I by no means assent to all of Milani's contentions (though much of what he says is dead-on); he is however always worthy of engagement and discussion. I very much look forward to reading his latest book, Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979.
Youtube:
Abbas Milani's talk will be "Nuke, Kooks and Democracy in Iran: a discussion of Iran's current political situation, and the prospects of democracy, and a resolution of the country's nuclear program." His most recent book is Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir. Raised in Iran, Abbas Milani was sent to be educated in California in the 1960s. He became politically active and in 1974 received a PhD in Political Science. He returned to Tehran and taught at the National University but was imprisoned by the Pahlavi regime in 1977. After the revolution he became a professor at Tehran University, but by 1986 his utopian illusions had been shattered and he emigrated to the United States. Dr. Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian studies at Stanford University and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. Abbas Milani is also the author of the bestselling The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution, as well as the prize-winning Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran.
This event took place on August 13, 2008, as a part of the Authors@Google series.
Showing posts with label Iranian nuclear program. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iranian nuclear program. Show all posts
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sadegh Kabeer: The Not so Diplomatic Turn - The Continued Frailty of Iran-US relations and the Possibility of War
Last week Iran responded to the latest European proposal regarding its controversial nuclear program. The so-called “Iran Six” were however neither amused, nor heartened by the proposal’s apparent “ambiguity” or deafening silence regarding the demand that Iran cease it enrichment activities. Such ambiguity has not been received in the spirit of Kissingerian ‘constructive ambiguity’, whereby intractable sticking points are glossed over in a bid to further diplomatic progress and make negotiators lives slightly easier, but instead as effrontery and as a fundamental lack of will on the Iranian side. Tehran thus far has been non-committal vis-à-vis the offer of a six week long “freeze-for-freeze” deal which would see Iran temporarily halt its nuclear program while negotiations putatively ensued with the aim of finding a lasting solution to the nuclear dispute. As a quid pro quo, western states led by the US would hold off on pressing for a fourth round of sanctions.
Hawks in both Washington and Tel Aviv have for some time been calling for a series of ‘targeted air strikes’ against Iranian nuclear facilities but also Revolutionary Guard positions in and around the country. Proponents of a unilateral attack claim Iran is less than two years away from achieving a nuclear weapons capability; that Iran is stirring up trouble in Iraq and fomenting unrest and providing succor to Iraqi insurgents. With more than a tad of irony it appears that Iran has emerged as Washington and Tel Aviv’s ‘Great Satan’; the puppet-master pulling all the strings and responsible for every act of malfeasance not matter how big or small. Shaul Mofaz, the current Israeli deputy prime minister, transport minister and Kadima Party leadership contender, has gone so far as to dub Iran the “root of all evil”. Sober and dispassionate talk, the very kind which makes diplomacy and negotiation possible seems to be in short supply.
The minor diplomatic steps hitherto taken have been attacked and railed against by prominent hawks in both the American and Israeli foreign policy establishments. One time American ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has been amongst the most gun-ho in calling for military action against Iran and never seems to tire of saber-rattling and finger waging. He has been consistent in lambasting Washington’s diplomatic efforts at every possibly turn. Most recently in a fiery and highly dubious article in the Wall Street Journal, While Diplomats Dither, Iran Builds Nukes.
The pages of the New York Times have also been littered with calls for an attack on Iran before the hour glass is spent. A ticking time bomb scenario is carefully crafted and presented in which an attack isn’t deemed desirable, but necessary to prevent a wave of death and destruction of untold magnitude further down the line.
Amongst the most ominous was an op-ed entitled Using Bombs to Stave off War by reputed “new” Israeli historian Benny Morris who argued in what can only be described as a torrent of fear-mongering and a transparent effort at justifying unilateral military action against Iran by the US and Israel, that a nuclear strike against Tehran might become necessary if Iran’s nuclear facilities were not bombed in the coming months.
A recent report published by the Institute for Science and International Security states that even in the event of an attack it would unlikely succeed in definitively crippling Iran’s nuclear program. Hence on the basis of Morris’ logic Iran would need to bombed and then inevitably nuked at a later date because of the assured failure of the initial bombing campaign! The complete disregard for the human cost of such man-made destruction is frighteningly cast aside without a second thought; Morris in his benevolence however does at least concede that Iranians would prefer not to see their country turned into a “nuclear wasteland”.
Finally, Daniel Pipes, a leading neoconservative has also openly called on the Bush administration to support of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a cultish, schizophrenic and dictatorial organization which is featured on the US State Department’s very own list of foreign terrorist organizations. Pipes and other neoconservative-minded Iran commentators such as Patrick Clawson at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, harbor the belief that the MEK will be able to provide reams of intelligence and sow the seeds of anarchy and chaos that will precipitate the collapse of the clerical regime. They maintain this, despite the low regard in which the MEK is held inside Iran itself. Many Iranians even view the organization as culpable of treason because it allied itself with the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88).
According to veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, Bush has already signed a Presidential Finding, authorizing up to $400 million to fund armed groups such as the MEK, Balochi Jundollah, Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) and Arab separatists in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. Whether this will metamorphose into a full-blown American attack in coordination with such groups looks unlikely. Washington is playing more a game of tit-for-tat, keeping the Iranian government busy with quelling internal dissent so it has less time and resources to further amplify its very real reach inside Iraq and Afghanistan.
Though oil prices have dropped in recent weeks and at the time of writing this article stand at some $115 per barrel (09/08/08); they have been forecast to skyrocket to at least $500 per barrel in the advent of a military strike against Iran. Oil prices in concert with an already marked economic downturn might well spark a meltdown of global proportions, which at least for the moment the Bush administration is unwilling to risk. Experts say that $500 per barrel could quite easily be surpassed if Iran were to close the Strait of Hormuz through which some 40% of the world’s oil travels. The Strait forms part of Iranian territorial waters and Tehran could ensure its closure in the event of an US attack with relative ease.
It is this looming possibility which has caused Washington to temporarily soften its position and tame the trigger-happy element held up in vice-president Cheney’s office. This new sense of caution (though we should be careful not to overstate it) also owes something to what Tom Engelhardt has fittingly called the ascendancy of the “adults in the room”. Figures such as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and even Condi Rice have managed to enter the breach and deter Bush from unthinkingly pursuing the line expounded by the hardline Cheney faction.
A fundamental change in relations and détente is not in offing any time soon and many commentators have prematurely jumped the gun as a result of Under Secretary of State, William J. Burns, presence at the recent talks in Geneva and the announcement of a US interests section possibly opening in Tehran (the US and Iran haven’t had official diplomatic relations since the 1979 revolution).
A number of Iran analysts and acute observers have already suggested that forgoing enrichment constituted a red line as far as the Iranians were concerned and it seems they have been proven right. The International Herald Tribune recently featured an op-ed by Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian-American Council and Anatol Lieven of the New America Foundation in which they argued that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and not the Washington-led consensus should act as the sole criterion by which Iran's compliance or non-compliance with its international obligations vis-à-vis its nuclear program are evaluated.
Tehran is adamant on protecting its rights as enshrined in Article IV of the NPT and at least for the time being remains unwilling to bow to international pressure. The reasons why are fairly straightforward:
1) Iran previously suspended uranium enrichment between late 2003 and mid-2005, to allow for negotiations with the European Union. No tangible benefits were accrued and Tehran’s program was merely retarded as a result. Dr. Akbar Etemad who previously ran the Shah’s nuclear program pointedly told Time that the last freeze yielded “nothing” and even added that ‘with its bellicose behavior the West is pushing Iran towards nuclear weapons, even if they don't want them now”. Present Iranian leaders view the whole matter in a similar light and see little incentive for Iranian leaders to repeat what they see as an exercise in futility.
2) Tehran is counting on Beijing and Moscow to ‘impede’ the imposition of further sanctions due to the close political and economic ties Tehran enjoys with them. Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, director of Global Interfaith Peace, has pointed out that trade talks continue to progress between Moscow and Iran with little fear evinced by the Russians about the impact of damaging sanctions. Russian ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, has also in effect undermined the supposed ‘unified front’ conjured up by the US and Britain by opining that there’s no consensus regarding a fourth round of sanctions.
3) According to analysts, Iran’s relations with the IAEA are improving and lingering issues have been resolved. The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) deputy director, Ollie Heinonen’s recent trip to Tehran has been interpreted as confirming the alleviation of prior tensions.
4) The nuclear program is a symbol of national pride. Despite the Iranian public’s many issues and internal struggle with its theocratic and authoritarian government there is overwhelming support for the pursuit of a peaceful nuclear energy program. According to a 2006 World Public Opinion poll 9 out of 10 Iranians reckon it “important” for Iran to have a full-fuel-cycle program. Though sanctions are certainly beginning to pinch, as anyone who has recently been to Tehran can tell you, such sentiment is unlikely to change significantly; if anything, the perception of ‘western bullying” only goes to consolidate it.
In short, Tehran will continue to refuse to forgo its right to uranium enrichment and the Bush administration despite the very loud protestations of hawks will continue along the path of ‘aggressive diplomacy’ i.e. more sanctions in a bid to break the back of the Islamic republic. The possibility of full-blown military conflict remains real, but is presently tempered by energy prices and the global economic downturn. Rapprochement however is a distant prospect and the NPT remains the only genuine alternative by means of which a resolution to the ongoing crisis can be found.
© Sadegh Kabeer
Hawks in both Washington and Tel Aviv have for some time been calling for a series of ‘targeted air strikes’ against Iranian nuclear facilities but also Revolutionary Guard positions in and around the country. Proponents of a unilateral attack claim Iran is less than two years away from achieving a nuclear weapons capability; that Iran is stirring up trouble in Iraq and fomenting unrest and providing succor to Iraqi insurgents. With more than a tad of irony it appears that Iran has emerged as Washington and Tel Aviv’s ‘Great Satan’; the puppet-master pulling all the strings and responsible for every act of malfeasance not matter how big or small. Shaul Mofaz, the current Israeli deputy prime minister, transport minister and Kadima Party leadership contender, has gone so far as to dub Iran the “root of all evil”. Sober and dispassionate talk, the very kind which makes diplomacy and negotiation possible seems to be in short supply.
The minor diplomatic steps hitherto taken have been attacked and railed against by prominent hawks in both the American and Israeli foreign policy establishments. One time American ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has been amongst the most gun-ho in calling for military action against Iran and never seems to tire of saber-rattling and finger waging. He has been consistent in lambasting Washington’s diplomatic efforts at every possibly turn. Most recently in a fiery and highly dubious article in the Wall Street Journal, While Diplomats Dither, Iran Builds Nukes.
The pages of the New York Times have also been littered with calls for an attack on Iran before the hour glass is spent. A ticking time bomb scenario is carefully crafted and presented in which an attack isn’t deemed desirable, but necessary to prevent a wave of death and destruction of untold magnitude further down the line.
Amongst the most ominous was an op-ed entitled Using Bombs to Stave off War by reputed “new” Israeli historian Benny Morris who argued in what can only be described as a torrent of fear-mongering and a transparent effort at justifying unilateral military action against Iran by the US and Israel, that a nuclear strike against Tehran might become necessary if Iran’s nuclear facilities were not bombed in the coming months.
A recent report published by the Institute for Science and International Security states that even in the event of an attack it would unlikely succeed in definitively crippling Iran’s nuclear program. Hence on the basis of Morris’ logic Iran would need to bombed and then inevitably nuked at a later date because of the assured failure of the initial bombing campaign! The complete disregard for the human cost of such man-made destruction is frighteningly cast aside without a second thought; Morris in his benevolence however does at least concede that Iranians would prefer not to see their country turned into a “nuclear wasteland”.
Finally, Daniel Pipes, a leading neoconservative has also openly called on the Bush administration to support of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a cultish, schizophrenic and dictatorial organization which is featured on the US State Department’s very own list of foreign terrorist organizations. Pipes and other neoconservative-minded Iran commentators such as Patrick Clawson at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, harbor the belief that the MEK will be able to provide reams of intelligence and sow the seeds of anarchy and chaos that will precipitate the collapse of the clerical regime. They maintain this, despite the low regard in which the MEK is held inside Iran itself. Many Iranians even view the organization as culpable of treason because it allied itself with the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88).
According to veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, Bush has already signed a Presidential Finding, authorizing up to $400 million to fund armed groups such as the MEK, Balochi Jundollah, Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) and Arab separatists in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. Whether this will metamorphose into a full-blown American attack in coordination with such groups looks unlikely. Washington is playing more a game of tit-for-tat, keeping the Iranian government busy with quelling internal dissent so it has less time and resources to further amplify its very real reach inside Iraq and Afghanistan.
