The January/February issue of Foreign Affairs featured the article “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option,” by Matthew Kroenig, along with commentary about other ways to contain the Iranian threat.
The media resound with warnings about a likely Israeli attack on Iran while the U.S. hesitates, keeping open the option of aggression—thus again routinely violating the U.N. Charter, the foundation of international law.

As tensions escalate, eerie echoes of the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in the air. Feverish U.S. primary campaign rhetoric adds to the drumbeat.

Concerns about “the imminent threat” of Iran are often attributed to the “international community”—code language for U.S. allies. The people of the world, however, tend to see matters rather differently.

The nonaligned countries, a movement with 120 member nations, has vigorously supported Iran’s right to enrich uranium—an opinion shared by the majority of Americans (as surveyed by WorldPublicOpinion.org) before the massive propaganda onslaught of the past two years.

China and Russia oppose U.S. policy on Iran, as does India, which announced that it would disregard U.S. sanctions and increase trade with Iran. Turkey has followed a similar course.

Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. In the Arab world, Iran is disliked but seen as a threat only by a very small minority. Rather, Israel and the U.S. are regarded as the pre-eminent threat. A majority think that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons: In Egypt on the eve of the Arab Spring, 90 percent held this opinion, according to Brookings Institution/Zogby International polls.

Western commentary has made much of how the Arab dictators allegedly support the U.S. position on Iran, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the population opposes it—a stance too revealing to require comment.

Concerns about Israel’s nuclear arsenal have long been expressed by some observers in the United States as well. Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command, described Israel’s nuclear weapons as “dangerous in the extreme.” In a U.S. Army journal, Lt. Col. Warner Farr wrote that one “purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons, not often stated, but obvious, is their `use’ on the United States”—presumably to ensure consistent U.S. support for Israeli policies.

A prime concern right now is that Israel will seek to provoke some Iranian action that will incite a U.S. attack.

One of Israel’s leading strategic analysts, Zeev Maoz, in “Defending the Holy Land,” his comprehensive analysis of Israeli security and foreign policy, concludes that “the balance sheet of Israel’s nuclear policy is decidedly negative”—harmful to the state’s security. He urges instead that Israel should seek a regional agreement to ban weapons of mass destruction: a WMD-free zone, called for by a 1974 U.N. General Assembly resolution.

Meanwhile, the West’s sanctions on Iran are having their usual effect, causing shortages of basic food supplies—not for the ruling clerics but for the population. Small wonder that the sanctions are condemned by Iran’s courageous opposition.

The sanctions against Iran may have the same effect as their predecessors against Iraq, which were condemned as “genocidal” by the respected U.N. diplomats who administered them before finally resigning in protest.

The Iraq sanctions devastated the population and strengthened Saddam Hussein, probably saving him from the fate of a rogues’ gallery of other tyrants supported by the U.S.-U.K.—tyrants who prospered virtually to the day when various internal revolts overthrew them.

There is little credible discussion of just what constitutes the Iranian threat, though we do have an authoritative answer, provided by U.S. military and intelligence. Their presentations to Congress make it clear that Iran doesn’t pose a military threat.

Iran has very limited capacity to deploy force, and its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to take effect. If Iran is developing nuclear weapons (which is still undetermined), that would be part of its deterrent strategy.

The understanding of serious Israeli and U.S. analysts is expressed clearly by 30-year CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, who said in January, “If I was an Iranian national security planner, I would want nuclear weapons” as a deterrent.

An additional charge the West levels against Iran is that it is seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries attacked and occupied by the U.S. and Britain, and is supporting resistance to the U.S.-backed Israeli aggression in Lebanon and illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Like its deterrence of possible violence by Western countries, Iran’s actions are said to be intolerable threats to “global order.”

Global opinion agrees with Maoz. Support is overwhelming for a WMDFZ in the Middle East; this zone would include Iran, Israel and preferably the other two nuclear powers that have refused to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: India and Pakistan, who, along with Israel, developed their programs with U.S. aid.

Support for this policy at the NPT Review Conference in May 2010 was so strong that Washington was forced to agree formally, but with conditions: The zone could not take effect until a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors was in place; Israel’s nuclear weapons programs must be exempted from international inspection; and no country (meaning the U.S.) must be obliged to provide information about “Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel.”

