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Iran must dismantle nuclear program: Netanyahu

Press TV – October 1, 2013

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the 68th session of the UN General Assembly that Iran must dismantle its entire nuclear program, repeating his baseless accusation that Tehran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

“Iran wants to be in a position to rush forward to build nuclear bombs before the international community can detect it and much less prevent it,” Netanyahu said in an address to the 68th annual session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

“Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone,” he claimed.

Netanyahu added that a “nuclear-armed” Iran would be a threat to Israel’s future and called on the international community to keep up pressure on Tehran through sanctions.

Netanyahu’s salvo of threats and accusations against Iran comes as Tehran has categorically rejected allegations leveled by the US, Israel and some of their allies against its nuclear energy program, arguing that its nuclear energy program is only for peaceful purposes.

In a meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington on Monday, Netanyahu claimed credible military threat and sanctions have brought Iran to the negotiating table.

He called on Obama to tighten economic sanctions on Iran if it continues its nuclear advances during a coming round of talks with the West, saying, “Those pressures must be kept in place.”

Israel is widely believed to be the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, with estimated 200-400 nuclear warheads.

The Israeli regime rejects all regulatory international nuclear agreements, particularly the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and refuses to allow its nuclear facilities to come under international regulatory inspections.

October 1, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

George Stephanopoulos Thinks Iran is Enriching Weapons-Grade Uranium

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | September 30, 2013

Iran’s new foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif appeared on ABC‘s “This Week” and addressed a number of the same questions every Iranian official is asked again and again in interviews by the American media.

George Stephanopoulos, who effectively conducted the same interview with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad three years in a row, asked Zarif about possible concessions Iran is willing to make over its nuclear program. By doing so, however, he revealed that he knows very little about Iran’s domestic enrichment program and the consistent findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In response to Zarif’s comment that, for negotiations to be successful, Iran’s inalienable right to enrich uranium be recognized and sanctions begin to be lifted, Stephanopoulos countered, “I understand that’s your demand. But in return, is Iran prepared to stop enriching uranium at the levels they are now enriching it?”

Iran, under strict IAEA safeguards, round-the-clock surveillance and regular intrusive inspection, is currently enriching UF6 (uranium hexafluoride feedstock) to between 3.5% and 5% U-235 for use as fuel in nuclear power plants and to just under 20% U-235 for use in medical research reactors. Both 5% and 20% enriched uranium are considered “low-enriched uranium” (LEU). Neither of these enrichment levels are close to the minimum of 90% U-235, or high-enriched uranium (HEU), needed to produce nuclear bombs.

Not only this, but Iran has been systematically converting its roughly 20% LEU into U3O8 (triuranium octoxide) metallic fuel plates for its research reactor, thus precluding the material’s further enrichment to weapons-grade and decreasing its accumulating stockpile, thus deliberately reducing the potential threat of proliferation. Nuclear physicist Yousaf Butt has explained, “This conversion essentially freezes the enrichment level and subtracts from the ‘enrichable’ gaseous stockpile used in centrifuges. It is not something that a nation hell-bent on weaponization would do.”

The Tehran Research Reactor, where these fuel plates are used, produces radioisotopes required to diagnose and treat more than 850,000 cancer patients across the country.

In short, Iran is not – and has never even been accused or suspected of – enriching weapons-grade uranium.

Yet, as Stephanopoulos’ interview with Zarif continued, it became increasingly clear the ABC host thinks it is.

When Zarif noted that, while “various aspects of Iranian’s enrichment program” are open to negotiation, Iran’s “right to enrich is nonnegotiable,” Stephanopoulos replied, “But you don’t need to enrich above 20 percent, which is only used for military purposes.”

Zarif explained, “We do not need military-grade uranium. That’s a certainty and we will not move in that direction.”

Stephanopoulos, after asking if Iran would ever allow “surprise inspections” of its nuclear facilities – something Iran already does – was told forthrightly by Zarif that Iran has absolutely no interest in producing nuclear weapons.

“We’re not seeking nuclear weapons… We don’t want nuclear weapons,” the Iranian Foreign Minister said, echoing decades of official Iranian policy. “We believe nuclear weapons are detrimental to our security. We believe those who have the illusion that nuclear weapons provide them with security are badly mistaken. We need to have a region and a world free from nuclear weapons.”

What was Stephanopoulos’ response? This:

“But if you don’t want nuclear weapons why enrich uranium to the levels you’re enriching uranium?,” he wondered.

Again, Iran is not enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels, so Stephanopoulos’ question makes no sense. Next time, perhaps, he’ll ask one of the hundreds of thousands of Iranians suffering from cancer why they think their government is enriching uranium to the levels it does.

