Iran's President goes off the deep end

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Granny says dat Haberdasherjad feller is sneaky - ya gotta watch him...

Iran acting suspiciously over nuclear capability
Wednesday 4th June, 2008 - The US Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency has stated that Iran's unwillingness to explain alleged nuclear weapons-related projects only reinforces suspicions about its past efforts to develop nuclear bomb.

Ambassador Gregory Schulte, has told the organisation's Board of Governors that unanswered questions strongly suggest Iran has undertaken a significant state-sponsored effort to develop nuclear weapons. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Monday that it was regrettable that the IAEA had not made the expected progress in clarifying possible military projects concerning missiles, high explosives testing and nuclear material production.

Iran would be served best by admitting its past nuclear weapons work and allowing the IAEA to verify that it has been halted, Schulte told the 35-nation board. Like his European colleagues, he spoke in favour of a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

Most countries represented on the IAEA board have again called on Iran to heed the UN Security Council's demands for halting its uranium enrichment program. Iran is expected to deliver a response at the IAEA Board of Governors on Thursday.

Iran acting suspiciously over nuclear capability

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Iran threatens oil supply...

Iran says Gulf oil route at risk if attacked
Sunday, June 29, 2008 - The Revolutionary Guards said Iran would impose controls on shipping in the vital Gulf oil route if Iran was attacked and warned regional states of reprisals if they took part, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

Fear of an escalation in the standoff between the West and Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, have been one factor propping up sky-high oil prices. Crude hit a record level on international markets near US$143 a barrel on Friday. Speculation about a possible attack on Iran because of its disputed nuclear ambitions has risen since a report this month said Israel had practiced such a strike, prompting increasingly tough talk of retaliation, if pushed, from Tehran.

"Naturally every country under attack by an enemy uses all its capacity and opportunities to confront the enemy," Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari told Jam-e Jam newspaper in some of the toughest language Iran has used so far. Analysts say Iran may not match the firepower of U.S. forces but could still cause havoc in the region using unconventional tactics, such as deploying small craft to attack ships, or using allies in the area to strike at U.S. or Israeli interests.

"Regarding the main route for exiting energy, Iran will definitely act to impose control on the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz," Jafari said of the Gulf waterway through which about two-fifths of all globally traded oil passes. Iranian officials have in the past sent mixed signals about whether Iran would use oil as a weapon. But such threats, when made, have sent jitters through the crude market for fear of disrupting supplies from big OPEC producers in the Gulf.

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Iran says it has missiles to hit Israel
June 28,`08 -- Iranian leaders say they have missiles capable of striking Israel, which will deter an attack.

Israel is believed to be considering an air strike aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear capability. Major Gen. Mohammad-Ali Jafari said Iran has the capability to repel "any possible attack," Press-TV reported.

"Israel is located entirely within the reach of our missiles," he told the daily newspaper Jam-e Jam. "Our missile power is such that the Zionist regime, despite all its capabilities, would not be able to confront us."

Israel recently staged maneuvers The New York Times described as a dress rehearsal for an air strike on Iran. Jafari said an attack on Iran would also bring another drastic increase in world oil prices.

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Navy ain't gonna let `em do it...

US 'won't allow' Iran to shut oil route
July 01, 2008 - THE commander of the US navy's Fifth Fleet has warned the United States will not allow Iran to shut the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf sea lane through which much of the world's oil is supplied.

"They will not close it ... They will not be allowed to close it," Vice-Admiral Kevin Cosgriff said in Bahrain, where the Fifth Fleet is based. His remarks followed comments by the chief of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, who issued a new warning last week against any attack against his country over its controversial nuclear drive.

"It is natural that when a country is attacked it uses all of its capabilities against the enemy, and definitely our control of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz would be one of our actions," Gen Jafari said. The strait between Iran and Oman is a vital conduit for energy supplies, with as much as 40 per cent of the world's crude passing through the waterway from Gulf suppliers. "Certainly if there is fighting ... the scope will be extended to oil, meaning its price will increase drastically. This will deter our enemies from taking action against Iran," Gen Jafari said.

Vice-Admiral Cosgriff said: "The latest Iranian statements are not helpful." He insisted that that the international community will work to protect navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, adding that any action by Iran "will not be an action against the United States but against the international community".

More US 'won't allow' Iran to shut oil route | NEWS.com.au

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... A 'one-sided negotiation'...

