November 30, 2003
As part of my new commitment to Blog-Iran, I was directed to this notable obituary of a key figure in the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution -- and an indication of the tender mercy we can expect from Islamofascists if they are allowed to expand their power: After the establishment in 1979 of a fundamentalist Islamic republic in Iran under the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian army occupied three Kurdish-Iranian towns for supporting the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, condemned by Khomeini as "un- Islamic". The hardline cleric Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali set up his Islamic revolutionary court to weed out "counter-revolutionaries" in the town of Saghez. Learning that a Kurdish defendant who was born in Orumiyeh had lost a hand to a grenade explosion during the Tehran uprising, Khalkhali asked what he was doing in Saghez. "I am a guest at a social get- together, your honour," replied the defendant. "That...
January 18, 2004
The political crisis facing the Iranian government deepened today as the clerics in the Guardian Council refused to back down from disqualifying thousands of reformist candidates: Iran's hard-line Guardian Council on Sunday defended its disqualification of prospective candidates for next month's parliamentary elections, further deepening a political crisis. The Guardian Council, an unelected body controlled by hard-liners, has disqualified more than a third of the 8,200 people who applied to run in the Feb. 20 elections. ... The comments dashed hopes of a breakthrough after Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the Guardian Council on Wednesday to reconsider the disqualifications and laid down criteria that appeared to be easier to meet. The unelected Iranian mullahs who sit on the Guardian Council for life apparently feel that any attempt at compromise undermines their claim to protect the Islamic nature of Iranian government as envisioned by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the...
January 22, 2004
The political clash between the rigid, ultraconservative mullahs of the Guardian Council and Iranian reformers escalated into violence today, thanks to Hezb' Allah and their allies: A 200-strong gang of political radicals attacked a meeting of Iranian reformists yesterday in the first outbreak of serious violence since moderates were barred from forthcoming elections. Members of the radical Islamic Hezbollah movement burst into a hall in Hamedan, western Iran. They disrupted a meeting called to discuss the disqualification of 3,605 predominantly reformist candidates from next month's general elections. The violence erupted after a speaker accused the Guardian Council, the unelected clerical body that vetoed the candidates, of disregarding an order by the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the disqualifications to be reviewed. "Some 200 people attacked the podium, broke the microphone and beat people," said one witness. The aggression of Hezb' Allah reveals true nature of the Iranian regime....
February 2, 2004
Michael Ledeen at the National Review writes about the proposed trip to Iran by three US lawmakers, and wants to put a "Reserved" sign for them on the seventh level of Dante's Inferno: Sorry to say, I haven't reread Dante's "Inferno" for some years, but I still remember his description of a very low and extremely unpleasant level of hell that houses traitors. Surely abject appeasers of evil qualify for the same treatment, and we must note grimly that three prime candidates have recently come forward to swell the ranks of that overheated realm: Senator Joe Biden of Delaware (D.), Senator Arlen Specter (R.), of Pennsylvania, and Congressman Bob Ney of Nebraska (R.). All have undertaken to "improve relations" between the United States and the theocratic fascist regime of Iran. Specter announced over the weekend that congressional staffers would soon go to Tehran in the first stage of the appeasement...
February 19, 2004
The Telegraph publishes this remarkable statement from an unnamed Iranian Republican Guard soldier stationed at the old American embassy in Teheran: "I would live in America, no problem," said one 22-year-old, who added that he associated the country with "love and freedom". Nearby, "Down with USA" was painted on the wall in garish red and yellow hues. Another guard, also in his 20s, added: "Our government has one view of America but the people have another. Our government tries to show the US as an enemy of our country and of our people. All of the young believe the US is good. Most of the people believe this." Why were these young men standing guard over our old embassy in Teheran? The Iranian government, controlled by radical mullahs since Ruhollah Khomeini since the Islamic Revolution began 25 years ago this month, had turned the building into a museum dedicated to...
February 21, 2004
As expected after the Iranian Guardian Council -- the ruling band of mullahs who make all policy for the original Islamic Republic -- disqualified most of the reformist Parliamentary candidates, hard-liners dominated yesterday's elections. But Iranians, despite being told that voting was a religious requirement, stayed away in droves: It also would be a significant moral victory for reformers, who urged a boycott after more than 2,400 of their backers were barred from running, and would strengthen their drive for more openness and accountability from the all-powerful theocracy. It's not hard to understand why participation fell off by over a third. Imagine going to the polls and finding out that you have a choice between George Bush and Jeb Bush for President, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy for Senator, and Howard Dean and Ralph Nader for Governor. Sure, you could cast a vote, but for what purpose? Throw in the...
March 29, 2004
Iran has backed down again in its confrontation with the IAEA -- and the West -- over its nuclear program: Iran has stopped building centrifuges to win the world's trust over its nuclear program, the head of its Atomic Energy Organization said Monday. Gholamreza Aghazadeh said the suspension of the construction of centrifuges had been ordered by the country's Supreme National Security Coucil, Iran's top decision-making body. Iran suspended uranium enrichment last year under strong international pressure over the aims and dimensions of its nuclear program. But it continued to build centrifuges, which are used in enrichment, despite criticism that this violated the spirit of its pledge to cease enrichment. Iran had long been defiant about its nuclear program, which it insists is limited to power generation and has no application towards weapon development. Last year, after the invasion of Iraq made it clear that certain members of the UN...
April 1, 2004
The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that despite Iranian claims of full cooperation with IAEA inspectors, Iran has continued to interfere with the inspections and block the investigations into its nuclear program: An internal report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency challenges Iran's contention that it has provided international inspectors with free access to workshops where it has manufactured parts for centrifuges. The document contradicts Iranian assurances this month that it had allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, unrestricted access to the sites during inspections in January. "The agency's visit was 'managed' by the Iranians in the sense that the inspectors were not permitted to take pictures with IAEA cameras or use their own electronic equipment," said the document, which was first reported by Reuters and obtained Wednesday by The Times. The last time that the IAEA or the UN issued a critical report on...
April 22, 2004
The New York Times reports today that Europe has slowly started to move towards the US position on Iran and its nascent nuclear program, as French president Jacques Chirac has now publicly chastised Iran's non-compliance: In a hardening of Europe's position toward Iran's nuclear activities, President Jacques Chirac of France criticized Iran on Wednesday for failing to comply fully with international inspections of its nuclear sites, and suggested that Iran had violated the spirit of an agreement with France, Germany and Britain to curtail its nuclear programs, senior French officials said. In a 45-minute meeting at lyse Palace with Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi of Iran, Mr. Chirac also warned Tehran that unless it met the demands of the United Nations' weapons inspection agency before that group gathers in June for what he called a "decisive" meeting, it ran the risk that international goodwill would be eroded. Better late than never,...
May 29, 2004
According to translations of Iranian speeches and documents provided by MEMRI, the Iranians have announced to their Revolutionary Guard that they intend to attack and destroy "Anglo-Saxon civilization": A source close to [Revolutionary Guards] intelligence confirmed that P.R. has been appointed secretary-general of a new office that has begun registering the names of suicide volunteers to be sent to Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon. [The newspaper reported that it had obtained] a tape with a speech by H.A., a [Revolutionary] Guards intelligence theoretician, who teaches at the Revolutionary Guards' Al-Hussein University. [In the tape, H.A.] spoke of Tehran's secret strategy aimed at taking over the Arab and Muslim countries by means of helping revolutionary forces and organizations. H.A. is regarded as one of the advisors of a branch in the organization, and has published a number of works on exporting the [Islamic] revolution and the method of the struggle against the...
June 10, 2004
Reuters reports this evening that the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog for nuclear non-proliferation, has discovered evidence that Iran intended on building thousands of centrifuges for weapons-grade nuclear fuel: The U.N. nuclear watchdog has found indications Iran wanted to equip thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges, enough to produce bomb-grade material for several warheads per year, diplomats say. ... At a closed-door meeting on Iran, a senior inspector from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the agency's governing board a private Iranian company had expressed interest in "tens of thousands" of magnets for advanced P-2 centrifuges from a European intermediary, said a diplomat who attended. The IAEA said last week in its latest report on Iran that the company had expressed interest in 4,000 magnets from a European intermediary -- enough for 2,000 centrifuges -- and had added it might buy in "higher numbers" to get a lower...
June 22, 2004
Reuters reports that the Iranian mullahs apparently intend to inflame tensions even further in the Gulf region. Yesterday they captured three British patrol boats and held eight British sailors prisoner. Diplomatic scuttlebutt implied that the Iranians just wanted to make sure everyone knew that they had an eye on the CPA in Iraq and that the sailors would be shortly released. Now, however, the Iranians have decided to try the soldiers for violating Iranian waters: Iran will prosecute eight British naval personnel seized in its waters, state television said on Tuesday, turning what seemed a minor border incident into a serious diplomatic spat. ... The eight were arrested on Monday on the Shatt al-Arab waterway which marks the southern stretch of Iraq's border with Iran. Britain said the group were training Iraqi police and were delivering a boat to an Iraqi river patrol. Quoting unnamed Iranian military sources, Iran's Arabic...
June 25, 2004
The Islamic mullahcracy of Iran has thumbed its nose at the international community, announcing it will resume enriching uranium in defiance of its agreement to comply with IAEA requirements for non-proliferation: Iran has announced a "substantial resumption" of its uranium enrichment program and may have already stockpiled chemical weapons, a State Department official said Thursday. In testimony before the House International Relations Committee, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton said Iran had reneged "on the commitment it made to the United Kingdom, Germany and France" to stop enriching uranium. Bolton said Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, that beginning next week the country will restart "the production of uranium centrifuge parts assembly and testing." Once again, the titans of Europe have taken us on a rollercoaster ride on WMD, and once again, the trip has been as pointless as an amusement-park ride:...
August 11, 2004
The Iranians have presented a list of demands to their European enablers that not only reveals the true intentions of the mullahcracy but the absolute uselessness of EU leadership. Britain and other EU nations were "stunned" to receive demands not just for dual-use nuclear technology, but for the delivery of weapons to the Iranian mullahs and a defense pact against Israel: Iran has issued an extraordinary list of demands to Britain and other European countries, telling them to provide advanced nuclear technology, conventional weapons and a security guarantee against nuclear attack by Israel. Teheran's request, said by British officials to have "gone down very badly", sharply raises the stakes in the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, which Britain and America believe is aimed at making an atomic bomb. Iran's move came during crisis talks in Paris this month with senior diplomats from Britain, France and Germany. ... Iran said the...
August 16, 2004
The Olympics have long been a venue where the stated goals are "tolerance, solidarity, peace and friendship," but at the same time, also have a long history of member nations playing politics with its athletes and athletes playing politics on their own. Even the IOC has hardly been blameless as an organization in this regard, combining grubby graft (uncovered in the Salt Lake games) with overarching and ostentatious snobbery (their refusal to allow professional athletes to compete for decades). In Athens, the Iranians took their turn at injecting politics into sport by having their star judo champion refuse to take a bout with an Israeli challenger: Iran's Arash Miresmaeili has been eliminated after failing to make the correct weight at the Athens Olympics. But there is confusion over the affair, following the judo star's reported threat to walk out in protest when he was drawn against an Israeli opponent. Iran...
September 24, 2004
At last, a moment of clarity from the French government! Agence France-Presse reports that French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier has called the IAEA's November 25 deadline for Iranian compliance "a moment of truth": French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said Iran's controversial nuclear program could be referred to the UN Security Council if the world is not reassured about its nuclear ambitions. "We are waiting clearly from Iran gestures and decisions that will reassure us," Barnier said in a lunch with French media on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. "Since there is a trust problem, dates have been set," he said, referring to a November 25 deadline for Iran to clear up suspicions over its activities or risk having the issue referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions -- something the United States has sought. ... "It will be a moment of truth," Barnier said, referring to...
September 25, 2004
Iran announced earlier today that it had successfully tested a new "strategic" missile and has distributed it to its armed forces in the field, according to the AP: Iran said Saturday it successfully tested a "strategic missile" and delivered it to its armed forces, state-run radio reported. The report did not say whether the missile was the previously announced new version of the Shahab-3 rocket, which already was capable of reaching Israel and U.S. forces stationed in the Middle East, or was a new missile. Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani declined to give details about the missile for "security reasons," but said Iran was "ready to confront all regional and extra-regional threats," the report said. Strategic missiles usually refer to longer-range weapons, as opposed to tactical missiles which would be used in battle conditions. The estimated range for the new missiles, according to Israeli analysts, is around 1,200 miles -- 50%...
October 5, 2004
The Iranians announced that they could hit targets all over Southwest Asia and even southern Europe with their new Shahab-3 rocket, the AP reports: Iran can launch a missile as far as 2,000 km (1,250 miles), a senior official was quoted as saying Tuesday, substantially increasing the announced range of the Islamic state's military capabilities. Such a missile would be capable of hitting Israel or parts of southeastern Europe. Iran says its missiles are for purely defensive purposes and would be used to counter a possible Israeli strike against its nuclear facilities. "Now we have the power to launch a missile with a 2,000 km range," IRNA quoted influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as saying. "Iran is determined to improve its military capabilities." The only way Iran could consider the Shahab-3 a defensive weapon is if they think the combat front exists at the borders of the old Ottoman...
