Chaharshanbeh     11  Ordibehesht 1387   چهارشنبه 11 ارديبهشت 1387

New Looks Inside Natanz

Iran released never-befere seen pictures of the new P-2 centrifuges during a visit by President Ahmadinejad.   The visit was intended to reflect Iran’s commitment to expanding its enrichment capabilities beyond those of the P-1 centrifuge, of which 3,000 are currently operating at the Natanz fuel enrichment plant. It is unclear whether nuclear material has been introduced yet in the new machines.  Albright and Shire at ISIS have estimated that the new centrifuges can produce 250% the throughput of the P-1s now on-line.

  Obviously, the question du jour is why Iran would release such detailed pictures of its “secret” centrifuge program?    According to the New York Times on Tuesday, On April 8, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the desert site, and Iran released 48 photographs of the tour, providing the first significant look inside Natanz.

“They’re remarkable,” Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control specialist at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit research group in Washington, said of the photographs. “We’re learning things.”

Most important, the pictures give the first public glimpse of the new centrifuge, known as the IR-2, for Iranian second generation. There were no captions with the photographs, so nuclear analysts around the globe are scrutinizing the visual evidence to size up the new machine, its probable efficiency and its readiness for the tough job of uranium enrichment. They see the photos as an intelligence boon.

“This is intel to die for,” Andreas Persbo, an analyst in London at the Verification Research, Training and Information Center, a private group that promotes arms control, said in a comment on the blog site Arms Control Wonk.

This looks like ‘disclosure,” doesn’t it?  But wait:

One surprise of the tour was the presence of Iran’s defense minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar. His attendance struck some analysts as odd given Iran’s claim that the desert labors are entirely peaceful in nature. In one picture, Mr. Najjar, smiling widely, appears to lead the presidential retinue.

Oooohhh… and how many times do we see US military officials “smiling broadly” with DOE personnel? 

 It’s peak oil, stupid

Iran, of course, commands the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic choke point for much of the world’s imported oil.  Setting aside innate American nativist fears of anything non-European, the real issue charging the Iran crisis is not nukes, but oil.   Ever since 1980, we have pledged to go to war if the Iranians close the hemostat on the Persian Gulf oil artery.

Normally, rising oil prices are supposed to diminish demand, and also encourage producers to open the tap.  But not this time.  Supply is not rising, in part because production facilities are tapped out. 

But as prices flirt with $120 a barrel, many energy experts are becoming worried that neither seems to be happening. Higher prices have done little to suppress global demand or attract new production, and the resulting mismatch has sent oil prices ever higher.

That has translated into more pain at the pump, with gasoline setting a fresh record of $3.60 a gallon nationwide on Monday. Experts expect prices above $4 a gallon this summer, and one analyst recently predicted that gasoline could reach $7 in the next four years.

A central reason that oil supplies are not rising much is that major producers outside the OPEC cartel, like Russia, Mexico and Norway, are showing troubling signs of sluggishness. Unlike OPEC, whose explicit goal is to regulate the supply of oil to keep prices up, these countries are the free traders of the oil market, with every incentive to produce flat-out at a time of high prices.

But for a variety of reasons, including sharply higher drilling costs and a rise of nationalistic policies that restrict foreign investment, these countries are failing to increase their output. They seem stuck at about 50 million barrels of oil a day, or 60 percent of the world’s oil supplies, with few prospects for growth.

As usual, political pandering is the order of the day, with both McCain and Clinton pledging suspension of the 18c a gallon federal tax on gasoline.  Eighteen cents!? Obviously these people have no idea gasoline is four bucks, and ought to be twice that if the externalities of production and environmental impacts are considered.   Since this money goes (so they say) to fund alternative energy programmes among other things, the Clinton-McCain idea is utter retrograde crap - throwing the Roman mob a few barrels of flour and some games.

KULTUR

Iran Is Not The Problem

  An excellent new independent movie by Aaron Newman through Scary Cow Productions has just been released on the Iran crisis, “Iran (is not the problem)” which includes much good information and activist interviews including -ahem - moi.  The website is very nice and has links.  Its premiere was in San Francisco on April 27th.  See it, or better yet, sign up to distribute it.

Shanbeh   7 Ordibehesht 1387     شنبه 07 ارديبهشت 1387     

Gulf of Tonkin Act II

The US Navy is back again releasing sketchy details of another incident between US and suspected Iranian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.  This time, a cargo ship under private contract opened fire with small arms in the general direction of one or more motor boats which approached the ship.  The details are maddenly thin:

A civilian ship contracted by the U.S. military fired warning shots at two small boats that approached it in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy said Friday, the latest in a string of similar incidents to trigger concern in Washington…

The Navy said it does not know whether the two boats that approached the Western Venture cargo ship on Thursday were from Iran. Iranian officials have denied their vessels were involved.

Last month, a U.S. Navy-contracted ship fired warning shots at approaching motor boats in the Suez Canal, accidentally killing an Egyptian citizen.

The Western Venture was headed north in international waters in the central Gulf when it was approached by two small boats of unknown origin, said Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, spokeswoman for the Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain.

“Following proper procedures, Western Venture issued standard queries to the small boats via bridge-to-bridge radio but received no response,” said Robertson. “Western Venture then activated a flare but again did not receive a response.”

The boats continued toward the ship, and the ship’s security team fired warning shots with .50-caliber machine guns and M-16s into the water in front of the small vessels, causing them to leave the area, said Robertson.

A unit that identified itself as an Iranian coast guard vessel radioed the Western Venture a short time after the incident to determine its identity, said Robertson.  “It is not clear if this was one of the small boats or a separate boat,” she said.  The Western Venture is owned by U.S.-based Totem Ocean Trailer Express Inc. and was carrying military cargo to Kuwait when the incident occurred, said Robertson.

This incident should recall one at the begining of the year where the Navy released a video purporting to show Iranian motor boats making high speed runs at a Navy convoy while broadcasting in the clear in plain Engliesh, “In five minutes you will explode.”  It turned out that the threat was a ham radio prankster. 

As with the January incident, Iran is denying any threat or challenge.   

The IRGC Navy is fully prepared to carry out its duty in guarding Iran’s waters in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman, an IRGC official says.   The remarks were made after US officials alleged that a US vessel had opened fire on Iranian patrol boats.

“If UK or US vessels had fired at Iranian boats, based on previous experiences, they would have faced the harshest reaction by Iranian forces,” a senior IRGC (Islamic Revolution Guards Corps) official told Press TV Friday.  An IRGC official had earlier rejected the reports that an American ship had opened fire on Iranian patrol boats in the Persian Gulf.

There has been no confrontation between Iranian boats and US military vessels in the Persian Gulf, he told Press TV.

This will take some time to settle out, but one of these days, it might become real, and we’ll have ourselves a shoot’n war.

Chairman of US Joint Chief Sends New Warning

Admiral Fallon, who was notoriously booted upstairs to the Joint Chiefs and out of CENTCOM (now Gen Patraeus) took out after Iran:

The nation’s top military officer said today that the Pentagon is planning for “potential military courses of action” against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government’s “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be “extremely stressing” but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing specifically to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.

“It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability,” he said at a Pentagon news conference.

Still, Mullen made clear that he prefers a diplomatic solution to the tensions with Iran and does not foresee any imminent military action. “I have no expectations that we’re going to get into a conflict with Iran in the immediate future,” he said.

