Iran Nuclear Standoff

[Ed Mahmoud]

A case for military action against Iran

[cycloneye]

Interesting read there Ed.My thinking that Israel may go ahead and do the stricking of the nuke plants first than the U.S. is mentioned in that article.Below is part of that.

But this still does not answer the question of who should do the bombing. Tempting as it must be for George Bush to sit back and let the Israelis do the job, there are considerations that should give him pause. One is that no matter what he would say, the whole world would regard the Israelis as a surrogate for the United States, and we would become as much the target of the ensuing recriminations both at home and abroad as we would if we had done the job ourselves.

To make matters worse, the indications are that it would be very hard for the Israeli air force, superb though it is, to pull the mission off. Thus, an analysis by two members of the Security Studies Program at MIT concluded that while “the Israeli air force now possesses the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran with some degree of confidence,” the problem is that for the mission to succeed, all of the many contingencies involved would have to go right. Hence an Israeli attempt could end with the worst of all possible outcomes: retaliatory measures by the Iranians even as their nuclear program remained unscathed. We, on the other hand, would have a much bigger margin of error and a much better chance of setting their program back by a minimum of five or ten years and at best wiping it out altogether.

[Cryomaniac]

As I said before I don't think just attacking the nuclear plants is the best way to go, because that doesn't stop Iran attacking US shipping.

[cycloneye]

Israel spy agency says Iran may have nukes in 3 years



Israel is spying Iran and that is why they made that conclusion.Two questions that are important are is if they will be the first to strike those plants inside Iran or the U.S.will be jumping ahead?Or nothing of military manner will occur and let the diplomats talk.

[cycloneye]

U.S. Warns Iran about Centrifuges



Here we go again.

[gtalum]

As I said before I don't think just attacking the nuclear plants is the best way to go, because that doesn't stop Iran attacking US shipping.

Worse than that, it actually gives them the justification to do it.

[HURAKAN]

I'm beginning to think our government just wants our attention to be on Iran although Iran may not be a problem at the moment. I think in their minds they believe that if the American people focuses their concerns on Iran, somehow Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, and all of our problems will go into a second stage.

I'm beginning to think this because they're just harassing Iran with sanctions but at the same time are not doing anything directly to stop Iran from building their nuclear weapons.

I getting confused by all these blah, blah, blah, and no action.

If Iran was really a problem, it would most likely already being taken care of.

[cycloneye]

If Iran was really a problem, it would most likely already being taken care of.

If the U.S. wanted,they would haved bombed those plants a long time ago.But they haved been stucked in the U.N. with the sanctions thing for a long time and the stick has been hiding.As I haved said before in the thread,Israel may be the ones to do it.

[Cryomaniac]

If the U.S. wanted,they would have bombed those plants a long time ago.But they have been stuck in the U.N. with the sanctions thing for a long time and the stick has been hiding.As I have said before in the thread,Israel may be the ones to do it.

In my opinion the UN sanctions thing can only go on for so long. I think various parties (the US and Israel mostly) are losing patience with the whole diplomacy track.

Worse than that, it actually gives them the justification to do it.

Well, exactly.

Any attack on Iran will have to be "all inclusive".

[cycloneye]

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the U.S. and its allies Saturday to "apologize" to Iran for accusing it of seeking nuclear weapons—a day after the U.N. nuclear watchdog released its latest report on Iran's atomic program.
Ahmadinejad said the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency vindicated Iran and warned that Tehran would take unspecified "reciprocal measures" against any country that imposed additional sanctions against Iran.

The IAEA report said several past questions about Iran's nuclear program had been resolved, but highlighted Tehran's continued refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

Ahmadinejad said in a televised address to the nation that the best way for the U.S. and its allies to "compensate for their mistakes" is to "apologize and pay compensation."

"If they continue" pursuing sanctions, he said, "we have definitely drawn up reciprocal measures." Ahmadinejad did not elaborate.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1



The above is more talk than anything from Ahmadinejad.

[HURAKAN]

If he really thinks the US will apology for anything, he should seek psychiatric care as soon as possible!

[mf_dolphin]

I hope he holds his breath until we apologize

[Cryomaniac]

If he really thinks the US will apology for anything, he should seek psychiatric care as soon as possible!

Well exactly.

To tie this to other world events, I'd be interested to hear Iran's veiw on Kosovo.

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

If Iran is indeed doing anything covert; all I can say is that their position is gaining strength by the year, if not the month. I feel this whole mess will go down in history as yet another foreign policy failure of the Bush administration.

[Cryomaniac]

If Iran is indeed doing anything covert; all I can say is that their position is gaining strength by the year, if not the month. I feel this whole mess will go down in history as yet another foreign policy failure of the Bush administration.

