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362-5266 - 30 July 2004
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News, Views, & Analysis Governments,
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MER
Special - Weekend Reading:
This is so important, and so
timely, that many recent articles from the past two weeks are included
in this report.
IRAN 2005
Year of
Reckoning
between Israel and Iran
"Axis of
Evil,
Part Two"
"Did we invade the wrong
country? One of the lessons being drawn from
the Sept. 11 report is that Iran was the real threat... We should have
done Iran
instead of Iraq."
Charles
Krauthammer
Washington Post, 23 July
Mid-East
Realities - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - 30 July 2004:
Actually
2005 might be pushing it. Just yesterday the very
establishment and very pro-Israeli Council on Foreign Relations in New
York took the most unusual step
of issuing a public warning to Israel (first article below) not to
attack Iran. Things of this kind do not happen in a vacuum or just
out of the blue. And if Bush and the neocons think they may be soon
going down to defeat and into exile...
The Israelis themselves have long had nuclear weapons, and in recent
years have
equipped German-build-financed diesel submarines with missiles that can
deliver
them throughout the greater Middle East from Libya to Iran to
Pakistan. The Israelis are believed to have many hundreds of such
weapons from tactical battlefield bombs to strategic city-destroying
ones.
Moreover the United States has not only
threatened to use
its own nuclear weapons in the Middle East, including before the
invasion of Iraq (which is when the above New York Post headline was published), but is now building a new generation of specialized
tactical nukes to use when conventional bombs won't quite do the
job. Plus of course the Americans have already declared
Iran to be part of the 'axis of evil' and the Israelis have repeatedly
and quite publicly at times threatened to attack Iran, as well as Syria and Lebanon.
What this
all means at this point is that the year ahead, 2005, is likely to be
short-term decisive when it comes to the arms race in the Middle East.
Israel has been pushing the U.S. hard to strike, or Israel itself may
strike with covert U.S. help and overt
political cover. Or...world affairs might now be such that no one
will be able to quite pull this trigger, or the ability to actually
take
out Iran's nuclear capabilities at this point may not really be there,
or the dangers of a worldwide explosion of anger against Israel and the
U.S. may just be too great (which is what the CFR fears). Whatever,
another moment of reckoning
is now approaching and in a very real sense it's another moment the
U.S. and Israel have brought on themselves.
Make
no mistake about it, Israel is the driving engine for either forcing
Iran to stop its
weapons program or taking some kind of covert or overt action to do
so with or without public U.S. help and support. Great pressures
have been brought on the U.S. by Israel
regarding Iran and much more can be expected both publicly and
privately as the Bush-Kerry Republican-Democratic contest proceeds.
But regardless of outcome, just as soon as the
U.S. election contest is decided, if not before, this huge historic
issue looms large for the world. And it may well explain why the
Israelis are moving toward a 'National Unity Government' again,
something they traditionally do in times of war. Indeed, as these
articles
suggest, much is already happening to push
public opinion, and no doubt behind-the-scenes where the political and
military planners really operate there is much planning and anxiety
underway.
There are many articles here on this tremendously important and timely subject. Make sure to read to the end. The Washington Post
Op Ed by Charles Krauthammer was clearly meant as a shot across the bow
by the American Jewish neocons and the Israelis not so much to the
Iranians, but to the Americans and to the world.
CFR to Bush: Stop Israeli strike on Iran's nuke
sites
|
New York - Friday, July
30, 2004 A report by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations
urged the Bush administration to stop any Israeli attempt to strike
Iran's nuclear facilities. The council warned that such an Israeli
attack would be blamed on the United States and hurt its interests in
the region.
"Since Washington would
be blamed for any unilateral Israeli military strike, the United States
should, in any case, make it quite clear to Israel that U.S. interests
would be adversely affected by such a move," the report, entitled
"Iran: Time for a New Approach," said.
On Thursday, Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon said the United States supports Israel's right to
what he termed weapons of deterrence, regarded as a reference to
nuclear weapons, Middle East Newsline reported. He said the United
States was also pressing Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program.
"Israel
faces an existential threat, and it must be able to defend itself by
itself by preserving its deterrent capability," Sharon said. "We have
received here a clear American position that says in other words that
Israel must not be touched when it comes to its deterrent capability."
An air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would incur
civilian casualties, the report said. It pointed out that many of
Iran's nuclear facilities have been located in or near urban centers.
Israel has never directly threatened Iran's nuclear
facilities. But the Sharon government has warned that it would not
allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal.
The U.S. report, drafted by an independent task force
sponsored by the council, said Washington should resolve concerns over
Iran's nuclear weapons program by coordinating with the European Union.
But the council ruled out any military attack on Iran's nuclear
facilities.
"In addition, any military effort to eliminate Iranian
weapons capabilities runs the significant risk of reinforcing Teheran's
desire to acquire a nuclear deterrent and of provoking nationalist
passions in defense of that very course," the task force said. "It
would most likely generate also hostile Iranian initiatives in Iraq and
Afghanistan."
The report also said direct U.S. efforts to overthrow the
Iranian clerical regime would not succeed. The council said the regime
could eventually provide greater liberties to its people.