Though oil prices have dropped in recent weeks and at the time of writing this article stand at some $115 per barrel (09/08/08); they have been forecast to skyrocket to at least $500 per barrel in the advent of a military strike against Iran. Oil prices in concert with an already marked economic downturn might well spark a meltdown of global proportions, which at least for the moment the Bush administration is unwilling to risk. Experts say that $500 per barrel could quite easily be surpassed if Iran were to close the Strait of Hormuz through which some 40% of the world’s oil travels. The Strait forms part of Iranian territorial waters and Tehran could ensure its closure in the event of an US attack with relative ease.
It is this looming possibility which has caused Washington to temporarily soften its position and tame the trigger-happy element held up in vice-president Cheney’s office. This new sense of caution (though we should be careful not to overstate it) also owes something to what Tom Engelhardt has fittingly called the ascendancy of the “adults in the room”. Figures such as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and even Condi Rice have managed to enter the breach and deter Bush from unthinkingly pursuing the line expounded by the hardline Cheney faction.
A fundamental change in relations and détente is not in offing any time soon and many commentators have prematurely jumped the gun as a result of Under Secretary of State, William J. Burns, presence at the recent talks in Geneva and the announcement of a US interests section possibly opening in Tehran (the US and Iran haven’t had official diplomatic relations since the 1979 revolution).
A number of Iran analysts and acute observers have already suggested that forgoing enrichment constituted a red line as far as the Iranians were concerned and it seems they have been proven right. The International Herald Tribune recently featured an op-ed by Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian-American Council and Anatol Lieven of the New America Foundation in which they argued that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and not the Washington-led consensus should act as the sole criterion by which Iran's compliance or non-compliance with its international obligations vis-à-vis its nuclear program are evaluated.
Tehran is adamant on protecting its rights as enshrined in Article IV of the NPT and at least for the time being remains unwilling to bow to international pressure. The reasons why are fairly straightforward:
1) Iran previously suspended uranium enrichment between late 2003 and mid-2005, to allow for negotiations with the European Union. No tangible benefits were accrued and Tehran’s program was merely retarded as a result. Dr. Akbar Etemad who previously ran the Shah’s nuclear program pointedly told Time that the last freeze yielded “nothing” and even added that ‘with its bellicose behavior the West is pushing Iran towards nuclear weapons, even if they don't want them now”. Present Iranian leaders view the whole matter in a similar light and see little incentive for Iranian leaders to repeat what they see as an exercise in futility.
2) Tehran is counting on Beijing and Moscow to ‘impede’ the imposition of further sanctions due to the close political and economic ties Tehran enjoys with them. Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, director of Global Interfaith Peace, has pointed out that trade talks continue to progress between Moscow and Iran with little fear evinced by the Russians about the impact of damaging sanctions. Russian ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, has also in effect undermined the supposed ‘unified front’ conjured up by the US and Britain by opining that there’s no consensus regarding a fourth round of sanctions.
3) According to analysts, Iran’s relations with the IAEA are improving and lingering issues have been resolved. The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) deputy director, Ollie Heinonen’s recent trip to Tehran has been interpreted as confirming the alleviation of prior tensions.
4) The nuclear program is a symbol of national pride. Despite the Iranian public’s many issues and internal struggle with its theocratic and authoritarian government there is overwhelming support for the pursuit of a peaceful nuclear energy program. According to a 2006 World Public Opinion poll 9 out of 10 Iranians reckon it “important” for Iran to have a full-fuel-cycle program. Though sanctions are certainly beginning to pinch, as anyone who has recently been to Tehran can tell you, such sentiment is unlikely to change significantly; if anything, the perception of ‘western bullying” only goes to consolidate it.
In short, Tehran will continue to refuse to forgo its right to uranium enrichment and the Bush administration despite the very loud protestations of hawks will continue along the path of ‘aggressive diplomacy’ i.e. more sanctions in a bid to break the back of the Islamic republic. The possibility of full-blown military conflict remains real, but is presently tempered by energy prices and the global economic downturn. Rapprochement however is a distant prospect and the NPT remains the only genuine alternative by means of which a resolution to the ongoing crisis can be found.
© Sadegh Kabeer
Friday, August 8, 2008
Inside Iran's Garden of Diplomacy
Asia Times Online
Inside Iran's Garden of Diplomacy
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
"One must imagine Sisyphus happy."- Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus
With Russia contradicting the United States and Britain over Iran's nuclear program, saying there is no agreement on whether to try to get further United Nations sanctions against Iran, Tehran is driving a diplomatic wedge between the six powers dealing with its case.
Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, has compared the country's nuclear diplomacy to its unique talent in weaving exquisite carpets, promising to deliver a fine and sumptuous "silk carpet" at the end of the day, and this is what is happening in negotiations with the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany. It is a tough challenge and assumes Iran can overcome multiple and entrenched obstacles, such as United Nations sanctions and collective efforts by the big powers to pressure Iran into compliance with UN demands. These form many blind knots in the process of Iranian diplomatic weaving.
The issue is complex, given the latest video conference of the "Iran Six" representatives in response to Iran's one-page letter to the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana, deemed "unacceptable" by the US and Britain. Yet it is premature to brand Iran's diplomacy a failure and Jalili's efforts futile, as if he were Iran's Sisyphus rolling the nuclear ball up an endless hill in vain.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday said Iran's latest response to a demand for a freeze in uranium-enrichment activities in exchange for trade and technology incentives "is not a really serious answer". She added that Iran faced more sanctions if it failed to give an adequate response. The United Nations has already placed three rounds of sanctions on Iran, while the US has unilaterally imposed sanctions of its own.
But Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin admitted there is no clear consensus on further action against Iran. "There have been no firm agreements or understandings or any kind of concerted work in this regard," he said. "The main thing to remember [is] that the negotiating track is open, it is being pursued, there are contacts between the parties. Of course, some parties do raise the issue of sanctions from time to time."
Read the Full Article Here>>
Inside Iran's Garden of Diplomacy
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
"One must imagine Sisyphus happy."- Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus
With Russia contradicting the United States and Britain over Iran's nuclear program, saying there is no agreement on whether to try to get further United Nations sanctions against Iran, Tehran is driving a diplomatic wedge between the six powers dealing with its case.
Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, has compared the country's nuclear diplomacy to its unique talent in weaving exquisite carpets, promising to deliver a fine and sumptuous "silk carpet" at the end of the day, and this is what is happening in negotiations with the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany. It is a tough challenge and assumes Iran can overcome multiple and entrenched obstacles, such as United Nations sanctions and collective efforts by the big powers to pressure Iran into compliance with UN demands. These form many blind knots in the process of Iranian diplomatic weaving.
The issue is complex, given the latest video conference of the "Iran Six" representatives in response to Iran's one-page letter to the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana, deemed "unacceptable" by the US and Britain. Yet it is premature to brand Iran's diplomacy a failure and Jalili's efforts futile, as if he were Iran's Sisyphus rolling the nuclear ball up an endless hill in vain.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday said Iran's latest response to a demand for a freeze in uranium-enrichment activities in exchange for trade and technology incentives "is not a really serious answer". She added that Iran faced more sanctions if it failed to give an adequate response. The United Nations has already placed three rounds of sanctions on Iran, while the US has unilaterally imposed sanctions of its own.
But Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin admitted there is no clear consensus on further action against Iran. "There have been no firm agreements or understandings or any kind of concerted work in this regard," he said. "The main thing to remember [is] that the negotiating track is open, it is being pursued, there are contacts between the parties. Of course, some parties do raise the issue of sanctions from time to time."
Read the Full Article Here>>
Iranian Chess Game Continues
Bill Beeman is always worth a read...
Antiwar.com
August 8, 2008
The Iranian Chess Game Continues
by William O. Beeman
Diplomacy between Iran and the United States has entered the opening gambit stage, and Iran appears to be winning at this point.
The game began on July 19, when Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili met with European negotiators with an American diplomat, Undersecretary of State William J. Burns, present for the first time at such a meeting since the Iranian hostage crisis.
The presence of Burns riled many anti-Iranian forces, resulting in a flurry of pronouncements and articles about American "capitulation" to Iran. The recriminations continued. On Aug. 5, former UN Ambassador John Bolton, a notorious anti-Iran detractor, wrote a fulminating article in the Wall Street Journal titled "While Diplomats Dither, Iran Builds Nukes."
The Bush administration clearly found itself in a difficult situation, needing to placate hawks like Bolton and Vice President Dick Cheney while seeming to allow diplomacy to have a chance, so they made the talks not about substance, but about power – which side could compel the other to toe the line.
So the Bush administration started with a big lie. At the time of the July meeting the press and the State Department announced that Iran had a two-week deadline to respond to the European proposals (the exact details of which remain secret, but which are presumed to include an extensive basket of technology, economic, and trade incentives).
There was no such deadline. It appears to have been a fiction. However, this falsehood gave Washington and the press the opportunity on Aug. 2 to announce that Iran had "rejected" the deadline. The New York Times went so far as to call it an "informal deadline," a head-scratching concept.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was reported by Agence France Press to have said, "The language of deadline-setting is not understandable to us. We gave them our response within a month as we said we would; now they have to reply to us."
Even the State Department itself had to back down from the fictional deadline. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack threatened further sanctions if Iran did not respond on Wednesday, July 30. But he had changed his tune on Saturday, Aug. 2, the putative deadline. "I didn't count the days. It's coming up soon," he said. And when asked when Washington would pull incentives off the table designed to persuade Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment program, McCormack said "there is no indication of that."
So little happened at the July 19 meeting, it could hardly be called a diplomatic encounter. In fact, Iran has been pursuing a productive diplomatic course. Rather than responding to deadlines and ultimatums, Iran has steadily put forward proposals for resolving its differences with the European and American governments over its nuclear energy program. It is clear that Iran will not give up its "inalienable right" to peaceful development of nuclear energy, as enshrined in Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it (but not India, Pakistan, or Israel) is a signatory. It seeks other means, short of suspending uranium enrichment, to assure the world that it has no active nuclear weapons program.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Why Iran Won't Budge on Nukes
Originally published here on Time...but much thanks to Iran Coverage for the tip-off...Btw Iran Coverage is a great site, which I suggest you check out if you haven't already...
Time
By Nahid Siamdoust
Wednesday, Aug. 06, 2008
When U.S. officials appeal to the Iranian people over the heads of its regime, they like to assume that Tehran's defiance on the nuclear issue reflects only the extremist position of an unrepresentative revolutionary leadership. Plainly, they haven't met Dr. Akbar Etemad, who ran the nuclear program of the Shah's regime, which was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The scientist who first launched Iran's nuclear technology program under a U.S.-backed regime in 1974 today urges the regime that stripped him of his job to reject any international demand that it halt uranium enrichment.
Dr. Etemad told an academic conference in Toronto last weekend, "Iran already stopped nuclear enrichment at the behest of Europe for more than a year [a reference to Tehran's suspension of enrichment between late 2003 and mid-2005, to allow negotiations with the European Union]. And what happened? Nothing."
Iran delivered its response to the latest Western offer on the nuclear issue to E.U. officials in Brussels on Tuesday, and reportedly avoided any mention of a freeze on uranium enrichment. Britain, France and the U.S. have made clear that the consequence of Iran turning down the current offer will be a push for further U.N. sanctions against Tehran.
In an interview with TIME, the Swiss-educated scientist who lives in Paris and heads a group of prominent Iranian exiles that lobby against a military attack on Iran, said the solution to the nuclear standoff lay in re-establishing relations between Washington and Tehran. Although a senior U.S. diplomat joined the European-led delegation that met with Iranian officials in Geneva recently, Iran's response to the nuclear proposal may make it difficult for the Bush Administration to create a diplomatic opening.
Surprising as it may be to hear a member of the Shah's deposed regime support the stance of the Islamic Republic in a confrontation with the West, there is widespread concern among Iran experts that the current Western strategy of demanding that Iran forego the right to enrich uranium has created a diplomatic dead end.
Writing in the International Herald Tribune last week, Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, and analyst Anatol Lieven, argued that insisting Iran give up its right to any uranium enrichment is untenable, and instead suggested that the Western powers base their demands on the rights and limitations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — which would allow the international community "to place a verifiable cap on Iranian enrichment and other nuclear capabilities well short of weaponization."