With media personalities like Stephanopoulos, it is no wonder that the American public remains misinformed and mislead on basic facts about Iran’s nuclear program.

October 1, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

NETANYAHU AND IRAN: WHAT NEXT?

By Damian Lataan | October 1, 2013

There is just one of two scenarios that can be deduced from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s obsessive stance on Iran: he either genuinely believes that Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon specifically to launch at Israel or he has some ulterior motive for wanting the US to attack Iran.

An examination of the two scenarios makes it clear that of the two, the second is far more plausible.

For decades Netanyahu, his political supporters in Israel and their neoconservative supporters in the US and elsewhere around the world have insisted that Iran has a nuclear weapons program and that it is only ‘months away’ from being able to build a bomb. Furthermore, not only do they insist that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, but also that once Iran has the bomb, they will use it against Israel.

Despite their insistence, however, various US National Intelligence Estimates failed to confirm their belief that Iran was on the way to building a bomb. Indeed, not one skerrick of hard evidence has ever been produced to categorically confirm that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. But that didn’t stop the Israelis and their neoconservative supporters from continuing their propaganda about Iran’s ‘nuclear program’.

Nowhere in their propaganda is their any attempt to provide a rationale for their paranoia other than to claim – quite erroneously – that ex-Iranian president Ahmadinejad wanted to somehow ‘wipe Israel off the map’. Nor is there any explanation as to how exactly Iran would launch a nuclear attack against Israel given Israel’s proximity to Arab land and the fact that 20% of Israel’s population are the very Arabs that Iran is supporting. Ignored entirely by the Israeli Zionists and their supporters is how they thought Iran might avoid a retaliatory nuclear strike launched by a nuclear armed Israel and/or by their allies, most of whom also bristle with nuclear arms. In short, none of their claims and arguments supporting their claims has any basis in reality or even logic.

One can only conclude then that there is some ulterior motive behind their vehement insistence that Iran be attacked. Regular readers know already what that motive is; others may find it here.

Later today Netanyahu will address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Undoubtedly, his main topic is going to be Iran and it’s supposed ‘nuclear weapons program’ with an emphasis on how the new Iranian president Hassan Rouhani is trying to pull the wool over the West’s eyes about Iran’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu has already had private talks with President Obama and Obama has already reassured Netanyahu that all options, including the military option, remain on the table. What Netanyahu says in his upcoming speech to the UNGA may provide some insight as to how he is likely to progress to his ultimate goal of a final confrontation with Iran.

October 1, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Mainstream Media’s Ongoing Misinformation Campaign on Iran

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | September 30, 2013

As the United States and Iran carefully embark on a renewed push for diplomacy, including direct contact between the presidents of each country for the first time in 34 years, the mainstream media continues to stymie any chance for an honest assessment of Iran’s nuclear program, engaging instead in the misinformation, misrepresentation and misleading reporting that has long characterized coverage of the issue.

In just the past month alone, numerous networks, newspapers and websites have referred, both implicitly and overtly, to an Iranian “nuclear weapons program,” despite the fact that, for years now, United States intelligence community and its allies have long assessed that Iran is not and never has been in possession of nuclear weapons, is not building nuclear weapons, and its leadership has not made any decision to build nuclear weapons. Iran’s uranium enrichment program is fully safeguarded by the IAEA and no nuclear material has ever been diverted to a military program. Iranian officials have consistently maintained they will never pursue such weapons on religious, strategic, political, moral and legal grounds.

The August 27, 2013 broadcast of NPR‘ “All Things Considered,” featured correspondent Mara Liasson claiming that the tragic civil war in Syria is “a proxy war” and that “Iran, who is developing its own weapons of mass destruction, is currently backing the Syrian regime, and it is watching very carefully to see what the U.S. does.”

The same day, an editorial in USA Today similarly advocated the U.S. bombing of Syria, stating that it “would demolish U.S. credibility” were Obama not to order a campaign of airstrikes, “not just in Syria but also in Iran, which continues to pursue nuclear weapons despite repeated U.S. warnings.”

Neither Liasson, who has a history of getting things wrong about Iran, nor the editors of USA Today were being honest with their audience, presenting what are hysterical allegations unsupported by any evidence as fact.

In a TIME magazine article published online at the end of August, Michael Crowley wrote, “If another round of negotiations with Tehran should fail, Obama may soon be obliged to make good on his vow to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.”

New York Times staff writer Robert Worth assessed the Obama administration’s push for bombing Syria on September 3, explaining, “If the United States does not enforce its self-imposed “red line” on Syria’s use of chemical weapons… Iran will smell weakness and press ahead more boldly in its quest for nuclear weapons.”

On September 4, the website Foreign Policy posted a shrill piece of propaganda in which former AIPAC official and accused Israeli spy Steven Rosen claimed that not bombing Syria “would certainly undermine the campaign to prevent Iran from completing its nuclear weapons program.”

