Iran has announced that it has been successful in enriching uranium, although President Ahmadinejad has been cautious enough to reiterate that the country’s nuclear program is for purposes of energy production only. No doubt this news will fuel the flames of suspicion in Washington.
From the New York Times: -
“The nuclear fuel cycle at the laboratory level has been completed, and uranium with the desired enrichment for nuclear power plants was achieved,” Mr. Ahmedinejad said in a speech that was broadcast live from the city of Mashad.
“Iran has joined the nuclear countries of the world,” he later added. “This is a starting point for more major points of success for the Iranian nation.”
The White House, which has charged that Iran is secretly attempting to develop fuel for nuclear weapons, reacted mildly to the announcement, saying the country was “moving in the wrong direction.” Outside experts said that while Iran appears to have passed a milestone – one it has approached before with smaller-scale enrichment of uranium – the announcement today was designed chiefly for political impact….
It always occurred to me that Iran was a greater threat than Iraq. I opposed military action against Iraq, chiefly because I did not buy the WMD rhetoric, and certainly not Blair’s bullshit 45-minute line. I also believed that Saddam was, in the main, a secular leader and could have been brought back on side to avoid the inevitable ethnic collapse we are now witnessing, this is not to suggest we should pander to dicatators, we shouldn’t, but we must ensure our justifications are just, and importantly, cogent.
Iran is different. They are a theocracy, and the religious leadership in Tehran are ideologically hostile towards the West. Iran is also far more dangerous a proposition than Saddam’s sanction-ridden state.
Britain and Europe must ramp up the diplomacy, and work to defuse the tensions between Tehran and Washington. America does not have the journalists, businessmen, and diplomats on the ground in Iran, unlike us Europeans. We know the Bush administration is looking for an excuse to attack, and this development will hardly placate them.
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True, Tyger. You are right there, but having or not having enriched uranium is not all, in my opinion the US is trying to defend the US$ value at all costs.
Iran, of course, is not Iraq, mainly because it is better prepared to resist and counterattack and because if attacked the Middle East cauldron will reach its boiling point and above.
Let alone the world situation. China, India and Russia would not pleasantly accept any attack. As to UN sanctions they will have no value at all. The UN has been decaffed by the Americans and the British after the Iraq invasion.
The Whitehouse is certainly nuts enough!