It depends, that will indeed be teh case if Iran aquire nuclear weapons. Unless you're saying that the west shouldn't do anything, and Iran should be allowed nukes.

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

Um (you should read some of my past posts LOL), no Iran shouldn't have nukes; I'm saying the current policy of deterrents seems to be failing.

[Cryomaniac]

Um (you should read some of my past posts LOL), no Iran shouldn't have nukes; I'm saying the current policy of deterrents seems to be failing.

Ok, so you agree with me that the west are running out of non-military options?

[HURAKAN]

Iran says had little time to respond to nuclear weapons allegations
7 hours ago

VIENNA (AFP) — Even as Iran warned of reprisals over any new UN sanctions, Tehran complained it had not been given sufficient time to respond to new intelligence purportedly showing it was involved in nuclear weapons work.

Furthermore, the information was "fabricated" and the allegations "baseless", Iran insisted.

"February 15th was too late. It was impossible," Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told AFP in an interview on Sunday.

"They should have shown it to us before, two or three years ago when they were talking about the alleged studies," Soltanieh said.

In a report Friday, the IAEA complained that Tehran had failed to respond to new information connected with its alleged involvement in weaponisation studies.

The studies covered a so-called green salt project, where uranium dioxide is converted into uranium tetrafluoride (an intermediate product for manufacturing uranium hexafluoride, the material used to make both nuclear fuel and fissile bomb material); high explosives testing; and the design of a missile re-entry vehicle.

The information was allegedly found on a laptop computer smuggled out of Tehran.

The IAEA explained that it had only received authorisation "from other member states" to show the material to Iran on February 15th, just days before the watchdog was scheduled to complete and publish its new report.

That gave Iran no time to respond, Soltanieh said.

"Not only was there not enough time. But it also runs 100-percent contrary to the work plan," the ambassador said, referring to a timetable drawn up by the IAEA and Tehran last autumn to resolve all outstanding issues on Iran's nuclear dossier.

Soltanieh insisted that the alleged studies were separate from the other outstanding issues, since there was no direct nuclear connection, and were therefore expressly not included in the work plan.

"We're talking about missiles and explosives, which are not related at all with nuclear activities or programmes," he said.

Furthermore, the documentation which Iran had been shown -- primarily US intelligence -- consisted merely of "unauthenticated copies", the ambassador added.

The US envoy to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, when contacted by AFP, refused to respond directly to Soltanieh's charges.

"The IAEA raised concerns about these activities a couple of years ago and Iran has chosen not to address them," he said.

Tehran should not wait to be asked for information, but should "come clean" on all aspects of its nuclear programme if it wanted to regain the confidence of the international community, Schulte said.

"Iran owes the IAEA answers."

In its report, the UN atomic watchdog said that while most of the other outstanding issues had been cleared up, the crucial matter of the alleged studies remained unresolved.

"This is a matter of serious concern and critical to an assessment of a possible military dimension to Iran's nuclear programme," it said.

Soltanieh insisted that the IAEA's report gave Iran a "clean bill of health on the exclusively peaceful nature of (our) nuclear programme and activities."

All the outstanding issues had been "resolved" and "concluded," he said.

Nevertheless, the IAEA was not so sure.

While most of the issues were "no longer outstanding at this stage", it still had to verify the completeness of Iran's declarations, it said, concluding that, particularly in light of the unresolved alleged studies issue, it was "not yet in a position to determine the full nature of Iran's nuclear programme".

The agency also complained that Iran was continuing to defy UN demands to halt uranium enrichment and had actually started developing faster and more efficient centrifuges to produce enriched uranium, which can be used to make the fissile material for a bomb.

Soltanieh acknowledged that Iran was having problems in getting its first-generation P1 centrifuges to run smoothly.

There are around 3,000 such centrifuges in operation at Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz.

In the report, IAEA inspectors found that "the throughput of the (enrichment) facility has been well below its declared design capacity."

But Soltanieh said it was "natural in this kind of industry that there are ups and downs once in a while," especially given that Iran was receiving no help from outside.

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

Um (you should read some of my past posts LOL), no Iran shouldn't have nukes; I'm saying the current policy of deterrents seems to be failing.

Ok, so you agree with me that the west are running out of non-military options?

In a word; yes. Not only non-military options, but time wise as well.

[HURAKAN]

There has been a lot of threats from both sides of the argument but no one has decided to get together, have a conversation of what is at stake and see if we can come to a peaceful resolution. No one has tried this option.

It's always, I say this and you say that. Blah, blah, blah.

What the Muslim world is seeing is the Western world trying to impose their will on them and they seem not to like that.