Sanction Iran or Attack them says Lieberman

Senator Joe Lieberman

The world faces a stark choice between imposing tough sanctions on Iran to stop its nuclear program, or attacking it, United States Senator Joe Lieberman said Saturday.

Lieberman is the influential chairman of the Senate committee on homeland security. He was speaking a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that his country was ready to accept an international swap of uranium, but only under certain conditions.

“We have a choice here: to go to tough economic sanctions to make diplomacy work or we will face the prospect of military action against Iran,” Lieberman told the annual Munich Security Conference.

Top U.S. commanders are already working out how such a strike should be conducted, and although “no-one wants this to happen … unless we together act strongly and do more than talk that is exactly what will happen,” Lieberman said.

A nuclear-armed Iran would provoke chaos in the Middle East, send world oil prices soaring and end any hope of a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lieberman said.

IAEA chief seeks ‘accelerated’ dialogue with Iran

Earlier Saturday, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said, after talks with Iran’s foreign minister on a nuclear fuel swap plan, that he sought an accelerated dialogue with Tehran.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano told reporters after his talks in Munich with Mottaki that dialogue on Iran’s nuclear program is continuing.

Asked if he was confident of a breakthrough, Amano told reporters on the sidelines of an annual security conference in the German city “I prefer not to provide my perspective. Dialogue is continuing, this should be accelerated. That’s the point.”

Meanwhile, Mottaki described his meeting with the IAEA chief as “very good,” but repeated Iran’s insistence on determining the amount of fuel to be exchanged and said it might be less than the 1,200 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) which world powers have asked it to part with in one go.

In exchange, Iran would receive uranium of a higher grade which it could use to fuel a Tehran research reactor producing medical isotopes.

“It is very common that in business, the buyer talks and offers about the quantity, and the seller only offers the price,” Mottaki told reporters at the Munich Security Conference.

In the proposed swap, he said, “we determine the quantity on the basis of our needs and we would inform the parties about our requirements. Maybe it is less than this quantity you have already mentioned [1,200 kilograms] or a little more than the quantity we may need for our reactor.”

From the point of view of the United States and others, the proposed swap would reduce the risk of Iran enriching its low-grade uranium to the degree required for potential use in a nuclear weapon – an intention Tehran denies.

“We discussed and exchanged views on a wide range of issues – views about the proposal that is on the table,” Mottaki said.

“I tried to explain the views of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the Director-General,” Mottaki said.

He was elaborating on comments he made on Friday, suggesting an agreement was close. The United States and Germany on Saturday voiced skepticism about Iran’s intentions and said those remarks had not gone far enough.

Mottaki rejected a questioner’s suggestion that Iran’s leadership was divided over the proposed uranium deal.

“In Iran there is only one voice about the issue. And that is, the exchange of fuel has been accepted and recognized. As I told you before, there have been certain doubts about it, and efforts were made to remove these doubts,” he said.

Mottaki did not address the timing of a proposed swap, a problematic issue in negotiations. On Friday he spoke of a ’simultaneous’ swap, whereas the six-power group wants Iran first to ship its LEU abroad and then receive it back when sufficiently enriched to use in Tehran reactor.

The IAEA’s last report in November said Iran had registered a total of 1,763 kilograms of LEU, a quantity experts say would be more than enough for one nuclear bomb if it were enriched to the level of 90 percent.

Here is a Related Post by the NY Times

India Tests new Ballistic Missile

Dhanush-missile

India successfully tested a nuclear-capable ballistic missile from a ship near the east coast on Sunday, a defence official said.

The Dhanush, which has a short range of 350 kilometres (220 miles), is a navy version of the surface-to-surface Prithvi missile and can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads.

The missile was successfully fired from a ship in the Bay of Bengal, said S.P. Das, director of Integrated Test Range, a unit of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation.

“The test met all the requisite parameters,” he said.

The Dhanush was last tested in 2007.

Last month, India conducted the first night-time test of a nuclear-capable, medium-range ballistic missile but the attempt failed.

Nuclear Materials on the Highways

DOE Nuclear Material Transport Truck

The Department of Energy has been using tractor trailers to transport fissile and other nuclear materials for years, from what I have been told each vehicle carries armed guards, the driver, who also has access to a weapon and a “chase vehicle” which also carries armed employees of the DOE.

The idea of nuclear weapons being carted around in our highways, cities and neighborhoods doesn’t really put one’s mind at ease. However, the government has been transporting seriously dangerous stuff like enriched uranium and plutonium secretly without public warning. Through the Freedom of Information Act has forced the Department Of Energy to release color photos of the trucks used to transport weapons. According to FOE, these are the first of such pictures that have been released in many years.

Tom Clements, Southeastern Nuclear Campaign Coordinator with Friends of the Earth in Columbia, South Carolina made the following statement about the importance of the release of the photos.
“The trucks carrying nuclear weapons and dangerous materials such as plutonium pass through cities and neighborhoods all the time and the public should be aware of what they look like. Release of these photos will help inform the public about secretive shipments of dangerous nuclear material that are taking place in plain view.”

North Korea’s Launch Plans Elicit Non-Specific Warning From Obama

The United States military is prepared for the possibility that North Korea may attempt to launch a missile toward Hawaii, President Barack Obama said in remarks released on Sunday.