October 19, 2004
Ron Wright sent me this insight into the Iranian mullahcracy -- the one to which John Kerry and John Edwards want to give nuclear fuel to see what they do with it. In a case where a 15-year-old boy impregnated his 13-year-old sister, the mullahs have upheld a 150-lash sentence for the boy, but have confirmed a sentence for the girl of death by stoning: Almost two months after having hanged a 16 years-old girl, the ruling Iranian ayatollahs are to commit another human crime by condemning another young girl to stoning. According to Iranian and foreign press, Zhila Izadi, a 13 years old girl from the north-western city of Marivan had been condemned to death by stoning after being found that she had been pregnant from her 15 years-old brother. ... While Zhila as been sentenced to stoning, her brother, jailed in Tehran, is to receive only 150 lashes,...
October 27, 2004
According to Reuters, the Iranian mullahcracy not-so-secretly looks forward to a John Kerry presidency, thanks in part to Kerry's "Let's Make A Deal" rhetoric in regards to Iran's nuclear ambitions: Iranian officials like to portray U.S. presidential elections as a choice between bad and worse but there is little doubt they would prefer Democratic challenger John Kerry to win next week. Since President Bush took office the Islamic state has been dubbed an "axis of evil" member, seen U.S. forces mass on its borders in Iraq and Afghanistan and faced concerted U.S. accusations that it has a covert atomic arms program. In other words, Bush's foreign policy regarding Iran is firmly rooted in reality. Iran has long been the strongest support for Islamofascist terror groups, directly funding Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank/Gaza Strip territories. It had links to al-Qaeda, although no one is sure...
November 6, 2004
Iran has defied the EU-3 yet again, concluding the latest round of talks without an agreement to end uranium enrichment and stiffarming the international community: Talks between Iran and three European Union heavyweights ended on Saturday without an agreement on Tehran's nuclear program, a source close to the negotiations said. Iran was seeking a compromise in the talks with France, Germany and Britain to avoid a dispute over its nuclear program being referred to the United Nations Security Council and avert the risk of sanctions. The EU trio wants Iran to stop enriching uranium. "At the end of difficult talks, the two parties made considerable progress toward a provisional agreement on a common approach on these issues," the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement. But a source close to the negotiations said: "Nothing is settled ... The discussions were difficult, very difficult. The Iranians struggled hard." "Everyone has to...
November 12, 2004
The AP reports that a deal supposedly hammered out by the EU is collapsing due to Iran's renuncuiation of the agreement: A deal committing Iran to suspend activities that Washington says are part of a nuclear arms program was close to collapse Friday, with diplomats suggesting that Tehran had reneged on an agreement reached with European negotiators just days ago. ... The deal leaves open the exact length of the suspension but says it will be in effect at least as long as it takes for the two sides to negotiate a deal on European technical and financial aid, including help in the development of Iranian nuclear energy for power generation. But on Friday the diplomats told The Associated Press that Iranian officials had presented British, French and German envoys in Tehran with a version of the agreement that was unacceptable to the three European powers. Well, color me shocked...
November 14, 2004
The EU-3 appears to have won a major diplomatic concession from Iran as the Islamic Republic has agreed to halt its uranium enrichment program, which the UN confirmed separately: Iran has given the United Nations a written promise to fully suspend uranium enrichment, diplomats said on Sunday, in an apparent bid to dispel suspicions that Tehran wants to build a nuclear bomb. The move also would appear to blunt an American drive to take Iran before the United Nations for the imposition of sanctions. By issuing the written commitment to the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency the International Atomic Energy Agency Iran dropped demands for modification of a tentative deal worked out on Nov. 7 with European negotiators, agreeing instead to continue a freeze on enrichment and to suspend related activities, diplomats told The Associated Press. "Basically it's a full suspension," said one of the diplomats, speaking on...
November 17, 2004
A group of Iranian exiles claim that the Khan network of Pakistan has already given the Iranian mullahcracy the necessary plans for nuclear weapons as well as a small amount of weapons-grade uranium, making the Iranian claims of developing nothing other than a peaceful nuclear-energy program suspect: Iran obtained weapons-grade uranium and a design for a nuclear bomb from a Pakistani scientist who has admitted to selling nuclear secrets abroad, an exiled Iranian opposition group said on Wednesday. The group, that has given accurate information before, also said Iran is secretly enriching uranium at a military site previously unknown to the U.N., despite promising France, Britain and Germany that it would halt all such work. "(Abdul Qadeer) Khan gave Iran a quantity of HEU (highly enriched uranium) in 2001, so they already have some," Farid Soleiman, a senior spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told reporters....
November 19, 2004
In a rhetorical flourish that recalls the best (or worst) of the Clinton Administration and the John Kerry campaign, Iran apparently has decided to stop their refinement of uranium into weapons precursors only after they've made enough of it to turn into weapons: Iran is preparing large amounts of uranium for enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons, days before its promise to freeze all such activities takes effect, Western diplomats said on Friday. "The Iranians are producing UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) like hell," a diplomat on the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told Reuters. "The machines are running." ... On Sunday, Tehran promised France, Britain and Germany it would freeze its enrichment program in a bid to ease concerns that its nuclear plans are aimed at producing atomic weapons -- a charge it denies -- and to escape a referral to the...
November 24, 2004
Iran has once again thrown its recent capitulation on uranium enrichment in doubt. Now the mullahcracy insists that an exemption must be made for two dozen centrifuges so that Iran can continue its research -- the same research which caused all the concern regarding their nuclear ambitions: Iran is demanding that it be allowed to make an exception in its commitment to freeze all uranium enrichment activities so it can operate about about two dozen centrifuges, diplomats said Wednesday. The Iranians have told the International Atomic Energy Agency the U.N. nuclear watchdog that they want to operate the centrifuges "for research purposes," the diplomats told The Associated Press. They have asked the IAEA to exempt around 24 of the devices from the agency seals meant to ensure the enrichment program is completely at a standstill, one of the diplomats said. The IAEA had no immediate comment. But another...
November 30, 2004
You'll never guess what Iran did this morning: Iran reiterated Tuesday it was only prepared to freeze its uranium enrichment activities for a few months and would not, as the EU and Washington want, permanently mothball facilities which could make atomic bombs. The comments, made by Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, were a further blow to European Union efforts to persuade Tehran to scrap enrichment for good and were likely to fuel U.S. concerns that Iran secretly plans to produce nuclear weapons. Iran, which insists its nuclear program is solely for electricity generation, Monday escaped possible U.N. sanctions after agreeing to suspend all activities which could be used to make bomb-grade material. What? Iran reversed itself? Why, that's unprecedented! It hasn't happened since as far back as last week. What exactly have the EU-3 negotiators accomplished in this silly waltz with the Iranian mullahcracy? They had Iran sign off on an...
December 2, 2004
In a blow to the entire concept of inspections regimes, UN diplomats admitted to Reuters that the UN lacks any authority to inspect areas not explicitly declared by Iran as nuclear sites. While nations collect intelligence detailing Iranian nuclear activities at new locations and the stripping of those facilities that have been declared by Iran, the UN can do little but ask Iran for permission to see for themselves: Inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog would like to visit a secret military site in Iran that an exile group said was a nuclear weapons site, but they lack the legal authority to go there, U.N. diplomats told Reuters. ... The New York Times reported Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes satellite photographs show that high explosives are being tested and that procurement records show equipment has been bought that can be used for making bomb-grade uranium, citing...
December 6, 2004
In another sign that so-called Iranian "reformers" have lost their credibility among the masses, Iranian students today heckled President Mohammed Khatami in a speech to mark Student Day at Tehran University. Khatami, who had been a favorite of the reform-minded students, appeared shocked at the hostile reception: A visibly-shaken Khatami defended his record and criticised the powerful hardliners who have closed newspapers and jailed dissidents. He asked students to stop heckling and accused his critics of intolerance. ... "There is no Third World country where the students can talk to their president and criticise the government as you do now. I really believe in this system and the revolution and that this system can be developed from within," he is quoted as saying. But student leader Abdollah Momeni complained that there was is no difference between the president and the authoritarians who thwarted his reform programme. The students understand that...
December 12, 2004
The Washington Post reports today that the US has tapped IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei's phones in an attempt to gather evidence of corruption that would enable the US to oust him from his post. So far, the Post reports, the only crime that ElBaradei has committed is diplomacy: The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to three U.S. government officials. But the diplomatic offensive will not be easy. The administration has failed to come up with a candidate willing to oppose ElBaradei, who has run the agency since 1997, and there is disagreement among some senior officials over how hard to push for his removal, and what the diplomatic costs of a public campaign against him could be. Although eavesdropping, even...
December 20, 2004
Today's Guardian (UK) reports on what likely is the vanguard of a second Iranian revolution. Iranian bloggers have made Farsi the fourth biggest language in blogs, as over 75,000 sites have opened on the Internet under the noses of one of the strictest totalitarian regimes. The number of Iranian bloggers far outstrips that of those in neighboring countries and allows democracy-minded activists a means to network information to each other and the outside world: In the last five years up to 100 media publications, including 41 daily newspapers, have been closed by Iran's hardline judiciary. Yet today, with tens of thousands of Iranian weblogs there is an alternative media that for the moment defies control and supervision of speech by authoritarian rule. ... While for some blogging allows them to revel in the forbidden, for others it's a way of organising action and spreading the word. As RSF's 2004 Internet...
January 5, 2005
The IAEA announced that the UN will inspect an Iranian military site that the US believes was used for nuclear weaponization activities: The inspection will be part of the U.N. investigation into allegations Iran has carried out work linked to nuclear 'weaponization,' the process of testing or assembling a warhead and attaching it to a delivery system. ... According to globalsecurity.org, a Web Site run by a private Washington-based research group, the massive Parchin complex, around 30 km (19 miles) south of Tehran, is the center of Iran's munitions industry. Officials from the United States and several other countries said in September that Parchin may be a site where Iran was testing explosives that would be appropriate for an atom bomb. Although ElBaradei played down the U.S. allegations at the time, agency inspectors asked Tehran to visit the site. They want to take environmental samples to rule out the possibility...
January 13, 2005
In a move that raises fears for her safety, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has been ordered to appear before Iranian judges without any explanation of cause: Ms Ebadi, a lawyer and human rights activist, told the AFP news agency that she had no idea what the specific reason for the summons was. She said she has not yet decided how to respond to the summons, which she has until Sunday to answer. The 57-year-old Ms Ebadi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work on women's and children's rights. "In the summons, it simply says that I must present myself to the court within three days to provide some explanations and that I will be arrested if I refuse," she added. No one misunderstands the intent of that summons. Ebadi won her Nobel for criticism of the Iranian regime and its oppressive rule. The BBC reports...
February 18, 2005
Russian president Vladimir Putin has declared that the Iranian mullahs don't want nuclear weapons and plans to help them build the nuclear reactor at Buhsher, according to a Reuters report this morning: Putin's defense of Iran, where Russia is building a nuclear power plant, comes in the face of U.S. concerns that Tehran could be using Russian know-how to covertly build a nuclear weapon. "The latest steps by Iran convince Russia that Iran indeed does not intend to produce nuclear weapons and we will continue to develop relations in all sectors, including peaceful atomic energy," Putin told Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani. "We hope Iran will strictly stick to all agreements with Russia or the international community," Putin said at the start of talks with Rohani at the Kremlin. Bush may need to re-evalute his relationship with Putin after these developments. Putin has increasingly become more autocratic, dismantling key...
March 15, 2005
The change in direction for US policy towards Iran announced last week in support of European strategy seems to have made little difference in the Iranian position. Iran's foreign minister told reporters this morning that while American offers of incentives could improve relations between Teheran and Washington, the Iranians would not be deterred from exercising their "right" to the nuclear cycle: Iran on Tuesday said economic incentives may help improve foreign relations but won't permanently stop Tehran from pursuing a nuclear program it says is for generating electricity but Washington believes is for weapons. The United States agreed last week to drop opposition to Iranian membership in the World Trade Organization and to allow some sales of spare parts for civilian aircraft as part of a European plan that offers economic incentives for Iran to permanently freeze its nuclear activities. ... "Economic incentives can't replace our rights. Our legitimate rights...
April 10, 2005
In one of the more ludicrous diplomatic stories to emerge from the funeral of Pope John Paul II, Iranian president Mohammed Khatami now denies touching Israeli president Moshe Katsav at the services: Iranian President Mohammad Khatami strongly denied shaking hands and chatting with Israeli President Moshe Katsav at Pope John Paul II's funeral, state-run media reported Saturday. ... These allegations are false like other allegations made by Israeli media and I have not had any meeting with any one from Zionist (Israeli) regime, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Khatami as saying. Katsav, who was born in the same Iranian region as Khatami, claims that he shook Khatami's hand and spoke about their home town in Farsi, both men's birth tongue. Katsav says the two men shook hands and wished each other peace. Now, for obvious reasons, Khatami wants to assure Iranians that he remains as anti-Semitic as always...
April 18, 2005
Arabian satellite news service Al-Jazeera has taken an enormous amount of criticism for airing hostage videos, biased news reporting, and fomenting trouble by deliberately broadcasting false or misleading information. And apparently that's just the Iranian mullahcracy's complaints: Iran said Monday some 200 people were arrested in ethnic unrest in its southwest in recent days and closed the offices of the Arab language Al Jazeera television channel, accusing it stirring up trouble. At least one person died after Arab-Iranians went on the rampage in the city of Ahvaz, near the border with Iraq, on Friday and Saturday, smashing and setting fire to police cars, banks and government buildings and clashing with police. Government officials have said the violence in Iran's traditional oil-producing heartland was sparked by a forged letter, supposedly penned by a senior government official, discussing the idea of relocating ethnic Arabs from the area. "Many of those arrested are...