US and Iran: A One-Sided Negotiation
Monday, Jul. 21, 2008 : Over the course of the last three days, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has succinctly summarized the four-year arc of her Administration's diplomatic efforts to restrain Iran's nuclear program.

On Friday, she told CNN that the decision to reverse four years of U.S. policy and meet with Iranian negotiators in Geneva was a one-time event, designed solely to hear Iran's response to the latest European negotiating offer. "We have one chance to receive the Iranian response," Rice said. "That's going to be on Saturday when [Undersecretary of State] Bill [Burns] receives that response." But the Iranians didn't respond. Instead, Tehran's top negotiator, Saeed Jalili, gave the assembled diplomats only "small talk about culture" and a "meandering" speech, Rice told reporters Monday.

Washington's response? Give Iran more time. Rice and the other big power representatives who are trying to get Iran to give up its nuclear program have set a two-week deadline for a firm answer to their latest negotiating offer. "We will see what Iran does in two weeks," Rice said Monday. That small climb-down is the latest incremental concession by the U.S., in exchange for nothing from the Iranians. That's because the Bush Administration has found little international support for holding Iran's feet to the fire, while the combination of U.S. difficulties in Iraq and the dramatic rise in oil prices has boosted Tehran's confidence. Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Washington rejected an Iranian offer of broad talks in which Tehran would seek to address all U.S. concerns. But when Rice took over as Secretary of State in 2005, she agreed to support European negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. The U.S. also agreed to facilitate the sale of spare parts for airliners to Iran, and to stop blocking Iranian accession talks to the World Trade Organization.

The European talks went nowhere, and six months after the U.S. concessions, the Iranians accelerated their nuclear program by starting to enrich of uranium. On the last day of May 2006, under pressure from European allies to open up talks with Tehran, the U.S. offered to join the Europeans at the negotiating table — but only if Iran first agreed to suspend its program of uranium enrichment. And, hoping to press the Iranians to comply, Washington spent the next two years trying in vain to forge a consensus in the U.N. Security Council for meaningful sanctions. Last week, Rice announced that she had agreed to send Burns despite Iran's firm refusal to stop enriching uranium. "It's been a slow-motion capitulation since 2005," says Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations, "There's no other way of interpreting it."

More US and Iran: A One-Sided Negotiation - TIME

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Iran to face more sanctions: Rice
22 Jul 2008, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has warned Iran that it faced more sanctions if it defied a two-week deadline to agree to curb its nuclear program.

Rice said Iran was stalling and must give a "serious answer" within the deadline set by six world powers which offered trade and technical incentives if Tehran halts its uranium enrichment. The west fears Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb. "We are in the strongest possible position to demonstrate that if Iran does not act then it is time to go back to that (sanctions) track," Rice said.

It was her first comment on the subject since Washington broke from usual policy and joined nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva on Saturday. Rice said US would impose more bilateral sanctions on Iran and the Europeans would look at what they could do if Iran failed to meet the world powers' demand.

"The main thing is we will have to start considering what we do in New York," she said, referring to the Security Council which has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran. Envoys from the US, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain - the so-called sextet of world powers - attended the Geneva meeting.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said at the next meeting Iran would not discuss the demand to freeze its sensitive atomic work which the west fears is aimed at making bombs. Iran says its aims are peaceful.

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Ahmadinejad not the only one...

Why Iran Won't Budge on Nukes
Wednesday, Aug. 06, 2008 - When U.S. officials appeal to the Iranian people over the heads of its regime, they like to assume that Tehran's defiance on the nuclear issue reflects only the extremist position of an unrepresentative revolutionary leadership.

Plainly, they haven't met Dr. Akbar Etemad, who ran the nuclear program of the Shah's regime, which was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The scientist who first launched Iran's nuclear technology program under a U.S.-backed regime in 1974 today urges the regime that stripped him of his job to reject any international demand that it halt uranium enrichment. Dr. Etemad told an academic conference in Toronto last weekend, "Iran already stopped nuclear enrichment at the behest of Europe for more than a year [a reference to Tehran's suspension of enrichment between late 2003 and mid-2005, to allow negotiations with the European Union]. And what happened? Nothing."

