Israeli soldiers killed a 20 year old and wounded two kids, 15 and 16 years old.  They were unarmed.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian and wounded two others in a confrontation near a Gaza Strip border crossing on Friday, the Israeli army and Palestinian medical workers said.

A rocket fired from Gaza struck later in an open area near an Israeli town, causing no injury, the army said. There were no immediate claims of responsibility for that shooting.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the troops opened fire at Palestinians suspected of placing explosives near a security fence. One died of injuries, a second was taken to hospital and three others were seized, the spokeswoman said.

The fatality was the first since August along the tense border of the coastal territory ruled by Hamas Islamists that has remained largely quiet since an Israeli offensive that ended in January.

Gaza medics said they retrieved the body of a Palestinian who they described as unarmed and 20 years old after the incident at the Karni crossing in central Gaza, and that Israel had picked up another Palestinian, 16, who appeared to them to have been wounded critically.

A third wounded youth, listed as 15, was taken to a hospital in Gaza, the medics said.

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE5AC1LR20091113

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement of non-violent resistance in Palestine is really gaining a foothold in the consciousness of the world lately, especially in light of Israel’s heavy handed techniques against BDS spokespeople like Mohammed Othman.  Israel’s desparate attempt to fight back against this movement by arrest and probable torture of a BDS agent shows that Israel is running out of credibility and is rapidly being exposed for the violent political philosophy it espouses.  Check out the following story:

Is Israel threatened by the BDS movement?

Mya Guarnieri

For nearly six weeks now Mohammed Othman, a prominent Palestinian activist and an outspoken advocate of the nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, has been held in an Israeli military prison without charges.

On 22 September 2009 Othman, 34, was detained at the Allenby Crossing as he attempted to return home to the occupied West Bank from Jordan. He was returning from a trip to Norway, where he met with that country’s Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen, amongst other officials.

At the beginning of September, Finance Minister Halvorsen announced Norway’s divestment from the Israeli company Elbit due to “ethical concerns.” Elbit provides security systems for Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank, for illegal settlements as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly known as drones) and other technology for the Israeli military. According to many Middle East analysts and human rights groups, Othman played a pivotal role in Norway’s decision to disassociate from Elbit.

Norway’s severing of ties with Elbit is just one of the recent successes of the BDS campaign. The Africa-Israel Group, a company led by Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev, involved construction of illegal Israeli settlements, has recently plummeted in value as investors have pulled out. While Africa-Israel’s recent decline has been due in large part to the global economic downturn, the attention of BDS activists has made associating with the company and its chairman politically unpalatable. Amongst those who have distanced themselves from Africa-Israel is the United Kingdom’s government. In March, the UK cancelled plans to move its Tel Aviv embassy into a building owned by the company.

The Israeli response to the BDS campaign has been measured.

On 6 September, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Israel chose a subdued diplomatic response to the news of Norway’s divestment from Elbit. As Israel continues to keep Othman in one of its detention facilities, however, it seems the threat posed by the BDS movement is manifesting itself in the West Bank.

Arthur Nelsen, Middle East analyst and author of the forthcoming book In Your Eyes a Sandstorm, nots that “The Othman case indicates a fear of the BDS movement among Israel’s political and security elite, particularly when it has the ear of foreign governments.”

Nelsen adds, “Locking up nonviolent opponents suggests a stunning lack of confidence among Israel’s leaders in their ability to argue their case, still less win it. It bears all the hallmarks of an authoritarian campaign to silence nonviolent critics of the occupation.”

Othman’s imprisonment also highlights a government intent on punishing Palestinians who speak out in international forums. In a statement given to Ma’an News Agency, the Palestinian prisoner support and human rights association Addameer, pointed to the July detention of Mohammed Srour as another example of Israeli actions based on the threat of the BDS campaign.

Srour, 38, was detained at the Allenby Crossing on 21 July as he attempted to return to the occupied West Bank from Geneva, where he spoke before the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. In Geneva, Srour testified to the shooting deaths of two protestors who sustained their fatal injuries at a West Bank demonstration when Israeli soldiers opened fire on the crowd. Srour was held for three days in an Israeli military prison. After posting bail, he was released without charges.

