posted October 05, 2008 12:40 PM            

"First, because you will hit them before. And this is the danger. Israel has always said it will not wait for the bomb to be ready. I think that (the Iranians) know. Everyone knows."

The newspaper's print edition quoted Kouchner as saying that Israel would "eat" Iran, but in a written statement the foreign minister said he had used the word "hit," and that he regretted any "phonetic confusion".

Kouchner told Haaretz he hoped tough diplomacy and sanctions would persuade Iran to halt its uranium enrichment programme, which Israel and many Western countries believe is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.

"Iran with an atomic bomb is unacceptable at all... Talking, talking talking, and offering dialogue, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. Is the alternative to bomb first -- I think not."

Iran has always insisted its atomic drive is entirely peaceful. Israel is widely regarded as the only nuclear armed state in the Middle East but it has never confirmed or denied having an arsenal.

Kouchner is set to meet outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni -- who is trying to form a new coalition government to succeed Olmert's administratin -- on Sunday.

France currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, which has been sponsoring Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as part of the Middle East Quartet, which also includes the United States, the United Nations, and Russia.

On Saturday Kouchner toured the West Bank town of Jenin, the focus of a months-old Palestinian security crackdown that has been praised by Israel and the United States -- and met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

posted October 05, 2008 10:26 PM            

quote:

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The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT or NNPT) is a treaty to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, opened for signature on July 1, 1968. There are currently 189 countries party to the treaty, five of which have nuclear weapons: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the People's Republic of China (the permanent members of the UN Security Council).

Only four recognized sovereign states are not parties to the treaty: India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea. India and Pakistan both possess and have openly tested nuclear bombs. Israel has had a policy of opacity regarding its own nuclear weapons program. North Korea acceded to the treaty, violated it, and later withdrew.

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I think Iran is just being arrogant. It is but just a mice nation. I'm no Iran expert but I don't think God and state are separate in that nation. It is making so much noice because it thinks US is no longer a powerful nation. It also has France and Russias backing and is even friendly with India and China.

I wonder what should happen if US attacks Iran. Bush has few months in office and I'm not sure what he is up to. There could be world war III if US bombs them. I hear some GI Joes are being killed by Iranians in Iraq. Will try to get some more info on that.

May be both Israel and Iran should join NNPT. Perhaps the whole region if they didn't already. Israel must destroy its weapons.

The mighty powers should come to rescue of small nations if they are attacked. Does such a guarantee needs to be dotted in the treaty? I haven't read the preambles of the NNPT yet.

posted October 07, 2008 12:30 AM            

NNPT seems to be getting obsolete.

quote:

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It Seems to Me That Iran is Deriving Great Pleasure From the Current Situation
Iran is due this week to give its reply to the UN Security Council concerning whether or not it will cease its program of uranium enrichment. Konstantin Kosachev (KK), Chairman of the Russian State Duma's International Affairs Committee, explains to Nargiz Asadova (NA) what sanctions will be introduced if Iran refuses and what Russia's position on the issue will be.
NA: Last week, you announced that Iran is not likely to agree to fulfill a UN Security Council resolution obliging Tehran to abandon its program of uranium enrichment. Why not?

KK: Because according to international law, Iran absolutely has the right to work on the enrichment of uranium, as long as it is not intended for use in weapons programs. Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), which directly stipulates this right. At this point, Iran is having a rough time, but it is cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) and at this stage is demonstrating that its work on uranium enrichment is not intended for use in weapons.

NA: As such, if Iran yields and agrees to allow other countries to undertake uranium enrichment on its behalf, this will mean that Iran is de facto admitting that it is somehow fundamentally different from the other countries that participate in the NNPT. For example, it is distinguished by its political system, a system that does not inspire trust in most other parts of the world.

KK: In general, the fact that the Iranian nuclear dossier was taken to the UN Security Council in the first place amounts to a crisis of trust. The international community has no complaints about the current stage of Iran's nuclear program, but there is no certainty that the program will develop according to the guidelines that Iran itself is currently setting forth. The world is afraid of a repeat of the North Korean scenario, in which Pyongyang diligently followed all the prescriptions laid down by the IAEC and all of its duties concerning non-proliferation, only to move on to a weaponry program, without a single pang of conscience, as soon as it had reached the necessary level of technical expertise. The international community suspects that Iran could theoretically take the same path.

NA: Does this mean that there are no legal foundations for pursuing the case against Iran?

KK: As far as I know, at this stage no legal foundations exist. Such grounds could arise only in the case of supporting conclusions made by the IAEC's inspectors. If the inspectors arrive, inspect Iran's nuclear facilities, and find evidence of activities that are forbidden by the NNPT, then there will be legal grounds for completely undeniable accusations to be addressed to Iran. At this time, such legal grounds do not exist, so the position of the international community is to try and offer Iran incentives to act in good faith and to act not only like a national government that exists independently from the rest of the world, but like a member of the international community – that is, to agree to meet halfway and to first rid itself of those elements of mistrust felt by the international community towards the country and its nuclear program. And this mistrust is chiefly provoked by Tehran itself, by that string of absurd – in my opinion – pronouncements in which its leadership rejected Israel's right to exist and denied the Holocaust.

NA: In your opinion, what will Iran gain by this kind of behavior?