May 16, 2005
Sometimes the United Nations acts as if it wants to provide do-it-yourself satire for websites like Scrappleface and The Onion. Today's example comes from Kofi Annan himself, who warned the Bush administration that any attempt to hold Iran accountable for its violations of the non-proliferation treaty would run into UN Security Council impotence: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned the Bush administration that the Security Council might deadlock if asked to punish Iran for its nuclear program. The United States and Britain have called for Iran to be brought before the Security Council if it carries out threats to resume efforts to make nuclear fuel. The United States and Britain believe the fuel could be used for bombs, while Iran contends that it is to generate power. China and Russia, which have strong economic ties to Iran, might veto any push to sanction Iran, Annan suggested in interviews with USA TODAY....
June 1, 2005
Condoleezza Rice revealed in a speech yesterday that a consortium of nations, including the US, stopped nuclear material from reaching Iran as well as other rogue nations over the last nine months. The participating nations of the Proliferation Security Initiative have quietly cooperated on eleven interdictions during that time, at least one of those directly involving Teheran: The U.S. and its allies in a program to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction prevented Iran from obtaining material for its nuclear weapons program within the past nine months, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. ``The trans-shipment of material and equipment bound for ballistic missile programs in countries of concern, including Iran'' was blocked as was the transfer of ``equipment used to produce propellant'' to a ``ballistic missile program in another region'' of the world, Rice said. ... Rice gave no details but said that the U.S. and 10 of...
June 6, 2005
With the United States holding a WTO membership as a carrot, the Iranians have offered to maintain their delay on uranium enrichment until the end of July, giving the Europeans a few more weeks to reach a deal with them on nuclear non-proliferation: Iran said it will extend its suspension of uranium enrichment until the end of July to give European negotiators time to prepare a proposal it can accept, but Tehran also warned against wasting the opportunity to strike a deal. The announcement Sunday followed Iran's agreement last month to review a European Union proposal for a new round of negotiations in the summer. Tehran's decision injects some breathing space into the international crisis over its nuclear program, at least temporarily. ... Aghamohammadi called on the Europeans to firm up the agreement reached between Iran and the Europeans last November in Paris, which committed Tehran to suspension of enrichment...
June 8, 2005
Reuters reports massive celebrations and rioting in Teheran and elsewhere in Iran after the Islamic Republic's soccer team won a place in the World Cup finals by beating archrival Bahrain earlier today. The blog Regime Change Iran has posted a number of reports by its internal sources that claim the celebrations have transformed into political demonstrations that threaten to topple the mullahcracy, either by accident or design: Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets of the capital Tehran after the match, filling the night air with volleys of firecrackers, whistles and horns. State media reported similar scenes in cities across the country. "Hello victory, hello World Cup. Iran is on its way to Germany," said Mohammad Reza Sadeghi, a shopkeeper in eastern Tehran. Some took the opportunity to flout the Islamic state's strict moral codes. Young men and women danced together in the streets and some women briefly...
June 15, 2005
No one expects the election in Iran to produce anything other than exactly what the ruling mullahs of the Supreme Council want: a pliant government that will impose the mullah's will on Iranians. To that end, the Guardian Council has weeded out any candidates who threaten to rock the boat by liberalizing the political climate in Iran, picking only those who will remain subservient to the council of mullahs. Now even that facade may be shorn away, as one of the few "reformers" in the election has warned that violence aimed at his supporters may force him to withdraw: The leading reformist candidate in Iran's presidential election has threatened to pull out in protest at violent attacks on his supporters by religious extremists. In an interview with the Guardian, Mostafa Moin also implied a possible link between the assaults and a spate of bombings that has killed 10 people in...
June 20, 2005
Iranian voters interested in serious reform have found themselves locked out of the presidential election, a suspicious result given the fervor for change among the electorate. The weekend's elections produced two candidates from the slate approved by the Guardian Council -- those candidates with which the mullahs decided they could live -- neither of which hold much hope for reform. As a result, frustrated Iranians ponder a boycott of the runoff, while the former darling of the mullahs warns such an action could result in "totalitarianism": Iran's reformist camp, suffering a devastating defeat in the first round of the presidential elections, is divided over a call to boycott the second round. ... The liberals have an awkward choice on Friday: vote for the pragmatic Rafsanjani or urge a boycott. "Between bad and worse, it's better to select bad," said Morteza Fallah, the managing editor of the reformist Eqbal daily newspaper,...
June 21, 2005
Britain issued a warning against trusting Ali Akbar Rafsanjani as a reformist voice, reminding people of Rafsanjani's role in implementing some of the most repressive of the policies of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The unusually harsh diplomatic language comes as Iranian reformist groups debate whether to boycott elections altogether or band together to keep hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from the presidency: The wily cleric, who served as president from 1989 to 1997, has cast himself as a centrist, and has dropped several hints that he was open to dealing with America. But a senior British diplomat dismissed Mr Rafsanjani's reputation as a "pragmatist", and cast doubt over whether he would make it easier to resolve the crisis over Teheran's nuclear programme. "It's important that people do not see Rafsanjani as a white knight. He has been president for eight years, and a lot of bad things happened in those eight years," he...
June 22, 2005
George Carlin practically built his career around his famous comedic protest against American broadcast censorship, "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV". The Iranian Guardian Council, which is not known for its sense of humor, apparently has its own list of dirty words that will get your electoral material destroyed -- words like "democracy" and "freedom": Iranian security officials on Tuesday confiscated more than half a million wallet-size cards and posters endorsing Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani for president from a printing house in Tehran, according to employees of the shop. Employees said the posters and cards contained the words "repression," "terrorizing," "freedom" and "democracy." "They said, 'The words you are using are offensive,' " said Mahmmoud Reza Bahmanpour, managing director of Nazar Printing House in downtown Tehran. He and other employees said several plainclothes agents, displaying a handwritten letter bearing the seal of Iran's judiciary, carried away 500,000 wallet-size...
June 24, 2005
Little-known Teheran mayor and hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the run-off for the Iranian presidency in a development that indicates the Guardian Council has had enough of negotiating with the West and appeasing the burgeoning democracy movement in Iran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hard-line mayor of Tehran who has invoked Iran's 1979 revolution and expressed doubts about rapprochement with the United States, won a runoff election Friday and was elected president of the Islamic republic in a landslide, the Interior Ministry announced early Saturday. Ahmadinejad defeated Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former two-term president who had won the first round of voting last week and was attempting to appeal to socially moderate and reform-minded voters. ... With 85 percent of votes counted, a spokesman for the Guardian Council, which oversees Iran's electoral process, said returns showed Ahmadinejad leading with 61.8 percent of the vote, to 35.7 for Rafsanjani. Officials said 47 percent...
June 29, 2005
Gateway Pundit, My Pet Jawa, and LGF all have highly interesting documentation -- including a number of photographs -- that appear to indict newly-elected Iranian President as one of the radicals who seized the American embassy in 1979. The photographic evidence is bolstered by a number of sources on the background of president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that put him in the center of the organizations involved in the hostage crisis that destroyed Jimmy Carter's re-election hopes and made the US look weak and toothless. If so, and the evidence looks damning, then one could make the argument that Ahmadinejad helped start the Islamofascist offensive against the United States. These three and others have done excellent blog work in fleshing this story out. However, its impact is really more historic and academic than practical. After all, the government in Teheran now is the same as that which co-opted the hostaging, even if...
July 1, 2005
In a blogpost that the Captain slapped up a few days ago -- Oh. Wait, let me introduce myself: this is Dafydd ab Hugh, guest-blogging for Captain Ed while he recuperates from winning $2.8 million in the World Series of Poker finale, playing (as is his wont for FEC reasons) under the name Tuan Le. If someone posts here under the name "Captain Ed" (including the quotation marks) in the next few weeks, it's actually the nom de plume du jour of well-known labor leader and founder of the Socialist Party of America, Eugene Debs. I may be the most well-known blogger in the blogosphere who doesn't actually have a blog (yet; shortly). You may remember me from my high-school filmstrip series "It's All About Adhesives." Getting back to the point at hand, in this post, Captain Ed (the original) noted that evidence is mounting that the recently elected president...
July 31, 2005
In a rare moment for European media, the Scotsman published a powerful article today about the "sham" election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iranian president and the effect it will have on liberating influences on the Islamic Republic. The first fruits of this election, swayed by an increasingly powerful Revolutionary Guard, showed themselves in the execution of political prisoners this week: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incoming Iranian "elected" president, will assume his post next month, but his presence is already felt in the political circles and on the streets of Tehran. Since his election, under the banner of a renewed Islamic revolution, the clerical regime hanged six people and sentenced another to death in the space of seven days. ... Indeed, the real story of this election is the metamorphosis of the Guards Corps from an ideological army to an omnipresent political/military powerhouse. With Ahmadinejad's win, the IRGC is now able to...
The mullahs of Iran moved today to push the nuclear nonproliferation talks into further crisis after a unilateral deadline they set for a European proposal expired. Iran announced that they will once again begin processing uranium ore, a step that likely will bring an end to the EU-3's efforts to reach accommodation with Teheran: Iran has announced it will resume its controversial nuclear programme imminently in the face of a European Union appeal to wait for talks. Officials said they would inform UN nuclear inspectors of the move on Monday and then begin converting raw uranium at a plant in Isfahan. The UK, which is leading EU attempts to negotiate a compromise, said the move would make further talks difficult. In fact, diplomats tell the BBC that offering any new proposals while Iran processes uranium will be pointless, and they expect Europe to defer to the IAEA instead. That will...
August 9, 2005
A leading Iranian dissident with well-established ties within the Iranian nuclear program claims that Teheran has built 4,000 centrifuges, far more than the IAEA suspects, making Iranian claims of peaceful motives behind their nuclear power efforts appear less than honest: Iran has manufactured about 4,000 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade, an exiled Iranian dissident who helped uncover nearly two decades of covert nuclear activity in 2002 said Tuesday. Alireza Jafarzadeh told The Associated Press the centrifuges which he said are unknown to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency are ready to be installed at Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz. Jafarzadeh, who runs Strategic Policy Consulting, a Washington-based think tank focusing on Iran and Iraq, said the information which he described as "very recent" came from sources within the Tehran regime who have proven accurate in the past. The IAEA only knows of 164 centrifuges...
August 12, 2005
The Times of London makes a big deal about a favorable ruling yesterday from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which publicly supported the EU-3 in calling for Iran to stop its uranium processing in order to remain in compliance with the non-proliferation pact. Based on the lead, Times readers might believe this to be a significant victory, but the Iranians quickly demonstrated its hollow nature: BRITAIN and its European allies won a diplomatic victory over Iran yesterday when the international community unanimously backed their resolution demanding that Tehran halt work at all its nuclear sites. After three days of intense negotiations, the thirty-five member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supported a text proposed by Britain, France and Germany that expressed serious concern over Irans attempts to restart uranium processing. The resolution called on Iran to halt uranium conversion work at its site near Isfahan, which was...
September 1, 2005
Finally, it appears that the US has run out of patience with the EU-3 and wants to step up the pressure on Teheran to stop its nuclear program. Not only has the US called for the UN Security Council to take action, but we picked up a surprising ally, at least for the moment: The Bush administration is trying to rally other nations to agree to impose U.N. sanctions on Iran to force it to negotiate an end to its nuclear programs. ... Britain, France and Germany, negotiating in behalf of the European Union and with U.S. support, has offered Iran economic incentives to stop converting uranium into fuel that could be used for nuclear weapons. The United States, has offered Iran spare parts for commercial aircraft and a help in becoming a member of the World Trade Organization. But with the talks stalemated, the administration clearly is losing patience....
September 17, 2005
Reminding us all once again that the French have strange ideas about partnership and alliances, the Chirac government signaled to the Teheran mullahcracy that they would have no problem with Iran exporting nuclear technology to other Islamic nations: A French Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday that Paris would not object to Mr. Ahmadinejad's suggestion that Iran share its nuclear energy technology with other Islamic countries, as long as the Iranian program fully adhered to the international treaty against nuclear proliferation. That comment came after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. officials said the idea of Iran sharing nuclear technology with anyone only underscored the dangers of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Has France gone completely insane? The entire point of non-proliferation is to ensure that nuclear technology does not wind up in the hands of those who would use it for military purposes. Given that most of the Islamic nations...
October 26, 2005
Iran's new president and nominal head of state has wasted no time in publicly supporting terror. He made an explicit call for attacks on Israel as part of his address to an Islamic forum in Teheran today, calling into question whether the time may have come for stronger measures to eliminate the threat coming from the Islamic Republic's mullahcracy: Irans hard-line president called for Israel to be wiped off the map and said a new wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state, state-run media reported Wednesday. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also denounced attempts to recognize Israel or normalize relations with it. There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world, Ahmadinejad told students Wednesday during a Tehran conference called The World without Zionism. Ahmadinejad wants to touch off yet another intifada, which shows how...
October 28, 2005
Newly-appointed Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed no remorse or signs of retreat after making a demand that Israel be "wiped off the map" at an Islamist conference in Teheran earlier this week. Instead, after facing near-universal condemnation even in Arabic countries, Ahmadinejad rejected the criticism as "invalid": Iran's president has defended his widely criticised call for Israel to be "wiped off the map". Attending an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his remarks were "just" - and the criticism did not "have any validity." Last Wednesday's comment provoked world outrage. Israel has called for Iran's expulsion from the United Nations. Egypt said they showed "the weakness of the Iranian government". A Palestinian official also rejected the remarks. In fact, Saeb Erekat said on behalf of the Palestinians that they had already accepted Israel's right to exist and that the extant question should be about adding Palestine to the map....
