Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘iran’

The IAEA is worried that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons:

The U.N. nuclear agency on Thursday expressed concern for the first time that Iran may currently be working on ways to turn enriched uranium into a nuclear warhead, instead of having stopped several years ago.

Its report appears to contradict an assessment by Washington that Tehran suspended such activities in 2003. It appears to jibe with the concerns of several U.S. allies that Iran may never have suspended such work.

Really now? What tipped them off? Ahmadinejad has been playing nuclear chicken with the United Nations for years. What exactly caused the U.N. to wake up today and tentatively acknowledge blazingly obvious reality, instead of continuing to close its eyes as it has been all along? Why now?

That’s the big question, after all. For the United Nations to even make such a statement, there has to have been a sea change somewhere else behind the scenes that triggered it. If China or Russia is prepared to put more pressure on Iran, this could be indicative of a change in the game, even if the U.N.’s statements are, in and of themselves, essentially worthless. The world will be watching closely, that’s for certain.

An Iranian nuclear physics professor who backed the opposition has been assassinated:

A nuclear physics professor who publicly backed Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in the disputed June presidential election was killed Tuesday when a remote-controlled bomb rigged to a motorcycle blew up outside his home.

State media identified the victim as Masoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, a professor at Tehran University, which has been at the center of recent protests by student opposition supporters. Before the election, pro-reform Web sites published Ali Mohammadi’s name among a list of 240 Tehran University teachers who supported Mousavi.

And of course, despite the public call for the assassination of opposition voices by the Iranian leadership, three guesses who they’re blaming for this one. Don’t need three? Got it in one? Yeah, I thought so:

The government blamed the rare assassination on an armed Iranian opposition group that it said operated under the direction of Israel and the U.S.

Cause, like, sure, that makes sense. Then again, when has logic ever been a factor in cases like these?

The death of opposition cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri has sparked more protests - which never really died down, despite strong-arm efforts from Ahmedinijad to stamp out dissent:

Montazeri’s death pushed Iranian authorities into a difficult spot. They were obliged to pay respects to one of the patriarchs of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the one-time heir apparent to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

But officials also worried that Montazeri’s memorials could become new rallying points for opposition demonstrations. The ayatollah broke with Iran’s clerical leadership and became a vehement critic, denouncing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and calling the postelection crackdown the work of a dictatorship.

Mourners shouted “Death to the Dictator” and other slogans in displays of anger against Iran’s ruling establishment during the procession in Qom, a city of shrines and clerical seminaries about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Tehran, witnesses said.

The Iranian election and subsequent protests were named the top Twitter news event of 2009, with #iranelection the top trending news hashtag.

The utterly useless, impotent United Nations sent its version of a “we’re warning you, or else…” message to Iran regarding its nuclear program:

The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s board censured Iran on Friday, with 25 nations backing a resolution demanding that Tehran immediately freeze construction of its newly revealed nuclear facility and heed Security Council resolutions to stop uranium enrichment.

The trouble is, there’s no backup to the “or else”. And Iran knows it, too:

Iran remained defiant, with its chief representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency declaring that his country would resist “pressure, resolutions, sanction(s) and threat of military attack.”

Delegate Ali Asghar Soltanieh of Iran shrugged off the vote.

“Neither resolutions of the board of governors nor those of the United Nations Security Council … neither sanctions nor the threat of military attacks can interrupt peaceful nuclear activities in Iran, even a second,” he told the closed-door meeting, in remarks made available to reporters.

Iran can taunt the world and continue to develop nuclear weapons with impunity, in flat defiance of the Security Council or anyone else, because it knows full well that the UN can’t and won’t back up its threats with anything concrete. There’s no action that they can take. They can’t go to war or invade Iran. They can’t attack its nuclear facilities. They can’t even impose sanctions, which would risk alienating the strengthening resistence movement within Iran.

By the time anyone figures out a course of action on Iran, it will likely be too late. If it isn’t already.

Iran continues to play nuclear weapons chicken with a world community that’s basically out of options. But, according to Barack Obama, there’s a silver lining to the world’s powerlessness to stop Iran from going nuclear: At least the world is united in its powerlessness:

Obama added: “Our expectation is that over the next several weeks, we will be developing a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran. . . . I continue to hold out the prospect that they may decide to walk through this door. I hope they do. But what I am pleased about is the extraordinary international unity that we have seen.”

Well, that’s nice. Even if it’s nowhere near accurate.

So apparently, Hillary Clinton is not okay with a nuclear North Korea… but she doesn’t seem to have a problem with a nuclear Iran.

Better hope that umbrella is big enough to protect you from the ensuing shitstorm, Hillary.

Shimon Peres’s attempt to put a positive spin on the global economic crisis:

“The leaders of Iran cannot give their children uranium for breakfast,” Peres said, adding that the world financial crisis would hamper Iran’s progress toward nuclear capability. “As the price of oil declines, Iran doesn’t have as much money to invest in uranium, missiles and terrorism,” he said.

Erm. Not sure about the logic of that one, Shimon. Worsening economic conditions usually breeds more hatred and a need for scapegoating, just as peace usually requires prosperity to achieve. But hey, way to keep up that optimism.

This one’s a real doozy: EU worried about freedom of religion in Iran.

Every joke I could make here would be just too easy, so I’ll let it speak for itself.

Another day at the U.N., another toothless move to try to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions:

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose new sanctions on Iran for its nuclear ambitions by targeting Tehran’s arms exports, state-owned bank and elite Revolutionary Guards.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki immediately rejected the council’s demand to suspend uranium enrichment, which can be used for making bombs and to general electricity. He maintained Iran’s program was for peaceful purposes.

It’s almost like watching paint dry, seeing the predictable moves play out. This is a game the U.N. has no desire to play, and Ahmadinejad knows it full well. He’s already concluded that there is nothing the world can do to stop him from going nuclear, and that by pressing the U.N.’s buttons like this, he’s only exposing its weaknesses further.

And with the United States tied up in Iraq, Israel facing an existential threat if it attempts to thwart Iran, and the rest of the world casually indifferent, the outcome of this game has been determined months ago. And even the best-case endgame scenario here is pretty damn frightening.

The Eurovision song competition is the latest to jump on the anti-Israel bandwagon, threatening to ban this year’s Israeli entry for having an “inappropriate political message”:

Eurovision Song Contest organizers said Thursday they might ban this year’s Israeli entry, “Push the Button,” because they say it has an inappropriate political message.

The song, to be performed at the contest in Helsinki in May, overwhelmingly won Israel’s competition Wednesday. It’s sung in English, French and Hebrew by the group Teapacks and seemingly refers indirectly to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its hard-line leader, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“It’s absolutely clear that this kind of message is not appropriate for the competition,” said Kjell Ekholm, an organizer of the contest. “We’ll have all the delegation leaders here in Helsinki next week, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this case within the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) group.”

The song warns about the dangers of nuclear war, but in an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, band members denied that the song is about Iran, calling that “absurd.”

The lyrics of the song refer to “demonic” and “crazy rulers,” and say that “he’s gonna blow us up to … kingdom come.”

Ahmadinejad’s recent anti-Jewish statements have added to fears in Israel that Iran’s nuclear program is intended to produce weapons that could be used against that country.

And apparently the contest organizers support Iran’s ambitions to wipe Israel off the map enough to believe that any song that protests against it – or against nuclear war in general – is “not appropriate”.

Hear that? It’s Israel Double Standard Time, still ticking away.