Iran delivered its response to the latest Western offer on the nuclear issue to E.U. officials in Brussels on Tuesday, and reportedly avoided any mention of a freeze on uranium enrichment. Britain, France and the U.S. have made clear that the consequence of Iran turning down the current offer will be a push for further U.N. sanctions against Tehran. In an interview with TIME, the Swiss-educated scientist who lives in Paris and heads a group of prominent Iranian exiles that lobby against a military attack on Iran, said the solution to the nuclear standoff lay in re-establishing relations between Washington and Tehran. Although a senior U.S. diplomat joined the European-led delegation that met with Iranian officials in Geneva recently, Iran's response to the nuclear proposal may make it difficult for the Bush Administration to create a diplomatic opening.

Surprising as it may be to hear a member of the Shah's deposed regime support the stance of the Islamic Republic in a confrontation with the West, there is widespread concern among Iran experts that the current Western strategy of demanding that Iran forego the right to enrich uranium has created a diplomatic dead end. Writing in the International Herald Tribune last week, Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, and analyst Anatol Lieven, argued that insisting Iran give up its right to any uranium enrichment is untenable, and instead suggested that the Western powers base their demands on the rights and limitations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — which would allow the international community "to place a verifiable cap on Iranian enrichment and other nuclear capabilities well short of weaponization."

More Why Iran Won't Budge on Nukes - TIME

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Sanctions workin'...

Sanctions hurting Iran economic activity, says IMF
Thu Aug 14, `08 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stepped-up international pressure and sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program are hurting its economy, making trade financing and payments difficult and discouraging foreign investment, according to an IMF report published on Thursday.

The International Monetary Fund said profits of state-owned banks have been hit hard by U.S. and U.N. economic sanctions, forcing the government to recapitalize three banks. Boosting banks' capital was the right move, the IMF staff report said, but it also said some banks were still undercapitalized as of the end of March. "Intensified international pressures on Iran have negatively affected economic activity," the report said.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear activities, which the West says is a cover for building bombs. Tehran has denied the charge. The U.S. Treasury has banned dealings with several Iranian banks -- including its largest, Bank Melli -- and that has forced many businesses to steer clear of Iran. IMF staff met with Iranian Central Bank Governor Tahmasb Mazaheri and senior government officials in May for annual consultations on the economy.

Such visits by IMF staff are conducted in all of the IMF's 185 member countries, many of which agree to publish details of the meetings. In the discussions, the IMF said Iranian officials had expressed concern over rising inflation and blamed rapid domestic growth for driving up price pressures. IMF staff said the recent increase in inflation suggested the economy was overheated because of high oil prices. One way to deal with it was to tighten monetary policy, staff said. Still, they said, the central bank's influence over monetary policy had been curtailed through administrative changes last year.

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Hit squads being trained in Iran
Friday 15th August, 2008 - US military officials have said their intelligence shows Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in Iran.

The squads are allegedly being primed to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as US and Iraqi troops.

Intelligence taken from captured militia fighters and other sources has revealed the names of prospective targets, including high ranking Iraqi officials.

Iraq's intelligence service is preparing operations to determine where and when the special group fighters will enter the country.Special posters depicting the men believed to be heading the special groups are being posted around Baghdad.

Hit squads being trained in Iran

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Iran rattlin' its saber...

Attack, and it will be world war - Iran
August 30, 2008 - A SENIOR military commander warned today that any attack on Iran would start a new world war, as Tehran pressed on with its controversial nuclear drive despite the risk of further UN sanctions.

"Any aggression against Iran will start a world war," deputy chief of staff for defence publicity, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, said in a statement carried by the state news agency IRNA. Iran is under international pressure to halt uranium enrichment, a process which lies at the core of fears about Iran's nuclear program as it can make nuclear fuel as well as the fissile core of an atom bomb. "The unrestrained greed of the US leadership and global Zionism... is gradually leading the world to the edge of a precipice," Brig Jazayeri said, citing the unrest in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Georgia.

"It is evident that if such a challenge occurs, the fake and artificial regimes will be eliminated before anything." Iran does not recognise Israel, which is often described by officials in Tehran as a "fake regime" and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has provoked international outrage saying it should be wiped off the map. The US and its staunch ally Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed nation, accuse Iran of seeking atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear program.

Iran, a leading OPEC member, has vehemently denied the allegations, insisting its only wants to provide electricity for a growing population when its reserves of fossil fuels run out. The US has never ruled out military action against Iran over its defiance of international demands for an enrichment freeze, but so far is pursuing the diplomatic route. Iran has repeatedly vowed a crushing response to any attacks and has flexed military muscles in recent years by holding war games and showing off an array of home-grown weaponry including ballistic missiles.

More Attack, and it will be world war - Iran | NEWS.com.au