We Do Not Need Weapons Of Mass Distruction

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Iran eggin' on the nuke race...

Report: Iran's Nuclear Program Feeding Proliferation
May. 20, 2008 - UK Report: Resurgence Of Nuclear Interest In Middle East Could Degenerate Into Arms Race

Iran's disputed nuclear program has sent a wave of interest in atomic energy across the Middle East, a think tank said Tuesday, warning that it risked setting the scene for a regional nuclear arms race. At least 13 Middle Eastern countries either announced new plans to explore atomic energy or revived pre-existing nuclear programs between February 2006 and January 2007, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, or IISS, said in a report.

While the flurry of interest in nuclear power is still tentative, the report said countries such as Saudi Arabia, Algeria or Egypt could soon feel the need to match Iran's nuclear ambitions. "If Tehran's nuclear program is unchecked, there is reason for concern that it could in time prompt a regional cascade of proliferation among Iran's neighbors," it said. Israel, the United States and others have accused the Islamic republic of covertly seeking nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear program.

Iran insists its intentions are peaceful, but its program has helped push nearly all its Middle Eastern neighbors into drawing up their own nuclear plans. The report cautioned that most of the programs were still immature - it noted that sustainable new reactor projects in the Middle East were at least 10 or 15 years away - and said motivations were mixed. Countries such as Jordan, Morocco or Tunisia have comparatively few energy reserves and were spurred on at least in part by a desire for energy independence in an age of soaring oil prices.

More Report: Iran's Nuclear Program Feeding Proliferation, UK Report: Resurgence Of Nuclear Interest In Middle East Could Degenerate Into Arms Race - CBS News

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Iran May Miscalculate in Taunting US, Panelists Say
May 20, 2008 - "Eventually the Great White Shark might bite you."

There is a danger that Iran may miscalculate the likelihood of a U.S. response as it taunts U.S forces in the Persian Gulf, experts on the Middle East said Monday at a conference held by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, D.C. Noting that Iran threatened the U.S. Navy in international waters earlier this year, and that it continues to provide weapons and fighters to U.S. enemies in Iraq, Kenneth Katzman of the Congressional Research Service compared the U.S. to a great white shark, and said Iran is now in danger of being "the one who teased the great shark one too many times."

"They are taunting the shark, trying to show they are not scared and they have been quite effective at that," Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs, said. "But eventually the Great White Shark might bite you. I think Iranian strategists need to be concerned that they might be taunting the shark a little bit too much." Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at AEI, said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is showing signs of succumbing to the dangers of overconfidence. "My biggest fear is that they will miscalculate, perhaps as Hezbollah did with the Israelis in 2006, and it will amplify into a larger dispute," he said.

Rubin said this overconfidence could quickly lead to a conflict. "On the part of the Revolutionary Guard one of the greatest dangers that exists is the constant taunting," he said. "This suggests that the Iranians are testing the red line. They are not certain that that red line for us really is a red line that is set in stone." Rubin was referring to incidents early this year in which Iranian watercraft appeared to threaten U.S. military vessels.

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Granny says Iran playin' him for a puddin'-head...

IAEA Chief Wants Full Disclosure from Iran
02 June 2008 - The International Atomic Energy Agency has begun a five-day meeting in Vienna to examine Iran's nuclear activities, as well as suspicions that Syria secretly might have tried to build a nuclear reactor.

Iran insists that its atomic program is peaceful and says it could limit its cooperation with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog after the agency's latest critical report of Tehran. The IAEA report issued last week said Iran has not provided enough evidence to refute that it is trying to make nuclear weapons.

U.N. atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei also criticized Israel and the U.S. at Monday's meeting for not passing on intelligence about Syria's alleged nuclear reactor and attacking the site before the agency had a chance to inspect it. He told IAEA's 35-member board that it was regrettable that force was resorted to unilaterally before the agency had an opportunity to establish the facts in Syria.

Syria has denied any illegal activity and has agreed to let inspectors into the country this month. The inspectors will investigate the site that Israeli warplanes destroyed in September.

VOA News - IAEA Chief Wants Full Disclosure from Iran

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Iran to continue nuclear program
June 03, 2008 - IRAN will press ahead with its nuclear program, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said today, making clear the Islamic Republic would not bow to Western pressure and halt sensitive atomic work.

"Iran is not after nuclear weapons. It is after peacefully using nuclear energy ... we will follow this path and ... will reach it," Ayatollah Khamenei said in a speech broadcast live on state television. World powers have prepared an enhanced package of trade and other incentives for Iran if it suspends its most sensitive nuclear activities, something Tehran has consistently refused to do.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is expected to travel to Tehran soon to submit the package. The United States accuses the Islamic Republic of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Iran denies the charge but its refusal to suspend sensitive nuclear work has prompted three rounds of UN sanctions since 2006.

Ayatollah Khamenei was speaking a week after the UN nuclear watchdog said in a report that Tehran's alleged research into nuclear warheads was a matter of serious concern and that it should provide more information on its missile-related work.

Iran to continue nuclear program | NEWS.com.au

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The policy of deterrence...

Nuclear arsenal important, says US
June 10, 2008 - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says the importance of the US nuclear arsenal is likely to grow as Russia moves to strengthen its own nuclear forces.

Mr Gates said he made the comment in a private session with rank-and-file airmen in explaining a decision to replace the air force leadership over two major nuclear blunders. Mr Gates told reporters later that among the points he made was that the US nuclear deterrent was likely to grow in importance, not diminish.