In 2008, Gazan journalist Mohammed Omer was detained and beaten by the Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security agency known as the Shabak) upon his return from a speaking tour in Europe, where he had been awarded a prestigious journalism prize for his coverage of the Israeli blockade on Gaza.

Israel’s attempts to silence Othman have only strengthened the voice of non-violent resistance. Othman’s continued detention has gained sympathetic coverage from a variety of media outlets. In mid-October, a protest calling for Mohammed Othman’s immediate release was held in Manhattan, outside of the Madison Avenue jewelry store owned by Africa-Israel mogul Lev Leviev. The action, organized by the New York City based NGO Adalah-NY, brought publicity to both the BDS movement and Othman’s important place in it.

In a public statement, Adalah-NY’s Andrew Kadi commented, “Israel’s arrest of Mohammed Othman…simply affirms the need for a global movement of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), similar to the movement against apartheid South Africa, to hold Israel accountable and to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian rights.”

Mya Guarnieri is a regular contributor to The Jerusalem Post. Her work has also appeared in Outlook India– India’s equivalent to and subsidiary of Newsweek– as well as The National, Electronic Intifada, The Forward, Maan News Agency, Common Ground News Service, Zeek, The Khaleej Times, and Daily News Egypt.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=239202

Just a couple of points here.  The first regards Dennis Kucinich who was apparently invited to be the keynote speaker at the Palm Beach County Democratic Party’s fundraiser.  Wealthy fundraisers revolted at the news of Kucinich’s invitation to speak because of his perceived anti-Israeli political views.  Kucinich voluntarily withdrew from the invitation after he heard of the ruckus.  The clincher comes with Mark Alan Siegel, the County’s Democratic party chairman. 

“People feel he’s anti-Israel. I don’t read it that way, but the leadership of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and other elements of the Jewish community do and I don’t want to get into an argument with them,” said Siegel, who is Jewish.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23932.htm

Do you get this folks?  AIPAC is too powerful to argue against.  Their position will always be maintained because of the power they weild over our political process.  Rare, honest men like Kucinich will be found, but will not be big enough to fight AIPAC.  We are a nation occupied by a foreign force, to whom we have sold our souls.

In other news, this study shows that 44% of congress members are millionaires, in contrast to 1% of the public they represent.  Now, it is expected that there will be a higher proportion of millionaires amongst a group of well-educated men and women that are smart enough to get to where they are in Congress.  However, the point that we should raise our eyebrows at is the fact that many of these members of congress owe part of their wealth to the fact that they own stock in Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, all companies that Congress decided to give billions of dollars of our tax dollars to.  Think about that for a little while.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29235.html

Great words from Dennis Kucinich on the verge of the resolution condemning the Goldstone report.  Why can’t we have more politicians like this?

“Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.

“Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian.

“The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the “Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right” resolution.

“Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution.

“How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?

“How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to the human security of jobs, education and health care?

“We will have peace only when the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis is brought before this House and given equal consideration in recognition of that principle that all people on this planet have a right to survive and thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no group, no people are barred from this humble human claim.”

On Monday 12 October, Prime Minister Netanyahu opened the Knesset’s winter session by blasting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes and vowing that he would never allow Israelis be tried for them. But that was not his main message. It was an appeal, delivered I thought with a measure of desperation, to the “Palestinian leadership”, presumably the leadership of “President” Abbas and his Fatah cronies, leaders who are regarded by very many if not most Palestinians as American-and-Israeli stooges at best and traitors at worst.

Netanyahu again called on this leadership to agree to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, saying this was, and remains, the key to peace. And he went on and on and on about it.

“For 62 years the Palestinians have been saying ‘No’ to the Jewish state. I am once again calling upon our Palestinian neighbours – say ‘Yes’ to the Jewish state. Without recognition of the Israel as the state of the Jews we shall not be able to attain peace… Such recognition is a step which requires courage and the Palestinian leadership should tell its people the truth – that without this recognition there can be no peace… There is no alternative to Palestinian leaders showing courage by recognising the Jewish state. This has been and remains the true key to peace.”