Dr. Etemad agrees that the NPT, which governs the peaceful pursuit of nuclear energy under the supervision of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, holds the key. "The Americans, when they need the NPT, they talk about it; when they don't need it, they throw it away. You don't do that with an international treaty," he said. Iran is a signatory to the NPT, on the basis of which it is being held accountable by the United Nations Security Council over transparency issues. But the NPT allows signatories the right to enrich uranium, under IAEA supervision, for peaceful purposes. The U.S. and its allies fear that even building a peaceful enrichment capability would allow Iran to covertly produce weapons-grade materiel, and have argued that Tehran's violations of transparency and disclosure requirements of the NPT should mean it has forfeited its right to enrich uranium. But that argument has so far not been embraced by the U.N. or the IAEA, which reports there is "no evidence that Iran was working actively to build nuclear weapons."
Even though Iran's known uranium enrichment activities occur under the scrutiny of IAEA inspectors, the U.S. and its European allies and Israel suspect Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons capability. The charge infuriates Dr. Etemad. "With the Shah, we also came to the conclusion that Iran was in great need of nuclear energy because our population was steadily growing and our gas and oil will run out. That's why even though I was in the old regime, I should be fair to the new regime because they are following the same line. To speak frankly, with its bellicose behavior the West is pushing Iran towards nuclear weapons, even if they don't want them now."
The latest proposal from the Western powers hoped to break the deadlock by retreating from its demand that Iran shut down its enrichment activities as a precondition for talks. Instead, the new proposal suggests that Iran simply refrain from expanding its current enrichment program for six weeks, during which time the U.N. Security Council would refrain from imposing new sanctions. And in that "freeze-for-freeze" interim, the two sides would negotiate a more comprehensive deal. But there's no sign thus far that Tehran is prepared to accept even that proposal.
"The Europeans say stop enrichment and we'll talk, but the Iranians already did that and nothing happened," said Dr. Etemad. "At the time of the Shah, we signed contracts with both France and Germany and even then they didn't deliver. If I were in the current regime, I wouldn't trust the West. They don't even give Iran civilian airplane parts, which is costing hundreds of lives; why should they believe that they will give them enriched uranium?" If that's the position of a liberal critic of the regime, it's likely that the stance of the current Iranian leadership on the nuclear issue enjoys widespread support among Iranians.
To be sure, many Iranians also fear the consequences of continued defiance. "What if this hard line means war?" asked daytime-mechanic, nighttime-taxi driver Bahram, 24, in Tehran recently, echoing concerns heard from a number of ordinary Iranians.
"For years now, they are threatening us with an attack," Dr. Etemad said, adding, "This is humiliating. We are not ants," referring to an Esquire interview with Admiral William Fallon about Iran back in March, in which he is reported to have said, "These guys are ants. When the time comes, you crush them."
"If you're weak, they attack you," says the scientist. "If you're not weak, they won't attack you. We have to be a strong country and end these humiliating threats. And being strong means not listening to the foreigners."
Time
By Nahid Siamdoust
Wednesday, Aug. 06, 2008
When U.S. officials appeal to the Iranian people over the heads of its regime, they like to assume that Tehran's defiance on the nuclear issue reflects only the extremist position of an unrepresentative revolutionary leadership. Plainly, they haven't met Dr. Akbar Etemad, who ran the nuclear program of the Shah's regime, which was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The scientist who first launched Iran's nuclear technology program under a U.S.-backed regime in 1974 today urges the regime that stripped him of his job to reject any international demand that it halt uranium enrichment.
Dr. Etemad told an academic conference in Toronto last weekend, "Iran already stopped nuclear enrichment at the behest of Europe for more than a year [a reference to Tehran's suspension of enrichment between late 2003 and mid-2005, to allow negotiations with the European Union]. And what happened? Nothing."
Iran delivered its response to the latest Western offer on the nuclear issue to E.U. officials in Brussels on Tuesday, and reportedly avoided any mention of a freeze on uranium enrichment. Britain, France and the U.S. have made clear that the consequence of Iran turning down the current offer will be a push for further U.N. sanctions against Tehran.
In an interview with TIME, the Swiss-educated scientist who lives in Paris and heads a group of prominent Iranian exiles that lobby against a military attack on Iran, said the solution to the nuclear standoff lay in re-establishing relations between Washington and Tehran. Although a senior U.S. diplomat joined the European-led delegation that met with Iranian officials in Geneva recently, Iran's response to the nuclear proposal may make it difficult for the Bush Administration to create a diplomatic opening.
Surprising as it may be to hear a member of the Shah's deposed regime support the stance of the Islamic Republic in a confrontation with the West, there is widespread concern among Iran experts that the current Western strategy of demanding that Iran forego the right to enrich uranium has created a diplomatic dead end.
Writing in the International Herald Tribune last week, Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, and analyst Anatol Lieven, argued that insisting Iran give up its right to any uranium enrichment is untenable, and instead suggested that the Western powers base their demands on the rights and limitations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — which would allow the international community "to place a verifiable cap on Iranian enrichment and other nuclear capabilities well short of weaponization."
Dr. Etemad agrees that the NPT, which governs the peaceful pursuit of nuclear energy under the supervision of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, holds the key. "The Americans, when they need the NPT, they talk about it; when they don't need it, they throw it away. You don't do that with an international treaty," he said. Iran is a signatory to the NPT, on the basis of which it is being held accountable by the United Nations Security Council over transparency issues. But the NPT allows signatories the right to enrich uranium, under IAEA supervision, for peaceful purposes. The U.S. and its allies fear that even building a peaceful enrichment capability would allow Iran to covertly produce weapons-grade materiel, and have argued that Tehran's violations of transparency and disclosure requirements of the NPT should mean it has forfeited its right to enrich uranium. But that argument has so far not been embraced by the U.N. or the IAEA, which reports there is "no evidence that Iran was working actively to build nuclear weapons."
Even though Iran's known uranium enrichment activities occur under the scrutiny of IAEA inspectors, the U.S. and its European allies and Israel suspect Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons capability. The charge infuriates Dr. Etemad. "With the Shah, we also came to the conclusion that Iran was in great need of nuclear energy because our population was steadily growing and our gas and oil will run out. That's why even though I was in the old regime, I should be fair to the new regime because they are following the same line. To speak frankly, with its bellicose behavior the West is pushing Iran towards nuclear weapons, even if they don't want them now."
The latest proposal from the Western powers hoped to break the deadlock by retreating from its demand that Iran shut down its enrichment activities as a precondition for talks. Instead, the new proposal suggests that Iran simply refrain from expanding its current enrichment program for six weeks, during which time the U.N. Security Council would refrain from imposing new sanctions. And in that "freeze-for-freeze" interim, the two sides would negotiate a more comprehensive deal. But there's no sign thus far that Tehran is prepared to accept even that proposal.
"The Europeans say stop enrichment and we'll talk, but the Iranians already did that and nothing happened," said Dr. Etemad. "At the time of the Shah, we signed contracts with both France and Germany and even then they didn't deliver. If I were in the current regime, I wouldn't trust the West. They don't even give Iran civilian airplane parts, which is costing hundreds of lives; why should they believe that they will give them enriched uranium?" If that's the position of a liberal critic of the regime, it's likely that the stance of the current Iranian leadership on the nuclear issue enjoys widespread support among Iranians.
To be sure, many Iranians also fear the consequences of continued defiance. "What if this hard line means war?" asked daytime-mechanic, nighttime-taxi driver Bahram, 24, in Tehran recently, echoing concerns heard from a number of ordinary Iranians.
"For years now, they are threatening us with an attack," Dr. Etemad said, adding, "This is humiliating. We are not ants," referring to an Esquire interview with Admiral William Fallon about Iran back in March, in which he is reported to have said, "These guys are ants. When the time comes, you crush them."
"If you're weak, they attack you," says the scientist. "If you're not weak, they won't attack you. We have to be a strong country and end these humiliating threats. And being strong means not listening to the foreigners."
Iran Sanctions likely to Rise as Election Issue
Tehran dismisses latest UN offer on nuclear program, prolonging the debate over more sanctions.
By Howard LaFranchi Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the August 6, 2008 edition
Washington - Iran on Tuesday failed to take up international powers on their offer designed to defuse a deepening nuclear dispute, setting the stage for months of debate over further sanctions against Tehran – and virtually guaranteeing that Iran will figure as a top foreign policy issue in the US presidential campaign.
In a written response to the latest offer from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, Iran apparently argues for more talks but does not even mention the group's proposal for a freeze on further sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program in exchange for a freeze on uranium enrichment.
That offer was designed to create a window for substantive negotiations on a package of incentives – endorsed by the United States – in exchange for a dismantling of Iran's uranium enrichment activity.
Rejection of the so-called "freeze for freeze" offer made earlier this year by the five permanent Security Council members – Britain, China, France, Russia, and the US – plus Germany, would set in motion discussions of what would be a fourth round of UN sanctions against Tehran.
Still, lack of enthusiasm from China and Russia, and to a lesser degree Germany, for yet more sanctions means debate could stretch past a round of high-level meetings at the UN in September into October, some Western diplomats and nonproliferation experts say.
On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said diplomats from the six major powers would hold another conference call on Iran Wednesday – clearly a message to Tehran that its response is seen as what German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier recently called "dallying."
Diplomacy effort helps US case
The US is in a better position to press for additional sanctions, some experts say, after the Bush administration reversed its previous course and sent a top diplomat to Geneva last month as part of a high-level international delegation that sat down with the Iranians over the nuclear issue.
"Having advanced its diplomatic steps, the Bush administration is in a stronger position now to argue that Iran hasn't felt enough pressure, and so the right response is to focus their minds with another round" of sanctions, says Jon Wolfsthal, an international security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The risk to another prolonged debate on sanctions, Mr. Wolsfsthal adds, is that if it does not succeed in turning up the heat on Tehran another notch, the Iranians are likely to conclude that they have prevailed. "The US should not pursue another round of sanctions unless it's sure of getting it," he says. "They'd better not go to the well unless they are sure they will be able to bring up some water."
Iran's dismissal of the latest international offer was not unexpected. On Saturday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Iran would not budge "one iota" from its nuclear path – though he did say further negotiations were welcome.
That response prompted a high-level conference call Monday with diplomats from the Security Council countries and Germany. Participants agreed Iran's rebuff left the international community no choice but to tighten the economic and financial screws on Tehran, say US diplomats.
"The pressure on Iran to comply with the demands of the international community and its obligations [the international sanctions] will only grow," Mr. Gallegos said Monday.
Oil prices cushioned sanctions' impact
Talks over another round of sanctions will feed an international debate over whether existing financial and economic pressure on Tehran is having much of an impact. The high price of oil is providing Tehran with something of a cushion, most international economists argue, but they say Iran's leadership would clearly prefer not to see any additional constraints on its trade and international financial options.
Any tension-relieving agreement between Iran and international powers would probably lead to a quick drop in the price of oil – something that is not necessarily in the interest of Tehran – or of Russia, for that matter. Iran is the world's fourth-largest producer of oil – and it has also recently stepped up threats to block the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf if it were attacked. About 40 percent of the oil traded on the world market travels through that strategic strait.
A US election issue
Not only will the anticipated UN debate over fresh sanctions keep Iran in the US presidential campaign, but experts like Wolfsthal with an eye on the international nuclear calendar note that the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is set to review a new report on Iran's nuclear progress in September.
Also, a top UN nuclear watchdog official will go to Iran on Thursday, the agency said, amid tension between Tehran and international powers. An IAEA spokesman could not specify the purpose of the visit by Olli Heinonen, IAEA's deputy director overseeing inspections and long-running UN inquiries into Iran's nuclear program. The semiofficial Iranian news agency ISNA said Mr. Heinonen would be in Iran for three days and that his trip was part of the UN watchdog's monitoring program.
"With all of this coming up in the fall, Iran will be injected into the presidential race no matter what the IAEA finds or how the sanctions debate proceeds," says Wolfsthal.
Until now, the "Iran argument" in the campaign had been over "whether to engage with them or not," Wolfsthal says. That has shifted since the Bush administration sent Undersecretary William Burns to participate in talks with Tehran last month in Geneva. But the IAEA findings and UN discussions on additional sanctions will still feed the campaign debate.
"By opening up to sitting down with Tehran, Bush is in a way putting [Republican presidential candidate John] McCain to the right of the administration," says Wolfsthal. "But if nothing comes of all this, McCain can also argue that the heightened diplomacy didn't really play out."
Originally published here on the Christian Science Monitor...
By Howard LaFranchi Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the August 6, 2008 edition
Washington - Iran on Tuesday failed to take up international powers on their offer designed to defuse a deepening nuclear dispute, setting the stage for months of debate over further sanctions against Tehran – and virtually guaranteeing that Iran will figure as a top foreign policy issue in the US presidential campaign.
In a written response to the latest offer from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, Iran apparently argues for more talks but does not even mention the group's proposal for a freeze on further sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program in exchange for a freeze on uranium enrichment.