November 19, 2005
It looks like Iran had plans for the top of that new Shahab-3 rocket they have recently tested -- the one that can pitch a warhead over 1200 miles. According to the Guardian (UK), the Iranians now admit they received plans for a nuclear warhead from the AQ Khan network: International suspicion of Iran's nuclear programme heightened yesterday when it was revealed that Tehran had obtained a blueprint showing how to build the core of a nuclear warhead. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told diplomats that his inspectors had recently obtained documents from Tehran showing that the Iranians had been given various instructions on processing uranium hexafluoride gas and casting and enriching uranium. These had been obtained via the black market in nuclear technology headed by the disgraced Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan. ... United Nations inspectors had long suspected that the Khan network had helped...
November 27, 2005
The Russians may soon rethink their defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the West if this report from the Sunday Telegraph gets confirmed, although it should surprise no one paying any attention to the global war on terror. According to Con Coughlin, the Iranian government has secretly trained Chechen rebels to conduct more effective terror strikes against Russian targets while Moscow continues to argue on Teheran's behalf for their nuclear ambitions: Teams of Chechen fighters are being trained at the Revolutionary Guards' Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Teheran, according to Western intelligence reports. In addition to receiving training in the latest terror techniques, the Chechen volunteers undergo ideological and political instruction by hardline Iranian mullahs at Qom. ... Moscow has offered a face-saving formula to prevent Iran from being reported to the United Nations Security Council for its failure to co-operate fully with...
November 28, 2005
The AP reports that the Guardian Council's fair-haired boy, newly-"elected" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has created dissension among the ruling elite of Iran. His purges and radical foreign policy has disturbed even the conservatives of the Iranian parliament, who have now denied him his choices for the important position of oil minister three times as a signal to stop operating as a loose cannon. It does not appear that Ahmadinejad will get the message: Iranian moderates say the president has harmed his country by isolating it internationally, and now Ahmadinejad's friends are lining up against him. He suffered a humiliating defeat last week when his choice for oil minister was rejected for a third time, an unprecedented failure for an Iranian president. While parliament is dominated by Ahmadinejad's conservative allies, the president's isolationist stance and his failure to consult on Cabinet appointments have annoyed lawmakers. They warn they will not approve...
December 4, 2005
According to the London Telegraph, the American ambassador to Iraq received administration authorization to review border status with the hard-line Iranian government in an attempt to stabilize the long eastern border between Iraq and Iran. Zalmany Khalilzad will also discuss supressing the Iraqi insurgency and stopping the flow of explosives and weapons from the Islamic Republic, which seems as futile as asking Saddam to remove his army from Kuwait was in 1990: The American initiative, a further indication that the secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's more moderate diplomacy has replaced the hardline foreign policy of Mr Bush's first term, follows another recent shift of tactics towards Iran. For the first time, America is offering active support to European and Russian officials in their efforts to end the deadlock with Iran over its nuclear programme, after previously adopting a hands-off approach - to the alarm of prominent neo-conservatives who back regime...
December 20, 2005
Mahmoud Ahmedinajad has issued a presidential order demanding that bans on Western music, even classical music, get full enforcement in Iran. The hard-liner has decided to follow Ayatollah Khomeini's example and castigate Western music as "intoxicating" and un-Islamic: Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has banned all Western music from Iran's state radio and TV stations — an eerie reminder of the 1979 Islamic revolution when popular music was outlawed as "un-Islamic" under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. ... [T]he official IRAN Persian daily reported Monday that Ahmadinejad, as head of the Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, ordered the enactment of an October ruling by the council to ban all Western music, including classical music, on state broadcast outlets. "Blocking indecent and Western music from the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is required," according to a statement on the council's official Web site. Ahmadinejad will have his hands full trying to enforce this ban. The...
December 23, 2005
The New York Sun reports that Democrats blocked the adoption of a resolution denouncing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his anti-Semitic remaeks and Holocaust denial until a demand for an Iranian plebescite and self-determination free of the Guardian Council had been removed. The objection officially came from Senator Wyden (D-OR), who then told the Senate that, uh, he didn't have a problem with the resolutuion, but that his colleagues did -- who displayed their intestinal fortitude by hiding behind Wyden's skirts: When Mr. Santorum moved to introduce the resolution last Friday, Senator Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, registered an unusual objection. According to the Congressional Record, Mr. Wyden told Mr. Santorum on the Senate floor that he was objecting to the resolution because his Democratic colleagues in the Senate had asked him too. Mr. Wyden did not say who asked him to issue the objection. "While I personally am vehemently...
December 31, 2005
The German magazine Der Spiegel published a report yesterday that speculates an impending military response to Iranian intransigence on nuclear proliferation, primarily involving the US military. According to the magazine, the US has leaned on Turkey to provide extensive intelligence on Iran in exchange for helping to suppress the PKK in northern Iraq, and will use that intelligence in a series of air strikes on key strategic points in Iran: The most talked about story is a Dec. 23 piece by the German news agency DDP from journalist and intelligence expert Udo Ulfkotte. The story has generated controversy not only because of its material, but also because of the reporter's past. Critics allege that Ulfkotte in his previous reporting got too close to sources at Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND. But Ulfkotte has himself noted that he has been under investigation by the government in the past (indeed, his...
January 9, 2006
According to Katherine Jean Lopez, Michael Ledeen (and Dr. Zin), al-Qaeda terror chief Osama bin Laden died three weeks ago from kidney failure and was buried in Iran: It seems clear, however, that there is a greater rapidity of change, accompanied — inevitably — by the passing of the leaders of the old order. This is particularly clear in the Middle East, where seven key figures have been struck down in the past six years: King Hussein of Jordan in February, 1999. King Hassan of Morocco in July of the same year. Syrian dictator Hafez al Assad in June of 2000. Yasser Arafat of the PLO in April, 2004. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in May of last year. Ariel Sharon of Israel was incapacitated by a stroke in early January. And, according to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden finally departed this world in mid-December. The al Qaeda leader...
January 14, 2006
The day of reckoning with Teheran comes ever closer, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refuses to stop their nuclear research even when facing the threat of UN sanction: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday painted the United States and other Western nations as bullies with "a medieval view of the world" and insisted his nation has the right to conduct nuclear research. "A few Western states ... have nuclear arsenals, they have chemical weapons. They have microbiological weapons. And every year they establish tens of new nuclear power plants. Now they are criticizing the Iranian nation ... because they think that they are powerful," Ahmadinejad said, apparently referring to the United States and the EU-3 -- Britain, France and Germany. Talks between the EU-3 and Iran stalled last year, and Iran on Tuesday resumed research at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant -- an act viewed with suspicion by the United States...
January 15, 2006
That's what The Scotsman reports, stating that European and American officials have resigned themselves to a nuclear Iran. After a good cop/bad cop approach by the EU and America, neither group believe sanctions will have any affect and Europe will not support military action as an alternative: Officials in London and Washington now privately admit that they must face the painful fact that there is nothing they can do, despite deep suspicions that Tehran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons under cover of researching nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Yesterday a defiant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would not be deflected from its right to develop nuclear technology by referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. ... Publicly, the US and Britain, the two countries that have adopted the most hawkish stance, are pressing for international action to stop Iran. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice...
January 16, 2006
In an apparent reversal of their previous stance, Iran has now welcomed a Russian proposal to enrich Iranian uranium themselves and thus control the fuel cycle, allowing Iran to generate power without creating fissile material for a weapon. The Iranians had rejected an identical Russian overture earlier, arguing that they had a sovereign right to enrich their own uranium: A POTENTIAL breakthrough in the nuclear stand-off with Iran came last night when the Iranian ambassador in Moscow praised a proposal to move Tehran's uranium enrichment programme to Russia. As Britain, the United States, Russia, France and China met in London yesterday to discuss how to handle Iran's illegal nuclear development, the country was facing the growing certainty that it would be referred to the UN Security Council. While China remained resolutely silent on the possibility of sanctions - a move which it has the power to veto - Russia made...
January 19, 2006
European diplomats, apparently agreeing with Condoleezza Rice's diagnosis on the usefulness of further talks with Iran on nuclear disarmament, have started circulating a draft resolution demanding that the IAEA refer Teheran to the United Nations Security Council for further action: EU powers began circulating a draft resolution on Wednesday for a February 2 meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog asking it to report Iran to the Security Council, but Russia was seeking moves that stopped short of a formal referral. ... The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency will hold an emergency meeting that day on Iran's nuclear work at the request of European Union powers, an IAEA spokesman said. France, Britain, Germany and the United States are expected to push to have Tehran referred to the U.N. Security Council after it resumed research that could be used for generating electricity or making atomic bombs. But EU foreign...
January 22, 2006
In a strange coincidence, right after Senator Hillary Clinton criticized the Bush administration for its lack of unilateral, imperial action against Iran, the New York Times has suddenly developed an interest in the possibility of a pre-emptive attack on the Islamic Republic and its nuclear facilities. David Sanger picks up what Democrats hope to use as the party line against Republicans to prove their national-security mettle: If diplomacy fails, does America have a military option? And what if it doesn't? "It's a kind of nonsense statement to say there is no military solution to this," said W. Patrick Lang, the former head of Middle East intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency. "It may not be a desirable solution, but there is a military solution." Mr. Lang was piercing to the heart of a conundrum the Bush administration recognizes: Iran could become a case study for pre-emptive military action against a...
January 26, 2006
The Iranians have shown renewed interest in the Russian proposal to enrich their uranium for civilian-power potential, a proposal the Islamic Republic rejected late last year. The New York Times reports that Iranian negotiators now say that the proposal is "positive" and want to explore it further. However, the negotiations will only take place after the next IAEA meeting, in which Iran warned that any action to refer the standoff to the UN will end any consideration of the Russian proposal: Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said here on Wednesday that he welcomed a Russian proposal to defuse the confrontation between Iran and the West over its nuclear programs by establishing a joint venture to enrich uranium in Russia. But he indicated that no agreement had been reached and that significant details remained to be negotiated. "Our attitude to the proposal is positive," Mr. Larijani, the secretary of the...
January 31, 2006
Iran suddenly finds itself alone in the diplomatic world as the United States and Europe convinced Russia and China to refer the Iranian IAEA file to the UN Security Council late yesterday. The surprise decision by Iran's two Asian allies effectively isolates the mullahcracy and sets up a March reckoning for potentially crippling economic sanctions: Key powers have agreed to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme at a UN nuclear watchdog board meeting on Thursday. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced the decision after a meeting of the five permanent council members and Germany in London. Talks with Iran earlier in the day failed to produce a breakthrough. President George W Bush earlier said the US and its allies would remain united in their dealings with Iran. The permanent five - the UK, US, France, China and Russia - plus Germany, met in London on...
February 3, 2006
Iran threatened to walk away from a potential deal with Russia that would have supposedly kept Teheran from enriching its own uranium if the EU and the US force the IAEA to refer its case to the UN. However, it does not appear that the latest Iranian gambit will have much play with the IAEA board, which looks to overwhelmingly support the referral: Javad Vaeidi, the deputy head of Iran's National Security Council, said "there will be no way we can continue with the Russian proposal" if the Security Council becomes involved. Mr Vaeidi acknowledged that referral seemed unavoidable, telling reporters: "This is an adopted draft. It means that the US and the EU-3 [Britain, France and Germany] are intending to kill two issues: first to stop diplomacy and second to kill the Russian proposal," he said. Iranian officials are due in Moscow on 16 February for talks on the...
February 4, 2006
Iran got the expected referral to the United Nations Security Council over its intransigence on nuclear power today, with only three of the 35 board members supporting the mullahcracy: The United Nations nuclear watchdog has voted 27 to three to report Iran to the UN Security Council over its resumption of nuclear activities. Teheran immediately reacted to the vote, saying it would curb UN inspections of its nuclear plants and pursue full-scale uranium enrichment. Today's decision by the board of the 35-nation International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) marks a significant step on the road towards possible economic and political sanctions against Iran. But no further action is expected until March, when Mohamed El Baradei, the IAEA chief, delivers a formal report on his inspectors' inquiries in Iran to the Security Council. The delay came at the request of Russia and China, both of whom want to give Iran a few...
Europe may not have the opportunity to impose economic sanctions and isolation on Iran -- because its president has decided to inflict it on his own country instead. Mahmoud Ahmedinjad has decreed the cancellation of all economic contracts in nations where the Prophet cartoons have been published: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the cancellation of economic contracts with countries where the media have carried cartoons of the prophet, the ISNA news agency reported. The report said the hardline president had ordered the creation of an official body to respond to the cartoons, saying the regime "must revise and cancel economic contracts with the countries that started this repulsive act and those that followed them." ... The list, which already included Denmark, where the 12 caricatures first appeared last year, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain, expanded Saturday to take in New Zealand and Poland. The mullahcracy should be proud...
February 12, 2006
According to the London Telegraph, the United States has begun serious planning for a military strike on Iran that will incapacitate its nuclear program. This game-planning appears more serious than just a normal update of security options, and the revelation of the planning will most likely create a further polarization of the mullahcracy from the rest of the diplomatic world: Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb. Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt. They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran...
February 28, 2006
The IAEA report on Iran states that the mullahcracy remains as deceptive as ever about its nuclear program despite the years of negotiations to resolve differences over its intent. They have stonewalled inspectors while ramping up development of its program, a finding that should get the attention of the UNSC next month: Iran has accelerated its nuclear fuel enrichment activities and rejected demands of international inspectors to explain evidence that had raised suspicions of a nuclear weapons program, according to a report by a United Nations agency. That could make it easier for the United States and its European partners to seek punitive action in the Security Council. ... The report laid out a long list of fresh examples in which it said Iran had stonewalled the agency, responding with incomplete and ambiguous answers and refusing repeated requests to turn over documents and information. It called it "regrettable and a...
