Iran may trigger "major international crisis": French FM

[Freddie Stubbs]

PARIS, Aug. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Tuesday that the Iranian nuclear issue is "very serious" and "may trigger a major international crisis."

"The Iran matter seems very serious to me -- it may trigger a major international crisis because, if Iran doesn't go back on itsdecision, then Iran will be, I would say, in a purely unilateral position," Douste-Blazy told reporters after a ministers meeting chaired by French President Jacques Chirac.

Iran on Monday told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it would resume, as of Monday, uranium ore conversion that changes uranium ore into uranium gas, the feedstock for enrichment.

On Tuesday, Iran continued to defy the international community and Europe, saying there was no going back on its decision to restart nuclear fuel work, despite warning of the UN Security Council.

more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/02/content_3301386.htm

[Greeby]

1. Hmmph

Says a country with its own fair share of nukes :eyes:

[havocmom]

5. And 'industrialists' who make money selling weapons systems

just like the US. Talking trash about nations who would like to level the playing field and not end up being invaded while turning a blind eye to companies who profit from such ventures AND doing nothing about traitors who leak info and destroy intel networks for tracking weapons materials.

Hypocrisy 'R US!

[Karmakaze]

6. and that murders innocent Greepeace activists so...

that a nuclear test can go ahead unmolested.

France can bite me.

[readmylips]

2. After Iraq atrocity, Iran will be supported by Muslim nations....

There are more of them than more of us and they got more money. It would be easy for Iran to bring China to their side as a partner in nuclear expansion. The US will not be the only nuclear super power standing. Thanks little georgie bush. Your arrogance, ego and flexing of muscle has put our country in harms way.

[Deja Q]

3. Well, * now has a coalition of the willing when it's time for Iran.

After the selfish mess of Iraq, now there's a JUSTIFIED country and cause.

[kenny blankenship]

4. Unilateral position? You mean like

the position the United States has been in since Bush stole his way into power? We are currently losing a war of aggression undertaken UNILATERALLY without UN sanction. Maybe Iran picked up the unilateral bug from somewhere...I don't know where...
OH MAYBE IT WAS AMERICA?
Here is a list of international treaties abrogated by the US or whose final ratification was mooted by the abandonment by Bush of multilateral agreements.

In December 2001, the United States officially withdrew from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, gutting the landmark agreement-the first time in the nuclear era that the US renounced a major arms control accord.

1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention ratified by 144 nations including the United States. In July 2001 the US walked out of a London conference to discuss a 1994 protocol designed to strengthen the Convention by providing for on-site inspections. At Geneva in November 2001, US Undersecretary of State John Bolton stated that "the protocol is dead," at the same time accusing Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Sudan, and Syria of violating the Convention but offering no specific allegations or supporting evidence.

UN Agreement to Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms, July 2001: the US was the only nation to oppose it.

April 2001, the US was not re-elected to the UN Human Rights Commission, after years of withholding dues to the UN (including current dues of $244 million)-and after having forced the UN to lower its share of the UN budget from 25 to 22 percent. (In the Human Rights Commission, the US stood virtually alone in opposing resolutions supporting lower-cost access to HIV/AIDS drugs, acknowledging a basic human right to adequate food, and calling for a moratorium on the death penalty.)

International Criminal Court (ICC) Treaty, to be set up in The Hague to try political leaders and military personnel charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Signed in Rome in July 1998, the Treaty was approved by 120 countries, with 7 opposed (including the US). In October 2001 Great Britain became the 42nd nation to sign. In December 2001 the US Senate again added an amendment to a military appropriations bill that would keep US military personnel from obeying the jurisdiction of the proposed ICC.

Land Mine Treaty, banning land mines; signed in Ottawa in December 1997 by 122 nations. The United States refused to sign, along with Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Egypt, and Turkey. President Clinton rejected the Treaty, claiming that mines were needed to protect South Korea against North Korea's "overwhelming military advantage." He stated that the US would "eventually" comply, in 2006; this was disavowed by President Bush in August 2001.

Kyoto Protocol of 1997, for controlling global warming: declared "dead" by President Bush in March 2001. In November 2001, the Bush administration shunned negotiations in Marrakech (Morocco) to revise the accord, mainly by watering it down in a vain attempt to gain US approval.

In May 2001, refused to meet with European Union nations to discuss, even at lower levels of government, economic espionage and electronic surveillance of phone calls, e-mail, and faxes (the US "Echelon" program),

Refused to participate in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)-sponsored talks in Paris, May 2001, on ways to crack down on off-shore and other tax and money-laundering havens.

Refused to join 123 nations pledged to ban the use and production of anti-personnel bombs and mines, February 2001

September 2001: withdrew from International Conference on Racism, bringing together 163 countries in Durban, South Africa

International Plan for Cleaner Energy: G-8 group of industrial nations (US, Canada, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, UK), July 2001: the US was the only one to oppose it.

