Iran's nuclear weapons program was never halted says IAEA.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

the rest of your argument is mute

Laryngitis?

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by notyoueither


They don't want to conquer a neighbour. One of their leaders says they do want to destroy another small country in the region.

He compared the current Iran situation to the German situation of the 30s, which I consider wrong for the above mentioned reason. Your assertion supports my claim.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

the military is not the main attack mechanism

the revolutionary guards are, and the intelligence ministry is.
and ahmedinejad has lots of his own men placed there, and has a very good way to control it.

he also slowly but surely increases his own power within the government, and has only recently received and unusual blessing from Khamnha'i

Really? Cause most of the press lately has been on recent statements by Khamahni critizising the performance of his government.

the rest of your argument is mute, and silly because you fail to understand the workings of complex political systems.

You seem to do it just fine tough, when you want to blame some defense dept. bureaucrat or some US political figure, for provoking war, even though they do not control the military directly.

Talk about misunderstanding the nature of the Iranian government. Amhmedinejad is the head of government, not the head of state. France is probably a better comp[arison, where the PM runs the government, but the President has final say. Ahmedinejad is like the PM, the clerical leadership is the President. Except that Iran is even more complicated than that.

Ahmedinejad may have allies in the RG, but he does not run it, and he certainly does not control military policy.

So I assume you either completely don't understand Iranian politics, or you are intentionally playing dumb.

It will be hillarious if Ahmedinejad loses the upcoming election - I wonder what spin will be placed on that - hard to compare someone voted out of office to Hitler, no?

[GePap]

Oh, and to go back to the OP, the title is wrong. The IAEA has made no claim that Iran continued its weapons' program. It has been presented with outside documents claiming that is the case.

Just wanted to point that out, even though it would seem patently obvious from a basic reading of the article.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
So I assume you either completely don't understand Iranian politics, or you are intentionally playing dumb.

I understand Iranian politics fine, but trying to explain complexities on this board has proven pointless, so I've given up and am just going to cut to the chase.

The President of Iran cannot authorize the nuking of Israel. So it doesn't really matter what he says. Now, if Kahmanei was making threats, then you should be worried.

As for Oerdin's Bushizing, he called it correctly, it's just more Bu****. If Iran gave Hezbollah a nuke, even secretly, everyone's gonna know where it came from, and the ancient civilizations of Persia and the Levant will be cleansed with nuclear fire. It's pure BS on Oerdin's part.

[Kuciwalker]

I understand Iranian politics fine, but trying to explain complexities on this board has proven pointless, so I've given up and am just going to cut to the chase.

The President of Iran cannot authorize the nuking of Israel. So it doesn't really matter what he says.

Oh, the unintentional irony. Did you even read what I posted?

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by GePap
Really? Cause most of the press lately has been on recent statements by Khamahni critizising the performance of his government.

it's not my fault your press is giving poor coverage of iran.

Khameni has recently credited Ahmedinjad with several achievements. I don't remember the exact phrasing right now.

the rest of your argument is mute, and silly because you fail to understand the workings of complex political systems.

You seem to do it just fine tough, when you want to blame some defense dept. bureaucrat or some US political figure, for provoking war, even though they do not control the military directly.

Talk about misunderstanding the nature of the Iranian government. Amhmedinejad is the head of government, not the head of state. France is probably a better comp[arison, where the PM runs the government, but the President has final say. Ahmedinejad is like the PM, the clerical leadership is the President. Except that Iran is even more complicated than that.

Ahmedinejad may have allies in the RG, but he does not run it, and he certainly does not control military policy.

he affects it alot, even not being the man in charge. the whole reason why Khamnehi previously published articles criticising Ahmedinejads handling of events, was because he was successful in doing stuff that Khamnehi didn't agree with.

True, Khamnehi is able to overturn it, but Ahmedinejad is not a pawn or a figurehead. He has serious influence both on policy-making and its actual putting in action.

So che's silly comaprison to the queen of england or claiming that Ahmedinejad is harmless is a grave misunderstanding of his real power base.

