sandstorms which would have wrecked his hallmark walks through the streets.

Mansour Soltanzadeh, head of the Ahvaz medical school, told the official IRNA news agency eight people had been killed and 46 wounded in the two blasts that went off between 9:30 and 10 a.m. (0600-0630 GMT).

``Two of the wounded had to have their legs amputated ... The legs of two teenage girls will most probably also need to be amputated in the Razi hospital because of deep burns,'' he said.

Mohammad Jafar Samari, governor of Ahvaz, dismissed the idea that the explosions could have targeted Ahmadinejad's visit.

``The place where the bombs exploded was a long way from where the president had planned to make a speech,'' he told Reuters.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Lebanon's al-Manar television, run by the pro-Iranian Hizbollah group, earlier reported the bombs had been intended to kill Ahmadinejad. Its Tehran correspondent said the president had called off his trip after a security tip-off.

State television showed police picking through the charred beams and smoldering rubble of the Saman bank for clues. Photographs showed crowds gathering round a corpse as it was carried by stretcher from the blast site.

``Fifteen of us worked together in this branch, one had his leg amputated, and 12 had to be taken to hospital,'' bank manager Samad Tavakkoli, his head bandaged, told a Reuters photographer. ``Only two of us were OK.''

Iranian authorities are sensitive about protests and discontent among the Islamic Republic's Arab minority in Ahvaz and the surrounding province of Khuzestan, which sits on most of the country's oil reserves, the second biggest in the world.

Ahvaz has been tense since April, when five people died in protests sparked by rumors the government was considering settling non-Arabs in Khuzestan to dilute Arab influence there.

Seven people were killed in bombings in June and six died in a blast in October. Some minor oil facilities were bombed in September.

Tehran has in the past blamed the troubles in the region on outside infiltrators funded by Britain.

A preliminary United Nations report has pointed to discrimination against Arabs, who make up about three percent of Iran's 69 million people, with regard to basic amenities, resources and legal rights.



Copyright 2006 Reuters Ltd.

Bush says sees risk of Iranian nuclear blackmail By Steve Holland

U.S. President George W. Bush said on Monday he was concerned a future nuclear-armed Iran could blackmail the world.

But in a setback for U.S.-European Union efforts to crack down on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief ruled out advancing a wide-ranging report on the issue in time for a February 2 crisis meeting of his agency.

In remarks at Kansas State University, Bush cited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's expressed wish for Israel to be wiped off the map as a sign that Iran sought a nuclear arsenal.

"The world cannot be put in a position where we can be blackmailed by a nuclear weapon," he said.

He also had a message for the Iranian people, saying "we have no beef with you," and expressing hope that Iraq's fledgling democracy could serve as an example for nearby Iran.

Bush said "the next logical step" in dealing with Iran was for the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board to refer the Islamic republic to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

Earlier, Iranian officials said they did not fear Western threats over their atomic energy drive and vowed to pursue uranium enrichment even if sent to the Security Council.

But Tehran, which denies Western suspicions that it seeks to build atomic bombs, also urged more dialogue with the European Union to resolve a standoff that is jacking up world oil prices.

Western powers have urged IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei to make a broad accounting of Tehran's nuclear project to the special IAEA meeting they called for February, rather than wait for a regularly scheduled March 6 session.

U.S. and EU officials believe a full report would help them persuade skeptical Russia, China and developing states on the IAEA board to vote at the February gathering for referral.

But ElBaradei, replying to U.S., EU and Australian letters, said he had given Iran until the March meeting to answer questions in IAEA inquiries into its nuclear project, which it concealed from U.N. inspectors for almost two decades.

"Due process, therefore, must take its course before (we are) able to submit a detailed report," he said in a letter to the U.S., British, French and Australian envoys to the IAEA, distributed to all board members and seen by Reuters.

LIMITED REPORT EXPECTED

But he said his deputy for safeguards issues would brief the February meeting about Iran's announced resumption on January 9 of nuclear fuel research and limited uranium-enrichment work, which broke a deal with EU negotiators and dismayed the West.

ElBaradei, giving other reasons for not accelerating a full report, said a fresh IAEA verification mission was due in Iran shortly and that he had only last week sent extra questions to Iran based on what diplomats called newly released intelligence.

Diplomats close to the IAEA say ElBaradei disagrees with the Western thrust for referral now, believing further direct talks with Iran and IAEA investigations could still rein in Tehran before a volatile showdown in the Security Council.

Iran has threatened to end IAEA snap inspections and, as the world's No. 4 oil exporter, hinted it would cut back crude exports if sent to the Council -- scenarios that have made many countries leery of pursuing sanctions against Tehran.

To bridge divisions over what to do about Iran, Russia has suggested the IAEA board next month authorize a Security Council debate but leave any referral action, which would open the way to sanctions, at least until the March meeting, diplomats say.

A British-French letter to ElBaradei requested a "short progress report" on the period since the last IAEA board in November, covering verification of Iranian declarations and monitoring of Iran's voluntary halt to uranium purification.

It also asked ElBaradei to explain to board members the significance of a document Iran gave to IAEA inspectors last year containing what some Western diplomats said were the instructions for making the core of a nuclear bomb.

Iran denies accusations that it is seeking nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian atomic energy program, saying it aims only to generate electricity for a growing economy.

"We are not going to yield to pressure to abandon our rights, and we have the necessary tools to protect ourselves," Ahmadinejad said after meeting the Qatari foreign minister.

"We still believe talks are the best way to solve the issue," he was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.

EU powers Germany, Britain and France have rejected Iran's requests for more negotiations until it reinstates a moratorium on uranium enrichment and other sensitive nuclear work.

Washington says Iran's enthusiasm for dialogue is part of what one official called a "diplomatic fog machine" to buy time.

Bubbling tensions over Iran and other global supply worries have driven up oil prices more than $10 since late December.

(Additional reporting by Mark Heinrich in Vienna, Peter Griffiths and Madeline Chambers in London, Oleg Shchedrov in Moscow)



Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

IRAN NUKES

- EU Sceptical Iran Would Cut Off Oil Supplies
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/EU_Sceptic...l_Supplies.html

Brussels (AFP) Jan 24, 2006 - European Union Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said Tuesday he doubted that Iran would cut oil exports in response to threatened sanctions against it in the row over its nuclear plans.

- Merkel to discuss Iran standoff on Middle East visit
http://www.spacewar.com/2006/060124164149.wxn8nzdz.html

- Iran heading 'in the wrong direction' in nuclear row: EU presidency
http://www.spacewar.com/2006/060124161819.l9x8vth8.html

MP says enemies behind Ahvaz explosions:

An MP from Dasht-e Azadegan here Tuesday linked the two bomb explosions in the southwestern city of Ahvaz to foreign-based enemies and counter-revolutuonaries.
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-22/0601240563123413.htm

===
Iranian report: Mossad agent arrested on border with Turkey:

Iranian intelligence agents arrested a man who worked for Iran's Gachsaran oil company some 20 years ago. Fourteen years ago, the man allegedly hijacked an Iranian plane and landed it in Israel. Farda News reported "the Zionist regime granted the man asylum and recruited him to work as a spy."
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/673818.html

January 25, 2006
6 Powers to Meet in London to Seek a Common Policy on Iran
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
VIENNA, Jan. 24 - The foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet in London on Monday in an effort to resolve their differences on how best to punish Iran for its nuclear activities, three diplomats said Tuesday.

The United States and the Europeans say they believe that the United Nations Security Council must begin to pass judgment now on Iran for its nuclear behavior. The meeting was prompted by Iran's decision earlier this month to reopen its uranium enrichment plant despite a voluntary agreement freezing such activity, although the behavior being criticized also includes violations of Iran's treaty obligations over the years.

