Iran: A Bridge too Far?

[multi]

Spoken like a true (grammar) nazi brown shirt..
fuck you dickhead , I wil express myself in anyway I choose..
you can bitch all you like. It seems to be the only thing you can do on this forum ,
complain ,whinge, complain some more and then,
bait people with personal insults...
rinse
repeat

You go back to defending your hated President and don't you go worring about my little scrapbook of articles on Iran.. but thanks for the contribution !

[albed]

Ooh, are you going to copy and past my "contribution" now?


Did you ever consider that you are really contributing nothing yourself when all you do is copy and paste other people's thoughts?

It must give you a good feeling to mouth words you could never compose yourself but it doesn't really justify your existance when you're no more than a parrot squawking things you can't understand.

Do you ever wish you had a functioning mind to think with multi?

Ever regret damaging your brain so badly with drug abuse?

Too late now. You should've thought about that before you made yourself stupid.

[multi]

haha.. stupid is your repetitive broken record responses... never very well thought out and always the same.

really now.. get a grip
reacting thus to my noticeably superior intellect does nothing but make you look like a poor fool cowering in fear.

[multi]

THE Foreign Office has cleared dozens of Iranians to enter British universities to study advanced nuclear physics and other subjects with the potential to be applied to weapons of mass destruction.

In the past nine months about 60 Iranians have been admitted to study postgraduate courses deemed “proliferation-sensitive” by the security services. The disciplines range from nuclear physics to some areas of electrical and chemical engineering and microbiology.

Additionally, figures obtained by David Willetts, the shadow secretary for innovation, universities and skills, show that in 2005-06, 30 Iranians were doing postgraduate degrees in subjects covering nuclear physics and nuclear engineering.

The flow of Iranian scientists to Britain for training has caused alarm as the nuclear standoff between Iran and the West becomes increasingly tense. When confronted with the figures this weekend, the Foreign Office admitted that it was reviewing the vetting for sensitive areas of study and planned to announce an overhaul within the next few weeks to make procedures more rigorous.
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Willetts said: “Given that we need to have tougher sanctions against Iran, it does seem extraordinary that the government is not yet stopping Iranians coming here to study nuclear physics. There is legitimate concern about what some students have been studying.”

Last week America intensified its economic sanctions against Tehran because of the refusal of President Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad to comply with international demands to open the country’s nuclear programme to inspection. Iran insists its uranium enrichment is for peaceful purposes.

In the Commons last week Gordon Brown indicated that tougher sanctions by Britain were a possibility. European Union leaders are due to meet within two weeks to discuss whether to strengthen sanctions against Iran.

Britain has previously been a destination of choice for scientists working for hostile governments. Rihab Taha, an Iraqi microbiologist, who studied at the University of East Anglia from 1980-84, later became a key figure in the development of Saddam’s biological weapons programme, earning her the nickname Dr Germ.

Subject areas covered by the government’s vetting overhaul include some types of metallurgy, molecular biology, chemistry and nuclear science.

Currently, vetting is done only when a university voluntarily informs the government that a candidate from outside the EU has been offered a place to study a sensitive subject.

This creates a potential loophole. Under the new online system overseen by the security services, universities will be obliged to inform the government if any nonEuropean intends to take a course in such subjects. They will also be required to give details about what is included in the course.

Before they can even begin a visa application, students will then be security vetted.

Academic background and country of origin will be checked as well as who is paying for the student’s course – to discover, for example, whether they are being sponsored by an unfriendly government such as Iran’s.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are rigorously checking people at the moment and we are planning an even more rigorous system.”

The government has not released full details of the universities being attended by the current Iranian students, whose sponsors are also not known. But in the past Iranians have studied nuclear-related subjects at institutions including Birming-ham, Imperial College London and Queen Mary, University of London.

The Times

[multi]

[multi]

With 200-300 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, Israelis enjoy a nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. They mean to keep it that way, and they want the U.S. to help.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is at her mushroom-cloud hyperbolic best, and this time Iran is the target. Her claim last week that "the policies of Iran constitute perhaps the single greatest challenge to American security interests in the Middle East and around the world" is simply too much of a stretch.


To gauge someone's reliability, one depends largely on prior experience. Sadly, Rice's credibility suffers in comparison with Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Basing his judgment on the findings of IAEA inspectors in Iran, ElBaradei reports that there is no evidence of an active nuclear weapons program there.

If this sounds familiar, it is in fact déjà vu. ElBaradei said the same thing about Iraq before it was attacked. But three days before the invasion, American nuclear expert Dick Cheney told NBC's Tim Russert, "I think Mr. ElBaradei is, frankly, wrong."

Here we go again. As in the case of Iraq, U.S. intelligence has been assiduously looking for evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran, but, alas, in vain. Burned by the bogus "proof" adduced for Iraq -- the uranium from Africa, the aluminum tubes -- the administration has shied away from fabricating nuclear-related "evidence." Are Bush and Cheney again relying on the Rumsfeld dictum, that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?" There is a simpler answer.

Cat out of the bag

The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, let the cat out of the bag while speaking at the American Jewish Committee luncheon on Oct. 22. In remarks paralleling those of Rice, Meridor said Iran is the chief threat to Israel. Heavy on the chutzpah, he then served gratuitous notice on Washington that countering Iran's nuclear ambitions will take a "united United States in this matter," lest the Iranians conclude, "come January '09, they have it their own way."

Meridor stressed that "very little time" remained to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. How so? Even were there to be a nuclear program hidden from the IAEA, no serious observer expects Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon much sooner than five years from now.

Truth be told, every other year since 1995 U.S. intelligence has been predicting that Iran could have a nuclear weapon in about five years. It has become downright embarrassing -- like a broken record, punctuated only by so-called "neoconservatives" like James Woolsey, who in August publicly warned that the United States may have no choice but to bomb Iran in order to halt Tehran's nuclear weapons program.

Woolsey, self-described "anchor of the Presbyterian wing of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs," put it this way: "I'm afraid that within, well, at worst, a few months; at best, a few years; they [the Iranians] could have the bomb."

The day before Ambassador Meridor's unintentionally revealing remark, Vice President Dick Cheney reiterated, "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." That remark followed closely on President George W. Bush's apocalyptic warning of World War III, should Tehran acquire the knowledge to produce a nuclear weapon.

The Israelis appear convinced they have extracted a promise from Bush and Cheney that they will help Israel nip Iran's nuclear program in the bud before they leave office. That is why the Israeli ambassador says there is "very little time" -- less than 15 months.

Never mind that there is no evidence that the Iranian nuclear program is any more weapons-related than the one Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld persuaded President Gerald Ford to approve in 1976. Westinghouse and General Electric successfully lobbied for approval to sell the Shah for $6.4 billion the kind of nuclear facilities that Iran is now building, but the deal fell through when the Shah was ousted in 1979.

With 200-300 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, the Israelis enjoy a nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. They mean to keep that monopoly, and Israel's current leaders are pressing for the United States to obliterate Iran's fledgling nuclear program.

Anyone aware of Iran's ability to retaliate realizes this would bring disaster to the whole region and beyond. But this has not stopped Cheney and Bush in the past. And the real rationale is reminiscent of the one revealed by Philip Zelikow, confidant of Condoleezza Rice, former member of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and later executive director of the 9/11 Commission. On Oct. 10, 2002, Zelikow said this to a crowd at the University of Virginia:

"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat is -- it's the threat to Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name ... the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell."...Continued

[vernarial]

Good Article, Multi.