"Despite considerable political flux and popular
dissatisfaction, Iran is not on the verge of another revolution," the
report, entitled ". The current Iranian government appears to be
durable and likely to persist in power for the short- and even
medium-term. However, Iran's generational shift and prevailing popular
frustration with the government portend the eventual transformation to
a more democratic political order in the long term. That process is too
deeply entrenched in Iran’s political history and social structure to
be derailed or even long delayed." SPECIAL TO WORLD
TRIBUNE.COM
Israel's plans for Iran
strikes
Jane's Intelligenge Digest - 16
July 2004: Amid growing concern over Iran's
alleged duplicity in declaring all its
nuclear activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
Israel - the country that regards itself as most at risk from a
nuclear-capable Iran - may be poised to revive contingency plans to
destroy Iran's nuclear installations.
It is hardly surprising that Israel's national security establishment
has concluded that Israel would be at risk from a nuclear-capable Iran.
However, if a pre-emptive attack is to be launched Israel may have to
go it alone. Any joint US-Israeli precision-guided missile strike
against Iran's nuclear facilities - Bushehr, Natanz or Arak - is
unlikely to prove an attractive option for the US administration while
it remains mired in Iraq - which shares a 1,458km-long border with
Iran.
If the USA was to participate in such an operation, Washington's allies
would undoubtedly denounce what would be seen as yet another example of
dangerous US unilateralism. However, the real concern is that a chain
reaction of unintended consequences would further destabilise the
world's most volatile region. The USA's involvement in a pre-emptive
strike against Iran would also undermine the Bush administration's last
vestiges of credibility as an 'honest broker' in negotiations between
Israel and the Palestinians. An Israeli strike could effectively end
hopes of reaching any kind of peace deal. The US administration also
faces the dilemma of insisting that Iran has no right to develop
nuclear weapons while Israel is believed to have several hundred in its
arsenal.
The controversial role of intelligence is likely to prove significant.
The US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) would have to produce
incontrovertible evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons
which, given the recent damning report by the US Senate on the CIA's
collection and analysis of intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction (WMD), is unlikely. This crisis of credibility would make a
US decision to launch a pre-emptive strike difficult, if not
impossible, to sell to US legislators or to the wider world.
|
Iran
reportedly restarting nuclear work
U.N.
seals on equipment broken, centrifuges built, sources say
The Associated Press -
July 27, 2004: VIENNA,
Austria - Iran is once again building centrifuges that can be used to
make nuclear weaponry, breaking the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency’s
seals on the equipment in a show of defiance against international
efforts to monitor its program, diplomats said Tuesday.
Iran
has not restarted enriching uranium with the centrifuges — a step that
would raise further alarm. But the resumption of centrifuge
construction is likely to push European nations, which have been
seeking a negotiated resolution, closer to the United States’ more
confrontational stance.
The United States
accuses Tehran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons and wants the U.N.
Security Council to take up the issue. Iran denies the charge and says
the centrifuges are part of a nuclear program aimed only at producing
energy.
Under international pressure last
year, the Islamic republic agreed to stop enriching uranium and stop
making centrifuges, in a deal reached with Britain, France and Germany.
But
the moratorium ended several weeks ago, when Tehran — angry over
international perusal of its nuclear program — broke seals placed on
enrichment equipment by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the
diplomats told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Iranian
officials then resumed assembling and installing centrifuges, which can
enrich uranium fuel for generating power or developing warheads, the
diplomats said.
North Korea not the same
The
diplomats — all familiar with Iran’s nuclear dossier — cautioned
against equating Tehran’s move with the removal of IAEA seals on
nuclear equipment by North Korea two years ago as it expelled agency
inspectors and declared itself no longer bound by the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
Unlike in North
Korea, the seals on Iran’s equipment “were not a legal requirement,”
one diplomat said. Tehran notified the IAEA of its decision to break
the seals, the diplomat said.
Iran continues to respect its pledge not
to resume nuclear enrichment, said the diplomat.
Still, the move reflected Iranian
defiance of international constraints on the country’s nuclear program.
For
the past year, the IAEA has been carrying out stringent inspections of
Iranian facilities, raising evidence that strengthened suspicions about
Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. In June, the IAEA’s Board of Governors
rebuked Tehran in a sharply phrased resolution indicating it felt too
many unanswered questions remained.
Iranian
officials are tentatively scheduled to meet in the next few days with
British, French and German officials in Paris or another European
capital to try and salvage their deal. But Tehran’s decision to resume
work on its centrifuges makes any agreement unlikely.
The Iranians are “driving the European
Three into the U.S. camp,” said one Western diplomat.
Israel noted the Iranian step with
concern, its chief of staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon said.
“Iran
in essence broke the rules of the game, Yaalon said on Israeli
state-run television. “We have to pay serious attention to Iran’s
intention to arm itself with nuclear capabilities. This should not only
concern Israel, but all the countries of the free world.”
Iran
already announced last month that it had planned to restart the program
in response to the IAEA rebuke — a decision that led Washington to
sound out allies on calling a special session of the IAEA Board of
Governors, said another diplomat. The Security Council can only get
involved if the board asks it to take up Iran’s case.