It will be hillarious if Ahmedinejad loses the upcoming election - I wonder what spin will be placed on that - hard to compare someone voted out of office to Hitler, no?

are you intentionally daft?
i haven't claimed for a moment that ahmedinejad is the state absolute leader. You even quoted me saying so.

But to claim he is powerless to affect policies and direct actions (via formal or informal channels) merely because there are decision makers above him, is stupid. Chegitz was wrong, and there's no spin on that.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara The President of Iran cannot authorize the nuking of Israel. So it doesn't really matter what he says.

are you really that incompetent?

Dick Cheney / Robert Gates can not authorize the nuking of Iran, so it doesn't matter what he says.

do you agree with that sentance?

[chequita guevara]

If it weren't for the fact that in our particular situation, which is that Bush is a figurehead, I'd agree. That is boiled down to its basic, cut to the chase answer.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

Khameni has recently credited Ahmedinjad with several achievements. I don't remember the exact phrasing right now.

While "our press" does not have the mindset of Iran as all consuming, the fact you can't even name the "achievements" mentioned would make me think it is not that significant.

he affects it alot, even not being the man in charge. the whole reason why Khamnehi previously published articles criticising Ahmedinejads handling of events, was because he was successful in doing stuff that Khamnehi didn't agree with.

NO. He critizised Ahmedinejad for his poor handling of the economy, which is what the President of Iran is mainly responsible for, as head of government.

True, Khamnehi is able to overturn it, but Ahmedinejad is not a pawn or a figurehead. He has serious influence both on policy-making and its actual putting in action.

Ahmedinejad is ONE VOICE in a complex system in iran that has a Supreme Leader, a Council of Experts that theoretically chose the supreme leader, the Courts, and a Parliment. Yes, he has influence. but his is only one voice. If he, AND Khameini, and the head of the Council of Experts, and the so on, if ALL of them were making these sorts of statements, then that would be worrying.

And all of that is moot because while Ahmedinejad said that the state of Israel needs to be wiped from the maps, he never said it was something for Iran alone to do with force, now has he? So even if he voiced that sentiment, he NEVER has actually threatened to nuke Israel, HAS HE?


Oh, by the way, if the Presidency of Iran is such a critical post, why was the Presidency of Khatami so belittled by conservatives? There you had a reformist President, and he was shunned as "just the President." I find the sudden elevation of the office of President of Iran to such mighty status to be disingenous.

[Ramo]

Why are we still discussing the fool? His clout with Khamenei and the Iranian people are at their minimum. His proxy and mentor got stomped in the Expediency Council election (coming in fourth). The Conservative-Reformist alliance against the Reactionaries is holding strong and won the Expediency Council Chair. We'll be dealing with someone else entirely not much more than a year from now. And no doubt if he's a Reformist, Republicans and the Likud will once again relegate the Iranian Presidency to irrelevance.

Some interesting analysis on the newest IAEA report:

IAEA’s Latest Report on Iran: Time to Move On

Farideh Farhi

The full text of the much awaited IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear activities can be found here. It is an important report that finally brings an end to almost all the technical issues that in the past five years have concerned the IAEA regarding Iran’s declared civilian nuclear program. Last August the Agency and Iran laid out a Workplan to resolve issues that related to Iran’s past activities and on every issue, except one, Iran’s responses were deemed by the IAEA as either consistent with the Agency’s own finding or not inconsistent with them.

In this report the Agency once again states unambiguously that it “has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.” It also states that on the issues of Polonium-210 experiments and Gchine mine, contamination at a technical university and procurement of a former head of Iran’s Physics Research Center (PHRC). Hence, the conclusion: “the Agency considers those questions no longer outstanding at this stage,” repeated by ElBaradei’s in different words in this video (transcript here) “we have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran’s enrichment program.”

Now, it can be argued that there is some ambiguity in the report regarding the use of the expression “not inconsistent with” instead of “consistent with,” with the former requiring further questioning and reporting particularly since much of it relate to the procurement activities of the Physics Research Center, an institution also under questioning regarding Iran’s alleged undeclared activities. Still the extent of IAEA’s acknowledgment of the plausibility of Iran’s explanations of past activities is an important breakthrough for that country.

