Evans Politics, November 8, 2009
Iran rebuked over nuclear ‘cover-up’ by UN watchdog
Israeli Attack on Iran in the Works?
In the furur over the discovery/announcment over Iran’s hidden and unnanounced nuclear facility at Qom, IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has issued a preliminary condemnatory rebuking declaration. This was the first U.N. resolution against Iran in nearly four years. The vote was 25 to 3, with six abstentions. BBC reports:
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also demanded that Iran freeze the (Qom) project immediately.
… The IAEA resolution was passed with rare Russian and Chinese backing.
Speaking at a Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that the vote sent the clearest possible signal to Iran.
“I believe the next stage will have to be sanctions if Iran does not respond to what is a very clear vote,” he said.
It comes a day after the outgoing head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, expressed frustration at Iran’s refusal to accept an international proposal to end the dispute over its nuclear programme (see video, below).
The plan envisages Iran’s low-enriched uranium being shipped overseas for processing into fuel. This is seen as a way for Iran to get the fuel it wants, while giving guarantees to the West that it will not be used for nuclear weapons.
Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said the resolution was a “hasty and undue” step that would jeopardise the chances of success of the talks on the proposal.
The US ambassador to the nuclear watchdog, Glyn Davies, said patience with Iran was “running out”….
Al Jazeera fleshes out the situation for us:
Alireza Ronaghi, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Tehran, said that the resolution comes as Iran’s government faces pressure from its supporters inside the country to be forthcoming in its negotiations with the world powers over exchanging enriched uranium.
Ronaghi was referring to an IAEA-brokered plan to provide Iran with fuel for a nuclear medicine reactor in exchange for enriched uranium that could be turned into bomb material if further refined.
“Iran’s economy has been under pressure for almost four years, since President Ahmadinejad took power and immediately adopted some very aggressive policies in Iran’s nuclear programme,” Ronaghi said.
“It is not going to be easy to handle any more sanctions from now on. I’m sure it is going to be a very serious concern among members of Iran’s ruling elite.”
The well-known Arab news source adds important details to our knowledge:
The resolution notes that the IAEA cannot confirm that Tehran’s nuclear programme is exclusively geared towards peaceful uses and expresses “serious concern” that Iran may be hiding a military nuclear program.
On Thursday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the IAEA, said an investigation into whether Iran was seeking to build nuclear weapons had reached “a dead end”.
Al Jazeera goes on to question the claim that the Qom facility had in fact been designed for peaceful purposes:
Tehran says the bunkered Qom site, which is to start operating in 2011, is a backup for its much larger Natanz enrichment centre in case it is bombed by foes such as Israel.
Western nuclear analysts say Qom’s low capacity makes it unsuitable for any purpose but to enrich smaller quantities of uranium suitable for a bomb.
Enrichment plants generally need tens of thousands of centrifuges to feed a nuclear power plant.
The Draft Resolution will serve as the basis for a Security Council resolution possibly including the aforementioned sanctions.
Several videos making the rounds on the internet heighten the concern about the immediate future. Iran is engaging in war games simulating its defense in the case of attack, and Israel is very gravely concerned with Iran’s nuclear potential for attack on it, given the Iranian leader’s calls for Israel’s destruction. The second video below from Russia today makes clear the gravity of the situation.
Israel has already “wargamed” the attack on Iran twice in training exercises. The most recent dry run included not just bomber but fighters with new fuel tanks allowing them to accompany the bombers the entire distance of the mission. These weren’t just computer simulations but air force flights to a comparable length of the mission, with the fighters. Saudi Arabia has been reported to have cleared the use of Saudi air space in such an attack. The two Saudi oil terminuses are particularly vulnerable to any reciprocal measures by Iran: even using their many conventional warheads on intermediate range missiles (they were reported to have some 1,500 about a year ago), these two terminuses would be history if Iran really were seriously attacked.
That is why not just liberals and peace advocates, but many intelligent foreign policy analysts are so focused on a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear program crisis, and why President Obama has so far said no to Israeli requests to attack Iran. The situation is indeed dire, not just for Mideast peace, but for the whole world’s energy supply.
See also IAEA’s ElBaradei expresses ‘disappointment’ at Iran, November 26, 2009, Agence France Presse video on YouTube.
See also, Nuclear defiance? IAEA votes on Iran censure resolution, November 27, 2009, Russia Today video on YouTube.
IAEA Chief ElBaradei Reports on Iran
Israel likely to attack Iran?
Russia Today – November 24, 2009 – 4:12
November 30th, 2009 at 8:10 am
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