March 3, 2006
The BBC reports the failure of "eleventh-hour" negotiations between Iran and the EU to stop nuclear-weapons development in the Islamic Republic, a tiresome description made possible by the inertia in the international community that has delayed any meaningful action against the mullahcracy: Last-minute talks between Iran and EU nations over Tehran's nuclear programme have broken up without agreement. The discussions were called by Iran in a last-ditch bid to avoid possible UN action over its nuclear programme. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, will decide on Monday if action is needed. ... At Friday's talks, officials from the UK, France and Germany - the so-called EU3 - said they were there to listen to Iran, but they presented no new plans of their own. A letter from the EU3 to Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, warned Iran earlier this week that any progress would be...
March 5, 2006
To no one's great surprise, except for the EU, Iran now brags about the wool they pulled over European eyes during the nuclear talks that the EU-3 held with the mullahcracy. The Iranians apparently feel secure enough in their weapons project to tell Muslim clerics just how clever they were: In a speech to a closed meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rowhani, who headed talks with the so-called EU3 until last year, revealed how Teheran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear programme was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002. He boasted that while talks were taking place in Teheran, Iran was able to complete the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake - a key stage in the nuclear fuel process - at its Isfahan plant but at the same time convince European diplomats that nothing was afoot. "From...
March 8, 2006
The Washington Post runs an interesting story about the unease felt by many Iranians about their government's increasingly confrontational stance with the world regarding its pursuit of nuclear technology. Iranian civilians question the wisdom of inflaming world opinion against them and potentially working their way into economic sanctions that will only make their lives even more difficult: Iranians are expressing unease about the international showdown over their country's nuclear program, as broad public support for atomic power is tempered by growing misgivings about the cost. ... The misgivings emerge as the International Atomic Energy Agency, meeting this week in Vienna, considers reporting Iran to the U.N. Security Council for defying demands to suspend specific nuclear activities. The council could impose sanctions or otherwise penalize the government and, in the process, further isolate Iranians already feeling the chill of international disfavor. "One thing is obvious: If more foreigners come to this...
March 9, 2006
All Things Beautiful points readers to a Ha'aretz report on the Iranian nuclear program that shows Iran has not only used the ostensible effort for domestic nuclear power as a front for its weapons program, but that the Iranians have been developing this weapons program for longer than first thought. Western experts have studied the plutonium that it found during the IAEA inspections and determined that the enrichment occurred years earlier than first thought: In concurrence with growing diplomatic tension over Iran's nuclear program, on Thursday it emerged that intelligence services in the West are convinced that Iran is taking covert means to develop nuclear weapons, in addition to the nuclear program under the partial supervision of the IAEA. Russian intelligence is believed to agree with this assessment. According to the IAEA interim report from late February, a document was found that alludes to Iranian attempts to create the components...
March 12, 2006
So much for the Russian initiative in the Iranian crisis. This morning, the Iranian Foreign Ministry declared that the Russian compromise to avert a Security Council showdown was no longer under consideration, delivering a slap in the face to Vladimir Putin and the naive Westerners who thought Iranian consideration of it sincere: Iran said Sunday it had ruled out a proposal to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, further complicating the international dispute over the country's nuclear program. Russia has sought to persuade Iran to move its enrichment program to Russian territory to allow closer international monitoring. The U.S. and the European Union had backed the idea as a way to ensure Iran would not misuse the process to make nuclear weapons. Iran had insisted that the plan was negotiable and reached basic agreement with Moscow, but details were never worked out. "The Russian proposal is not on our...
March 15, 2006
The New York Times reports that the hard line espoused by George Bush and the West against Iran may have caused a significant rift in Iranian domestic politics, undermining the hyperbolic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the clerics that installed him as president. The Iranians apparently did not expect to see a unified opposition to their attempt to build nuclear weapons and have been most disturbed by a lack of Russian diplomatic support: Just weeks ago, the Iranian government's combative approach toward building a nuclear program produced rare public displays of unity here. Now, while the top leaders remain resolute in their course, cracks are opening both inside and outside the circles of power over the issue. ... One senior Iranian official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the delicate nature of the issue, said: "I tell you, if what they were doing was working, we would say, 'Good.' " But,...
March 18, 2006
Russia announced yesterday that it opposes any fast-tracking of the progress reporting on Iranian nuclear ambitions at the UN Security Council, joking that an expedited progress would only get expedited bombing. The other permanent members want the report in two weeks so that negotiations on the best way to stop the nuclear progression of Teheran can begin in earnest, but Russia and China prefer to wait: Russia's U.N. ambassador on Friday rejected proposals for the U.N. Security Council to demand a quick progress report on Iran's suspect nuclear program, saying — only half in jest — that fast action could lead to the bombing of Iran by June. ... A key sticking point for Russia is a proposal asking Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to deliver a progress report in two weeks on Iran's progress toward clearing up suspicions about its nuclear program. Russia and...
March 22, 2006
The UK has decided that military action will be necessary to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons and has now calculated its foreign policy to prepare a diplomatic and legal case for that option, the London Times reports today. It reveals a letter in which British diplomats plan to win Russian and Chinese support for a Security Council resolution demanding an end to Iranian nuclear efforts, which will allow for military response if not heeded: BRITAIN is pressing for a United Nations resolution that would open the way for punitive sanctions and even the use of force if Iran were to refuse to halt its controversial nuclear programme. In a confidential letter obtained by The Times, a leading British diplomat outlines a strategy for winning Russian and Chinese support by early summer for a so-called Chapter VII resolution demanding that Iran cease its nuclear activities. If the Government in Tehran...
March 29, 2006
Germany has opened an investigation into six companies that may have supplied Iran with technology vital to the mullahcracy's development of nuclear arms, the New York Times reports today. They're apparently not alone, as the Germans state that Russian companies acted as intermediaries for the transactions: German prosecutors are investigating whether six German companies sold electronic equipment to a clandestine procurement network established to supply Iran with equipment for its nuclear development program. A prosecutor in the state of Brandenberg, Benedikt Welfens, told German television on Monday that several million dollars' worth of equipment that could be used for a nuclear program had been shipped from Germany to Iran, via a Russian company that operated in Berlin in 2003 and 2004. "Its main business is the supply of Iran's nuclear program," Mr. Welfens said on the ARD television network. He said the parts included special cables, pumps and transformers, worth...
The UN Security Council finally agreed on a resolution demanding that Iran halt its uranium-enrichment program and sent it to the Islamic republic late today. The UNSC demand gives Iran thirty days to cease its program and return to the terms of the NPT, but the document carries no legal standing and fails to communicate any consequences for defiance: The U.N. Security Council demanded Wednesday that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, the first time the powerful body has directly urged Tehran to clear up suspicions that it is seeking nuclear weapons. ... Diplomats portrayed the statement, which is not legally binding, as a first, modest step toward compelling Iran to make clear that its program is for peaceful purposes. The Security Council could eventually impose economic sanctions, though Russia and China say they oppose such tough measures. The UNSC adopted the resolution by consensus, but the only agreement that the 15...
March 31, 2006
The Iranian government announced today that it had successfully test-fired a missile capable of both evading radar and hitting multiple, independent targets, suggesting for the first time that the Islamic Republic has developed a MIRV system capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads throughout the region: Iran's military said Friday it successfully test-fired a missile not detectable by radar that can use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously, a development that raised concerns in the United States and Israel. The Fajr-3, which means "victory" in Farsi, can reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East, Iranian state media indicated. The announcement of the test-firing is likely to stoke regional tensions and feed suspicion about Tehran's military intentions and nuclear ambitions. ... Andy Oppenheimer, a weapons expert at Jane's Information Group, said the missile test could be an indication that Iran has MIRV capability. MIRV refers to multiple independently targetable...
April 2, 2006
The Washington Post wants to sound a cautionary note in their front-page report on the consequences of military action against Iran. Dana Priest writes that any attempt to eliminate Iran's nuclear capacity through military strikes would result in an eruption of terrorist attacks against Western assets, especially American and Israeli: As tensions increase between the United States and Iran, U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide. Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said. ... The Iranian government views the Islamic Jihad, the name of Hezbollah's terrorist organization, "as an extension of...
April 3, 2006
The Iranians either want to escalate their bluffs on military capability or they have some extraordinary timing on R&D. Teheran announced the test of another missile within a week of what they claim to have been a successful test of a multiple-target Fajr-3 missile, only this weapon aims at naval forces: Iran said Sunday that it had test-fired what it described as a sonar-evading underwater missile just two days after it announced that it had fired a new missile that could carry multiple warheads and evade radar systems. The new missile is among the world's fastest and can outpace an enemy warship, Gen. Ali Fadavi of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards told state television. General Fadavi said only one other country, Russia, had a missile that moved underwater as fast as the Iranian one, which he said had a speed of about 225 miles per hour. State television showed what...
The Kurds of Iraq have enjoyed their taste of freedom so much that they wish to extend it to their cousins across the border. The Washington Times reports on the efforts of a secular, Western-sympathetic band of insurgents that have targeted the Iranian military in a region of the Islamic Republic that has four million Kurds living under the mullahcracy's thumb: A little-known organization based in the mountains of Iraq's Kurdish north is emerging as a serious threat to the Iranian government, staging cross-border attacks and claiming tens of thousands of supporters among Iran's 4 million Kurds. The Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, better known by the local acronym PEJAK or PJAK, claims to have killed 24 Iranian soldiers in three raids against army bases last month, all staged in retaliation for the killing of 10 Iranian Kurds during a peaceful demonstration in the city of Maku. Three...
April 5, 2006
It appears that imagination has run wild in the Iranian mullahcracy the past couple of weeks. The Iranians have announced successful tests, unverified by outside sources, of a stealth MIRV platform and a sonar-evading underwater missile that travels so fast that the cavitation alone would make it easily identified. Now Teheran announced that they have also successfully tested a stealth 'flying boat', which they insist cannot be detected by radar: Iran said Tuesday it had tested what it called a "super-modern flying boat" capable of evading radar. State TV showed a brief clip of the boat's launch. "Due to its advanced design, no radar at sea or in the air can detect it. It can lift out of the water," the television said. It said the boat was "all Iranian-made and can launch missiles with precise targeting while moving." On Monday Iran said it tested a second new radar-avoiding missile...
April 11, 2006
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threw a party in Teheran today, complete with tribal dancers, musicians, and party streamers to announce that Iranian researchers had succeeded in enriching uranium -- the first step towards nuclear energy and nuclear weapons: Iran has succeeded in enriching uranium to new levels, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday, proclaiming a technical breakthrough that advances both the country's nuclear program and the international controversy surrounding it. "I'm announcing officially that Iran has now joined the countries that have nuclear technology," Ahmadinejad said in a carefully staged presentation televised live across Iran. "This is a very historic moment, and it's because of the Iranian people and their belief. And this is the start of the progress of this country." Standing before a sweeping backdrop featuring doves around an Iranian flag, Ahmadinejad said the country was moving toward enriching uranium on an industrial scale to supply nuclear fuel...
Khaleej Times reports that the Saudis sent Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador in Washington, to Moscow on a mission to enlist Russian opposition to any American action against the Iranian mullahcracy. Prince Bandar asked the Russians to block any further UNSC action that might give the US a basis for military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites (via Memeorandum): Saudi Arabia, fearing that US military action against Iran would wreak further havoc in the region, has asked Russia to block any bid by Washington to secure UN cover for an attack, a Russian diplomat said on Tuesday. During a visit to Moscow last week, the head of the Saudi National Security Council “urged Russia to strive to prevent the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution which the United States could use as justification to launch a military assault to knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the diplomat told...
April 12, 2006
The Guardian reacted with trepidation at the news of Iranian enrichment of uranium, not for its implications in the Middle East as much as for its political implications in the US. The leftist British daily predicts that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's triumphalism will bolster the hawks in American politics who favor a military solution, if for no other reason than to underscore Iran's need to end their nuclear program before our bombs fall: The Security Council had been waiting for a UN report at the end of the month on Iran's nuclear intentions, before deciding on further measures. But after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's triumphal announcement yesterday - accompanied by chants of "Death to America", "Death to Israel" and "Death to Counter-Revolutionaries" - some UN members were drawing their own conclusions. Not for the first time, US diplomats found themselves grateful that President Ahmadinejad had made the work of persuading other UN members of...
When will Iran have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon? Some experts have said that Iran is a decade or more away from a viable nuclear device, and with only a 164-centrifuge cascade available, that might appear reasonable. However, Iran announced yesterday that it would soon expand its cascade to 3,000 centrifuges at its Natanz facility, and today said that it would expand its program to 54,000 centrifuges: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran for the first time had succeeded on a small scale in enriching uranium, a key step in generating fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb. The U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all enrichment activity because of suspicions the program's aim is to make weapons. Iran's small-scale enrichment used 164 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas to increase its proportion of the isotope needed for the nuclear fission at the...
April 13, 2006
In the wake of the announcements from Iran of its success in uranium enrichment and its plan to immediately expand its cascade to 3,000 centrifuges, one might expect the United Nations Security Council to speak out strongly against Iran's intransigence and defiance of its unanimous resolution. One might also expect Europe to react to the humiliation Iran delivered to its diplomatic corps, which had worked for years to reach a negotiated solution on non-proliferation with the mullahcracy. Well, if one expected those actions, one would have to live with disappointment: Leading countries on the U.N. Security Council expressed dismay Wednesday over Tehran's announcement that it had produced enriched uranium, although there was little sign of consensus among them on how to respond. ... Russia and China, also key members of the council, struck a more equivocal tone, raising concerns about Iran's actions but also warning against any precipitous international action....