Mullen’s statements and others by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recently signal a new rhetorical onslaught by the Bush administration against Iran, amid what officials say is increased Iranian provision of weapons, training and financing to Iraqi groups that are attacking and killing Americans.

Message to all:  Admiral Mullen is no peacenik.  If the circumstances present themselves, he will follow orders like anyone else.

This years’ hard-to-find “WMD” is hard evidence of Iranian military fingerprints in Iraq.  So far, the evidence has been less than compelling:

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who was nominated this week to head all U.S. forces in the Middle East, is preparing a briefing soon to lay out detailed evidence of increased Iranian involvement in Iraq, Mullen said. The briefing will detail, for example, the discovery in Iraq of weapons that were very recently manufactured in Iran, he said.

“The Iranian government pledged to halt such activities some months ago. It’s plainly obvious they have not. Indeed, they seem to have gone the other way,” Mullen said.

He said recent unrest in the southern Iraqi city of Basra had highlighted a “level of involvement” by Iran that had not been understood by the U.S. military previously. “It became very, very visible in ways that we hadn’t seen before,” he said.

But while Mullen and Gates have recently stated that Tehran must know of Iranian actions in Iraq, which they say are led by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Mullen said he has “no smoking gun which could prove that the highest leadership [of Iran] is involved in this.”

That’s a problem, all right, but it’s likely that something will be bound to turn up - like the planted drugs in Serpico.

 Chaharshanbeh    4 Ordibehesht  1387      چهارشنبه 04 ارديبهشت 1387

The Consensus of Belligerency

    ABC’s hatchet job debate of last week included the spectacle of a race to the bottom by Democratic Party candidates Clinton and Obama on the subject of Iran, everyone’s favorite international bete noire.  Clinton easily won the race.  

Answering AIPAC’s favorite question of,”what should America do if Iran attacked Israel,” Obama stopped a hair short of a total security commitment (read:  blank check) to Israel, but repeated the standard mantra of “all options are on the table,” holding out the possibility of preemptive attack. 

I  have said I will do whatever is required to prevent the Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons. I believe that that includes direct talks with the Iranians where we are laying out very clearly for them, here are the issues that we find unacceptable, not only development of nuclear weapons but also funding terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as their anti-Israel rhetoric and threats towards Israel. I believe that we can offer them carrots and sticks, but we’ve got to directly engage and make absolutely clear to them what our posture is.

Now, my belief is that they should also know that I will take no options off the table when it comes to preventing them from using nuclear weapons or obtaining nuclear weapons, and that would include any threats directed at Israel or any of our allies in the region.

Obama firmly clutched at the icons of the Israel lobby but was minimally equivocal in his commitment:

As I’ve said before, I think it is very important that Iran understands that an attack on Israel is an attack on our strongest ally in the region, one that we — one whose security we consider paramount, and that — that would be an act of aggression that we — that I would — that I would consider an attack that is unacceptable, and the United States would take appropriate action.  

Note that the word “unacceptable” is not the same as saying that an attack on Israel would be deemed “an attack on the US.” 

Clinton went much further, declaring her intention to create a nuclear security umbrella over all of America’s firends in the Middle East including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, much like NATO.  This alliance would have as its object the containment and isolation of Iran.

Well, in fact, George, I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region.

You know, we are at a very dangerous point with Iran. The Bush policy has failed. Iran has not been deterred. They continue to try to not only obtain the fissile material for nuclear weapons but they are intent upon and using their efforts to intimidate the region and to have their way when it comes to the support of terrorism in Lebanon and elsewhere.

And I think that this is an opportunity, with skillful diplomacy, for the United States to go to the region and enlist the region in a security agreement vis-a-vis Iran. It would give us three tools we don’t now have.

Number one, we’ve got to begin diplomatic engagement with Iran, and we want the region and the world to understand how serious we are about it. And I would begin those discussions at a low level. I certainly would not meet with Ahmadinejad, because even again today he made light of 9/11 and said he’s not even sure it happened and that people actually died. He’s not someone who would have an opportunity to meet with me in the White House. But I would have a diplomatic process that would engage him.

And secondly, we’ve got to deter other countries from feeling that they have to acquire nuclear weapons. You can’t go to the Saudis or the Kuwaitis or UAE and others who have a legitimate concern about Iran and say: Well, don’t acquire these weapons to defend yourself unless you’re also willing to say we will provide a deterrent backup and we will let the Iranians know that, yes, an attack on Israel would trigger massive retaliation, but so would an attack on those countries that are willing to go under this security umbrella and forswear their own nuclear ambitions.

This sort of talk is extraordinary dangerous, although the chances of convincing Congress to extend a nuclear security guaranty over the Middle East are slim to none.  During the Cold War, many Euopean countries were openly skeptical that the US would risk a nuclear conflict if Germany or Norway were singly attacked. 

But Hillary was not finished.  THis week, back at ABC, Hillary emerged as a full-flower defender of Israel using the full might of the imperium:

“If Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel what would our response be?” Clinton said. “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran. That’s what we will do. There is no safe haven.”

“Whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next 10 years during which they may foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them,” Clinton said. 

The US would ‘obliterate Iran.”  Where does this attitude come from?

It comes from hubris, racism, and a consensus among policy elites in the US.  Like it or not, it’s as Mom and apple pie as anti-communism was in the 1950s.

Jomeh 23 Farvardin 1387   جمعه 23 فروردين 1387

War?? Chicken Little says, Get a Grip

  Where has this blog been? I have had to take a six week sabbatical to clear out my head and finish a #$% book that probably few people will read since it is fact-based and full of citations.  They would rather hear myths that “Iran has nuclear wapons” and planning to give them to Moktada al-Sadr or Hezbollah or Allah knows who.  And He does, too.

It is reasonably clear that the MSM is desparately tired of the Presidential campaign by now and oh-so-much wants another war before Bush leaves to boost their ratings.  However, the fact remains that the constituency for war is not as large as many people seem to think it is outside the networks.

In my absence, one, two, three, many Chicken Littles have emerged in full force to warn of imminent  ”nuclear war with Iran!!!”  See the nuclear fire descend from the skies, transforming humankind into a tribe of Radioactive Zombies!!!  From some of these blogs, one would almost think they wish it…

Crackpot newspapers like the UK Independent are gleefully writing about the pospects of war which has been an ongoing theme for the last five years.   But there is little more to these stories than there was two years ago.  While seriously contingency plans do exist (see Hersh, New Yorker 2006) the ‘drumbeat’ seems to be mostly coming from our side these days.  There is a point where the people who need convincing are going to turn down all this static, so that when the real balloon goes up, nobody will listen.

A little rectitude is needed.  The situation is in a stalemate at the moment: the IAEA hasn’t closed its book, the Security Council has sanctioned Iran yet again, and Iran has (or so it claims) embarked on doubling the number of centrifuges.  In short, everyone is partying ‘like its 2006.  Iran says the same prickly things it has said for years, party leaders in the US all agree Iran is a menace, etc.

What has changed is outside Iran.   Gen Petreaus is still insisting there is a proxy war going on in Iraq between Maliki’s government and something called the “Quds Force,” although evidence of direct Iranian involvment is mostly by association (they’re Shiite, you’re Shiite, ergo?).  If this were really, really true, does anyone doubt that the US would be trouping out the evidence (such as it may be) before Rolling Thunder III?  It hasn’t happened. 

