Iran Nuclear Standoff

[JTD]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12365973/

That Iran president is a lunatic crazy man.

He's not the only one.

[cycloneye]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12390227/

Iran is playing the oil card here.

[alicia-w]

wonderful.

[cycloneye]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12417998/

Iran's President is happy about the high oil prices.The question is if things turn real bad if they will use the oil card as a weapon.

[Janice]

What scares me is what countries, like China, India and Japan for instance are making under the table deals with oil countries that we are not aware of. Like you said, Cycloneye, when things turn real bad, where will we be situated?

[BEER980]

And out comes the carrot.

Iran ready for “full’ cooperation with IAEA: envoy
(AFP)

21 April 2006

MOSCOW - Iran’s ambassador to the UN’s nuclear watchdog said here Friday that Tehran was ready for “full” cooperation with that agency and was prepared to answer all questions about its nuclear program, RIA Novosti news agency reported. “Iran plans to continue its full cooperation with the IAEA. We are ready to eliminate all outstanding doubts about our nuclear dossier,” the envoy, Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted as saying in a speech to participants at a security conference in Moscow. Salehi’s comments came a day after a senior UN nuclear inspector put off a trip to Iran in what diplomats in Vienna said was a clear sign that Tehran is failing to give the UN atomic agency key concessions it demands.

RIA Novosti reported that he also said the Iranian leadership was prepared to place its nuclear facilities under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but it provided no direct quotation from him to this effect. The Iranian envoy said that Tehran had been conducting nuclear energy research for more than 30 years. “It is our right to continue research under IAEA control,” Salehi said. “The United States and Europe have no right to demand from us an immediate halt to our research, which is strictly for peaceful ends.”

The envoy said he was confident that the IAEA “will resolve this problem with a technical -- and not political -- point of view through negotiation and discussion in the framework of this international organization.” The development comes as the UN Security Council waits to see if Iran honors an April 28 deadline for it to halt uranium enrichment that could be weapons-related and to cooperate fully with inspectors from the Vienna-based IAEA.
Source

[cycloneye]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12435189/



Can Iran be trusted?

[kevin]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12435189/



Can Iran be trusted?

The Iranians are asking the same question, only 'Can the US be trusted not to invade and occupy our country.'

[Aquawind]

The Iranians are asking the same question, only 'Can the US be trusted not to invade and occupy our country.'

When Nukes are involved...to bad. They deny the halocaust and admittedly and openly want to eliminate a neighbor..

[BEER980]

Throught history nations have sought out to destroy an enemy or eliminate a neighbor Aquawind. Like kevin says, if you were Iran would you trust the US? We have invaded both of Iran's neighbors after all. They have until Friday to satisify the UN so we will wait and see. We really need some hard evidence and not just sources say this and that. The sheeple are going to need to see some good intel this time I think. I could tell you about the Neshabour installation, when ready to go in three years, it will have three times the capacity of Natanz and be able to turn out 9-15 bombs a year. If this secret plant exists then we will have a hard time using regular ordanance on it. It is 150m underground with 155,000 centrifuges.

[JTD]

When do you all think this will come to a head, i.e., diplomatic settlement or the use of force?

[BEER980]

Right now it could be an "October Surprise" ending or beginning depending on how you look at it. I read a short article on this by Patrick J. Buchanan recently if you are interested. Then you have this: "At the end of September 2006, the Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike is scheduled to achieve Full Operational Capability (FOC). That event builds on Global Strike capabilities developed over many years to provide new offensive strike options to the President against proliferators of weapons of mass destruction....The operational embodiment of the Global Strike mission is CONPLAN 8022, the detailed strike plan directed against proliferation targets in North Korea, Iran, and elsewhere. First operational in 2004, refinement of CONPLAN 8022 continues." So I would expect it to come to a head late summer or early fall. The other unknown is Iran being drawn into attacking us first.

[brunota2003]

Intelligence on Iran nuclear threat seen as inadequate
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060423/pl_ ... ligence_dc

[kevin]

The Iranians are asking the same question, only 'Can the US be trusted not to invade and occupy our country.'

When Nukes are involved...to bad. They deny the halocaust and admittedly and openly want to eliminate a neighbor..

I trust people to act in their interests. 5,000 years of practice makes this line of thinking evident, its not something to roll eyes at. Its how nations actually calculate what they are going to do.

Rule #1:
Nations act in their national interests,

Rule #2:
National interests are defined by the ruling class.

It is not in the national interests (or personal interests) for the Mullahs in Iran to be reduced to gas and their land to glass by the Israelis. They will not allow any weapon they make to get to Israel. Whatever the Iranian President says has about as much weight as anything Krushchev said, and he stated that they would bury us. The US seems to be around. 10,000+ missiles. More tanks than we could dream of, poised to sweep to Portugal. Yet, MAD will always work so long as those who order the use of weapons are assured destruction.

[Aquawind]

Hey it's a good question Kevin. The answer is obvious to me.. No they can't trust us and I doubt they ever will.. So the eyeroll is not at the question or directed at you at all. Denial of the halocaust and admittedly and openly wanting to wipe Israel off the planet these days is not the kind of verbage that gets ones trust either is my point..imho. I am not waiting to change their distrust for the west that has developed over decades because I don't think we can afford to wait decades for possible actions to be taken..

[alicia-w]

the Palestinians and Hamas want to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth too, but you dont see any talk of nuking them. there's gotta be another way.

[BEER980]

This may be another piece of the puzzle. The article seems to confirm what I posted from another source last week.