The report also suggests that Iran has effectively and voluntarily implemented the Additional Protocol in the past few months, allowing the IAEA extensive inspections and access. But as discussed by Mohammad ElBaradei in the IAEA video, as well as in the report, this voluntarily implementation on a short terms basis is not sufficient for IAEA’s purposes of monitoring Iran’s present declared program. IAEA wants Iran to sign the Additional Protocol. Iran has said that its previous offer of signing the protocol is no longer on the table so long as Iran’s case at the UN Security Council. In short, Iran’s position is that it cannot be forced to sign an international agreement but it may consider doing so if the Western countries begin treating Iran’s nuclear program in the same way they treat other country’s nuclear programs. This position will be maintained even more steadfastly now that almost all the outstanding issues about Iran’s declared program have been resolved.

The one issue that has not been resolved involves “alleged studies” done by Iran that can be connected to weaponization ("Alleged studies" is the way they are identified by the IAEA but not surprisingly by the New York Times which talks about these studies as “evidence …that strongly suggested the country had experimented with technology to make a nuclear weapon.” For a look at the media coverage of the report see here). These studies come out of a laptop that was reportedly given to the U.S. intelligence by an Iranian “walk-in” source who stole the laptop from someone else (see earlier stories and analyses on the stolen laptop and documents here, here, and here. The most troublesome aspect of the information in the laptop was the plans for “the design for a missile re-entry vehicle, which could have a nuclear military dimension.”

In the Workplan signed in August 2007, Iran agreed to assess the documentation generated out of the laptop that alleges weaponization-related studies (not an actual experimentation with technology as NYT suggests) provided it was given the documentation. The language used in the work plan is interesting and worth mentioning:

“Iran reiterated that it considers the following alleged studies as politically motivated and baseless allegations. The Agency will however provide Iran with access to the documentation it has in its possession regarding: the Green Salt Project, the high explosive testing and the missile re-entry vehicle. As a sign of good will and cooperation with the Agency, upon receiving all related documents, Iran will review and inform the Agency of its assessment.”

The interesting thing about all this was that the Agency was not able to give Iran the documentation required for Iran to make its assessment until early February (February 3-5) and when it did so it was only partial documentation because the country in possession of the documents, namely the United States, either would not give the documents to the IAEA or would not give the IAEA permission to give the documents to Iran until then. It was only on February 15, or a mere one week before the publication of the current report, that Iran was informed that the IAEA is ready to give Iran a second batch of documents (reportedly a large amount of them dumped by the United States on the IAEA’s lap on that same day).

Iran’s response to the first batch of documents, which included subsequent clarifications to further IAEA questions, was that they were fabrications (with names of non-existent individuals and offices). Iran has yet to respond to the IAEA further requests of meeting over the second batch of documents released on February 15 for obvious shortage of time but there is reason to believe that after seeing the first batch of documents, Iran may not want to continue to play the game as its mid-February response stated explicitly that its assessment that the documents are fabricated was final (Note that in the above quoted section of the Workplan, assessment of the documents was the only thing Iran promised).

So here are a few questions to ponder at this point:

1. Why was the Bush Administration so late in dumping the documents on the IAEA? Were the documents suspect as suggested by initial reports about them? Was it because the U.S. did not want to be blamed for stifling the Workplan? And/or was it because once it became clear that the IAEA was about to announce all outstanding issues related to Iran’s past declared activities resolved, the Bush Administration felt that the late release of these documents were the only instruments it had to keep the Iran file going?

2. What is the IAEA expected to do if Iran insists that the documents are fabricated and IAEA’s own stance remains that these are “alleged weaponization studies that Iran supposedly conducted in the past,” (i.e., it cannot confirm the veracity of the documents) and IAEA has not “detected any use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies, nor does it have any credible information in this regard”? It is true that the IAEA makes an observation in paragraph 39 that the computer image made available to Iran showing "a schematic layout" of the inner cone of a re-entry vehicle, as being “assessed by the Agency as quite likely to be able to accommodate a nuclear device.” But it does not (and I assume cannot) make an assessment of whether the information itself is fabricated as Iran claims. Secondly, the Agency admits that neither the documents nor the IAEA can offer a link of these studies to any weaponization program. So for the coming year are we going to be facing a specter of a back and forth between Iran and the IAEA not over Iran’s nuclear program but over documents about alleged studies that no one (except the Iranians) seem to be sure whether they are fake or not? Isn’t this really hanging on to a pretty thin straw?

