Finally, Some Truth On Iran
I heard the relevant quote on NPR when I was out today, but the link to the story on the CBS site wasn’t obvious, so here is the USA Today version of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta admitting that there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
He falls back on a variation of the Hedgemony’s ‘weapons of mass destruction program related activities’, i.e. Iran is doing things that could be used in a nuclear weapons program in the future. He doesn’t say what those things are, perhaps it is physics courses or mathematics, but the fact that the possibility exists is enough to impose all kinds of sanctions on Iran.
I have no idea what Iran is supposed to do, because Saddam did everything required of him to prove that he didn’t have any WMDs, but he got attacked anyway.
Let’s be clear that Iran is following the rules and has the right to do what it is doing. The US did nothing about Israel, Pakistan, or India when they developed nuclear weapons, and the less said about the mess the Shrubbery created in North Korea when he reneged on the agreement put in place to stop their nuclear weapons program the better.
Iran has absolutely no reason to believe anything the West says. The West has broken agreements with Iran on multiple occasions, so promises of a supply of fuel rods from outside of Iran are not going to be accepted. The West, and especially the US, has no credibility anymore.
Iran has a right under international law to control the passage of shipping through its coastal waters, and portions of the Strait of Hormuz goes through Iranian waters.
Iran is not violating any rules, but at the insistence of Israel, the US is seeking to punish them.
2 comments
High time for a scale down on the sabre rattling by both sides. The death sentence today on Amir Hekmati does not help either , to say the least.
I would love to see the government of Iran altered to a real democracy with actual justice being delivered in its courts, but that is for the Iranian people to sort out, not outsiders.
The ability of the US to actually affect world affairs in a positive direction has been destroyed by the actions of the government under both Bush and Obama. Continuing to call for punishment without any actual proof of guilt is a feature of the American reaction to Iran, and Iran’s reaction to Hekmati.
The people of the US need to straighten out our government, and the people of Iran need to deal with their government. There will be no justice until that happens.
I have to wonder why European nations are going along with the US fixation on Iran. This is going to end badly if people don’t change direction.