On September 5, Politico revealed that “some 250 Jewish leaders and AIPAC activists will storm the halls on Capitol Hill beginning next week to persuade lawmakers that Congress must adopt the resolution or risk emboldening Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon. They are expected to lobby virtually every member of Congress, arguing that “barbarism” by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated, and that failing to act would “send a message” to Tehran that the U.S. won’t stand up to hostile countries’ efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to a source with the group.”

On September 6, Peter Baker wrote in the New York Times that stepping back from a military assault on Syria would signal a lack of willingness on the part of Obama to counter the nonexistent “the development of a nuclear bomb by Iran.”

On September 10, the Washington Post reported uncritically on the same story, identifying AIPAC’s position that there exists “a direct connection between the Syria crisis and Iran’s effort to get nuclear weapons.” The Post quoted an unnamed AIPAC official as warning of grave consequences were the United States not to bomb Syria, noting that “it will send the wrong message to Tehran about their effort to obtain unconventional weapons.”

The Post was back at it on September 15, stating in an article that “Israel’s security establishment fears that a failure to punish Syria for its use of chemical weapons could encourage Tehran, Syria’s ally, to continue to enrich uranium for a bomb.”

When this erroneous conclusion was brought to the attention of Patrick Pexton, Washington Post‘s former ombudsman, he agreed that the “should be corrected,” as no government, agency or organization on the planet has ever claimed Iran is enriching uranium “for a bomb.”

Editors for the Times and Foreign Policy allowed those statements to be published. Neither Politico nor the Post challenged these absurd presumptions.

USA Today published another misleading article on September 22, which stated that President Obama is “trying to take advantage of a diplomatic opening–created by the installation of a new, more moderate president in Iran–to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.”

Peter Hart of the media watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) caught this bit of misinformation and added that the USA Today editing staff are “not the only ones who should consider clarifying the record.” He quotes CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer smugly opining on September 22, “Rouhani says that Iran does not want and is not pursuing a nuclear weapon. Does anybody take that at face value?

Hart noted:

Actually, the burden of proof should be the other way around: Politicians who claim that Iran has such a program should have to prove it. Schieffer obviously doesn’t see the world that way. He’s interviewed people like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and failed to challenge their claims about Iran’s weapons. Indeed, Schieffer presented them as facts, telling viewers about Iran’s “continuing effort to build a nuclear weapon” (FAIR Blog, 7/15/13).

Even more alarming, though, was a claim from NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, which opened his Friday evening broadcast on September 27.  Speaking of the surprising telephone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani, Williams said, “This is all part of a new leadership effort by Iran – suddenly claiming they don’t want nuclear weapons! – what they want is talks and transparency and good will. And while that would be enough to define a whole new era, skepticism is high and there’s a good reason for it.”

Really, Brian? Suddenly? In truth, the Iranian government has constantly reiterated its wholesale condemnation of nuclear weapons and refusal to ever acquire them – for over twenty years.  Apparently the host of what is often the most-watched evening newscast in the country believes pretending the statements by Rouhani represent a sea change in Iranian policy, rather than undeniable consistency, is good for ratings.

There is literally no way Brian Williams believes this is breaking news unless he has both short-term and long-term memory loss. Why not? He himself has reported on Iran’s repudiation of nuclear weapons for years now.

On September 19, 2006, Williams asked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to respond to what he deemed the U.S. government position that Iran “[s]top enriching uranium toward weapons,” which made now sense in the first place since no one on the planet – including the United States – had ever claimed Iran was enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

Ahmadinejad replied, “We have said on numerous occasions that our activities are for peaceful purposes… Did Iran build the atomic bomb and use it? You must know that, because of our beliefs and our religion, we’re against such acts. We are against the atomic bomb.”

Williams interviewed Ahmadinejad again in late July 2008 and asked the Iranian president, “Is Iran’s goal to have nuclear power or to be a nuclear power in the sense of possessing weapons?”

Ahmadinejad again was clear: “We are not working to manufacture a bomb. We don’t believe in a nuclear bomb… Nuclear energy must not be equaled to a nuclear bomb… A bomb, obviously, is a very bad thing. Nobody should have such a bomb.”

Williams’ NBC colleague Ann Curry also conducted a number of interviews with Ahmadinejad over the past few years during which the Iranian president expressed identical sentiments.

Nevertheless, as The Guardian‘s Glenn Greenwald puts it, “NBC News feels free to spout such plainly false propaganda – ‘suddenly claiming they don’t want nuclear weapons!’ – because they know they and fellow large media outlets have done such an effective job in keeping their viewers ignorant of these facts. They thus believe that they can sow doubts about Iran’s intentions with little danger that their deceit will be discovered.”

