(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.
