(Update below the fold)
This latest decision of Iran’s rulers, if accurate is very troubling. An Associated Press report based on anonymous sources is claiming that Iran has made the decision to bar IAEA inspectors from its nuclear power plant at Natanz, thus putting it squarely at odds with the UN and enabling those elements of the Bush administration who desire to use military force shut down Iran’s nuclear program:
VIENNA, Austria –
Iran has turned away U.N. inspectors wanting to examine its underground nuclear site in an apparent violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty, diplomats and U.N. officials said Monday.The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidentiality of the information, told The Associated Press that Iran’s unprecedented refusal to allow access to the facility at Natanz could seriously hamper international efforts to ensure that Tehran is not trying to make nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader said Tehran will pursue nuclear technology despite a
U.N. Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment by the end of the month or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.“The Islamic Republic of Iran has made its own decision and in the nuclear case, God willing, with patience and power, will continue its path,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to state television.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t the so-called crazy, holocaust denier President Ahmadinejad who is announcing that Iran will continue on its “path” toward nuclear power. This is the real power in Iran, its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. When he speaks its a good idea to pay attention, and the fact that he is making such a statement on the same day that Iran has allegedly barred UN inspectors from its nuclear facilities should be sounding alarm bells all over the world.
Iran’s mullahs, whether influenced by Ahmadinejad’s popularity and influence, or not, have made the decision to roll the dice. They are gambling that the Bush administration and the Pentagon, bogged down in Iraq, and having just witnessed the failure of Israel’s military to decisively defeat Hezbollah in South Lebanon, will lack the stomach for another military confrontation in the Middle East. If that is indeed how they perceive the current geopolitical situation, they are making a grave error, one that could have consequences to create a much larger war, one that might engulf the entire Middle East before it is through.
Oh, and also lead to increased terror attacks around the world, including within Europe and the United States. In short, we may be witnessing the same kind of serious miscalculations, diplomatic bombast and bluster and sheer outright stupidity that triggered World War I.
(cont.)
For the Bush administration, the assertion of a hard line on the nuclear issue by Iran’s rulers is, in their eyes, literally a gift from heaven. By tossing out the UN inspectors working for the IAEA, Iran is actively casting itself as the villain in the narrative being created by the Bush administration’s propaganda campaign. Far from discouraging the neoconservative hawks in Cheney’s office and at the pentagon, this will only embolden them. It’s the one step that even Saddam Hussein refused to take, barring inspectors.
Now Ambassador Bolton at the UN Security Council meetings on this crisis can more easily paint Iran as the aggressor and a rogue nation bent on obtaining nuclear weapons with which to threaten the security of Israel and the United States. It doesn’t even matter what the Security Council decides at this point. Either way the narrative in the US media will bang the drums ever more loudly for war.
It also benefits Karl Rove’s campaign to retain control of Congress by the Republican Party. Few important Democrats will have the guts to oppose a war with Iran, and Republican candidates will use the issue as a cudgel to beat on their Democratic opponents this Fall, and to stifle honest debate on any other issue. It is almost as if the Iranian regime has made the same blunder that President Bush did when he announced to the Sunni insurgents “Bring ’em on” back in the Summer of 2003.
No one senior in the Bush administration believed that anyone would actually take up Bush’s challenge then, and it’s beginning to look like the Iranian leadership is making the same mistake. By assuming that current events have weakened America’s position in the region, they are assuming that Bush will back down, rather than execute the Pentagon’s well prepared plan to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities (as described by Seymour Hersh among others). On the contrary, backed into a corner both politically and strategically, Bush will do what he does best: decide to follow Cheney’s advice and let the bombs and missiles fly.
I only hope that someone can get the Iranian ruling mullahs to understand the serious nature of their delusion regarding the likely response by this American President to what he can only feel is a direct affront to his manhood. Barring UN inspectors only increases the likelihood for the outbreak of a catastrophic war, one which will have consequences far beyond Washington and Teheran, the respective capitols of the two principal protagonists in what is beginning to look like the opening act of a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
Update [2006-8-21 16:40:31 by Steven D]: New evidence that Iran is taking a very hard line on its nuclear program:
Vienna, 21 August (AKI) – Just hours before Iran is due to give world powers its response to a package of incentives aimed at persuading the country to give up its nuclear activities, new centrifuges have been installed at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility over the past two weeks, an anonymous source at the United Nations nuclear watchdog told Adnkronos International (AKI). Meanwhile, the country’s heavy water reactor at nearby Arak in central Iran “will shortly be operational,” the second in command of Iran’s nuclear programme, Mohammad Saidi, was quoted as saying.