Despite the increasingly rapid pace of renewed Iranian and American communication and cooperation, the media’s misinformation campaign against Iran has yet to slow down.  The journalists, editors, analysts and anchors who traffic in dishonest reporting should be held accountable.

Media researchers Jonas Siegel and Saranaz Barforoush recently wrote in the Cairo Review of Global Affairs:

If the goal of news media is to act in the public interest, to hold public officials accountable, and to permit an informed public to play a constructive role in the foreign policy decisions made by their governments—in their name—then journalists ought to consider more carefully how they go about framing the facts and assessments that animate complex policy issues such as Iran’s nuclear program and how the international community could and should respond. Without considering these fundamental characteristics more carefully and reflecting a broader spectrum of viewpoints and policy possibilities in their coverage, they are liable to repeat the mistakes that contributed to disastrous policy choices in the past.

October 1, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

US will take no options off table on Iran: Obama

Press TV – September 30, 2013

obamabibiAmerican President Barack Obama once again repeats Washington’s warmongering rhetoric against Tehran over its nuclear energy program, saying the US will take no options off the table with regard to Iran.

“We take no options off the table, including military options,” Obama said during a meeting at the White House with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

He added that words are not sufficient to resolve Iran’s nuclear issue, adding Tehran must give confidence to the international community “through actions.”

“We agreed it is paramount that Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons,” Obama said.

“Because of the sanctions Iran is ready to talk and we have to test their willingness in good faith,” the US president added.

Obama assured that Washington will enter negotiations with Tehran with a “clear eye” and emphasized that it will be in “close consultation” with Israel and other friends and allies in the region during the process.

The Israeli premier, for his part, said Israel wants Iran to fully dismantle its nuclear energy program and claimed credible military threat and sanctions have brought Iran to the negotiating table.

Netanyahu called on Obama to tighten economic sanctions on Iran if it continues its nuclear advances during a coming round of talks with the West, saying, “Those pressures must be kept in place.”

The meeting between Obama and Netanyahu comes only days after Iran President Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart had a landmark phone conversation on September 27 mainly focusing on Iran’s nuclear energy program.

It was the first direct communication between an Iranian and a US president since the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution more than three decades ago.

The two presidents stressed Tehran and Washington’s political will to swiftly resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear energy program which the United States, Israel and some of their allies claim to include a military component.

Iran has categorically rejected the allegation, stressing that as a committed member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

September 30, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Heads to US Aiming to “Tell the Truth”

Al-Manar | September 29, 2013

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed for the United States on Sunday claiming he wants to tell the truth to counter Iran’s “charm offensive.”

“I intend to tell the truth in the face of the sweet talk and charm offensive of Iran,” public radio quoted Netanyahu as saying before boarding a plane for Washington. “Telling the truth at this time is essential for world peace and security and, of course, for Israel’s security,” he said.

Israeli media said Netanyahu had instructed government ministers to refrain from publicly commenting on the telephone call between the US and Iranian presidents for fear of complicating his White House talks on Monday.

But that has not stopped his confidants speaking out, and President Shimon Peres warned that the tone of much of the commentary was “dangerously scornful” of Israel’s key ally.

“You can agree or disagree (with the Americans) but I don’t like this scornful tone,” Peres told army radio. “Other people have brains to think too, not just us. We should talk to them and try to influence them.”

After meeting Obama, Netanyahu is due to address the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, the same forum where last year he used a cartoon bomb as a prop to underline how close he believed Iran was to being able to build one.

September 29, 2013 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘US lobbyists seek to hinder positive process on Iran’

Press TV – September 28, 2013

A political analyst has warned of efforts by anti-Iran political figures and the Israeli lobby in the US to impede the positive process which has begun on the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.

In a Friday interview with Press TV, Danny Schechter pointed to Iran’s successful Thursday talks with the six world powers over the issues surrounding Tehran’s nuclear energy program and the positive change in Washington’s tone about the Islamic Republic, saying extremist groups in the US, including “the Tea Party people” as well as the Israeli lobby will launch a campaign to obstruct the new positive process regarding Tehran’s peaceful nuclear work.

“Iran has surprised and put the rest of the world off guard, so to speak … Iran was not only very sophisticated but it was also very, as they say, constructive in establishing some parameters to continued discussion,” he said.

“I think there is a desire on the part of a lot of the parties and the people of the world to see this conflict if not ended certainly adjudicated in some sort of fair way and the fact that that the process has begun is quite amazing. I do not think anybody a week ago whether believes that it was even possible,” Schechter pointed out.

On Friday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his American counterpart Barack Obama held a telephone conversation as the Iranian president was wrapping up his visit to New York.