Enforcing an illegal boycott of Cuba, now being made tighter. In the UN in October 2001, the General Assembly passed a resolution, for the tenth consecutive year, calling for an end to the US embargo, by a vote of 167 to 3 (the US, Israel, and the Marshall Islands in opposition).

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Signed by 164 nations and ratified by 89 including France, Great Britain, and Russia; signed by President Clinton in 1996 but rejected by the Senate in 1999. The US is one of 13 nonratifiers among countries that have nuclear weapons or nuclear power programs. In November 2001, the US forced a vote in the UN Committee on Disarmament and Security to demonstrate its opposition to the Test Ban Treaty.

[xxqqqzme]

7. all that Iraqi troop reduction

blather fails 2 add 'and reassigned 2 Iran'.

[Boomer]

8. Someone explain to me...

Someone explain why so many other nations have been allowed to build nuclear weapons without triggering a "crisis", but Iran is not allowed to do the same?

We may not like it, but what objective basis is there for calling this an unacceptable action on their part when we've got a country stockpiled with enough nucelar weapons to destroy the world several times over?

And we've used them.

[NNN0LHI]

9. It goes something like this

With Iran's huge oil and gas deposits we cannot afford to allow them to ever be in the position to be able to protect it. Because some day soon we are going to need that oil and gas and as supplies dwindle prices are going to raise drastically.

The neo-con way of thinking is why wait until they have nuclear weapons to protect that oil with? We can't steal it from them then. Not without paying a heavy price anyway. Got to get it now while the getting is good.

That is my theory anyway.

Don

[Lerkfish]

11. DING DING DING we have a WINNER!

that's precisely it.

[belle]

19. Well, that and, *their* crazy fundies are BAD. OUR crazy fundies are GOOD

How you can tell is that we're the ones who let our womenfolk wear makeup and big hair while they're cleaning and cooking and breeding like God (*not* Allah, and there *will* be a test on this) intended.

[Rex]

20. Sounds absolutely correct!

That's the best Iraqi war theory I've ever heard!

Bravo!

:toast:

[Voltaire99]

22. Nice point, but nuclear proliferation is not solely a neo-con issue

While you are certainly right about the neocons, you'll find most Dem leaders also want to stop Iran from gaining nukes.

Both the neocons and the Wilsonian liberals desire US hegemony, a goal served by keeping the nuclear club as small as possible.

Several weeks ago Kerry, for instance, used his half-hearted DSM letter to flash red warning lights about Iran. Good ol' Mr. Send Me will quickly endorse any future US or Israeli aggression against Iran.

Ironically, nuclear prohibition makes war likelier. The more non-nuclear states seek to arm themselves in hope of preventing their becoming the next Iraq, the likelier they are to become targets of US aggression.

[NNN0LHI]

26. Neo-cons come in all persuasions

I think Kerry does buy into the neo-con crap. Hillary too. They just think they could do a better job of it. (Read "kick their ass and steal their gas")

Don

[Freddie Stubbs]

23. That doens't explain the North Korea situation

They don't have oil. They don't have much of anything.

[Kingofalldems]

24. Huh? I haven't heard any neocon saber rattling

against N. Korea.

[NNN0LHI]

25. As kingofalldems says above who is worried about N. Korea?

The Chimp sure doesn't appear to be worried. No UN resolutions, no talking to god, he is promising them all kinds of goodies and is kissing their ass to just come and talk about it.

I think the chances of even Bush as stupid as he is attacking a nuclear armed N. Korea or any nuclear country is nil.

So whats the plan? We take out Pyongyang. They take out Seoul. No winners there.

Bush will be offering N. Korea free F-16's for all their great help in the war on terrorism before long. Just watch.

Don

[Toots]

27. I am sure thatt is exactly the reason

Can anyone name a single country Iran has threatened or attacked in the last century? Now how about the USA?

[mike923]

15. Because those countries have free and fair elections...

Any country that doesn't allow it's people to decide who runs the government, shouldn't be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

[Boomer]

17. Aha, so that means....

If election fraud can be proved in this country, we are obligated to disarm, aren't we?

Has anyone mentioned that inconvenient small print clause to the man who currently claims to have won the 2004 US presidential election?

[mike923]

29. Not everything goes back to Bush...

I tried to think of the Iranian nuclear situation as if Kerry were elected. How would we want him to handle it?

It's putting forward these types of solutions, rather than just bashing Bush, that will get the Democrats back in the majority. I'm fearful that our constant negitivity was the cause of the 2004 election. I don't want this repeated in -06 or Godforbid in -08.

[NNN0LHI]

21. What about Pakistan? The got nukes and are run by a brutal dictator

General Pervez Musharraf took over the country many years ago by coup. He has never been elected for anything. Why no crisis there? Bush just gave them a bunch of F-16's. Your theory doesn't stand up to the facts.

Don

[mike923]

28. I don't support

nuclear proliferation for any country, including the US. But that isn't going to keep countries from attempting to get them.

