Iran ratchets up atom work despite sanctions threat

“despite an offer by world powers to provide it to the Islamic Republic”

Very misleading – the West will give Iran no ironclad assurance it will ever get the 20% uranium back. It proposed a method of exchange that would ensure the West must stick to the deal and the West refused. Proving that they probably have no intention of giving Iran 20% uranium without a string of pre-conditions including Iran shutting down it’s centrifuges.

Do your research: Iran needs to go nuclear for two reasons one they are rapidly depleting their oil reserves and two they need nuclear power to desalinate their water. They look upon us as hypocrites because we have nuclear reactors and bombs and want more reactors because of our GREEN ASS president…our foreign policy should be, “stay the hell out of other peoples business.”

this so called “reaching out to iran” is a joke, how exactly is obama reaching out when he just pushing the same type of policies that bush was. iran is not even close to reaching a nuclear bomb but israel has hundreds, yet their nuclear bombs are not questioned. this is a joke.

Sorry to say this but Iran is right. They were asked to give up their 4% enriched fuel in return of a vague promise that, some day, France will give it back to them as 20% enriched pellets. Naturally, Iran asked for guarantees that this would really happen OR for this being a process were Iran gave France a fraction of the fuel and give up more as the initial processed batch was returned to them.

The West, obeying Israel hysterical opposition to any interaction with Iran that did not involve bombing, refused any ‘compromise’. Iran is doing the natural thing now – they are going to make their own fuel because ‘the West’ would not agree to a deal that doesn’t involve humiliating and frustrating Iran.

In the end, it’s coming down to this: is Israel’s influence powerful enough to trigger yet another Middle East war that would cause the West to, possibly permanently, lose the second richest oil supplier and live with sky-high oil prices that are likely to trigger a second 1920’s -style global depression?

ohh did I meantion how scared eveyone was when russia couldnt account for their nuclear weapons– do you want a repeat

Iran refused a deal that would give it reprocessed uranium for any peacefull purpose they need.

Iran refused and then they turned around and said Publicly the West didnt give them a a deal.

Are these the actions of ppl you want possesing nuclear weapons?

another one for israel haters.
How many non self defensive wars did israel start?

answer they were all defensive or preemtive(GAZA hamastran)

The comment above is completely divorced from ‘facts’ and a collection of propagandistic statements.

The poster has no basis for his suggestion that Iran would sell its nukes if it had them.

First of all, there is no evidence that Iran is actively working on making nukes, even though they would be naive if they didn’t, with bellicose Israel, armed to the teeth, armed in fact with nukes, taking every opportunity to threaten Iran and imply future attacks.

Secondly, there is no evidence that Iran would sell its nukes if it had one. This is just another gratuitous scaremongering, typical of pro-Israel propaganda, trying to take advantage of the general public’s not taking the time to check ‘facts’. Iran is rich enough – they sell A LOT of oil – not to need to sell nukes on the black market.

Thirdly, concerning, Iran’s alleged aggresive intentions, let’s compare Iran’s record of attacking other countries in the past 100 years (zero) to Israel’s since its inception. If there is a dangerously aggressive country in the ME, that is clearly Israel – and they have real nukes, much better than Iran’s imaginary weapons.

Finally, Iranians are not Arabs so it’s not clear why the poster throws the ‘if the Arabs loved their children more…’ propaganda line. What does it mean anyway? That Arabs should submit to Israel’s constant blackmail and humiliation or else Israel will nuke or bomb their children dead?

To conclude, again, Iran is doing the right thing. The ‘deal’ was clearly running against their national interest and they have naturally rejected it. History has no evidence or Iran attacking its neighbors ever since the Persian empire collapsed so all that scaremongering is nothing but propaganda or propaganda-inspired, uninformed screeds.

Iran’s oil peaked in 1978 at 6 million barrels per day and today struggles to pump 3 million. They know they have exaggerated their reserves to OPEC to maintain their quota and realize they are running out of oil sooner than everyone else realizes, therefore they need to go nuclear for the same reason everyone else is…their oil is almost gone.

Iran is OPEC’s second-largest oil producer and the fourth-largest crude oil exporter in the world.

According to Oil and Gas Journal, as of January 2010, Iran has an estimated 137.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, or roughly 10 percent of the world’s total reserves. Iran has 40 producing fields (27 onshore and 13 offshore) with the majority of crude oil reserves located in the southwestern Khuzestan region near the Iraqi border. Iran’s crude oil is generally medium in sulfur content and in the 28°-35° API range. In 2008, Iran exported about 2.4 million bbl/d of oil, primarily to Asia and OECD Europe countries, making it the fourth largest exporter in the world.

