UPDATE
Honza from Pros and Cons noticed in the comment section that it appears the Iranians have put a peace sign in the middle of the turnabout:
Done on purpose?? Who knows.? But mighty funny.
END UPDATE
And the world moves closer:
Iran has secretly extended the uranium enrichment plant at the centre of the international controversy over its resumption of banned nuclear research earlier this month, satellite imagery has revealed.
Seven buildings have been erected around the concealed centrifuges which Western governments fear will be used to manufacture weapons-grade uranium at the Natanz site, 200 miles south of Teheran.
The discovery has heightened fears that Iran is stepping up the pace of its suspected weapons programme, in breach of international agreements, since it removed International Atomic Energy Authority seals on nuclear equipment at the site 10 days ago.
Western intelligence agencies are focusing on alarming similarities in satellite imagery of Iran’s nuclear sites, which the regime claims are for civilian purposes, and atomic facilities in Pakistan used to make the raw materials for nuclear weapons, as they try to identify the purpose of the Natanz construction spree.
The building work took place unannounced during a 16-month pause in research and development at the site, while Iran engaged the West in protracted talks over its professed desire to develop nuclear power. The existence of the Natanz site was kept secret until it was exposed by an Iranian opposition group in 2002. Iran started to move funds out of the European banks on Friday to avoid possible financial sanctions after its scientists resumed work. The showdown has contributed to soaring world oil prices and a slump on Wall Street stock markets.
The Sunday Telegraph has seen recent United States intelligence analysis of satellite photographs of nuclear sites in Iran and Pakistan that strengthens fears that the Islamic regime is secretly developing atomic weapons under the guise of a supposedly peaceful power programme. “Iran’s facilities are scaled exactly like another state’s facilities that were designed to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons,” the US report concluded, using the phrase “another state” to refer to Pakistan for diplomatic reasons.
Isreal once again has stated they will not allow this to happen and I can’t believe Bush will either:
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned that Israel will not tolerate a “nuclear option” for Iran, while reaffirming his commitment to diplomacy in the nuclear standoff.
“We are giving priority at this stage to diplomatic action… but in any case we cannot tolerate a nuclear option for Iran and we must prepare ourselves,” Mofaz said at a symposium in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.
“We must develop the option of our defense with all that implies,” Mofaz said without providing further details.
“We must treat the (Iranian) threat responsibly and with utmost seriousness,” Mofaz said, renewing accusations that Tehran was supporting “terrorism” by funding militant groups.
“Iran gives (Lebanese Shiite group) Hezbollah 100 million dollars per year, and part of this money goes to Palestinian terrorist groups,” he said.
“In addition, Iran is the primary source of money for Islamic Jihad which committed the majority of suicide attacks against Israel last year.”
The defense minister’s remarks came after interim prime minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel would not let anyone who threatened its existence obtain weapons of mass destruction.
“Israel cannot allow in any way or at any stage someone who has such hostile intentions against us to obtain weapons that could threaten our existence, ” Olmert said in talks with President Moshe Katsav.
Israel has come to view the Islamic republic in Tehran as its number one enemy and its fears were heightened when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in October called for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the map.”
And with this loon running Iran it’s no wonder Israel is worried, rightfully so:
In a new attack on the existence of Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has challenged Europe to take back the Jews who emigrated to Israel, adding that no Jews would remain in Israel if Europe were to open its doors.
Ahmadinejad delivered the challenge after arriving in Syria for a two-day visit on Thursday. Addressing Europe, he asked: “Would you open the doors of your own countries to these (Jewish) immigrants so that they could travel to any part of Europe they chose?”
[…]He said Europe should welcome Jewish people to prove its sincerity in supporting people’s freedoms.
He added he was confident that no Jews would remain in Israel if European countries allowed them to immigrate.
I like how he makes this statement while in another terrorist regime, Syria. How fitting.
How long is it going to take the world to realize this country is fast becoming one of the most dangerous threats we have seen in a long time? Imagine Hitler with the bomb. This is what the world faces. We are facing a country with a plan, a country that want’s one thing…the destruction of Israel.
He has studied the recent Western postmodern mind, nursed on its holy trinity of multiculturalism, moral equivalence and relativism. As a third-world populist, Ahmadinejad expects that his own fascism will escape scrutiny if he just recites enough the past sins of the West. He also understands victimology. So he also knows that to destroy the Israelis, he–not they–must become the victim, and the Europeans the ones who forced his hand. Ahmadinejad also grasps that there are millions of highly educated but cynical Westerners who see nothing much exceptional about their own culture. So if democratic America has nuclear weapons, why not theocratic Iran? Moreover, he knows how Western relativism works. So who is to say what are “facts” or what is “true”–given the tendency of the powerful to “construct” their own narratives and call the result “history.” Was not the Holocaust exaggerated, or perhaps even fabricated, as mere jails became “death camps” through a trick of language to take over Palestinian land?
We laugh at all this as absurd. We should not.