The phone conversation is the first direct communication between Iranian and US presidents since Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The two heads of states stressed Tehran and Washington’s political will to swiftly resolve the West’s dispute over Iran’s nuclear energy program, and exchanged viewpoints on various topics, including cooperation on different regional issues.

During the telephone conversation, Rouhani and Obama also assigned Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry to quickly set the stage for cooperation between the two counties.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran has categorically rejected the allegation, stressing that as a committed member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

September 28, 2013 Posted by | Video | , , | Leave a comment

Obama Calls Rouhani

Al-Manar | September 27, 2013

US President Barack Obama and Iran’s President Hasan Rouhani spoke by phone Friday as the latter was wrapping up his visit to New York.

Rouhani received the call from Obama on Friday as he was in a car heading to the John F. Kennedy International Airport to fly back to Tehran, IRNA reported.

The Iranian and US presidents underlined the need for a political will for expediting resolution of West’s standoff with Iran over the latter’s nuclear program.

President Rouhani and President Obama stressed the necessity for mutual cooperation on different regional issues.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his American counterpart John Kerry have been commissioned to follow up talks between the two countries.

“Just now, I spoke on the phone with President Rouhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The two of us discussed our ongoing efforts to reach an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program,” Obama announced.

“I’ve made clear that we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy in the context of Iran meeting its obligations. So the test will be meaningful, transparent and verifiable actions, which can also bring relief from the comprehensive international sanctions that are currently in place,” he added.

September 27, 2013 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

John Humphrys’ ignorance about Iran is par for the course in all Western media

By Peter Oborne | The Telegraph | September 26, 2013

… Mr Humphrys told listeners that “there will be high-level meetings to find ways of Iran giving up its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for sanctions being dropped”. Unfortunately for Humphrys, Iran does not have a nuclear weapons programme… Read full article

CASMII – September 27, 2013

In BBC Today’s programme today John Humphreys referred to Iran’s “nuclear weapons programme”, something that BBC does now and again.

Interviewing the Israeli government’s spokesman, Mark Gregory, he did not challenge him on his numerous lies and accusations, including describing Iran’s programme as “an aggressive nuclear weapons programme”, a phrase that Humphrey repeated! Neither did he challenge Gregory on the lie that the current Iranian government has threatened Israel with “obliteration” in the past couple of weeks.

It is crucial that people individually write to the BBC and John Humphreys and not allow such venomous propaganda to go unchallenged.

You can listen to the interview here. It starts at around 1.33.49

September 27, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

US scuppered deal with Iran in 2005, says then British Foreign Minister

By David Morrison and Peter Oborne | Friends of Lebanon | September 26, 2013

This week can be a turning point in the troubled history of relations between the United States and Iran. It is greatly to be hoped that President Obama will take the chance of meeting President Rouhani when they both attend the UN General Assembly in New York this week and that this will set the scene for a diplomatic breakthrough between the US and Iran.*

Significantly, President Rouhani was the head of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team in 2003-5 at a time when Iran was actively engaged in negotiations with Britain, France and Germany (aka EU3) about a range of issues including its nuclear programme.

Then Rouhani made a series of proposals that could, and should have led to a settlement – were a deal not blocked by George W Bush.

We know this because, as Britain’s Foreign Minister at the time, Jack Straw took part in these negotiations. Here’s what he said on the Today programme on 3 August 2013, the day that Hassan Rouhani was inaugurated as president:

“I’m absolutely convinced that we can do business with Dr Rouhani, because we did do business with Dr Rouhani, and had it not been for major problems within the US administration under President Bush, we could have actually settled the whole Iran nuclear dossier back in 2005, and we probably wouldn’t have had President Ahmadinejad as a consequence of the failure as well.”

So, according to Jack Straw, these talks could have been successful “had it not been for major problems within the US administration under President Bush”.  In other words, the intransigence which stood in the way of a settlement in 2005 lay in Washington and not in Tehran.

This isn’t news to anybody with a passing familiarity with these negotiations – the blunt truth is that they foundered because the US insisted that Iran must not have uranium enrichment facilities on its own soil in any circumstances, and the EU3 bowed to this diktat from Washington.

What is news is that the leading British player in these negotiations, Jack Straw, has now acknowledged publicly that the intransigence that caused the negotiations to founder lay in Washington and not in Tehran.  The message we have continually heard from the US and its allies, including Britain, is that Iran was intransigent then on the nuclear issue and continues to be intransigent today – and that is what is standing in the way of a settlement.  What Jack Straw is saying is that this message pumped out from Washington and London for the past decade is not the whole truth.