The most likely tipping point instead is Israel, which is reportedly planning a second go at Hezbollah, which - yes friends it’s true - gets some support from Iran.  A long range rocket duel between Jerusalem and Hezbollah might expand to a regional conflict involving Syria, at which point anything is possible.  Apart from resupplying Israel’s copious need for cluster bombs and ‘daisy cutters’, the US may not have that much to do other than root from the sidelines, though. 

The facts on the ground are that the US is bogged down in a pointless forever war in Iraq where the restiveness of a few thousand Mahdi insurgents are enough to jam up the cogs.   There is simply no margin to consider what the intervention of tens of thousands of Iranians would do, and few inside the Pentagon (Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton are not there) would seriously advocate such a risk.  More importnatly, unlike the occupation of Iraq, there is not much money to be made.  Really.  And if I read one more “progressive” advocating a draft I will barf.  How about addressing the basic question of why we still need to station legionnaries all over the globe to keep the barbarians out?

Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week II

 An islamo-fascist.  Study the image carefully.

So soon??  Yes, bubke, April 7 to 11, 2008 is Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week II, right on the heels of the first one last October.  You missed it, you say?  The floats?  The marching bands?

This spring, during the week of April 7-11, we will hold another week of consciousness-raising events. The purpose of this week and the campaign leading up to it will be: 1) To highlight the genocidal agendas of the Islamo-fascist crusade; and 2) To make the public aware of the “soft jihad” – the domestic networks that fund and provide political support for the agendas of the jihad, including its armies of terror. 

The core of the jihad is its intention to conquer and force into submission all religions and cultures which are not its own. It has absorbed the Nazi-virus of Jew-hatred and seeks as its first goal the obliteration of the Jewish state, but its agendas include the obliteration of Christian communities and all non-Muslim cultures as well.

Wow.  And they’re everywhere - PTAs, Cub Scouts, flouridaion programs, inflitrating Our Precious Bodily Fluids.  The “we” is the  David Horowitz Freedom Center (didn’t he play violin somewhere?) which appears to be yet another well-funded right wing neo-con ‘non-profit’ fixated on “Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions” and of course, monolithic “Islamo-Fascism.”   Never mind that Iran is Shiite and would rather eat broken glass than lead a campaign of world conquest with the Sunni Saudis, and - ahem - has yet to invade anyone.  History is not this organization’s strong suit, but fear is. 

The Student Guide to the Awareness Week is here.  Goes good with a Scotch and some Vallium.

Shanbeh  Esfand 11 1386  شنبه 11 اسفند 1386

UN Security Council to consider sanctions

The U.N. Security Council would probably vote on Monday (3 March) to impose a third round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which Tehran said would be an illegal gesture to be ignored (AFP (France) 29 February)

The Security Council put the finishing touches Friday to a draft resolution imposing a third set of UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear defiance with a vote rescheduled to Monday.  “The Iran resolution will be put to a vote in the Security Council on Monday at 11 a.m. (1600 GMT),” said a Western diplomat close to the council deliberations.  Another diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, spoke of progress in last-minute haggling over the text with countries having reservations about the sanctions.

He said the delay in the vote, which had been expected Saturday, was so sponsors “can get as broad support as possible.” The draft puts Tehran on notice that it must comply with earlier Security Council demands to suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.  The West fears the knowhow gained from such activities could give Iran the capability to build nuclear weponas. But the Islamic republic insists its nuclear program is peaceful and geared only toward generating electricity.

Britain and France, co-sponsors of the draft along with Germany, Friday engaged in last-minute bargaining to try to win over Vietnam and South Africa, two of four countries — along with Indonesia and Libya — which see fresh sanctions as counter-productive.

IAEA decides not to decide

The British Economist (28 February) echoed, from the Western point of view, the issue with the IAEA discussed in the previous blog, namely the agency’s decision not to make a decision to close Iran’s case, or alternatively, as the British journal terms it, “blow the whistle” on Iran’s alleged nuclear program.  

The world’s supposedly independent nuclear referee, in short, is stumped for the present. It has verified that none of the nuclear material that Iran has already declared has been diverted for a weapons programme. It has received some “consistent” explanations of previously fishy-looking activities. It says it knows more than it did about Iran’s programme, but that it has not yet received complete information. And now it has to deal with an impasse over the evidence from America that Iran dismisses as a fabrication.

Iran says it would sign the additional protocol as Mr ElBaradei asks if the UN Security Council got off its back and its nuclear file was returned to the IAEA to handle alone. Fat chance. Having ignored two resolutions ordering it to stop enriching uranium, Iran now faces the prospect of a third. Nothing Mr ElBaradei’s men say looks able yet to dispel the cloud of Iranian secrecy and Western suspicion that hovers over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Noam Chomsky on Western Orientalism and bias

Noam Chomsky in the 28 February Asia Times critically addresses the slanted US coverage of Israel’s assasination of one of Hezbollah’s leaders, Imad Moughniyeh, in Damascus on 13 February.  By and large, US media repeated the State Department’s depiction of Imad as a serial terrorist.  However, Chomsky notes that no other than the Financial Times (UK) was quietly observing that Imad was not responsible for most of what was being pinned on him in the gleeful obits:

The world is a better place without this man in it,” US State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said. “One way or the other he was brought to justice.” Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell added that Moughniyeh had been “responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden”.

Joy was unconstrained in Israel too, as “one of the US and Israel’s most wanted men” was brought to justice, the London Financial Times reported. Under the heading, “A militant wanted the world over”, an accompanying story reported that he was “superseded on the most-wanted list by Osama bin Laden” after September 11, 2001, and so ranked second among “the most wanted militants in the world”.

The terminology is accurate enough, according to the rules of Anglo-American discourse, which defines “the world” as the political class in Washington and London (and whoever happens to agree with them on specific matters). It is common, for example, to read that “the world” fully supported President George W Bush when he ordered the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001. That may be true of “the world”, but hardly of the world, as revealed in an international Gallup Poll after the bombing was announced. Global support was slight.   …

Chomsky goes on to compare coverage of various US and Israeli attacks which caused numerous civilian deaths, as well as erroneous attribution of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing to Hezbllah (it was Islamic Jihad). 

Other charges are that Moughniyeh helped prepare Hezbollah defenses against the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, evidently an intolerable terrorist crime by the standards of “the world”, which understands that the US and its clients must face no impediments in their just terror and aggression.

The more vulgar apologists for US and Israeli crimes solemnly explain that, while Arabs purposely kill people, the US and Israel, being democratic societies, do not intend to do so. Their killings are just accidental ones, hence not at the level of moral depravity of their adversaries. That was, for example, the stand of Israel’s High Court when it recently authorized severe collective punishment of the people of Gaza by depriving them of electricity (hence water, sewage disposal and other such basics of civilized life).

The same line of defense is common with regard to some of Washington’s past peccadilloes, like the destruction in 1998 of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The attack apparently led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, but without intent to kill them, hence not a crime on the order of intentional killing - so we are instructed by moralists who consistently suppress the response that had already been given to these vulgar efforts at self-justification.

To repeat once again, we can distinguish three categories of crimes: murder with intent, accidental killing, and murder with foreknowledge but without specific intent. Israeli and U.S. atrocities typically fall into the third category.

Thus, when Israel destroys Gaza’s power supply or sets up barriers to travel in the West Bank, it does not specifically intend to murder the particular people who will die from polluted water or in ambulances that cannot reach hospitals. And when Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of the al-Shifa plant, it was obvious that it would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. Human Rights Watch immediately informed him of this, providing details; nevertheless, he and his advisers did not intend to kill specific people among those who would inevitably die when half the pharmaceutical supplies were destroyed in a poor African country that could not replenish them.