Money, oil and threats have brought the Iranian theocrats to the very threshold of a nuclear arsenal. Their uncanny diagnosis of Western malaise has now convinced them that they can carefully fabricate a Holocaust-free reality in which Muslims are the victims and Jews the aggressors deserving of punishment. And thus Ahmadinejad’s righteously aggrieved (and nuclear) Iran can, after “hundreds of years of war,” finally set things right in the Middle East.
And then a world that wishes to continue to make money and drive cars in peace won’t much care how this divinely appointed holy man finally finishes a bothersome “war of destiny.”
Victor Davis Hanson
And that is what worries me, the malaise of the west. We cannot just wish this away, and we cannot allow this threat to grow as the world did in the late 30’s. But if the UN is any indication, the threat from Iran will continue to grow without any interference from the rest of the world:
The head of the United Nations? nuclear monitor has rejected an EU request to condemn Iran?s nuclear program.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was urged to issue a condemnation of the Iranian situation before his agency meets in special session next month.
But, ElBaradei, though frustrated by Iran?s resumption of nuclear research and a slowdown in Iranian cooperation with his inspectors, has given Tehran until the end of next month to give his inspectors improved access to documents and sites.
Jesus, come on man. You guys gave Iraq 12 years, how long do you think it will take Iran to get this bomb?
So while the UN talks and talks and talks some more, France has all of a sudden begun to pretend like they are not really cowards:
President Jacques Chirac has dropped a political bombshell by threatening to retaliate with nuclear strikes against any state found to be responsible for a large-scale terrorist attack on France.
In the biggest shift in French nuclear doctrine for 40 years, M. Chirac revealed that the force de frappe – the French nuclear deterrent – had already been reconfigured to allow it to destroy the “power centres” of any state which sponsored a terrorist assault.
He also raised once again an idea that he first floated in 1995 that the British and French nuclear deterrents should be rededicated to the defence of the entire European Union. In future, he said, France should regard its allies and its sources of strategic supplies – in other words oil – as covered by its nuclear umbrella.
The President insisted that fundamental French nuclear policy would remain unchanged. There would be no battlefield use of nuclear weapons and no “first strike”. Nonetheless, his speech yesterday at France’s main nuclear submarine base, at Ile Longue, near Brest, in Brittany, took French defence policy into uncharted waters.
He appeared to imply that any large-scale, state-sponsored terrorist attack on France – whether or not it used weapons of mass destruction – would invite a closely targeted nuclear response from France.”The leaders of states who use terrorist methods against us, as well as those who consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would expose themselves to a firm and appropriate response on our part,” President Chirac said.
Interesting how he would first let a million of his own countrymen die, since he stated he would not act to PREVENT an attack, he would just respond to one. Mighty tough of him.
Of course Iran got a bit pissed. I guess they figured he was talking about them, I mean who in the world would consider Iran a threat?
Teheran – Iran on Saturday termed as ‘unacceptable’ remarks made by French President Jacques Chirac on France’s right to use nuclear weapons against countries that carried out a terrorist attack against it.
‘The French president has increased ambiguities and fears by the world public opinion towards all world states possessing nuclear weapons,’ foreign ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi was quoted as saying by news agency ISNA.
The remarks made by Chirac on Thursday, in an outline of France’s expanded nuclear strategy, were widely regarded as an indirect warning against Iran and its ambitions to expand its nuclear programmes.
‘The bitter experience of use of nuclear weapons in the second World War has been so catastrophic that it could neither be acceptable nor justifiable to repeat even the probability of its use,’ the spokesman said in a first reaction to Chirac’s comments.
Will the world stand up and take notice soon? Or will they talk themselves to death ala Iraq.
What Other’s Are Saying:
Ahmadinejad’s busy cavorting with the terrorist supporters in Syria and plotting their proxy war against Israel. It’s a well established fact that Syria and Iran are supporting the various terrorist groups, especially Hamas and Hizbullah. Syria and Iran share some common interests – namely the survival of dictatorships that are anti-American and anti-Israel and whose goals include obtaining and using WMD. That, and using the Palestinians as their disposable army. And for their part, the Palestinians are more than happy to comply with the deadly arrangement.
The liberals in this country are so seized with Bush Derangement Syndrome they could easily rationalize against confronting Iran. It will begin with explaining how Israel brought this on themselves. This of course will ignore all the attacks on that country, and the despicable acts of targeting innocent people, especially children. Others could begin to support the Iranian position and claim they are the victims, even though their country is rich and their people educated. Then will come the final rationalization: denial of the holocaust itself.
I think most in the world are content to sit back and think, “what an entertaining madman,” but I’ll never forget that people thought the same of Hitler, and Hitler proved both mad and sane enough to back up his rantings. Ahmadinejad is forging alliances (Syria, Venezuela), amassing weapons (nuclear bomb anyone), and rousing his masses (think Nuremberg), and the world, as in 1933, 1934, 1935…1938, 1939 is just watching and twittering about this crazy guy ranting about Jews.
Let me put this as delicately as I can: when the EU is being rebuked as the hardliners in their attempts to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear armed, the world is about to be royally ass fucked by a big, cold, radioactive warhead.
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Is that a peace sign in that roundabout? What cheek! It almost makes me think someone there has a sense of humour!!
Ok, it didn’t show my link.
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20060119-075725-6399r