But Russia and China are resisting entreaties to move immediately, arguing that Iran should be pressed to close the plant but should be given more time to comply with the demands being made before the Security Council acts.

The meeting in London will give the five permanent members of the Security Council, as well as Germany, a last opportunity to forge a common position before a crucial meeting in Vienna on Feb. 2 of the 35country board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity under customary diplomatic rules.

At a minimum, the ministers could be expected to issue a statement of concern calling on Iran to immediately close down its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, which Iran says it wants to operate for research purposes.

The site is still under strict monitoring by the atomic energy agency, based in Vienna. While Iran has begun to move equipment around and clear the site, international inspectors have seen no evidence that it has begun to operate any of the machinery there, diplomats said.

The United States and the Europeans are still hoping that the agency's board will vote at its meeting next week to refer the situation to the Security Council.

The Iran dispute has set in motion intense global diplomatic efforts by the Americans and Europeans as well as the Iranians, who have threatened to put into effect a law of theirs that would require them to move ahead with a full-scale uranium enrichment program and limit cooperation with the international atomic agency if the Iran dossier went before the Security Council.

Enriched uranium can be used for peaceful energy purposes or for making atomic bombs, and the process of enrichment for peaceful purposes is allowed under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

In Moscow on Tuesday, Ali Larijani, the chief Iranian nuclear negotiator, met with Russian officials to discuss their proposal to enrich Iran's uranium on Russian soil under Russian supervision.

After the talks, the office of Igor S. Ivanov, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, issued a statement saying only that "both sides expressed their desire to solve the issue in a diplomatic way within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency."

In Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain urged Iran to "look much more seriously" at the Russian proposal, The Associated Press reported. When the Russians made their proposal late last year, Iran at first denied that the proposal existed, then rejected it, and now says it is under consideration.

In another diplomatic development, officials from the atomic agency flew on Tuesday to Tehran, where they will give Iran a last chance to cooperate fully with the agency's demands concerning Iran's past nuclear activities, agency officials said.

Olli Heinonen, the deputy director general for safeguards, and a team of inspectors will press longstanding demands, including access to a former military site in Tehran, information about Iran's dealings with an international nuclear black market that supplied it with atomic technology, and information about possible work related to nuclear weapons.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

6 Powers to Meet in London to Seek a Common Policy on Iran New York Times
The foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet in London on Monday in an effort to resolve their differences on how best to punish Iran for its nuclear activities, three diplomats said Tuesday. The United States and the Europeans say they believe that the United Nations Security Council must begin to pass judgment now on Iran for its nuclear behavior. The meeting was prompted by Iran's decision earlier this month to reopen its uranium enrichment plant despite a voluntary agreement freezing such activity, although the behavior being criticized also includes violations of Iran's treaty obligations over the years.
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Iran defiant as world weighs action in atomic row Reuters
Iran again threatened on Wednesday to start full-scale uranium enrichment if reported to the UN Security Council, while signaling interest in a Russian proposal aimed at calming its nuclear row with the West. The council's five veto-wielding permanent members plus Germany plan to meet in London on Monday to try to resolve differences over whether to send Iran to the council at a crisis meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog on February 2, diplomats said. They said foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany would seek a consensus before the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gathers in Vienna to weigh what to do about Iran. A spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office said the ministers would be in London anyway for a major conference on Afghanistan and would "probably get together to discuss Iran". The United States and its European Union allies say it is time for the IAEA to report Iran to the Security Council over its nuclear program. China and Russia have urged caution. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference his country would promptly halt snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear sites if it was referred to the council.
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA24Ak01.html


Why the West will attack Iran
By Spengler

Why did French President Jacques Chirac last week threaten to use non-conventional - that is, nuclear - weapons against terrorist states? And why did Iran announce that it would shift foreign-exchange reserves out of European banks (although it has since retracted this warning)? The answer lies in the nature of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Iran needs nuclear weapons, I believe, not to attack Israel, but to support imperial expansion by conventional military means.

Iran's oil exports will shrink to zero in 20 years, just at the demographic inflection point when the costs of maintaining an aged population will crush its state finances, as I reported in Demographics and Iran's imperial design (September 13, 2005). Just outside Iran's present frontiers lie the oil resources of Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and not far away are the oil concentrations of eastern Saudi Arabia. Its neighbors are quite as alarmed as Washington about the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and privately quite happy for Washington to wipe out this capability.

It is remarkable how quickly an international consensus has emerged for the eventual use of force against Iran. Chirac's indirect reference to the French nuclear capability was a warning to Tehran. Mohamed ElBaradei, whose Nobel Peace Prize last year was awarded to rap the knuckles of the United States, told Newsweek that in the extreme case, force might be required to stop Iran's acquiring a nuclear capability. German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that the military option could not be abandoned, although diplomatic efforts should be tried first. Bild, Germany's largest-circulation daily, ran Iranian President Mahmud Ahmedinejad's picture next to Adolf Hitler's, with the headline, "Will Iran plunge the world into the abyss?"

The same Europeans who excoriated the United States for invading Iraq with insufficient proof of the presence of weapons of mass destruction already have signed on to a military campaign against Iran, in advance of Iran's gaining WMD. There are a number of reasons for this sudden lack of squeamishness, and all of them lead back to oil.

First, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have the most to lose from a nuclear-equipped Iran. No one can predict when the Saudi kingdom might become unstable, but whenever it does, Iran will stand ready to support its Shi'ite co-religionists, who make up a majority in the kingdom's oil-producing east.

At some point the United States will reduce or eliminate its presence in Iraq, and the result, I believe, will be civil war. Under conditions of chaos Iran will have a pretext to expand its already substantial presence on the ground in Iraq, perhaps even to intervene militarily on behalf of its Shi'ite co-religionists.

What now is Azerbaijan had been for centuries the northern provinces of the Persian Empire, and a nuclear-armed Iran could revive Persian claims on southern Azerbaijan. Iran continues to lay claim to a share of Caspian Sea energy resources under the Iranian-Soviet treaties of 1921 and 1940. [1] For the time being, Azerbaijani-Iranian relations are the most cordial in years, with Iran providing natural gas to pockets of Azerbaijani territory blockaded by Armenia, and Baku defending Iran's nuclear program. As Iran's oil production dwindles over the next two decades, though, its historic claims on the Caspian are likely to re-emerge.

Ahmedinejad's apocalyptic inclinations have inspired considerable comment from Western analysts, who note that he appears to believe in the early return of the Mahdi, the 12th Imam. I do not know whether Ahmedinejad is mad or sane, but even mad people may be sly and calculating. Iran's prospects are grim. Over a generation it faces demographic decay, economic collapse and cultural deracination. When reason fails to provide a solution to an inherently insoluble problem, irrationality well may take hold. Like Hitler, who also was mad but out-bluffed the West for years before overreaching, Ahmedinejad is pursuing a rational if loathsome imperial policy.

Given Israel's possession of a large arsenal of fission weapons as well as thermonuclear capability, it is extremely unlikely that Iran would attack the Jewish state unless pressed to the wall. Faced with encirclement and ruin, the Islamic Republic is fully capable of lashing out in a destructive and suicidal fashion, not only against Israel but against other antagonists. Whatever one may say about Chirac, he is not remotely stupid, and feels it prudent to warn Iran that pursuit of its imperial ambitions may lead to a French nuclear response. French intelligence evidently believes that Iran may express its frustrations through terrorist actions in the West.

By far the biggest loser in an Iranian confrontation with the West will be China, the fastest-growing among the world's large economies, but also the least efficient in energy use. Higher oil prices will harm China's economy more than any other, and Beijing's reluctance to back Western efforts to encircle Iran are understandable in this context. It is unclear how China will proceed if the rest of the international community confronts Iran; in the great scheme of things it really does not matter.

