http://newhk.blogspot.com/2009/03/cia-had-long-maintained-association.html
Tighter sanctions and military threats haven't swayed Iran over its nuclear program. What the West really needs is genuine rapprochement – the kind that India is especially suited to facilitate....and may be, just may be the US will come out in the open and say that they have been fostering Iranian style politico-sectarian leanings for decades....
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0220/US-and-Iran-could-become-strategic-allies-with-India-s-help
By Neil Padukone / February , 2011
The standoff with Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons program continues. While Washington is arming its Gulf Arab allies in a process of ‘strategic containment,’ hardliners are seeking tighter sanctions and even military options to coerce Iran into compliance...
But these options remain untenable. The "Gulf Security Dialogue" simply postpones the inevitable, neglecting Iran’s unconventional strengths. Sanctions antagonize Tehran, while Russia, Turkmenistan, China, and even smugglers fill the void in Iran’s energy sector. Military strikes and sabotage may set-back but not end Iran’s nuclear program, and provoke Iran to take countermeasures like mining the Strait of Hormuz – not to mention the political backlash. Regime change by support for anti-Tehran militant groups only aggravates Iran, while Iran's democracy movements are calling for civil rights, not government overthrow. And with America trapped in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tehran could easily play spoiler.
There is a better option: a genuine rapprochement.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB24Ak03.html
As the US withdraws from Iraq, stability there and in the Levant is contingent on Iranian cooperation. In Afghanistan, more than 70 percent and 40 percent of NATO’s supplies and fuel, respectively, pass through northern Pakistan. This is the only transport link between the Arabian Sea and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in Afghanistan, keeping the West beholden to Islamabad’s every whim and its supplies subject to attack within Pakistan.
Multiple benefits....
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB24Ak01.html
A transport link through Iran would reduce this vulnerability, while easing Islamabad’s own security burden. Coordination with Iran would help bring the Afghan warlords in Tehran’s sphere of influence into the political process, and open up a stable trade route to Central Asia.
A US-Iran understanding would also distance Iran from China, countering the Chinese “string of pearls” strategy in South and Central Asia – a greater imperative in light of China’s recently inaugurated Turkmenistan-China pipeline and talk of an Iran-Pakistan-China energy link.
Even Iran would benefit from a US détente. With three million opium users, Iran is the greatest victim of the Afghan opium trade, while the Taliban that threatens the West is similarly anathema to Iran. By partnering with US forces, Iran can direct its influence toward shared strategic aims: countering narcotics trafficking, intelligence cooperation, and stabilizing Afghanistan. The Iranians would also be assured that America would not use Iraq or the Gulf to attack them.
Iran’s geography, petro-power, and Islamist credentials inevitably empower Tehran. America would only benefit if this influence aligned with its own interests. Engaging Iran also opens up its 77-million-strong population to foreign trade and contact after decades of sanctions, strengthening civil society. A lack of engagement, however, leaves the field open for competitors like China to fill the gap.
But the biggest obstacle to a détente today is Iran’s controversial nuclear program.
The US has flanked Iran from the east in Afghanistan, the west in Iraq, the north through US troops in Azerbaijan and Central Asia, and the south via the Gulf States. For the Iranians, the best way to resist a hostile United States is an opaque nuclear program – one that is only likely to come clean when American antagonism is gone.
But American “overtures” to this end have been half-hearted at best. American support for anti-Tehran groups like Jundallah and the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq continue, while military plans and sanctions have always been the go-to option, limiting the political space for a détente. Tack on Iran’s missile tests, and refusal to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or to end belligerency in Iraq, and it’s easy to see why the debilitating stalemate continues.
How India could help
Enter India, Washington’s new strategic partner.
In the 1990s, many saw a burgeoning “New Delhi-Tehran Axis” in India and Iran’s enhanced economic and strategic ties, including shared opposition to the Taliban. But under American pressure after 2005, India repeatedly voted to condemn Iran in the IAEA.
While failing to coerce Iran, these votes harmed Indo-Iranian relations: Indian plans to expand Iran’s Chabahar Port, connect it to the Indian-built Zaranj-Delaram highway in Afghanistan, and develop Iran’s first liquefied natural gas plant have all fallen by the wayside. Washington even opposed the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) natural gas pipeline, touted as the “peace pipeline” that would unite India and Pakistan, because it would benefit Tehran. Recently, Western pressure brought about the Reserve Bank of India’s largely symbolic decision to prohibit companies from using the Asian Currency Union to pay for Iranian oil – a move that was opposed by Indian business and government ministries.