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The above seems to make the case for Iran’s work on developing nuke power – would allow them to export more oil.

To the previous poster, you are an israel hater because you carefully forget that:

Israel REACTS to Atttacks,
it does not start the wars.

48, 63, yom kippur, gaza(10,000 rockets on sderot)

I challenge you to name which wars were not provoked by previous actions?

avrwc2, buddy

Israel wars a DEFENSIVE and not offensive as you so easily left out

how many rockets were sent from gaza 10,000

what did palenstinians do when they were given gaza?

turn it into a huge terrorist camp

for avrwc2 and anyone else explanation of phrase

what would happen if the arabs love their children more than they hate the jews?

it means that if the attacks on Israel by arabs stopped then their children would not suffer the retaliation and would live very well and prosper.

there will be peace

Alright, let’s discuss Israel’s peaceful genocide:

19th century – following the Zionist doctrine, Jews begin to immigrate to Palestine in large number. They buy up lands from naive Arabs, unaware that the Jews’ ultimate goal was to re-establish the ancient kingdom of Israel and establish a presence there.

- WW2 and shortly thereafter – Jews in Palestine establish terrorist organizations aimed at chasing away the Arabs and demoralizing the Brits. Some highly successful bombings succeed at demoralizing the Brits.

- 1948 – the UN declares partition. Arab states are unhappy and attack. Jews terrorize the local Arabs and chase most of them away. Those who remained, like the Christians, are second-class citizens in the theocratic state of Israel.

- 1954 – Israel, France and England attack Egypt but are forced to withdraw after failing to obtain US support.

- 1967 – Israel attacks its neighbors, seizes the West Bank, Gaza, all of Jerusalem and Sinai.

- 1973 – Egypt attempts to take back Sinai . Eventually, Israel withdraws from Sinai.

- 1982/3? – Israel invades Lebanon, reaches to Beirut, eventually withdraws from all territory except for a ’security zone’. Hamas is born as a reaction to Israel’s occupation and abuses.

- 1990’s or early 2000’s? – Israel is forced out of the Lebanon’s security zone but refuses to give up another patch of land – some farms. That triggers continuous harassment from Hamas (or is it Hisballah?)

- 1990’s or early 2000’s? – Israel finds the Gaza occupation untenable, allows more local control in the West bank.

- 2000’s – under the pretext of building border fences, Israel seizes more Arab land, cuts off farmers from their land, prevents most supplies from reaching Gaza.

2008? – After rockets fired from Gaza kill one or 2 Israeli over a one or two-year period, Israel retaliates by killing thousands of Gaza inhabitants, mostly civilians. Weapons of mass destruction such as phosphorus are used.

Oh, I believe I missed the most recent attack in Lebanon where Israel gloriously blew up ambulances and the oil tanks of a Beirut power plant, causing a devastating oil spill. Killed thousands of civilians too.

Now… what was IRAN’s record of wars and aggression again? None!

So, let’s review again: Israel, an aggressive state has nukes and keeps barking that ‘all options are on the table’. Iran, a peaceful state, does NOT have nukes but is the target of an Israel-inspired campaign aimed at persuading ‘the West’ to bomb it.

I am concerned what the Iranians might do with weapons. I don’t trust them and I think that they have constantly shown us how untrustworthy they are when dealing with their own citizens.

That being said, if we look at it from their perspective, they are an ancient proud culture and I can’t blame them for the desire to have nuclear weapons.

In this case though, we aren’t talking about giving them weapons grade Uranium. We are talking about giving them a usable form that a lot of others already have.

Thay can make it for themselves and we are telling them that they should trade us for it. This works for our purposes because we don’t want them to enrich it and further refine their methods (and maybe learn to make weapons grade). It doesn’t do anything for them that they couldn’t already do.

For that reason, since we gain everything from such a deal and they gain nothing, we need to be offering them a better deal where they gain something from it. Otherwise we really are just humiliating them. If we want to stop them from getting weapons, we really need to make the alternative routes to peaceful uses of Uranium appealing enough to them that they want to take it rather than threatening them again and again.

No one seems to be listening. The leader of Iran WILL have his nuclear bomb, no matter what the rest of the world wants. How is he supposed to destroy Isreal, without it. He is just like our president, he tell the world what they want to hear and does exactly what he wants to do. What others think does not matter. His agena is all that matters. Our president seems to think he can talk anyone into anything, but that is not working. He has hard enough time with his own democrats! Of course, he has lied so much, no one believes what he says, any more! The leader of Iran is a carbon copy.