April 16, 2006
The London Telegraph notes the unrest among Iranian minority groups and the tactics that the hard-line Teheran government have taken to address it. James Brandon and Colin Freeman report that the messianic Ahmadinejad approach has further alienated the diverse populace of Iran, and the decades-old imposition of shari'a has resulted in a growing rebellion that could undermine the mullahcracy: "The Iranian government's plan to create a global Islamic state is destroying our people's culture and -values," said Akif Zagros, 28, a Persian literature graduate who serves on Pejak's seven-strong ruling council. "But we want all nations to be democratic, to live together and learn from each other." Pejak, the Party for Freedom and Life in Kurdistan, is fast becoming a threat to Teheran. The group, founded in 1998, claims to have hundreds of thousands of followers among Iran's estimated four million Kurds, and has been denounced as a terrorist organisation...
April 17, 2006
After running an oft-cited article last week that claimed Iran was ten years away from a nuclear weapon, the New York Times shifts course this morning and reports that the Islamic Republic has a few shortcuts up its sleeve. William Broad and David Sanger explain how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to shave significant time off of their development cycle: Of all the claims that Iran made last week about its nuclear program, a one-sentence assertion by its president has provoked such surprise and concern among international nuclear inspectors they are planning to confront Tehran about it this week. The assertion involves Iran's claim that even while it begins to enrich small amounts of uranium, it is pursuing a far more sophisticated way of making atomic fuel that American officials and inspectors say could speed Iran's path to developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has consistently maintained that it abandoned work on this...
April 18, 2006
Senator Joe Lieberman told the Jerusalem Post in an interview to be released on Friday that he considers military strikes on nuclear sites in Iran a possibility and an option that must remain on the table. David Horovitz reports that the sole member of the Scoop Jackson wing of the Senate says that Congress holds little hope that the UN will do anything to stop Iran's drive for nuclear weapons: The US is probably incapable of completely destroying the Iranian nuclear program, but as a last resort it could attempt to knock out "some of the components" in order to "delay and deter it," Senator Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate and a serving member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has told The Jerusalem Post. Speaking at a time of almost daily declarations from Teheran concerning both progress in the nuclear program and hostility to Israel, Lieberman...
April 19, 2006
Kofi Annan has publicly scolded Iran for its financing and involvement with Hezbollah and their interference with the new democratic government of Lebanon. Benny Avni reports for the New York Sun on a rare outing by the UN of Iran's terror network ties and their efforts to undermine secular movements within Southwest Asia: Secretary-General Annan for the first time has accused the mullahs of Iran of interfering in the affairs of the sovereign state Lebanon and asked that they heed the 2004 Security Council resolution urging the country's complete independence. Mr. Annan last night also expressed his deep concern about the actions of Iran's surrogate militia - the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which operates in Lebanon - and its repeated defiance of the council's call for the disarming of all factions in Lebanon. The language of the report, finalized late yesterday afternoon by the secretary-general's envoy in Lebanon, Terje Roed-Larsen, took...
April 20, 2006
The hardline government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ratcheted up the pressure on their already-restive population by initiating a crackdown on men and women who do not comport themselves to the strict code of Islam. Iran has authorized police to make arrests when women fail to secure their hijab or men wear unusual hair styles, orders that could result in jail time even for walking a dog in public: Iran's Islamic authorities are preparing a crackdown on women flouting the stringent dress code in the clearest sign yet of social and political repression under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From today police in Tehran will be under orders to arrest women failing to conform to the regime's definition of Islamic morals by wearing loose-fitting hijab, or headscarves, tight jackets and shortened trousers exposing skin. Offenders could be punished with £30 fines or two months in jail. Officers will also be authorised to confront...
April 22, 2006
Russia will not back away from its planned sale of air-defense missile systems to Iran, the Washington Post reports this morning, as Vladimir Putin continues his march against the West and his determination to restart the Cold War. In response, the US hinted that Russian intransigence on Iran will push the issue away from the United Nations and into a new multilateral coalition that will impose its own response to the Iranian nuclear program: At a news conference in Washington yesterday, the State Department's third-highest-ranking officer, R. Nicholas Burns, said the time has come for countries "to use their leverage with Iran" and halt exports of weapons and nuclear-related technologies. He singled out the sale of 29 Tor-M1 air-defense missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract announced by Russia in December. "We hope and we trust that that deal will not go forward, because this is not time...
The Ap reports breaking news that Russia and Iran have reached some sort of agreement on uranium enrichment. However, Iranian TV gave few details about the arrangement: Iran's envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Saturday the Islamic republic had reached a "basic deal" with the Kremlin to form a joint uranium enrichment venture on Russian territory, state-run television reported. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, "spoke of a basic agreement between Iran and Russia to set up a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil," Iranian state television reported. It remained unclear, though, whether Iran would entirely give up enrichment at home, a top demand of the West, or whether the joint venture would complement Iran's existing enrichment program. Enriched uranium can be used to fuel nuclear reactors that generate electricity or to make atomic bombs. "Only issues regarding technical, legal and financial matters...
April 23, 2006
According to the London Times, Iran has picked a wanted terrorist to head its defense operations in case of a Western attack on nuclear development sites. Imad Muguniyeh participated in the TWA hijacking in 1985 that resulted in the murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem and has been wanted by the FBI for over 20 years: 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...
April 25, 2006
Iranian supreme leader Ali Khameini proved today that he applies well the lessons of his youth -- especially his inclination to share his toys, even those he does not yet possess. The chief Iranian mullah promised his Sudanese counterpart the bounty of all the scientific progress of the Iranians, a pointed reference to Iran's intent to spread nuclear weapons among Islamist nations: Iran's supreme leader said Tuesday at a meeting here with the Sudanese president that Iran was ready to share its nuclear technology with other countries. "Iran's nuclear capability is one example of various scientific capabilities in the country," the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said to President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, the news agency IRNA reported. "The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge and technology of its scientists." Mr. Khamenei made his comments just days before the Friday deadline set by the United Nations...
April 28, 2006
The IAEA decided to bypass diplomatic niceties on the lack of cooperation coming from Iran on their commitments to nuclear non-proliferation in a new and disturbing report to the UN Security Council. The Washington Post reports that the international nuclear watchdog has highlighted new centrifuge development and "information gaps" that prevent the inspectors from knowing the full extent of nuclear research by the mullahcracy: The United Nations' atomic monitoring agency reported Friday that Iran continues to expand its uranium enrichment technology and to hold back information that would allow inspectors to determine whether a covert military nuclear program exists. The report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran is conducting an enrichment program in defiance of U.N. Security Council demands to halt it. Agency inspectors who visited Iranian sites observed construction of additional centrifuges for expanding uranium enrichment operations, the report said. Agency inspectors found no "undeclared nuclear...
April 30, 2006
Iran attempted to shift the non-proliferation process into reverse yesterday by proposing that the UNSC drop its review of the IAEA dossier on their uranium enrichment program, even while they insisted the program would continue. The US didn't bite on the Iranian time-machine gambit, and even Russia got blunt in their demand to an end to Teheran's enrichment activities: Iran said on Saturday it would allow United Nations inspectors to resume snap inspections of its nuclear facilities, but only if the dispute again went before the U.N. nuclear monitor. The White House rejected the offer, which apparently came as Iran sought to avoid a full-blown U.N. Security Council debate over sanctions. "Today's statement does not change our position that the Iranian government must give up its nuclear ambitions, nor does it affect our decision to move forward to the United Nations Security Council," White House spokesman Blaine Rethmeier said. Russia,...
May 8, 2006
The news services are abuzz with the announcement from Teheran that Iran will end 25 years of silence between the Islamic Republic and the US. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will write a letter to George Bush in an attempt to ease tensions between the two nations: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is writing to U.S President George W. Bush in an attempt to ease mounting tensions between Tehran and the West, an Iranian official said on Monday. ... Government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said a letter from Ahmadinejad to Bush would be delivered later on Monday to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which represents U.S. interests in the Islamic Republic. "In this letter, he has given an analysis of the current world situation, of the root of existing problems and of new ways of getting out of the current delicate situation in the world," he told a weekly news conference. Ahmadinejad had said earlier...
May 9, 2006
The German magazine Der Speigel interviewed an expert on Iran regarding the letter from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to George Bush and its purpose. Wahied Wahdat-Hagh tells Der Spiegel that far from an act of potential conciliation, the Iranian president sent the letter as an act of defiance -- and warns that Ahmadinejad is not bluffing in this crisis: SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Wahdat-Hagh, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to US President George W. Bush. In the letter, he once again questions Israel's right to exist, accuses the US of lying about Iraq and insists on his country's right to use nuclear technology. What message is Ahmadinejad trying to communicate? Wahdat-Hagh: The purpose is to show strength. It's Ahmadinejad's way of saying: "We are powerful! You are a cowboy! Islam, though, is the true democracy and your system will collapse." Former Iranian President Khatami used to give interviews to CNN. But...
May 11, 2006
Condoleezza Rice announced another delay on consideration of the Iranian portfolio by the UN Security Council, with the US agreeing to allow the EU to present another proposal to Iran intended to provide them with positive motivations to drop their nuclear program: The US Secretary of State has said that efforts to pursue a tough UN Security Council resolution on Iran's nuclear programme will be delayed. Condoleezza Rice said European countries would resume diplomatic efforts to persuade Tehran to change its position. ... "We agreed...we would wait for a couple of weeks, while the Europeans design an offer to the Iranians that would make clear that they have a choice that would allow them to have a civil nuclear programme if that is indeed what they want," she said. Speaking on American television, Ms Rice said the EU3 wanted to show Iran that it had two options. It could either...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got more headlines tonight by hinting that he would accept indirect negotiations with the United States on the nuclear program pursued by Iran, but only when the US quits issuing threats. The AP reports that the Iranian president also relied on the normal anti-Israeli diatribe when addressing his Indonesian hosts: Iran's president said Thursday he was ready to hold talks over his country's nuclear program, but he warned that efforts to force Tehran to the negotiating table with threats could backfire. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also launched a scathing attack on Israel and told more than 1,000 cheering Muslim students in the Indonesian capital that the West was being hypocritical in pressing Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program. ... Asked what it would take to begin talks to resolve the standoff, Ahmadinejad told the station Iran was "ready to engage in dialogue with anybody." "But if someone points...
May 12, 2006
The IAEA announced preliminary results of tests made on residue found at an Iranian military site that indicates Iran has weapons-grade enriched uranium (also here), not just the low-level enrichment they announced earlier. The report undermines the explanation given earlier by Iran when similar residue was found at a civilian facility: The U.N. atomic agency found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country's defense ministry, diplomats said Friday, adding to concerns that Tehran was hiding activities aimed at making nuclear arms. The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads. Still, they said, further analysis could show that the traces match others established to have...
May 19, 2006
Conflicting reports have clouded the story, but Canada's National Post reported in two different articles that Iran has passed legislation requiring non-Muslims to wear colored ribbons in order to identify infidels in their midst. The law, reminiscent of the notorious Nuremberg laws that forced Jews to wear a yellow Star of David (among other oppressive regulations), will allow Muslims to keep themselves pure by avoiding the touch of an infidel: The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that...
May 28, 2006
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made it clear that he sees European opposition to his nuclear program a threat, and returned one in kind. Speaking to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the Iranian president warned Europe that they will "suffer the consequences" if they did not capitulate: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Europe that it should support his country's nuclear program or "suffer the consequences." In an interview to be published in the German Der Spiegel on Sunday, Ahmadinejad also expressed his doubt regarding the Holocaust, saying that even if it had occurred, the Jewish state should have been established in Europe, not in Palestine. The article in DS has not yet been released, but the Jerusalem Post blurb indicates that Iran's president has not yet tired of following the playbook of Adolf Hitler in dealing with the West. Alternating between veiled threats and offers of diplomacy, Ahmadinejad has attempted to split the...
May 30, 2006
The German magazine Der Spiegel has published its interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and it should disturb anyone who reads it fully. The interview reveals Ahmadinejad as a man obsessed with Jews, and one intent on provoking German resentment over its post-war humiliation to split the West on Israel: Ahmadinejad: Look here, my views are quite clear. We are saying that if the Holocaust occurred, then Europe must draw the consequences and that it is not Palestine that should pay the price for it. If it did not occur, then the Jews have to go back to where they came from. I believe that the German people today are also prisoners of the Holocaust. Sixty million people died in the Second World War. World War II was a gigantic crime. We condemn it all. We are against bloodshed, regardless of whether a crime was committed against a Muslim or...
May 31, 2006
Since I am homebound for the moment waiting on home health care to arrive to teach me to perform home IVs on the First Mate, I will watch the press conference called by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that will apparently announce direct talks with Iran on the nuclear-proliferation crisis. 10:04 - Iran represents a direct threat to the security of the US and world, and has accelerated its efforts to enrich uranium. So far, this sounds more like an indictment, not a conciliation. 10:05 - Offering a choice for Iran between a "negative choice" - pursuing nuclear weapons at "great costs". The positive and constructive choice would be to immediately suspend enrichment activities and returning to IAEA-based negotiations. 10:07 - This is just a proposal along the same lines as we have seen before, except with the carrot of direct talks. It's significant, but not earth-shaking. Iran won't agree...
