Iran nuclear programme is 'military': France

Agence France Presse | February 16, 2006

[HAL9000]

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy branded Iran's nuclear programme for the first time Thursday as a "clandestine, military" project.

"It's very simple: no civilian nuclear programme can explain Iran's nuclear programme," he told France 2 television in an interview, two days after Tehran confirmed it was resuming sensitive uranium enrichment work.

"Therefore it's a clandestine military nuclear programme."

[coconutt2000]

France will say this until we go in and destroy the nuclear facilities, and then change their tune.

Like they did with Iraq.

[son of caesar]

Well, if France says it military, then it might just be a totally civilian program after all. Sarcasm perhaps. Let us not forget one reason France is against our Iraqi liberation is because she wants to maintain some illusion of having influence over the savages. I dont trust France. Shame on you if you do.

[advance_copy]

Here's the link:

Iran nuclear programme is 'military': France

Even France admits Ahmadinejad is lying about the "peaceful" nature of Iran's nuclear program... the veil is lifted for all to see.

[Cementjungle]

France will say this until we go in and destroy the nuclear facilities, and then change their tune.

Like they did with Iraq.

The Dems and the MSM seem to have that M.O. as well.

[globalheater]

trust is something you have in your wife and still theres stories where it turned out... but back to the topic.

France is much closer to the scene as the US. While they certainly are arrogant and treasonous frog eaters - they still have a deep interest in an environment free of nuclear explosions and in a working western business system - as we all have.

As you can read in my tag line there is usually no winner in a war - a war always costs money in a scale where you are talking of spending the working efforts of millions of people in weapons on top of the lives of mostly young fellow citizens.
These people don't add to your BIP anymore and the money spend on the sortie is now certainly not invested in the welfare of the people who worked for it. Short, war is only justified if your nations prosperity is largely at stake.

In the case of Iraq it was the immediate threat with wmd that saddam brought into position and was ready to fire to annihilate israel or q8. Or maybe it was the strong feeling that the whole situation in the middle east gets out of control and something has to be done to recover it.

Anyhow the main goal of a military mission can not be to conquer but is certainly to keep and recover the trust of the people living in this nation to form a friendly and open society.

Otherwise you are facing millions and billions of war mongering so called islamo facists instead of peaceful people that consume the products you are selling and not to forget invest in your country

-remember - the bad educated are always easier to misuse by propaganda -just give them the feeling that they are threatened. The good educated fall for propaganda just the same but only little later.

So in the Iraq conflict as an example it was just no problem to take out an air defense - certainly not for the US Forces - it was a tough job to win on the ground but was achieved fast and decisive because of the superiority of your soldiers and their equipment.

Now what is hard - is to restore peace afterwards. If we fail to do so - Al Qaida will have a recruiting pool of several million people and the consequence will be a prolonged and intensive military mission to suppress a growing number of conflicts.

Achmedinedjad knows that and his plan to confront the west and to provoke one more war and certainly several other following military missions - or else have nuclear weapons seems to work. Now we (including France) just don't have the alternative to stop him or he will nuke Israel for sure.

And I can't see how this can not be done without a military mission. Our goal - to life in a society that is free and prospering can not be realized by one nation alone - because our needs of today are satisfied by increasingly free global trade - so we need a more or less peaceful world in the end.

How can that be achieved without a major drama now ?

Iran is going to create a multitude of new conflicts even more costly and risky as the iraq mission - separating us even further from our goal.

[son of caesar]

If we use the body as an analogy to the world, then iran is a broken toe. When not paid proper attention, it festers and becomes a threat to the whole. You and I view the world quite differently. You focus on global trade. I do not. This Globalism is the snare into which the strong USA has been captured and is being prepared to be taken down a lot of notches. All human endeavors can be said to be war by other means when gun powder is not being expended. Trade is a good example. While it is great, it can also be a straitjacket. As to you tagline, with all due respect, the USA seemed to benefit beyond belief from ww2. That is my opinion.