That offer was designed to create a window for substantive negotiations on a package of incentives – endorsed by the United States – in exchange for a dismantling of Iran's uranium enrichment activity.
Rejection of the so-called "freeze for freeze" offer made earlier this year by the five permanent Security Council members – Britain, China, France, Russia, and the US – plus Germany, would set in motion discussions of what would be a fourth round of UN sanctions against Tehran.
Still, lack of enthusiasm from China and Russia, and to a lesser degree Germany, for yet more sanctions means debate could stretch past a round of high-level meetings at the UN in September into October, some Western diplomats and nonproliferation experts say.
On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said diplomats from the six major powers would hold another conference call on Iran Wednesday – clearly a message to Tehran that its response is seen as what German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier recently called "dallying."
Diplomacy effort helps US case
The US is in a better position to press for additional sanctions, some experts say, after the Bush administration reversed its previous course and sent a top diplomat to Geneva last month as part of a high-level international delegation that sat down with the Iranians over the nuclear issue.
"Having advanced its diplomatic steps, the Bush administration is in a stronger position now to argue that Iran hasn't felt enough pressure, and so the right response is to focus their minds with another round" of sanctions, says Jon Wolfsthal, an international security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The risk to another prolonged debate on sanctions, Mr. Wolsfsthal adds, is that if it does not succeed in turning up the heat on Tehran another notch, the Iranians are likely to conclude that they have prevailed. "The US should not pursue another round of sanctions unless it's sure of getting it," he says. "They'd better not go to the well unless they are sure they will be able to bring up some water."
Iran's dismissal of the latest international offer was not unexpected. On Saturday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Iran would not budge "one iota" from its nuclear path – though he did say further negotiations were welcome.
That response prompted a high-level conference call Monday with diplomats from the Security Council countries and Germany. Participants agreed Iran's rebuff left the international community no choice but to tighten the economic and financial screws on Tehran, say US diplomats.
"The pressure on Iran to comply with the demands of the international community and its obligations [the international sanctions] will only grow," Mr. Gallegos said Monday.
Oil prices cushioned sanctions' impact
Talks over another round of sanctions will feed an international debate over whether existing financial and economic pressure on Tehran is having much of an impact. The high price of oil is providing Tehran with something of a cushion, most international economists argue, but they say Iran's leadership would clearly prefer not to see any additional constraints on its trade and international financial options.
Any tension-relieving agreement between Iran and international powers would probably lead to a quick drop in the price of oil – something that is not necessarily in the interest of Tehran – or of Russia, for that matter. Iran is the world's fourth-largest producer of oil – and it has also recently stepped up threats to block the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf if it were attacked. About 40 percent of the oil traded on the world market travels through that strategic strait.
A US election issue
Not only will the anticipated UN debate over fresh sanctions keep Iran in the US presidential campaign, but experts like Wolfsthal with an eye on the international nuclear calendar note that the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is set to review a new report on Iran's nuclear progress in September.
Also, a top UN nuclear watchdog official will go to Iran on Thursday, the agency said, amid tension between Tehran and international powers. An IAEA spokesman could not specify the purpose of the visit by Olli Heinonen, IAEA's deputy director overseeing inspections and long-running UN inquiries into Iran's nuclear program. The semiofficial Iranian news agency ISNA said Mr. Heinonen would be in Iran for three days and that his trip was part of the UN watchdog's monitoring program.
"With all of this coming up in the fall, Iran will be injected into the presidential race no matter what the IAEA finds or how the sanctions debate proceeds," says Wolfsthal.
Until now, the "Iran argument" in the campaign had been over "whether to engage with them or not," Wolfsthal says. That has shifted since the Bush administration sent Undersecretary William Burns to participate in talks with Tehran last month in Geneva. But the IAEA findings and UN discussions on additional sanctions will still feed the campaign debate.
"By opening up to sitting down with Tehran, Bush is in a way putting [Republican presidential candidate John] McCain to the right of the administration," says Wolfsthal. "But if nothing comes of all this, McCain can also argue that the heightened diplomacy didn't really play out."
Originally published here on the Christian Science Monitor...
US: Iran Reaction to Nuclear Offer Not Acceptable
MATTHEW LEE
AP News
Aug 05, 2008 14:46 EST
Iran's response to an incentives package aimed at defusing a dispute over its nuclear program is unacceptable, U.S. officials said Tuesday, making the prospect of new sanctions against the country more likely.
The officials told The Associated Press that a one-page document Iran presented to European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Brussels is not, as had been sought, a definitive reply to the offer from major world powers to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing in exchange for economic and other benefits.
Instead, the officials said it was a restatement of Tehran's earlier insistence on the right to conduct peaceful nuclear activities and essentially a transcription of portions of recent telephone conversations between Solana and chief Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili.
In the short, English-language document, Iran says it will provide a "clear response" to the offer but only after it receives a "clear response" to questions it has about the incentives, the officials said.
One official described it as "more obfuscation and delay" to the package, which was presented earlier this year by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany.
The officials, who said they were not surprised by the response, spoke on condition of anonymity because Solana's office has not yet characterized the Iranian reply.
In Brussels, an E.U. diplomat said the Iranian reply was being analyzed and would be discussed "very soon" by Solana and senior diplomats from the six countries that made the offer — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
The State Department said those diplomats would hold a conference call Wednesday to discuss the way ahead, and the U.S. officials said a discussion of new sanctions on Iran could begin as early as then.
Shortly after Solana's office received the document and forwarded copies by e-mail to the six governments involved, Washington said that anything less than full acceptance of the package would force the grouping, known as the P5-plus-1, to seek new sanctions against Iran.
"We are looking for a clear, positive response from Iran, and in the absence of that we're going to have no choice but to pursue further measures against them," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters.
The offer was reiterated to Iran on July 19, when senior diplomats from the six nations and the European Union met in person with Jalili to set an informal two-week deadline for Iran to either accept or reject it.
The meeting was notable because the Bush administration broke with its long-standing policy and sent the State Department's third-ranking diplomat to the session aimed at proving its seriousness about the package.
The United States and others accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program. Iran denies the charge, insisting its program is peaceful, but it has thus far refused to halt enriching uranium, which can produce the ingredients for a bomb.
Iran is currently under three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions and could soon face a fourth unless it accepts the incentives package. In addition, the United States, the European Union and individual E.U. members have imposed their own unilateral sanctions against Iranian banks and other institutions.
___
Associated Press writer Jan Sliva in Brussels contributed to this report.
Source: AP News
AP News
Aug 05, 2008 14:46 EST
Iran's response to an incentives package aimed at defusing a dispute over its nuclear program is unacceptable, U.S. officials said Tuesday, making the prospect of new sanctions against the country more likely.
The officials told The Associated Press that a one-page document Iran presented to European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Brussels is not, as had been sought, a definitive reply to the offer from major world powers to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing in exchange for economic and other benefits.
Instead, the officials said it was a restatement of Tehran's earlier insistence on the right to conduct peaceful nuclear activities and essentially a transcription of portions of recent telephone conversations between Solana and chief Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili.
In the short, English-language document, Iran says it will provide a "clear response" to the offer but only after it receives a "clear response" to questions it has about the incentives, the officials said.
One official described it as "more obfuscation and delay" to the package, which was presented earlier this year by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany.
The officials, who said they were not surprised by the response, spoke on condition of anonymity because Solana's office has not yet characterized the Iranian reply.
In Brussels, an E.U. diplomat said the Iranian reply was being analyzed and would be discussed "very soon" by Solana and senior diplomats from the six countries that made the offer — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
The State Department said those diplomats would hold a conference call Wednesday to discuss the way ahead, and the U.S. officials said a discussion of new sanctions on Iran could begin as early as then.
Shortly after Solana's office received the document and forwarded copies by e-mail to the six governments involved, Washington said that anything less than full acceptance of the package would force the grouping, known as the P5-plus-1, to seek new sanctions against Iran.
"We are looking for a clear, positive response from Iran, and in the absence of that we're going to have no choice but to pursue further measures against them," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters.
The offer was reiterated to Iran on July 19, when senior diplomats from the six nations and the European Union met in person with Jalili to set an informal two-week deadline for Iran to either accept or reject it.
The meeting was notable because the Bush administration broke with its long-standing policy and sent the State Department's third-ranking diplomat to the session aimed at proving its seriousness about the package.
The United States and others accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program. Iran denies the charge, insisting its program is peaceful, but it has thus far refused to halt enriching uranium, which can produce the ingredients for a bomb.
Iran is currently under three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions and could soon face a fourth unless it accepts the incentives package. In addition, the United States, the European Union and individual E.U. members have imposed their own unilateral sanctions against Iranian banks and other institutions.
___
Associated Press writer Jan Sliva in Brussels contributed to this report.
Source: AP News
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Iran Replies to EU Nuclear Package
Originally publishe here on Al-Jazeera.net...
Tuesday, August 05, 2008 18:35 Mecca time, 15:35 GMT
Iran has delivered its reply to proposals laid out by EU officials aimed at defusing the row over Tehran's nuclear programme.
The "written response" was handed to EU officials in Brussels on Tuesday, according to Iran's Fars news agency, but the message is thought to avoid mention of a freeze on Iran's nuclear work.
"The letter does not mention the freeze-for-freeze issue," the Reuters news agency quoted a senior Iranian official as saying.
The freeze is a step Western powers have demanded if Iran is to avoid more UN sanctions.
Seyed Mohammed Marandi, from the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera: "The five-plus-one proposal has a number of ambiguities that the Iranians feel that until they are resolved properly, Iran cannot respond properly to the proposal itself."
The "five-plus-one" powers are Britain, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany - the six countries involved in the negotiations.
"Iran is trying to resolve these ambiguities and I think this letter is part of that process," Marandi said.
No 'clear response'
Iran's "written response" has not been seen as a formal reply to the EU proposals.
A US spokesman said negotiators from the "five-plus-one" were due to hold a conference call on Wednesday to decide their next move.
Gonzalo Gallegos, as US state department spokesman, said: "If we are not going to receive a clear response, a clear message from them, we are going to have no choice but to pursue additional measures."
Elahe Mohtasham, a nuclear specialist from the Foreign Policy Centre in London, told Al Jazeera that Iran's position "hasn't really changed as far as any suspension of its nuclear centrifuge activity is concerned".
"The best bet - in terms of the interests of the West - is to start negotaitons without any precondiditions ... and then in the course of negotations maybe we will be able to get more concessions from Iran," she said.
"Sanctions haven't worked and are very unlikely to work. Any further sanctions would really increase the price of oil and wouldn't benefit the world economy."
Deadline passed
The UK had warned that a lack of a positive answer from Tehran by the end of Tuesday would prompt the six powers to ask the UN Security Council to take further punitive measures.
The new deadline was set after Iran ignored a previous demand to respond by last weekend to the proposed package.
The UN has already imposed three sets of sanctions against Iran over the dispute.
Tensions were again heightened on Monday, Iran said it had successfully test-fired an anti-ship missile with a range of 300km that would allow it to close the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman.
General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said: "No enemy vessels would be able to escape it."
Tehran has steadfastly refused to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities, which it says are aimed only at producing fuel for nuclear power production.
Western powers fear the programme is a cover for developing nuclear weapons.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008 18:35 Mecca time, 15:35 GMT
Iran has delivered its reply to proposals laid out by EU officials aimed at defusing the row over Tehran's nuclear programme.
The "written response" was handed to EU officials in Brussels on Tuesday, according to Iran's Fars news agency, but the message is thought to avoid mention of a freeze on Iran's nuclear work.
"The letter does not mention the freeze-for-freeze issue," the Reuters news agency quoted a senior Iranian official as saying.
The freeze is a step Western powers have demanded if Iran is to avoid more UN sanctions.
Seyed Mohammed Marandi, from the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera: "The five-plus-one proposal has a number of ambiguities that the Iranians feel that until they are resolved properly, Iran cannot respond properly to the proposal itself."
The "five-plus-one" powers are Britain, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany - the six countries involved in the negotiations.
"Iran is trying to resolve these ambiguities and I think this letter is part of that process," Marandi said.
No 'clear response'
Iran's "written response" has not been seen as a formal reply to the EU proposals.
A US spokesman said negotiators from the "five-plus-one" were due to hold a conference call on Wednesday to decide their next move.
Gonzalo Gallegos, as US state department spokesman, said: "If we are not going to receive a clear response, a clear message from them, we are going to have no choice but to pursue additional measures."