The 2010 conference called for a session in May 2012 to move toward establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.

With all the furor about Iran, however, there is scant attention to that option, which would be the most constructive way of dealing with the nuclear threats in the region: for the “international community,” the threat that Iran might gain nuclear capability; for most of the world, the threat posed by the only state in the region with nuclear weapons and a long record of aggression, and its superpower patron.

One can find no mention at all of the fact that the U.S. and Britain have a unique responsibility to dedicate their efforts to this goal. In seeking to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, they invoked U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), which they claimed Iraq was violating by developing WMD.

We may ignore the claim, but not the fact that the resolution explicitly commits signers to establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/03-1

What are Iran's intentions?

Watch the documentary called Iranium that details the Iranian agenda
and intentions graphically. It is Islamic fundamentalist terrorism
everywhere - but particularly in the United States.

http://youtu.be/mXRXnmsvwRQ

It would seem to me we are more in danger of a white middle class kid going off and shooting up a school than we are of Iran or any so called terrorist.

At the annual American-Israeli conference in Washington, DC, President Obama promised the crowd that the United States would stand by Israel, but he warned against a rush to war with Iran.
The day before his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Obama attempted to assure the pro-Israel audience that the United States will not sit idly by and watch Iran build a nuclear weapon. 
"I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say," the President said.
The President had a similar message for Iran: "Iran's leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

But, the president urged more diplomacy, first, and to tame down any talk of military strikes against Iran.

"I only use force when the time and circumstances demand it," he said. "Already, there is too much loose talk of war."
The president urged continued use of sanctions, travel restrictions and efforts to choke off the Iranian regime, but he said that the United States is willing to take military action. "Of course, so long as Iran fails to meet its obligations, this problem remains unsolved. The effective implementation of our policy is not enough - we must accomplish our objective," the president said.
Mr. Obama also reaffirmed the United States' support of Israel and that it respects Israel's right to dismantle Iran's nuclear program through force, which has been a point of contention between Mr. Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 
Iran's leaders "should not doubt Israel's sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs," the president said.
Speaking in Canada, Prime Minister Netanyahu said he was pleased with the president's remarks. "I very much appreciated the fact that President Obama reiterated his position that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons and that all options are on the table," Netanyahu said. "Most important of all, I appreciated the fact that he said that Israel must be able to defend itself by itself against any threat."
The president and prime minister have had a rocky relationship over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and Iran is the latest issue where the two disagree. Netanyahu has wanted the United States to take a stronger stance and recognize Israel's right to strike Iran.
The two leaders will meet at the White House Monday for discussions expecting to revolve around Iran, which both countries say is making progress toward a nuclear weapon. 
Meanwhile, the conference does have its detractors. About 100 protestors demonstrated outside the conference site and hacker activists group Anonymous, claimed credit for taking down AIPAC's website Sunday.

Read the IAEA-Report and you'll know!
Then extrapolate the Twelver's intentions with it,and it will be clear!

Except that white middle class kids don't have suicide vests packed
with enough explosives and nails to kill a hundred of their
"closest" friends, nor do they purposely board crowded schoolbuses
or commuter trains during rush hour - they do not go into crowded
cafes and set themselves off or homebrew IEDs and teach others how
to set them out and set them off. They do not ignore their NPT
agreements and smuggle nuclear enrichment technology and set up
centrifuge cascades underground while testing long range ballistic
missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and of course they
are not developing atomic weapons with IAEA reports discussing their
intransigence and bomb making activities....



They also generally do not call the United States "The Great Satan"
and give public speeches discussing how the United States can and
will be destroyed...

Well, every once in a while there is a Timothy McVeigh I suppose
but fortunately the home-grown nutballs do not have a $400 million
budget from their oil sales to make and distribute nuclear weapons.

So - watch the movie again!

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted.

A spokeswoman for Peres today said the report was baseless and there were "never any negotiations" between the two countries. She did not comment on the authenticity of the documents.

South African documents show that the apartheid-era military wanted the missiles as a deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states.

The documents show both sides met on 31 March 1975. Polakow-Suransky writes in his book published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's secret alliance with apartheid South Africa. At the talks Israeli officials "formally offered to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal".

Among those attending the meeting was the South African military chief of staff, Lieutenant General RF Armstrong. He immediately drew up a memo in which he laid out the benefits of South Africa obtaining the Jericho missiles but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.

