For years Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and outgoing head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, has warned the United States and other Western powers against jumping to conclusions about Iran’s nuclear program. While Washington, Israel and their allies see increasing indications that Tehran’s secretive nuclear program is aimed at developing weapons, ElBaradei told an audience of academics, politicians and diplomats at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City that his agency has “no concrete evidence” that Tehran is pursuing an atom bomb.
So is Iran’s nuclear program intended solely for lighting light bulbs in the world’s fourth biggest oil producer as Tehran insists? According to ElBaradei, its purpose is something completely different.
“Iran’s nuclear program is a means to an end, it wants to be recognized as a regional power,” the outspoken Egyptian lawyer and diplomat said. “They believe that the nuclear know-how brings prestige, brings power, and they would like to see the U.S. engaging them. Unfortunately that holds some truth. Iran has been taken seriously since they have developed their program.”
In other words: Don’t mess with us. We can enrich uranium.
U.N. officials who know ElBaradei have told Reuters for years that the IAEA director-general is convinced that Iran is pursuing what is often called the “break-out option” — the capability to produce nuclear weapons should it ever decide it needed them. He is not convinced, they say, that Iran has taken a decision to follow North Korea’s example and build an actual weapon.
But Western diplomats who follow the Iranian issue say that it is doubtful Iran would choose to hover on the threshold of the nuclear club without entering the door. A more likely scenario, they argue, is that the Islamic Republic would secure its place at the table of world powers by developing and possibly even testing a nuclear device. They also say the impact on the Middle East would be the same whether Iran has the “break-out option” in the drawer or a live bomb in its basement. In either case the result would be a nuclear weapons race across the already unstable Middle East.
ElBaradei has spent six of his 12 years at the helm of the IAEA neogotiating with Iran to get access to Iran’s nuclear facilities, many of which were hidden from U.N. inspectors for decades before their existence was revealed by Iranian exiles or Western intelligence agencies.
The IAEA chief chastised the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush and the European Union’s three biggest powers — Britain, France and Germany — for failing to seize what he said was an opportunity they had years ago to persuade the Iranians to suspend their uranium enrichment program.
“They were ready to stop at an R&D (research and development) level … that could have not have created any concern for the international community,” he said.
Making matters worse, the European and U.S. demands that Iran cease all enrichment activity before negotiations on a package of economic and political incentives could begin was among the conditions imposed on Tehran that ElBaradei described as “impossible to accept.”
Western diplomats, however, have said that it would be naive to think that the Iranians were ever truly prepared to suspend their enrichment program after the EU trio launched negotiations with Tehran in the fall of 2003. They have defied three rounds of U.N. sanctions for refusing to stop enriching. Bush’s successor Barack Obama has reversed the U.S. position by offering to engage Iran’s leaders, but they have reacted coolly so far.
ElBaradei, who opposed the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in March 2003, said Bush’s refusal to negotiate directly with North Korea and Iran was a colossal policy failure that had created “a total mess.” (North Korea tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009.)
ElBaradei added that if Israel, which neither confirms nor denies having a sizable nuclear arsenal of its own, follows through on threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities it would backfire. He said Tehran would simply launch a “crash course” to get an atom bomb and “would turn the Middle East into a ball of fire.”
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Re: concerns about threads not being published.
I looked into this. No threads have been withheld as far as I can tell. I don’t know what to suggest other than to make copies of your posts before you click “submit comment” in case they don’t appear. If that happens, you can always resubmit them later..
I hope that helps.
- Posted by Louis CharbonneauIf I’m not allowed to speak my mind I’ll just provide more evidence instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK7JJea3S z8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_ Hotel_bombing
Ben Gurion, quotes - 1st zionist prime minister
http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmPEIt4fc nI
- Posted by brianThis is ridiculous… has this thread now been shut down?? Why are my posts still not being published?
There is absolutely no reason that they should not be as I can quote evidence and links for everything I am saying.
Is there an issue of moderator bias that needs to be addressed?
- Posted by brianSeriously, what is going on with my comments???
- Posted by brianThat’s the 3rd time this has happened on this thread.
How is it that my 2nd comment can appear but not my first posted and when I re-send my first it says you’ve already received it??
mrk julian smith,
I think the point, and the issue that needs attention, is that we need to be able to admit when we are wrong.
