Wednesday, May 03, 2006

The March Towards War With Iran

The anti-Iran propaganda program is in high gear today--as could be expected during the week that the Iranian nuclear program goes to the U.N. Security Council.

There are the usual curiously timed leaks about Iran's capabilities and intentions that doubtlessly are released to strike fear into the large percentage of Americans who are ignorant about foreign affairs and international security.

Iranian officials said they had boosted the purity of their uranium enrichment from 3.6 percent to 4.8 percent, found three new uranium deposits in Iran and would retaliate against Israel if attacked by the United States...

On Tuesday, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, told the Iranian Student News Agency that Iranian scientists have enriched uranium to 4.8 percent purity, up from 3.6 percent last month. Uranium needs to be enriched to more than 90 percent to make a bomb, and estimates differ widely about how far Iran is from that point, with some specialists saying only two years, and others saying more than 10.

The ominous "news" gets worse:

Also on Tuesday, Iran's deputy chief for nuclear research and technology said that uranium deposits had been found in three new places in the center of the country. And the student news agency quoted a senior military official, Rear Adm. Mohammed Ibrahim Dehqani, as saying that if the U.S. causes problems, "Israel will be the first place that we will target."

I wonder if any Western news outlet has ever quoted any student news agency anywhere in the world on any important subject. I guess there has got to be a first for everything.

This next bit is interesting. Hard to see where this fits into the info-op. Not exactly a casus belli for a U.S. attack on Iran.

Iraq's president says he has met with Iraqi insurgents and reports this development:

The insurgents "do not think that the Americans are the main enemy," President Jalal Talabani said in an interview on al-Hurra television Tuesday night. "They feel threatened by what they call the 'Iranian threat.' "

LOL

The New York Times points out that the U.N. Security Council track may take longer than some parties would like:

The United States, Britain and France have drafted a binding United Nations Security Council resolution requiring Iran to stop critical nuclear activities, but Russia and China are resisting, officials involved in the negotiations said Tuesday.

The emerging standoff signals the beginning of a new confrontation that is expected to take weeks to negotiate, and even then might not result in a clear outcome.

"The Security Council has no option but to proceed under Chapter 7," (R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state who has led American diplomatic efforts on Iran) told reporters in Paris, referring to the article in the United Nations Charter that makes resolutions mandatory under international law and opens the way to sanctions or even military action.

He predicted a drawn-out process in the Security Council, saying at one point that it would take 30 to 40 days and at another point, a month or two.

Not everyone is convinced that the U.S. effort to demonize and punish Iran is the wise path:

Some analysts in Europe argue that tough policies being pushed by the United States and its allies have achieved none of their main goals, and are instead making matters worse.

"The policy to isolate Iran has not only strengthened the most radical segments of the Iranian population, it also has led to the extreme popularity" of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Arab world, said Azadeh Kian-Thiebaut, a political scientist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris.

The dipshits in the administration have deluded themselves into thinking that the young Iranians will embrace an attack upon their country by the U.S. acting as a proxy for Israel.

Just because the neo-cons in Washington love Israel--that doesn't mean that the Iranians feel the same way.

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