This article has been posted to DoctorZin’s New News Blog!
Posted on 08/08/2004 1:20:34 PM PDT by SoloGlobalExplorer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- With Iran stepping up its nuclear program, a top White House aide said Sunday the world finally is ``worried and suspicious'' over the Iranians' intentions and is determined not to let Tehran produce a nuclear weapon.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice also said the Bush administration sees a new international willingness to act against Iran's nuclear program. She credited the changed attitude to the Americans' insistence that Iran's effort put the world in peril.
She would not say whether the United States would act alone to end the program if the administration could not win international support.
Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, announced a week ago that his country had resumed building nuclear centrifuges. He said Iran was retaliating for the West's failure to force the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to close its file on possible Iranian violations of nuclear nonproliferation rules.
Kharrazi said Iran was not resuming enrichment of uranium, which requires a centrifuge. But, he said, Iran had restarted manufacturing the device because Britain, Germany and France had not stopped the investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
``The United States was the first to say that Iran was a threat in this way, to try and convince the international community that Iran was trying, under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, to actually bring about a nuclear weapons program,'' Rice said on CNN's ``Late Edition.''
``I think we've finally now got the world community to a place, and the International Atomic Energy Agency to a place, that it is worried and suspicious of the Iranian activities,'' she said. ``Iran is facing for the first time real resistance to trying to take these steps.''
Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union address, included Iran with North Korea and Iraq in an ``axis of evil'' dedicated to developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
Since then, North Korea has publicly resumed its nuclear development program. In Iraq, invading U.S.-led forces have found no such programs after President Saddam Hussein was deposed.
Iran announced in June that it would resume its centrifuge program. Afterward, the U.S. official whose job is to slow the global atomic arms race, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, told Congress that Iran was jabbing ``a thumb in the eye of the international community.''
On NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' Rice reasserted that the world has fallen in line on Iran and said she expects next month to get a very strong statement from the IAEA ``that Iran will either be isolated, or it will submit to the will of the international community.''
She also said, ``We cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon. The international community has got to find a way to come together and to make certain that that does not happen.''
Thank God we have Rice and the rest of current administration running American foerign policy.
What's cookin'.... ?
Was Israel informed in advance... ?
As president, would you be willing to let Iran obtain an atom bomb before you took measures to disarm them or would you preempt their ability to acquire the technplogy before that happened?
Rice better start escalating the pre-war of words if the intel shows them close to a bomb...
Don't worry about it. Israel will take care of it if necessary.
Fantastic! After “worried and suspicious” comes “angry and determined”. A few years of that and the world community will be “convinced and resolved”. Resolutions will be passed! Inspectors will be dispatched at Iran’s convenience. The world community will be “frustrated and impatient”.
Then comes the question, is Bush or Kerry the CIC of the ONLY military capable of denting that of Iran?
If Bush, then the world community will be, “divided and embittered ” over our aggression to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. If Kerry, then the world community will be “resigned and concerned” over the next new member of the nuclear club.
Who says this election doesn’t matter.
We don't need to occupy Iran. A proxy war might work here. Spec Ops assisting internal armed resistance to the government may be enough to set off a popular revolution. If a popular revolution begins we could assist the rebels with air assets in necessary situations as well as providing a supply route through either Iraq or Afghanastan. We own the airspace around Iran. We own the dirt around Iran. We can do alot to alter the state of things in this country. We should be fostering agents in Iraq for infiltration into Iran. We should also be doing this in Afghanastan and developing ties with proxy groups who can do our bidding. There is no way the Mullahs could keep us from supplying and assisting insurgents inside the borders of Iran. We have the kurds in the north to boot.
I agree with your point. An occupation of Iran would be bloody and make Iraq look like a cakewalk. It would undermine the existing disaffections of many Iranian people and turn them on the west. I think as long as the adults are still in charge, they will be cognizant of the reality of an invasion of Iran and look for more ingenous ways of dealing with this. Worst case scenario, Israel will physically destroy their nuclear capability. Iran will not have a nuclear plan. I'm sure of this unless they already have the capability.
North Korea is a much more difficult nut to crack.
Yep, troll, I sure would volunteer for it, just as I voluntarily served from '69 to '72. What, other than panty-waist DU, have you ever volunteered for?
Now move along, son, this is no place for children.
This issue needs to be raised so Kerry has to take a position on it.
Yep.
Kerry will do for Iran what Clinton/Carter did for N. Korea.....help them into the nuclear club.
Depend on it.
We have to be sensitive to the feelings of the Iranians. After all they are humans.
FMCDH(BITS)
Q. As president, would you be willing to let Iran obtain an atom bomb before you took measures to disarm them or would you preempt their ability to acquire the technplogy before that happened?
Kerry. "As President I would rebuild our alliances and re-establish our respect in the world community so that we could work with other countries in the world to apply the kind of pressure on Iran that would presuade them to abandon their nuclear weapons program. One thing I learned in Vietnam is that war should be our last choice, not our first choice."
Rice 2008.
How about we call it "Iraqiranafghanastan" after all of the radical islamofacists are removed?
THERE'S NO NEED TO FEAR....UNDERDOG (IAF) IS HERE!
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