Rather, they and their apologists regarded Africans much as we do the ants we crush while walking down a street. We are aware that it is likely to happen (if we bother to think about it), but we do not intend to kill them because they are not worthy of such consideration. Needless to say, comparable attacks by Araboushim in areas inhabited by human beings would be regarded rather differently.

If, for a moment, we can adopt the perspective of the world, we might ask which criminals are “wanted the world over”.

Tinfoil hats department

Princeton conservative scholar Bernard Lewis told a conference in Jerusalem that Iran would actual welcome a nuclear war (25 February World Tribune).   The thust of the comments recalls what so called ‘experts’ used to say about the North Vietnamese (’they don’t value human life like we do’), Iraqis, Japanese, and other historic enemies of the US.  It is really quite extreme.

A leading U.S. scholar on the Middle East has asserted that Iran’s leadership does not resemble the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Bernard Lewis, a professor at Princeton University, said the mullah regime in Teheran believes that the Shi’ite messiah would be ushered by a nuclear war, Middle East Newsline reported.   “It’s not an Arab country, but rather a Muslim country, ruled now by a Muslim theocracy, which calculates its policies not by Iranian national interests, but by what is good for Islam,” Lewis said.

“Iran’s leadership comprises a group of extreme fanatical Muslims who believe that their messianic times have arrived,” Lewis said. “This is quite dangerous. Though Russia and the U.S. both had nuclear weapons, it was clear that they would never use them because of MAD — mutual assured destruction. Each side knew it would be destroyed if it would attack the other.”

“But with these people in Iran, mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent factor, but rather an inducement,” Lewis said. “They feel that they can hasten the final messianic process. This is an extremely dangerous situation of which it is important to be aware.”

Lewis’ racist diatribe neatly illustrates Norman Solomon’s media analysis of the ramp-up to war abd psychologically preparing the public for confiict. By characterizing the enemy as souless, fanatical insects, it makes it all the more easier to make liberal use of those cluster bombs, or perhaps, some made in Livermore dial-a-yield ’special packages.’  

Seshhanbeh  Esfand 7  1386     سه شنبه 07 اسفند 1386

Playing for time

What is with the IAEA?  Last August, it appeared that the agency had at last arrived at a workplan protocol with Iran which, if Iran dotted its ‘p’s and ‘q’s, could final emerge from the cycle of reports and sanctions that have dogged it since early 2006.  Instead, the IAEA appears increasingly unwilling to close the book on Iran, even though it is unclear at this late date what material information, or deficit of information, is holding the agency back.    Perhaps the answer is that there will always be questions without answers, without end.

The 22 February IAEA report revisits a number of subjects involving Iran’s past suspected nuclear activities.  None of these really pertained to the matter of great interest to the US and its allies, namely whether Iran is now engaged in a covert nuclear weapons program.  The answer to this question remains negative:  the IAEA “has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear materials.”  The “one remaining issue” relevant to the programme is “the alleged studies (by Iran) on the green salt project, high explosives testing and the missile re-entry vehicle.”  (”Green salt” is an alleged uranium conversion process.)  The report references discussions in late January; however, Iran was only given access to US information pertinent to these matters in February.  The timing is not explained; Iran was given literally days to address this purported new evidence.  The UK is now contending that this evidence indicates Iran was conducting weapons work after 2003, but the larger question is why we are only hearing of this now - perhaps the proximity of a new UN Security Council meeting has something to do about it.

Iran’s current uranium enrichment activities are only controversial because the UN Security Council made them so.  Nothing in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) precludes any signatory from engaging in peaceful fuel cycle activities including enrichment provided they comply with verification and safeguards agreement.  The IAEA has been given access to the Natanz enrichment operation throughout and has carried out nine unannounced inspections since March 2007.  According to the February 22 report, the throughput of uranium remains below the facility’s stated capacity, and the enrichment levels are at 3.8% - nowhere near the levels required for an atomic bomb.  There is no statement anywhere in the latest report complaining of lack of transparaency at Natanz.

It appears that the IAEA is now choosing to follow a ‘middle’ course that will ultimately please no one.  This is not a technical choice; it is political.  The ‘why’ behind this choice is probably complex, including a desire not to alienate its powerful governors from the US and EU, and at the same time avoid furnishing the US or its proxies with ammunition to do worse.  Right now, Iran is claiming victory once more, demanding return of its UN dossier, but few are listening at this point.  The US will cherrypick selective language as further evidence of Iranian bad faith, whether or not the specifics support the point being made.

If it their sober reflections Iran’s leaders are beigining to suspect a rigged game, they may be right.  The US is now complaining that Iran cannot answer all the questions put to it, but considering that many of these questions were not even raised until a week or so before the report, what does this say about the process?  Quote: “The Agency only received authorization to show some further material to Iran on 15 February 2008. Iran has not yet responded to the Agency’s request of that same date for Iran to view this additional documentation on the alleged studies. In light of the above, the Agency is not yet in a position to determine the full nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.”  Once more, the US is moving the goalposts by selectively doling out documents they choose to have Iran respond to on short notice.

The more conseqeuntial issue is the lopsided burden of proof to which Iran is being subjected.  A key sentence in the report appears near the very end. This is not a paraphrase, but an actual quote:

Confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme requires that the Agency be able to provide assurances not only regarding declared nuclear material, but, equally importantly, regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran. With the exception of the issue of the alleged studies, which remains outstanding, the Agency has no concrete information about possible current undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.

Iran is, in other words, being asked to prove the negative beyond a shadow of a doubt , the non-existence of a fact.  This was the same quandary faced by UNSCOM before 2003 inside Iraq, when the US told the world that the absence of WMD evidence only meant that Saddam had been especially clever in covering it up.  US policymakers could additionallyargue that the absence of evidence is only proof of the inadequacy of the inspection process, and even proof of the continuing bad faith nondisclosure by the target nation.

Does this legal standard exist under the NPT, the IAEA statute, or the Safeguards Agreements between the IAEA and Iran?  Certainly not - no country would reasonably subject themselves to a verification regime which cannot ever be satisfied in the eyes of the US and EU.  It would be if any litigant in court could march in and simply argue, “prove to me you have not breached the contract,” and sit back.   Treaties are contracts - there has to be both objective proof of a breach and a reasonable burden of proof.  By employing an ever-flexible evidentiary standard, the IAEA risks distorting and eroding its own ostensibly non-partisan process, which will not advance the overall goal of nuclear non-proliferation. 

Cafe Orwell Video

I am posting this satiric remake of the notorious 1950s “Bert the Turtle” duck-and-cover civil defense agitprop video for two reasons.  One, to prove I am not an Iranian agent (watch and you will figure out why - I don’t think they would approve of these hormone-charged, witless American kids).  Second, it is a genuinely funny spoof of a film I had to watch over and over as a kid during the Cuban Crisis, and a little levity is a good thing these days.  (VIA YOUTUBE)

THE 22 FEBRUARY 2008 IAEA REPORT

The latest IAEA report, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in the Islamic Republic of Iran” is available here in full (via ISIS website).  It is officially embargoed until oficially presented to the Board of Governors.  

