Teheran, 11am Monday morning after Israel is done with them
Posted on 03/04/2006 11:18:53 AM PST by West Coast Conservative
The United States will present a 30-day ultimatum to the UN Security Council this week, the Washington Post reported Saturday, calling on Iran to cease with its nuclear program.
It was reported however, that the US would not request further economic sanctions on Iran.
Iran and the European Union inched toward a compromise Friday that diplomats said would allow Tehran to run a scaled-down version of a uranium enrichment program with potential for misuse to develop atomic weapons.
The development was significant because the Europeans and the United States have for years opposed allowing Iran any kind of enrichment capability - a stance that Russia, China and other influential nations have embraced in recent months.
Top European officials - including the foreign ministers of France and Germany - publicly described talks Friday in Vienna as failing because of Tehran's refusal to reimpose a freeze on enrichment.
"Unfortunately we were not able to reach an agreement," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters. He said the EU continues to demand "full and complete suspension" of uranium enrichment and related activities that have fed fears that Iran may be pursuing nuclear arms.
Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the meeting ended, after just over two hours, "without achieving a result."
But diplomats familiar with the talks told The Associated Press that after months of deadlock, the two sides explored possible agreement by discussing plans that essentially would allow Iran small-scale enrichment after reimposing its freeze for an undefined period.
The compromise would serve Iran, the European Union and Russia by allowing all of them to say they had achieved their main goals.
Iran would be able to run a program it insists it has a right to under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if it is only on a research basis instead of the full-scale enrichment.
The Europeans, who since 2004 have negotiated for Iran to scrap enrichment, could tolerate small-scale enrichment if Iran first agrees to their key demand - a freeze to re-establish confidence.
Moscow could benefit diplomatically and economically if Iran accepts its plan to move its enrichment program to Russia - except for activities defined as research and development that all sides agree on under any compromise plan.
One of the diplomats - who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging the substance of the confidential discussion - said the impetus came from Moscow, which has taken the lead in talking to Iran since talks with the Europeans collapsed late last year.
He said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was to float the compromise plan in Washington on Monday and Tuesday to gauge American reaction.
Consensus on such a compromise by the Russians, Europeans and Iranians could leave the Americans with two unpalatable choices.
If Washington accepts the plan, it essentially leaves Iran in a position to develop technology that it could use to make fissile uranium for warheads.
If it refuses, it again could face diplomatic near-isolation on what to do about Iran after months of building the kind of international consensus that last month led the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board to put the UN Security Council on alert about Iran's suspect nuclear program.
By depriving the Iranians of domestic control of enrichment, the Russian plan - backed by most in the international community including the US and the Europeans - is meant to eliminate the danger that Tehran might misuse it to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
Small-scale enrichment under a compromise would deprive Iran of the chance to run the thousands of centrifuges needed to enrich in sufficient amounts to give them material for multiple weapons. But it would allow them to perfect the methodology, should they later decide to start industrial-scale enrichment.
Iran restarted some enrichment activities last month, two years after voluntarily freezing the program during talks with the Europeans. Those talks unraveled late last year.
A report last week by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei showed Iran testing centrifuges - machines that spin uranium gas into enriched uranium.
And just a few months down the road, "commencement of the installation of the first 3,000 ... (centrifuges) is planned for the fourth quarter of 2006," the report said.
Experts estimate that Iran already has enough black-market components in storage to build the 1,500 operating centrifuges it would need to make the 20 kilograms (45 pounds) of highly enriched uranium needed for one crude weapon.
Tehran insists it wants enrichment only to generate electricity and that it does not seek nuclear arms, but a growing number of nations share US fears that that is not the case.
While Russia backed alerting the Security Council to Iran, it remains reluctant to press for tough action against Tehran, an economic and strategic partner. Lavrov said Friday that permanent council members were not united on a course of action.
"There is no collectively discussed and agreed strategy of what we all will be doing in the Security Council if the issue is there," Lavrov told foreign reporters, hinting at his country's opposition to increasing pressure on Tehran.
The IAEA's board is to discuss the Iran issue at a meeting beginning Monday, including the ElBaradei report. The board notified the UN Security Council Feb. 4, after Iran refused to heed requests to maintain a suspension on enrichment.