Washington will initiate military action against Iran only with extreme reluctance, but it will do so nonetheless, except in the extremely unlikely event that Ahmedinejad were to stand down. Rather than a legacy of prosperity and democracy in the Middle East, the administration of US President George W Bush will exit with an economy weakened by higher oil prices and chaos on the ground in Iraq and elsewhere. But it really has no other options, except to let a nuclear-armed spoiler loose in the oil corridor. We have begun the third act of the tragedy that started on September 11, 2001, and I see no way to prevent it from proceeding.

Note
1. For a recent summary of the issue, click here.

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Iran views Russia nuke offer positively
Wednesday 25 January 2006, 14:25 Makka Time, 11:25 GMT


Ali Larijani: Details of the offer need to be examined

Iran's top nuclear negotiator has said Moscow's offer to have Tehran's uranium enriched in Russia was a positive development, but no agreement has been reached.

Ali Larijani, the chief negotiator, has also reiterated Iran's threat to renew enrichment activities if it is referred to the UN Security Council.

After talks with Russian Security Council chief Igor Ivanov, which included discussion of the plan to enrich uranium in Russia, Larijani said: "Our view of this offer is positive, and we are trying to bring the positions of the sides closer."

"This plan can be perfected in the future, during further talks that will be held in February," he said, speaking through a translator.

Larijani suggested that it would take some time to work out details of Russia's proposal.

Some critics say the Iranians are using the proposal to stall for time as diplomatic pressure on Tehran mounts over its alleged nuclear weapons programme.

"There are lots of details surrounding this offer that must be examined," Larijani said.

IAEA efforts

On Tuesday, Larijani and Ivanov said in a joint statement Tehran's nuclear stand-off must be resolved through the UN atomic watchdog agency's diplomatic efforts.

The statement reflected Russia's efforts to delay Iran's referral to the Security Council and Moscow's opposition to international sanctions against Tehran.


The IAEA's 35-nation board will
meet on 2 February


After the two met, Russia's Security Council said: "Both sides expressed their desire to solve the issue in a diplomatic way within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency."

Iran has said that IAEA referral to the Security Council over its nuclear ambitions will lead it to move forward with a full-scale uranium enrichment programme, a possible precursor to making atomic weapons.

High-level diplomacy has intensified with little more than a week to go until the 2 February meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board.

International meeting

Prior to that session, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, will attend an international conference in London on 31 January focusing on Afghanistan.

However, Sean McCormack, a department spokesman, said Rice was expected to use the meeting to have discussions with key nations on Iran's nuclear programme.


Iran maintains it only wants
civilian nuclear energy

The New York Times reported that the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - Britain, France, Russia and China, in addition to the US and Germany - would attend the meeting.

Moscow has proposed having Iran's uranium enriched in Russia, then returned to Iran for use in the country's reactors - a compromise that could provide more oversight and ease tensions.

Haggling has continued over the specifics of the proposal, including Tehran's proposal to have China involved in the Russian enrichment process.

China's involvement

Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, urged Tehran on Tuesday to seriously consider Russia's offer to enrich Iran's uranium, in an effort to end the stand-off.

Straw also said in an interview with The Associated Press he hoped the IAEA would refer the matter to the Security Council.

The West fears that Iran wants to develop a nuclear bomb, but Tehran says its intentions are peaceful and that it wants only civilian nuclear energy.


AP

UN Security Council leaders to meet on Iran
Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:42 AM ET

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - Foreign ministers of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany will meet on Monday to bridge differences over Iran's nuclear work before a crisis meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, diplomats said.

They said Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany would strive in London for a consensus before the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) holds an emergency meeting on Iran in Vienna on February 2.

The United States and European Union allies want the IAEA to refer Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions. Russia and China are urging caution, preferring something like an IAEA statement of concern about Iran without a referral now.

"There are still differences, certainly, and things are still in flux, but we are not too far apart. We need to agree on a common approach," a senior diplomat said, asking not to be identified because of the delicacy of continuing consultations.

Political directors of the six powers, who report to foreign ministers, failed at a January 16 London meeting to align positions on Iran, although EU diplomats said differences narrowed and Russia spoke of being "very close" to Western views.

"The problem will have to be resolved at foreign minister level. The EU powers have put their draft resolution for the board on hold pending this next meeting, since Russia has asked for substantial amendments," said an EU diplomat.

"For Moscow, the key element they want in a resolution is simply a request to 'inform' the Security Council about Iran, which would permit a debate in the Security Council but nothing else for the time being."

He said China had told the EU it had its own proposal in mind for the IAEA but had not presented anything in writing yet.

MISTRUST

The West suspects a clandestine nuclear arms program is under way in Iran, which concealed atomic research work including uranium enrichment from the IAEA for almost 20 years until it was exposed by Iranian exiles in 2002.

Iran says its nuclear program is designed solely to generate electricity for its growing economy and that atomic bombs would violate its Islamic faith.

IAEA safeguards investigators led by deputy agency director general Olli Heinonen flew to Tehran on Tuesday in a concerted effort to get Iran to cooperate fully with the agency's demands on past nuclear activities, diplomats close to the IAEA said.

They said Heinonen would press for access to the Lavisan military site that was razed before inspectors could reach it and test for evidence of radiation. He also wants information on Iran's nuclear black market activity and on a blueprint said by diplomats to describe how to build the core of a nuclear bomb.

Western concern has risen due to Tehran's calls for wiping out Israel, an alleged pattern of delays and evasion in dealing with IAEA inspectors since 2003 and its announced resumption of nuclear fuel research on January 9, breaking a deal with the EU.

That fuel research move dismayed the West and sparked the current EU-U.S. push for Security Council involvement.

But the senior diplomat said that while Iran had begun moving equipment around and clearing space at its pilot uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, it was not known to have begun operating machinery there.

Some diplomats believe Iran may be holding off on such work to await the outcome of the February 2 IAEA crisis gathering.

IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei believes transferring Iran's case from agency to Security Council jurisdiction next week would be premature and has rejected EU-U.S. requests to speed up a wide-ranging report on Iran for the February 2 board.

Diplomats close to the IAEA say ElBaradei must stick to IAEA due process under which he has given Iran until the next regular board meeting on March 6 to answer questions about alleged violations of nuclear non-proliferation rules.



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Iran Calls for More Discussion on Russian Nuclear Proposal
By Lisa McAdams
Moscow
25 January 2006

Iran's top nuclear negotiator has welcomed Moscow's proposal to enrich Iran's uranium in Russia as a way around western concerns over Iran's nuclear program. But during a visit to Moscow, Ali Larijani pointed out the two sides would need to continue fine-tuning the possible deal, during scheduled talks in mid-February.


Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov, left, and Iranian nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, leave media conference after their talks in Tehran, (2005 file photo)
During talks in Moscow, Russian officials did not convince Iran to accept its compromise deal to enrich uranium in Russia for use in Iran's nuclear reactors.

Russia, which is building a nuclear reactor for Iran, made the offer as a way around growing U.S. and European concerns that Iran could secretly use its program to gain the technology to build a nuclear bomb. Concerns intensified earlier this month after Iran announced that it would restart work on its nuclear enrichment program.

Larijani, who begins a visit to China on Thursday was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Iran "positively" welcomes Russia's proposal, but believes the project still needs more consideration.

Russia and Iran are due to discuss the matter again on February 16. But it is not clear whether that will be enough to ease pressure from Western nations that want to use an upcoming emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency to try to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council.

Larijani also reiterated Tehran's threat of resuming full-scale uranium enrichment in Iran, if the issue is referred to the Security Council.

On a visit to St. Petersburg, President Vladimir Putin proposed creating international facilities in Russia for providing nuclear-fuel services like enrichment.

In comments broadcast on Russian television, President Putin told a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Cooperation Organization that such international facilities would ensure equal access for all countries interested in nuclear energy. At the same time, he stressed the facilities must respect the demands of non-proliferation, including transparency.