This is a staggering assertion coming from the leading British player in these negotiations. The failure to take advantage of Iran’s flexibility in 2005 and reach a settlement on the nuclear issue (and perhaps a great deal more besides) has had enormous consequences.  The conflict between the US and its allies and Iran, ostensibly over Iran’s nuclear activities, has cast a dark shadow over the world for the past decade, with persistent threats of military action against Iran by Israel and the US.  This has ended up with ferocious economic sanctions being imposed on Iran by the US and the EU and Iranians dying for want of lifesaving drugs.  All this despite the fact that it is universally acknowledged that Iran doesn’t possess any nuclear weapons and, according to US intelligence, hasn’t got an active nuclear weapons programme.

The central message of our new book, A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran [1] is that this was totally unnecessary, that a reasonable settlement could have been reached with Iran in 2005.  Jack Straw’s remarks on Today confirm this.

Unprecedented reassurance measures

Ostensibly, the US and its allies are opposed to Iran having enrichment facilities on their own soil because of concern that Iran would use these facilities to produce high enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Almost unknown today because of the woeful reporting of these matters by the mainstream media is that Iran’s nuclear facilities, including its enrichment facilities, operate under IAEA supervision in accordance with Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA, as required by the NPT of which Iran is a signatory.

This makes it virtually impossible for these enrichment facilities to be used to produce weapons grade uranium for even one bomb without the IAEA becoming aware of Iran attempting to do so.  That is the current view of US intelligence – the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on 18 April 2013: “… we assess Iran could not divert safeguarded material and produce a weapon-worth of WGU before this activity is discovered”.

Also unknown today is that in 2005 Iran offered to put in place unprecedented measures, in addition to the requirements in its safeguards agreement with the IAEA, to reassure the outside world that its nuclear activities were exclusively for peaceful purposes.

These measures were contained in a comprehensive set of proposals presented to EU3 representatives in the Quai D’Orsay in Paris on 23 March 2005 [2] by Javad Zarif, (whom President Rouhani has recently appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs).  The proposals envisaged the continuation of Iran’s enrichment programme, but under arrangements that would have greatly reduced the possibility that Iran could produce either high enriched uranium or plutonium, the fissile material for nuclear weapons.  In particular:

  • Immediate conversion of all low enriched uranium to fuel rods for power reactors, to make further enrichment to high enriched uranium more difficult;
  • No reprocessing of spent fuel rods, thereby precluding the production of plutonium;

The proposals also provided for continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at Iran’s conversion and enrichment facilities.

There is no doubt that in 2005 Iran went out of its way to address international concerns that its enrichment facilities might be used for weapons purposes.  Nevertheless, the EU3 negotiators refused to accept the plan even as a basis for negotiation – because it involved Iran continuing to enrich uranium on its own soil.

When the EU3 eventually made proposals in August 2005 [3], they required Iran to cease enrichment and related activities permanently and to make arrangements for the supply of reactor fuel from abroad, which could be cut off at any time.

Voluntary suspension of nuclear activities

Under the Paris Agreement of November 2004, which established the framework for the 2005 negotiations, Iran had consented to suspend its nuclear activities “while negotiations proceed on a mutually acceptable agreement on long-term arrangements”.  This was a voluntary act – Iran was under no legal obligation under the NPT or any other international agreement to do so.  Significantly, the EU3 themselves recognised this in the Paris Agreement saying that “this suspension is a voluntary confidence building measure and not a legal obligation”.

Iran had agreed to this suspension with great reluctance fearing that the real objective of the US and its allies, who were pushing for suspension, was to have most or all of Iran’s nuclear activities halted permanently.  That turned out to be the case.

What happened next was inevitable: over the following six months or so Iran gradually restarted its nuclear activities.  The resumption began just before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took over from Mohammed Khatami as Iranian president on 3 August 2005.

Iran referred to the Security Council

Iran came under fierce criticism for resuming its nuclear activities, even though the suspension had been a voluntary confidence building measure and not a legal obligation, recognised as such by the EU3.  And France and Britain took the lead in persuading the IAEA Board to pass a resolution in September 2005[4], which for the first time mentioned the word “non-compliance” in connection with Iran’s nuclear activities.

The word is important because Article XII.C of the IAEA statute requires any “non-compliance” to be reported to the Security Council – and Iran was referred to the Security Council in March 2006.

To be precise, the resolution said:

“Iran’s many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply with its NPT Safeguards Agreement, as detailed in GOV/2003/75, constitute non-compliance in the context of Article XII.C of the Agency’s Statute”.

GOV/2003/75 is a report by IAEA Director General, Mohamed El Baradei, to the IAEA Board in November 2003 [5] (that is, nearly two years earlier).  In other words, the resolution stated that Iran had been in “non-compliance” in November 2003.  However, it also stated that, “the Director General in his report to the Board on 2 September 2005 noted that good progress has been made in Iran’s correction of the breaches and in the Agency’s ability to confirm certain aspects of Iran’s current declarations”.