After their president has spent most of the last few months trying to convince people that the Holocaust never occurred in order to gain support for ejecting the Jews from Israel, the Iranian government described Condoleezza Rice's earlier offer for direct talks in exchange for a cessation in uranium enrichment as "propaganda". The state-run news agency IRNA carried Teheran's initial reaction to Rice's offer within a few hours of her press conference today: The official Iranian news agency said Wednesday the U.S. offer to join in direct talks with Iran about its disputed nuclear program was "a propaganda move." The American proposal, a major policy shift after decades without official public contact between the two countries, was made conditional on Iran agreeing to stop its uranium enrichment activities. "It's evident that the Islamic Republic of Iran only accepts proposals and conditions that meet the interests of the nation and the...
June 1, 2006
As I suspected, Condoleezza Rice's offer of direct American participation came as she solidified an agreement with Russia and China on a carrots-and-sticks proposal for Iran which will carry sanctions for a refusal to comply. The acquiescence of the two nations presents a brief, perhaps transitory moment of unity that might give Teheran reason to reconsider its intransigence: The United States, Russia, China and the leading nations of Europe announced agreement tonight on a general formula designed to resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran, but officials declined to specifically describe the package of incentives and punishments before it can be presented to Iran. "I am pleased to say that we have agreed a set of far-reaching proposals as a basis for discussion with Iran," said Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary. "We believe that they offer Iran the chance to reach a negotiated agreement based on cooperation." She said the...
June 3, 2006
If the Bush administration used the Condoleezza Rice offer of talks with Iran to seal the deal on sanctions, Iran so far has played directly into their hands. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirmed their refusal to stop uranium enrichment -- as required by both the IAEA and the UN Security Council -- as a precondition for direct talks with the US: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday defied pressure from foreign leaders to accept a package of incentives in return for ending all nuclear activities, saying Iran will pursue its legal right to develop a peaceful nuclear program. "Any pressure to deprive our people from their right will not bear any fruit," he was quoted as saying on state-run television. "Their opposition to our program is not because of their concern over the spread of nuclear weapons," he said. "They are worried that Iran would become a model for other independent...
June 4, 2006
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided to publicly release the package offered by Western nations for an end to Teheran's uranium-enrichment program. Brushing off a warning from Kofi Annan, Ahmadinejad says he wants his people to remain fully informed of the situation: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran would publish details of the package of incentives and possible penalties prepared by the United States and five other major powers aimed at halting Iran's nuclear program. In a speech in which he warned Iran's critics against "threats and intimidation," Ahmadinejad seemed to sweep aside a request by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to keep the process confidential. Western diplomats had said they were trying to avoid the appearance of threatening Iran by keeping the terms of the package as private as possible, especially the specific penalties Iran might face if it continues to enrich uranium. "We will record the talks...
June 5, 2006
Iranians have begun exporting their savings into international banks, also buying gold at an accelerated rate, according to the Wshington Times. This panic demonstrates that the Iranians understand the position that Ahmadinejad has placed their nation -- or perhaps it demonstrates something else entirely: Threats of an international financial squeeze stemming from the showdown over Iran's nuclear program have sent Iranians scrambling to get their savings out of the country, or if that won't work, to convert them into gold. An estimated $200 billion has left the country since last year's election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, accompanied by panic buying of gold. The Iranian stock exchange lost an estimated 20 percent of its value even as other bourses in the region rose. "The most tangible effect of the threat of sanctions in the private sector is downsizing," said Farhad Sanadizadeh, a Tehran-based oil and gas consultant who has let...
June 6, 2006
The Associated Press reports that Iran has described the Bush offer to end the nuclear-proliferation standoff as "positive", while reports indicating that the US has promised to give Teheran the technology to build a light-water reactor have some worried that we may have given away the prize. Ali Larijani, Iran's nuclear negotiator, changed weeks of contentious Iranian rhetoric by lauding the "positive steps" taken by the Americans, while noting that areas of ambiguity need clearer definition: Iran and the United States had a rare moment of agreement Tuesday, using similar language to describe "positive steps" toward an accord on a package of incentives aimed at persuading Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment. Diplomats said the incentives include a previously undisclosed offer of some U.S. nuclear technology on top of European help in building light-water nuclear reactors. Other incentives include allowing Iran to buy spare airplane parts and support for joining the...
June 7, 2006
The Bush administration got significant international support for his latest diplomatic effort with Iran from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Showing a united front, Merkel told the Iranians that the new package of incentives could be negotiated, but not an end to their enrichment program: The terms of an offer of incentives delivered to Iran to end a dispute over its nuclear program can be negotiated but only if Tehran halts enrichment work first, Germany's chancellor said on Wednesday. "This is an offer to kick off negotiations but there must first be a suspension of (enrichment) activities implemented by Iran," Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters before a meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. ... Merkel urged the Iranians to consider the offer seriously, which she said was an opportunity to secure a peaceful resolution to the years-long nuclear standoff with Iran. "I believe that it is a truly...
June 8, 2006
The Guardian reports that Western negotiators have told Iran that the uranium enrichment suspension prerequisite to discussions over the package offered by the US only applies during negotiations. Any permanent end to enrichment will come as part of the overall negotiations, according to a report in today's Guardian: In a major western concession, Iran is to be allowed to retain some uranium enrichment activities if it reaches agreement with the US, Russia, Europe, and China on its nuclear programme. Diplomats said yesterday that the terms of a new package of proposed rewards delivered to Tehran on Tuesday by Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, state that Iran must freeze uranium enrichment activities before and during the talks. Once "confidence is restored in the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme", it would be allowed to resume enrichment on a scale to be determined. "Those are rights under the nuclear non-proliferation...
June 9, 2006
Iran answered the West regarding the offer of a set of incentives, including more modern nuclear-power generation, for a cessation of uranium enrichment by the Iranian government. The IAEA reported late yesterday that Iran restarted its uranium enrichment on the day it received the offer despite public knowledge of the preconditions for talks: Iran restarted important nuclear activities on the same day this week that six world powers offered it incentives aimed at encouraging the complete suspension of the nuclear work, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Thursday. On Tuesday, Iran restarted the pouring of a raw form of uranium into a set of 164 centrifuge machines to produce enriched uranium, said the I.A.E.A., the nuclear monitoring agency based in Vienna. That same day, Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, was in Tehran, where he presented Iranian leaders with an international package of incentives to help resolve...
June 14, 2006
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shown a peculiar obsession with the Holocaust, claiming that it never occurred and that the establishment of Israel therefore has no legitimacy. This claim goes along with many other conspiratorial claims about Jews and their supposedly destructive history, a disturbing characteristic of a national leader seeking nuclear arms and believing in a messianic vision. One might hope that Ahmadinejad's advisors might hold a moderating influence on his anti-Semitic paranoia, but unfortunately they appear to feed his madness. MEMRI has just posted a translation of remarks made by Ahmadinejad's advisor Mohammad Ali Ramin, who both questions the Holocaust and insists that the question will only find an answer in Israel's destruction: On a visit to Gilan University, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s advisor Mohammad Ali Ramin said to a group of students in the town of Rasht, 'Ten years ago, when I brought up the issue of the...
June 15, 2006
Facing a showdown with a delicate coalition on the UN Security Council demanding a cessation of its uranium-enrichment program, Iran has decided to do its best to split the East from the West before answering the offer it received this week. The Times of London reports that Iran has opened talks with Russia and China concerning the creation of a diplomatic and military bloc that would oppose the US and the West: MAHMOUD Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, held talks with Chinese and Russian leaders at a summit meeting yesterday to build up a security grouping in opposition to the US and Nato. Mr Ahmadinejad was invited to address a meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), a China-sponsored proto-alliance that aims to strengthen defence links across Central Asia. In an implicit reference to the US and its pressure on Iran to end its nuclear weapons programme, he said that the...
June 18, 2006
This apple apparently fell far from the tree. Hossein Khomeini, the grandson of the Ayatollah Khomeini that overthrew the Shah and established the first Islamic Republic in Southwest Asia, wants the US to invade Iran in order to establish a representative democracy to replace the mullahcracy his grandfather established: The grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the inspiration of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, has broken a three-year silence to back the United States military to overthrow the country's clerical regime. Hossein Khomeini's call is all the more startling as he made it from Qom, the spiritual home of Iran's Shia strand of Islam, during an interview to mark the 17th anniversary of the ayatollah's death. "My grandfather's revolution has devoured its children and has strayed from its course," he told Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language television station. "I lived through the revolution and it called for freedom and democracy - but it has persecuted...
June 21, 2006
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has replied to the joint EU-US demand for a response to their package of incentives and sanctions regarding the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons. The Iranian president informed the West that he would need until August 22nd to review the proposal and to prepare an answer (via It Shines For All): President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that Iran will respond in mid-August to the package of incentives on its nuclear program offered by the West, but President Bush accused Tehran of dragging its feet. "We are studying the proposals. Hopefully, we will present our views about the package by mid-August," Ahmadinejad told a crowd in western Iran in a speech broadcast live on state television. Speaking at an annual U.S.-European Union summit in Vienna, Austria, Bush said that the mid-August timetable "seems like an awfully long time" to wait for an answer. The long review time request did...
July 8, 2006
George Bush has decided to create the necessary economic leverage to generate international consensus on Iran. The White House has concluded a deal on nuclear power for Russia predicated on Russian commitments to remain firm on Iran's nuclear ambitions: President Bush will pursue a nuclear cooperation agreement when he meets Russian leader Vladimir Putin next week during a summit of industrialized nations in St. Petersburg, the White House said Saturday. But any agreement would be conditioned on Russia helping to pressure Iran to give up its alleged desire to develop nuclear weapons, said Frederick Jones, spokesman for Bush's National Security Council. "We have made clear to the Russians that for an agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation to go forward, we will need Russia's active cooperation in blocking Iran's attempt to obtain nuclear weapons," Jones said. This issue has percolated between Washington and Moscow since the 1990s, when the Clinton administration...
July 12, 2006
The main powers of the UN Security Council have decided that the standoff over Iran's nuclear program should proceed to the UNSC for a resolution. Speaking for all five permanent members of the UNSC as well as the EU, the French Foreign Minister told the press that the Iranians had not taken negotiations seriously: World powers agreed Wednesday to send Iran back to the United Nation's Security Council for possible punishment, saying the clerical regime has given no sign it means to negotiate seriously over its disputed nuclear program. The United States and other permanent members of the powerful U.N. body said Iran has had long enough to say whether it will meet the world's terms to open bargaining that would give Tehran economic and energy incentives in exchange for giving up suspicious activities. "The Iranians have given no indication at all that they are ready to engage seriously on...
July 16, 2006
Apparently yesterday's vote in the UN Security Council made an impression on Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has agreed to negotiate with the West on the basis of the incentive package proposed earlier and for which Condoleezza Rice wanted an answer last Wednesday: Iran said Sunday that Western incentives to halt its nuclear program were an "acceptable basis" for talks, and it is ready for detailed negotiations. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded that Iran should talk directly to negotiators if it wants to discuss the six-nation proposal. Frustrated world powers agreed Wednesday to send Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible punishment, saying Tehran had given no sign it would bargain in earnest over its nuclear ambitions. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters in Tehran that, "We consider this package an appropriate basis, an acceptable basis (for talks). ... We can achieve acceptable results in this path[.]"...
July 29, 2006
Yesterday the UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution demanding that Iran comply with a previous UNSC resolution to stop enriching uranium while talks proceed on the nuclear crisis. The consequences of the new resolution were indeed dire -- the UNSC might actually ... really ... pass another resolution: The five permanent members of the UN Security Council reached a deal yesterday on a resolution that would give Iran until the end of next month to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of sanctions. The latest draft is weaker than an initial proposal from Britain, France and Germany, with US backing. Although the earlier version would have made the threat of sanctions immediate if Iran did not comply, the new draft would essentially give Iran another chance to come around. That was a victory for Russia and China, arguing that the resolution was not an ultimatum but a new...
August 5, 2006
The London Times reports that the Iranians bought uranium from Tanzania and attempted to smuggle it into the country, disguised as another non-radioactive commodity. However, as a UN report indicates, Tanzanian customs officials discovered the ruse and stopped the transport: IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed. A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was “no doubt” that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo. Tanzanian customs officials told The Sunday Times it was destined for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, and was stopped on October 22 last year during a routine check. The disclosure will heighten western fears about the extent of Iran’s presumed nuclear weapons programme and the strategic implications of Iran’s continuing...
August 7, 2006
With the UN pressing Iran for an answer to its incentive package in return for their surrender of their nuclear-weapons program, Iran threatened to use the "oil weapon" if the world applies sanctions to the Islamic Republic. However, as the London Times points out, that move alone would effectively be a self-imposed sanctions regime: IRAN yesterday rejected a United Nations demand that it halt uranium enrichment work, vowing instead to expand its controversial nuclear programme and threatening to block oil exports to the West if sanctions are imposed. In a blunt response to international concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Ali Larijani, the chief negotiator on atomic issues, said that Tehran was ready for a showdown with world powers when the matter was taken up by the UN Security Council this month. “We will expand nuclear technology at whatever stage it may be necessary and all of Iran’s nuclear technology including...