The new report is unlikely to make anyone happy, and all will read into it what they will.   Hence the need to read it for one’s self. There is much qualifying language in the body of the report for critics to seize upon.  Nor is the IAEA prepared to close the dossier.  The report’s final paragraphs (emphasis mine) -

F. Summary 

 

52. The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities. Iran has also responded to questions and provided clarifications and amplifications on the  issues raised in the context of the work plan, with the exception of the alleged studies. Iran has provided access to individuals in response to the Agency’s requests. Although direct access has not been provided to individuals said to be associated with the alleged studies, responses have been provided in writing to some of the Agency’s questions.

53. The Agency has been able to conclude that answers provided by Iran, in accordance with the work plan, are consistent with its findings — in the case of the polonium-210 experiments and the Gchine mine — or are not inconsistent with its findings — in the case of the contamination at the technical university and the procurement activities of the former Head of PHRC. Therefore, the Agency considers those questions no longer outstanding at this stage. However, the Agency continues, in accordance with its procedures and practices, to seek corroboration of its findings and to verify these issues as part of its verification of the completeness of Iran’s declarations.

54. The one major remaining issue relevant to the nature of Iran’s nuclear programme is the alleged studies on the green salt project, high explosives testing and the missile re-entry vehicle. This is a matter of serious concern and critical to an assessment of a possible military dimension to Iran’s nuclear programme. The Agency was able to show some relevant documentation to Iran on 3–5 February 2008 and is still examining the allegations made and the statements provided by Iran in response. Iran has maintained that these allegations are baseless and that the data have been fabricated.

The Agency’s overall assessment requires, inter alia, an understanding of the role of the uranium metal document, and clarifications concerning the procurement activities of some military related institutions still not provided by Iran. The Agency only received authorization to show some further material to Iran on 15 February 2008. Iran has not yet responded to the Agency’s request of that same date for Iran to view this additional documentation on the alleged studies. In light of the above, the Agency is not yet in a position to determine the full nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. However, it should be noted that the Agency has not detected the use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies, nor does it have credible information in this regard. The Director General has urged Iran to engage actively with the Agency in a more detailed examination of the documents available about the alleged studies which the Agency has been authorized to show to Iran.

55. The Agency has recently received from Iran additional information similar to that which Iran had previously provided pursuant to the Additional Protocol, as well as updated design information. As a result, the Agency’s knowledge about Iran’s current declared nuclear programme has become clearer. However, this information has been provided on an ad hoc basis and not in a consistent and complete manner. The Director General has continued to urge Iran to implement the Additional Protocol at the earliest possible date and as an important confidence building measure requested by the Board of Governors and affirmed by the Security Council. The Director General has also urged Iran to implement the modified text of its Subsidiary Arrangements General Part, Code 3.1 on the early provision of design information. Iran has expressed its readiness to implement the provisions of the Additional Protocol and the modified text of its Subsidiary Arrangements General Part, Code 3.1, “if the nuclear file is returned from the Security Council to the IAEA”.

56. Contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities, having continued the operation of PFEP and FEP. In addition, Iran started the development of new generation centrifuges. Iran has also continued construction of the IR-40 reactor and operation of the Heavy Water Production Plant.

57. With regard to its current programme, Iran needs to continue to build confidence about its scope and nature. Confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme requires that the Agency be able to provide assurances not only regarding declared nuclear material, but, equally importantly, regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran. With the exception of the issue of the alleged studies, which remains outstanding, the Agency has no concrete information about possible current undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran. Although Iran has provided some additional detailed information about its current activities on an ad hoc basis, the Agency will not be in a position to make progress towards providing credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran before reaching some clarity about the nature of the alleged studies, and without implementation of the Additional Protocol. This is especially important in the light of the many years of undeclared activities in Iran and the confidence deficit created as a result. The Director General therefore urges Iran to implement all necessary measures called for by the Board of Governors and the Security Council to build confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.

Jomeh  Esfand 3 1386     جمعه 03 اسفند 1386

On the eve of the release of the latest IAEA report on Iran, matters are not looking as hopeful as they did several months ago when the National Intelligence Estimate was published.  The sheer volumne of speculation whether a war with Iran is in the offing suggests that we may be experiencing another level of heightened tensions as in the spring of 2007.  If the latest IAEA report is qualified in its assessment of Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle activities, it may become difficult to restrain a new wave of sanctions and a reaction from Iran.

There are three potential nodes of conflict.  The first is the same that has been with us since 2002, namely the ongoing controversy over Iran’s nuclear activities, and perceptions in the West that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons despite contrary evidence in the NIE and last IAEA report.  Both are diminishing in their influence in the ongoing discussion.  The fact that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists publishes such columns as included below favoring the ratcheting up of pressure on Iran evinces that ‘mainstream’ experts are prepared to accept as a given that Iran must be ‘forced’ into suspend nuclear weapons development.

The second node of condlict is the continuing presence of the American occupation in Iraq.  The US maintains that Iran is actively supporting Shi’ite insurgents if not al-Quada itself, despite the lack of support for such a notion among lead Iraqi politicians including Maliki.  One of the proponents of this view of Iraq as a proxy war with Iran itself is the American Enterprise Institute, whose roots are deep in the Republican neo-conservative movement.   With the close proximity of thousands of US troops along its borders, warships and overflying aircraft, the potential for an armed confrontation, however accidental, is significant.

The third node, and presently the most incindiary, is Lebanon.  Israel fought an unpopular and singularly unsuccesful war against Hezbollah, a Shi’a substate within southern Lebabnon supported by Iran, in 2006. Lebanon itself is an unstable, dyslexic powderkeg hampered by an unworkable constitution.  Conseratives within Israel are eager for a rematch and have few qualms about expanding such a campaign to include what they beleive is Hzxbollah’s chief mentor, Iran.

The United States has only partal control to influence these events.  Even though the neoconservative theoreticians are lobbying for action against Iran as much as ever, it is likely that Defense Secretary Gates (unlike former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld) is not nearly as enthusiastic to even attempt a punitive airstrike.  The shift of initiative may be with Israel, which is looking for nothing more than a green light from Washington.    Even so, it is hard to imagine the mayhem which would follow any attack on Iran by Israel. 

US Pumping Information to IAEA

The US is turning over files to the IAEA in order to influence the pending IAEA report on Iran’s performance under the Safeguards Agreements.  For the second time in recent weeks, Washington has given the International Atomic Energy Agency information on what it says were Teheran’s attempts to make nuclear weapons, but much of it is of doubtful value, diplomats said Thursday (Jerusalem Post 22 February). 

Kaveh Afrasiabi sheds additional light on Washington’s ‘preemptive strike’ to head off a favourable IAEA report on Iran in the Asia Times (21 February): “A new report on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is about to be released and US “pre-emptive” diplomacy, aimed at preventing an IAEA “clean bill of health” that could derail Washington’s effort for a new round of UN sanctions on Iran, is at full throttle - with the timely help of disinformation.  Setting the bar unusually high, the US envoy at the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, has warned that unless Iran “confesses” about its “past work on weapons designs and weaponization and the role of the Iranian military”, international efforts to resolve the nuclear standoff will be “doomed”.

Washington’s brand new benchmark comes in the wake of a spate of US media reports that the US has “shared new intelligence” with the IAEA that corroborates American allegations of past Iranian nuclear proliferation activities. According to the New York Times, the US decided to “turn over intelligence data” and allow the IAEA privileged access for “divulging confidential information” by reversing “longstanding refusal to show the data, citing the need to protect intelligence sources”.

