Iranian Alert -- October 9, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movment in Iran from being reported.

From jamming satellite broadcasts, to prohibiting news reporters from covering any demonstrations to shutting down all cell phones and even hiring foreign security to control the population, the regime is doing everything in its power to keep the popular movement from expressing its demand for an end of the regime.

These efforts by the regime, while successful in the short term, do not resolve the fundamental reasons why this regime is crumbling from within.

Iran is a country ready for a regime change. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary.

Please continue to join us here, post your news stories and comments to this thread.

US hawk warns Iran threat must be eliminated

Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday October 10, 2003
The Guardian

An American official warned yesterday that the potential threat posed by Iran's nuclear programme had to be "eliminated" and predicted Tehran would try to "throw sand" in the eyes of the world to avoid a confrontation at the UN.
John Bolton, deputy under secretary of state for arms control, who is regarded as the state department's chief hawk, was speaking to journalists in London where he reaffirmed the Bush administration's notion of "rogue states" which threatened US interests.

Top of the list were Iran and North Korea, he said. "There is awareness of the threat posed by Iran and consensus that threat has to be eliminated," he said referring to the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr.

Iran "will try and throw sand in our eyes" mixing cooperation and obfuscation "to conceal as much as they can, to delay and to avoid having the issue referred to the security council," said Mr Bolton.

The UN international atomic energy agency has given Iran until October 31 to prove it does not have a nuclear weapons programme. Mohammad Khatami, the Iranian president, said on Wednesday that Tehran would offer whatever cooperation was needed to show its nuclear programme was to produce electricity.

Mr Bolton yesterday questioned the need for Iran to produce nuclear power, given the size of its natural gas and oil reserves. He said the existing non-proliferation treaty needed to be strengthened to deal with Iran which, he speculated, could have a nuclear weapons capability "probably towards the end of the decade".

He said North Korea was being dealt with by multilateral talks conducted by China, and that Pakistan had denied trading in nuclear materials with North Korea. "We take them at their word," he said. Asked about Israel's nuclear weapons capability, he replied: "The issue for the US is what poses a threat to the US."

On Iraq, Mr Bolton said "the purpose of military action was to eliminate the regime ... The real security risk was the regime". He implied it was not weapons of mass destruction that was the issue but whose hands they were in.

Mr Bolton described the "level of cooperation" from Syria - which Washington accuses of manufacturing chemical weapons and harbouring terrorists - as "not satisfactory".

He did not specify what action the US might take against Iran and Syria beyond pointing out that the US already imposes sanctions against Iran and that Congress was poised to adopt a law applying them to Syria.

He said Libya, a country with which Britain is now developing closer ties, had "increased efforts to acquire biological, chemical, and nuclear, weapons".

Mr Bolton was in London for meetings on US plans to intercept ships and aircraft suspected of trafficking weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1060030,00.html

Unnamed sources, ranking diplomat.

If chances of NATO approval are "slim" then so is the chance of NATO relevance.

The french are still rude, effete and under the illusion they matter.

As for "unnamed sources in the State Department" and "ranking diplomats", both are persona non grata after Joe Wilson's partisan vendetta.

We can knock down Scuds and Silkworms and in the end that trumps le french pout.

Negotiations also dealt with the issue of signing a second protocol, which allows for surprise inspections of Iran's nuclear establishments

Rafsanjani announced the signing of the protocol under four conditions: no inspection of sovereign places; no entry of military sites which are not related to the nuclear programme; acknowledgment of Iran's right to own reactors for peaceful purposes; and no inspection of religious sites. There was another unannounced condition -- obtaining guarantees that Iran would not be subject to other procedures in case it signed the protocol.

The only acceptable protocol is surprise inspections anywhere without conditions.

Anything else is a search warrant which prevents searching the attic, the basement, the garage, the closets, under the beds, in the cabinets--in short, if it is on the coffee table our attorneys might not move to have it thrown out.

Rafsanjani could probably convince Peter Jennings, but not Condoleezza Rice.

How come Al-Hayat in Beirut does not know the facts:

1. They are writing Hassan Khomeini, but it should be his relative Hussein Khomeini. They have almost opposite political views.

2. They write "Iran has lost an important link with Iraq following the death of Mohamad Baqir Al Hakim, who was assassinated as soon as he started revealing his stances from the American occupation and the relation with Israel."
Actually it is the opposite: Hakim had important links to the Khatami group and the "reformers" and he was in favor of the US intervention. He was most probably assassinated as he was supporting a secular state and the resurrection of Najaf as a competing centre to Qom.

It is hard to believe that al-Hayat does not know this, but why are they writing as they do?

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