Iran undoubtedly pulled off a diplomatic coup with its announcement yesterday of a deal with Brazil and Turkey to store its low grade uranium. It is very hard for even the most ardent warmonger to claim that Iran is enriching uranium to make nuclear weapons, when that same uranium is in storage in Turkey.
But perhaps the most significant fact yesterday is one that does not bode well for Iran in the long term. It is that plainly the Russians were caught on the hop and struggling for a response. Russia has been Iran’s most powerful diplomatic protector, but in recent months the Obama diplomatic offensive to win Russia over on Iran appeared to have made dramatic headway. That the Iranians had not kept the Russians informed on the Brazil Turkey deal was a mistake – and led to eventual remarks by Medvedev that were not welcoming, and appeared graduated to the US response. Iran cannot afford to lose Russian support in the long term.
Under this deal, Iran is swapping some of its low grade for 20% uranium, and putting the balance in storage. In effect the whole lot goes to Turkey. It is worth noting that, according to the IAEA, all of Iran’s uranium is verified and accounted for. None has gone AWOL. This deal would leave Iran with nothing to make a nuclear bomb with. It is also worth noting – a point the western media never cover – that Iran has a perfectly legitimate requirement for 20% uranium. It has a reactor donated by the United States which produces medical isotopes and which runs on 20% uranium.
I should stress that I have no time at all for the murderous group of theocratic nutters who constitute the Iranian regime. For their own warped reasons, it suits them to heighten international tension around speculation that they may wish to produce a nuclear weapon. They are anything but straightforward, and anyone who believes that the welfare of the Iranian people is the primary concern of Iran’s governing elite is quite wrong.
But there is no indication that Iran has the ability for years to produce a nuclear weapon, and this arrangement makes that ever more plain. If any nation has a genune concern that Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, this agreement to remove almost the entire stock of uranium from Iran can only be welcomed.
The failure to welcome this step by US and UK governments indicates that their actual agenda does not relate to Iran’s nuclear programme at all. And I still wait for a British minister to say something about Israel’s very real and very large stockpile of nuclear weapons.
craig- I am a humanist but to discern the evil or good you have to do some classification. and yes the anglosaxons have ben problem for some time on world. when i mention aryans i meanetion that in normal and real meaning and not in distorted europen meaning9europen discovered the aryan race and word only after 1785 after catherine the greats census of Russia and then similarity in language with Indians) . aryans means one who seeks truth and is noble in thinking and deeds and very haumanist. gandhi was an aryan churchill vc=ertainly not.
so i can understand some disquiet when i use the word ibut it is not in a racist sense but in calssification sense -jsut liek in scince one calssifies to undesrstand the things.
sorry if i have hurt anyones feeling in that sense.
itis certainly true that iranins_like indians are the two real aryan races and iranins have ben very proud of that heritage and rightly so. only one iranina emperor the sapur defeated and put under his feet the heads of 3 Roamn emperors.
such is the gglorious history of persins that Akbar the great of mughal empire (the foremost pwoer of world at the time_0 adopted persin custom and langauge to conduct mughal empire.
Do not mess with such people!
NB-as an indian i am ashamed of pimping unelelcted prime minsiter of india(harami manmohan singh the fucntionary of world bank) who is an anget of america and britian inside India to destory our country from within. we can learn a lot about honour from the iranains.
Haaretz is reporting growing impatience at the IAEA and UN with Israel’s assertions of its right to maintain a position of strategic “nuclear ambiguity” (read refuse to sign up to the NPT).
Curiously enough when the UN recently renewed the debate it had initiated in 1995 on a nuclear-free Middle East NYT and the corporate media were more greatly exercised by the “terror attack” on Time Square.
Just who was responsible for diverting public discussion away from the UN attempts to broker a lasting peace in the Middle East?
Well,rocket science it’s not!
Jeff Gates has two pieces on this very question at veteranstoday.com Check it out:
9th May:Pakistan The Evil Doer and the Time Square Fizzler
16th May:Why Kill al-Awlaki,an American Who Advised The Time Square Fizzler and Advised the Crotch Bomber Sizzler?
Gates is especially enlightening on the employment of game theory by the elite managers who facilitate the false-flag terror that sustains the Clash of Civilisations narrative.
In 2002-03 in desperate attempts to forestall the imminent Anglo-US attack Iraq made frequent references to the failure of the UN to follow through on the nuclear-free zone discussions.
Needless to say Iraq’s pleas were ignored by the corporate media who were busy using faked Israeli intelligence to persuade us that Iraq was the real threat in the region-sic.
It seems likely Iran will now suffer the same fate.
Iran’s warped leaders are pikers compared to the Yanks. Remember Albright’s comments about the real deaths of 500,000 real people as being a price worth paying. That actual reality outways any perverse might, maybe, could, perhaps if we imagine hard enough scenarios.
Mark,
I know the history of Hizbollah and the Lebanon invasion back in the 80’s but what they are doing today is entirely different to what they achieved in the 90’s. Israel are still occupying the Sheeba farms and should leave but Hizbollah do themselves no favours firing rockets into Israel. Also even if they left I think Hizbollah would find another reason for fighting Israel. They have too much to loose if there was no more conflict.
As far as social services are concerned I am always suspicous of paramilitary groups involvments in this area. There tends to be an alterior motive such as gaining support for their cause.
However, all of this has nothing to do with Iran and they continue to stoke the fire with their support of Hizbollah. Just as the US do so with Israel.
“I am just putting these crimes into perspective”
So public hangings, stonings, lashings, torturing, and general opression of anyone who disagrees with the system are not as bad as the US’s crimes?
“better to look for good than get lost in a sea of evil”
I hope you are not refering to the Iranian government or Hizbollah as good? I see a lot of evil on both sides especially by the US and their disregard of life outside their country. I think you are getting your morals mixed up if you think that there are sides to this. They’re all bad and shouldn’t be supported!!
Africans, Chinese, Native Americans, “will never understand the sense of honour and warriors code that flows in the Iranians blood.”
You see how obviously racist your comments are, avatar, when you substitute other groups for “Anglo-Saxons”. Such blanket comments are not only objectionable, they are patently false. I am neither proud nor ashamed of my genetic heritage as it’s something over which I had no control. I did nothing to be either proud or ashamed of in simply being born to certain parents and it makes no sense to use the terms in such a context. To say Anglo-Saxons aren’t European, shows a lack of understanding. (On the census form I describe myself as Afro-European because my family came from Africa originally, albeit more than 100,000 years ago. So did yours). It’s ironic that you quote Rudyard Kipling, who, despite having been born and raised in a society steeped in imperialist values when they were at their height, still manages to display a more nuanced view than you.
“..of course for the Anglo-Saxon Protestants only God is money and nothing else.”
And of course all Muslim Semites are terrorists! That’s where such lazy and bigoted thinking gets you.
“…insiders in Lloyd’s of London were facing bankruptcy, conspired to offload their losses onto 34,000 foreigners and women and got away with it.”
I despise the City slickers, but what women are you referring to?
I think Turkey is just storing the uranium, and the 20% uranium will come from Brazil.:)
Craig
I was posing a serious question when I asked “is there a country on this earth where the welfare of its people is the primary concern of its governing elite?”
I’m genuinely interested in your opinion.
Andy C
Chris,
We have walked this path for while now and I can see your eyes are straight ahead without looking either side – it is a good thing and many are like you.
I was like you until 2001 when suddenly everything changed, violently at first then slowly settling into a pattern, a pattern that culminated in March 2003 when we recreated the holocaust and murdered the innocent, the frail, the children and the infants, on a lie, a premeditated plan, a fanatical campaign; genocide. We created death camps and torture chambers, hit squads, faked Arabs and planted bombs. This is what your mind will witness when turned that way and this is what your eyes will see in my pictures that tell their story.
So when the path forks, turn the other way and stay with me, because this is the end of the journey.
The power has moved East; NATO is now defunct; our time is up; the elite have bankrupted. they must now stand back, humility must prevail.
We have to change to move forward and we have changed – come with us Chris, you are welcome.
Mark, can I come too?
Just please tell me what those Delphic platitudes mean, O wise one!
Craig, you write: “I should stress that I have no time at all for the murderous group of theocratic nutters who constitute the Iranian regime”
I think that is a very biased and crass summation of a complex phenomenon.
One could imagine an Iranian peasant in a remote rural community expressing similar sentiments about the Americans – but one expects rather more nuance from intellectuals.
Apart from anything else, there is no monolithic ‘Iranian regime’. There’s a quite complex array of political forces. In that context, I have previously argued that the current President might reasonably be viewed as a popular, populist progressive – not wholly disimmilar in the London context from Ken Livingstone in his heyday, or Clover Moore in Sydney.
Nothing I’ve seen or heard since I wrote More Respect for Dr Ahmeniddijad has pursuaded me the analysis is fundamentally wrong.
Google does seem to agree, however, as the article is currently absent from its listings 🙂
There certainly are darker forces in Iran, with connections going all the way back to Iran-Contra in the 1980s. But the new President has not been part of those shifty elements. He has been their opponent. In an Iranian context, he’s a new broom.
The Zionists and war-monguers have good reason to demonize Dr Ahmadinejad. He doesn’t submit to their intimidation.
No need for you to join in, surely?
Apologies, the previous post was by me, but I neglected to complete my details before submitting the content.
The web address to which I referred is here:
http://sydwalker.info/blog/2009/06/19/more-respect-for-dr-ahmedinejad/
“Dr Ahmeniddijad”
I wouldn’t expect such poor spelling from an Iranian peasant!
“The Zionists and war-monguers have good reason to demonize Dr Ahmadinejad.”
I really do wonder what the word “demonize” means. Could it possibly mean to refer to as a demon or make demon-like? If this is the case then calling the US the Great Satan would appear to be the very literal definition of demonizing.
Also, I know we’re all supposed to believe that Ahmadinejad has never said anything about wanting to wipe Israel off the map but merely erase it or exterminate it from the page of time or something pleasingly anodyne like that and that the “Zionist war-monguers”[sic] are deliberately mistranslating him. Perhaps you can help me out with this one in which Ahmadinejad’s words “Marg Bar Israel!” are mistranslated as “Death to Israel!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FckLO8HcNyo&feature=related
I require some serious intellectualizing right now to avoid any obvious conclusions.
(P.S For the record I am not in favour of bombing Iran or any sanctions but equally I am against all these pathetic excuses being made for an oppressive government that sends its police out on to the streets to shoot and beat demonstrators).
“I am not in favour of bombing Iran or any sanctions”
Except sanctions on military or nuclear technology.
Marc,
Please stop trying to preach to me, it won’t work as I am not an idiot and have my own opinion regarding this which I think is far more balanced than yours.
As far as your pictures are concerned I think that they are shocking and not dignified. I believe there are certain things which should not be published generally out of respect for the dead. I know that families send them to you but in reality they are, quite rightly, angry and probably not thinking straight when they do it. I would imagine some will live to regret the final gruesome picture of their loved ones being shown in the public view. If it was my family I wouldn’t do it for that reason. I think in this situation word can be just as effective as pictures and are far more respectful.
@ angrysoba
1/ Thank you for correcting my spelling.
2/ When I use the word ‘demonize’, I use it in the second sense you suggested as possible interpretations.
3/ I am only bothering to debate this because the topic is extremely important – and might even be crucial to humanity’s future.
That is not because I consider the Iranian president is a nut case. It;s because the people out to get him – and do over Iran – are certifiable nut cases with a long and shocking record of false flag operations, murder, deception and launching wars.
Already in this first decade of the new century we have AT LEAST two major wars, instigated primarily by Zionists, based in each instance on a pack of lies. Both are ongoing.
But it’s not enough for the passionate fans of Israel, apparently; they want another war, this time against Iran.
To build momentum for it, they lie and lie again about Iran – just as they lied about Iraq in the run up to the 2003 invasion.
Does I therefore suggest that Iran is perfect and the Iranian Government smells of roses?
Of course not.
It does, however, indicate that I at least notice yet again the conspicuous signs of hateful warmongering, replete with half-truths and complete falsehoods.
Occasionally good people repeat these negative exaggerations unthinkingly, which I thought might have been the case with Craig in his brief but damning comment about the Iranian regime, which seemed to me too simplistic.
Regarding “Marg Bar Israel!”… I do not myself speak Farsi, but I did encounter this comment, on Andrew Sullivan’s blog of all places (see http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/07/outing-iran-marg-bar.html)
“Death to …” is not a correct translation for “Marg bar …” although it is a literal translation, the real meaning is closer to “down with …”; it is an expression of extreme dissatisfaction rather than the wishing of death. Remember “death to potatoes” from the campaign (as a sign of dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad’s distribution of potatoes among likely voters)? My guess is that it originated with “Marg bar shah”, which at the time probably was literally meant; it was a particularly powerful and defiant slogan at the time and that memory has perpetuated this line of sloganeering.
Well, yes I suppose “Death to Israel” could be a figure of speech and what they really mean is “Oooh Israel, I hope you fall over and graze your knee or something.”
Certainly a fig-leaf worth clinging to if it hides something a bit ugly beneath.
Now, this video suggests that the dastardly Zionists have been infiltrating Iranian parades and sticking up those horrible mistranslations of the “Erased from the page of time” quote which we all know is a friendly bit of joshing.
I particularly like the last bit in the parade in which the missiles blow up the Nazi swastika. Let’s face it no one likes Nazis and yet, and yet, I am wondering if what they’re actually saying in this parade is that the Israelis are the Nazis. Could be…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YJsLGpdByY
genocide; holocaust? 4M displaced Iraqi families;
1.37M dead Iraqis, 327,233 Iraqi children traumatized, disfigured, disabled, terminally ill. (Doctorsforiraq)
Could be…
@ angrysoba
When I was a youthful radical, I regularly chanted ‘Death to Apartheid’ and called for the South African white supremacist regime to be ‘erased from the pages of time’.
Looking back, I can see it was very efficacious.
No wonder you guys are worried.
Why, Jewish Israelis might have to live in peace with their neighbours, sharing one land for mutual benefit:-)
When I was a youthful radical, I regularly chanted ‘Death to Apartheid’ and called for the South African white supremacist regime to be ‘erased from the pages of time’.
Apartheid was a system, not a nation of human beings. Calling for “Death to Capitalism!” wouldn’t be the same as chanting “Kill all the bankers!”.
No-one is shouting death to Jewish people, I note. There are Jewish communities in Iran, apparently:
“Khomeini met with the Jewish community upon his return from exile in Paris and issued a ‘fatwa’ decreeing that the Jews were to be protected. Similar edicts also protect Iran’s tiny Christian minority.”
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/iran.html
“I regularly chanted ‘Death to Apartheid’ and called for the South African white supremacist regime to be ‘erased from the pages of time’.”
Good for you! What do you think of the Ba’hais?
Yes, technicolour. Jews are a “protected” minority in Iran in that they are allowed to live there. They even get ONE seat in the Majlis so they can sit there looking all protected and stuff.
Of course, as you know, Jews cannot be voted for by Muslims and Jews naturally can’t run for any other positions except those that are protected for them and many of them had been chased out after the revolution when their names appeared in newspapers as those who had better leave.
The same goes for Armenian Christians whose “protections” are not equivalent to rights.
Knew that Jewish people were attacked in the revolution; hence the fatwa.
Just pointing out that although Jewish people may be treated like second class citizens or worse in Iran, and the rights of other religions severely curtailed, they are still living there & apparently in peace.
Opposing an attack on Iran – and the decade-long information war build-up to any such attack – does not equate in any with support for the regime there. This is an absolutely fundamental point that needs to be reiterated, it seems, again and again and again. I would also oppose an attack by the USA on Israel (being hypothetical for a moment) even though I do not have any sympathy with the regime in Israel. It is quite obvious that anti-Iran rhetoric in the West is again attaining the mezzo-soprano level.
There are different sorts of peace, technicolour. The ‘Pax Romana’ included downtrodded and subject nstions which for long periods were unable to raise their voice in protest, as well as a huge slave population.
Yep, and I was also thinking of the history of the Catholics in the UK & Northern Ireland.
Yes, even the spies at GCHQ fought for the right to unionise – funnily enough, they were about the only group of workers to have won against Thatcher!