- Posted by brianNot to press on through the bad decision in the hope that by repeating the mistakes of the past the future will work itself out.
We don’t seem to learn anything because indeed there is no moral authorities worthy of widespread cross-cultural, free respect.
Life isn’t just about tolerance, it’s about standing up for what you believe in, and despite the multitude of beliefs out there, for the 21st century there is something seriously, fundamentally wrong with what most in the world believe.. need I say religion?
For all our claims of civility and hopes for the future, the most amazing hypocrisy is that we still allow such a staggering saboteur of our fundamental moral and intellectual instincts to exist and continue corrupting and dividing us.
It would appear even Mohamed ElBaradei was having second thoughts regards Iran’s nuclear intentions given Iran’s declaration of another nuclear site.
The point is not which country has a nuclear weapon but what would happen if an ideology of a certain bent obtained one what would be the probable outcome. The propensity of use.
We are all immigrants from somewhere there are no countries boundaries which have not been created in blood and terror with forced evacuations of significant numbers of human beings. This continues to be the case.
Everything we see defined in a political sense from geographical boundaries to the right to continue to exist where you are born, have always been and will always be arbitrary. The underlying rational for final political outcomes comes down to coercion not law. Law itself was and continues to be created in the cauldron of relative coercion. Why?
It is because we base our personal, group and national relationships on the notion of sovereignty. This gives Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the right to say the “Biggest Crime” is not torturing and killing your own people for dissent (or those outside the Iran), dissent itself because it questions the legitimacy of the sovereignty of the elite in power is the “Biggest Crime”. In the same way perceived sovereignty justifies Israel and Palestinians brutilisation of each other. Each trying to out-coerce each other.
I suggest we need as human beings to accept firstly we are all hypocrites, individuals and nations, and secondly work out what really matters in the end boundaries or the level of relative independence we enable for each other, finally to accept there exist cultural schisms which are irreconcilable, reflect on what they are and whether it is worth the blood and tears of our children to keep them - agree on an accepted human bill of rights applicable to both sides. Or alternatively lets carry on as normal in the time honored coercion way of sovereignty be honest as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regards a desired Israeli holocaust.
As with arbitrary national boundaries defining nations or any text which exists or has existed they are derived directly from the mind of humans for the benefit and/or detriment of other humans - so humans can redefine relationships with another idea.
Enabling the independence of others first - it has to start somewhere why not try it at home - it works - try it at work - etc.
- Posted by mrk Julian SmithThe legitimacy of Israel is not an issue here.
Israel is an independent sovereign nation:
-It declared itself independent.
-This declaration was supported by the UN.
-Israel upheld this independence even when the Arab nations resorted to force.
The Partition Plan was non-binding, because the UN doesn’t have the power to create nations. Only the people of the ‘proto-nation’ can do so.
Israel’s declaration was simply giving legal force to the partition plan which was already supported by the UN. It was made on the date the mandate expired, as the UN had intended. And it was supported by the UN, who then condemned the later Arab invasion.
It is no surprise that the final result of Israel was different to the partition plan. After driving back the invasion, Israel made territorial gains.
The issue you had, Brian, was that you accused Israel of being an aggressive nation.
But history has shown that the Arab-Israeli conflict mainly involves Israel reacting to the aggressive actions of its neighbours. Even the recent Gaza and Lebanon conflicts.
Rather then debate this issue; you instead shift the issue to Israel’s legitimacy. There is no need to debate this, because it simply isn’t an issue.
- Posted by AnonAviran, it means that the resolution was non-binding and was not agreed on by both parties. It also means that Israel only USED the plan as a basis for legitimacy and has never adhered to it’s conditions, which the Jews themselves didn’t agree with in the first place.
There was no legal basis because there was NO following of the ‘plan’. And when the state of Israel was declared independent of the plan by the Jews the country was still under British mandate.
I never said the Jewish population shouldn’t “count”, but they were a minority MANY of which had only immigrated to British Palestine in the last 3 or 4 years since the war and were not at all indigenous.. Thus the ‘plan’ was completely unfair to offer such an illegitimate minority the majority of land in Palestine.
What right does the regional community have??
