Ahmadinejad: Israel a "Permanent Threat"

[MasterShake29]

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/14/D8GVSUC0H.html

"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

To me, and I'm not a big war guy, this is justification for Israel to attack Iran. He may as well as said that he's declaring war.

[Ali_reza]

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/14/D8GVSUC0H.html



To me, and I'm not a big war guy, this is justification for Israel to attack Iran. He may as well as said that he's declaring war.

Ahmadinejad is nuts. He's just itching for a confrontation with the US and Israel.

I do'nt know why ??

He is very isolated in Iran. Maybe that's why he's looking for a clash ?

[Iranian Monitor]

Ahmadinejad is nuts. He's just itching for a confrontation with the US and Israel.

I do'nt know why ??

He is very isolated in Iran. Maybe that's why he's looking for a clash ?

Imagine you are Ahmadinejad, seriously committed to fulfill your pledge not to compromise on Iran's rights to enrich uranium. Imagine you have plans to operate 50,000 centrifuges to embark on industrial level enrichment. Further imagine that both Russia and China have told you that if you do so, all bets are off. That they will not stand against any UN resolutions sought by the US.

What would you do? You basically have limited choices.

One is to try what Larijani and some others tried unsuccessfully. To at least get the Russians to accept Iran's rights to engage in enrichment for research purposes for now, postponing industrial level enrichment in Iran and taking that project to Russia. That offer, however, did not resolve the impasse.

Once that approach did not work, Iran was left with two choices. Either prepare to eventually retreat under the pressures, or look elsewhere for support to break out from the growing isolation being engineered against it.

In this latter calculation, with Iran committed to a path on its nuclear program that guarantees it won't ever win over the EU, its best bet is to at least try to make Iran's 'nuclear program' something that looks like it would belong to all "Islamic nations". To try to enlist their support and through them make sure Arab governments in the region will be wary of joining any efforts against Iran. Without support from those Arab governments, worried about the reaction in their streets, mounting operations against Iran will be more difficult and -- if any such operations come to pass -- far more dangerous politically.

[Ali_reza]

Imagine you are Ahmadinejad, seriously committed to fulfill your pledge not to compromise on Iran's rights to enrich uranium. Imagine you have plans to operate 50,000 centrifuges to embark on industrial level enrichment. Further imagine that both Russia and China have told you that if you do so, all bets are off. That they will not stand against any UN resolutions sought by the US.

What would you do? You basically have limited choices.

One is to try what Larijani and some others tried unsuccessfully. To at least get the Russians to accept Iran's rights to engage in enrichment for research purposes for now, postponing industrial level enrichment in Iran and taking that project to Russia. That offer, however, did not resolve the impasse.

Once that approach did not work, Iran was left with two choices. Either prepare to eventually retreat under the pressures, or look elsewhere for support to break out from the growing isolation being engineered against it.

In this latter calculation, with Iran committed to a path on its nuclear program that guarantees it won't ever win over the EU, its best bet is to at least try to make Iran's 'nuclear program' something that looks like it would belong to all "Islamic nations". To try to enlist their support and through them make sure Arab governments in the region will be wary of joining any efforts against Iran. Without support from those Arab governments, worried about the reaction in their streets, mounting operations against Iran will be more difficult and -- if any such operations come to pass -- far more dangerous politically.

i do'nt agree with you. What mostly worries the international community about Irans nuclear program is Ahmadinejad declaring consistently that Israel should be wiped out !

Not once, but it's now three or four times these last months.

Without these declarations, i'm sure Iran would've had the support of some countries, muslim countries ? Russai ? China ?

Now we are definatley isolated.

Plus the trigger happy Bush administration now has a free pass to take any action they judge propriate.

Who would'nt be concerned ?

[Iranian Monitor]

i do'nt agree with you. What mostly worries the international community about Irans nuclear program is Ahmadinejad declaring consistently that Israel should be wiped out !


Iran was under the direct threat to be referred to the UN for sanctions even before Ahmadinejad had been sworn in office. Indeed, the US/EU backed down from those threats several times after Ahmadinejad became president and after his remarks about 'wiping Israel off the map'. The best 'offer' given to Iran, endorced by the US/EU, was the Russian offer and that came a few weeks after the hoopla about Ahmadinejad's comments about Israel.


Without these declarations, i'm sure Iran would've had the support of some countries, muslim countries ? Russai ? China ?

Depends on what you mean by support? Iran has been told by Russia and China that they will not support any sanctions or any other punitive measures against Iran so long as Iran allows IAEA inspections and does not engage in industrial level enrichment. If it does either, all bets are off. That is what Iran has been told by the Russians and Chinese without regard to anything having to do with comments on Israel.

You might not agree with the tactics Ahmadinejad is pursuing and his approach might not work. But he is playing a high stakes poker game running against the world's only superpower, and with a hostile regional nuclear power Israel pushing its influence against Iran, with no one else truly interested in letting Iran develop its nuclear industry to the point Iran is interested to do. There is no recipe that guarantees success, but I would not be entirely dismissive of folks who have managed to beat the US in several encounters already. In Lebanon in the 1980s, and in Iraq after the US invaded and took over that country. These folks aren't idiots.

[Ali_reza]

Iran was under the direct threat to be referred to the UN for sanctions even before Ahmadinejad had been sworn in office. Indeed, the US/EU backed down from those threats several times after Ahmadinejad became president and after his remarks about 'wiping Israel off the map'. The best 'offer' given to Iran, endorced by the US/EU, was the Russian offer and that came a few weeks after the hoopla about Ahmadinejad's comments about Israel.