August 9, 2006
Der Spiegel reports on the assistance given to Iran by the Russians in developing a uranium-enrichment program despite Moscow's public opposition to its development. The introduction of Russian laser technology allows the Iranians to enrich uranium more efficiently and with less energy, moving them that much closer to production of weapons-grade material: Despite claims to the contrary, leaders in Tehran are apparently still pushing forward with research into uranium enrichment with the aid of laser technology. A Russian engineer recently told SPIEGEL that Iran has received help from his countrymen with a program that uses a laser system to divide heavy isotopes. The engineer, who works for an institute near Moscow and helps develop nucleaar reactors, claims that Iranians have since 2004 sought and secured technical aid from Russia for their domestic "laser system for the division of heavy isotopes" program. The laser technique would have important advantages for Iran....
August 13, 2006
First, the good news: The blogosphere now has a bona-fide head of state as one of its members. The bad news: it's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I'm serious. He even has RSS feeds, although you'd have to read Farsi to take advantage of them. He even has this soulful picture on the website, appearing to be in deep consideration of ... what? Eradicating Jews? Nuking New York? The taste of pork chops? Hard to say. Readers who click on the small American flag icon get treated to this personal entry: In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate Oh Almighty God, please, we beg you to send us our Guardian- who You have promised us- soon and appoint us as His close companions. During the era that nobility was a prestige and living in a city was perfection, I was born in a poor family in a remote village...
August 16, 2006
If Hezbollah supposed victory served to embolden its sponsors, then perhaps Iran has not received the memo. Reversing its public stance this summer, Iran has agreed to discuss ending its uranium enrichment as the deadline on the West's offer approaches: Iran is ready to discuss the suspension of its uranium enrichment programme as demanded by Western powers, the country's foreign minister has said. Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference that Iran was ready to talk but still regarded any suspension of its programme as "illogical". A package of incentives has been offered to Iran by six world powers in return for a halt to its programme. Tehran has said it will respond to the offer by 22 August. "We are ready to discuss all the issues, including the suspension. There is no logic behind the suspension of Iran's activities. We are ready to explain this to them," Mr Mottaki said....
August 21, 2006
Der Spiegel checks with the Iranian in the street to determine whether the radical nature of the mullahcracy has any support from its citizenry. The responses sound depressingly familiar -- wan assurances that the hostile rhetoric and fascist statements are just for show:Like most of the people one meets in Tehran, population 15 million, Abash is disarmingly friendly and hospitable. Indeed, even the lawless, lane-less highways are absent of road rage. But next to the highways, one sees evidence of the other Iran -- the Iran that concerns many in the West. On the left, a steady stream of posters passes by depicting Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah thrusting an automatic rifle into the sky. On the right, painted murals flash by glorifying Iran's young martyrs who died in the country's devastating war with Iraq in the 1980s.Arash, though, continues with his proclamations of Iranian good faith. You just have...
August 25, 2006
The Guardian has received a copy of the Iranian response to the West's incentive package from sources inside the Iranian government as part of a warning about a Western refusal to accept it. The Iranians told the Guardian that this proposal represents a temporary victory of Iranian moderates, who will lose all standing if the West rejects it: Details of its response delivered this week to diplomats, disclosed yesterday by two well-connected Iranian political scientists, claimed moderates in Tehran had won an important power struggle and were offering a negotiated settlement of the nuclear row. If the US spurns the Iranian olive branch and forces through sanctions from the UN security council, "the stage will be set for a full-scale international crisis", the response's authors stated. ... The US would have to lift decades-old sanctions against Iran and probably give assurances that it has no policy of regime change towards...
August 26, 2006
Iran has unveiled its surprise and its answer to the Western package of incentives. A heavy-water plant opened in Khondab with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself performing the honors: An Iranian plant that produces heavy water officially went into operation on Saturday, despite U.N. demands that Tehran stop the activity because it can be used to develop a nuclear bomb. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the plant, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes. The announcement comes days before Thursday's U.N. deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment — which also can be used to create nuclear weapons — or face economic and political sanctions. Tehran has called the U.N. Security Council resolution "illegal" and said it won't stop enrichment as a precondition to negotiations. The Germans tried using heavy water for its own atomic-weapons program during World War II, and for a solid technical reason: it eliminates the need for uranium enrichment...
August 30, 2006
Former President Jimmy Carter has a long record of involving himself in foreign affairs long after voters revoked his mandate for such activity. His intervention with North Korea forced the Clinton Administration -- which had wanted to take a tough stand against Kim Jong-Il -- to accept the Agreed Framework, which the North Koreans proceeded to violate immediately and continue their progress towards nuclear weapons unhindered. Now it looks like Carter may lend his considerable talent for deadly mischief towards the Iranian nuclear standoff by reaching out to the former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami: For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week. ... Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the...
Former President Jimmy Carter has a long record of involving himself in foreign affairs long after voters revoked his mandate for such activity. His intervention with North Korea forced the Clinton Administration -- which had wanted to take a tough stand against Kim Jong-Il -- to accept the Agreed Framework, which the North Koreans proceeded to violate immediately and continue their progress towards nuclear weapons unhindered. Now it looks like Carter may lend his considerable talent for deadly mischief towards the Iranian nuclear standoff by reaching out to the former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami: For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week. ... Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the...
In a further sign that the UN Security Council has little resolve with which to confront Iran over its nuclear program, the British UN ambassador says the body will need another month to get a report from the IAEA in order to translate "NO!" from Iran's Farsi language: The U.N. Security Council will need until mid-September before acting on its threat to punish Iran if Tehran's leaders flout a Thursday deadline to suspend uranium enrichment as is widely expected, Britain's U.N. ambassador said Tuesday. Ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry's prediction seemed to rule out the immediate threat of sanctions against Iran if it disregards the council's demands - spelled out in a resolution adopted this month - to suspend enrichment by Thursday. Iran has already said it would reject the deadline. Jones-Parry said that before it can act, the Security Council will need to receive a report from the U.N. nuclear watchdog,...
August 31, 2006
Ever since the Iranians opened their new heavy-water production plant in Khondab, analysts have assumed that the mullahcracy intended to turn the facility into a Middle Eastern Los Alamos, where weapons-grade fissile material can be produced for nuclear weapons. However, Teheran's nuclear chief Mohammad Sa'idi tells the Iranian News Channel (IRINN) that the West has misunderstood Iran's intentions. It turns out that Khondab is meant to be the Middle Eastern Lourdes: Interviewer: You just said that in some cases, heavy water can even be used for drinking. Mohammad Sa'idi: Yes. Interviewer: Could you elaborate on this? Mohammad Sa'idi: One of the products of heavy water is depleted deuterium. As you know, in an environment with depleted deuterium, the reception of cancer cells and of the AIDS viruses is disrupted. Since this reception is disrupted, the cells are gradually expelled from the body. Obviously, one glass of depleted deuterium will not...
September 1, 2006
The IAEA report states that inspectors found traces of highly-enriched uranium a year ago in an Iranian nuclear facility. This time, the IAEA analysis states that it did not come from contaminated Pakistani equipment: The global nuclear monitoring agency deepened suspicions on Thursday about Iran’s nuclear program, reporting that inspectors had discovered new traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian facility. Inspectors have found such uranium, which at extreme enrichment levels can fuel bombs, twice in the past. The International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that at least some of those samples came from contaminated equipment that Iran had obtained from Pakistan. But in this case, the nuclear fingerprint of the particles did not match the other samples, an official familiar with the inspections said, raising questions about their origin. In a six-page report to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, the agency withheld judgment about where the material...
September 4, 2006
Kofi Annan just got the clearest diplomatic humiliation since perhaps Neville Chamberlain, according to the AP. The UN Secretary-General traveled to Iran to ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to please stop issuing provocative Holocaust denials and to suspend uranium enrichment. Ahmadinejad responded with a handshake, a smile, and a newly-scheduled conference of Holocaust deniers: The U.N. chief got little satisfaction Sunday at the close of his trip to Tehran, snubbed by Iran's leader over international demands to stop enriching uranium and ignored in warnings not to incite hatred by questioning the Holocaust. In a provocative move on the final day of Kofi Annan's two-day visit, Iran announced it would host a conference to examine what it called exaggerations about the Holocaust, during which more than 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. ... "On the nuclear issue, the president reaffirmed to me Iran's preparedness and determination to negotiate" a solution to...
September 6, 2006
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has engaged on a campaign to purge moderates and secular thinkers from its universities. The move comes in contrast to Ahmadinejad's challenge to George Bush for an open and uncensored debate, and shows the real inclinations of the mullahcracy: Iran's hard-line president urged students Tuesday to push for a purge of liberal and secular university teachers, another sign of his determination to strengthen Islamic fundamentalism in the country. With his call echoing the rhetoric of the nation's 1979 Islamic revolution, Ahmadinejad appears determined to remake Iran by reviving the fundamentalist goals pursued under the republic's late founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iran still has strong moderate factions, and since taking office a year ago Ahmadinejad has moved to replace pragmatic veterans in the government and diplomatic corps with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners. His administration also has launched crackdowns on independent journalists, Web sites and bloggers. Speaking...
The White House and senior Republican leadership in Congress have little enthusiasm for a war resolution at this time targeting Iran, the New York Sun reports this morning. After a suggestion by William Kristol that such a piece of legislation would put more pressure on Teheran to comply with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the Bush administration and Congress distanced themselves from any such talk: As Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns prepares for a meeting with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council in Berlin tomorrow to discuss imposing tough sanctions on Iran, neither the Bush administration nor some of the most hawkish Republicans in Congress are yet willing to consider military force if those sanctions fail to halt Iran's nuclear program. The idea of putting a war resolution against the Islamic Republic to Congress was floated Monday on Fox News by the editor of the Weekly Standard, William...
September 7, 2006
A confidential memo between European nations spells out how Iran has manipulated diplomatic maneuvers in order to stall for time to continue its uranium enrichment. The goal, according to this analysis, is to create a rift within the Security Council and a resultant breakdown of Western stamina: Key European nations warn that Iran is trying to weaken international opposition to its contentious nuclear program by stalling on giving a clear response to terms set by six world powers for negotiations, according to a confidential document obtained Thursday. "The Iranian goal obviously is to split the international community," said the document, drawn up by Britain, France and Germany, and made available to The Associated Press ahead of a key meeting of the five U.N. Security Council nations plus Germany. ... Diplomats familiar with the document said it was drawn up by Britain, France and Germany, which are among the six nations...
September 8, 2006
Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit to New York, hoping to build support in America for a bid to replace Ehud Olmert as Israel's Prime Minister. As part of that effort, he gave a speech last night in which he told the audience that George Bush has just about run out of patience with international diplomacy regarding the Iranian nuclear program: Benjamin Netanyahu, as part of an American tour repositioning himself for a return to the Israeli premiership, told an audience in New York today that President Bush is preparing to ditch the United Nations to take on Iran alone and that American politicians of all parties would do well to stop squabbling about Iraq and join the president in focusing on threat from Tehran. The former prime minister, who leads the right of center Likud Party in opposition to the current government, went on to tell lunch guests of the...
September 11, 2006
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided to play Monty Hall, the Guardian reports. He has offered an eight-week window in which he will refrain from uranium enrichment, a short respite that puts pressure on the West to reach a deal before Teheran opens Door #1: Iran offered to freeze its uranium enrichment programme yesterday for eight weeks in what looked like a successful tactic aimed at delaying consideration of international sanctions. In talks at the weekend in Vienna between Iran's national security chief, Ali Larijani, and the European Union's foreign policy supremo, Javier Solana, Tehran appeared to concede enough to prevent a quick move to sanctions by the UN security council. Washington is pressing for a swift decision on sanctions after Tehran failed to meet the terms of a security council resolution requiring it to freeze its uranium enrichment activities in order to resume negotiations with the west, Russia and China. The...
September 12, 2006
Iran apparently has withdrawn its earlier offer to suspend uranium enrichment for an eight-week period to resolve the diplomatic standoff over its nuclear ambitions. They reversed themselves shortly after making the offer: Iran still refuses to suspend nuclear enrichment before the start of talks on its nuclear program - a key demand by the six nations locked in a diplomatic standoff with the Islamic republic, officials said Tuesday. Tehran offered over the weekend to suspend enrichment, which can produce fissile material for nuclear warheads, for up to two months. The willingness to consider such a halt was seen as an important opening. But officials from delegations familiar with the outcome of the weekend's negotiations between Iranian and European negotiators said Tuesday that Iran had also made clear it would not halt enrichment before broader, six-power talks aimed at persuading Iran to agree to a long-term moratorium. They demanded anonymity in...
September 19, 2006
The French, who have remained surprisingly firm on the requirement for uranium-enrichment suspension until now, have retreated on it now. Jacques Chirac now says that Iran would not have to stop its enrichment program to get talks on an incentive package started, but could wait until talks were underway, and that's not even the retreat that matters: In an effort to jump-start formal negotiations between six world powers and Iran over its nuclear program, President Jacques Chirac of France suggested Monday that Iran would not have to freeze major nuclear activities until the talks began. Over the years, Mr. Chirac has consistently taken an extremely hard line against Iran both in public and private. But his remarks in a radio interview could be interpreted as a concession to Iran, whose officials have said they will not suspend their production of enriched uranium as demanded by the United Nations Security Council....
September 22, 2006
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thinks that he has been misunderstood. He told the press covering the United Nations that he doesn't hate Jews at all, and that he actually respects them: Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he is not an anti-Semite. "Jews are respected by everyone, by all human beings," he told a news conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The remarks come months after Mr Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be wiped off the map - and described the Holocaust as "myth". ... "No, I am not anti-Jew," he said. "I respect them very much." Of course! Why, many people openly argue for the destruction of Israel and call the Holocaust a conspiracy theory of Jews to control the world through guilt. Some of his best friends are Hebrew ... or would have been, if his country hadn't chased over half of them out after the 1979...