Excerpts from Reuters:
Iran ratchets up atom work despite sanctions threat
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president gave instructions on Sunday for the production of higher-grade nuclear reactor fuel, prompting the United States and Germany to threaten carefully targeted new sanctions against Tehran.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement raised the stakes in Iran's dispute with the West, but he said talks were still possible on a nuclear swap offer by world powers designed to allay fears the Islamic Republic is making an atomic bomb.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the response by Iran, a major oil exporter which says its nuclear program is to make electricity and not bombs, was very disappointing.
"If the international community will stand together and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for sanctions and pressure to work," he told a news conference during a visit to Italy.
There was international consensus to avoid "more hardship than is absolutely necessary" on the Iranian people, said Gates.
Germany also raised the sanctions threat, while Britain said Iran's new plans would breach U.N. resolutions.
"It may be that the sanctions screw needs to be or can be turned here and there. We need to consider very carefully what impact our options could have," German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said, adding it should be made clear to Iran that "patience is at an end."
Iran has already had three sets of sanctions imposed on it. China, which has veto power in the U.N. Security Council, has made clear it wants big powers to keep talking to Iran rather than impose new measures.
The United States, China and other major powers have proposed that Iran send most of its low-enriched uranium abroad in return for nuclear fuel refined to a level of 20 percent, for use in the Tehran reactor producing medical isotopes.
From UK Telegraph:
Read full article here
'Divine mission' driving Iran's new leader
By Anton La Guardia
Published: 12:01AM GMT
14 Jan 2006
As
Iran rushes towards confrontation with the world over its nuclear programme, the question uppermost in the mind of western leaders is "
What is moving its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to such recklessness?" Political analysts point to the fact that Iran feels strong because of high oil prices, while America has been weakened by the insurgency in Iraq.
But listen carefully to the utterances of Mr Ahmadinejad - recently described by President George W Bush as an "odd man" - and
there is another dimension, a religious messianism that, some suspect, is giving the Iranian leader a dangerous sense of divine mission.
In November, the country was startled by a video showing Mr Ahmadinejad telling a cleric that
he had felt the hand of God entrancing world leaders as he delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly last September.
Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect believes this will be
Mohammed ibn Hasan, regarded as the 12th Imam, or righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammad.
He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the ninth century, at the age of five.
His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.
This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus.
Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.
The prospect of such a man obtaining nuclear weapons is worrying. The unspoken question is this: i
s Mr Ahmadinejad now tempting a clash with the West because he feels safe in the belief of the imminent return of the Hidden Imam? Worse, might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?
In a video distributed by an Iranian web site in November, Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN.
"I felt it myself too," Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink…It's not an exaggeration, because I was looking.
"
They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."
Western
officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that "they couldn't believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad".
Their sneaking suspicion is that Iran's president actually relishes a clash with the West in the conviction that it would rekindle the spirit of the Islamic revolution and - who knows - speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam.
Comments:
There is reason to believe that Iran's president could be trying to provoke Western powers into some kind of military confrontation. Both China and Russia, for different reasons, would like to see the United States bogged down in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. Such a conflict would allow Russia to maintain or expand its influence in Eastern Europe and in former Soviet states giving it a geographical buffer to Western influence. China seems interested in securing additional natural resources from African states and still desires to re-incorporate Taiwan back into its boundaries. The latest US military sale to Taiwan just adds to this goal. A United States preoccupied in another war would allow China to expand its global influence.
In short, there are good reasons for Russia and China to veto further sanctions and act in there own interests.
Iran's President could take all these delays of sanctions and other consequences to mean that his "divine mission" has been blessed since the West seems unable to take a serious, definitive stand.
It is also possible, though unlikely at this point in time, that Iran has already acquired an atomic weapon from a rogue state such as North Korea. It is also possible that the February 11th date (that we mentioned in a previous post here) Mr. Ahmadinejad has given that "marks the demise of the liberal capitalist system" is just disinformation.
Whatever the reason for this date, if I lived in Israel, I would be saying my prayers right now.
If we look a historical precedent of someone with characteristics similar to Ahmadinejad, before WW2 Neville Chamberlain, eager for a peaceful settlement, made the mistake of believing Hitler would not invade Czechoslovakia in 1939.
He was wrong.
PW, do you believe that Greece will end up bailed out by Germany and France? Will the bailout of Greece lead to a second crisis in the Eurozone? If another crisis is coming for the Eurozone, what kind of crisis will it be?
ReplyDeleteGiven the recent comments of the head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, I believe some type of bailout is inevitable. The form is takes is uncertain at this point, although a line of credit is a possibility. While my view remains that this bailout will not trigger a second crisis, other countries will no doubt line up at the bailout trough. Spain and Portugal are likely candidates.
ReplyDeleteThe trigger for a second crisis, in my view, is not the bailouts themselves but the realization by the market that the socialist EU will continue to balloon the debt without restraint with every country that receives a line of credit or some other remedy. Since the UK is also heading down the same spending path, they will also be part of the trigger. A bond market blow up and currency crisis seem almost inevitable at this point.
Of course, Iran might do something crazy to Israel tomorrow and that could trigger further market and geopolitical drama.