There had been little hope the Vienna meeting would achieve a breakthrough. Both sides had made clear before that they would not move from their positions; the Europeans demanded Tehran freeze all enrichment activities and Iran insisted it would not.
A Russian nuclear agency official, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, confirmed the Moscow talks remained snagged over the same issue - Iran's refusal to freeze enrichment at home.
Still, Lavrov hinted at the chances of compromise detailed to the AP, saying Friday that a deal with Iran was still possible before the IAEA meeting.
"There always is an opportunity to reach an agreement," the Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying in Moscow.
In Vienna, ElBaradei said he was "hopeful" of a negotiated solution after meeting with Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, while the Iranian representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, described the talks with the Europeans as "fruitful."
That's because it is mostly viewed by Democrats these days.
Me too. That's Monday. Interesting week coming?
I heard March 21 (or 23)...
Personally I think it'll be June 6 (06/06/06)
30 days in UN time = never
He does not want to pass a nuke armed Iran to the next Admin.
Agreed. This is a serious issue that can't be left go until the next administration. Not only could they have a bomb by the time a new administration is in place, that new administration could be a bunch of idiots who want to look the other way like Clinton did with N. Korea.
Oh he did make that deal to say he did something, but then he allowed them to continue while the American public was enjoying the "peace" created by Clinton and Albright.
I don't mean to sound disagreeable or cynical, but hogwash!!!
We ain'ta gonna go nowhere goin through that lame liberal UN-American establishment created in San Franpsycho in the 1950's!!!
Furthermore, since we let the leftists and their lamestream media get away with the tired tirade that "there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction," they will NOT let the POTUS fulfill his responsiblitiy and invade Iran to remove that cancer from the world body!!!
Furthermore, the media have so demoralized our troops and their America loved ones that any invasion would end up like the USSR in Afghanistan and the USA in Vietnam, for certain!!!
As long as there are Americans that sit glued to their TV everyday, all day long on CNN, and believe me there are far too many of those... We are just plain screwed and tattooed!!!
As long as the Dems and their slaves in the lamestream media can whip up such a tempest in a teapot over the UAE who will do us no more harm than Kuwait or Qatar, the Dems and the mediots have this "lone superpower" hogtied!!!
As long as (some) CONgressional Repellicans get all freaked out at the sightest matter whipped up by Dems and their media slaves and undermine the POTUS with it... Iran doesn't have a danged thing to worry about! They can NUKE WITH IMPUNITY!!! (and that really pisses me off!!!)
Thirty days might be too late. In which case, presumably, Israel will do the dirty. I can't see the US letting that happen. We'll do it.
If the Democrats get back in charge...
Completely agree with every word you say.
I don't see any indication at all that our country has the will or desire to do anything at all meaningful about Iran. I hope I'm wrong, but sadly I don't think that I am.
The ONLY way I can see us doing anything to remove solve the Iranian problem is if one of our cities is reduced to a radioactive glow. Even then I imagine that any action taken would be met with extreme resistance from within. Again, I hope I'm wrong.
Can we at least choose the city? A couple come to mind.....
I don't see any chance that Bush will hand this Iranian nuclear crisis off to the next President. It's already cost us so much to surround Iran in Afghanistan and Iraq that Bush is going to finish the job and take out the brutal Iranian regime if necessary. Right now, it looks like the Iranian regime is deluding itself and military action will be required.
"This is your final warning. If you do not cease your nuclear enrichment activities immediately we will have no choice but to roll over on our backs, stick our arms and legs in the air, and surrender."
is this really possible?
Who knows for sure? But whatever we do, we must not spy on them to find out.
Why not? Israel has the right to defend itself. No one should tell them how to defend their own interests.
"We'll do it."
However, the USA also must act in its own interests and this may not be in our interests.
Why is the US mad at the UN Security Council?
The truth is that the Democrats became soft-headed and stupid about national security in response to Vietnam, and they're still delusional and stupid about national security. The idea of allowing crazy, two-bit terrorists like the Iranian regime to be nuclear-armed is pure insanity. Taking them out will not be easy, but allowing them to build nuclear weapons would be a catastrophe for the world.
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