International diplomatic efforts over Iran's nuclear program are set to continue Monday in London, where the foreign ministers of the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - and Germany will meet to discuss the standoff.

The West wants to refer Iran to the Security Council immediately, but Russia and China favor defusing the dispute through continued negotiations.

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/events/in...g=zgp&proj=znpp


Iran: Next Steps for UN Security Council E-mail

Wednesday, January 18, 2006
The Iran nuclear story is moving fast, and an emergency meeting is scheduled for February 2, 2006, by the Governing Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to discuss whether Iran should be referred to the United Nations (UN) Security Council.

On January 18, 2006, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace held an on-site and phone in press conference where nonproliferation experts Pierre Goldschmidt and George Perkovich discussed the next steps in the Iran nuclear story and options for the UN Security Council, if Iran is reported.

Read transcript on the right. Go the link
Click here to listen to the event.
Click here to download the mp3 audio file.

Pierre Goldschmidt retired this June as Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Safeguards at the IAEA. As a Visiting Scholar with the Carnegie Endowment, Goldschmidt has written several analytical papers proposing constructive and pragmatic solutions to address the weaknesses of the nonproliferation regime.

George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, has written extensively on and traveled to Iran.

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/PO1...vich.FINAL2.pdf

Changing Iran's Nuclear Interests
by George Perkovich

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/PB3....final.web1.pdf

Iran is Not an Island
A Strategy to Mobilize the Neighbors
George Perkovich
Vice President for Studies,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

January 25, 2006
Iran Open to Nuclear Venture With Russia
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
MOSCOW, Jan. 25 — Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said here today that he welcomed a Russian proposal to defuse the confrontation between Iran and the West over its nuclear programs by establishing a joint venture to enrich uranium in Russia. But he indicated that no agreement had been reached and that significant details remained to be negotiated.

"Our attitude to the proposal is positive," Mr. Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said after meeting with his Russian counterpart, Igor S. Ivanov, Russian news agencies reported. "We tried to bring the positions of the two sides closer."

At the same time, he warned that Iran would begin enriching uranium on an industrial scale if Iran's nuclear program was referred to the United Nations Security Council. His remarks came a day after he and Mr. Ivanov said the confrontation should be resolved at the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose governors are to meet next week.

Although the Russian proposal has been seen as a possible compromise, Mr. Larijani's remarks made it clear that further discussions on it would not take place until later in February, after the meeting at the atomic energy agency's headquarters in Vienna.

Russia has publicized few details of the proposal, including whether Iran's involvement in a joint venture would simply be financial or whether it would be scientific as well. Russia had previously offered to produce uranium for a nuclear power plant it is building in Iran on condition that the spent fuel be returned to Russia for reprocessing.

"The big issue for the Russians will be how much the Iranians demand technical access to the processes," said Rose Gottemoeller, director of the Moscow Carnegie Center and a former nonproliferation official during the Clinton administration.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia expanded on the idea of a joint enrichment facility today by expressing support for establishing an international center for providing nuclear fuel to nations that seek to develop civilian nuclear power plants. He said that Russia "was prepared to set up an international center of this kind on its territory."

The idea of international enrichment centers, which has been endorsed by the atomic energy agency's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, and others, would be to provide fuel under strict international supervision, negating the need for countries to develop their own enrichment capabilities and lowering the risk that civilian work could be used to support weapons programs.

Mr. Putin said that he would make the proposal a part of negotiations with leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations later this year.

"Further development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy ranks among our priorities," he said, Interfax reported, at a meeting in St. Petersburg with leaders of former Soviet republics.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Blix advises carrot not stick for Iran

Thursday 26 January 2006, 6:25 Makka Time, 3:25 GMT


Blix: The situation is not rosy
Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, who turned out to be right about Iraq not having unconventional weapons, says the United States should offer Iran a range of inducements to keep it from developing nuclear weapons.

Blix, a Swedish diplomat, said on Wednesday inducements may be good enough to draw Iran away from an enrichment programme that he said could accelerate by about two years the weapons' production.

Speaking at the 25th anniversary of the Arms Control Association, a private group, Blix criticised the Bush administration as putting arms control in reverse in many ways.

Among the policies singled out by the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency were US opposition to a test bank treaty, a proposed missile shield and lack of interest in establishing nuclear free zones around the world.

"What is the situation now?" Blix asked. "Not a rosy one."

Like the administration, the former UN official said he favoured trying to induce Iran to halt programmes that could produce nuclear weapons.

But he disagreed with trying to bring Iran before the UN Security Council with the possibility of economic and political sanctions if Iran did not agree to reopen negotiations with the European Union.

"I think that would harden Iran's attitude," Blix said. "It does not help very much to go to the council."

Discussion forum

He suggested the UN agency as an alternative forum for discussion, but said what was important was offering Iran a package of "carrots" that would include a US pledge not to attack Iran as well as trade and other economic incentives, some of which the Europeans offered.

The United States has offered North Korea a written promise not to attack it, and a similar offer should be extended to Iran, he said.

Before the US-led war in Iraq, Blix oversaw more than 700 inspections in search of weapons of mass destruction that came up empty. Had the US attack not stopped UN searches, Blix said in a few more months' the UN agency could have completed its job.

George Bush, the US president, and his senior advisers rationalised the war on Iraq, which deposed Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, by saying Iraq had secret caches of unconventional weapons.

Later, the administration blamed faulty intelligence for its unproven claims.


Agencies

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US action against Iran risks backlash

WASHINGTON: The United States has military options to use against Iran even though it is concentrating now on a diplomatic campaign to head off any Iranian move to develop a nuclear bomb.

For most experts a bombing strike against a limited number of suspected nuclear sites is the most likely option being considered. The GlobalSecurity.org consultancy said there are about two dozen suspected nuclear facilities in Iran and that the Bushehr 1,000 megawatt nuclear plant would be a prime target. Also the suspected nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak will likely be targets of an air attack by B-2 or F-117 bombers, it said in an analysis on the crisis.

"American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq," GlobalSecurity.org said.

But Peter Brookes, an expert on national security and foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation think-tank, said that "flattening Iran’s nuclear infrastructure isn’t easy or risk-free" because most of the facilities are underground.

"Iran burrowed many sites deep below the soil, making them much tougher targets (it also put some sites near populated areas to make civilian casualities a certainty if attacked)," he said in a report.

Brookes said there were about 20 known nuclear sites across Iran but the final figure could be higher than 70. The United States could also carry out a "more comprehensive set of strikes" against nuclear and other military targets "that might be used to counterattack against US forces in Iraq", GlobalSecurity.org said.

Another option would be an invasion, but with US forces already stretched in Iraq such an operation appears unlikely. But US Army Secretary Francis Harvey said last week that the United States could deploy 15 extra brigades, between 45,000 and 75,000 troops, if it faced a new crisis. Iran’s reaction to any kind of military action remains a mystery.

Joseph Cirincione, director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said an attack could "rally the Iranian public around an otherwise unpopular government and jeopardise further the US position in Iraq." "The strike would not, as is often said, delay the Iranian program.

It would almost certainly speed it up," he commented. Cirincione called the Israeli strike in 1981 "a tactical success but a strategic failure" because it accelerated the Iranian nuclear programme.

Brookes also warned of a potentially extreme response by Iran against the United States and Israel. "The Iranian regime is already up to its neck in the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. It could certainly increase its financial/material support to the Sunni insurgents, Shia militants, al-Qaeda and the Taliban to destabilize the new Baghdad and Kabul governments," he said.