Notwithstanding these setbacks, India and Iran share cultural ties that go back millennia, and strategic interests and economics remain strong points of confluence. Both seek an alternative to the Pakistan-backed Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as a new transport line to Central Asia. In 2008, India-Iran trade reached $30 billion, considering third-country intermediaries. In 2009, Iran became the second-largest supplier of crude oil to India, while Indian firms seek to develop Iran’s gas fields, with investments of more than $11 billion over the coming years.
And despite being one of the world’s largest petroleum producers, Iran lacks a significant refinery infrastructure of its own and depends on imports for over 30 percent of its consumption. By some accounts 40 percent of Iran’s imported gasoline comes from Indian refineries – no insignificant matter. This trade and the leverage it brings are threatened by American sanctions that harm India and accomplish little in the way of pressuring Iran.
Indian investment in Iranian hydrocarbons and transport infrastructure, along with strategic alignment with both the US and India in Central Asia and elsewhere, would be a powerful incentive for Iran to make its nuclear program transparent. Washington should use New Delhi’s good offices to facilitate a rapprochement with Iran that focuses on mutually beneficial futures, not carrots and sticks....
Neil Padukone is a strategic affairs analyst and author of “Security in a Complex Era.” He is writing a book on the future of conflict in India....
The International Peace Institute , I.E. an American/Israeli intelligence operation wall to wall...., recently released the results of a telephone survey of Iranians..... [ Anytime you read the Words, Peace, Religious freedom, democracy, NED, USAID, CARE, CARITAS, Journalists without borders, HRW, etc..., and all the other NGOs..., you can be damn sure that they are fronts for Western Intelligence.... ]
According to the poll, Iranians are clearly split in a one third/two thirds ratio. The majority came out in favor of continuing the Islamic Revolution under President Ahmadinejad. On its part, the minority wishes to suspend financial support to Hamas and Hezbollah, hopes for closer ties with the United States, and backs opposition leader Moussavi.
The International Peace Institute is chaired by Terje Rød-Larsen, a Norwegian MOSSAD/CIA creep/politician who served as minister of administration in his country’s government before being forced to resign because of his implication in a tax and corruption scandal. At that point, he was fished out by the United States which had him appointed UN Special Envoy to Lebanon, a mandate which he used to obstruct Iranian influence....
====
Iran : Public Opinion on Foreign, Nuclear and Domestic Issues, a survey carried out by Charney Research on behalf of the International Peace Institute, 8 December 2010 (230 Ko).
....
The politics of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) for Iran is a serious matter because it can be used to drive these United States into a preventive war against Iran. Israel, the United States’ “strategic partner in the Middle East, seeks such a war. Pro-Israel propaganda advocating preventive war focuses on the threat of alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Such propaganda targets the general public as well as Congress and the White House. Will the White House, as in the case of the Iraq War, be complicit in promoting such propaganda?
Talk abounds this week inside the Beltway over the expected roll out of the newest Iran NIE. According to The Cable at the Foreign Policy Website, “The U.S. intelligence community has completed and is circulating a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear weapons program that walks back the conclusion of the 2007 NIE, which stated that Iran had halted work on its covert nuclear weapons program.”
It is well known that the Bush Administration applied all manner of pressure against the Intelligence Community (IC) so as to have politically sensitive estimates and assessments turn out in a manner acceptable to the administration’s foreign policy line. Such political manipulation of intelligence product is referred to as “politicization” the intelligence product to suit and/or influence consumers in the Executive Branch and in Congress. In colloquial terms it is “cooking” the product and the Neocon driven Bush administration developed such cuisine into a high art form to promote the Iraq War, for example.
The 2007 NIE blunted the Neocon driven Bush Administration’s Iran policy.
The politics here are simple: scare the hell out of the public and Congress. Why? Do it in order to create fear and loathing sufficient for legislation permitting the Executive branch to launch a war of choice under the guise of a war of necessity. Or to support Israel should Israel initiate hostilities.