As Ha’aretz noted in its report, Netanyahu’s demand for Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is for him “a way on ensuring recognition of Israel’s right to exist as opposed to merely recognising Israel” (my emphasis). This, as Ha’aretz added, is the recognition which Netanyahu and many other Israelis see as the real core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the name of pragmatism, willingness to “merely to recognise” Israel – meaning to accept and live in peace with an Israel inside its pre-June ‘67 borders – has long been the formal Palestinian and all-Arab position. Why does it stop short of recognising Israel’s “right to exist”, and why, really, does it matter so much to Zionism that Palestinians recognise this right?

The answer is in the following.

According to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.

• In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.
• Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.
• The truth is that the General Assembly’s partition proposal never went to the Security Council for consideration. Why not? Because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.
• So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the U.S. was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organised international community, including the Truman administration.

The truth of the time was that the Zionist state, which came into being mainly as a consequence of pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.

And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.

No wonder Prime Minister Netanyahu is more than a little concerned on this account.

Israel’s leaders have always known the truth summarised above. It’s time for the rest of the world to know it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23883.htm

Mitt Romney is sucking up to AIPAC and inspiring violence against Iran.  He makes mormonism look so unappealing.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) condemned the Obama Administration’s approach toward Iran, a republic he described as “unalloyed evil” and controlled by “ruthless and fanatical” leaders in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee today in San Diego.

“Stop thinking that a charm offensive will talk the Iranians out of their pursuit of nuclear weapons,” said Romney. “It will not.” Later in the address, he punctuated that sentiment by noting: “Once an outstretched hand is met with a clenched fist, it becomes a symbol of weakness and impotence.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/eye-on-2012/romney-on-iran-unalloyed-evil.html?wprss=thefix

Amazing how we decry the “terrorism” of Iran sponsored origin in Hezbollah and Hamas while we secretly sponsor terrorism in Iran.  The groups which Iran sponsors have a strong claim to being designated as “freedom fighters.”  Jundullah (the group which claims responsibility for the attack on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard yesterday), on the other hand, has no good claim to being a freedom fighting group in my humble opinion.  And the US does indeed sponsor Jundullah according to ABC News:

A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran. 

It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.

U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or “finding” as well as congressional oversight.

Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html

Seymour Hersh has long been reporting on the US/Jundullah connection:

In an interview with NPR on his latest New Yorker Article, titled ‘Preparing the battlefield’, the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals more striking details of his findings on the aim of the $400 million budgeted US covert operations inside Iran. He provides valuable information on US military preparations to strike the country, on the total expansion of the Bush Administration’s executive power, about the US recognition of Iran’s overall positive role in Iraq and on the US support for the anti-Iran terrorist organisations Jondollah, PJAK and MEK.

Hersh explains that the aim of the US covert operations inside Iran is to create a pretext for attack with the goal of regime change. “The strategic thinking behind this covert operation is to provoke enough trouble and chaos so that the Iranian government makes the mistake of taking aggressive action which will give the impression of a country in acute turmoil”, he said. “Then you have what the White House calls the ‘casus belli’, a reason to attack the country. That is the thinking and it is very crazy.”

Hersh comments that the decision to launch these covert operations was prompted by the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate’s verdict that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons programme and that the approval by the US Congress leadership of the $400 million budget for the operations “is totally an expansion” of the executive powers of the Bush Administration.

He explains how the Bush Administration’s policy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” has led the US to support the Baluchi organisation Jondollah and the MEK (Mujahideen-e-Khalq a.k.a PMOI), both of which have clear track records of terrorist activities including against the US. He reiterates that the US has been giving arms and cash to the terrorists in the MEK for years and reveals that “most of the [MEK] leaders have been taking our money and cashing it in an awful lot of bank accounts in London.” He also reveals for the first time that the US has trained MEK teams in the state of Nevada and that “they do a lot of crazy stuff inside Iran”.