The
Americans dropped the idea because of lack of backing but hope the
resumption of Iran’s nuclear activities will give them the support they
need at the next regular board session, starting Sept. 13, he said.
President says 'no impediment'
Iran
has not publicly announced that it has resumed building centrifuges.
But President Mohammad Khatami told reporters in Tehran earlier this
month that “there is no impediment to doing this work.”
Sources
at Iran’s state-run television recently told the AP that the country’s
top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, said Iran restarted building
centrifuges June 29 but that the broadcaster was told not to transmit
his comments — apparently out of concern over international reaction.
Most
of the IAEA’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program focus on traces of
highly enriched uranium found at several sites and the extent and
nature of work on the advanced P-2 centrifuge.
Iran
has grudgingly acknowledged working with the P-2, but said its
activities were purely experimental. It says the minute amounts of
enriched uranium were from equipment bought on the nuclear black market.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has
indirectly questioned such assertions.
Another
square-off over Iran
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, 22 July - A
new round in the ongoing battle between realists and neo-conservative
and other hawks over Iran policy began this week as a task force of the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) published a report urging Washington
to engage Tehran on a selected range of issues of mutual concern.
The task force, co-chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security
adviser under former president Jimmy Carter (1977-81), and including
Robert Gates, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under
past president George H W Bush (1989-93), argues that neo-conservative
and other analysts who are urging that Washington pursue "regime
change" in Iran underestimate the staying power of the current
government there.
"Despite considerable political flux and popular dissatisfaction," the
79-page report said, "Iran is not on the verge of another revolution.
Those forces that are committed to preserving Iran's current system
remain firmly in control."
The report, "Iran: Time for a New Approach", also argues that
Washington's invasion of Iraq, as well as Iran's rapid progress in
developing possible nuclear-weapons capability, makes it more urgent
than ever to resume and broaden bilateral talks that broke off 14
months ago.
But it stresses that a "grand bargain" to settle all outstanding
conflicts between Washington and Tehran is unrealistic and that talks
should focus instead on making "incremental progress" on a variety of
key issues, including regional stability and Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The 21 task-force members also stressed that Washington should offer
fewer sticks and more carrots than in the past, suggesting, "The
prospect of [Iran opening] commercial relations with the United States
could be a powerful tool in Washington's arsenal."
The report's recommendations are considered anathema to the
neo-conservative hawks closely associated with Vice President Dick
Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who led the drive to war
in Iraq.
Indeed, its release was met with a furious attack by Michael Ledeen, a
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who is particularly close
to both former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and Defense
Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith, and who has long asserted
that Iran is ripe for revolution by "democratic" forces that deserve US
support.
Ledeen, who considers Tehran the global capital of Islamist "terror
masters", wrote in National Review Online that the CFR recommendations
were "humiliating" and constituted "appeasement".
They were made worse, he added, in light of leaks last weekend that the
soon-to-be-released final report of the bipartisan commission
investigating the September 11, 2001, attacks will assert that Iran
provided members of al-Qaeda, including some of the hijackers, safe
passage during the year before the attacks.
The issue comes at a particularly sensitive moment in the evolution of
US-Iranian relations, which were formally broken off 25 years ago after
militants captured the US Embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats
hostage.
As noted in the report, the United States currently has about 160,000
troops - 20,000 in Afghanistan and 140,000 in Iraq - deployed just
across the borders with Iran, named by President George W Bush in 2002
as a charter member of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North
Korea.
Reports over the past month that Israel may be planning a military
strike against Iranian nuclear facilities have added to existing
tensions, particularly due to uncertainties regarding Tehran's
dialogues over its nuclear program with the United Kingdom, France,
Germany and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
These new factors have intensified the three-and-a-half-year-old
struggle within the Bush administration between the hawks, particularly
the neo-conservatives for whom the security of Israel is a core
commitment, and the realists, who are led by Secretary of State Colin
Powell.
Powell, in turn, is backed by a number of top alumni of past Republican
and Democratic administrations, including Bush Sr's former national
security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, Brzezinski, and Frank Carlucci, who
served as national security adviser and defense secretary for the late
president Ronald Reagan (1981-89) and also participated in the task
force.
While the hawks dominated Middle East policy from September 11 through
the Iraq invasion, their star faded as that adventure came increasingly
to resemble a quagmire, so that the realists appear to have gained the
upper hand at the moment, at least as concerns Iraq.
The realists have also been strengthened by the perception that US
forces in the region, which seemed irresistible in the wake of the
Afghan and Iraq campaigns, are now seen as much more vulnerable and
thus less of a military threat to Iran than 14 months ago. "Military
action [is now] highly unlikely to be attempted and, if attempted, to
be successful," Gates said on Monday.
But if the internal balance of power on Iraq favors the realists, the
situation regarding Iran is less clear. While few analysts believe
Washington would launch a military strike on Tehran before the November
elections, speculation that a second Bush term would make "regime
change" in Iran a top priority has been persistent.
And forces in Congress that back Israel's governing Likud Party are
already moving to endorse legislation that would officially endorse
such a goal as official US policy.
It is in this context that the task force, whose membership was
convened by CFR's new president and former top Powell aide, Richard
Haass, is calling for selective engagement with Tehran. "The realistic
alternative," according to Gates, "is US isolation and impotence."