KK: It seems to me that Iran is deriving great pleasure from the current situation, because, as I have already said, the legal situation is ambiguous. Thus, Tehran is behaving in the following manner: I am going to do what I think is necessary, and I will then see what you can do with me. In addition, of course, Iran aspires to a leadership position in the Islamic world. This is absolutely clear. The country has a very potent economy and a large population, and it – or its leaders, in any case – need some victories, whether small or large (even a moral victory would do) over the so-called West. This seems to me to be the primary motivation driving Iran's current leadership. But this primary motive is a lie. It is false because the opposition of the Asian and European worlds, the Western and the Eastern, the Islamic and the Christian – all of these are false oppositions. Any nation that tries to ground itself upon these oppositions is making a global strategic error of colossal proportions.

NA: Do you think that the war in Lebanon has strengthened or weakened Iran's position in the region?

KK: As long as Hezbollah is not considered the losing side in this conflict, it will claim to be the winning side. As long as the situation remains the way it is, there is no doubt that the position of the governments of the nations that support Hezbollah – though I cannot say if there is any material side to this support, its moral dimensions are obvious – will become stronger and surer of victory. And Iran is such a nation.

NA: If on August 22 Tehran refuses to fulfill the demands of the Security Council, will that mean that the next step against Iran will be the imposition of sanctions?

KK: Yes, of course, that is directly stipulated by the relevant resolution; the date until which Iran has to agree to the international community's demands is clearly stated. That date is August 31. August 22 is the date given by Tehran itself, while the Security Council's resolution gives Iran until August 31. After August 31, sanctions are possible. But again I repeat that these sanctions will not be so much for breaking any kind of obligation as much as for Iran's refusal to meet the international community halfway and to show good faith in following the other civilized nations of the world, each of which has sacrificed some of its personal national positions and interests for the sake of international cooperation. This is the single current global tendency, and this is exactly what today's world now expects from Iran.

NA: What kind of sanctions will there be?

KK: We should not start with what kinds of sanctions there might be, but rather with what kinds of sanctions there will not be. First, there will be no military operations and no military action in relation to Iran, at least according to the current Security Council resolution. Second, the specific kind of sanctions to be applied will be the subject of another resolution, one that will be decided upon after August 31 if the Iranian answer on August 22 is negative. We are currently talking about categories of hypotheticals. I do not rule out the possibility that a miracle will happen and that Tehran's answer will be positive. If the situation develops according to a worse scenario, then after August 31 there will be one more discussion in the Security Council followed by another resolution, one that will clearly lay out the format and mechanism of sanctions. These sanctions will obviously be diplomatic in character. This means that they will place restrictions on the entrance of leaders of the country under sanction into any nation that recognizes the sanctions. It is also possible that there will be harsher economic sanctions: restrictions on trade and on investments in relation to Iran. I repeat, however, that this is a question that requires additional discussion in the Security Council and, without a doubt, an additional resolution.

NA: What kind of sanctions will Russia object to?

KK: I think that Russia should take a stand against sanctions that will directly worsen the lot of civilians. By this I mean sanctions that will have negative consequences for Iranian society, since no matter how the conflict between Iran and the surrounding world over Iran's nuclear program evolves, the people should not be held hostage by the mistakes and miscalculations of the country's current leadership. This is the first point. And it seems to me that the second point is that Russia, if we are now going to act as part of the international community, should not take any sort of special position dictated by Russia's own economic interests. The most important issue for us in this situation is not economic calculations or how any sort of sanctions will operate – for us the most important issue is to manage the strategic task of not allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. As such, the character of the sanctions should be oriented towards that goal. The sanctions should exert influence on the regime that currently exists in Iran, in order to motivate that regime towards a broader and more flexible working relationship with the rest of the world.

NA: Is it really possible that sanctions that do not harm the economic interests of Iran's population will be capable of forcing the Iranian leadership to change its position?

KK: Without a doubt, any sanctions are effective weapons that can be both political and economic. Sanctions do not pass over any government without leaving a mark. The degree to which they will facilitate the resolution of Iran's nuclear program in the given situation remains a big question. The specific character of the Iranian regime is that it wins, not loses, in the state of confrontation with the rest of the world. This conflict situation unites the nation and helps the regime to promulgate the illusion that Iran is surrounded by enemies and that, as a result, it is necessary to whole-heartedly support the current government. The outcome of this situation if sanctions are imposed against Iran is far from clear. Exactly for this reason, Russia has at all stages acted from a significantly more restrained position than the more radical positions taken by the United States and the European Union. But to leave the situation concerning the Iranian nuclear program without any reaction from the side of the international community is also not possible, and Russia is fully aware of this. The situation is dangerous. Iran is on an edge, beyond which arises the ruin of the NNPT. Until that point, while hope exists that sanctions may stop Iran and not allow it to cross that dangerous boundary, these sanctions also have every right to exist.

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posted October 07, 2008 10:26 AM            

And my hunch was right that the religious people hate materialism. So Iran is supporting all orthodox religions in their country and Israel like orthodox christian, orthodox jews, and orthodox muslims.

It fits their world view that materialism must not be everything , people must turn to God. State and Church should not be separate. Not Country first but God first.

And they have a tough task of convincing the people that do divide state and church that they have good intentions. If you want develop nuclear technology for civilian use get it outsourced. We will even give you a discount.

I agree with the Zionists and Obama, McCain and Hillary -- the Iranians are fundamentalists and it is dangerous for them to go nuclear.