Also on Monday, inspectors from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) left Iran without being granted access to its underground nuclear sites, the country’s semi-official Fars agency reported. This will increase suspicions that Iran may be seeking to develop a covert nuclear weapons programme – and make inspections much harder, observers say.
Looks like the anonymous sources about inspectors being barred from Natanz are being confirmed by Iran’s own press agency.
Ugh.
How will this effect what Russia and China are willing to do in the way of sanctions?
Not much. China and Russia will continue to oppose any resolution imposing significant sanctions on Iran, or authroizing the use of military force. That will just play into Cheney’s hands and the hands of those who want a war.
are you sure?
What excuse will they provide?
Their ties with Iran are too extensive to go for significant sanctions, especially China. They’ll sign off on minor sanctions at best.
I don’t know. This is kind of a direct challenge to the Security Council. If they don’t act tough how will they prevent the neo-cons from backing out of a failed anti-proliferation system and attacking?
Iran just signed a big oil contract with China. I doubt they care as much about the Security Council’s credibility as they do about there relationship with Iran and access to its oil and gas reserves. I also think China wouldn’t mind seeing the US military worn down on the anvil of Iraq and Iran.
Also posted in ORANGE
Hmmm…maybe BushCo won’t need to do their weapons testing in Indiana after all, since Iran appears to be volunteering?
Not good.
are assuming any attack will include nukes. This is not necessarily so.
There are at least four options (in various combinations) for what an attack would look like.
1. Conventional attack solely against nuclear (and putative nuclear sites) and air defense operations. Some say that just piling the rubble high on these would put Iran’s nuclear program out of commission for years.
2. Conventional attack against nuclear, air defense, military bases and other infrastructure (bridges, tunnels, roads, rail, air, factories, petroleum processing, pipelines, ports, et cetera).
3. Conventional as in No. 2, plus selective nuking of deep nuclear facilities.
4. No. 3, plus a land invasion through Khuzestan and/or other regions.
Personally, I think No. 4 is off the table. The Air Force is possibly the only branch that hasn’t objected to an assault on Iran, and the Army and Marines have objected most. I just don’t see how the NeoImps could pull this off logistically given the problems we already have. Oh sure, they could pull troops from Germany or Korea, but practically speaking, I think that’s just not going to happen. Any ground ops would, I think, be confined to special ops. Some of that is no doubt already going on and has been for some time.
Unfortunately, Steven hit the nail head on with Few important Democrats will have the guts to oppose a war with Iran … While more and more elected Dems have slowly slowly turned against the Iraq imbroglio, we’ve heard almost nothing positive from even the left Dems about stopping an attack on Iran.
Dems still run scared when talk of war comes up. And no one is pointing out that whatever danger Iran poses, it isn’t an imminent threat. That’s th way I’d like to see Dems tackle this.
at least part of the reason the Dems are quiet is that we cannot run on a platform of letting Iran get nuclear weapons. And if they are going to thumb their nose at the Security Council and not allow inspections, then there are only two options.
Either we succeed in getting the security council to impose harsh sanctions, or we take some kind of unilateral actions.
We do need to remind people that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are a long way from fruition and that there is no special urgency and no need to be rash.
But Dems will get killed at the ballot box if they oppose tough sanctions or clutch to the illusion that the Security Council can act as a counterproliferation force if it can’t even make Iran pay for their decisions.
That’s why it will be critical that Russia and China join in some kind of harsh penalty short of war.
Iran is feeling awfully bold though. It makes little sense.
…them a sense of strength, I think. Not that this is the only reason for their boldness.
The Dems have made themselves irrelevant. The Iranians, the Russians, and the Chinese understand this: The Dems are not part of the game at all.
The US Army matters: They know they cannot take on this fight. They are being destroyed in Iraq. Iran would be worse.
The US Navy matters: They know from wargames–but may not yet believe–that the most likely outcome for the Navy is that it goes to the bottom. But even if they disbelieve, they are not really eager to put it to the test.
The US Airforce matters: They see no serious impediment. If Iran has any air defense they are unaware of it. They would like to do the Dr. Strangelove scenerio.
The US executive matters: The lust of murder/suicide is upon them like a demonic possession.
Europe matters–maybe. They still pray, against plain evidence, that the US will come to its senses and behave like a real country. They refuse to face that that isn’t going to happen, and that they need to plan a real strategy for coping with what is coming.
China and Russia matter: They understand that they are both inevitable obstacles to an American policy of world domination. This means they have no choice than to oppose. But they also know the US can no longer match its desires with ability. In many ways both countries are better placed strategically than they were during the Second World War, and they survived that. Mainly, they know they need to stay alert and cool-headed while America makes its mistakes: This leads to their best possible outcome.