Washington talks tough to New Delhi and Beijing on Iranian nuclear issue

January 25, 2006, 6:28 PM (GMT+02:00)

US ambassador David Mulford warned New Delhi that the landmark US-Indian nuclear deal could “die” if India backed Iran at the coming International Atomic Energy Agency’s crisis talks in Vienna. The deal entails American sharing civilian technology with and supplying nuclear fuel to India in return for Delhi separating its civilian and military programs and permitting international inspections.

In China, deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick warned Beijing that it would be “extremely dangerous” for its oil supplies from the Middle East to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. He advised China to steer in a different direction.

China refrains from supporting the US-backed proposal to take Iran’s nuclear activities to the UN Security Council and holds its veto power over possible sanctions.

Both booming economies are dependent on Iranian oil.


Copyright 2000-2006 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.

Iran expresses some interest in Russian offer to enrich fuel Globe and Mail
In another effort to defuse or delay the looming confrontation between Iran and the Western world, Tehran voiced vague interest yesterday in Moscow's offer to enrich its nuclear fuel. Russia's plan, designed to allay Western fears that Tehran's ruling mullahs could secretly produce nuclear weapons, came amid escalating threats from France and Israel as well as Washington of military strikes to thwart Iran from becoming the next nuclear-armed rogue state.
Tehran open to Russian compromise Houston Chronicle
US warns India to back Iran UN referral or lose nuclear deal Financial Times
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Iran: U.S., West weigh actions
By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
Published January 25, 2006


WASHINGTON -- While U.S. senators introduce the possibility of military action against Iraq, Western diplomats are banking on the threat of sanctions to convince Tehran to abandon its uranium enrichment program.

They see it as a matter of who will blink first: Iran, under the specter of economic sanctions and pariah status, or the West, if it is unable to muster a unified front.


"They have to believe that there is a real cost to what they are doing. We need to convince them that the international community is serious," a European diplomat said Tuesday.

"At the moment the hardliners are saying that the Iranian regime can get tough with the West, and the West will back down. We've got to prove that wrong," he said.

The first opportunity to do that will come Feb. 2, when the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors convenes an emergency meeting to discuss Iran. The IAEA is expected to refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council, although the vote is unlikely to be unanimous.

On Jan. 9 Iran removed United Nations seals from its uranium enrichment equipment, in place for the last two years, and announced its intention to restart its enrichment program. Enriched uranium is used to fuel civilian nuclear power plants. Further refined, however, it can be used in a nuclear warhead.

Tehran insists it only intends to enrich uranium for reactor fuel, which it argues is its right as a sovereign country and as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The NPT allows parties to pursue peaceful nuclear technology in exchange for forswearing the development of nuclear weapons.

Beginning in 2003, however, a series of revelations about Tehran's unreported weapons activities -- combined with its hard line government, support for terrorism, and stated hostility toward Israel's existence - made Iran a proliferation threat.

"There is a long list of inconsistencies, lies and covert activity that together makes a powerful case that the Iranian regime's intentions are not to develop a civilian nuclear program," the European diplomat said.

Iran's breaking of the seals drew threats of economic sanctions from the United States and Europe, and suggestions from Israel that it was prepared to take military action against Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

Iran has thus far been unmoved by economic threats or the offer of a Russian program to fuel its nuclear reactors, and it appears to be taking steps to protect its funds from being frozen in foreign banks if U.N. sanctions are put in place.

But the diplomat believes that the more pragmatic elements in the ruling regime would be discomfited by a referral.

"For the last two years, they bent over backwards to avoid referral," he said. "They don't want to be pariahs, they care about international respectability, and they don't like the thought of sanctions."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shrugged off the threats, but the diplomat said on the matter of Iran's nuclear program he does not have the final say.

"It would be a mistake to see the new president in charge of this. He's not," the European diplomat said. "The Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei) made it abundantly clear nuclear policy isn't up to (Ahmadinejad)."

Ideally, the IAEA referral would be followed by a Security Council resolution that clearly lays out what Iran would have to do to comply, and a series of measures that would be taken by the West if it does not.

The program should be an incremental program of demands and required responses rather than a headlong dive into economic sanctions, he said.

"Doing anything else, you wouldn't take the Security Council with you," the diplomat said, since Russia and China are opposed to sanctions.

He believes there is a reasonable chance of success for this policy of escalating responses.

"There is no certainty that they'll back down. This would be a big loss of face for the hardliners. But the bulk of the regime doesn't want to pay a big cost and if they do, I think they will be deeply unhappy."

In the meantime, U.S. senators said over the weekend said military strikes remain an option if Iran insists on pursuing a nuclear weapons program. But a U.S. State Department official said Tuesday he hopes to avert armed conflict.

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick told reporters in Beijing Tuesday the United States "is trying to avoid any confrontation."

On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., warned that a military option had not been ruled out.

"We cannot take the military option off the table," McCain said on Fox News. "But we have to make it very clear (that)] it is the last option. There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option, and that is Iran having nuclear weapons."

American ground forces are heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, causing some to doubt the United States would take on another military commitment. However, a strike on Iran's uranium enrichment facilities and reactors would likely be conducted by aircraft or cruise missiles, two capabilities not strained by the twin wars, according to non-proliferation experts.

Few believe a military strike is either likely or ultimately productive. They argue it could drive Iran's nuclear weapons program further underground and would stoke the fear that compels Iran toward a nuclear future. But a pre-emptive strike can't be dismissed, given the Bush administration's embrace of that doctrine.

"In effect it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy and stimulate them into a full-fledged hidden weapons program," said Charles Ferguson, a science and technology fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "At best it could buy us time, at worst it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, where they would go full-steam ahead, revive the program and keep it hidden."

However, warned Joseph Cirincione, director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an air strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure could negatively affect U.S. forces in Iraq.

Iran is a Shi'ite Muslim country, and Iraq's relatively peaceful majority are Shi'ite. While a bloody, decade-long war between Iran and Iraq drew a deep cleft between the citizens of both countries, Iran is a key supporter of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the major Shi'ite party. It also supports Muqtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army, which staged two armed uprisings in 2004.

Sadr said Sunday the Mahdi Army would defend Iran, pesumably through attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, if Iran were bombed, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"The problem is an attack on Iran could further jeopardize the American position in Iraq -- promoting uprising among the Shi'ites or the (mostly Shi'ite) military," said Cirincione.

"The concern is that Iran has retaliatory options involving troops in Iraq and Afghanistan," agreed Paul Kerr, of the Arms Control Association in Washington.

Raising the specter of a military strike could be a gambit to induce Iran toward a more cooperative stance and convince it to foreswear weapons.

Iran's stated intent to enrich uranium "is a problem, but not a crisis yet," said Kerr, who counsels an incremental approach of pressure and inducements rather than a flat attempt to sanction Tehran.

"I'd advise not to rush to sanctions because if you can't get them, then what?" he said. "I don't think sanctions are achievable in short term. You don't want to rule out sanctions, but gradually escalate to give them a chance to comply. You don't want to use the blunt instrument right off."

January 26, 2006
US Tries to Pressure Iran with Attack Stories

by Gareth Porter
Recent reports in the Turkish and German press of the U.S. asking the Turkish government to support a possible attack on Iran and alerting allied countries of preparations for such an attack appear to be part of a strategy to pressure the Iranian regime rather than the result of a new policy to strike Iran.

The stories appeared in Turkish and German newspapers after a Dec. 12 meeting between U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Porter Goss and his Turkish counterpart. The Turkish center-left newspaper Cumhuryet reported that Goss had warned the Turkish government to be ready for possible U.S. use of air power against both Iran and Syria.

On Dec. 23, the German news agency DDP quoted "Western security sources" as saying that Goss had asked the Turkish prime minister to support a possible strike against Iranian nuclear and military facilities. And the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegal cited NATO intelligence sources as saying that the United States had informed NATO allies that it was studying the military option against Iran.