Elahe Mohtasham, a nuclear specialist from the Foreign Policy Centre in London, told Al Jazeera that Iran's position "hasn't really changed as far as any suspension of its nuclear centrifuge activity is concerned".
"The best bet - in terms of the interests of the West - is to start negotaitons without any precondiditions ... and then in the course of negotations maybe we will be able to get more concessions from Iran," she said.
"Sanctions haven't worked and are very unlikely to work. Any further sanctions would really increase the price of oil and wouldn't benefit the world economy."
Deadline passed
The UK had warned that a lack of a positive answer from Tehran by the end of Tuesday would prompt the six powers to ask the UN Security Council to take further punitive measures.
The new deadline was set after Iran ignored a previous demand to respond by last weekend to the proposed package.
The UN has already imposed three sets of sanctions against Iran over the dispute.
Tensions were again heightened on Monday, Iran said it had successfully test-fired an anti-ship missile with a range of 300km that would allow it to close the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman.
General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said: "No enemy vessels would be able to escape it."
Tehran has steadfastly refused to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities, which it says are aimed only at producing fuel for nuclear power production.
Western powers fear the programme is a cover for developing nuclear weapons.
Iran Heartened by India's Nuclear Vote
Asia Times Online
August 5, 2008
By Kaveh Afrasiabi
The United States-India civilian nuclear cooperation agreement has now been officially endorsed by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which paves the way for its approval by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) - a collection of nations that monitor sales of civilian nuclear technology - this autumn, irrespective of expressed reservations, if not outright opposition, of some NSG members. They are concerned about the adverse impact of this agreement on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in light of India's status as a de facto nuclear weapons state.
The NSG, which is expected to hold its next meeting on August 21 in Vienna, bans trade with states such as India that have not signed the NPT and will need to give India a waiver. The deal then goes before the US Congress for ratification. The US-India accord is a Cold War-type agreement that has been diligently promoted by its Washington architects in terms of the US's geostrategic interests, thus raising the ire of both Pakistan and China. Behind the official US justifications of this agreement, the Cold War calculus of regional alignments and bringing New Delhi in closer geopolitical alliance with the US is unmistakable. In turn, this raises serious questions about the near and long-term implications for India's foreign policy orientation.
At the same time, this agreement, by loosening the US's own standards on the export of nuclear technology and placing a great deal of faith in the IAEA inspection of India's nuclear facilities, to ensure the absence of any illicit military diversion, has prompted Tehran to refer to it as reflective of US double standards. This is because of the US's stubborn rejection of the suggestion that Iran's nuclear fuel cycle can be effectively monitored, via a set of so-called objective guarantees, thus allowing Iran's program to continue.
Not only that, this agreement rewards a non-NPT state, ie, India, by giving it unfettered access to cutting-edge US nuclear technology and material, as well as providing for close nuclear research and development, for example in the area of "controlled thermonuclear diffusion", and yet somehow builds a tall China wall between India's civil and military nuclear programs, as if they transpire not in a single state but rather in two different universes. That is patently absurd, as any Indian nuclear scientist benefiting from the advancement in the civilian sector can be easily shifted to the military sector.
Setting a new precedent, this agreement is bound to be duplicated as other nuclear supplier states, such as Russia, France and China, may follow in the US's footsteps. Already there are talks of a similar China-Pakistan agreement, not to mention Israel's ability to pursue a similar agreement with the US or other countries, irrespective of the fact that Israel is also not a signatory to the NPT and has reportedly built up a formidable nuclear arsenal consisting of some 200 nuclear bombs.
Unfortunately, the IAEA, which has praised this agreement that clearly enhances the atomic agency's role and influence by deepening its reach to aspects of India's nuclear program, is blind to the down sides of this accord and the anarchy it introduces into the realm of NSG criteria, and the doors it opens for other powers to copy it.
With respect to Iran, the US-India nuclear agreement represents a timely diplomatic boon for Tehran, which can now point at the US's flexible application of its own nuclear policies as a reference point in Tehran's nuclear negotiations. Indeed, if the White House is determined to get this agreement passed by the US Congress by, among others, relying on the IAEA's role in inspecting India's facilities, why can't the same logic hold for Iran, which has been cooperative with the IAEA since 2003?
There are serious dissimilarities between India and Iran. For one thing, unlike India, which has 14 nuclear reactors and some nine more under construction, Iran has only one reactor, the one in Bushehr, which is now nine years behind schedule for its completion by Russian contractors.
Also, Iran is one of the original signatories of the NPT and has always formally abided by the NPT's articles, even though in practice it fell short at times, although the scope of its corrective steps in the past few years has brought Iran up to standards within the NPT regime. As a result, Iran has more of a legal case for seeking nuclear assistance from other countries, pursuant to the NPT articles, than India, which apparently is now interested in using its agreement with the US for de facto or de jure recognition as a NPT nuclear weapons state. There are important similarities between India and Iran, such as with respect to the nuclear fuel programs of the countries, cited above, that warrant a limited comparison by the US and the other participants of the "Iran Six" currently negotiating with Iran - Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany.
However, assuming that the US-India agreement proves only the first of its kind, thus setting into motion a new dynamic that will fuel nuclear proliferation in various parts of the world, including Asia and the Middle East, it is a safe bet that its net impact will be to strengthen Iran's latent nuclear proliferation tendency, by introducing new heat on it to play catch-up.
That tendency is being kept in check by the combined force of Iran's ideological aversion toward nuclear weapons and its stated hope to build up the momentum for regional non-proliferation and global disarmament. But a serious setback to both objectives, nested in the US-India nuclear pact, may tilt Iran away from its stated nuclear policies and intentions in the face of unpleasant realities, for example, the acceleration of Pakistan's nuclear program to offset any undue imbalance in India's favor as a direct result of New Delhi's historic deal with Washington.
Read the Full Article Here>>
August 5, 2008
By Kaveh Afrasiabi
The United States-India civilian nuclear cooperation agreement has now been officially endorsed by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which paves the way for its approval by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) - a collection of nations that monitor sales of civilian nuclear technology - this autumn, irrespective of expressed reservations, if not outright opposition, of some NSG members. They are concerned about the adverse impact of this agreement on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in light of India's status as a de facto nuclear weapons state.
The NSG, which is expected to hold its next meeting on August 21 in Vienna, bans trade with states such as India that have not signed the NPT and will need to give India a waiver. The deal then goes before the US Congress for ratification. The US-India accord is a Cold War-type agreement that has been diligently promoted by its Washington architects in terms of the US's geostrategic interests, thus raising the ire of both Pakistan and China. Behind the official US justifications of this agreement, the Cold War calculus of regional alignments and bringing New Delhi in closer geopolitical alliance with the US is unmistakable. In turn, this raises serious questions about the near and long-term implications for India's foreign policy orientation.
At the same time, this agreement, by loosening the US's own standards on the export of nuclear technology and placing a great deal of faith in the IAEA inspection of India's nuclear facilities, to ensure the absence of any illicit military diversion, has prompted Tehran to refer to it as reflective of US double standards. This is because of the US's stubborn rejection of the suggestion that Iran's nuclear fuel cycle can be effectively monitored, via a set of so-called objective guarantees, thus allowing Iran's program to continue.
Not only that, this agreement rewards a non-NPT state, ie, India, by giving it unfettered access to cutting-edge US nuclear technology and material, as well as providing for close nuclear research and development, for example in the area of "controlled thermonuclear diffusion", and yet somehow builds a tall China wall between India's civil and military nuclear programs, as if they transpire not in a single state but rather in two different universes. That is patently absurd, as any Indian nuclear scientist benefiting from the advancement in the civilian sector can be easily shifted to the military sector.
Setting a new precedent, this agreement is bound to be duplicated as other nuclear supplier states, such as Russia, France and China, may follow in the US's footsteps. Already there are talks of a similar China-Pakistan agreement, not to mention Israel's ability to pursue a similar agreement with the US or other countries, irrespective of the fact that Israel is also not a signatory to the NPT and has reportedly built up a formidable nuclear arsenal consisting of some 200 nuclear bombs.
Unfortunately, the IAEA, which has praised this agreement that clearly enhances the atomic agency's role and influence by deepening its reach to aspects of India's nuclear program, is blind to the down sides of this accord and the anarchy it introduces into the realm of NSG criteria, and the doors it opens for other powers to copy it.
With respect to Iran, the US-India nuclear agreement represents a timely diplomatic boon for Tehran, which can now point at the US's flexible application of its own nuclear policies as a reference point in Tehran's nuclear negotiations. Indeed, if the White House is determined to get this agreement passed by the US Congress by, among others, relying on the IAEA's role in inspecting India's facilities, why can't the same logic hold for Iran, which has been cooperative with the IAEA since 2003?
There are serious dissimilarities between India and Iran. For one thing, unlike India, which has 14 nuclear reactors and some nine more under construction, Iran has only one reactor, the one in Bushehr, which is now nine years behind schedule for its completion by Russian contractors.
Also, Iran is one of the original signatories of the NPT and has always formally abided by the NPT's articles, even though in practice it fell short at times, although the scope of its corrective steps in the past few years has brought Iran up to standards within the NPT regime. As a result, Iran has more of a legal case for seeking nuclear assistance from other countries, pursuant to the NPT articles, than India, which apparently is now interested in using its agreement with the US for de facto or de jure recognition as a NPT nuclear weapons state. There are important similarities between India and Iran, such as with respect to the nuclear fuel programs of the countries, cited above, that warrant a limited comparison by the US and the other participants of the "Iran Six" currently negotiating with Iran - Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany.
However, assuming that the US-India agreement proves only the first of its kind, thus setting into motion a new dynamic that will fuel nuclear proliferation in various parts of the world, including Asia and the Middle East, it is a safe bet that its net impact will be to strengthen Iran's latent nuclear proliferation tendency, by introducing new heat on it to play catch-up.
That tendency is being kept in check by the combined force of Iran's ideological aversion toward nuclear weapons and its stated hope to build up the momentum for regional non-proliferation and global disarmament. But a serious setback to both objectives, nested in the US-India nuclear pact, may tilt Iran away from its stated nuclear policies and intentions in the face of unpleasant realities, for example, the acceleration of Pakistan's nuclear program to offset any undue imbalance in India's favor as a direct result of New Delhi's historic deal with Washington.
Read the Full Article Here>>
Preparing for War Through Negotiations? by Babak Rahimi
Antiwar.com
August 5, 2008
Preparing for War Through Negotiations?
by Babak Rahimi
The latest series of test missiles launched by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the northern part of the Persian Gulf and the eastern Hormuz Strait has fueled new concerns over a military conflict in the region. Despite apparent diplomatic progress between Tehran and six world powers in recent weeks, the report of missile tests has added a renewed sense of uneasiness over the fate of negotiations about Iran's controversial nuclear program. A specter of conflict now haunts the region, with the Iranian, Israeli, and American militaries making serious preparations for a possible military conflict.
The military strategy behind the display of high-tech missiles by Tehran is the same as it has been in the past: to exhibit the regime's progress in producing advanced conventional military technology as a way to deter what it perceives as American aggression. But the recent spectacle also shows Tehran's immediate readiness for military confrontation. As a response to recent reports of Israeli naval training missions over the Mediterranean and planned U.S.-led war games in the Persian Gulf, the Revolutionary Guard is eager to demonstrate its determination to strike back at American forces and Israel, with Haifa as one of the targets of the newly improved Shahab missiles.
In many ways, Iran's decision to test the missiles is closely connected with the recent restructuring of the command units within the Revolutionary Guard leadership as well as the appointments of Mohammad Hejazi as head of the Sarallah division, a military unit in the IRGC, and Hussein Hamedani as the vice commander of the Basij Corps. Both are major hard-liners who share a long record of military experience and enjoy close relations with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The changes in the Guard's command structure may only be a routine operational procedure, but they also reflect a new organizational tactic of appoint new leadership in order to eliminate the possibility of espionage and to maintain readiness in case of confrontation.
In light of rising tensions, the view inside Iran is alarmist. Among the public, fear of an American attack remains high in the busy streets of Tehran. On the state level, U.S.-led efforts to isolate Iran through sanctions and calls for military action by a number of American and Israeli politicians have reinforced the perception that Washington is blindly determined to undermine the Islamic Republic and thwart the country's regional influence, which has grown since the fall of the Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. The government believes that one of the best ways to counteract perceived American aggression, backed by predominantly hostile Sunni Arab states in the Persian Gulf, where the U.S. maintains large bases, is to establish a prominent military force equipped with high-tech weaponry.
The main source of conflict lies in the standoff over the terms of preconditions set out in the nuclear negotiations by the five Security Council states, plus Germany (5+1). The provision requires Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium in exchange for a freeze on sanctions and economic and technological benefits included in an incentive package originally offered in 2006.