Wikipedia sums it up thusly:

ABC news reported in April 2007, citing US and Pakistani tribal and intelligence sources,^[8] that the terrorist group “has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials” to destabilize the government in Iran.^[18] According to this report by Brian Ross and Christopher Isham of ABC News, the United States government had been secretly encouraging and advising the Jundullah in its attacks against Iranian targets. This support is said to have started in 2005 and arranged so that the United States provided no direct funding to the group, which would require congressional oversight and attract media attention.^[19] The report was denied by Pakistan official sources.^[20] But despite their denial ABC stood by their claim.^[21] Alexis Debat, one of the sources quoted by Ross and Isham in their report alleging US support for the Jundullah, resigned from ABC News in June 2007, after ABC officials claimed that he faked several interviews while working for the company.

Brian Ross, an award winning journalist and the correspondent who worked most closely with Mr. Debat, said the Jundullah story had many sources. “We’re only worried about the things Debat supplied, not about the substance of that story,” he said in regard to the Jundullah report. Mr. Ross has said, so far ABC has found nothing that would undermine the stories Mr. Debat worked on. But he acknowledged that as the stories of fabrications continue to roll in, the network “at some point has to question whether anything he said can be believed.”^[23] This caused the network in 2007 to send a second team of producers to Pakistan investigating the original reports.^[21] ABC never retracted the story. The ABC exclusive further reveals that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney discussed the activity of the group against Iran during his visit to Pakistan.^[8] The exclusive makes parallels between American support for Jundallah and U.S. involvement in Nicaragua through Contras.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jundallah#United_States

Just pointing out a few things here.  Apparently, Obama has recently reaffirmed US unofficial policy of keeping Israel’s nuclear weapons status a secret and has vowed not to pressure Israel to signing on to the NPT:

President Obama has reaffirmed a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, three officials familiar with the understanding said.

The officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing private conversations, said Mr. Obama pledged to maintain the agreement when he first hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in May.

The agreement has apparently been super-secret since 1969:

There is no formal record of the agreement nor have Israeli nor American governments ever publicly acknowledged it. In 2007, however, the Nixon library declassified a July 19, 1969, memo from national security adviser Henry Kissinger that comes closest to articulating U.S. policy on the issue. That memo says, “While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact.”

Mr. Cohen has said the resulting policy was the equivalent of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The Netanyahu government sought to reaffirm the understanding in part out of concern that Iran would seek Israeli disclosures of its nuclear program in negotiations with the United States and other world powers. Iran has frequently accused the U.S. of having a double standard by not objecting to Israel’s arsenal.

Mr. Cohen said the reaffirmation and the fact that Mr. Netanyahu sought and received a written record of the deal suggest that “it appears not only that there was no joint understanding of what had been agreed in September 1969 but it is also apparent that even the notes of the two leaders may no longer exist. It means that Netanyahu wanted to have something in writing that implies that understanding. It also affirms the view that the United States is in fact a partner in Israel’s policy of nuclear opacity.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/02/president-obama-has-reaffirmed-a-4-decade-old-secr/

Someone explain to me again why the US gives Israel such complete deference like this.  This type of news should astound the public.  However, it will not be picked up and aired out by the media and noone will notice it and everything will be back to the usual again.

At the same time, the US media is using the fake nuclear weapons expert, David Albright, to scare the US public about a nation that has absolutely no nuclear weapons:

David Albright, a former international weapons inspector and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said it would probably take Iran some time to conceal activities. But, “if you have a month, you have the time,” he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-nukes3-2009oct03,0,755577.story

Notice how Albright is referred to as a former international weapons inspector.  Recall how this was thoroughly set straight by Scott Ritter not too long ago:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20080626_the_nuclear_expert_who_never_was/

However, the combined efforts of the government and the willingness of the US media to print their propaganda has resulted in the manufacture of the consent of the people of the US for military action against Iran.  Check out this poll, question #26 from Fox News from 9/29-30 which shows that 61% of those polled think the US should use military action to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons:

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/100109_POLL.pdf

Lame eh.

