US envoy hints at strike to stop Iran

[Emillereid]

The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, has told British MPs that military action could bring Iran's nuclear programme to a halt if all diplomatic efforts fail. The warning came ahead of a meeting today of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which will forward a report on Iran's nuclear activities to the UN security council.
The council will have to decide whether to impose sanctions, an issue that could split the international community as policy towards Iraq did before the invasion.
Yesterday the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said: "Nobody has said that we have to rush immediately to sanctions of some kind."
However the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, visiting Washington last week, encountered sharply different views within the Bush administration. The most hawkish came from Mr Bolton. According to Eric Illsley, a Labour committee member, the envoy told the MPs: "They must know everything is on the table and they must understand what that means. We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down."

more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1724473,00.html

Here we go again!!

[saigon68]

1. Bolton

Chicken Hawk extraordinaire

Rattling his spoon and fork together

[Karenina]

12. Iran's Börse is scheduled

to go online March 20-26. See Stillcool47's post #8 for more detail. The "nukular" threat is to PETRODOLLARS and has zip to do with mushroom clouds. If hacking every computer center in Iran fails, the bombs will likely rain down.

What's REALLY DUMB is that China... Oh, never mind. Just watch this. It may take an eternity to download, but is definitely worth the wait.

http://videosift.com/story.php?id=207

[saigon68]

20. Thx

Very interesting :-)

[Mithras61]

2. Why are they so hot...

to extend the war to Iran? Iran (according to nuclear experts) is AT LEAST a decade away from being able to build nuclear weapons. That decade assessment is provided that they can get adequate supplies of gasses that are pure enough to make enriched uranium, and that they can obtain adequate supplies of the necessary ores to make it is the quatitiy required, It also assumes that they can build the centrifuges at a rate that would challenge more technologically advanced (nuclearly speaking) countries. I'm certain that the BFEE ALL know this (I'm amazed actually that Condi hasn't trotted out her "We don't want the first warning to be a mushroom cloud" warning again). That means they WANT a war with Iran, and again that brings us back to "Why now? What's the rush?"

[truthisfreedom]

3. posturing.

[cliss]

16. That must be it: Posturing.

Look at this statement made by Mr. Bolton: "We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down."

This reveals a lot. I personally smell a rat. If they were REALLY planning to do it, would they come out and TELL what their plans were? They certainly wouldn't tell that Fool Bolton a damn thing. They would be in their top-secret board rooms, under ultra-tight security.

I sense desperation.

Desperation......of the Bourse kind.

[bemildred]

4. It's Nixon's crazy-dude strategy.

If we look looney and belligerent enough then MAYBE Iran will not throw it's weight around in the Middle East as much as it might otherwise; and since there is f**k-all we can do about it at this point, bluffing and belligerence is all they have to work with in trying to maintain some sort of control of the situation.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. War makes for good politics, that's why

We are already overextended and going broke funding an illegal and unwarranted occupation of Iraq. Another country (rich with oil, of course) will make it even more important for Americans to "not change horses mid-stream," ie throw the lying scumbags out of power in 2006.

Another curious point: Iraq under Saddam Hussein was, by and large, the biggest threat to Saudi Arabia's hegemony of the Middle East. With Iraq effectively out of the way, Iran -- leading power behind the Shi`a sect -- is now Saudi Arabia's biggest threat, this time against Saudi Arabia's attempts at theological hegemony over the Muslim world. Coincidence? Why is it so easy to believe that the House of Saud is turning a blind eye against the Junta's "Manifest Destiy" in the Middle East so that America will destroy SA's roadblocks?

:tinfoilhat: ?

[Demeter]

7. Three More Years (Only) (If That)

Time is money, even for crazy people.

[daleo]

17. A few things I can see

1 - The bourse, as many have mentioned.
2 - War by election time - that gets them re-elected under the national security banner, if the propaganda works.
3 - Distraction from Iraq (yes, they are just digging a deeper hole).
4 - Some sort of religious based insanity.

[Demeter]

6. Somebody Ought to Give Bolton A Hint About War Crimes

and their consequences, and how BushCo isn't going to protect him when they've all been incarcerated. And it will happen; if the US doesn't, the rest of the world will. Things are that bad.

[stillcool]

8. Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse

by William Clark

Similar to the Iraq war, military operations against Iran relate to the macroeconomics of ‘petrodollar recycling’ and the unpublicized but real challenge to U.S. dollar supremacy from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency.