So, Iran was referred to the Security Council, not because of current “non-compliance” that needed to be corrected, but because of past “non-compliance”, which had largely been corrected.

In fact, as Mohammed El Baradei wrote in his book, The Age of Deception, it was referred in order to get the Security Council to stop Iran’s perfectly legitimate uranium enrichment programme:

“What made Iran’s eventual referral a cause for cynicism was that there was nothing new in its ‘non-compliance’, which had essentially been known about for two years.  Recent developments had been positive: the agency had made substantial progress in verifying Iran’s nuclear program.  The eventual referral, when it came, was primarily an attempt to induce the Security Council to stop Iran’s enrichment program, using Chapter VII of the UN Charter to characterise Iran’s enrichment – legal under the NPT – as “a threat to international peace and security”. (p146-7)

Chapter VII Security Council resolutions

Beginning on 31 July 2006, the Security Council passed six Chapter VII resolutions on Iran’s nuclear programme, demanding, inter alia, that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment.

In theory, before passing a Chapter VII resolution, the Security Council has to decide that a “threat to the peace” exists (or that a “breach of the peace, or act of aggression” has taken place) and that action is required by the Council to “maintain or restore international peace and security” (UN Charter, Article 39).  The action may be to impose economic sanctions on a malefactor under Article 41 of the Charter.

But what possible basis can there be for saying that Iran’s nuclear activity constituted even a “threat to the peace” in 2006?  Iran had no nuclear weapons and its nuclear facilities were under IAEA safeguards.  And the IAEA hadn’t uncovered any attempt to divert nuclear material for military use or any evidence of a nuclear weapons programme.

Furthermore, a couple of months earlier, in May 2006, speaking about Iran’s nuclear activities at the Monterey Institute for International Studies [6],Mohamed El Baradei said: “Our assessment is that there is no imminent threat”.

Can there be any doubt that the Security Council has acted outside UN Charter in passing Chapter VII resolutions imposing economic sanctions on Iran?

War in Lebanon ignored

Ironically, when the first Chapter VII resolution was passed on 31 July 2006, Israel’s military assault on Lebanon had been going on for almost three weeks.  Hundreds of Lebanese civilians had been killed and Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure had suffered billions of dollars worth of damage.  The previous day a large number of civilians, many of them children, had been killed by Israeli bombing in Qana.

From 12 July 2006, when the Israeli assault began, the US and the UK blocked the Security Council even calling for an immediate ceasefire.  They did so because they wanted the hostilities to continue – because they supported the Israeli action, hoping that it would seriously damage Hezbollah.

But, on 31 July 2006, having remained silent for three weeks about Israel’s ongoing assault on Lebanon as the death toll rose, the Security Council declared Iran, not Israel, a threat to the peace – because of its nuclear activities.

(A final point: if Iran is a “threat to the peace” even though it has no nuclear weapons and no hard evidence of a nuclear weapons programme, surely Israel with perhaps as many as 400 nuclear warheads must be a “threat to the peace” and deserve to be sanctioned?)

US sanctions

Four of these six resolutions included tranches of economic sanctions. These UN-approved sanctions were rather limited, because Russia and China would have blocked harsher ones.  They were directed primarily at individuals and entities allegedly involved in the Iranian nuclear and missile programmes.  They didn’t have much impact on the Iranian economy as a whole and therefore didn’t hurt ordinary Iranians.

The US used to make a virtue of this – in January 2010, Secretary of State,Hillary Clinton said:

“Our goal is to pressure the Iranian government, particularly the Revolutionary Guard elements, without contributing to the suffering of the ordinary [people], who deserve better than what they currently are receiving.” [7]

Times have changed.  Sanctions imposed by the US beginning in July 2012 have done, and continue to do, real damage to the Iranian economy.  President Obama boasted of this success during his re-election campaign: in a debate with Mitt Romney on 22 October 2012, he said:

“We … organized the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against Iran in history, and it is crippling their economy. Their currency has dropped 80 percent. Their oil production has plunged to the lowest level since they were fighting a war with Iraq 20 years ago. So their economy is in a shambles.” [8]

No worries there about contributing to the suffering of ordinary Iranians.

These are not UN sanctions – they were not prescribed by the Security Council in a resolution under Article 41 of the UN Charter.

They owe their existence to legislation passed by the US Congress in December 2011 at the behest of the Israeli lobby in the US. The legislation was accepted by President Obama, who was loath to offend the lobby in the upcoming election year.