Scott Ritter has written a very good sense article on Iran’s newly discovered uranium enrichment facility at Qom.  It is a far cry from the propaganda being spewed by the Obama administration, along with Britain and France.  Look at what Hillary Clinton scares us with:

The Iranians must “present convincing evidence as to the purpose of their nuclear program. We don’t believe that they can present convincing evidence, that it’s only for peaceful purposes, but we are going to put them to the test,” Clinton told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/09/27/clinton-hard-for-iran-to-make-peaceful-nuke-claim-3/

Or as we see here, Eliot Cohen tries to scare us with the thought that we have a choice between attacking Iran and allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574420641457091318.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

It does one good to sit down and look at the facts though and not let the propaganda-mongers get inside your head.  Here is the good sense article by Ritter in which he immediately calls Obama out for his lie in saying that Iran is breaking rules:

It was very much a moment of high drama. Barack Obama, fresh from his history-making stint hosting the UN security council, took a break from his duties at the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh to announce the existence of a secret, undeclared nuclear facility in Iran which was inconsistent with a peaceful nuclear programme, underscoring the president’s conclusion that “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow“.

Obama, backed by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy, threatened tough sanctions against Iran if it did not fully comply with its obligations concerning the international monitoring of its nuclear programme, which at the present time is being defined by the US, Britain and France as requiring an immediate suspension of all nuclear-enrichment activity.

The facility in question, said to be located on a secret Iranian military installation outside of the holy city of Qom and capable of housing up to 3,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium, had been monitored by the intelligence services of the US and other nations for some time. But it wasn’t until Monday that the IAEA found out about its existence, based not on any intelligence “scoop” provided by the US, but rather Iran’s own voluntary declaration. Iran’s actions forced the hand of the US, leading to Obama’s hurried press conference Friday morning.

Beware politically motivated hype. While on the surface, Obama’s dramatic intervention seemed sound, the devil is always in the details. The “rules” Iran is accused of breaking are not vague, but rather spelled out in clear terms. In accordance with Article 42 of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement, and Code 3.1 of the General Part of the Subsidiary Arrangements (also known as the “additional protocol”) to that agreement, Iran is obliged to inform the IAEA of any decision to construct a facility which would house operational centrifuges, and to provide preliminary design information about that facility, even if nuclear material had not been introduced. This would initiate a process of complementary access and design verification inspections by the IAEA.

This agreement was signed by Iran in December 2004. However, since the “additional protocol” has not been ratified by the Iranian parliament, and as such is not legally binding, Iran had viewed its implementation as being voluntary, and as such agreed to comply with these new measures as a confidence building measure more so than a mandated obligation.

In March 2007, Iran suspended the implementation of the modified text of Code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangements General Part concerning the early provisions of design information. As such, Iran was reverting back to its legally-binding requirements of the original safeguards agreement, which did not require early declaration of nuclear-capable facilities prior to the introduction of nuclear material.

While this action is understandably vexing for the IAEA and those member states who are desirous of full transparency on the part of Iran, one cannot speak in absolute terms about Iran violating its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. So when Obama announced that “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow”, he is technically and legally wrong.

There are many ways to interpret Iran’s decision of March 2007, especially in light of today’s revelations. It should be underscored that what the Qom facility Obama is referring to is not a nuclear weapons plant, but simply a nuclear enrichment plant similar to that found at the declared (and inspected) facility in Natanz.

The Qom plant, if current descriptions are accurate, cannot manufacture the basic feed-stock (uranium hexaflouride, or UF6) used in the centrifuge-based enrichment process. It is simply another plant in which the UF6 can be enriched.

Why is this distinction important? Because the IAEA has underscored, again and again, that it has a full accounting of Iran’s nuclear material stockpile. There has been no diversion of nuclear material to the Qom plant (since it is under construction). The existence of the alleged enrichment plant at Qom in no way changes the nuclear material balance inside Iran today.

Simply put, Iran is no closer to producing a hypothetical nuclear weapon today than it was prior to Obama’s announcement concerning the Qom facility.

One could make the argument that the existence of this new plant provides Iran with a “breakout” capability to produce highly-enriched uranium that could be used in the manufacture of a nuclear bomb at some later date. The size of the Qom facility, alleged to be capable of housing 3,000 centrifuges, is not ideal for large-scale enrichment activity needed to produce the significant quantities of low-enriched uranium Iran would need to power its planned nuclear power reactors. As such, one could claim that its only real purpose is to rapidly cycle low-enriched uranium stocks into highly-enriched uranium usable in a nuclear weapon. The fact that the Qom facility is said to be located on an Iranian military installation only reinforces this type of thinking.