Congress doesn’t “do” formal declarations of war anymore, just resolutions to “authorize” the President to use force. Congress does this so as to avoid responsibility for getting the country into a war as it can conveniently blame the President who then takes “full responsibility.” Those with memories will recall how Truman went behind the back of Congress to drag the US into the Korean War. This precedent was good in the Neocon mind, ardent Truman “Cold War Zionists” that they are.
Today, pro-Israel forces committed to facilitating a war against Iran want a “walk back” of the 2007 NIE because it is a political roadblock to war. That is, opponents of such a war argued that the 2007 NIE removed a potential reason for war: imminent weaponization of Iran’s nuclear program. Proponents of preventive war want IC judgments which can be used as political propaganda to justify the war.
Overall, for the pro-Israel crowd, this is an elaborate exercise in sophistry for political purposes. The best outcome for them is an NIE which plainly indicates imminent weaponization. If this is not possible there are two options: accept the language of the NIE but twist the interpretation of it to suit or reject the language of the NIE and substitute “expert” opinion, preferably from official Israeli sources.
As the Iran NIE kabuki play unfolds in Washington, some of the political actors should be monitored. The first to come to mind are, of course, the America Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. AIPAC tends to focus on Congress while the Council tends to focus directly on the White House. Both have websites and so are easy to track.
Then there are the so-called “think tanks” which feed what passes for analysis to Capitol Hill. Consumers there are: the bevy of twenty-something staffers who handle foreign policy issues for their members as personal staff or staffers on committees. Personal staffers are usually in their early 20s with a BA in something, such staffers “do” the Hill for a few years to build up the resume for law school or lucrative work in public relations/government relations, and the like. As they have no personal expertise or experience in foreign policy or national security affairs, these bright eyed and ambitious twenty-somethings are ardent consumers of the output of the aforementioned paper mills.
The legislative process runs something as follows. The staffers get their “analysis” from their contacts at the think tanks and lobbies. They then can work up floor statements (speeches) for their member to deliver on the Senate floor or in the other body. Developing a nice collection of pro-Israel floor statements helps when the time for campaign contributions come. Staffers can also dream up various pro-Israel “Dear Colleague” letters on to which members can sign thus further establishing their pro-Israel record.
Pro-Israel legislation in the form of resolutions can be drafted and members can be recruited to sign on as sponsors thus further establishing pro-Israel record. Such resolutions are not binding on the Executive Branch so are safe for members to sign on to. Restrictive clauses can be inserted into various key pieces of legislation or free standing bills can be drafted for sanctions or whatever. Such legislation is designed with a presidential waiver included as constitutionally the President has final authority over foreign policy. Should the President exercise the waiver, the politicians simply pass the blame to the Executive saying they themselves in Congress did the right thing.
Some key pro-Israel paper mills to watch in the coming “debate” over the Iran NIE include: Center for Security Policy (CSP); Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA); Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); Heritage Foundation; American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Also watch the hard-line Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) as it is active on The Hill and is closely linked to CSP. All these organizations contributed to the pro-Iraq War buzz back when (2002-2003, remember?). Not to be overlooked is the Fundamentalist Rev. John Hagee’s lobby organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI). All these have websites.
We will have to await developments inside the Beltway to further assess the Iran NIE. Those with technical expertise will comment extensively one way or the other after rollout but the politics of the process is paramount and quite often unrelated to reality. Of course, the changed situation in the Arab states fundamentally alters the regional context....
Do you remember the pathetic eagerness with which the Cheney/Bush/neocon/AIPAC/WINEP war criminals apparat embraced Qaddafi's Jamahiriya (rule of the masses, maybe?)? After having been held in contempt by the US government for decades as the lunatic that he is, Qaddafi (the howler, in Arabic) was welcomed home to Washington's favor because he finally understood and exploited Bush's sad desire to have an Arab leader "reform" and give up his nuclear weapons program. In fact, Libya never had a functioning nuclear weapons program. What it had was a warehouse or two full of parts and equipment with which to set up such a program, one that it never had the capacity to undertake in the real world.
Nevertheless, how sweet it was for the Bushies. The fact that Qaddafi remained the same homicidal tyrant who overthrew Idris long ago meant nothing to "policy" wonks obsessed with their desired future....