The legislation requires the US administration to bully other states around the world to stop (or at least reduce) purchases of Iranian oil, by threatening to cut off foreign financial institutions from the US financial system, if they conduct transactions with the Central Bank of Iran or other Iranian financial institutions.  Additional sanctions have been imposed since.  None of this affects US trade with Iran since it has been negligible since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

As usual, the EU (including Britain) didn’t need to be bullied – they imposed a total ban on oil imports from Iran beginning in July 2012.

At the time of writing, ordinary Iranians are suffering considerable hardship as a result of these sanctions.  It is now difficult for Iran to make payments for imports of any kind, because it is cut off from the international banking system.  As a result, although pharmaceuticals are not included in the sanctions regime, some life-saving drugs are unobtainable and patients are dying.

See, for example, Iran unable to get life-saving drugs due to international sanctions by Julian Borger and Saeed Kamali Dehghan (Guardian, 13 January 2013, [9]), which says:

“Hundreds of thousands of Iranians with serious illnesses have been put at imminent risk by the unintended consequences of international sanctions, which have led to dire shortages of life-saving medicines such as chemotherapy drugs for cancer and bloodclotting agents for haemophiliacs.”

Iran doesn’t deserve to be the subject of economic sanctions – it hasn’t attacked another country in the past two hundred years, it isn’t occupying territory not its own, it hasn’t got any nuclear weapons and by no stretch of the imagination can it be regarded as a “threat to the peace” and deserving of economic sanctions.

Britain shares in the responsibility for this appalling state of affairs whereby patients are dying in Iran because of the unavailability of life-saving drugs. To cause the deaths of innocent civilians in a country that has engaged in aggression, and deserves to be sanctioned, is difficult to justify.  To cause the deaths of innocent civilians in Iran today is impossible to justify.

Deal breaker

All of this could have been avoided.  A deal could have been reached in 2005, which would have provided unprecedented measures to reassure the outside world that Iran’s nuclear activities were for exclusively peaceful purposes – if the US and its allies had been prepared to concede that Iran had a right to enrichment.

So, what are the prospects of a deal now?  Seyed Hossein Mousavian was the spokesman for the Iranian negotiating team while Rouhani headed it.  In his book The Iranian Nuclear Crisis, he reports that at a meeting in Geneva on 25 May 2005, Rouhani warned the EU3 negotiators three times that “any proposal that excluded enrichment would be rejected in advance” (p171).

That was the deal breaker in 2005, when the reformist Khatami was President.  It continued to be the deal breaker under his successor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  It remains the deal breaker today under President Rouhani.

*The meeting did not occur.  See US government notes here http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/24/press-briefing-senior-administration-officials.  See President Rouhani’s speech at the UN here and notes on his other meetings here. [editor]

References:

[1] www.amazon.co.uk/Dangerous-Delusion-Wrong-About-Nuclear/dp/1908739894/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375977693&sr=8-1&keywords=a+dangerous+delusion

[2] www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/Iran_Proposal_Mar232005.pdf

[3] www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2005/infcirc651.pdf

[4] www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2005/gov2005-77.pdf

[5] www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2003/gov2003-75.pdf

[6] www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-05/31/content_604730.htm

[7] www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/134671.htm

[8] www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/23/us/politics/20121023-third-presidential-debate-obama-romney.html

[9]  www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/13/iran-lifesaving-drugs-international-sanctions

By Peter Oborne  and David Morrison, September 2013.

Peter Oborne is the chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph and reports for Channel 4′s Dispatches and Unreported World.  David Morrison is a Political Officer of Sadaka: The Ireland Palestine Alliance.  They co-authored  A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran (April 2013).  Morrison can be reached at david@sadaka.ie.

September 26, 2013 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NYTimes Op-Ed Never Appeared in US Edition

NYTimes eXaminer ·  September 26, 2013 

Dear Public Editor,

Many activists who follow the nuclear weapons issue, and the tortured path to nuclear disarmament, were really gratified to see, that for the first time Israel’s nuclear arsenal was discussed in the NY Times in the context of present events in Syria and Iran. However, I was shocked and disappointed to see that this educational op-ed, which sheds so much light on the nuclear disarmament situation today, only appeared in the International Edition of the NY Times, and the people in the US remain ignorant and unenlightened about a significant provocation in the middle east. This news should be published so American citizens can have a broader understanding of what’s involved in actually getting rid of nuclear weapons and stopping further proliferation.

Sincerely,
Alice Slater

Op-Ed that never made it to the US edition:

Let’s Be Honest About Israel’s Nukes

By VICTOR GILINSKY and HENRY D. SOKOLSKI

THE recent agreement between the United States and Russia on Syria’s chemical weapons made clear what should have been obvious long ago: President Obama’s effort to uphold international norms against weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East will entangle the United States in a diplomatic and strategic maze that is about much more than Syria’s chemical arsenal. … Read more

September 26, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment