Will The UN Listen This Time?

I guess thanks are in order to Hassan Rowhani, former secretary of the Supreme Council on National Security (SCNS), for telling the world that the United States was right once again:

In a speech to a closed meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rowhani, who headed talks with the so-called EU3 until last year, revealed how Teheran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear programme was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002.

He boasted that while talks were taking place in Teheran, Iran was able to complete the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake – a key stage in the nuclear fuel process – at its Isfahan plant but at the same time convince European diplomats that nothing was afoot.

“From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, ‘The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything.’ The Europeans used to respond, ‘We trust them’,” he said.

What makes this admission even more damning is that the speaker used to be a part of the Council that wields quite a bit of power in Iran:(via All Things Beautiful)

This forum discusses, calculates, and formulates [Irans’] responses to threats to national security.

On paper, Iran has a coherent structure for security decisionmaking. The President exercises considerable day-to-day authority, and he controls budget planning, which is essential for incorporating military priorities into overall grand strategy. […]

Today, the SCNS, chaired by the President [thug-in-chief Ahmadinejad], is the key national defense and security assessment body. Representatives of the Artesh [stands for Islamic Republic of Iran Regular Forces], the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps], other security agencies, and the Faqih sit on the council. This forum discusses, calculates, and formulates responses to threats to national security. […]

The [Islamic Republic of Iran Regular Forces] Artesh?s main forum is the SCNS, which is charged with overseeing all national security matters. However, by virtue of having a seat at the cabinet table, the Artesh also expresses its opinions in cabinet discussions of foreign affairs, the national budget, procurement, allocation of resources, and so on. The Artesh also has informal access to the Supreme Leader?s office, but it does not seem to regard this as being a decisive arena of influence.

Also from All Things Beautiful, who discovered this journal a week ago, comes this translation:

Rowhani is quoted saying to the members of Iranian’s Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (SCCR): ?When we started thinking to acquire nuclear technologies back 15-16 years ago, we already were thinking full nuclear cycle. We tried to get it (the nuclear technology) from many countries and considering the general international situation, we were looking more towards China and the Soviet Union, but no nation was willing to give us that technology?, explaining: ?that?s the reason why we turned to the black market, middle men and international networks from one particular nation, which we never named, but they (IAEA) concluded it is Pakistan?.

Alexandra also links to the original article here.

So what does all this prove? It proves that Iran has been playing Europe like a sucker, and Europe bit. The Iranians learned long ago how NOT to delay the UN by Saddam himself who was a complete bungler. Nevertheless, even that dummy was able to stall the UN for 13 years. Hell, if Hassan Rowhani had not wanted to show off and prove to his critics that he has been, in fact, doing what he was told to do by the hardliners:

In his address to the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, Mr Rowhani appears to have been seeking to rebut criticism from hardliners that he gave too much ground in talks with the European troika. The contents of the speech were published in a regime journal that circulates among the ruling elite.

Then the UN would have rubber stamped their nuclear program until it was too late. Then once again the UN would have to say “oops” to the world.

All this does is prove that the UN is a worthless organization and that most of Europe have been, and always will be, appeasers. I do not think for one minute that Europe didn’t know this. We have been telling them for years this was going on but they chose to keep their heads stuck in the sand and chose to appease. Look where this policy got them in 1939, and look where it’s gotten them in 2006.

Sure, they’re talking tough:

WHEN Major-General Axel T?ttelmann, the head of Nato?s Airborne Early Warning and Control Force, showed off an Awacs early warning surveillance plane in Israel a fortnight ago, he caused a flurry of concern back at headquarters in Brussels.
It was not his demonstration that raised eyebrows, but what he said about Nato?s possible involvement in any future military strike against Iran. ?We would be the first to be called up if the Nato council decided we should be,? he said.

But everyone knows the only one’s who will be willing to do ANYTHING to prevent Iran is Israel and the US:

America and Israel have warned that they will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. If negotiations fail, both countries have plans of last resort for airstrikes against Iran?s widely dispersed nuclear facilities.

Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, visited Recep Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, a Nato country, late last year and asked for political, logistical and intelligence support in the event of airstrikes, according to western intelligence sources quoted in the German media.

The news magazine Der Spiegel noted: ?Washington appears to be dispatching high-level officials to prepare its allies for a possible attack.?

[…]Israel?s special forces are said to be operating inside Iran in an urgent attempt to locate the country?s secret uranium enrichment sites. ?We found several suspected sites last year but there must be more,? an Israeli intelligence source said. They are operating from a base in northern Iraq, guarded by Israeli soldiers with the approval of the Americans, according to Israeli sources.

The commander of Israel?s nuclear missile submarines warned Iran indirectly in a comment to an Israeli newspaper last week that ?we are able to hit strategic targets in a foreign country?.

But why is this so? What will it take for Europe to come to grips with the fact that Iran, one of the most volatile and crazy regime’s in the world, is close to having a nuke right next door. Bush will try to wake Europe up as he did with Saddam:

As the U.N. security Council prepares to debate Iran’s nuclear ambitions?perhaps as early as next week?Bush Administration officials are readying a new intelligence briefing for council members on Tehran’s weapons programs. It will rely mainly on circumstantial evidence, much of it from documents found on a laptop purportedly purloined from an Iranian nuclear engineer and obtained by the CIA in 2004. U.S. officials insist the material is strong but concede they have no smoking gun.

They do, however, have diagrams that they believe show components of a nuclear bomb. According to a Western diplomat familiar with the U.S. intel brief, a Farsi-language PowerPoint presentation on the laptop has “catchy graphics,” including diagrams of a hollow metallic sphere 2 ft. in diameter and weighing about 440 lbs. Other documents show a sphere-shaped array of tiny detonators. No file specifically refers to a nuclear bomb, but U.S. officials say the design of the sphere?an outer shell studded with small chemical-explosive charges meant to detonate inward, which would squeeze an inner core of material into a critical mass?is akin to that of classic devices like Fat Man, the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II. “Because of the size and weight and the power source going into it and height-of-burst requirements,” says the diplomat, Western experts have concluded that the design “is only intended to contain a nuclear weapon. There’s no other munition which would work.” A report issued last week by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says Iranian officials have dismissed a number of the laptop documents as fabricated.

Intelligence of this kind helped secure the backing of Russia and China in last month’s IAEA vote to refer Iran to the Security Council. Western officials hope the new briefing will win council support for further action; most of them see no viable alternative to U.N. efforts to try to gain Iran’s compliance. As a Western diplomat puts it, “There’s a military option?but not a military solution.”

But will they heed the warning?

Other’s Blogging:

• The QandO Blog
• A Blog For All
• In The Bullpen
• Captain’s Quarters
• The Strata-Sphere
• California Yankee
• Dinocrat

All this does is prove that the UN is a worthless organization and that most of Europe have been, and always will be, appeasers. I do not think for one minute that Europe didn’t know this. We have been telling them for years this was going on but they chose to keep their heads stuck in the sand and chose to appease. Look where this policy got them in 1939, and look where it’s gotten them in 2006.

Curt

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