[expatguy]

"Achmedinedjad knows that and his plan to confront the west and to provoke one more war and certainly several other following military missions - or else have nuclear weapons seems to work...[sic]"

This is not a crazy man, this is a man who knows exactly what he is doing. He has watched the conflict in Iraq with great interest and is confident that the United States has no resolve nor the resources to "invade" Iran.

Iranians feel that the best the United States can do is lob a few strikes against suspected nuclear sites and simply hope for the best. Such a scenerio would only play into his hands.

This never has to be a long war, we are the ones who making it a long one and hoping that it never escalates any further. We have the way and means to make this quick but we somehow we seem to dread doing the unthinkable.

Our biggest mistake will be failing to hold the Iranian citizens accountable for their own government - we continue to see them as helpless victims of a brutal regime despite the fact that Achmedinedjad and his government were in fact elected.

The day is getting closer - we're already seeing that where I am at with the children of Iranian businessmen and government officals leaving the country in droves.

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

[Caipirabob]

You know, it occurs to me that France may welcome a nuclear attack from Iran. After all, it'd probably take care of their little Militant Winemaker problem.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Smashhe the programme, France.

[Eye of Unk]

France currently has an old military ship they are trying to scrap but the breakup yards in India refused it because its loaded with asbestos, perhaps France could give it away to Iran? All they need to do is hide enough explosives in the bottom and let it detonate under their noses. LOL
Not a realistic proposal I know just a lame thought.

Well since one nation (France)has formally declared Iran a nuclear weapons capable empire I guess this means also its easier to condem them if they make any nuclear threats, plus NATO gets involved though I can't see them doing anything intelligent.
I do not want the US to be the policemen here and I really do not think we should contemplate sending any of our armed forces into Iran except to resbuild a democratic government.

Iran is too big to send troops into however Syria isn't and I do think we should seriously consider a regime change there as it will most like come to surface soon just how much involvement Syria has been secretly and still is.

Syria to me is the WMD and terrorist equal of a Swiss bank, eveything is stored there under secrecy, its time to play a bit of Kelly's Heroes I think.

We may have to erase some areas of Iran to send a message to the people, destroy the will to wage jihad, show them a Hiroshima/Nagasaki scenario, no more sending PC constrained troops, its too time and cost prohibitive and THAT is hurting us, its time to finish things quicker.

[bill1952]

The United States is one of the few countries that historically has benefited by warfare.

Our civil war, often said to be the first "modern war" by historians, was the boot that propelled the American economy into international prominence.

Warfare has not damaged the American economy one whit, and to infer that " the bad educated are always easier to misuse by propaganda -just give them the feeling that they are threatened" is disingenuous.

We are threatened. Everything about the West is threatened. Our culture, our society, and our countries.

If America actually had the dynamics and felt the way that globalheater wrote ,we certainly would never have intervened in WW1 or WW11.

Those hundreds of thousands of men who died, did so because of a very strong belief and value system.
One that had nothing to do with European ideas about global trade.

And to infer they they were less intelligent or educated than most is an insult. They were more so.

They did it because it was right, not to secure some Clausewitzian advantage in a new world order.

RIP.

[livius]

"When we refer to the long war, that is the war against terrorist extremists and the ideology that feeds it, and that is something that we do see going on for decades."

There was a long post yesterday about some plan or analysis done by US defense specialists, declaring that the war against "Islamic radicals" would be like the 30 Years War or something similar - a protracted event of many confrontations in various parts of the world.

However, I thought there were two weaknesses in this:

First, it assumes that we are controlling the time-line. We are not; the Muslims have attacked and are controlling the time and place of the confrontations.

Second, we are dealing with two things not involved in the 30 Years War: Islam and weapons that can wipe out the whole world.

For their references to Islam, the analysts looked at the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s and concluded that it was a response to Western interference in the ME and the feelings of "powerlessness" of the Muslims.