The reports, which have not been picked up in U.S. news media, seemed to suggest that the George W. Bush administration was now closer to war against Iran. But the circumstantial evidence points to strategic disinformation planted by the administration – perhaps with help from friendly officials in NATO – to ratchet up the pressure on Iran over its position on nuclear fuel enrichment.

The reports are unlikely to be effective in getting Iran to be more forthcoming, however. None of the stories suggested that the military option was anything more than a possibility. That would not represent anything new, because the administration's public posture since August 2005 had been that the "military option" was on the table.

The press reports do refer to possible air attacks on Iran, but since fall 2004, Bush administration planning for possible military action against Iranian nuclear facilities appears to have focused on commando operations to sabotage them rather than on air attacks.

Jushua Kurlantzick of The New Republic wrote in Gentleman's Quarterly last May that top officials had adopted a new strategy of "deterrence and disruption" toward Iran in the fall of 2004 that was aimed ultimately at covert operations by special forces to damage nuclear sites, according to a government official.

Kurlantzick's source confirmed, in effect, an earlier report by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker that the administration had approved conducting covert probes by reconnaissance missions in Iran to identify potential nuclear sites as targets for later military strikes. But it suggested any such strikes would be by commando teams rather than from the air.

"You'll start seeing reports of an 'accidental gas leak' at Natanz [an Iranian nuclear facility]," the official was quoted as saying.

The choice of covert operations instead of air strikes in administration planning reflected the serious downside associated with an overt attack on Iran. Administration policymakers were concerned about the likelihood of Iranian retaliation – in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the Middle East – for an open military air attack against Iranian targets.

Nor did they regard Israeli air strikes as any more likely to avoid Iranian retaliation against the United States, since they would require U.S. support. In a book recently published by the National Defense University's Institute of Strategic Studies, Thomas Donnelly, a stalwart defender of administration policy at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that if Israeli planes stuck Iranian nuclear targets, "The Iranians would surely hold us responsible and target U.S. interests in retaliation."

Administration policymakers apparently hoped that the United States and Israel could deny responsibility for a covert operation, thus reducing the likelihood or intensity of Iranian responses to the strikes, as well as opposition from allies around the world.

Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which is close to both Bush administration and Israeli policymakers, suggested in an interview with Hersh in late 2004 that if military action was to be carried out against Iran, it would be "much more in Israel's interest – and Washington's – to take covert action."

The U.S. military option remained in the background as the second Bush administration began in January 2005. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a London news conference in early February that an attack on Iran over its nuclear program was "not on the agenda at this point."

But after Iran indicated its intention to go ahead with uranium enrichment in August 2005, the administration reversed that declaratory policy. On Aug. 11, Bush declared in a press conference that "all options are on the table."

From then on, the "military option" was an integral part of the U.S. strategy of diplomatic pressure on Iran. But that policy decision sharpened a conflict between the Bush administration and its three European allies – especially the British, French, and Germans – over the issue of the use of military force against Iran.

It took Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder only a few hours to respond to Bush's move to put the military option ostentatiously on the table by declaring that the alliance should "take the military option off the table."

In September, however, Schroeder's Social Democrats were defeated by the opposition Christian Democrats, as the administration had hoped, and by early October Angela Merkel was on her way to forming a new government. Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns was then dispatched to meet with representatives of Britain, France, and Germany to "begin discussing ways to ratchet up the pressure on Tehran," according to a report by the Wall Street Journal's Carla Anne Robbins on Oct. 6.

Burns' top priority was certainly to get the European allies to integrate the idea that the military option is "on the table" into its negotiating stance on Iran's nuclear policy. Subsequently, Britain's Tony Blair began to echo Bush's position on the military option, presumably at U.S. insistence, but Merkel and French President Jacques Chirac avoided any endorsement of that posture.

Having failed to get agreement by the European three to exploit the military option in the diplomatic maneuvering with Iran, the Bush administration apparently felt that it needed to take other steps to increase the pressure on Tehran, including arranging for sensational newspaper articles to appear in the Turkish and German press.

It would not have been the first time a U.S. administration had used such leaks about a possible military action as part of a campaign to put pressure on foes to make diplomatic concessions.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles feinted toward a military intervention in Indochina at the time of the 1954 Dien Bien Phu crisis and the start of the Geneva Conference on a settlement of the war.

Privately, however, both men opposed U.S. intervention in Indochina and hinted that the suggestions of intervention were a bluff to influence Soviet and Chinese diplomacy at Geneva.

The ruse worked in 1954, inducing the Soviets and Chinese to put pressure on their Vietnamese allies to make far-reaching concessions in negotiating the Geneva accords. It is far less likely that such tactics will succeed with Iran, which is being asked to sacrifice its own central security interests rather than those of an ally.

(Inter Press Service)

January 26, 2006
Bumpy Ride for Indo-US Nuclear Deal

by Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI - The "nuclear cooperation" agreement signed by United States President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, six months ago in Washington, has run into trouble over separation of India's civilian installations from the military.

As a result of this major hurdle, the "one of a kind" deal is unlikely to be fleshed out and approved by the two sides before Bush's first-ever visit to India, expected to begin on March 1.

The July 18 deal is meant to legitimize and "normalize" India's nuclear weapons and facilitate resumption of civilian nuclear commerce with this country, which has been under technology embargoes since it first exploded a nuclear device in 1974.

The unsuccessful outcome of the third round of talks on the agreement on Jan. 19-20 in the Indian capital is likely to dampen the high tone that was originally set for the Bush visit, which takes place amid Washington's offer to "help India become a Great Power in the 21st century."

Until India's nuclear facilities are separated under civilian and military categories, the former cannot be placed under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

India has over 80 nuclear facilities and installations, including 15 power reactors and an unspecified number of military-related installations.

India and the U.S. have been doing some hard bargaining over which facilities should be included in the civilian and military lists. The U.S. is pressing India to expand the list of facilities to be brought under IAEA safeguards.

But India says safeguards should be "voluntary," as applicable to the nuclear weapons-states (NWSs) recognized under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

Disagreements between the two governments are now spilling over into the Indian media in the form of polemical attacks, in which India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) figures prominently.

Supporters of the U.S. position say there is a sharp divergence in approach between the DAE and the prime minister's office (PMO). The DAE is accused of being insular, inflexible, and resistant to international cooperation.

Supporters of the Indian government's stance say the DAE's proposal was approved by the PMO before being put on the table and is meant to maximize India's future options and not limit the size of its nuclear arsenal.

"This reflects only one side of the debate on the nuclear deal," says M.V. Ramana, a physicist and researcher at Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, located in the southern city of Bangalore.

"This is the nationalist or pseudo-nationalist side, which assumes that nuclear weapons are necessary for India's independence and sovereignty. But the real debate is between the pro-bomb and peace viewpoints. The peace movement holds India doesn't need nuclear weapons for its security. Nor does the U.S.," Ramana told IPS in an interview.

However, says Ramana, it appears certain that the Indo-U.S. talks have run into trouble. "It is not clear if and how quickly their differences can be resolved."

The sharpest differences pertain to India's fast-breeder reactor program. These are special reactors that use fission caused by fast neutrons and burn highly concentrated or enriched fuel. Theoretically, they generate more fissile material than they consume.

Under the latest proposal made to the U.S., India would keep its "experimental" fast-breeder reactors outside the civilian list. It would also like two civilian power reactors near Chennai, built in the 1980s, to be exempted from IAEA inspections.

Above all, India would like facilities at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, near Mumbai, to be spared external inspections. Some of them are critical to its nuclear weapons program. These facilities include CIRUS, a small reactor built with Canadian and U.S. help and commissioned in 1960, which produces weapons-grade plutonium.

India has indicated "flexibility" on CIRUS. Under the agreement signed in the 1950s with the U.S. and Canada, CIRUS was only meant for "peaceful" uses, but India reprocessed spent- fuel to explode its first bomb in 1974.