The critical message is that neo-conservative claims that the Islamic
Republic is on its last legs represent wishful thinking. Given Iran's
ability to make trouble for Washington in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as
well as advances made in its nuclear program, the current situation
"mandates the United States to deal with the current regime rather than
wait for it to fall", argues the report, which recommends five specific
steps.
First, the administration should offer Tehran a "direct dialogue on
specific issues of regional stabilization", much as it did for 18
months between the US campaign in Afghanistan and May 2003, when
Washington accused Iran of harboring leaders of Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda responsible for attacks in Saudi Arabia.
Second, Washington should press to clarify the status of al-Qaeda
operatives detained by Tehran, in exchange for ensuring that the
Iraq-based Iranian rebel group Mujahedin-e-Khalq is disbanded and its
leaders brought to justice for terrorist acts. Any security dialogue,
however, must be conditioned on assurances that Tehran is not providing
support to groups violently opposed to the governments of Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Third, the US should work closely with Europe and Russia to ensure that
Iran follows through on its commitment that it is not developing
nuclear weapons by getting it to extend its freeze on all
enrichment-related and reprocessing activities to a permanent ban and
take other steps to guarantee compliance. In exchange, Washington
should remove its objections to an Iranian civil nuclear program.
Fourth, Washington should resume an active role in negotiating peace
between Israel and the Palestinians, which the report says is "central
to eventually stemming the tide of extremism in the region".
Finally, the administration should promote people-to-people and
commercial exchanges between Iran and the wider world, including
authorizing US non-governmental organizations to operate in Iran, and
agreeing to Iran's application to begin accession talks with the World
Trade Organization.
Both Gates and Brzezinski said the administration should also use its
influence to prevent a possible Israeli military strike against Iran's
nuclear facilities, which, according to Brzezinski, would have
"extremely adverse consequences" both for proponents of change in Iran
and for the US position in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Tehran could be
expected to retaliate.
It would be impossible for Israeli warplanes to reach their targets
without flying in air space controlled by the US military, pointed out
Brzezinski.
What to do over Iran
Meanwhile, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reports that Bush
says he hopes to get to the bottom of the report on Iran and September
11, with the help of John McLaughlin, the acting head of the CIA.
Bush said: "Of course we want to know all the facts. Acting director
McLaughlin said there was no direct connection between Iran and the
attacks of September 11. We will continue to look and see if the
Iranians were involved. I have long expressed my concerns about Iran -
after all, it's a totalitarian society."
Bush's statement was one of his toughest remarks on Iran in recent
months. But State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has said the US
is "willing to sit down" and talk with the Iranians "if the president
determines it's in our interest to do so and we think there's the
opportunity for progress".
McLaughlin, speaking to a television news program on Sunday, said the
government "has no evidence" of an official connection between Tehran
and September 11.
But no matter what US intelligence agencies learn, there may be little
the US can do - or even might want to do - to punish Iran.
Marina Ottaway, a specialist in Middle Eastern and African issues at
the Washington-based think-tank Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, told RFE/RL that the commission's report, if accurate, is only
the latest of several reasons that invading Iraq was a mistake. Now,
Ottaway said, Bush's emphasis on military action in its foreign policy
has left it little room to take meaningful action against Iran.
"There is not a lot that the US can do on Iran right now," Ottaway
said, adding that the US "certainly does not have a military option the
way things are, and it needs some cooperation from Iran on Iraq. Iran
certainly has the capacity to make things in Iraq much more difficult
for the United States. At the same time, the United States does not
have the option of doing in Iran what it did in Iraq, and that is
changing the regime."
Ottaway said a policy of regime change can succeed only if the US has
enough military might. But given the resources that the Bush
administration already has devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan, she said,
it has left itself with few military options elsewhere. "By going to
war in Iraq, the US narrowed its options toward Iran and toward North
Korea," Ottaway said. "In other words, there are only so many wars the
US can fight at one time."
Another analyst, Nathan Brown, said he finds it unlikely that Iran and
al-Qaeda would have any significant contacts. Brown, a professor of
international political science at George Washington University in
Washington, cited the deeply conflicting religious principles held by
the Iranian government on one side and al-Qaeda on the other.
"Any strong connection [between Iran and al-Qaeda] would be
implausible," Brown said. "The environment which bin Laden comes out of
is one which regards Shi'ite Muslims as not simply mistaken but as
apostate. But it also strikes me as not impossible, but quite strange
and maybe implausible, that the Iranians would even approach them,
because there's bad blood that goes back a couple of hundred years -
there's very deep bad blood."
Brown said there appears to be no evidence that Iran actually had a
role in the September 11 attacks, and for that reason alone he does not
expect a strong response from the US.
"The conclusions [of the independent 9-11 Commission] might be leaked,
but the evidence we may never know," Brown said. "So, unless we've got
hard evidence, it doesn't seem to me to be wise to make too much out of
it. And also, it's my reading of the political situation: That's what's
likely going to happen. Right now just does not seem to be the time for
an American-Iranian confrontation."