The American Government is totally bought. Lee Atwater and wedge politics so screwed democracy that DC politicians don’t give a damn what Americans think. The donors, Israeli PACs and big oil, control Middle East policy.
The correspondence here is clear that there are experts in business, government and academia that are well aware of the dilemma America faces. However, the corruption is so persuasive America cannot act in its own best interests.
The Tea Baggers are revolting against the federal government and politicians who could care less about them. But, they're just handmaidens for their wealthy handlers whose goal is to flush government down the toilet, crush unions and "tame" income taxes.....a la Reaganomics....
In the long term, I'm not sure what the US really needs in the Middle East, other that continued operation of the Suez Canal. Oil production is starting to slip, and with it will slip the power and leverage of the oil states. Oil is only an existential problem to the degree that we have refused to manage our power needs differently. If desired, this could be done within twenty years, and immediately reduce the importance of oil producers. So the US must bridge the next fifty years or so as economies inevitably transition to something besides oil as a primary energy source. Until then, the region remains a critical, short term problem.
The US has to remain cordial with oil producers to maintain the continued flow. And we have to provide some check on Israel's adventurism, which regularly threatens to destabilize that relationship. Much of our efforts with Israel seem to be propitiating it into behaving responsibly. Israel is undoubtedly aware off this, and manufactures occasions to be provocative, so that attention doesn't stray too far.
With the Arab street in convulsions from Morocco to Iran, Israel seems to be taking a second look at their position and behavior. It is sobering to be surrounded by firestorms. I think this pause will be short lived, and Israel will rather seek to capitalize on the disruptions to find ways to further destabilize and weaken arab governments, though it may set the stage for extremists to assume power later...., and we have seen that happen in 1979 in Iran.....
The Zionist lobby goes way back into US politics to the late 19th and early 20th century as explained in , "Dark Crusade" (London: IB Tauris, 2009).
Because the United States was so generous to our allies as to float World War I and World War II on our domestic oil reserves, we had to start looking around more seriously after WWII. This took us to the Middle East.
One can argue our oil industry has had to work around the power of the pro-Israel Lobby. Did our oil industry block Truman's fatally mistaken recognition of Israel in 1948? No. Did it prevent Israel and its buddies France and UK from attacking Suez in 1956? No. Did it block Israel's
1967 war of aggression? No. And so on.
If our oil industry had so much clout, then why are we not in Iran, where we should be? Why are we not in Syria, where we should be? Why were we not in Iraq earlier?
The US government, under pro-Israel political pressure, blocked our oil industry from many significant business opportunities.
The oil industry could not defeat the pro-Israel Neocon doctrine of "Dual Containment" of Iraq and Iran...
Thus, arguably, US policy actually helped foreign international oil companies, some publicly held and some state owned, to come into the picture where we should have been competing.
Tea Baggers seem split between the Ron Paul/Rand Paul libertarians, who are not necessarily pro-Israel, and the Michele Bachmann/Dick Armey etal. hardline pro-Israel types. Bachmann is a Christian Fundamentalist/Zionist. This significant split has received too little attention....but eventually BOTH sides will be controlled by the power behind the power in USA....
We can recall Stalin's ardent supporters among the Palmach thus offering opportunities for Soviet penetration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmach
Hubris, meet Nemesis....
"The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
No doubt "Elliott the assassin...Abrams" will be out any day now with another op-ed piece arguing that the revolt in Libya proves Shrub was right all along....
The old Soviet Pravda had nothing on these guys....
Libya is an oil exporter so expect that uncertainty to cause US and other international oil companies including NOCs {National Oil Companies] to exploit the situation. The final blow of high oil prices to the USA economy? And of course few domestic USA banks have come anywhere close to marking to market on their books real estate both residential and commercial and other problems. So with $15 Trillion invested through the back door by the FED and it still printing money and the government headed to a shut down on March 5th it will be sending loud and clear the message to the rest of the world that its last "superpower" is almost totally incompetent to handle its own affairs while continuing to tell other nation-states how to handle their affairs, internal and external. Hoping they are working on an anti-hubris vaccine hard at CDC for domestic consumption. Or that's right CDC will also be shut down....
Hence the desperate Gambits all over MENA....if not a New War III....
The Neocons' . . . legacy is forever dominated by the disastrous invasion of Iraq and the removal of the only serious obstacle to Iran. Everything else, I think, will pale in comparison to that galactic blunder -- especially as Iran plays its cards well toward regional dominance.