However, the latest meeting in Geneva, which for the first time in 30 years brought together American and Iranian high-ranking diplomats to the negotiations table, reveals the fundamental flaw in the logic of enrichment suspension, both on a short- and long-term basis. By advancing the "freeze-for-freeze" proposal that obliges Iran to halt its enrichment of uranium for the immediate freeze of additional sanctions for a six-week period, the six powers have, once again, helped the hard-liners to reinforce the view in Iran that the West, meaning Washington, aims to keep the country backward, an affront to an independent nation seeking to become a symbol of a non-Western form of modernity. In a country with competing centers of power, the hard-liners, who wield major political influence on foreign affairs, have been able to successfully depict the ongoing nuclear negotiations as a form of Western paternalism and stalling them as a way of resisting foreign aggression.
What the six powers continue to ignore is Tehran's main objective for continuing the talks: to display strength and, with increased pressure, to maintain political hegemony on the domestic front. The nuclear talks also serve as a stage to resolve Washington's Iran policy, not to reach a technical diplomatic compromise over the procedural production of uranium. What the freeze-for-freeze proposal has failed to include is a comprehensive response to Iranian concerns over the U.S. policy of economic and political pressure, which has only made Tehran's hard-liners more assertive in both domestic and foreign affairs.
By adopting a rigid position on Iran's nuclear program, the 5+1 has injected a prerequisite into the negotiation that has fed the conspiratorial fantasies of the ideologues, who use such paranoia to bolster their political legitimacy in domestic debates. Recalling how Washington set aside $75 million in 2006 to inspire regime change, the hard-liners are using the current precondition to make the claim that the West hides sinister intentions behind the negotiations, and thus Iran must expand its military. Iran's latest missile display therefore serves to demonstrate what may happen in case diplomacy fails: an arms race that may end in open conflict.
Read the Full Article Here>>
August 5, 2008
Preparing for War Through Negotiations?
by Babak Rahimi
The latest series of test missiles launched by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the northern part of the Persian Gulf and the eastern Hormuz Strait has fueled new concerns over a military conflict in the region. Despite apparent diplomatic progress between Tehran and six world powers in recent weeks, the report of missile tests has added a renewed sense of uneasiness over the fate of negotiations about Iran's controversial nuclear program. A specter of conflict now haunts the region, with the Iranian, Israeli, and American militaries making serious preparations for a possible military conflict.
The military strategy behind the display of high-tech missiles by Tehran is the same as it has been in the past: to exhibit the regime's progress in producing advanced conventional military technology as a way to deter what it perceives as American aggression. But the recent spectacle also shows Tehran's immediate readiness for military confrontation. As a response to recent reports of Israeli naval training missions over the Mediterranean and planned U.S.-led war games in the Persian Gulf, the Revolutionary Guard is eager to demonstrate its determination to strike back at American forces and Israel, with Haifa as one of the targets of the newly improved Shahab missiles.
In many ways, Iran's decision to test the missiles is closely connected with the recent restructuring of the command units within the Revolutionary Guard leadership as well as the appointments of Mohammad Hejazi as head of the Sarallah division, a military unit in the IRGC, and Hussein Hamedani as the vice commander of the Basij Corps. Both are major hard-liners who share a long record of military experience and enjoy close relations with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The changes in the Guard's command structure may only be a routine operational procedure, but they also reflect a new organizational tactic of appoint new leadership in order to eliminate the possibility of espionage and to maintain readiness in case of confrontation.
In light of rising tensions, the view inside Iran is alarmist. Among the public, fear of an American attack remains high in the busy streets of Tehran. On the state level, U.S.-led efforts to isolate Iran through sanctions and calls for military action by a number of American and Israeli politicians have reinforced the perception that Washington is blindly determined to undermine the Islamic Republic and thwart the country's regional influence, which has grown since the fall of the Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. The government believes that one of the best ways to counteract perceived American aggression, backed by predominantly hostile Sunni Arab states in the Persian Gulf, where the U.S. maintains large bases, is to establish a prominent military force equipped with high-tech weaponry.
The main source of conflict lies in the standoff over the terms of preconditions set out in the nuclear negotiations by the five Security Council states, plus Germany (5+1). The provision requires Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium in exchange for a freeze on sanctions and economic and technological benefits included in an incentive package originally offered in 2006.
However, the latest meeting in Geneva, which for the first time in 30 years brought together American and Iranian high-ranking diplomats to the negotiations table, reveals the fundamental flaw in the logic of enrichment suspension, both on a short- and long-term basis. By advancing the "freeze-for-freeze" proposal that obliges Iran to halt its enrichment of uranium for the immediate freeze of additional sanctions for a six-week period, the six powers have, once again, helped the hard-liners to reinforce the view in Iran that the West, meaning Washington, aims to keep the country backward, an affront to an independent nation seeking to become a symbol of a non-Western form of modernity. In a country with competing centers of power, the hard-liners, who wield major political influence on foreign affairs, have been able to successfully depict the ongoing nuclear negotiations as a form of Western paternalism and stalling them as a way of resisting foreign aggression.
What the six powers continue to ignore is Tehran's main objective for continuing the talks: to display strength and, with increased pressure, to maintain political hegemony on the domestic front. The nuclear talks also serve as a stage to resolve Washington's Iran policy, not to reach a technical diplomatic compromise over the procedural production of uranium. What the freeze-for-freeze proposal has failed to include is a comprehensive response to Iranian concerns over the U.S. policy of economic and political pressure, which has only made Tehran's hard-liners more assertive in both domestic and foreign affairs.
By adopting a rigid position on Iran's nuclear program, the 5+1 has injected a prerequisite into the negotiation that has fed the conspiratorial fantasies of the ideologues, who use such paranoia to bolster their political legitimacy in domestic debates. Recalling how Washington set aside $75 million in 2006 to inspire regime change, the hard-liners are using the current precondition to make the claim that the West hides sinister intentions behind the negotiations, and thus Iran must expand its military. Iran's latest missile display therefore serves to demonstrate what may happen in case diplomacy fails: an arms race that may end in open conflict.
Read the Full Article Here>>
Iran Could Face More Sanctions
By Matthew Lee, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Six major nations agreed yesterday to seek new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program after the country failed to meet a weekend deadline to respond to an offer intended to defuse the dispute, the United States said.
Representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany decided in a high-level conference call that Iran's lack of response to an incentives package aimed at getting it to halt sensitive atomic activity left them no option other than to pursue new punitive measures, the United States said.
"We are disappointed that we have not yet received a response from Iran," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters. "We agreed in the absence of a clear, positive response from Iran (that) we have no choice but to pursue further measures against Iran."
Meantime, Iran announced that it has tested a new weapon capable of sinking ships nearly 200 miles away. Tehran reiterated threats to close a strategic waterway at the mouth of the Gulf if attacked. Up to 40 percent of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage along Iran's southern coast. Iran has warned it could shut down tanker traffic there if attacked — a move likely to send oil prices skyrocketing.
The conference call among senior diplomats from the six nations took place after Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalali told European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana that Tehran would deliver a written response to the offer today, Gallegos said.
He would not say if sanctions would be pursued if Iran accepted the offer today but added that any reply from Tehran would be reviewed and a determination made then on how to proceed.
"Iran has a clear choice: engagement or isolation," Gallegos said. "The incentives package contained everything Iran needed to pursue a modern civil nuclear power program, which Iran's leaders claim is their aim. The pressure on Iran to comply with the demands of the international community and its (UN Security Council) obligations will only grow."
The United States and its European allies fear Iran intends to use the technology to develop material for nuclear weapons under the cloak of a civilian nuclear power program. Iran denies the accusation.
The UN Security Council has already adopted three sanctions resolutions against Iran. The United States, the European Union, as well as individual EU members have imposed their own financial measures against Iranian entities and individuals.
Monday, August 4, 2008
To Prevent War With Iran, a Paradigm Shift Is Needed
Antiwar.com
August 4, 2008
To Prevent War With Iran,a Paradigm Shift Is Needed
by Muhammad Sahimi
The latest report on Iran's uranium enrichment program by the International Atomic Energy Agency, made public in early June, provides strong evidence that the facts on the ground are changing. According to the report, Iran has been making progress in mastering uranium enrichment technology. It has managed to increase the efficiency of the enrichment process by assembling a relatively large number of cascaded centrifuges. It has also been able to manufacture (although not yet in significant numbers) the more advanced IR-2 and IR-3 centrifuges that spin several times faster than the primitive P-1 centrifuges that it has installed in its uranium enrichment facility (UEF) at Natanz. The faster centrifuges, when cascaded and operated for an extended period of time, would enable Iran to produce enriched uranium more rapidly.
However, Iran's progress, while significant, is not alarming. The fact is, there is no direct connection between Iran's UEF in Natanz, which produces low-enriched uranium (LEU), and what would be needed for producing high-enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear weapon. The Natanz facility is also safeguarded by the IAEA. To advance to the point where it can produce HEU, Iran must take many steps that would need several years of work, all progressing according to schedule without any hitches.
More specifically, to go from LEU to HEU, Iran must have the following:
1. High-quality LEU to be converted to HEU. Although Iran has produced a significant amount of LEU, its quality is, at least at this stage, dubious.
2. A large number of cascaded centrifuges that can work for a long time, without interruption.
3. High explosives for triggering a nuclear explosion.
4. Complete designs for a nuclear bomb and warhead.
5. Missiles or aircraft to deliver the nuclear warheads to their intended targets.
Iran must also do the following:
1. Leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expel the IAEA inspectors (à la North Korea), and start a crash program to convert the UEF at Natanz to produce HEU. The breakout time – the time that it would take to transform the Natanz facility – is, at the minimum, six to nine months.
2. Carry out tests – of the type that other nuclear powers perform – to make sure that its nuclear weapon works properly.
Iran must do all of these while even its most minor moves are being closely monitored and scrutinized by the international community.
There is no evidence that Iran has the necessary materials or is in a position to successfully make them and take all the above steps in a short time, even if it has every intention of doing so. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program stated that Iran is unlikely to be able to make a nuclear weapon before 2013.
But this has not stopped the neoconservatives and their allies in the Israel lobby, as well as the government of Israel, from issuing dire warnings about how close Iran is to making a nuclear weapon. John R. Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute both published articles in the Wall Street Journal urging military attacks on Iran. Benny Morris, the supposedly moderate Israeli historian, published an op-ed in the New York Times about the possibility of Israel attacking Iran with nuclear warheads (neither newspaper has published an op-ed that refutes the claims made in those articles). Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a "manifesto" claiming that Iran will not be able to respond effectively to any military attacks, hence encouraging such attacks. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israeli Defense Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi also visited Washington.
But while Tehran is making progress in its nuclear program, it has also significantly increased its cooperation with the IAEA. All of Iran's six original breaches of its Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA have now been explained to the IAEA's satisfaction. Iran has allowed the IAEA inspectors to visit the site where it manufactures its more advanced centrifuges. The IAEA has carried out 14 unannounced visits to Iran's nuclear sites within the last year, resulting in de facto compliance with some of the most important provisions of resolutions of the United Nations Security Council against Iran, as well as the Additional Protocol that Iran has not ratified.
Read the Full Article Here>>
August 4, 2008
To Prevent War With Iran,a Paradigm Shift Is Needed
by Muhammad Sahimi
The latest report on Iran's uranium enrichment program by the International Atomic Energy Agency, made public in early June, provides strong evidence that the facts on the ground are changing. According to the report, Iran has been making progress in mastering uranium enrichment technology. It has managed to increase the efficiency of the enrichment process by assembling a relatively large number of cascaded centrifuges. It has also been able to manufacture (although not yet in significant numbers) the more advanced IR-2 and IR-3 centrifuges that spin several times faster than the primitive P-1 centrifuges that it has installed in its uranium enrichment facility (UEF) at Natanz. The faster centrifuges, when cascaded and operated for an extended period of time, would enable Iran to produce enriched uranium more rapidly.
However, Iran's progress, while significant, is not alarming. The fact is, there is no direct connection between Iran's UEF in Natanz, which produces low-enriched uranium (LEU), and what would be needed for producing high-enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear weapon. The Natanz facility is also safeguarded by the IAEA. To advance to the point where it can produce HEU, Iran must take many steps that would need several years of work, all progressing according to schedule without any hitches.
More specifically, to go from LEU to HEU, Iran must have the following:
1. High-quality LEU to be converted to HEU. Although Iran has produced a significant amount of LEU, its quality is, at least at this stage, dubious.