“This administration — and our military — is fully prepared for any contingencies,” Obama said in an interview with CBS television when asked about reported North Korean intentions to fire a missile toward Hawaii on or about July 4.

Pressed on whether his comments were a warning of a military response, Obama said no.

“It’s just we are prepared for any contingencies,” he said. “I don’t want to speculate on hypotheticals. But I do want to give assurances to the American people that the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted in terms of what might happen.”

North Korea conducted a nuclear test on May 25 and may be looking to launch a long-range missile toward Hawaii after the United Nations punished Pyongyang by toughening sanctions.

Obama said the international community was united in its approach to North Korea.

“One of the things that we have been very clear about is that North Korea has a path toward rejoining the international community,” he said.

“We hope they take that path. What we’re not going to do is to reward belligerence and provocation in the way that’s been done in the past.”

Israeli Iranian War Inevitable

Israel is seriously considering taking unilateral military action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to a report by top US political figures and experts released Wednesday.

The report also says Israel’s time frame for action is growing shorter, not only because of Iranian advances, but because Teheran might soon acquire upgraded air defenses and disperse its nuclear program to additional locations.

The report, “Preventing a Cascade of Instability,” was put out by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). It also argues that international sanctions against Iran need to be intensified urgently for the engagement the Obama administration is planning with Teheran to be effective.

An early draft of the report was endorsed by Dennis Ross before he withdrew upon joining the Obama administration, in which he is serving as a special representative dealing with various countries in the region, including Iran. Senator Evan Bayh of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Congressman Gary Ackerman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, were among the signatories.

Extend cooperation between allies in missile defense
The bipartisan group also recommended increasing security guarantees and the supply of missile defenses and other protective measures to allies in the Middle East, both to reassure them of America’s commitment to them and to dampen the perceived effectiveness, and hence appeal, of nuclear weapons for Iran.

But the report, several of whose authors met with high-level Israeli officials to assess their perspective, notes that Israel is not interested in becoming part of an American nuclear umbrella, even as Gulf countries want more assurances on that front.

“A declared US guarantee would clarify a situation of ambiguity that may already work to Israel’s advantage,” the report notes. Also, “many Israelis fear that a declared US guarantee could come at the price of circumscribing Israel’s freedom of action in confronting existential dangers.”

Israel is quite serious concerning acting on its own over a nuclear-armed Iran,” former US ambassador to the United Nations Nancy Soderberg, one of the task force members who traveled to the region to research the report, said at a WINEP event held Wednesday on the report’s release.

She noted that the timetable for an Israeli attack might be “significantly” moved up if Jerusalem believed Russia was going to make good on its pledge to supply Iran with the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which would greatly complicate any Israeli attack.

However, According to this article from 2008, Israel probably already has an electronic countermeasure to the s-300.

If the delivery does occur, the report recommends more arms sales to Israel, such as more modern aircraft, so it can maintain its military edge.

Later, she said that the aim of the report was to come up with strategies where neither the United States nor Israel was at the point of launching military action.

“You’ve kind of lost the ballgame at that point,” she said.

To that end, the 10-page document urges more international sanctions and expanding financial pressure taken by the US Treasury, by creating similar programs at the US Commerce and State Departments.

The study stresses the importance of having a united global front and pushes for intensified diplomacy with Russia to both make sanctions more effective and to persuade the Russians not to deliver the S-300 system.

“Iran does not want to be isolated on the international stage: It is not North Korea. The broader the international consensus, the better. The repeated shows of unanimity by the UN Security Council seem to have impressed Iran more than the limited economic or security impact of the sanctions imposed thus far,” the report states, in making the case for more sanctions.

At the same time, it contends that aggressive engagement is needed because “another important goal is to show the Middle East and the world that the United States will go the extra mile to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue. Some circles in countries friendly to the United States now wonder – without reason – if Washington is as much an obstacle to resolving the nuclear impasse as is Teheran.”

Even if engagement, sanctions and other measures prove ineffective, the report warns against sanctioning a “fallback” policy where Iran is allowed to have some, even if limited, capacity to enrich uranium in its territory.

“Iran’s having a latent capability to quickly make nuclear weapons could lead to much the same risk of cascading instability as an Iran with an actual weapon,” it reads, pointing to the risk for nuclear proliferation, Iranian regional hegemony and more.

The report makes no mention of the presidential elections in Iran this June, which could see the more moderate Muhammad Khatami replace fiery current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Some analysts have suggested that the Obama administration wait to either engage or press for further sanctions until after the campaign, so as not to increase the likelihood of Admadinejad winning.

But the task force calls for immediate action, arguing that the president is less important than Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatolla Ali Khamenei, in making decisions and that the top priority should be creating leverage heading into negotiations.

An Iranian professor in the audience at Wednesday’s WINEP conference, however, said that increasing pressure would increase extremism and Iranian hard-line leaders’ sticking to the nuclear program.

WINEP executive director Robert Satloff, who presided over the conference, responded that the report’s recommendations also included many incentives for Iran should it cooperate with the United States.

He also said Iran was already beginning to reap some of the rewards of influence just by having been successful in advancing its nuclear program, and that this report was intended to stanch that progress.

“Even without testing a nuclear weapon or declaring the ability to do so, Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons capability is already having a substantial impact on the Middle East,” it says. “Time is short if diplomatic engagement is to have a chance of success.”