Iran’s president recruits terror master
Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv

Plot for revenge attacks on West

IRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington. US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver. Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit” because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map. Jane’s Intelligence Review cited “reports in recent weeks” of Mugniyeh’s presence alongside the president. Michael Ledeen, a Middle East expert and former Pentagon and National Security Council official who wrote that Mugniyeh had “probably” been there, said last week senior American officials had confirmed it.

“It’s hard to identify Mugniyeh because he is said to have changed his face and his fingerprints,” Ledeen said. “But senior government officials have told me I was right. He was there.” Shortly after the Damascus summit Henry Crumpton, head of counter-terrorism at the state department, singled out the elusive Mugniyeh as a threat. The Iranians, Crumpton said, “have complete command and control of Hezbollah. Imad Mugniyeh works for Tehran. And you can’t talk about Hezbollah and not think about Iran. They really are part and parcel of the same problem.”

Mugniyeh lives in Iran and has evaded capture for more than 20 years, despite a $5m American bounty on his head. Western intelligence reports claim he has many connections to terrorist cells in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the US and he is said to have met Osama Bin Laden. “When and if the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the one to act,” a western intelligence source said last week.

An Israeli defence source claimed Mugniyeh was in regular touch with the new Iranian intelligence minister, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezhei. The minister is a long-time confidant of Ahmadinejad and was appointed by him. “We know that Mohseni Ezhei holds routine meetings with Mugniyeh, who is today Iran’s head of overseas operations,” said the Israeli defence source. “Since we know from previous Iranian terror attacks that it takes about a year to plan a substantial one, we should not be surprised if operations against western targets are already in high gear and Mugniyeh is certainly playing a major role.”

The young Mugniyeh first attracted the attention of the West when he was involved in the kidnapping, torture and mutilation of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984. He kept his victim at the Sheikh Abdullah camp in the Lebanese Bekaa valley and was allegedly the last person Buckley saw before he died. “Imad had good reason to retaliate,” said a well-informed source. “A car bomb killed his brother Jihad, who had taken Imad’s old job as bodyguard to Hezbollah’s spiritual leader.” Mugniyeh blamed the CIA, and Buckley was chosen to pay the price.

The kidnapping led to the Iran-contra affair, one of the most embarrassing episodes of the Reagan presidency, in which arms were swapped for hostages. But by the time the Americans were negotiating with the Iranians, Buckley was already dead. Mugniyeh has also been linked to the demolition of the American embassy and marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and is wanted in Argentina for his role in recruiting the bombers of the Israeli embassy and Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.

Mugniyeh left Lebanon for Iran in 1994 with his wife and son after an assassination attempt. He is since believed to have played an active role in fomenting trouble in Iraq. Ledeen described him last week as the “spinal column of the terror war against America in Iraq from the beginning”. According to Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who pursued Mugniyeh in the 1980s, “he is the most dangerous terrorist we have ever faced. Mugniyeh is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we have ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else.

“He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments by telephone — he is never predictable. He is the master terrorist, the grail we have been after since 1983”. Elite Iranian army officers who arrived in south Lebanon this month have taken command of thousands of rockets aimed at cities across Israel. They are believed to have been given control of the missiles by Hezbollah to deter possible Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Source

[kevin]

Hey it's a good question Kevin. The answer is obvious to me.. No they can't trust us and I doubt they ever will.. So the eyeroll is not at the question or directed at you at all. Denial of the halocaust and admittedly and openly wanting to wipe Israel off the planet these days is not the kind of verbage that gets ones trust either is my point..imho. I am not waiting to change their distrust for the west that has developed over decades because I don't think we can afford to wait decades for possible actions to be taken..

The Iranian regime definetely is wicked. Its oppressive. Its based on fundamentalist religion and correspondingly disregards reality. What I see as a danger is if we knock out their nuclear program what we are doing is causing those who would support us (college reformists) to get driven into the nationalistic camp. When it comes between supporting a bad guy, or getting invaded, most people historically defend the bad guy.

Machiavelli would say don't make an enemy today and let him rest. Unless we can be sure that the Iranians could never make a nuclear weapon afterwards, its probably safer to let them have the nuclear weapon and integrate them into the community. If thats impossible, things get tricky.

I'm just worried about America going through imperial overstretch, which seems more likely to cynical minded Kevin than Iran using a nuclear weapon.

[Aquawind]

Unless we can be sure that the Iranians could never make a nuclear weapon afterwards, its probably safer to let them have the nuclear weapon and integrate them into the community.

I simply don't think so. We already have a loud mouth oppressive Gov't in North Korea that unfortunately already has Nuclear power and of course weapons. They use it regularly to extort and threaten not only their neighbors but humans worldwide as they are selling products to the highest bidder. Who is to say that won't happen with Iran as well. In that hotbed region for hatered of your neighbor and non beleivers.

Giving them nuclear status now just opens the door for future generations to be obliterated. Reading the latest interview by their mighty talking leader clearly they are consumed with getting rid of Jews and Isreal and bold enough to bring it up in the same discussion as Nukes.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/04/ ... index.html

Of course Iran doesn't want war now they want it to all rest until they ARE ready and it sounds so politically correct now. Afterall they are at least a few years away from having one we hope and they don't want sanctions until then. Oh but wait until they claim to have Nukes and then start pulling the North Korea extorsion schemes on everyone or worse yet sell them.

I still beleive we need to prevent Iran from continuing to aquire nuclear technology capable of weapons for our childens sake. Now IS the time as much as people disagree with recent war activity in the region brought on by us expanding imperialists. This issue has much more at stake just like the war in Iraq would have been if the Scuds had nuclear warheads.

[cycloneye]

Israel watching Iran



Read above what will Israel will do to watch the actions by Iran.