A widely published report by Associated Press cites diplomats as saying that the material forwarded to the IAEA over the past two weeks expands on previous information from the Americans.  But, we learn, the new information pertains to data from the same “stolen laptop” that was the source of the previous information, which was termed unreliable at the time by, among others, David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington.

Meanwhile, in response to this author’s request for clarification regarding this matter, a source close to the IAEA has called the US media reports “misleading”. The source said: “Without going into the intelligence we may or may not have received, I can say that in my view, these news reports were misleading. The [IAEA] report [on Iran] is due to come out Friday or Monday and then things will become clearer for everyone.”

The IAEA and its director must act to de-politicize the process:

The IAEA must insulate itself from the disinformation campaign against Iran that has by all indications gone into a higher gear as we draw closer to the upcoming meeting of the IAEA’s board of governors, and it must ignore the intensifying American lobbying efforts and those of its junior partners such as France (at a recent meeting of France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and the IAEA chief, Mohammad ElBaradei, the IAEA was urged to “stay firm” on Iran).

More important, the IAEA must stay firm on the rules of game and consider the fact that any overstepping of its bounds - eg, by pressuring Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program in spite of Iran’s legal rights and its nuclear transparency - will definitely backfire against the agency and, indeed, the entire non-proliferation regime.

After all, Iran has the solid backing of a bulk of international community, namely the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which covers some 118 member states. Recently, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, met NAM representatives and urged them to continue with their crucial support for Iran’s right to nuclear technology. Ambassador Khazaee has also written a letter to the UN Secretary General about the recent US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, reiterating Iran’s peaceful nuclear intentions and urging the UN not to yield to US pressure that could harm the UN’s legitimacy.

South Africa, a key NAM member, has already played a pivotal role in making sure that the UN Security Council does not take any action against Iran before the new IAEA report on Iran.

From Iran’s vantage point, the resolution of so-called “outstanding questions” as a result of a “work plan” with the IAEA, which has full scope to monitor Iran’s nuclear facilities and which has stressed on numerous occasions the absence of any evidence of military diversion, means that there is no justification for any UN sanctions or continued UN Security Council involvement with Iran’s nuclear dossier.

Flyspecking the National Intelligence Estimate

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist’s daily website (20 February) ran this somewhat conservative column by two British experts which lends credence to Western arguments that the 2003 ‘halt’ in the Iranian nuclear military programme was actually only a suspension in response to international pressure.  They suggest that the 2007 NIE may have been counterproductive by relieving the pressure that caused the suspension in the first place.   This is yet further evidence that the 2007 NIE is fading from the international consciousness just as ElBaradei is expected to present the IAEA’s latest report on Iran.

The NIE’s conclusion that Iran halted its military nuclear activities in 2003 due to international scrutiny and pressure, ironically removed for now military intervention from the list of options of how to deal with Iran’s nuclear indiscretions. In the process, this development probably weakened the international community’s ability to successfully pressure Tehran into again suspending its enrichment program and resolving outstanding questions. The lingering uncertainty about Tehran’s nuclear intentions and the dual-use nature of its enrichment capability could exacerbate the situation, even though the NIE assesses that Iran is likely to use “covert facilities–rather than its declared nuclear sites–for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon.” Iran’s intentions could also change abruptly. “Only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons–and such a decision is inherently reversible,” the NIE assessed.

The real nub of the 2007 NIE, therefore, emphasizes addressing political motives in Tehran as the only realistic way to address the Iranian nuclear problem in the long term. Indeed, the release of the NIE’s findings could intentionally lay the groundwork for a less confrontational approach with Tehran, which could involve both negative and positive incentives and the seeds of a “grand bargain” between Iran and the United States. It also raises the question of whether covert diplomacy has or could play a role in maneuvering the U.S. and Iranian governments toward such a juncture.

Tinfoil Hat Department

Get your latest fix of neocon propaganda from the original source.  On February 19, the American Enterprise Institute, which has roundly trashed the 2007 NIE, featured a panel including Frederick and Kimberly Kagen, who continue to maintain that Iran is actively working to destabilize Iraq despite its Shi’a leadership.  You can listen to it, or for true torture, watch it here.

Panjshanbeh  Bahman 25  1386    پنجشنبه 25 بهمن 1386

This is how wars start

The Lebanese group Hezbollah says one of its top leaders, Imad Mughniyeh, has died in a bombing in Damascus, and has blamed Israel for assassinating him (BBC News, February 13).   According to the Western press, Mughniyeh is widely believed to be behind a wave of Western hostage-taking in Lebanon during the 1980s.  He had been in hiding for years and was high on US and Israeli wanted lists.The Israeli prime minister’s office later issued a statement rejecting “the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement” in the killing.  Mughniyeh, in his late 40s, is variously described as special operations or intelligence chief of Hezbollah’s secretive military wing, the Islamic Resistance.  Correspondents say his death is a significant blow to Hezbollah, which battled Israel in the 2006 Lebanon war, and its Iranian and Syrian backers.

Israel was still investigating all reports as they emerged, it added.  But a former head of Israel’s Mossad secret service, Danny Yatom, called the killing “a big achievement for the free world against terrorist organisations.”

A spokesman for the US state department, Sean McCormack, described Mughniyeh as a “cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost”.

The reliable website Syria Comment, which surveys the Syrian press and academia, noted:

According to the independent Syria-news website, a silver Mitsubishi Pajero car exploded in the neighborhood of an Iranian school in Kafer Suseh and damaged five nearby cars and surrounding building. An Iranian diplomat here confirmed to Xinhua the explosion near the Iranian school which teaches religion to Iranian students.

But the explosion did not targeted the Iranian school, said the diplomat. The Syrian authorities gave no official confirmation.

Kafer Suseh is a large residential area in Damascus which houses dozens of apartment buildings constructed in recent years, a big shopping mall and a main Syrian intelligence office.

Some sources are trying to make a link to Islamist extremists who may be trying to target Iran. The point to the presence of an Iranian school in the neighborhood and the planned visit on Wednesday of Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to discuss the political crisis in neighbouring Lebanon. But the attack did not seem to target the school.

Iran’s Reaction

Press TV (13 February): A Hezbollah official said on Wednesday that one of the group’s top commanders, Imad Mugniyah, had been killed in Syria and blamed the Zionist regime for the murder.  “He has been a target of the Zionists for 20 years,” a statement from Hezbollah said.

A vehicle was blown up in a car park in the newly-completed Damascus residential neighborhood of Kfar Suseh at around 11 p.m. (2100 GMT) on Tuesday, witnesses said.  Witnesses had seen the body of a man taken from the scene of the blast which was cordoned off by Syrian security officials.  The Lebanese TV network LBC reported that Mugniyah, aka Hajj Radwan, attended a ceremony held at the Iranian school in Damascus, before he was murdered.

The windows of nearby buildings were blown in and four parked cars were damaged.  A funeral procession is to be held for the slain Hezbollah official in Beirut on Thursday, on the same day that the pro-government March 14 bloc is planning to stage rallies to commemorate the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.  Hezbollah forces have been put on high alert in southern Lebanon, informed sources told the Press TV correspondent in Lebanon.

FARS News Agency (13 February):  Lebanese political analysts believe that the terrorist blast had been arranged by the Israeli intelligence squad, Mussad.  Hezbollah announced Mughniyeh’s martyrdom in Damascus, and blamed Israel for assassinating him.

