March 06, 2005

Iran warns: We won't end nuke program

Iran said Saturday it will never agree to permanently stop making nuclear fuel and warned that any attempt to haul it before the Security Council for possible sanctions would lead to more instability in the Middle East.

Any effort by Washington to bring Tehran's suspended uranium enrichment program under Security Council scrutiny is a dangerous path, warned Hasan Rowhani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator.

Rowhani, speaking at a two-day conference on nuclear technology, also confirmed that Iran was building a tunnel next to a nuclear facility in Isfahan without informing the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.
[...]
A diplomat familiar with Iran's dossier said last week that parts of the concrete tunnel could run as deep as a half-mile underground and could withstand air attacks.
[The jihadis, driving for an Arab Bomb, learned their lesson when the Israelis bombed Saddam's Osirak reactor in 1981.
They won't be making that mistake again by leaving their nuke facilities out in the open.--J.T.]
[...]
Rowhani said the tunnel, which is under a mountain, will be used for storage. Asked if the tunnel was meant to protect nuclear equipment against air strikes, he said: ''Air strikes won't be able to do anything against it.''
[These Islamofacists are such cagy liars!
Notice how he answers the question but doesn't answer it at the same time.]

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday had asked the atomic agency to investigate reports about the tunnel. She won tentative support Saturday from Russia's Foreign Ministry, which said the nuclear agency should clear up concerns ''in the process of routine IAEA monitoring activity.''

Iran will halt negotiations and resume making nuclear fuel ''without any hesitation,'' Rowhani said, if European negotiators insist Iran turn its temporary suspension into a permanent halt.
[Not to worry.
I don't think the moo-lahs have halted their nuclear activities for a moment anyway.]

Iran suspended uranium enrichment last year
[Uh-huh.]
to create confidence in its negotiations and avoid Security Council referral. But Tehran says maintaining the voluntary freeze depends on progress in talks with Britain, Germany and France.
[And I suppose that the Iranian idea of "progress" is for the E3 to leave them alone, take their word for it they're abiding by the NPT, and letting them do what they want, when they want.]

Rowhani said referring Iran to the Security Council would only make things worse.

"Americans and Europeans will be the first to lose in that case,'' he said. ''It will cause problems for regional energy and for the European economy. And it will cause additional problems for America.

"No one will benefit from this. It's playing with fire.''

So, what does Mr. Rowhani mean by all these veiled threats exactly?
I guess we're not supposed to ask;
a nod's as good as a wink to a blind man, eh?
Iran, as a voluntary signatory to the NPT, doesn't have the luxury of non-compliance with any of the requests that the E3, the IAEA or the UNSC make on them about their nuclear program.
Yet, they use this very same program for nuclear blackmail--which is precisely why we don't want rogue régimes to have access to nukes in the first place.
The E3 must press on and when those negotiations fail, which Rowhani virtually promises they will, then the IAEA (under the leadership of fellow Muslim ElBaradei) must continue their inspections and when, if ever, this goes to the U.N. Security Council, they need to come down hard on bellicose Iran.
(But they won't. I believe that Mohammed ElBaradei, the E3 and the weenies on the UNSC will all be completely intimidated by these threats, as they are supposed to be.)
After what we went through with Saddam in 2001-2003, I dread this process.
It's like Groundhog Day and worse!
The Iranians have been stalling for some time now with these negotiation "failures" until they could get their nukes operational.
Then, when they're pressed by the West, they'll nuke something with the missiles they swore they didn't have and then say that we were to blame.
Very, very devious and very evil.
And, of course, Iran is feeling very threatened right now what with Freedom being on the march in the Middle East and their operations in Syria and Lebanon (in the guise of Hezbollah) being taken out thereby, as well as the tyrannical régime of the clerics in Iran itself.
If the Lebanese are liberated by the withdrawal of all of Syria's forces, then Assad's régime in Syria will fall not long after.
In fact, if democracy does continue its happy march through the Middle East and these things are accomplished, that will leave only Iran and Saudi Arabia as the only Islamist thugocracies in the region.
Happy Day!
The mullahs are plenty scared or they wouldn't be doing this U-235 saber-rattling right now.
But just because they're desperate doesn't mean they can't hurt someone with their nukes or that they won't try.
Nail-biting and prayer time again.
Thank God President Bush isn't going to use a "global test" to decide if he should act and that all options, including military strikes, are "on the table."