What they did not do was look at the 1400 years of Muslim history before that and see that Islam has always been violent and aggressive, and its desire for conquest has always flared up again whenever it feels strong enough to try it. Islam had been weakened; paradoxically, the fact that the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood had gotten Western educations (British, for the most part) and learned about modern technology and organizational techniques was the thing that enabled Islamic dreams of conquest to revive, and we are still seeing that now, where the Muslims take Western technology and do nothing but use it for destructive purposes.

In short, I think we're analyzing this from an inaccurate model, and I agree with you that Iran has predicted our response - long, slow and tentative, unwilling to injure "innocents," etc. - and is acting accordingly. And they control the time-line, because they know that we will not act first.

[livius]

Interestingly, I read in the WSJ on Monday that one of the problems in the pacification of Iraq is that Iran has extended its influence throughout the country, both by investing heavily in it and winning popularity through establishing non-profit health clinics, etc. and getting positive support from local mullahs. The common wisdom was that Iraqi Shiites hated Iranian Shiites and the two groups would not work together, but this does not seem to be the case.

[globalheater]

you are not saying that propaganda doesn't work - and to say that it does was an insult to american sodiers - are you ?

[Toadman]

This is not a crazy man, this is a man who knows exactly what he is doing

I agree with you but personally I feel he's more concerned about keeping himself and the old hardliners in power.

Young Iranians don't like him or his regime, so he's following the old strategem of diverting peoples attention by creating a national crisis.

Iranians are proud of their heritage. While they may despise their government, they'll feircely defend their nation, and any moderate feelings they may have towards the US or the West in general will be gone if Iran is attacked. So this creates a dilema.

Iran's government cannot posses nuclear weapons. Period. No one should be surprised by what Hitler did because he stated his attentions from the get go (ala Mein Kamph). Iran's government advocates genocide and has a vision of a future Pan Islamic Middle East and Europe. They will do whatever required to aquire nuclear weapons no matter what sacrifice.

It's only my opinion, but I believe the only way to disuade Iran is through through a twist on the Cold War stragety. Only, instead of MAD, it would be AD (assured destruction). Simply stated: Iran be warned that as soon as evidence (based on our criteria) of nuclear weapons grade material is suspected of being in their possession, the United States will launch a full scale, nuclear attack on Iran. I mean turn Iran into a glass parking lot that will be uninhabitable for a 1000 years.

Use diplomacy for the rest. If they want "peaceful" nuclear power. Sure, go ahead, it will need 100% openess however.

[Toadman]

derrr... intentions (not attentions - sp check)

[Bender2]

[tonycavanagh]

re ;The United States is one of the few countries that historically has benefited by warfare.

If you look at the immediate aftermath of the Second World War America benefited by default as whole swathes of Europe had been bombed almost back into the stone age and America was the only real global power left.

But was this a a good thing as in many regions South east Asia and the Middle East America found her self's embroiled in many what were colonial struggles as Europe realized she had neither the money or resources to hold onto her colonies persuaded the Americans to do so under the guise of Anti Communism.

America would of realized her global position even without the Second World War and may not of found her self embroiled in so many trouble spots first as the foremost anti Communist and today as the worlds Police man.

A legacy that is going to continue far into the future as she continues to dael with Iraq and Afghanistan as well as take on the threat in Syria, Iran North Africa, The Caucasus, Central Asia and South East Asia (Pentagon Review).

As I see it the benefits from the Second World war look very much like a poison chalice

[libertylover]

You make some interesting points to be commented upon:

All human endeavors can be said to be war by other means when gun powder is not being expended. Trade is a good example.

I don't agree with this conclusion at all. Trade is usually a win-win situation. Not always, but usually. The USA doesn't trade with Canada in an attempt to destroy Canada. It trades with Canada because Canada has something beneficial to offer the USA.

...the USA seemed to benefit beyond belief from ww2

Of course the USA benefitted from WWII! We very much wanted to have Europe as a trading partner and an Asia with the sea lanes held hostage to the Japanese was unacceptable. But we shouldn't ignore the nobility of what the USA did in WWII either. There's hardly a group of people on the planet who didn't benefit from the actions of the USA in the 20th Century.