What right does the non-regional community have to implant a foreign, hostile state in the middle of the Arabic holy land??
It is a very reasonable concept to value the importance and opinion of regional people when planning imperialist activities in their territory.
No the US / British did not ask permission when they stole the land of Native Americans, that’s what makes it such a hostile, tragic and regrettable action.
- Posted by brianBy the same logic you’re using to defend Israel it should be just as acceptable for the USA to be split up into 2 states by foreign governments. In fact the Native Americans have even more right to the US as their claim is not religious fiction and is in modern history not ancient history.
I have answers for all these questions and would love to reply but my comments seem to be disappearing without explanation…
- Posted by brianHello Brian,
You wrote “the Jews ‘declared’ the state of Israel completely independent of any partition plan”.
What does that mean? they accepted the plan, and the UN resolution was their legal basis.
“[the partition] was completely rejected by the citizens of Palestine and their neighbors”
The citizens of Palestine included 600,000 Jews, only slightly less than the Arabs. Why shouldn’t they count? And what right did the neighboring countries have over Palestine?
“This declaration [of independence] was not recognized by any country in the region”.
Since when nations need permission from hostile neighbors to declare independence? Furthermore, did the US ask permission from native Americans, let alone Britain?
I suggest you read some history books, even those written by Arabs.
- Posted by Aviranhmmm, actually the general assembly passed the vote not the security council, initially with only 30 countries in favor (representing 1 fifth of the worlds population, 24 out of 30 or 80% of the countries who voted in favor represented only 5.4% of the worlds population), 54% of the general assembly at the time and ALL majority Christian countries( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co mmons/4/44/Christian_distribution.png ).
3 out of 5 security council members voted and every country in the middle east voted against the resolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UNGA_1 81_Map.png
12 of the 30 countries who voted in favor were from south and central America, and every single one of them at the time was under the rule of a US supported dictatorship, some of them even in the midst of civil war, most of the others would overthrow their dictators in socialist revolutions soon after.
Needless to say that the Arab Palestinians were completely against the UN plan as it offered the minority Jewish population 56% of Palestine
and the vast majority indigenous Arabs only 43%. The Jews was also not happy with this plan and accepted 56% as an acceptable initial amount for the moment as an absolute bare minimum.
The Jews in Palestine actually declared the state of Israel on may 14th a day before the British mandate ended and it was legal on may 15th. Which led to the inevitable outbreak of war. The Jews declaring Israel only mentioned the resolution as justifying the independence of Israel but held to none of it’s terms and a year after declaration when the war was over they had double the already excessive territory offered to them by the resolution.
11 minutes after the Jews declaration of Israel, the claim was DE FACTO recognized by US president Harry Truman only, official recognition by the US did not come for another year in January 1949. Truman’s Recognition was followed by the Emporer of Iran, otherwise known as the Shah, Guatemala who a few years later was accused of the genocide of around 200 000 indigenous people, the dictator of Nicaragua, Romania who had a few years earlier willingly slaughtered their own Jews, Iceland a protectorate of the US and a couple other tiny post war European republics.
The first leader to recognize Israel ‘de jure’, or legally, was Stalin of communist USSR, followed by 3 other European largely Jewish countries including Poland. Then Ireland, fighting for it’s own independence from British rule which it gained that same year, and racist South Africa which formalized the policy of apartheid the same year in 1948.
- Posted by brianThe UN Partition plan was passed by the UN Security Council with 59% of the vote on 29 November 1947. All the veto powers supported the motion, except for the UK and China who abstained.
The result of the vote was that the partition plan was to take effect on the same day that the British Mandate ended.
Based on this vote, Israel made a declaration of independence on the day the partition plan came into effect on 14 May 1948. Just as the UN vote decreed.
Eleven minutes after the declaration, the state of Israel was recognised by the USA, Guatemala, Iceland, Nicaragua, Romania and Uruguay.
On 17 May 1948, Israel was also recognised by the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Ireland and South Africa.
At the same time, Israel was invaded by the Arab nations. This action was condemned by the UN as an illegal action of war against a sovereign nation.
The rest, as they say, is history. Israel had claimed sovereignty by declaration, and then upheld its claim through military force against those who sought to take it away.
- Posted by Hmmm