[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[The Wall Street Journal]

Europe's Iran Wimpout
http://online.wsj.com/public/us
February 27, 2004
The Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook

Anyone who still believes the "international community" had the will to contain Saddam Hussein through inspections need only look at the non-functional non-proliferation process now taking place in neighboring Iran.

This week's report from the International Atomic Energy Agency is as close as could be expected to smoking-gun proof that Tehran's hardliners are building an atomic bomb. The country has been shown to be running multiple uranium-enrichment programs -- all of which it originally failed to declare to the U.N. inspectors, and the more sophisticated of which it kept hiding even when given a chance to come clean in an international agreement last October.

Iran has absolutely no need to enrich uranium if its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, as it claims it is. What's more, IAEA inspectors discovered traces of polonium-210, an element they dryly note can be used "as a neutron initiator in some designs of nuclear weapons." In short, they've found work on what appears to be a bomb core and its trigger.

Yet barely had the ink dried on their pro-forma denunciation of last Friday's rigged Iranian elections when European Union foreign ministers offered Iran another chance to deceive. A senior Bush Administration official tells us our European friends -- including erstwhile disarmament stalwart Tony Blair -- rebuffed an explicit request from President Bush, and cut a deal with Tehran to expand the definition of its ostensibly suspended "enrichment activities."

The IAEA says the agreement, which likely precludes a referral of Iran to the U.N. Security Council when the IAEA board meets next month, "will contribute to confidence building." That sounds about right -- confidence on the part of Iran's ruling mullahs that they're going to get away with it.

Short of finding a bomb blueprint (which Iran probably got from Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan as Libya did) or actual device, after all, the IAEA report could hardly be more damning. The agency threw cold water on Iran's excuse that numerous traces of highly enriched uranium were due to the contamination of foreign-purchased parts. It traced most of the contamination to elements of Iran's domestic program, and it noted that the purity of uranium from one site was 36% -- less than the 90% needed for a bomb but much more than needed to fuel nuclear reactors.

As CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee this week, "The difference between producing low-enriched uranium and weapons-capable high-enriched uranium is only a matter of time and intent, not technology." The IAEA report also notes the military links of what Iran claims is a civilian program: "Most workshops for the domestic production of centrifuges are owned by military industrial organizations."

But as in Iraq, IAEA chief Mohammed El Baradei simply asked for better behavior. "I hope," he implored earlier this week, "this will be the last time any aspect of the program has not been declared to us." Most IAEA member states, meanwhile, seem more interested in oil contracts than in enforcing international atomic energy rules. In recent weeks French and Japanese companies signed petroleum exploration deals with the Islamic Republic. Not surprisingly, Iran's IAEA representative, Hassan Rohani, has responded to the Europeans with outright contempt: "We have other research projects which we have not announced to the agency and do not think it is necessary to announce them to the agency."

Mr. Rohani happens to be a close political ally of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who said a few years ago that "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world." By "colonialism," he means Anglo-American foreign policy. Iran wants the bomb to contain the U.S. and become the dominant power in the Middle East.

More than a decade ago Margaret Thatcher almost certainly saved the world from a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein by delivering her famous "Don't go wobbly" message to George H.W. Bush. Now's the time for the current occupant of the White House to return the favor by delivering a similar message of resolve to his British counterpart.

Prime Minister Blair may think he's defending the international non-proliferation system by drawing out negotiations with Iran, but the truth is he risks permanently discrediting it. If Iran's repeated deceptions are not cause for referral to the Security Council, then nothing is. And if Iran goes nuclear on the IAEA's watch, then the agency might as well cease to exist.

[Blair And Jack Are Enemy]

[AzadiBozorg]

You are right... Why is the American administration acting like weenies - they're not taking a tough stance.. lets play MACHPOLITIK and stop acting like a gang of bitches.

[christ died for me]

Bush is desperate now to hold on to power.
I'm sure Rumsfeld and pals are making plans for the mullahs.

[redemption]

Did you see the Passion by Mel Gibson? I'm interested to see it..
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