@avrwc2: “First of all, there is no evidence that Iran is actively working on making nukes, even though they would be naive if they didn’t, with bellicose Israel, armed to the teeth, armed in fact with nukes, taking every opportunity to threaten Iran and imply future attacks.”

Whenever Israel is factored into a debate I’ve seen variations of this argument time and again. It’s a classic example of “having one’s cake, and eating it too”. Basically what you are implying is that the West and Israel do not need to fear the development of nuclear weapons by Iran as there is no evidence that it is doing so; of course it would be naïve to suggest Iran isn’t developing such weapons as it is in the country’s best interests. Make a choice, do you believe Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons or not? Because if it is, and I believe the evidence points that this is affirmative, then the West and Israel have many reasons to be worried. Israel should be especially worried about nuclear weapon development in Iran because Ahmadinejad has said in several speeches that Israel should be wiped off the map or destroyed or some other variation that Reuters translators have verified to be correct. If the President of Iran’s words were to match his state’s actions then Israel’s very existence would be in serious jeopardy.

As for the double-standard of Israel having nukes of its own—yes this is true; however, to borrow from your line of reasoning, it would be foolish for it not to. Needless to say, Israel has A LOT of enemies—particularly Iran and most surrounding Arab nations, and the majority of these countries’ populations do not want Israel to exist. Israel needs these nukes as a logical deterrent from enemy attacks. That is why Israel is concerned about the possible Iranian development of nuclear weapons—with Ahmadinejad’s statements in mind, combined with Iran’s own nuclear weapons, Iran would gain a substantial advantage should it choose to strike Israel.

I’m getting thoroughly sick of all of you arguing back and forth. I have some friend from Israel and I have a friend from Jordan. I listen to them make all of these same arguments: “it’s all the Arab’s fault” – “No it’s not, Israel’s to blame”. Both sides of this argument are feeding out party lines that the other side is at complete fault.
Most of these comments are careful to state ‘facts’ but they are also both completely disregarding facts that work against them and pretending they don’t exist. The Arabs have done some bad things that have no proper justification. So have the Israelis. In this discussion you are all only playing out exactly what happens on the national level. As long as neither side is willing to admit that it has done bad things and that the other is not completely at fault, nothing will ever be accomplished toward peace and, as someone’s twisted logic above would say, nobody loves their children.

Whatever Iran’s motives or rights to enrich Uranium under the terms of the Non Proliferation Treaty the country signed under the Shaw, one could expect better and more disinterested handling of the situation than the way this issue is now being dealt with.

I have never understood how Israel – that has lived under “strategic ambiguity” for decades and has never signed the non proliferation treaty – can ever open it’s double talking diplomatic mouth and complain about rights and responsibilities it doesn’t want to live under itself? And I whole heartedly agree with the commenter above that Israel is the only country in the Middle east actually occupying another “people’s territory.

If the major powers that dominate the Security Council were honest and more responsible about this issue they would create a disinterested and independent judicial body to examine these issues and allow a proper presentation of facts and arguments. The SC and Iran are in an argument that is a treaty dispute and yet there is no way above the double talk of politics to actually settle the dispute. How very stupid.

An independent judicial body capable of dealing with Iran’s contested right to enrich uranium would also be the kind of court capable or reaching a conclusion about the Israeli Palestinian situation. That is also an issue that could be resolved by putting both sides of the dispute into the hands of an arbitrator who could set boundaries and determine what compensation might be due injured parties.

The world is being played for a fool by the lack of proper Courts to resolve these disputes. A court would be a lot cheaper than the potential damage caused by either Israeli threats of unilateral attack, Iran’s posture of defending against outside threats and continuing to pursue its self interest in spite of those threats and the SC wasting its time and resources on sanction regimes.

israel is a waste of american tax payer money, if israel thinks it is such a big boy then we need to stop sending billions of our hard earned tax money to it. israel creates its own problems, let them handle it on their own.

@paintcan: “That is also an issue that could be resolved by putting both sides of the dispute into the hands of an arbitrator who could set boundaries and determine what compensation might be due injured parties.”

Actually, this has already been done. A very recent example pertains to the Ethiopia/Eritrea border dispute. If I recall correctly, both parties agreed to UN-backed arbitration to settle the border issue definitively. But when Ethiopia did not like the judgment, it simply ignored it. And what was the penalty for ignoring the results of the arbitration process? Well nothing, of course. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine Israel acting in a similar way. Just some food for thought.