It is now obvious the invasion of Iraq had less to do with any threat from Saddam’s long-gone WMD program and certainly less to do to do with fighting International terrorism than it has to do with gaining strategic control over Iraq’s hydrocarbon reserves and in doing so maintain the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the critical international oil market. Throughout 2004 information provided by former administration insiders revealed the Bush/Cheney administration entered into office with the intention of toppling Saddam Hussein.<1><2>

Candidly stated, ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ was a war designed to install a pro-U.S. government in Iraq, establish multiple U.S military bases before the onset of global Peak Oil, and to reconvert Iraq back to petrodollars while hoping to thwart further OPEC momentum towards the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency (i.e. “petroeuro”).<3> However, subsequent geopolitical events have exposed neoconservative strategy as fundamentally flawed, with Iran moving towards a petroeuro system for international oil trades, while Russia evaluates this option with the European Union.

http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html
Published on 3 Aug 2005 by Media Monitors Network. Archived on 9 Aug 2005.

[Mithras61]

10. This seems to be...

a more realistic explanation of the motivations for the march to war than almost anything else I've heard so far.

[stillcool]

15. something else was pointed out to me....

that makes sense...is the geographic location of the Strait of Homuz in relation to the Dubai-port deal.... and access to Iran

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="" border="0" alt="Image hosting by Photobucket"></a>


<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img

[HuffleClaw]

9. an election year gambit?

they could easily play diplomatic games for months but i'm pretty sure the UN is not going to give 'em the loophole they want. bolton's real purpose is to label the UN as 'irrelevant' again, while they bully some nations to join a new 'coalition'.

[Emillereid]

11. I saw Scott Ritter on Saturday and he said Iran's uranium is

contaminated with Molybdenum and that until they solve that technical problem they won't be able to produce weapons grade stuff.

Here's a site that quotes him on this:
http://www.theosgoodfile.com/osgood/thu1.htm
.... "Before the Iraq war, former UN Weapons inspector Scott Ritter predicted we would find no nukes in Iraq. And now he is saying we will find no nuclear weapons program in Iran either:

"It doesn't exist. It can't exist!" says Ritter.

And the reason he is so sure is an element called Molybdenum -- atomic number 42.

And Iranian uranium is full of it.

"If the Iranians take their uranium and they process it and they try and put it in the centrifuges and spin them up to make enriched uranium, the centrifuges will break down because if this contamination which the Iranians don't know how to remove." says Ritter.

And there fore, he says, the Iranian nuclear program, is about as real as Saddam's nuclear program:

"You can't have a nuclear weapons program unless you can successfully enrich uranium, and the Iranians cannot do that with the uranium found in Iran." says Ritter.......

[lovuian]

13. So its not about Nukes its about oil

nukes is just the excuse...

[Emillereid]

14. Oil and petrodollars -- the Iranians are starting their own oil bourse.

[megatherium]

18. There will be no war against Iran.

Only saber rattling. We simply cannot afford a war, it would result in the destruction of oil production in the region, or worse, a totally out-of-control conflagation.

Now, me, I want a war. It would be exciting. It would probably result in the collapse of some regimes that desperately deserve to be taken down -- particularly the regime in Washington. It would at once force us to confront our suicidal dependence on fossil fuels, and global warming as well.

But much as I want a war, I know that speculation about an Iranian Bourse is a less-than-convincing reason for a war. I am not going to read everything that crosses my path with the breathless anticipation of it being a harbinger of war. I believe in the principle of greatest disappointment: the outcome in any situation is usually, well, disappointing. What would be disappointing here would be nothing happening, just the annoying status quo (sabre rattling, conspiracy theorizing, etc).

I'm being facetious here, of course, but I remember being afraid of a nuclear war in south Asia, spring of 2002. As it happened, both India and Pakistan had good reasons to convince the other side that they were prepared to go to war -- but both sides had good reasons to not want a war to actually start. Eventually both sides understood that neither side was about to initiate hostilities, and a sincere effort for peace began. Well, now the US (and Israel) want the Iranians to believe we mean business, and the Iranians likewise want us to think they're ready to fight as well. But I do not think either side is preparing to initiate hostilities, the cost of which would be unacceptable (justifying no possible objective of any such conflict).

[Emillereid]

19. Iran is definitely in the neo-cons sites -- they don't plan on invading

a la Iraq, just a little strategic bombing campaign. Might even let the Israelis do it -- with back-up from us.

What I have come the appreciate about the neo-cons is that they see the remaking of the mideast and gaining control over its oil is a long term project -- that's why it's a war that won't end in our lifetime.