(Inter Press Service/Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty)
Fact
or Fiction? Iran's Quest for the
Atomic Bomb
By Louis
Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters - 25 July)
-
It has been two years since a group of
Iranian exiles accused Iran of hiding a secret atomic weapons
program from U.N. inspectors, and diplomats and analysts say
Tehran is only getting closer to the bomb.
Officials and nuclear experts
say that one of the two
facilities Iran had not declared to the United Nations at the
time was a uranium enrichment plant that, once completed, could
enrich enough uranium for a dozen or so nuclear bombs each
year.
Several diplomats said Iran
began with a plan of developing
its nuclear capabilities so that the atom bomb option would
always be there -- the "break-out" scenario. Later, one said,
Iran decided the only solution to the U.S. threat was the bomb.
"Iranian leaders got together
after the Iraq war and
decided that the reason North Korea was not attacked was
because it has the bomb. Iraq was attacked because it did not,"
a Western diplomat told Reuters this week, citing intelligence
reports.
Iran has vehemently denied
pursuing nuclear weapons,
arguing that its atomic ambitions are limited to generating
electricity and that developing the bomb would violate Islamic
law.
Wary of sparking another
Iraq-like invasion of a Middle
Eastern country, inspectors from the U.N. International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) are cautious and say there is still no
clear evidence that Tehran wants the bomb.
"We all think the American
assessment is probably right
because there is no other good explanation for the Iranian
activities," a senior international diplomat involved in the
investigation of Iran told the New York Times last week.
"But we still don't have the
smoking gun," he said, adding
that after Iraq "we need smoking guns more than ever."
Uzi Arad, director of Israel's
Institute of Policy and
Strategy and a former senior official in the Israeli
intelligence service, Mossad, disagreed, saying it was time the
IAEA stated openly that Iran is pursuing nuclear arms -- which
it could one day use to destroy the Jewish state.
"Anyone who suggests differently
is under illusions," Arad
said. "At which point will the IAEA state the obvious?"
A Western diplomat said such
caution and conservatism was
only giving Iran the time it needed to reach its goal.
"Is this evidence of a weapons
program? Or do we need to
wheel a nuclear bomb into the IAEA boardroom first?" he asked.
U.S. CHOOSES DIPLOMACY, NOT
FORCE
Washington, which is still
trying to pacify Iraq, has not
threatened Iran with military action and has vowed to deal with
the Iranian nuclear program at the United Nations.
For over a year, the United
States has tried to pressure
the IAEA's 35-nation governing board to report Iran to the U.N.
Security Council for hiding its uranium enrichment program from
the IAEA for nearly two decades.
Washington says this is a
blatant violation of the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran signed in 1970. It
has also said that Tehran is only trying to drag out the
inspection process to buy time as it approaches the bomb.
"Every passing day could bring
it closer to producing the
enriched uranium needed for nuclear bombs," Kenneth Brill, U.S.
ambassador to the IAEA, said last month.
Experts say that once a country
has enough fissile uranium,
it is only months away from a nuclear weapon.
But the Egyptian-born head of the
IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei,
along with the European Union's three biggest states -- France,
Britain and Germany -- have blocked U.S. attempts to send the
Iran file to the Security Council for fear of Iran's reaction.
"You are running the risk that
the Security Council might
not act and therefore the situation would exacerbate. And you
run the risk that Iran might opt out of the NPT
(Non-Proliferation Treaty) and you have another North Korea,"
ElBaradei said recently in Israel.
Last year, the IAEA board
referred the case of North Korea
to the Security Council after Pyongyang expelled all U.N.
inspectors from the country on Dec. 31, 2002 and later
announced it would leave the NPT. The council did nothing.
Officials from the EU trio agree
privately that Tehran
appears to be keeping the door open to the bomb and have
encouraged Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program in
exchange for a promise of peaceful nuclear technology. So far
this has not worked though the "EU three" refuse to give up.
NO "SMOKING GUN"
While it has yet to find any
"smoking gun," there is no
question that the IAEA has uncovered many things in Iran that
would appear to support the U.S view.
For one, Iran already has the
ability to produce fissile
material for a weapon should it choose to.
Iran has experimented with
multiple avenues of enriching
uranium -- using lasers, as well as different types of
centrifuges bought on a black market set up by the founder of
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Also, traces of bomb-grade
uranium found inside the country
last year have never been adequately explained.
Iranian scientists also
experimented with a substance
called polonium which can be used to spark a chain reaction in
a bomb.
Iran says that its experiments
with polonium were not
military-related but civilian. But the IAEA cited an absence of
information to support Iran's statements in this regard.
Despite their frustration with
the IAEA process, officials
from the United States and its allies doubt that military
strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities would do more than push
Tehran's nuclear activities further underground.
This is why they have pushed to
report Iran to the Security
Council, which can impose unpleasant sanctions to prod Iran to
decide that pursuing the nuclear option is not worth it.
There have been hints that
Israel, which in 1981 bombed
Iraq's Osiraq reactor where it believed Saddam planned to
develop atomic weapons, might take similar action in Iran.
"Everything has to be done to
stop it," said a senior
Israeli official about Iran's possible nuclear arms program.
"We are not discussing (a military) option right now. Israel
hopes international efforts and pressure can still be brought
to bear. This is an issue that concerns the entire world."
