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Iran Update

Mar 8, 2006

maha

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Bronwen Maddox of the London Times provides an update on the Iran nuclear situation.

EVERYTHING is set for the row over Iran’s nuclear work to land before the UN Security Council in New York. The council is preparing to take up the baton next week.

Yet until this week’s acrimonious and muddled meeting at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna finally ends, there is a hovering uncertainty that this will happen.

Yesterday the tone hardened. Russia denied that it was offering Iran a way to keep a vestige of the most controversial research. The US warned Iran of “consequences” if it persisted with uranium enrichment. Britain, France and Germany, who orchestrated the IAEA vote that referred the row to the council, said that what is known about Iran’s research could be just the tip of the iceberg: missile designs which have emerged this year could point to a secret military programme.

And Iran, in its inimitable vocabulary, warned the US that it, too, could cause “harm and pain”, and threatened to disrupt oil markets. It attacked US “warmongers”, saying: “Surely we are not naive about the US’s intention to flex muscles. But we also see the bone fractures underneath.”

Ms. Maddox writes that the Security Council will be reluctant to impose sanctions. Nobody expects anything to happen soon.

For additional background see “Wolf! Wolf!” and “The Tar Baby.”

Spotlight

11 Comments

Bonnie • Mar 8, 2006 @8:17 pm

I am more frightened now (and have been since Bush first became President) of a nuclear war than I ever was hiding under my desk in grade school. This little man with the small mind is scary.
uncledad • Mar 8, 2006 @9:57 pm

Wow this whole thing is unf@#king believable. Didn’t we just go through this bullshit three years ago? Wasn’t congress and the media asking itself recently why they didn’t ask more questions in the run up to the Iraq war? John Fogerty wrote a song a few years back “deja vu all over again” to the melody of “have you ever seen the rain”, about how this whole Iraq debacle was similar to they way Vietnam was started. Now they seem to only wait a few years to start the same bullshit all over again. We’ll it is an election year and you know how our elected officials like to vote for war during an election year!
Swami • Mar 9, 2006 @12:40 am

It should be interesting to see how this plays out. Bush has no options other than running his mouth. I suppose he could always give the Iranians a little of Rumsfeld’s Shock and Awe ® treatment, but it will take a large army— a long time— to deter the Iranians from doing what they consider to be their sovereign right. Bush would be wise to follow the scriptural admonition, and count the costs before putting his hand to the plow. I think those fractures the Iranians are talking about are Afghanistan and Iraq.. One is costing approximately 17 billion a year and the other is costing 5.9 billion a month,just in the dollar amount.And I would suspect that they would become compound fractures or breaks if Bush pushes the Iranians to hard
uncledad • Mar 9, 2006 @1:40 am

87.8 BILLION. Chump change. We got plenty of money. thats only $292.00 dollars from ever man woman and child (if we include illegals-quest account) per year. Didn’t they tell us that freedom isn’t free? I don’t think GW needs to read any more scriptures, that may be part of what got us into this corner! He needs to read some articles of impeachment, that may stop him, maybe not. By the way this is what 87.8billion looks like, 87,800,000,000.00. Or you could divide 87.8 billion by the Iraq body count, now thats some spending!
uncledad • Mar 9, 2006 @2:17 am

At the risk of rambling, I was sort of encouraged a few months back. When Jack Murtha spoke out and informed us all that we need a political solution to this mess. The media (if not the House of Reps-Ohio psycho women) seemed to at least be willing to listen. Three, Four months later where are we now. Forget about Iraq, we are talking about Iran. Does anyone see a pattern here? Let me spell it out. Afghanistan, $$$, Iraq, $$$$$$, Iran? Can someone explain this to me? I think Jack should file an age discrimination lawsuit. What other reason was there for not taking him seriously. The man gave his nation a plan and his opponents and peers treated him like an Alzheimer patient. At the risk of rambling.
John Palcewski • Mar 9, 2006 @3:33 am

I am impatiently awaiting the emergence of a great LEADER who will oversee the banishment of every single fascist Republican swine who, with endlessly repeated lies and propaganda and needless deaths of thousands, has stained the honor of America.

Weston La Barre in 1970 said in “The Ghost Dance” that charismatic leaders are those who come to resolve acute stress situations in the culture.

“A society’s culture is a set of defense mechanisms, both technological and psychological. If technical means fail to protect the people against anxiety and stress, then psychological means must be fabricated to maintain homeostatis [or balance].”

In other words, right now America is in deep shit. The fascist swine are destroying the country, and we sit helplessly in numbed shock. Some of us write hysterical posts to liberal blogs. Some of us call our congressmen, or join email or fax campaigns.

But what we need the most is to find a true leader. Who is he?

Or she?

John Palcewski
http://forioscribe.livejournal.com
Steve Nichols • Mar 9, 2006 @12:10 pm

BERLIN (Reuters) – If the U.N. Security Council is incapable of taking action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself, Israel’s defense minister said on Wednesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060308/wl_nm/nuclear_iran_israel_dc

Just who is this BS aimed at?
Steve Nichols • Mar 9, 2006 @12:14 pm

If word spreads quickly after some atrocity that the Americans are leaving half of Iraq could go berserk and kill a quarter of our people there in a week.
…
One could easily envision a scenario where the main road to the Baghdad airport is closed at orders for withdrawal because of flaming wreckage from armored vehicles. They can’t be moved and the road re-opened because of constant small arms fire. A $45 million F-15D circling overhead can’t do a damn thing about it either—access to the airport in Baghdad is cut off.

Seemingly normal Baghdad citizens, 20,000 of them armed with rifles and grenades, see their chance the finally get back at the Americans and breach the Green Zone. What are the Americans going to do, bomb Baghdad to rubble to stop them? In 6 hours the Green Zone is simply overrun, 5,000 dead in a day, mostly foreigners to Iraq, while the airport is a useless armed hub of defensiveness in the mayhem—there’s no way out of Baghdad.

Multiply that scene by 50 and one can get a sense of the bloody chaos withdrawal can be.

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/007041.php

If Israel strikes Iran, Iraq is going to explode.

We moved four C-130 gunships there last week, and not because things are getting better. We will need them if we have to fight our way out.

My youngest brother noted that it will take 6 months to get 200,000 troops and their equipment over there in order to execute a Dunkirk-like withdrawal.
reallygonecat • Mar 9, 2006 @12:35 pm

AP Headline:

Bird Flu Found in Weasel-Like Mammal

So now who is running the country?
maha • Mar 9, 2006 @1:00 pm

So now who is running the country?

Snort. Nobody’ll miss the weasel. They can just re-run his old photo ops.
snymrik • May 10, 2006 @6:31 pm

I just don’t have anything to say right now.