I should say more about this: Americans soil their underwear when two skyscrapers are knocked down. Russia and China faced millions killed on the field of battle–both soldiers and non-combatants. They understand that you cannot evade suffering by throwing a tantrum.
So these “sanctions:” For all parties, they are just theater. The US already knows what it wants to do, and sanctions will not change that. If sanctions are imposed as the US demands, then the US will just find something else. This is not merely a time-tested tactic (Hitler, Stalin, & al): It is the tactic the US has been using consistently since year 2000, and most famously to arrange for the Iraq War.
at least part of the reason the Dems are quiet is that we cannot run on a platform of letting Iran get nuclear weapons.
The reason the Dems are gelded is that there is no policy whatever in which the US maintains control of the world, but they no more than the public–or the Repugs–are willing to give the fantasy up. It is much easier to sell a crack-pot policy–as the Repugs do–than to sell no policy.
Returning to sanity does not seem to be an option. I can’t tell you why. I am fair at strategy, but at politics I am not good at all.
I guess we are back to American Exceptionalism. The Nazis had a phrase: “World rule or nothing.” They got their wish. So will we.
I think it’s number 3, and I think they’re itching to do it, to put nuclear detterence back on the table as a “usable” diplomatic tool again. The whole idea that they are “beyond the pale” has made them unavailable. To reverse that, there are people in this insane cabal who, I believe, feel they MUST be used or we might as well not have them at all:
I think the decision has all-but been made, and any debate now is over timing.
I have to confess that I think anything less than number 3 would be out of character for this bunch…
The Union of Concerned Scientists has a video showing that even nukes can’t damage deep facilities.
Physics Today has a much more insightful technical article. Figure 4 summarizes destructive capabilities of earth penetrators
The article also makes clear that most of the energy of the explosion of earth penetrating devices is wasted in the atmosphere. For nuclear devices this translates into a tremendous amount of airborne radioactivity.
Don’t Panic? I guess that’s especially true in the age of nuclear warfare.
doesn’t look like we have much of a future to look forward to. I just want to know why these warmongers are so hell bent on destroying the planet?
You’ve heard of the Clone Wars? Remember how it was all a deception to hide the true objective.
Well, we are living in the time of the oil wars. We are being told it is a war on terror, but it is far from that. If it was terrorists we were concerned about, we’d have sent more troops to Afghanistan, and squeezed pakistan harder to clean up the haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
No, everything has to do with the access to that diminishing pot of black gold, and every neocon thinks they can be the one to take it away from the leprechauns when the time comes. The money we are wasting in pursuit of oil profits for Exxon Mobil would be bettwe spent looking for other sources of renewable, clean energy.
I sometimes think ALL these powerful rulers ARE playing poker — with the planet as the deck of cards. Afterall who among them actually suffer any personal consequences
from their actions?
I dunno. I just can’t believe that so many horrible people are making the decisions for the rest of the human race at the same point in time.
…press agency today: In case of economic sanctions, Iran will envisage restrictions for IAEA inspections
“It would win for us a proud title- we would become the first aggressors for peace.”- Francis P. Matthews, Secretary of the Navy (D). Argument in favor of preemptive war with the USSR. Quoted from The Nation, Sept. 9, 1950.
Thank God we didn’t follow Napoleon and Hitler’s examples.
Nevertheless, Iran is choosing a most unwise course.
…They’re trying to goad us into doing something stupid that will justify anything they do in reaction.
I’ll post more on this tomorrow.
probably feels they don’t have any choice but to up the ante. They’ve come a long way toward becoming THE center of populist supported power in the ME by standing up to the West while the Arab countries sell out for big cars, yachts and trinkets, leaving their people to starve. They’ve been very bolstered by Hezbollah’s success recently. They have every right under current international laws and agreements to have a civilian nuclear program, and to maintain an infrastructure to fuel it. THEY ARE IN THE RIGHT as far as the law goes, and all of the threats coming from us and the rest of the west only reinforces the idea that we don’t mean what we say when it comes to treaties and agreements. How can they back down and maintain any credibility politically w/ their own people, let alone in the rest of the Moslem world?
Given the track record of the US and Israelis, I would think that it would be pretty clear to them that backing down will only invite MORE demands from the American-led west. They’re screwed either way, as far as the threat to them goes, and I’m sure that they think they’re only hope is to call and hope it’s a bluff.
Sad to say, but we’re well on the way toward a repeat of the same kinds of disasters that led to WW I. It feels more and more inevitable, and it is the US and Israel who’re driving us there.