(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem)
Axis of Evil,
Part Two
By Charles
Krauthammer
Washington Post - July 23, 2004; Page A29:
Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons being
drawn from
the Sept. 11 report is that Iran was the real threat. It had links to
al Qaeda, allowed some of the Sept. 11 hijackers to transit and is
today harboring al Qaeda leaders. The Iraq war critics have a new line
of attack: We should have done Iran instead of Iraq.
Well,
of course Iran is a threat and a danger. But how exactly would the
critics have "done" Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious
army. Compared with the Iraq war, an invasion of Iran would have been
infinitely more costly. Can you imagine these critics, who were
shouting "quagmire" and "defeat" when the low-level guerrilla war in
Iraq intensified in April, actually supporting war with Iran?
If not war, then what? We know the central foreign policy
principle of
Bush critics: multilateralism. John Kerry and the Democrats have said
it a hundred times: The source of our troubles is President Bush's
insistence on "going it alone." They promise to "rejoin the community
of nations" and "work with our allies."
Well, that happens
to be exactly what we have been doing regarding Iran. And the policy is
an abject failure. The Bush administration, having decided that
invading one axis-of-evil country was about as much as either the
military or the country can bear, has gone multilateral on Iran,
precisely what the Democrats advocate. Washington delegated the issue
to a committee of three -- the foreign ministers of Britain, France and
Germany -- that has been meeting with the Iranians to get them to shut
down their nuclear program.
The result? They have been led
by the nose. Iran is caught red-handed with illegally enriched uranium,
and the Tehran Three prevail upon the Bush administration to do nothing
while they persuade the mullahs to act nice. Therefore, we do not go to
the U.N. Security Council to declare Iran in violation of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty. We do not impose sanctions. We do not begin
squeezing Iran to give up its nuclear program.
Instead, we
give Iran more time to swoon before the persuasive powers of "Jack of
Tehran" -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw -- until finally,
humiliatingly, Iran announces that it will resume enriching uranium and
that nothing will prevent it from becoming a member of the "nuclear
club."
The result has not been harmless. Time is of the
essence, and the runaround that the Tehran Three have gotten from the
mullahs has meant that we have lost at least nine months in doing
anything to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
The fact is
that the war critics have nothing to offer on the single most urgent
issue of our time -- rogue states in pursuit of weapons of mass
destruction. Iran instead of Iraq? The Iraq critics would have done
nothing about either country. There would today be two major Islamic
countries sitting on an ocean of oil, supporting terrorism and seeking
weapons of mass destruction -- instead of one.
Two years
ago there were five countries supporting terrorism and pursuing these
weapons -- two junior-leaguers, Libya and Syria, and the axis-of-evil
varsity: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The Bush administration has
eliminated two: Iraq, by direct military means, and Libya, by example
and intimidation.
Syria is weak and deterred by Israel.
North Korea, having gone nuclear, is untouchable. That leaves Iran.
What to do? There are only two things that will stop the Iranian
nuclear program: revolution from below or an attack on its nuclear
facilities.
The country should be ripe for revolution. The
regime is detested. But the mullahs are very good at police-state
tactics. The long-awaited revolution is not happening.
Which makes the question of preemptive attack all the more
urgent. Iran
will go nuclear during the next presidential term. Some Americans
wishfully think that the Israelis will do the dirty work for us, as in
1981, when they destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor. But for
Israel, attacking Iran is a far more difficult proposition. It is
farther away. Moreover, detection and antiaircraft technology are far
more advanced than they were 20 years ago.
There may be no deus ex machina.
If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist regime openly dedicated to
the destruction of the "Great Satan" will have both nuclear weapons and
the terrorists and missiles to deliver them. All that stands between us
and that is either revolution or preemptive strike.
Both
of which, by the way, are far more likely to succeed with 146,000
American troops and highly sophisticated aircraft standing by just a
few miles away -- in Iraq.
Please forward
MER articles to others in their entirety with proper
attribution.
We welcome your comments and information in the new MER FORUM.
MID-EAST
REALITIES
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July 2004
Target IRAN (July 31, 2004)
But regardless of outcome, just as soon as the U.S. election contest is decided, if not before, this huge historic issue looms large for the world. And it may well explain why the Israelis are moving toward a 'National Unity Government' again, something they traditionally do in times of war. Indeed, as these articles suggest, much is already happening to push public opinion, and no doubt behind-the-scenes where the political and military planners really operate there is much planning and anxiety underway.
Bush on Drugs for depression and paranoia? (July 30, 2004)
"President George W. Bush is taking powerful
anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior, depression and paranoia."
Israel expands West Bank settlements and grab still more land (July 29, 2004)
Months after Ariel Sharon announced his dramatic plan to pull Jewish settlers out of Gaza, portraying it as a sacrifice for peace, the government is grabbing more land for West Bank settlements.
The last 10 exclusive MER articles and FlashBacks. (July 28, 2004)
These are the last 10 exclusive MER articles and FlashBacks as of 28 July 2004
Arafat's Pickle + Barak's Choking (July 28, 2004)
Professor Edward Said: "It really doesn't matter whether he declares a Palestinian state or not, because he'll have a state without real borders -- they're controlled by the Israelis -- no real
sovereignty, no real country -- it will be cut up into cantons and he won't have east Jerusalem. He won't be able to get rid of the settlers and won't have control over the water, air or sea. Aside from all that, he'll have a state of sorts... [It's] a sign of both exasperation and weakness.''