Lebanese al-Manar TV in Beirut announced the death saying, “With all pride we declare a great jihadist leader of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon joining the martyrs… the brother commander hajj Imad Mughniyeh”.  Mughniyeh, born in Beirut in 1962, was in hiding for years high on US and Israeli wanted lists.  Israel has neither confirmed nor denied a role in the killing but some Israeli politicians welcomed news of his death.

Mughniyeh is variously described as special operations or intelligence chief of Hezbollah’s military wing.  Syrian police kept media and other onlookers well away from the scene of the overnight blast in the Kafar Soussa district.  Hours later, Syrian state TV confirmed one person had been killed in a car bombing, but did not identify the victim. “Scores of police and intelligence officers rushed to the site. People in the neighborhood are shocked,” said one resident quoted by Reuters news agency.

Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) 13 February:  “The martyrdom of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah mastermind is a clear sign of Zionist regime’s well-organized terrorist attacks, the foreign ministry spokesman declared.  Mohammad Ali Husseini also called for all countries to take steps to stop Zionist regime’s measures in contract with global rules.

Imad Mughnieh was assassinated late Tuesday following the explosion of a car bomb in Damascus.  Witnesses in the Syrian capital declared when a passerby was killed, the security forces blocked the area and took away the body. The spokesman also went on to say the record of Mughniyeh’s campaigns against occupier countries is a golden page in the history of fights against the occupier Zionists. He also sent condolences to Lebanese people and Mughniyeh’s family.

US Reaction

Reuters (13 February):  The United States on Wednesday applauded the killing of Hezbollah leader Imad Moughniyah in a car bomb in Damascus, and called him a cold-blooded murderer responsible for many deaths.

 

“The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. “One way or another he was brought to justice.”

McCormack said he did not know who was responsible for the killing of Moughniyah, who was on the U.S. most-wanted list for attacks on Israeli and Western targets. Hezbollah accused Israel of assassinating Moughniyah but Israel denied involvement in Tuesday’s car bomb attack.

Iran Nuclear Developments

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) has released another useful report on Iran’s centrifuge activities which can be referenced here.

Recent press reports by Reuters, the Associated Press and the Austria Presse Agentur have highlighted Iran’s decision to move ahead with installation of modified P-2 centrifuges at the Natanz pilot fuel enrichment plant. Iran’s name for the machine is the IR-2.

This decision appears to reflect Iran’s commitment to expanding and improving its enrichment capabilities beyond those of the P-1 centrifuge, of which 3,000 are currently operating at the larger Natanz fuel enrichment plant. According to press reports, the modified P-2/IR-2 centrifuges are still being tested and no nuclear material has been introduced yet.

Afrasiabi on the NPT

Kaveh Afrasiabi, a noted Iranian expert and consultant to past nuclear negotiating teams, writes in the Asia Times (9 February):  ”In light of the latest news regarding Iran’s rapid advances in nuclear centrifuge technology and Tehran’s warning that it will reject any new UN measures aimed at halting its nuclear progress, it’s clear that Iran’s nuclear standoff has entered a new phase - one that may have global consequences and cause irreparable harm to the pillars of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).”

The connection between the two issues has been presented in a different light by Western pundits who have maintained that the NPT will deteriorate in the absence of effective action to counter the Iranian “proliferation activities”. Foremost among such pundits is a former official of the International Atomic Energy Agency  (IAEA), Pierre Goldschmidt, who has called for proactive initiatives by the UN Security Council to address proliferation risks often attributed to “NPT loopholes“.

Of course, first among the “loopholes” is the right to produce nuclear fuel under Article IV of the NPT. In the words of IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei, this means that the non-nuclear weapons nations exercising nuclear power would become “virtual nuclear weapon states”. The gap between “virtual” and “actual” can be rather wide, however, and may remain so as long as a robust verification and inspection regime remains in place.

But the problem with proposals of Goldschmidt and other like-minded experts is that they introduce new and potentially larger problems, particularly with respect to the relatively successful non-proliferation regime. For one thing, the UN Security Council’s attempt to deprive Iran of the capability to produce nuclear fuel has no legal precedent. Bottom line, this is an anti-NPT initiative that will only lead to an anarchy in rules and the collapse of norms that other nuclear proliferators can take advantage of.

The campaign to “de-nuclearize” Iran may have unintended conseqeunces to the treaty:

So what exactly is the purpose of these abnormal UN initiatives against Iran? Is it to indirectly weaken the non-proliferation regime, in order to benefit countries such as Israel that have come under increasing international pressure to conform to the regime’s norms? Or is it exclusively due to the fears of Iran’s proliferation?

Unfortunately, little attention has been given to the various, intended or unintended, implications of the UN Security Council’s actions against Iran, often under the lame argument that “inaction is not an option”. But improper action is equally, if not additionally, harmful.

Indeed, if the UN Security Council transforms itself into a new de facto arm of the NPT, should we expect it to do the same for all the other international regimes - chemical, biological, developmental, disarmament, or otherwise - that also suffer from various “loopholes” and shortcomings? Clearly, we need a more norm-guided UN approach toward the Iran nuclear issue, otherwise, the negative spillover effects on the NPT and a host of other international issues, will soon be upon us.

Assuming that the IAEA’s next report, due out in a few weeks, will bolster Iran’s position that it has not breached any of its international obligations (a position eloquently reiterated by Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Soltanieh, at a university in Geneva this week) then the Security Council will have a hard time rationalizing its sanctions regime, let alone toughening it.

International dissent is rising:

Already, South Africa has put a damper on the current “5 + 1″ efforts to pass a third sanctions resolution on Iran by counseling patience and the need to avoid rash moves. With the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) solidly behind Iran’s nuclear rights, the coming ElBaradei report on Iran will likely sharpen the tensions at the UN between the US-led coalition aiming to penalize Iran for defying the UN’s demands and the bulk of the UN’s member states defending Iran’s rights.

With its plate overflowing with multiple crises - Kenya, Chad, Darfur, Kosovo, and others - the UN can ill-afford the divisive Iran issue that will polarize its members if the UN leadership is not careful.

On the subject of more UN sanctions, Afrasiabi writes:

By all indications, the initial news from Washington regarding a “5 +1″ consensus on new sanctions against Iran has been premature. New signs of fissure and disagreement have emerged, suggesting that the draft third sanctions resolution is in trouble. As a result, expectations are that the drastic measures stipulated in the draft resolution will be watered down, otherwise it will not pass and fall prey to the quagmire of diplomatic wrangling.

For their part, Tehran has been emphasizing the “honesty and sincerity” of its cooperation with the IAEA. A recent article by Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottakin, in the British daily The Guardian furthers this emphasis, as does the fact that this cooperation has extended beyond the Iran-IAEA protocol and involved “complementary access and information”.

In the absence of any evidence of military diversion, the fact that Iran has already mastered the enrichment technology does not warrant an international reprisal, particularly from the UN, which has invoked Chapter VII and deemed it to be an issue of global security and threat to world peace. The US intelligence report on Iran, confirming that Iran is not presently engaged in a nuclear weapons program, has undermined the legitimacy of this UN response, and the US and its allies are now hard-pressed to find viable arguments to justify the multilateral sanctions regime on Iran.