Depends on what you mean by support? Iran has been told by Russia and China that they will not support any sanctions or any other punitive measures against Iran so long as Iran allows IAEA inspections and does not engage in industrial level enrichment. If it does either, all bets are off. That is what Iran has been told by the Russians and Chinese without regard to anything having to do with comments on Israel.

You might not agree with the tactics Ahmadinejad is pursuing and his approach might not work. But he is playing a high stakes poker game running against the world's only superpower, and with a hostile regional nuclear power Israel pushing its influence against Iran, with no one else truly interested in letting Iran develop its nuclear industry to the point Iran is interested to do. There is no recipe that guarantees success, but I would not be entirely dismissive of folks who have managed to beat the US in several encounters already. In Lebanon in the 1980s, and in Iraq after the US invaded and took over that country. These folks aren't idiots.

Iran has been under sanctions by the US for almost 30 years now.
You're right, the US and Israel did'nt wait for Ahmadinejad to put pressure on Iran.
But no matter what poker game is being played, you can not say that a country should be wiped off ! You just can't say that.
Iran could have continued the confrontation with the US and Israel about it's nuclear rights in a smoother ,more diplomatic way. Well just like before Ahmadinejad was elected.

[Iranian Monitor]

Let me give this chronology to what was happening right before Ahmadinejad assumed office.

In 2003, Iran agreed to suspend its enrichment, conversion, reprocessing, activities and in 2004 explicitly added work on centrifuge machines as part of its 'voluntary suspension' agreement.

After the EU failed to give Iran a satisfactory package of incentives that would guarantee Iran's rights to pursue a civilian nuclear program, instead basically offering Iran a package that required that Iran dismantle much of its program, Iran finally decided to break away from some of the suspensions it had agreed to earlier. This was still before Ahmadinejad was elected.

On August 9, 2005, right before Ahmadinejad was sworn in office, Iran resumed work at the Isfahan UCF plant. In response, the EU and the US said Iran would be referred to the UN for sanctions unless it halted that work.

After Ahmadinejad was elected, he was first accused (falsely) of being one of the students who taken US hostages. Later, he was lambasted for quoting the phrase "Israel should be wiped off the map". In this atmosphere, the US and the EU were threatening that Iran's case would be referred to the UN for sanctions unless Iran resumed full suspension of all enrichment activities, including even uranium conversion.

Once it became clear Iran was going to relent, and after the comments about Israel, the US and EU endorced a Russian proposal that specifically allowed Iran to continue uranium conversion but required it to transfer all enrichment work to a joint project to be conducted in Russia. That was the best offer given to Iran to resolve the nuclear issue, although it still fell short of Iran's demands.

Today, in the short time since Iran has lifted the suspension, Iran has been able to produce 110 tons of UF6 gas from only 37 tons that had produced earlier before the suspensions; it has successfully operated a cascade of 164 centrifuges producing uranium at the level of enrichment required for nuclear power plants; and is ready to install 3,000 centriguges by fall -- enough for industrial enrichment. It is also moving ahead with plans to eventually start 50,000 centrifuges in Natanz.

All this might lead to war with Iran, or to sanctions, but while Ahmadinejad's comments about Israel can be used to further rally those already hostile towards Iran and easy to rally anyway against it, those same comments do make Iran's program more popular in some quarters among the Arab street and among certain Arab groups with ties to Iran. In case of war, Iran will need their support. Hezbollah, Hamas, the Arab street, along with Iran's missiles, its location overlooking the energy supplies to the West, its ability to hit US targets and oil installations in the region -- these are the primary levers Iran has to deter a US attack. Iran is seeking to strengthen each of these levers, while pushing ahead the timetable that it might be able to have 'surge capacity'.

[Amerikaki]

This sounds an awful like those Arab Leaders right before they launched attacks on Israel and had their asses handed to them. He's all talk and he's giving Israel more of a reason to launch a preemptive attack on Iran.


This ahmedickinhismouth guy has no idea.....

[BenReilly]

As I've said before, Iran will be the next superpower. It's sphere of influence will grow from the Middle East to the planet Earth and eventually the entire solar system. We either can make peace with Iran now or be prepared to visit this web site:

http://www.farsinet.com/farsi/

[Shaster]

I guess this is like the game of Cartoons. Making it a West vs. Muslim issue. But any game you have two faces. Ahmadinejad is the hard one, there is a soft one too--the foreign minister?

[Iranian Monitor]

Ahmadinejad is the hard one, there is a soft one too--the foreign minister?

Ahmadinejad, as the president, appoints members of his cabinet, including the foreign minister. Although the foreign ministry if often more 'diplomatic' in its approach than some other institutions in Iran, the person trying to position himself as the 'softer' face of Iran is Ahmadinejad's beaten rival in the last presidential race: Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Rafsanjani used to wield enormous influence in Iran with many of his hand picked appointees working throughout the various beaucracies in Iran's complicated government structures, given that he had worked in various positions including as speaker of the parliament, president (two terms) as well as chairman of the expediency council -- a position he still holds. He also has influence with many of Iran's business groups and is reputed to be one of Iran's wealthiest individuals, holding through proxies shares in many of Iran's largest enterprises. Although Ahmadinejad has purged many people with ties to Rafsanjani from some of the government beaucracy and institutions, the latter is the person who has worked to present himself as the 'moderate face' in Iran's current political contest with the West.

[#10 Jersey]

IM...better move soon....you may soon get your wish....the great Iranian "empire" vs US military technology....get those bunkers ready.