July 2000
Saudi Money and Influence in Washington (July 27, 2004)
In the 1980s and 1990s the Saudi Royals and their associated business cronies and oil companies were extra busy throwing around, and in most cases grossly overpaying or wasting, their money in the United States, especially in Washington. The main goal of course was to purchase both influence and protection. The secondary goal was to purchase good 'public relations' by having a cabal of those on the take they could count on for everything from some pro-Saudi spin, to a good Op Ed, to some behind-the-scenes fixes.
Please support MER now (July 23, 2004)
Roots of Israeli Apartheid (July 23, 2004)
The roots of what has become Israeli Apartheid and now the widely-condemned nearly 500 kilometer long "Wall" are in this approach to the Palestinians long known as "Revisionism Zionism" and long the underlying philosophy of those who today rule Israel and attempt to speak for American Jewry.
U.S. Presbyterian Church Acts To Divest from Israel (July 22, 2004)
Finally, one of the Christian denominations in the United States has acted in a principled and courageous way. Will this "most censorious decision ever embraced by any Christian denomination in the United States against Israel" just taken by the American Presbyterian Church now open the door for others to follow?
Israel's Weapons of Mass Destruction (July 20, 2004)
True to character in contemporary Washington, not one word about how it is Israel's possession of a vast arsenal of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, including submarines to deliver these weapons by missile throughout the greater Middle Eastern and south Asian regions, that has greatly fueled the race for such weapons in past decades.
Kerry Pledges More for CIA, Pentagon, Israel (July 19, 2004)
The Democratic Candidate for President and his top surrogates has not only called for more troops for Iraq Kerry has now called for doubling again the number of CIA agents and spies worldwide. And he's sent his Jewish brother Cam to Israel and American Jews pledging more support for Israel as well.
Allawi shot inmates in cold blood, say witnesses (July 17, 2004)
Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.
Iraqi's Uniting in 'War of Liberation' Against American Occupiers (July 17, 2004)
...a combining of the Iraqi nationalist populations and religious groups in an escalating 'war of liberation' against the U.S. occupying forces of the Pentagon and CIA. This is now the greatest challenge not only to the American occupation but to the essentially puppet government installed with a fast secret hand-shake by Paul Bremer (who then ran even faster to the airport) and now run by disguised remote control by Ambassador Negroponte.
Senior Sunni Cleric Calls for Holy War Against U.S. Occupation Forces (July 16, 2004)
Of course they'll never say so in the open, but the Americans and the Israelis prefer an Iraqi civil war, or at least the further breakdown of the country into distinct Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni areas, rather than a combining of the nationalist Shiite and Sunni groups in an escalating war against the U.S. occupying forces of the Pentagon and CIA.
NewsFlash! US-chosen-protected 'Interim Iraqi PM' personally executed six (July 16, 2004)
The explosive claims in tomorrow's Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers allege that the prisoners were handcuffed and blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and shot by the Iraqi Prime Minister. Dr Allawi is alleged to have told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents. Two people allege they witnessed the killings and there are also claims the Iraqi Interior Minister was present as well as four American security men in civilian dress.
Hitler Name Resurfaces In Washington (July 16, 2004)
"In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States...somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power. That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power.... That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in."
Judge of Second Circuit Court of Appeals
Iraq Teeters (July 15, 2004)
"The war was fought to weaken Iraq permanently, and
if possible to break it up into separate 'statelets', so as to prevent it ever again challenging Israel or US oil and strategic interests in the Gulf."
'What's his accomplishment? That he's no longer an abnoxious drunk?' -Reagan on Bush (July 14, 2004)
At an unprecedented early stage in the political campaign George Bush has in effect been forced to become his own attack dog. That's because his Vice-President and his Secretary of Defense are already damaged goods...
Emergency U.N. Session Maybe Friday (July 13, 2004)
The issue is whether the Arabs and those who truly care about justice and international law are finally going to have the guts -- which they have never had in the past in view of threats from the U.S. and Israel what would be done if they dared -- to confront the U.S. in the Security Council and then to demand the General Assembly take the one major action that is within its power, suspension of the G.A. membership of Israel.
Osama Strikes Again (July 12, 2004)
And now...the truly 'unthinkable' for Americans. From his hideing place whereever that may be Osama Bin Laden has U.S. officials, and now the American people, actually contemplating and chatting about 'postponing' The American election...if...
We're now on an 'unthinkable' roll; and much more 'unthinkable' can now be expected in the months and years ahead.
New Version MiddleEast.Org now available (July 11, 2004)
Covering Up The Truth - The "Intelligence", WMDs, and 9/11 Coverups All Proceed. (July 11, 2004)
COVERING UP the TRUTH -- The "Intelligence", WMDs, and 9/11 Coverups All Proceed.... "And fourth the U.S. government knew then, and knows now, of the unprecedented level of Israeli-Jewish lobby penetration of key government positions in a way that seriously skews perceived U.S. national interests and security concerns to align with those of Israel."