The idea of bringing democracy was considered by these fools to be an automatic result of Iraqis' anticipated orgasmic reaction to our years of sanction, followed by invasion and an occupation marked by geniuses such as the deep thinker who disarmed and unemployed the Iraqi army.
Only when the dreaded WMDs failed to materialize did nation-building become the primary focus.
Kagan seems to be managing his post-debacle career rather well, he seems to be regarded well in intellectual circles.
Krauthammer and Kristol are knee-jerk shills for Israel. If Israel dropped a nuclear bomb on American soil, both of them would try to rationalize it as the action of a solid and reliable ally.
Feith and Wolfowitz have subsequently earned their fool's bell-hats. Elliott Abrams is a convicted criminal who misled Congress, and was an active member of the Infamous White House Murder INC, with Dick Cheney..... Wolfowitz sank himself with a sex and patronage scandal at the World Bank worthy of reality television.
I don't consider Rumsfeld a neocon thinker, he's a slimy bureaucratic operator and a war criminal....
Just for the record, I think Iran is much more suitable for dominant player in the region than the Saudi degenerocracy. Iran educates its people, and is a much more modern state than the comical descendants of a Bedouin tribe appointed by the British to rule a jerry-rigged country....
Heilbrunn who? Kagan who? Wolfowitz who? Aren't they in jail??
or shouldn't they be in jail, the lot of them -- Kagan, Wolfowitz, Krauthammer, even Heilbrunn, whose agenda is only to keep his CV in circulation when billionaires like Soros and Saban are handing out think tank funding....
Iran is the biggest winner in this new world order. It's best to be realistic and try to establish better relations with the Islamic Republic before things get worse for the US. China, India, and brazil see the facts as they are and without doubt they will move to strengthen their ties with Iran.
The fools who say the contrary, have been saying this for 32 years now.
America's getting out of the Middle East will be as good for Arabs and Persians (and Turks) as getting out of Latin America was for Latin Americans. It won't hurt Americans either....
1. The turmoil in the Middle East has been going on since around 1917 and the breakup of the Ottoman empire; specifically, when Woodrow Wilson reneged on Point 12 of his 14 Points promise of self-determination to the regions in the Middle East that had been under Ottoman control.
2. Iran wrested its sovereignty from the West in 1950s; West grabbed it back in 1953; Iran reclaimed its sovereignty in 1979 -- IMPERFECTLY, but Iran belonged to Iran, was run by Iranians. Appalled at that outcome, US supported Iraq in 8 years of war on Iran, to punish Iran for its upstart attitudes. Iran survived that, bandaged its wounds, and has been working gradually and IMPERFECTLY toward a more equitable economic model and a hybrid Islamic-republican-shared power system. Is it corrupt, inefficient, overly-religious? Yup. Iran should really, really be a more perfect form of government -- more like the perfect model of the non-corrupt, every vote counts (at least once) US, or like the "only democracy in the ME, Israel." THAT's perfection, boy oh boy....
3. Now ask yourself this question:
What moves have the Arab states made toward self-determination and control of their own political process and resources in that same time period? What displays of courage, and of willingness to fight and die for their autonomy, have Arab states demonstrated in the past 50+ years?
4. If it has taken Iran over 50 years to its present point of imperfect Islamic republican autonomy and self-government, and if the US and Israel worked at every step of the way to put obstacles in its path, who do you think is closer to the goal of achieving the fantasy land of "democracy" and freedom and liberty and justice for all by next week, Iran, which has been working on it for over 50 years, or Saudi Arabia, whose foot is glued to the starting block?
Iran is half-way around the track. While Iranians are playing fusion on their iPhones, Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain are still looking through their stack of 45 rpms for that Carpenters song that was pukeworthy 40 years ago: "We've only just begun."
The problem is that politicians in Washington are obsessed with winning and they simply can't come to terms with reality. Continued confrontation with Iran, hurts the US more than it hurts Iran. The current administration's policy effectively means shooting the US in the foot...
Obama fans flames of animosity in Tehran
In his Persian new year outreach to Iranian youth, United States President Barack Obama fanned the flames of animosity with leaders in Tehran. The response of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, and that of students who found the Nawruz speech insulting political propaganda, shows that prospects for a short-term thaw, let alone detente, in US-Iran relations remain bleak.
- Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Mar 23, '11)
Not so Fast...Checkmate is a bit off for now....
The Director of National Intelligence James Clapper presented the Senate Armed Services Committee this week with a "revised" version of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate which knew originally that Iran had halted work on nuclear arms in 2003....
It is now confirmed that the original NIE was timed with a major Global chess game involving Energy Choke-points, trade routes and a fantastic Gamble to utterly contain China, which is unfolding in front of our eyes in 2011...-
US official language reflects the administration's policy turnabout in the new Paradigm Shift in EURASIA and Africa.... March 7, Washington announced that the USS Monterey guided missile cruiser, whose Aegis radar can monitor long- and short-range ballistic missiles and transmit the data to interceptor missile ground stations, would be deployed in the Mediterranean.... "The US has started implementing its plan to protect Europe from a non-existent potential nuclear threat...., unless you consider 200 Thermonuclear missiles in Israel...a threat to Europe...?."
All past references to the US nuclear shield for Europe referred to Iranian ballistic missiles – never an Israeli nuclear threat...., WHY...?
Our military sources note that one of the key ground stations to which the Monterey's radar is linked is the X-band forward radar station located in the Israeli Negev near the Egyptian border, which in turn is connected to Israel Arrow anti-missile missile batteries designed especially to shoot down Iranian and other ballistic missiles....
The closer the Iranian nuclear menace comes to reality, the further it recedes from Israeli political and media rhetoric. Obama's fundamental policy shift on the subject is bad news for Israel in general and at this time in particular, because his instigating the Arab Revolts is seen by Israeli and moderate Arab rulers as further evidence of a White House decision to strengthen Iran since 1979...., which profits hugely from their losses.
Shortly before the Monterey announcement, the Washington Times reported: An Annual intelligence report to Congress has dropped language stating that Iran's nuclear weapons are a future option. A U.S. official insisted there was no "sleight-of-hand" in the change but could not explain why the recent report was altered from two previous versions....LOL Disinformation as usual from DC....
IAEA Director Yukiya Amano was also quoted as describing new information on the military aspect of Iran's nuclear program in his latest report. An internal report from Feb. 25 stated that recent information disclosed "nuclear-related activities involving military-related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile" as continuing after 2004.
The two omissions in the original 2007 NIE report are that [US intelligence continues] "to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons through we do not know whether Tehran eventually decide to produce nuclear weapons" and: "Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons if a decision is made to do so."
Clearly, Tehran does not have the same trouble putting its plans into words as do those US intelligence Disinformation report writers, like Stratfor or others...... It is bent on developing a nuclear bomb, has completed the projects for its development and reserves the right to set the date for assembling the completed components into a weapon...., just like Israel, India, Pakistan or USA....
Wednesday, March 9, the chief US envoy Glyn Davies reported to the nuclear watchdog's board in Vienna that Iran may be continuing secret work on developing nuclear weapons.... In the course of an argument with the Iranian delegate Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Davies warned of "increasingly apparently military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program, including efforts by Iran to develop a nuclear warhead."
"Iran continues to act very much like a state with nothing to hide," he told the board....LOL since Iran had all along USA and Israel on its side since 1979....even while "Milking" the Arab moderates for decades for hundreds of Billions of USD in arms sales and other extortion rackets...which now seem to be coming to an end...in the Paradigm Shift from DC and Tel-Aviv....but for how long....? before hundreds of Tribes with Flags spring up all over Eurasia and Africa with dozens of simultaneous civil wars....and more arms sales....?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&feature=player_embedded&v=jUM8A-AUv0o
(e)SP_A0012_edited.jpg)
"We look forward to discussing Iran further with you in closed session, particular its nuclear posture. But suffice to say here, we see a disturbing confluence of events: An Iran that is increasingly rigid, autocratic, dependent on coercion to maintain control, and defiant towards the West, and an Iran that continues to advance its uranium-enrichment capabilities; along with what appears to be the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons if its leaders choose to do so."
http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20110210_testimony_hpsci_clapper.pdf
Translation... Our Intelligence sucks and we have no clue....and we are still desperately seeking a strategic dialogue with IRAN.....and a Strategic understanding in Eurasia......