2. A large number of cascaded centrifuges that can work for a long time, without interruption.
3. High explosives for triggering a nuclear explosion.
4. Complete designs for a nuclear bomb and warhead.
5. Missiles or aircraft to deliver the nuclear warheads to their intended targets.
Iran must also do the following:
1. Leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expel the IAEA inspectors (à la North Korea), and start a crash program to convert the UEF at Natanz to produce HEU. The breakout time – the time that it would take to transform the Natanz facility – is, at the minimum, six to nine months.
2. Carry out tests – of the type that other nuclear powers perform – to make sure that its nuclear weapon works properly.
Iran must do all of these while even its most minor moves are being closely monitored and scrutinized by the international community.
There is no evidence that Iran has the necessary materials or is in a position to successfully make them and take all the above steps in a short time, even if it has every intention of doing so. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program stated that Iran is unlikely to be able to make a nuclear weapon before 2013.
But this has not stopped the neoconservatives and their allies in the Israel lobby, as well as the government of Israel, from issuing dire warnings about how close Iran is to making a nuclear weapon. John R. Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute both published articles in the Wall Street Journal urging military attacks on Iran. Benny Morris, the supposedly moderate Israeli historian, published an op-ed in the New York Times about the possibility of Israel attacking Iran with nuclear warheads (neither newspaper has published an op-ed that refutes the claims made in those articles). Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a "manifesto" claiming that Iran will not be able to respond effectively to any military attacks, hence encouraging such attacks. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israeli Defense Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi also visited Washington.
But while Tehran is making progress in its nuclear program, it has also significantly increased its cooperation with the IAEA. All of Iran's six original breaches of its Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA have now been explained to the IAEA's satisfaction. Iran has allowed the IAEA inspectors to visit the site where it manufactures its more advanced centrifuges. The IAEA has carried out 14 unannounced visits to Iran's nuclear sites within the last year, resulting in de facto compliance with some of the most important provisions of resolutions of the United Nations Security Council against Iran, as well as the Additional Protocol that Iran has not ratified.
Read the Full Article Here>>
Nuking the Treaty
Iran is the least of the world’s offenders against non-proliferation.
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 28th July 2008
What is the Iranian government up to? For once the imperial coalition, overstretched in Iraq and unpopular at home, is proposing jaw, not war. The UN Security Council’s offer was a good one: if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment programme, it would be entitled to legally guaranteed supplies of fuel for nuclear power, assistance in building a light water reactor, foreign aid, technology transfer and the beginning of the end of economic sanctions(1). The United States seems prepared, for the first time since the revolution, to open a diplomatic office in Tehran(2). But in Geneva ten days ago, the Iranians filibustered until the negotiations ended(3). On Saturday President Ahmadinejad announced that Iran has now doubled the number of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium(4). A fourth round of sanctions looks inevitable.
The unequivocal statements Barack Obama and Gordon Brown made in Israel last week about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme cannot yet be justified(5,6). Nor can the unequivocal statements by some anti-war campaigners that Iran does not intend to build the bomb. Why would a country with such reserves of natural gas and so great a potential for solar power suffer sanctions and the threat of bombing to make fuel it could buy from other states, if it accepted the UN’s terms?
Those who maintain that Iran’s purposes are peaceful clutch at the National Intelligence Estimate published by the US government in November(7). While it judged that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, it saw the country’s civilian uranium programme as a means of developing “technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so.” The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency notes that no fissile material has been diverted from Iran’s stocks, but raises grave questions about some of the documents it has found, which suggest research into bomb-making (Iran says the papers are forgeries)(8). Those of us who oppose an attack on Iran are under no obligation to accept Ahmadinejad’s claims of peaceful intent.
Nor do we have to accept the fictions of our own representatives. The Security Council’s offer to Iran claimed that resolving this enrichment issue would help to bring about a “Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction”(9). But like every other such document, it made no mention of the principal owner of these weapons in the region: Israel. According to a leaked briefing by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Israel possesses between 60 and 80 nuclear bombs(10). But none of the countries demanding that Iran scraps the weapons it doesn’t yet possess are demanding that Israel destroys the weapons it does possess.
This subject is the great political taboo. Neither Brown nor Obama mentioned it last week. The US intelligence agencies provide a biannual report to Congress on the weapons of mass destruction developed by foreign states, which covers Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan and others, but not Israel(11). During a parliamentary debate in March the British defence minister Bob Ainsworth was asked whether he thought that Israel’s nuclear weapons are “a destabilising factor” in the Middle East. “My understanding,” he replied, “is that Israel does not acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons.”(12) Does Mr Ainsworth really buy this nonsense? If so, can we have a new minister? If Iran builds a bomb, it will do so for one reason: that there is already a nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, by which it feels threatened.
But we make the rules and we break them. The non-proliferation treaty (NPT) obliges the five official nuclear states, of which the United Kingdom is one, to work towards “general and complete disarmament”(13). On Friday the Guardian published the notes for a speech made last year by a senior civil servant, which suggested that the decision to replace the UK’s nuclear missiles had already been made, in secret and without parliamentary scrutiny(14,15). Since then defence ministers have told the Commons on five occasions that the decision has not yet been made(16,17,18,19,20). They appear to have misled the House.
At the Geneva conference on disarmament in February, one delegate pointed out that the “chances of eliminating nuclear weapons will be enhanced immeasurably” if non-nuclear states can see “planning, commitment and action toward multilateral nuclear disarmament by nuclear weapon states” like the UK. If the nuclear states “are failing to fulfil their disarmament obligations”, other nations would use this as an excuse for maintaining their weapons(21). Who was this firebrand? Des Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence. A man of the same name is failing to fulfil our disarmament obligations.
Read the Full Article Here>>
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 28th July 2008
What is the Iranian government up to? For once the imperial coalition, overstretched in Iraq and unpopular at home, is proposing jaw, not war. The UN Security Council’s offer was a good one: if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment programme, it would be entitled to legally guaranteed supplies of fuel for nuclear power, assistance in building a light water reactor, foreign aid, technology transfer and the beginning of the end of economic sanctions(1). The United States seems prepared, for the first time since the revolution, to open a diplomatic office in Tehran(2). But in Geneva ten days ago, the Iranians filibustered until the negotiations ended(3). On Saturday President Ahmadinejad announced that Iran has now doubled the number of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium(4). A fourth round of sanctions looks inevitable.
The unequivocal statements Barack Obama and Gordon Brown made in Israel last week about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme cannot yet be justified(5,6). Nor can the unequivocal statements by some anti-war campaigners that Iran does not intend to build the bomb. Why would a country with such reserves of natural gas and so great a potential for solar power suffer sanctions and the threat of bombing to make fuel it could buy from other states, if it accepted the UN’s terms?
Those who maintain that Iran’s purposes are peaceful clutch at the National Intelligence Estimate published by the US government in November(7). While it judged that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, it saw the country’s civilian uranium programme as a means of developing “technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so.” The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency notes that no fissile material has been diverted from Iran’s stocks, but raises grave questions about some of the documents it has found, which suggest research into bomb-making (Iran says the papers are forgeries)(8). Those of us who oppose an attack on Iran are under no obligation to accept Ahmadinejad’s claims of peaceful intent.
Nor do we have to accept the fictions of our own representatives. The Security Council’s offer to Iran claimed that resolving this enrichment issue would help to bring about a “Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction”(9). But like every other such document, it made no mention of the principal owner of these weapons in the region: Israel. According to a leaked briefing by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Israel possesses between 60 and 80 nuclear bombs(10). But none of the countries demanding that Iran scraps the weapons it doesn’t yet possess are demanding that Israel destroys the weapons it does possess.
This subject is the great political taboo. Neither Brown nor Obama mentioned it last week. The US intelligence agencies provide a biannual report to Congress on the weapons of mass destruction developed by foreign states, which covers Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan and others, but not Israel(11). During a parliamentary debate in March the British defence minister Bob Ainsworth was asked whether he thought that Israel’s nuclear weapons are “a destabilising factor” in the Middle East. “My understanding,” he replied, “is that Israel does not acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons.”(12) Does Mr Ainsworth really buy this nonsense? If so, can we have a new minister? If Iran builds a bomb, it will do so for one reason: that there is already a nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, by which it feels threatened.
But we make the rules and we break them. The non-proliferation treaty (NPT) obliges the five official nuclear states, of which the United Kingdom is one, to work towards “general and complete disarmament”(13). On Friday the Guardian published the notes for a speech made last year by a senior civil servant, which suggested that the decision to replace the UK’s nuclear missiles had already been made, in secret and without parliamentary scrutiny(14,15). Since then defence ministers have told the Commons on five occasions that the decision has not yet been made(16,17,18,19,20). They appear to have misled the House.
At the Geneva conference on disarmament in February, one delegate pointed out that the “chances of eliminating nuclear weapons will be enhanced immeasurably” if non-nuclear states can see “planning, commitment and action toward multilateral nuclear disarmament by nuclear weapon states” like the UK. If the nuclear states “are failing to fulfil their disarmament obligations”, other nations would use this as an excuse for maintaining their weapons(21). Who was this firebrand? Des Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence. A man of the same name is failing to fulfil our disarmament obligations.
Read the Full Article Here>>
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Fig Leaves and Iran's Nuclear Program
It was pretty irritating watching the arrogance of Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, in this clip...First of all, Iran is entitled to mastership of the nuclear fuel cycle under the NPT...there is the further reason why Iran's possession of such a capacity is also necessary...Iranian sovereignty demands control of the fuel cycle so that Iran's energy needs aren't dependent on external powers, thereby foreclosing the possibility that the figurative 'tap' one day be turned off when conducive to international i.e. American whim...American approval is undoubtedly desirable, but not at the cost of forgoing Iranian sovereignty...and whether the US is comfortable with that or not is in the final analysis irrelevant...
The NPT is an international treaty and thus if we even have a modicum of respect for an international order framed in terms of international law, treaties and the like, by which all nation-states are obliged to abide, the NPT should be the sole criterion by which we evaluate Iran's compliance or non-compliance with its international obligations vis-a-vis its nuclear program...Trita Parsi in an editorial with Anatol Lieven stated this only the other day in an op-ed for the International Herald Tribune and Professor Muhammad Sahimi on the Real News Network also reiterated in the most persuasive of terms that the Iranian nuclear dossier shouldn't have even been referred to the UN Security Council in the first instance...the UNSC has absolutely no part to play here and what we're witnessing sadly is the egregious politicization of the IAEA and the divestment of its putative stance as an apolitical and non-partisan international body...Muhammad Al-Baradei has certainly tried on more than one occasion to resist this trend, but given the dossier was referred to the UNSC in the first place, his organization is culpable of a grave error, which has inflicted a serious blow to the IAEA's credibility...there are plenty of ways of pressuring Iranian leaders on the issues of human rights and democratization, imposing a systemic energy dependency is not one of them...
Another obvious and totally unquestioned assertion by Haas is that Iran is merely biding time and manipulating the 'radical (non)change' in the American position; a change which has been vastly over-exaggerated. Fine, OK, we get it, sending William Burns, the third-ranking official in the State Dept was a big deal...but does that constitute a fully-fledged negotiation? Though no expert in the 'art of negotiation' myself, to my knowledge negotiation involves a mutual accommodation of one another's positions, not sending a representative and then saying 'do what we say by this deadline, or else!' Back and forth, ebb and flow, rebuttal, counteroffer etc...this is what is needed, not sensationalist headlines regarding 'Condi's great moment' or further prattling on about 'Condi's redemption after the folly of the Iraq war'...the change has been considerably overestimated and if anything we may well be witnessing the converse of Haas's suggestion - perhaps the Bush admin and the Israeli government are merely biding their time until a strike against Iran becomes a viable possibility without all the 'dastardly repercussions' presently thought inevitable in the aftermath of a strike. Is the fig leaf American, as opposed to Iranian in character? - ...if the economy were to be buoyed slightly by (the long-awaited, false solution) increases in Saudi oil production, the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan were to appear to be on a sustained upward swing etc...then who knows, the twilight of the Bush admin may want to gamble and 'see what happens' as Noam Chomsky recently put it, who knows with these guys? And as many pundits have suggested, if McCain looks like he's next in line for the Whitehouse, Bush might hold off and leave remedying the 'Persian puzzle' for his successor to further exacerbate the pig's ear of Bush's failed Iran policy...