The post i responded to was one in which asked for the legal justification of restricting Iran from building their own. My point was i think the UN could set a legal standard that says if a country wants to attain such weapons, they have to meet certain standards. The top standard for me would be that these leaders would have to be responsible to their people, or face being democratically removed from office. With such a restraint, any leader would first have to sell it's citizens that these weapons were more important than basic rights of food, health care, infrastructure, ect...

That's a tough sell for such a leader to make.

[hang a left]

10. ".......I would say, in a purely unilateral position,"

Hint hint

I would say that the Foreign Minister is warning that the US is gonna do their "unilateral" thingy.

[Gloria]

12. I'm reading it differently...that Iran will be "alone" against the

G3 and the US, etc. Who else will fight for Iran? Probaby no one. However, in the aftermath, you probably see a jihad and all sorts of new insurgents willing to fight, a la Iraq.....And maybe some behind the scenes support from Russia, China, Pakistan, etc.?

So far, since this new business started, Russia has been very quiet...

[drduffy]

13. Iran has made deals

with Russia, China, India.... it has made a deal with Iraq. It is trying to forestall a US invasion a la Israeli bombing etc. As much as I don't like the mullahs I also don't want the neocon agenda to advance.

[katty]

14. Yes, agree--it's a heads up: Iran Attack-bush is back at Crawford

just like he was before 9-11. Cheney is heading to SArabia...not just to pay his repects for dead King

[IndianaGreen]

16. Nukes are the only deterrent to US aggression!

If we attack Iran, it will place our troops in Iraq in mortal danger from the wrath of the Shia majority.

We have Bush and Blair to thank for this as George Monbiot's article describes:

Published on Tuesday, August 2, 2005 by the Guardian (UK)
The Treaty Wreckers
In just a few months, Bush and Blair have destroyed global restraint on the development of nuclear weapons

by George Monbiot

It is because nuclear weapons confer power and status on the states that possess them that the non-proliferation treaty, of which the UK was a founding signatory, determines two things: that the non-nuclear powers should not acquire nuclear weapons, and that the nuclear powers should "pursue negotiations in good faith on ... general and complete disarmament". Blair has unilaterally decided to rip it up.

But in helping to wreck the treaty we are only keeping up with our friends across the water. In May the US government launched a systematic assault on the agreement. The summit in New York was supposed to strengthen it, but the US, led by John Bolton - the undersecretary for arms control (someone had a good laugh over that one) - refused even to allow the other nations to draw up an agenda for discussion. The talks collapsed, and the treaty may now be all but dead. Needless to say, Bolton has been promoted: to the post of US ambassador to the UN. Yesterday Bush pushed his nomination through by means of a "recess appointment": an undemocratic power that allows him to override Congress when its members are on holiday.

Bush wanted to destroy the treaty because it couldn't be reconciled with his new plans. Last month the Senate approved an initial $4m for research into a "robust nuclear earth penetrator" (RNEP). This is a bomb with a yield about 10 times that of the Hiroshima device, designed to blow up underground bunkers that might contain weapons of mass destruction. (You've spotted the contradiction.) Congress rejected funding for it in November, but Bush twisted enough arms this year to get it restarted. You see what a wonderful world he inhabits when you discover that the RNEP idea was conceived in 1991 as a means of dealing with Saddam Hussein's biological and chemical weapons. Saddam is pacing his cell, but the Bushites, like the Japanese soldiers lost in Malaysia, march on. To pursue his war against the phantom of the phantom of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, Bush has destroyed the treaty that prevents the use of real ones.

It gets worse. Last year Congress allocated funding for something called the "reliable replacement warhead". The government's story is that the existing warheads might be deteriorating. When they show signs of ageing they can be dismantled and rebuilt to a "safer and more reliable" design. It's a pretty feeble excuse for building a new generation of nukes, but it worked. The development of the new bombs probably means the US will also breach the comprehensive test ban treaty - so we can kiss goodbye to another means of preventing proliferation.

But the biggest disaster was Bush's meeting with Manmohan Singh a fortnight ago. India is one of three states that possess nuclear weapons and refuse to sign the non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The treaty says India should be denied access to civil nuclear materials. But on July 18 Bush announced that "as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other such states". He would "work to achieve full civil nuclear energy cooperation with India" and "seek agreement from Congress to adjust US laws and policies". Four months before the meeting the US lifted its south Asian arms embargo, selling Pakistan a fleet of F-16 aircraft, capable of a carrying a wide range of missiles, and India an anti-missile system. As a business plan, it's hard to fault.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0802-28.htm

[Rex]

18. Philippe Douste-Blazy must go bird hunting with Cheney.

Cheney told the Pentagon to get ready for a pre-emptive, nuclear strike on Iran without any warning. This is making me nervous.

[Javaman]

30. Explain to me why my bullshit detector is going wild on this one...

[Demeter]

31. Iran Will Be the Excuse For US To Start An International Crisis

Put the blame where it really belongs.