However, India might hang tough on fast breeders. India currently has one operational fast "test" reactor of 20-year-old vintage and is building a "prototype" 500MW reactor.

The U.S. wants both reactors under safeguards. It cites the example of Japan, two of whose reactors (Joyo and Monju) are safeguarded. But India says Japan is a non-NWS under the NPT and the July 18 agreement allows India "the same responsibilities and practices" and "the same benefits and advantages" as the NWSs.

Unless this issue is resolved, fast breeders could be the deal-breaker.

"It is possible that some DAE officials want to have the option of producing nuclear fuel for weapons in these unsafeguarded reactors," says Ramana. "So they are seeking exemption for them. Another possible reason is that the MAPS complex might also house the testing facilities for the nuclear reactor which India is developing for its submarines. Indian authorities probably don't want IAEA inspectors lurking around there."

Whatever the reasons, the U.S. has told India that it will not be easy to "sell" the agreement to its Congress for ratification unless there is a satisfactory resolution of the civilian-military separation issue. India has also told the U.S. that it will find it hard to generate domestic acceptance for a deal that limits the size of India's arsenal or future capabilities.

The next weeks and months are likely to see some more tough bargaining on all the disputed issues. These will determine what happens both in the U.S. Congress and the Nuclear Suppliers' Group NSG), a 45-member voluntary grouping without UN status.

Unless the NSG too approves the agreement, it cannot lead to resumption of civilian nuclear commerce between India and the rest of the world even as India gets to keep its nuclear weapons.

The U.S.-India nuclear deal presents an unprecedented challenge to the global nuclear nonproliferation order. It proposes a one-time special exception for India under it. If India succeeds in getting such an exception, the deal will breed resentment across the globe – in Pakistan, North Korea, and, above all, Iran.

Iran has already accused the U.S. and India of double standards. As its case moves toward a likely reference to the UN Security Council, Iran will certainly raise the "double standards" pitch. Neither that nor India's "official" entry into the global nuclear club can help rid the world of nuclear weapons.

(Inter Press Service)

January 26, 2006
Iran Welcomes Russia's Offer to Enrich Uranium Jointly; Details Remain
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
MOSCOW, Jan. 25 — Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said here on Wednesday that he welcomed a Russian proposal to defuse the confrontation between Iran and the West over its nuclear programs by establishing a joint venture to enrich uranium in Russia. But he indicated that no agreement had been reached and that significant details remained to be negotiated.

"Our attitude to the proposal is positive," Mr. Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said after meeting with his Russian counterpart, Igor S. Ivanov, Russian news agencies reported. "We tried to bring the positions of the two sides closer."

At the same time, he warned that Iran would begin enriching uranium on an industrial scale if its nuclear program was referred to the United Nations Security Council. His remarks came a day after Mr. Larijani and Mr. Ivanov said the confrontation should be resolved at the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose governors are scheduled to meet next week.

Although the Russian proposal has been seen as a possible compromise, Mr. Larijani's remarks made it clear that further discussions of it would not take place until later in February, after the meeting at the atomic energy agency's headquarters in Vienna.

Russia has publicized few details of the proposal. It has not addressed, for example, whether Iran's involvement in a joint venture would simply be financial or whether it would be scientific as well. Russia had previously offered to produce uranium for a nuclear power plant it is building in Iran on condition that the spent fuel be returned to Russia for reprocessing.

"The big issue for the Russians will be how much the Iranians demand technical access to the processes," said Rose Gottemoeller, director of the Moscow Carnegie Center and a former nonproliferation official during the Clinton administration.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

China Backs Russia Plan on Iran Uranium Enrichment
By Luis Ramirez
Beijing
26 January 2006




In this photo released by China's official Xinhua news agency, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, right, shakes hands with Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani


China is backing a proposal to allow Iran to enrich uranium on Russian territory - a compromise meant to defuse a dispute with Western nations over Iran's recent moves to restart its nuclear program. Iran's top nuclear negotiator has finished a day of talks in Beijing.

Iranian National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani came from Russia to the Chinese capital for a daylong visit to get China's support in its battle against the United States and others who oppose Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Russia has proposed a compromise: that Iran enrich uranium in facilities in Russia, where the work can be closely monitored.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan says China welcomes Moscow's proposal.

"We think the Russian proposal is a pretty good attempt to break this stalemate," he said. "We also hope all sides can step up their exertion of wisdom to put forward new suggestions in order to create the conditions to revive negotiations."

Larijani emerged from meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and other officials saying Iran is willing to negotiate.

The Iranian official told reporters the Russian suggestion could be fruitful. But he said more discussions on the proposal are necessary.

The United States, France, Britain and Germany have called for Iran's nuclear activity to be taken before the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. China and Russia, as permanent members, have the power to veto sanctions.

Iran has raised concerns among Western nations since January 10, when it removed seals that the International Atomic Energy Agency had installed on some of its nuclear equipment. The United States and its European allies fear that restarting the nuclear program may allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

Larijani's stop in China came a day after Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick visited and warned Beijing that allowing Tehran to develop nuclear weapons could threaten oil supplies from the Middle East, particularly from Iran, which accounts for about 12 percent of China's oil imports.

West Wants UN To Urge Suspension Of Iran Nuclear Activity
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/West_Wants...r_Activity.html

Vienna (AFP) Jan 26, 2006 - Western powers want the UN Security Council to call on Iran to suspend sensitive nuclear fuel activity, according to a UN draft resolution read to AFP.

Iran: To Shove Or To Nudge To Compliance
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_To_Sh...Compliance.html

Iran, A Major Player In The Global Oil Market
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_A_Maj...Oil_Market.html

China Backs Russian Plan To Resolve Iranian Nuclear Standoff
http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/China_Bac...r_Standoff.html

Iran's Top Nuclear Negotiator In Beijing
http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/Irans_Top...In_Beijing.html

January 27, 2006
Bush and China Endorse Russia's Nuclear Plan for Iran
By DAVID E. SANGER and ELAINE SCIOLINO
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — President Bush and the Chinese government both declared their full support on Thursday for a Russian proposal to allow Iran to operate civilian nuclear facilities as long as Russia and international nuclear inspectors are in full control of the fuel.

Mr. Bush's explicit public endorsement puts all of the major powers on record supporting the proposal, even as most acknowledge that it is a significant concession to Iran and runs the risk that the country will drag out the negotiations while continuing to produce nuclear material. Yet officials say they believe it is the best face-saving strategy to pursue a negotiated settlement with Iran.

European and American officials familiar with the details of the offer that Russia made to Iran say that Iran would continue to be allowed to operate its nuclear plant at Isfahan, which converts raw uranium into a form that is ready to be enriched. That is a step that both Europe and the United States said last year that they could not allow — and that was explicitly barred under the agreement between Iran and Europe in late 2004, because Iran could divert the uranium to secret enrichment facilities. Iran began operating the Isfahan plant again in August.

Mr. Bush did not discuss the details of the Russian offer. But American, European and Russian officials, who like others discussing the issue spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be seen as interfering in the negotiations, said the offer would allow Iran to continue operations at the plant that turns yellowcake, a concentrated form of uranium ore, into uranium hexafluoride, a toxic material that centrifuges spin into fuel for reactors or bombs.

Critics of that concession say that it could send a signal to Iran that it no longer has to comply with all provisions of its November 2004 agreement with Europe.

"A red line was crossed" when Iran began producing the uranium last fall, said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonpartisan research group that follows developments in Iran. "The Iranians got away with reopening the conversion facility, and now people have accepted it's never going to be shut again and have taken it off the table."

Mr. Bush made his statement embracing the Russian idea at a news conference on Thursday. He said, "The Iranians have said, 'We want a weapon.' "

In fact, Iran has denied that it is pursuing a weapon, and in the afternoon, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, acknowledged that Mr. Bush had misspoken.