He said that was in part because of the risk of nuclear proliferation, but also because Russia has shifted its efforts from a traditional focus on conventional forces to strengthening its nuclear forces. "It seems clear that the Russians are focused, as they look at the future, more on strengthening their nuclear capabilities,'' he said.

"So to the extent that they rely more and more on their nuclear capabilities, ... it underscores the importance of our sustaining a valid ...nuclear deterrent,'' he said. Mr Gates's comments come after Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced his plan to establish an international commission on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament after an emotional visit to the Japanese city of Hiroshima yesterday.

Nuclear arsenal important, says US | NEWS.com.au

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A kinder, gentler cluster bomb...

Pentagon to build 'safer' cluster bombs
WASHINGTON - Mon., July. 7, 2008 - Under pressure, military agrees to modify bombs in 10 years

Faced with growing international pressure, the Pentagon is changing its policy on cluster bombs and plans to reduce the danger of unexploded munitions in the deadly explosives. The policy shift, which is outlined in a three-page memo signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, would require that after 2018, more than 99 percent of the bomblets in a cluster bomb must detonate.

Limiting the amount of live munitions left on the battlefield would lessen the danger to innocent civilians who could be killed or severely injured if they accidentally detonate the bombs. Also, by next June the Defense Department will begin to reduce its inventory of cluster bombs that do not meet the new safety requirements.

The new Defense Department plan comes more than a month after 111 nations, including many of America's key NATO partners, adopted a treaty outlawing all current designs of cluster munitions. The agreement also required that stockpiles be destroyed within eight years. Opponents have complained that the Pentagon has moved too slowly to reduce the cluster munitions from its inventory.

U.S. refused to join treaty

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US, Czech Deal Angers Russia
Tuesday, Jul. 08, 2008 — The United States and leaders of the Czech Republic agreed Tuesday to place a radar system in this former Soviet satellite that would warn of long-range missiles coming to Europe from the Middle East.

Russia is bitterly opposed, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice turned old Cold War rhetoric away from Moscow and toward Tehran as she signed the first solid treaty in what have been difficult negotiations. Iran looms as an ever-larger threat and the next U.S. president is unlikely to walk away from the missile defense system the Bush administration is trying to establish in Eastern Europe, Rice said.

"We face with the Iranians, and so do our allies and friends, a growing missile threat that is growing ever longer and ever deeper and where the Iranian appetite for nuclear technology to this point is still unchecked," Rice said after signing the Czech agreement. "It's hard for me to believe that an American president is not going to want to have the capability to defend our territory (and) the territory of our allies."

The proposed U.S. missile defense system calls for a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland. Moscow has threatened to aim its own missiles at any eventual base in Poland or the Czech Republic. Largely untested, expensive and unpopular among large majorities of the former East Bloc nations where it would be based, the theoretical missile shield also represents a potential foreign policy success that the Bush administration could pocket in its waning months. The Bush administration is trying to arrange deals before President Bush leaves office in January.

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Granny says Russia just throwin' a hissy-fit...

Moscow Threatens Over Shield
Tuesday, Jul. 08, 2008 - Pentagon officials were left scratching their heads late Tuesday over the latest ominous anti-U.S.-missile-shield pronouncement from the Russian foreign ministry.

It warned of unspecified military action shortly after the nearby Czech Republic agreed to be the new home of an aging missile-defense radar system that has spent the last nine years at Kwajalein Atoll in the south Pacific. "We will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods" if the shield is ever deployed, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The tracking radar slated to move to the Czech Republic would be linked to 10 interceptor missiles Washington hopes to base in Poland. Russia has threatened to re-aim its missiles at those sites if the system is built.

Defense Department officials were exasperated and frustrated as, once again, the Russian government denounced the expansion of the fledgling U.S. missile shield that U.S. officials maintain is designed only to protect parts of Europe as well as the United States. "No one's name [in the Russian government] is attached to it," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told TIME shortly after the Russians released their saber-rattling statement. "It's being reported as a foreign ministry statement — and it's got strange wording in it like 'We would be forced to react with military resources' or 'technical means' — what does that mean?"

Ever since the U.S. announced several years ago that it planned to spread its missile-defense system to Europe, Moscow has seen it as a ploy designed to emasculate its last remaining claim to superpower status: its nuclear might. In the two decades since the Soviet Union�s demise, its slide into international irrelevancy has only been slowed by its nuclear arsenal—and the recent rise in oil prices, which has enabled Russia to begin to climb out of its post-superpower depression.

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Time runnin' out for Iran...

EU expands Iran nuclear sanctions
Friday, 8 August 2008 - The European Union approves strengthened sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.

The measures target loans to companies trading with Iran and allow for tougher cargo inspections. Iran rejects claims that it is seeking nuclear weapons, and recently condemned the new sanctions as illegal. Major powers agreed on Wednesday to consider further separate UN sanctions after Tehran failed to meet a deadline to freeze its nuclear activities.

Deadline missed

The EU sanctions are seen as a strong implementation of the most recent of three UN resolutions imposing curbs Iran after it defied successive Security Council ultimatums to freeze uranium enrichment. The measures call on member states to exercise "restraint" in committing state-funded financial support for trade with Iran, including the granting of export credits. They also allow EU countries to inspect planes and ships travelling to and from Iran to check they are not carry contraband goods.

Earlier this week Iran missed a deadline to reply to an offer of incentives to end its uranium enrichment programme. France, the US and UK are pushing for new sanctions, but Russia says there is potential for more dialogue. The fact Iran is enriching uranium has led Western powers to fear it is seeking to develop an atomic bomb. Tehran denies there is any intention beyond peaceful energy production.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | EU expands Iran nuclear sanctions