Afrasiabi’s bullet points against more sanctions:

The argument that Iran’s possession of nuclear knowledge is “dangerous”, repeatedly stated by President George W Bush, is undermined by the fact that Iran has already passed that threshold and that its scientific progress is not erasable.Another argument, that Iran’s centrifuge activities represent a thinly-veiled proto-proliferation, also falters by the counter-argument that as long as the IAEA inspection regime is in place, any diversion would be detected.A third argument, that Iran has no need for nuclear fuel since Russia has already provided it with what is needed for its reactors, has been soundly defended by Iranian nuclear officials who cite past broken promises, the delay in Russia’s completion of Bushehr power plant, and the importance of technological progress and self-reliance, not to mention the possibility of Iran entering the lucrative market of nuclear fuel.

In tandem with Iran’s cooperation and nuclear transparency, what is needed is a phasing out of the UN sanctions regime on Iran, instead of strengthening it. Iran’s former foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, who advises the supreme leader on foreign policy matters, has recently stated the importance of Iran’s diplomatic dialogue with the “5 +1″. This signals a growing Iranian willingness to enter direct dialogue with the US on the nuclear issue.

Iran’s former foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, who advises the supreme leader on foreign policy matters, has recently stated the importance of Iran’s diplomatic dialogue with the “5 +1″. This signals a growing Iranian willingness to enter direct dialogue with the US on the nuclear issue.The US must be prepared to revise its defunct and unrealistic positions on Iran’s nuclear dossier, to focus on transparency and confidence-building measures pertaining to the various “objective guarantees” that Iran has been putting on the table for some time. The continuation of the present “coercive” course of action against Iran by Washington will neither solve the Iran nuclear crisis nor improve the semi-crisis that the NPT finds itself in today; rather, it will augment both.

Panjshanbeh  Bahman 18  1386      پنجشنبه 18 بهمن 1386

Iran launches satellite-capable rocket; US responds

 On Monday Iran launched an advanced rocket into space, prompting the US to issue further negative statements.  Kavoshgar I was launched as a preliminary step towards sending the country’s first advanced scientific research satellite, ‘Omid’ (Hope) into orbit.  Iran, which aims to launch five satellites into orbit by 2010, joined the international space-faring community in February 2007 after successfully testing its first sounding rocket (Press TV (Iran) 5 February).  It was another poke in the eye to Washington:

“It’s unfortunate Iran continues to test ballistic missiles. This regime continues to take steps that only further isolate it and the Iranian people from the international community,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Iran’s reaction to such criticism was swift and predictable.  Following the harsh reaction shown by the US officials to Iran’s achievements in the field of aerospace, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini here Wednesday advised Washington to avoid narrow-minded attitudes towards Iran (FARS News Agency (Iran) 6 February).

Hosseini described Iran’s great and surprising achievement in aerospace technology as another indication of the “resistance and self-belief of a great nation which seeks to conquer the heights of science and technology”.  “Linking the glorious scientific and technological achievements of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and describing them as a threat is an incorrect and deceitful measure by the US government, which derives from Washington’s immoral and hegemonic policy,” Hosseini said.

He further recommended the US officials to “show respect for the rights and interests of all nations and avoid adopting irrational approaches towards the existing facts and realities”.

Kind of brings back the old days of Sputnik, doesn’t it?

 
Russia urges Iran to stop enriching uranium

In the run up to a new round of deliberating UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, Russia has called on Iran to freeze uranium enrichment until key issues in its nuclear program have been cleared up with the IAEA, a Russian deputy foreign minister has said (Novosti RIA  (5 February)).

In an interview posted on the Foreign Ministry’s official website on Tuesday, Sergei Kislyak said Iran should freeze enrichment activity until all of its nuclear program’s “complicated points have been worked out.”   “I believe that all this is entirely achievable if the appropriate political decisions are taken. International concerns can be easily allayed to create more favorable conditions for Iran’s extensive cooperation with other countries,” Kislyak said.

… 

The Russian official hailed Iran’s cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog in clarifying all the outstanding issues over its nuclear program. “This is very important in the context of restoring confidence related to Iran’s [nuclear] program.”  “Frankly speaking, our Iranian colleagues could have started this work long ago and not wasted so many years on confrontation, first with the IAEA Board of Governors, and then with the UN Security Council.”  He said the necessity for cooperation with the UN Security Council and compliance with recommendations from the IAEA Board of Governors would be reflected in a new UN Security Council resolution on Iran.

The five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany agreed at talks in Berlin on January 22 on a draft for a third sanctions resolution against Iran calling for travel ban, asset freeze and vigilance on all banks in the Islamic Republic.   “When the document is made public, you will see it contains serious signals for Iran and envisions decisions to expand sanctions earlier adopted by the Security Council,” Kislyak said.   However, he said the new resolution, as well as the previous ones, was being drafted in compliance with UN Charter article 41 of chapter 7, which excludes the use of force.

Iran withdraws consortium proposal on enrichment

Iran’s president says he is withdrawing a proposal made in 2005 for an international consortium to enrich uranium — the fuel for both nuclear bombs and power plants — inside his country (AP 6 February)

“This proposal is no longer on the table,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview published Tuesday by respected French daily Le Monde.  “But if others formulated it again, we would study it — under one condition: that the Iranian people’s right to enrich uranium be preserved,” the Iranian leader said.

He first made the consortium proposal at the U.N. General Assembly. He said then that Iran “is prepared to engage in serious partnership with private and public sectors of other countries in the implementation of uranium enrichment programs in Iran.” To Le Monde, Ahmadinejad noted that the United States and European nations had not favored his proposal.

“They thought we formulated it only because we were in a position of weakness,” he said.

Europe and the U.S. want Iran to suspend all enrichment work inside the country out of fear that Tehran could use the technology to produce weapons.

Conflicting opinions

This week, the British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) opinied that there is little short-term prospect of a US strike on Iran, despite the fact that Tehran remains intent on continuing its nuclear activities (Press TV (Iran) 5 February). The IISS is a military-oriented think tank which annual releases the Military Balance, an intelligence guide summarizing the world’s military forces. 

IISS director-general and chief executive Doctor John Chipman said that the US National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded Tehran is not running a nuclear weapons program, ‘changed the dynamics of efforts to curb Iran’s dual-use nuclear program’.  “Tehran is moving ahead with a new generation of more efficient centrifuges,” Chipman continued. This is while the UN nuclear watchdog says Iran’s nuclear program is in line with power generation for its nation.  He added that Russia’s delivery of 82 tons of uranium fuel, which will be used in Iran’s nuclear power plant in Bushehr, ‘removed another form of leverage over Iran’.

The IISS website and video of Chipman’s presentation may be found here.

Daniel Ellsberg, who in a recent interview by Truthout’s Sari Gelzer, is more pessimistic, fearing that Bush may attack Iran before his administration runs out in early 2009.  The video of the interview is here.
War with Iran to be avoided, say some US business elites

The American conservative business magazine Forbes, which bills itself as a “capitalist tool,” has run a column by the equalliy conservative Global Creative Leadership Summit (Louise Blouin) (4 February) which advises whoever wins ‘Super Tuesday’ to avoid war with Iran:

The U.S. must also renew and maintain a dialog (sic) with Iran in order to advance its cause against Iranian nuclear armament and Iran’s involvement with Iraq and Lebanon. This can be done only by working extensively at the international level, with a new level of equitable collaboration that both maximizes the impact of the U.N. and brings Russia and China on board to pressure Iran.

War with Iran must be avoided at all costs. The anti-U.S. sentiment in the region drives the strength of those fringe groups that are the greatest threats to regional–and indeed, global–stability. A proper dialog with Iran is in everyone’s best interests, including Iran’s, as the country’s own provocations cannot be ignored.