"He was referring to their behavior," Mr. McClellan said by telephone later. "Our concern is their intention is to develop a nuclear weapon under the guise of a civilian program."

Nonetheless, Mr. Bush's slip may cement the perception among some members of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency that he has decided, at least in his own mind, that Iran is intent on building a weapon as fast as it can, a situation he has said repeatedly that he will not tolerate. Mr. Bush gave no hint on Thursday that he was thinking of military action, instead saying that "we are working hard to continue the diplomacy necessary to send a focused message to the Iranian government, and that is: 'Your desires for a weapon are unacceptable.' "

Mr. Bush's statement came at a moment of heightened concern in Vienna, home of the agency, that if its board votes next week to send Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council, Iran might make good on its threat to limit cooperation with inspectors and begin full scale enrichment of uranium. North Korea threw out inspectors three years ago, and one senior American official said recently that "the Iranians have looked closely at that model."

The Russian proposal lays out a complicated plan in which Iran would supply the uranium hexafluoride from Isfahan, shipping it to Russia for enrichment. Once enriched, the uranium would be shipped back to Iran's nuclear plant in Bushehr, which is being built by the Russians.

But huge questions remain, including the scale of the program, the degree of involvement of Iranian engineers and program's commercial viability. Moreover, just working out a deal this complex would take months or longer, experts say, at a time the administration fears the Iranians could surge ahead.

In interviews, Russian and European officials said they believed the arrangements, while face-saving, made no economic or technological sense for Iran. Iran would have to pay for the enrichment, but its own scientists would not be allowed to work on the site.

Moreover, there are technical problems. Russian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were in the middle of negotiations, said that the uranium gas produced at Isfahan was of inferior quality to what was produced in Russia. As a result, the Russians have no interest, they say, in buying any of its for their own use.

In an interview in Vienna on Wednesday, Gregory L. Schulte, the American ambassador to the atomic agency, said, "There are those who would argue that conversion is not proliferation-significant because it does not produce weapons grade material, but from our perspective, conversion is another step forward to acquire enrichment capability. It has no economic purpose."

While China favored the Russian proposal, it also firmly opposed the use of sanctions. That comes as a disappointment to Washington, which this week sent a top official to persuade China's leaders that they should do far more.

During a visit to Beijing by Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Kong Quan, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, praised Moscow's offer to enrich Iran's uranium in Russia and made clear that China will not support sanctions. "We think the Russian proposal is a good attempt to break this stalemate," Mr. Kong said, adding, "We oppose impulsively using sanctions or threats of sanctions to solve problems."

The Bush administration has not allowed its stated opposition to Iran's uranium conversion at Isfahan to block the Russian offer. "This is dangerous, but it is minimally acceptable as long as they are not enriching," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "The Russian proposal is the last best chance of resolving this without an escalation."

U.S. Comments on India Clarified

India responded testily yesterday to American suggestions of a quid pro quo in its blossoming relations with the United States, with the Indian foreign secretary calling in the United States ambassador over his reported remarks about how India should vote next week on whether to refer the case of Iran's nuclear ambitions to the United Nations Security Council.

David C. Mulford, the American ambassador to India, had been quoted by the Press Trust of India news agency as saying that if India did not vote to refer Iran to the Security Council, it would be "devastating" to its chances of securing the nuclear deal with the United States.

The American Embassy later said that the comments had been taken "out of context" and released a full transcript. In it, Mr. Mulford first said that India would be expected to vote "based on India's judgment of its own national interest."

He went on to say, "that if they decide that they don't want to vote for this, our view is that the effect on members of Congress with regard to this civil nuclear initiative will be devastating."

William J. Broad contributed reporting from New York for this article, and Joseph Kahn from Beijing.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

U.N. Nuke Chief Hails Russian Offer
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 26, 2:10 PM ET

U.N. nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Thursday he was hopeful that a Russian proposal could help solve the international crisis over Iran's nuclear program.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, ElBaradei said he was pleased that Tehran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, on Wednesday called Russia's proposal to move Iran's enrichment program to Russian territory "positive."

ElBaradei said he also was encouraged that all parties still were discussing a diplomatic solution. His comments came amid quickening diplomatic negotiations ahead of a crucial Feb. 2 meeting of his International Atomic Energy Agency, which could refer the issue to the Security Council. The 15-member council has the power to impose economic and political sanctions on Iran.

Britain, France and Germany have been leading efforts to get Iran to abandon uranium conversion and enrichment activities — which it refuses to do. The United States and European powers fear Iran is using what it says is an atomic energy program as a front to build weapons.

The three countries declared that negotiations had reached a "dead end" two days after Iran broke U.N. seals Jan. 10 at a uranium enrichment plant and said it was resuming nuclear research after a two-year freeze.

Moscow has suggested that uranium could be enriched in Russia and then returned to Iran for use in the country's reactors. But haggling has continued over the specifics.

President Bush has said Russia's proposal offered the best chance for resolving the impasse.

"We need Iran to use maximum transparency because there are a lot of question marks about its program," ElBaradei said at the World Economic Forum. "They need to be assured that they can use nuclear power for electricity, but the international community needs to be assured that the Iran program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.

"And that's why the Russian proposal is a very attractive proposal.

"I was happy today to see Mr. Larijani ... saying that the Russian proposal is a positive one and they continue to discuss it," he said. "I am hoping the Russian proposal could provide the beginning of a solution."

Larijani said earlier this month that Iran would discuss the proposal with the Russians at a meeting in Moscow next month. On Thursday, he was in Beijing, where Chinese officials expressed support for the Russian proposal.

Still, Larijani warned of "consequences" should the United States and its European allies move to refer Iran to the Security Council.

"It would be a disgrace to condemn with sanctions a country for peaceful research. Surely the world would not accept such an action," Larijani said. "But if this kind of mistake happens, the consequences of the wrong actions will return back to those who put Iran under pressure."

Also Thursday, Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

"Their security is not threatened," Musharraf told the forum.




Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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Politics & Policies: Iran's dangerous partnership with Syria
By Claude Salhani
UPI International Editor
Published January 26, 2006


WASHINGTON -- What can Iran and Syria do if the United States starts flexing its military muscle over the Islamic republic's desire to pursue its nuclear program, or the Syrian regime's refusal to cooperate with the U.N. investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri?

How damaging would retaliation by Iran and Syria be and what form would it likely take?


At first thought one would be tempted to say there is not much Iran or Syria can do. The United States military is simply too powerful for Iran and Syria's armed forces, both countries whose weapons systems have not been upgraded in decades.

The U.S. possesses far superior air, naval and land forces than the Iranians and the Syrians have in their dilapidated arsenals. The United States armed forces are better equipped with hardware such as Stealth bombers, aircraft carriers and submarines carrying long-range missiles. The U.S. intelligence agencies have all the toys for boys money can buy, electronic eavesdropping paraphernalia and ultra-secret gadgets that even James Bond never dreamed of.

But things are never quite what they appear to be in the muddled Middle East. Closer analysis of the situation reveals that Iran and Syria have quite a few assets at their disposal. Even without Iran's nuclear strike force.

The two Middle Eastern countries may not possess Stealth fighters, nuclear-powered submarines and such, but they do have tactical allies who can help stir up trouble. The war in Iraq has demonstrated how much damage a ragtag guerrilla force made up of a few hundred, or maybe even just a few dozen men, can cause to a regular army.

The meeting in Damascus Jan. 20 between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quite revealing and should not be brushed aside as a mere courtesy call. But then, when you factor in that Ahmadinejad met with Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is also the head of the Amal Movement, Lebanon's second largest Shiite group after Hezbollah, then met for 90 minutes with representatives of Palestinian resistance organizations in Damascus: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, you know that this was no social call.

Together, Syria, Iran and