Israel - Sanctions Now (July 10, 2004)
But the General Assembly does have a kind of super moral power. It was exercised against South Africa in the days of apartheid. It now should be exercised against Israel. Until there is a real and sovereign Palestinian State, and until Israel's apartheid policies are ended once and for all, the U.N. General Assembly should now act to remove the credentials of the Israeli delegation and suspend Israel from the General Assembly.
CDA - Central Disinformation Agency (July 9, 2004)
If there is regime change in the U.S., one can bet that much of the most incriminating actual evident, the crucial paper trails, are already being hidden and in the days right after the election will be taken, shredded, and 'disappeared' in one way or another. The top ranging neocons at the Pentagon and the White House, and the Vice-President and his top aides, have the most to fear and no doubt are working overtime to protect their asses.
Top US 'Peace Negotiator' Now Works Directly for Israelis (July 8, 2004)
Remember now, this is the very same 'Ambassador' Dennis Ross whom the 'even-handed' Americans insisted be the top 'peace process negotiator' for a decade or so between Israel and the Palestinians. Remember as well that the much flaunted and constantly lied about 'peace process' Ross directed erupted in recent years -- as MER had predicted all along by the way -- into the worst mayhem and bloodshed ever. It also has brought worse than apartheid conditions to the Palestinian people and a great escalation in hatred and what the Americans love to simply call 'terrorism' regardless of causes, distinctions, places, and realities.
Amb Dennis Ross, 'Peace Process Chief (July 8, 2004)
Remember now, this is the very same 'Ambassador' Dennis Ross whom the 'even-handed' Americans insisted be the top 'peace process negotiator' for a decade or so between Israel and the Palestinians. Remember as well that the much flaunted and constantly lied about 'peace process' Ross directed erupted in recent years -- as MER had predicted all along by the way -- into the worst mayhem and bloodshed ever. It also has brought worse than apartheid conditions to the Palestinian people and a great escalation in hatred and what the Americans love to simply call 'terrorism' regardless of causes, distinctions, places, and realities.
Top U.S. 'Peace Process Negotiator' Now Works for Israelis (July 7, 2004)
Remember now, this is the very same 'Ambassador' Dennis Ross whom the 'even-handed' Americans insisted be the top 'peace process' 'negotiator' for a decade or so between Israel and the Palestinians. Remember as well that the much flaunted and constantly lied about 'peace process' erupted in recent years (as MER had predicted all along by the way) into the worst mayhem and bloodshed ever as well as today's worse than apartheid conditions for the Palestinian people.
Pentagon Neocon Corruption and Israeli-Connections (July 7, 2004)
The American media, especially the Washington-based American media, isn't going to take on this one about the neocons and the Israeli-Jewish lobby. There will be no Washington Post exposee of this quite possibly worse than Watergate situation. The major foreign media with the resources and manpower now should.
Debacle Looms in both Afghanistan and Iraq (July 6, 2004)
Everywhere the Bush Administration is proclaiming success and courting disaster. Both the economic and political policies pursued by the U.S. in recent years are heavily mortagaging the future and will make American leadership and supremacy in world affairs far more difficult and costly in the not so distant future. The real price to be paid for all the excesses, all the lies, all the deceptions, all the unprecedented overpaying and overpromising, is not now...but some years ahead for the American Empire.
Saddam's Huge Statue - More Lies and Deceptions (July 5, 2004)
But now read how this made-for-TV drama was conceived, carried out, and orchestrated by U.S. Marines with, in all likelihood, the advance planning and assistance of the CIA which now has its largest operations station in the world not far from Firdos Square where the huge statue once stood.
"Independence Day" - In the US and Iraq (July 4, 2004)
It's Independence Day in the USA. But that's little consolidation to the Iraqis, to the Palestinians, or to the Chechnyans or Afghanis and so many other miserably oppressed peoples -- politically, economically, militarily, and culturally -- throughout today's troubled bleeding world.
Amira Hass Speech in Stockholm (July 3, 2004)
Amira Hass is an extraordinarily courageous Israeli journalist who has lived with and boldly reported about the Palestinian people and Israel's increasingly severe repression and dispossession of them. The above poem by Swedish poet Helga Henschen was chosen to highlight the award.
From Vietnam to Iraq and Abu Ghraib (July 2, 2004)
Few in Washington these days have time or interest or reason to connect these historical dots. Bbut they are in reality crucial to a full understanding of how things have gotten to where they are...and the direction things are still heading.
Bremer and his 'Israeli Flag' Gone from Iraq (July 1, 2004)
If these guys have been making policies and decisions about the future of Iraq and the Middle East in the same way they did about a new Iraqi flag....well then the chaos, incompetence, corruption, and miserable failures all need be underscored even more that we had previously realized. And that is saying a lot!
How Bremer Slinked Away on Monday (July 1, 2004)
But judge for yourself after a little more insight. For real journalism these days is often not what you find on the front-page... Read this inside the paper analysis story about what actually happened in Baghdad on Monday -- not about the tag lines and rhetorical hyperbole the Americans love to sucker the media with. And after doing so it's even harder than ever to imagine this is all going to have a happy ending.
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