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Posts Tagged ‘Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’

Breaking: IAEA Confirms Iran Working on Construction of Nuclear Warhead For Placement in Missile Delivery System

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

IAEA Confirms Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Claim of Substantial Uranium Enrichment Capacity and Raise Fears of Iran's Work on Nuclear Missile


Agence France Press, CNN and other news organizations are now confirming that, for the first time, the IAEA, in a report dated tomorrow, warns that Iran is currently secretly developing a nuclear warhead for placement in a missile delivery system. This incredibly explosive development is sure to rile the debate on the merits of the Obama Administration’s engagement policy towards Iran, with pressure certain to rise for a tougher stance from Washington. AFP’s report:

VIENNA — The UN atomic watchdog is concerned that its information about Iran’s nuclear activities suggests Tehran may be working on a nuclear warhead, according to a restricted report obtained by AFP Thursday.

“The information available to the agency … raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile,” the watchdog’s chief Yukiya Amano wrote in his first report to its board of governors.

It was the first time the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had expressed such concern about Iran’s “current” activities.

The report also confirmed that Tehran had begun enriching uranium at higher levels, theoretically bringing it closer to levels needed for making an atomic bomb.

“Iran provided the agency with mass spectrometry results which indicate that enrichment levels of up to 19.8 percent (uranium) were obtained,” the report said.

The confirmation by the IAEA of enrichment levels of nearly 20% clearly support Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent boasts about a 20% enrichment capacity. The Obama Administration’s response was to ridicule Ahmadinejad’s enrichment claims via Robert Gibbs:

“Quite frankly, what — what Ahmadinejad says — he says many things and many of them turn out to be untrue,” Gbbs said. “We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching.

Clearly, the Obama Administration’s statement via Gibbs was off the mark and one can only hope a new, stronger statement and, more importantly, a tougher line from the Obama Administration on Iran’s nuclear proliferation activities is forthcoming soon.

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Gallup: 90% View Iran as a “Critical” (61%) or “Important” (29%) Threat to US Vital Interests; Obama 2008 Explicitly Disagrees

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran, accompanied here by military officers, poses an critical or important threat to 90% of Americans. Credit: UPI

Gallup has just released new findings from their recent February 1-3, 2010  polling of a variety of issues regarding American perceptions of various potential international threats to the United States.    The topline finding highlighted by Gallup is the strong majority (61%) who view Iran as a critical threat to US vital interests:

A Gallup poll finds 61% of Americans viewing the military power of Iran as a critical threat to U.S. vital interests over the next 10 years. An additional 29% say Iran is an important, though not a critical, threat to the United States. The findings come as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seeking the support of several Arab nations for additional sanctions on Iran in a trip to the region this week.

All told, only 8% of American adults think that Iran is not an important threat to the United States, with 2% undecided and 90% considering Iran a critical (61%) or important (29%) threat. While President Obama’s rhetoric has changed somewhat since the 2008 campaign regarding the Iranian threat, an unscripted moment from Candidate Obama in 2008 demonstrates his at least then-agreement with the 8%:

Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries. That’s what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That’s what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That’s what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela – these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.

And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we’re going to wipe you off the planet. And ultimately that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war, and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall. Now, that has to be the kind of approach that we take…

You know, Iran they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen. That doesn’t mean we agree with them on everything. We might not compromise on any issues, but at least, we should find out other areas of potential common interest, and we can reduce some of the tensions that has caused us so many problems around the world.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks, Pendleton, OR, 5/19/08)

Candidate Obama could not have been more clear in demonstrating his thinking that Iran is not an important or critical threat, indeed stating that if “tiny” Iran “ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance.” Such thinking clearly carried over into the Administration’s handling of Iran, from the “restraint” advocated by Obama while the summer Iranian election protests (and killings by Iranian security personnel) raged and the continuous talk of a negotiated agreement with Iran regarding nuclear disarmament despite Iran’s continued intransigence in even commencing serious final negotiations while accelerating their nuclear program.

While Hillary Clinton’s recent near-denunciation of the Iranian regime as becoming a “military dictatorship” is a positive step for this Administration, such rhetoric appears to this observer to be a day late and a dollar short. Iran proved itself to be a military dictatorship by killing civilian protesters in the streets of Tehran and elsewhere in the post-election unrest many months ago. The belated recognition of this fact by the Obama Administration is a welcome development, and hopefully will result in a tougher policy towards the mullahs that run Iran.

The biggest problem in the Middle East today is the threat to stability posed by Iran, and 90% of the public understands that. Indeed, Gallup’s poll shows an 11% decline in those who think that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a critical issue re US vital interests. Israel itself knows of the critical nature of the Iranian nuclear proliferation threat, as Iran leaders, both civilian and military, routinely call for the complete destruction of Israel. The key questions now are how much longer will Israel wait before taking matters into its own hands with a military strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, and further whether Obama will acquiesce to or actively oppose such an Israeli effort.

In May of 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Obama at the White House and Obama agreed to either get the basis for an agreement with Iran by the end of the year or push forward with tough new sanctions. 2009 is of course over, and UN sanctions on Iran appear distant at best, unlikely to happen at worst, with even the Saudis yesterday rejecting the US talk of sanctions. Worse still, the Obama Administration has pledged to target only Iran’s Revolutionary Guard with a sanctions regime that will not “hurt ordinary citizens.” That likely means a key element of any sanctions regime with the possibility of success, an embargo on refined gasoline supplies into Iran, is off the table.

One can only hope that the Obama Administration considers toughening up their Iran policy in the wake of the recent Iranian announcement of an accelerated campaign to increase its nuclear enrichment capability and ongoing bellicose rhetoric towards the West, Israel and its own citizens who are demanding democratic reform.  As of today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is publicly stating that Israel is “not planning any wars.” At some point, the Israelis are going to feel compelled to act against the Iranian threat to Israel’s very existence, and should that happen as Israel loses all faith in our efforts, the 90% of Americans who think Iran is a critical or important threat to US vital interests will be sadly proven correct.

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