The memo, marked "top secret" and dated the same day as the meeting with the Israelis, has previously been revealed but its context was not fully understood because it was not known to be directly linked to the Israeli offer on the same day and that it was the basis for a direct request to Israel. In it, Armstrong writes: "In considering the merits of a weapon system such as the one being offered, certain assumptions have been made: a) That the missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads manufactured in RSA (Republic of South Africa) or acquired elsewhere."

But South Africa was years from being able to build atomic weapons. A little more than two months later, on 4 June, Peres and Botha met in Zurich. By then the Jericho project had the codename Chalet.

The top secret minutes of the meeting record that: "Minister Botha expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available." The document then records: "Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for advice." The "three sizes" are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.

The use of a euphemism, the "correct payload", reflects Israeli sensitivity over the nuclear issue and would not have been used had it been referring to conventional weapons. It can also only have meant nuclear warheads as Armstrong's memorandum makes clear South Africa was interested in the Jericho missiles solely as a means of delivering nuclear weapons.

In addition, the only payload the South Africans would have needed to obtain from Israel was nuclear. The South Africans were capable of putting together other warheads.

Botha did not go ahead with the deal in part because of the cost. In addition, any deal would have to have had final approval by Israel's prime minister and it is uncertain it would have been forthcoming.

South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs, albeit possibly with Israeli assistance. But the collaboration on military technology only grew over the following years. South Africa also provided much of the yellowcake uranium that Israel required to develop its weapons.

The documents confirm accounts by a former South African naval commander, Dieter Gerhardt – jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release with the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved an offer by the Jewish state to arm eight Jericho missiles with "special warheads". Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer.

Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: "It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement... shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party".

The agreement also said that neither party could unilaterally renounce it.

The existence of Israel's nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.

Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.

Israel pressured the present South African government not to declassify documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the Secment agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date," he said. "The South Africans didn't seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime's old allies."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons

Your harping on Israel is getting lame!
What about North-Korea and it's proliferation Policy?

Besides you are woefully in the dark about the Worldsituation at the time of the alleged negotiations!

Besides,jut the Fact that in the US Sites like those you're citing from exist,ought to clue you in to the difference of the US-Government and the one of Iran.
Or any other totalitarian Government as a matter of fact!
Go live in one for a while,then talk!
I hear Iran needs a few good men to propagandize their Twelver-Eschatology!

http://threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2010/03/iran-cleric-calls-for-special/

http://threatswatch.org/analysis/2005/11/understanding-ahmadinejad/


Keep on finding excuses for those Nutbag-Clerics!

Maybe he can get a George Galloway deal.. Oil for propaganda..

The US government in the past used "freedom and democracy" for reasons to go to war,now it's "they have WMDs".

This time there is no disputing the Iranian nuclear activities!

you read the wrong Article!

Who cares Israel has refused to sign the non proliferation treaty and Iran haveing signed it does have a right to develope nuclear power. Its not worth a dimes worth a rise in gas prices.
Not worth one life or one sanction. We are destroying ourselves over a bunch of bull crap.

The NUTBAGS want NUKES,do you understand,The NUTBAGS want NUKES!
And the US is the Great Satan,who needs to be wiped out by any means!
The Nutbag-Clerics want NUKES,my Man,NUKES!
Not damn Firecrackers,nope,NUKES!

Realy and what good would it do them to use them against our trillion dollar patriot missle defence system? Like we wouldnt retaliate? Its insane even to suggest they use them except in a defensive manner and ya know what? It worked for Korea we didnt attack them after they had the bomb and I am sure we wont attacK Iran if they get one.

It does not serve Irans interests to attack anyone stop being so hysterical and foolish.


Oh and if your going to make such accusations please source it. I would love to hear about how they said we need wiped off the map.

Well it is pretty hard to misinterpret "Death to America"
repeated over and over...and "Our struggle with America is eternal"

And this is the regime which is hell bent on nuclear weapons
technology



http://youtu.be/92myDzAFgU4

gas up again today for the 27th day in a row, thanks warhwawks.

Why don't we invade Israel then? They have WMD's.

If America was not pushing its alien agenda on the entire world and supporting Zionist aggression in the middle east, maybe we would not be so hated.