But this interpretation would still require the diversion of significant nuclear material away from the oversight of IAEA inspectors, something that would be almost immediately evident. Any meaningful diversion of nuclear material would be an immediate cause for alarm, and would trigger robust international reaction, most probably inclusive of military action against the totality of Iran’s known nuclear infrastructure.

Likewise, the 3,000 centrifuges at the Qom facility, even when starting with 5% enriched uranium stocks, would have to operate for months before being able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a single nuclear device. Frankly speaking, this does not constitute a viable “breakout” capability.

Iran has, in its declaration of the Qom enrichment facility to the IAEA on 21 September, described it as a “pilot plant“. Given that Iran already has a “pilot enrichment plant” in operation at its declared facility in Natanz, this obvious duplication of effort points to either a parallel military-run nuclear enrichment programme intended for more nefarious purposes, or more likely, an attempt on the part of Iran to provide for strategic depth and survivability of its nuclear programme in the face of repeated threats on the part of the US and Israel to bomb its nuclear infrastructure.

Never forget that sports odds makers were laying 2:1 odds that either Israel or the US would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities by March 2007. Since leaving office, former vice-president Dick Cheney has acknowledged that he was pushing heavily for a military attack against Iran during the time of the Bush administration. And the level of rhetoric coming from Israel concerning its plans to launch a pre-emptive military strike against Iran have been alarming.

While Obama may have sent conciliatory signals to Iran concerning the possibility of rapprochement in the aftermath of his election in November 2008, this was not the environment faced by Iran when it made the decision to withdraw from its commitment to declare any new nuclear facility under construction. The need to create a mechanism of economic survival in the face of the real threat of either US or Israeli military action is probably the most likely explanation behind the Qom facility. Iran’s declaration of this facility to the IAEA, which predates Obama’s announcement by several days, is probably a recognition on the part of Iran that this duplication of effort is no longer representative of sound policy on its part.

In any event, the facility is now out of the shadows, and will soon be subjected to a vast range of IAEA inspections, making any speculation about Iran’s nuclear intentions moot. Moreover, Iran, in declaring this facility, has to know that because it has allegedly placed operational centrifuges in the Qom plant (even if no nuclear material has been introduced), there will be a need to provide the IAEA with full access to Iran’s centrifuge manufacturing capability, so that a material balance can be acquired for these items as well.

Rather than representing the tip of the iceberg in terms of uncovering a covert nuclear weapons capability, the emergence of the existence of the Qom enrichment facility could very well mark the initiation of a period of even greater transparency on the part of Iran, leading to its full adoption and implementation of the IAEA additional protocol. This, more than anything, should be the desired outcome of the “Qom declaration”.

Calls for “crippling” sanctions on Iran by Obama and Brown are certainly not the most productive policy options available to these two world leaders. Both have indicated a desire to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Iran’s action, in declaring the existence of the Qom facility, has created a window of opportunity for doing just that, and should be fully exploited within the framework of IAEA negotiations and inspections, and not more bluster and threats form the leaders of the western world.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/25/iran-secret-nuclear-plant-inspections

This story about the new uranium enrichment facility in Iran is a pretty bizzare one.  Iran is required to give notification to the IAEA 6 months before uranium enrichment at a facility and is not required to give notice before that.  Unless a nation has ratified the additional safeguards protocol, that is all that is required.  Iran hasn’t ratified the additional safeguards protocol and notified the IAEA 18 months ahead of scheduled uranium enrichment at it’s new plant and everyone is all up in arms saying that Iran is cheating the world and that the evidence is mounting that it has every intention to develope a nuclear weapons program etc.  Iran is within it’s responsibility under IAEA requirements.  The additional safeguards protocol hasn’t been ratified by many countries besides Iran including Canada.  The US is demanding that Iran open up it’s facility in 3 months to the IAEA for inspection, but it is not required to do so until 6 months ahead of scheduled enrichment which means it has about a year to allow for inspections to begin.  And, the US is making this demand after Iran has already notified the IAEA of the facility and stated that it will allow inspections.  Does anyone else feel like they are in some sort of bizzare alternate reality when you hear our government spouting this misinformation and complete nonsense?