Iran a Nuclear Threat, Bush Insists
By Robin Wright
The Washington Post

Friday 21 March 2008

Experts say president is wrong and is escalating tensions.

President Bush said Thursday that Iran has declared that it wants to be a nuclear power with a weapon to "destroy people," including others in the Middle East, contradicting the judgments of a recent U.S. intelligence estimate.

The president spoke in an interview intended to reach out to the Iranian public on the Persian new year and to express "moral support" for struggling freedom movements, particularly among youth and women. It was designed to stress U.S. support for Iran's quest for nuclear energy and the prospects that Washington and Tehran can "reconcile their differences" if Iran cooperates with the international community to ensure that the effort is not converted into a weapons program.

But most striking was Bush's accusation that Iran has openly declared its nuclear weapons intentions, even though a National Intelligence Estimate concluded in December that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003, a major reversal in the long-standing U.S. assessment.

"They've declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people - some in the Middle East. And that's unacceptable to the United States, and it's unacceptable to the world," Bush told U.S.-funded Radio Farda, which broadcasts into Iran in Farsi.

Experts on Iran and nuclear proliferation said the president's statement was wrong. "That's as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain's statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda. Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It's just not true. It's a little troubling that the president and the leading Republican candidate are both so wrong about Iran," said Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation.

Others said it is unclear whether the president believes what he said or was deliberately distorting Iran's position.

"The Iranian government is on the record across the board as saying it does not want a nuclear weapon. There's plenty of room for skepticism about these assertions. But it's troubling for the administration to indicate that Iran is explicitly embracing the program as a means of destroying another country," said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the State Department until last year and now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center.

National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Bush was referring to previous Iranian statements about wiping Israel off the map. "The president shorthanded his answer with regard to Iran's previously secret nuclear weapons program and their current enrichment and ballistic missile testing," Johndroe said.

In two interviews beamed into Iran, Bush expressed deep respect for Iranian history and culture. In a second interview with the Voice of America's Persian News Network, Bush said: "Please don't be discouraged by the slogans that say America doesn't like you, because we do, and we respect you."

But analysts warned that Bush's statement on Iran's nuclear intentions could escalate tensions when U.S. strategy for the first time in three decades is to persuade Iran to join international talks in exchange for suspending its uranium enrichment, a process used for peaceful nuclear energy that can be converted for use in a weapons program. "The bellicose rhetoric from one side only produces the same from the other," Maloney said.

Signaling further pressure on Tehran, the administration also issued a warning on Thursday to U.S. financial institutions about the dangers of doing business with Iranian banks because of inadequate checks on money laundering and the growing risks to the international financial system posed by Iran's financial sector. "The government of Iran disguises its involvement in proliferation and terrorism activities through an array of deceptive practices," the Treasury Department said.

The advisory lists 59 major banks or their branches in cities such as Athens, Hong Kong, London and Moscow. It includes Iran's Central Bank and covers many banks not facing sanctions from the United Nations or the United States.

The Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said that Iran's Central Bank and commercial banks started asking that their names be removed from global transactions to make it more difficult for intermediary financial institutions to determine their true identity or origin.

The United States recently imposed new restrictions on dealings with Bahrain-based Future Bank, which is controlled by Iran's Bank Melli.

"Over the past eight days, the U.S. government has undertaken a number of steps to put Tehran on notice that the international community will not allow the Iranian government to misuse the international financial system or global transportation network to further its aspirations to obtain nuclear weapons capability, improve its missile systems, or support international terrorism," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

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Doesn't surprise me, if McCain gets in office it will more of the same until we are instituting the draft and going merrily to Iran too.

make laws

establish acceptance of laws

enforce the laws

impose those laws

and then call on those laws

cry out for justice defending those laws

police those laws

establish those laws

it is not illegal to imprison and deprive the lawbreakers of freedom and liberty.

it is legal.

Morality is not found present in laws.

deception and manipulation are found in laws.

watch the game in horror while others create the horror.

lawyers write laws to legislate opportunity, not to inhibit opportunity.


Advantage and privelege ae the goal of laws.


Are we free to do the same in our collective autonomy, or are we reduced to compliance by only observing the game made and played by those with nefarious agendas?


The fact remains that we can use the lawmaking process t change the lawmaking process and change the affect of law.

Why is this not done to prevent war and hatred and undue advantage over personal liberties and freedoms?

Because we choose not to?

Because we are not priveleged and advantaged to do so?


where is it written that we are written by writers not of and for and by ourselves?

what have we written of ourselves?

are we illiterate?

are we incapable?

are we deprived?

are we powerless?

are we weak?

are we liars?

are we just critics?

are we judges?

are we kings?

are we anything?






do we have access?




let the weak say, "we are strong"

Okay wouldee, you lost me there I read through it several times too so I must be braindead today

More propaganda...Boring

they must first see how they are strong, to be strong, and this cannot happen until after it first seems all is lost.

Dragoness,

We all can change the collective landscape of legalism without being stopped, and do it publicly in the light of day and transparently if we will just come to the realization that the powers that be are creating their own brand of fate for us while they are lining their pockets with our money. Which is better used to resist their ill will.

The people , in general, can rewrite law.

In ternational law is influenced by govenmental consensus, but national laws in a country like the US can creaate sufficient abrogation of International law that the US govenment must sit down and shut up!!!

But it won't unless demanded to by constitutional law


peace

I just wonder why if the US requests other nations not to have nuclear weapons, who gives this glorious country the right to have them?

http://www.helium.com/items/258199-having-nukes-worrying-prospect
Several different views of how we and many other glorious countries as you call it don't want a rogue state that is fractional at best to have the power to incinerate more than a million people on a whim.

well...

the US can vaporize the planet.

is that not deterrent enough?

Israel is the one that will get nuked by the Iranians if their diatribe can be trusted.

That the world at large has nukes is just but a symptom of the bigger problem, global domination by the advantaged and priveleged few


They cause the greater grief, in my estimation.

i get what you all are saying....what gives us the right to have more power than others. Well my friends it can be put simply. We don't fear most countries having nukes. But what we do fear, rightfully fear, that would start a nuclear war. Certain countries are run by people that wouldn't care about committing suicide. Does that make us right? No. But, we would risk committing suicide to get vengeance on someone else.

vengeance is the Lord's.

correction: We wouldn't risk committing suicide to get vengeance on someone else. (Sorry there was a typo in the last post)