3. Will the IAEA be pressured to continue this process?

My sense is that this report will be used by both sides in ways that suits their purposes. Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, has already declared the report a vindication of Iran while the United States will again push and probably get a rather meaningless Security Council resolution that will not go much beyond the previous resolutions in terms of impact but presumably make a political point that the Security Council route is not really exhausted as the Iranian leaders, particularly Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claim.

But the reality is that most people associated with this process are exhausted and ready to move on (with the notable exception of the Bush Administration folks that are just simply exhausted). Perhaps ElBaradei’s last words in his interview gives us some hints about the exhaustion (and exasperation) the IAEA must be feeling regarding the continuation of the general political deadlock and the need to move on after years of what under other circumstances would be considered successful interaction between his Agency and a member country; interaction that has led to the resolution of significant technical issues:

“A durable solution requires confidence about Iran’s nuclear program, it requires a regional security arrangement, it requires normal trade relationship between Iran and the international community. As the Security Council stated, the ultimate aim should be normalization of relationships between Iran and the international community. Definitely the Agency will continue to do as much as we can to make sure that we also contribute to the confidence-building process with regard to the past and present nuclear activities in Iran, but naturally, we can not provide assurance about future intentions. That is inherently a diplomatic process that needs the engagement of all the parties."

I am sure some European governments and the Bush Administration will be upset and once again accuse ElBaradei for going beyond his technical mandate and talking about ways to overcome the deadlock politically and diplomatically. But in this day and age of failed policies shouldn’t calling it as is be everyone’s mandate?

http://icga.blogspot.com/2008/02/iaeas-latest-report-on-iran-time-to.html

And the report:

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/IAEA_Iran_Report_22Feb2008.pdf

[Berzerker]

Not to Bushize this thread but Iran has shown time and again they're willing to carry out attacks using proxy forces.

They're helping Muslims who have land claims violated by the creation and expansion of Israel. Or so it seems... Geez, thats what the Cold War was, just a series of proxy wars using 3rd world populations, Korea and Vietnam aside. We weren't exactly demonizing Saddam when he was using WMD on Iranian troops, he was our proxy and payback for the revolution and hostage crisis.

What is to stop them from handing a nuke to, say, Hezbollah and disavowing that it had anything to do with them?

Because of their track record of supporting them? C'mon, what you're suggesting is that Iran wants to commit national suicide because of Palestinians - aint gonna happen. How many Palestinians has Iran invited to live there?

MAD? Okay, AD - "assured destruction" awaits Iran if it goes down that path.

[SlowwHand]

Just bomb hell out of them and be done with it. One or a million, whichever way.

[Lancer]

Nuke Iran back to the stone age.

Oh wait, they already live like that, nevermind.

Actually the PC thing to do is to conventionally bomb them back into the stone age.

[SpencerH]

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Tuesday congratulated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s role in the “great success” of the Iranian nuclear programme, amid threats of new sanctions against Tehran.

“One of the examples of achievements in last 29 years (since the Islamic revolution) is the nuclear issue,” Khamenei told Iran’s elite clerical body the Assembly of Experts, in comments broadcast on state television. “Here the Iranian nation has rightfully and justly reached a great success and a remarkable achievement.” According to the state radio announcer, Khamenei also said: “The personal role of the president and his resistance in the nuclear case is very clear.”

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-2-2008_pg4_14

So maybe he's not quite so "on the out" as some have suggested.

The current government of Iran is an interesting throwback to much earlier moslem governments where the Imam's and religious leaders held the power. It should be noted, however, that for the vast majority of the history of the moslem middle-east that the Amirs and Sultans, as leaders of the state, held power. Whether it's Afterdinnerjacket or some other nutjob in that position, it's inevitable that the power will shift from the Supreme Leader to the President.