I suspect they have been told by the Chinese that there will be no sanctions at the UN. Either that or they don’t really believe Bush is a lunatic (despite all the evidence to the contrary).
I don’t think they can afford to CARE if Bush is a lunatic. The Chinese, though, are an interesting wrinkle in this whole mess, and one can hope that THEY might be able to deter the Bushites from going down this road …
… but I’m not hopeful.
may think: let’s suck the US into the Middle East and the moment they think they can take the oil we make their life so miserable we bleed them to death.
or they don’t really believe Bush is a lunatic
They know perfectly well that Bush is a lunatic.
They also know that he cannot be placated.
So it is foolish to try. There is simply no bargain, no agreement, with the US that is possible. This means that moving forward is absolutely their best strategy. Complying gives them nothing and may cost a good deal. So they are not going to do that. Seeming to comply, for as long as possible, was worth some PR, but we are about at the end of that phase.
I was hoping for better from Europe. Tant pis.
I have read and hear someplace that Iran was asking for talking with us. If that is all it would take to settle this thing down, why not talk to them…
because all of this is just a pretext to expand US hegemony over the area. It’s not, in any way, shape or form about nukes.
It’s quite possible that the mullahs believe that with the American overreach in Iraq demonstrating the limits of US power they could win a war against the US. They may well feel that if they make Bush back down they win, and if he attacks and they shut down the gulf and cut off and destroy much of our active duty military they win bigger. I’m not saying that agree with them, far from it, but it’s something that we be considering in any discussion like this one.
Short of an authorizing UN declaration, the United States has no casus belli — in Iraq it had at least the ghostly shadow of a shadow of one in the earlier resolution. In this case an attack by the United States on Iran would be a war crime. No allies on this one, certainly not the Brits, who’ve been burned.
As to consequences, it will ensure a Stalingrad surrender of our army in Iraq, who will be isolated from their source of fuel and food in Kuwait. No amount of air power can replace the land link running through Shi’a territory. This is, of course, one way to get the troops out of Iraq, but they will be getting out of Iraq to prison camps in Iran or otherparts of Iraq, where the Abu Ghraib precedent will no doubt be binding.
I think Bush and Cheney are just fanatic enough to let this scenario play out. We’ve seen it before, in 1942-45.
The Arab Street is right behind Hezbollah and whoever backed them in a euphoric way. Puppet regimes of the US in the Arab world are being forced by their populations to fall in line too. The Hezbollah victory, as it is seen by most of the world, emboldens. The bombing of people has showed the world yet again that those people turn on the bombers not the resistance. Israel looks weak not only militarily right now but also politcially Israel is falling apart. The US is overstretched as both Iraq and Afghanistan become increasingly unstable. North Korea is also unpredictable and of course Hugo Chavez is enjoying himself. World opinion is almost unanimously against the US and Israel even if some of our puppet leaders will still try to stick with us.
Maybe, just maybe, the Iranians believe they are in a no lose situation whatever action the US or Israel take.
I would be very careful of this bit of news about “inspectors kicked out” considering that as of Jan 2006 the IAEA reported that Iran had allows more inspections that it was required to allow. Did Iran refuse entry to a particular inspector or to all of them? Were these required inspections, or merely voluntary ones that Iran didn’t have to allow anyway? etc etc.
Aise from all that, people need to start realizing some facts: Iran’s nuclear program is popular among the people of Iran – moderates or fanatic, secular or fundamentalist, pro or anti-US. Its a nationalistic thing. They know they have the right under Article IV to have nuclear technology, and they know that the US/EU position stinks of hypocricy. The government of Iran can’t very well simpy hand away Iran’s NPT rights without some very serious consequences domestically. If the mullahs do give in to US/EU demands, they will be promptly accused by Iranians of all stripes of selling-out the nation’s rights in order to keep hold of power.
And you have to understand that this is a very touchy issue of Iranian for historical reasons. Since most American don’t know anything about Iran’s history, they don’t realize the historical parallels. This isn’t the first time that the foreign Great Powers have given Iran’s government ultimatums. There is a previous history of the colonian powers – Russian, British, etc. – have at various times demanded that Iran give up the right to use her own oil resources, to build her own railroads, to have sovereignty over her own soil. All of this has left very very deep historical resentments. Iranian politicians who gave in to these ultimatums are still reviled and considered to be traitors.
And that’s a perfectly natural thing too – imagine if the tables were reversed and it was Iran that was demanding that the US give up something or else face sanctions and attacks. What would the reaction of the average American be? Why assume that the people of Iran would react any differently? They love their country too.