The NPT is an international treaty and thus if we even have a modicum of respect for an international order framed in terms of international law, treaties and the like, by which all nation-states are obliged to abide, the NPT should be the sole criterion by which we evaluate Iran's compliance or non-compliance with its international obligations vis-a-vis its nuclear program...Trita Parsi in an editorial with Anatol Lieven stated this only the other day in an op-ed for the International Herald Tribune and Professor Muhammad Sahimi on the Real News Network also reiterated in the most persuasive of terms that the Iranian nuclear dossier shouldn't have even been referred to the UN Security Council in the first instance...the UNSC has absolutely no part to play here and what we're witnessing sadly is the egregious politicization of the IAEA and the divestment of its putative stance as an apolitical and non-partisan international body...Muhammad Al-Baradei has certainly tried on more than one occasion to resist this trend, but given the dossier was referred to the UNSC in the first place, his organization is culpable of a grave error, which has inflicted a serious blow to the IAEA's credibility...there are plenty of ways of pressuring Iranian leaders on the issues of human rights and democratization, imposing a systemic energy dependency is not one of them...
Another obvious and totally unquestioned assertion by Haas is that Iran is merely biding time and manipulating the 'radical (non)change' in the American position; a change which has been vastly over-exaggerated. Fine, OK, we get it, sending William Burns, the third-ranking official in the State Dept was a big deal...but does that constitute a fully-fledged negotiation? Though no expert in the 'art of negotiation' myself, to my knowledge negotiation involves a mutual accommodation of one another's positions, not sending a representative and then saying 'do what we say by this deadline, or else!' Back and forth, ebb and flow, rebuttal, counteroffer etc...this is what is needed, not sensationalist headlines regarding 'Condi's great moment' or further prattling on about 'Condi's redemption after the folly of the Iraq war'...the change has been considerably overestimated and if anything we may well be witnessing the converse of Haas's suggestion - perhaps the Bush admin and the Israeli government are merely biding their time until a strike against Iran becomes a viable possibility without all the 'dastardly repercussions' presently thought inevitable in the aftermath of a strike. Is the fig leaf American, as opposed to Iranian in character? - ...if the economy were to be buoyed slightly by (the long-awaited, false solution) increases in Saudi oil production, the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan were to appear to be on a sustained upward swing etc...then who knows, the twilight of the Bush admin may want to gamble and 'see what happens' as Noam Chomsky recently put it, who knows with these guys? And as many pundits have suggested, if McCain looks like he's next in line for the Whitehouse, Bush might hold off and leave remedying the 'Persian puzzle' for his successor to further exacerbate the pig's ear of Bush's failed Iran policy...
Monday, July 28, 2008
Call on AP to Retract False Reporting on Iran
CASMII Press Release
28 July 2008
Call on AP to retract false reporting on Iran
On July 25, the Associated Press published a report by journalist George Jahn titled "Iran ends cooperation with UN nuclear arms probe". [1] The story claimed to be based on comments by Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation in a press conference after meeting with the Director General of the IAEA, Mohamed Elbaradei.
Several news agencies immediately republished the AP's report without questioning its authenticity and credibility. Yet a simple analysis of the contents of this item reveals repeated distortions of facts.
George Jahn writes in his report:
"Iran signaled Thursday that it will no longer cooperate with U.N. experts probing for signs of clandestine nuclear weapons work, confirming the investigation is at a dead end a year after it began."
The transcript of Aghazadeh's comments in Persian was partly published by Iran's state media as well as Radio Farda funded by the US Congress. He said:
"The two sides were conscious that the so-called alleged studies is a side issue and does not affect our ongoing and bilateral cooperation with the Agency. Iran has done whatever it could in connection with the alleged studies case and the IAEA will draw necessary conclusion on the issue at an appropriate time." [2] [3]
Speaking about Iran's response to the US allegations of weaponization studies, Iran's representative to the IAEA, Dr Aliasghar Soltanieh in an interview in late June 2008, revealed:
"…after the documents [on alleged studies] were shown to us, we explained comprehensively why these papers are forged and baseless. We had many meetings, over 200 pages of explanation have been given in a confidential manner to the IAEA and unfortunately the Americans are still trying to keep this file open by continuing to make ceaseless allegations." [4]
Jahn not only misrepresented Aghazadeh's comments, but he also conveniently overlooked the prolonged and consistently positive cooperation between Iran and the IAEA. He writes in another part that "[Iran] dismisses as fabricated the evidence supplied by the U.S. and other members of the IAEA's governing board." Yet he ignores the fact that Iran has indeed studied the documents in detail and responded to Agency inquiries well beyond its legal obligations.
Reports of the IAEA confirming the non-diversion of declared nuclear material and repeated statements by Iranian officials on their commitment to work within the framework of the NPT, which does not restrict Iran in any way in enriching uranium for civilian purposes, do not seem to have slowed down AP's rush to sensational reporting or tempered their temptation for portraying the false image of an Iran not cooperating with the IAEA as the US and its allies allege.
In a similar manner, John Bolton the Neocon warmonger and former US Ambassador to the UN, in January 2007, speaking to AIPAC members about Iran's nuclear file said:
"… they have not done anything more dramatic, such as withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty, or throwing out inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which I actually hoped they would do - that that kind of reaction would produce a counter-reaction that actually would be more beneficial to us." (emphasis added) [5]
In the same interview referred to above, Soltanieh says:
"…despite those [sanctions] resolutions we continue our cooperation with the IAEA within our legal obligations under the Comprehensive Safeguards of the NPT agreement and therefore we neither suspended enrichment nor we suspended our cooperation with the IAEA. That is exactly the policy which has upset the US administration. Because they love to hear the news that Iran has decided either to stop or reduce the inspections or to withdraw from NPT and we have not done either." [4]
Unlike what the Associated Press suggests, rigorous investigations by the IAEA into Iran's nuclear programme did not start in 2007 but in 2002. After six years of intrusive inspections, during which Iran voluntarily implemented the Additional Protocol for two years, to date not a single allegation made by the US or its allies against Iran's nuclear programme has been proven truthful.
Furthermore the Safeguard’s agreement between the IAEA and Iran is limited to verifying non-diversion of declared nuclear material for military purposes. If such a violation is ever detected, the IAEA could consider referring Iran’s file to the UN Security Council.
Iran however has never had such a violation as confirmed in all IAEA reports so far, which is why the reporting of Iran's nuclear file to the UNSC in February 2006 a decision which was in fact coerced by the US [6], has no legal or legitimate basis. Any concerns expressed or clarifications requested that are not related to the declared nuclear material in Iran including conventional military experimentations (non-nuclear material,) is an unwarranted expansion of the IAEA's jurisdiction under the NPT, against the statute of the IAEA and therefore illegal.
The AP's George Jahn goes on to make even more outrageous claims:
"[Iran] admitted in 2002 that it had run a secret atomic weapons program for nearly two decades in violation of its commitment. The Tehran regime insists it halted such work and is now only trying to produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity."
This is an unfounded statement which serves to discredit Jahn and the AP. Iran has consistently maintained that it has never had an atomic weapons programme. What the author seems to refer to is the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report of December 2007 in which it was claimed without substantiation that Iran has had a nuclear weapons programme until 2003 when the programme was halted prematurely. Iran has always denied these allegations and has challenged the US to provide the evidence. The IAEA in its latest report has also criticised the US for failing to back up its claims and refusing to cooperate with the Agency in its investigations. [7]
Iran accepted the modified code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangement only in 2003, therefore it had no obligation to inform the IAEA about the existence of nuclear installations prior to that date. The Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (INFCIRC/153) at the time only obliged Iran to inform the IAEA 180 days prior to feeding nuclear material into the facilities. [8]
On the so-called work plan agreed between the IAEA and Iran in August 2007 [9], the AP report says:
"The investigation ran into trouble just months after being launched. Deadline after deadline was extended
28 July 2008
Call on AP to retract false reporting on Iran
On July 25, the Associated Press published a report by journalist George Jahn titled "Iran ends cooperation with UN nuclear arms probe". [1] The story claimed to be based on comments by Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation in a press conference after meeting with the Director General of the IAEA, Mohamed Elbaradei.
Several news agencies immediately republished the AP's report without questioning its authenticity and credibility. Yet a simple analysis of the contents of this item reveals repeated distortions of facts.
George Jahn writes in his report:
"Iran signaled Thursday that it will no longer cooperate with U.N. experts probing for signs of clandestine nuclear weapons work, confirming the investigation is at a dead end a year after it began."
The transcript of Aghazadeh's comments in Persian was partly published by Iran's state media as well as Radio Farda funded by the US Congress. He said:
"The two sides were conscious that the so-called alleged studies is a side issue and does not affect our ongoing and bilateral cooperation with the Agency. Iran has done whatever it could in connection with the alleged studies case and the IAEA will draw necessary conclusion on the issue at an appropriate time." [2] [3]
Speaking about Iran's response to the US allegations of weaponization studies, Iran's representative to the IAEA, Dr Aliasghar Soltanieh in an interview in late June 2008, revealed:
"…after the documents [on alleged studies] were shown to us, we explained comprehensively why these papers are forged and baseless. We had many meetings, over 200 pages of explanation have been given in a confidential manner to the IAEA and unfortunately the Americans are still trying to keep this file open by continuing to make ceaseless allegations." [4]
Jahn not only misrepresented Aghazadeh's comments, but he also conveniently overlooked the prolonged and consistently positive cooperation between Iran and the IAEA. He writes in another part that "[Iran] dismisses as fabricated the evidence supplied by the U.S. and other members of the IAEA's governing board." Yet he ignores the fact that Iran has indeed studied the documents in detail and responded to Agency inquiries well beyond its legal obligations.
Reports of the IAEA confirming the non-diversion of declared nuclear material and repeated statements by Iranian officials on their commitment to work within the framework of the NPT, which does not restrict Iran in any way in enriching uranium for civilian purposes, do not seem to have slowed down AP's rush to sensational reporting or tempered their temptation for portraying the false image of an Iran not cooperating with the IAEA as the US and its allies allege.
In a similar manner, John Bolton the Neocon warmonger and former US Ambassador to the UN, in January 2007, speaking to AIPAC members about Iran's nuclear file said:
"… they have not done anything more dramatic, such as withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty, or throwing out inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which I actually hoped they would do - that that kind of reaction would produce a counter-reaction that actually would be more beneficial to us." (emphasis added) [5]
In the same interview referred to above, Soltanieh says:
"…despite those [sanctions] resolutions we continue our cooperation with the IAEA within our legal obligations under the Comprehensive Safeguards of the NPT agreement and therefore we neither suspended enrichment nor we suspended our cooperation with the IAEA. That is exactly the policy which has upset the US administration. Because they love to hear the news that Iran has decided either to stop or reduce the inspections or to withdraw from NPT and we have not done either." [4]
Unlike what the Associated Press suggests, rigorous investigations by the IAEA into Iran's nuclear programme did not start in 2007 but in 2002. After six years of intrusive inspections, during which Iran voluntarily implemented the Additional Protocol for two years, to date not a single allegation made by the US or its allies against Iran's nuclear programme has been proven truthful.
Furthermore the Safeguard’s agreement between the IAEA and Iran is limited to verifying non-diversion of declared nuclear material for military purposes. If such a violation is ever detected, the IAEA could consider referring Iran’s file to the UN Security Council.
Iran however has never had such a violation as confirmed in all IAEA reports so far, which is why the reporting of Iran's nuclear file to the UNSC in February 2006 a decision which was in fact coerced by the US [6], has no legal or legitimate basis. Any concerns expressed or clarifications requested that are not related to the declared nuclear material in Iran including conventional military experimentations (non-nuclear material,) is an unwarranted expansion of the IAEA's jurisdiction under the NPT, against the statute of the IAEA and therefore illegal.
The AP's George Jahn goes on to make even more outrageous claims:
"[Iran] admitted in 2002 that it had run a secret atomic weapons program for nearly two decades in violation of its commitment. The Tehran regime insists it halted such work and is now only trying to produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity."
This is an unfounded statement which serves to discredit Jahn and the AP. Iran has consistently maintained that it has never had an atomic weapons programme. What the author seems to refer to is the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report of December 2007 in which it was claimed without substantiation that Iran has had a nuclear weapons programme until 2003 when the programme was halted prematurely. Iran has always denied these allegations and has challenged the US to provide the evidence. The IAEA in its latest report has also criticised the US for failing to back up its claims and refusing to cooperate with the Agency in its investigations. [7]
Iran accepted the modified code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangement only in 2003, therefore it had no obligation to inform the IAEA about the existence of nuclear installations prior to that date. The Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (INFCIRC/153) at the time only obliged Iran to inform the IAEA 180 days prior to feeding nuclear material into the facilities. [8]
On the so-called work plan agreed between the IAEA and Iran in August 2007 [9], the AP report says:
"The investigation ran into trouble just months after being launched. Deadline after deadline was extended