Posted on 05/27/2007 4:10:44 AM PDT by familyop
WASHINGTON — U.S. President George W. Bush wants Russian and Chinese help tightening the screws on Tehran's ruling mullahs in an effort to stop Iran from tipping its formidable arsenal of missiles with nuclear warheads.
"Iran with a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing for the world," Mr. Bush said yesterday, a day after the UN nuclear watchdog said Tehran might be only three years away from building a warhead.
The President wants to prevent Iran - one of the original three "axis of evil" powers in Mr. Bush's view - from acquiring nuclear weapons but has relied so far on concerted international pressure through United Nations sanctions rather than issuing any direct threats to the Islamic regime in Tehran.
At a Rose Garden news conference, Mr. Bush said he would seek support for "further sanctions" from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
"These leaders have got to understand ... it's in their interests that we work collaboratively to continue to isolate that regime," he said.
The UN Security Council imposed modest sanctions on Iran in December for Tehran's defiant refusal to cease enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels and then stiffened them slightly in March. Tehran responded by imposing further limitations on International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and vowing not to bow to international pressure.
As Mr. Bush was ramping up the rhetoric in Washington, Iran's fiery President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was whipping up a crowd of Revolutionary Guards in Isfahan, the site of Iran's uranium enrichment facilities.
"The enemy wants Iran to surrender so it won't have any say in the world," he said.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is purely peaceful but reactors that generate electricity don't project international clout. Mr. Bush and most Western nations fear Tehran's ruling theocracy seeks nuclear weapons to elevate its status beyond regional power. The Bush administration also accuses Tehran - or at least radical Shia elements associated with the Revolutionary Guard - of supplying powerful and sophisticated "shaped" explosives to Shia insurgents in Iraq. Those roadside bombs can penetrate even heavily armoured U.S. military vehicles and have killed scores of U.S. soldiers in recent months.
The latest exchanges of tough rhetoric between Washington and Tehran - estranged adversaries since 1979 - comes only days before U.S. and Iranian diplomats are to meet in Baghdad for talks on coping with the spiralling violence in Iraq.
While those direct talks between the two nations with no diplomatic relations were to be strictly limited, advocates of engaging Iran saw them as a possible first step in an effort championed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to develop broader contacts.
The latest looming showdown with Iran comes as Mr. Bush warned of heavier fighting - and mounting U.S. casualties - in Iraq.
"This summer is going to be a critical time for the new strategy," Mr. Bush said, referring to the controversial "surge" that is sending more than 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers into Baghdad in a last-ditch effort to prevent all-out civil war along sectarian lines. There will be "heavy fighting in the weeks and months" ahead, Mr. Bush conceded, adding, "We can expect more American and Iraqi casualties."
Congress last night passed a long-delayed spending bill - now shorn of any troop-pullout timetable after Mr. Bush's veto of the first version - to fund the war that will soon have cost more than $1-trillion (U.S.).
UN files scathing report on Iran
Sydney Morning Herald ^ | 24MAY07 | AP
"ElBaradei's report criticised Iran's continued refusal to allow the IAEA inspectors to visit a heavy water reactor now under construction at the central city of Arak and linked facilities, after it unilaterally curtailed an agreement with the agency earlier this year."
Via their control of most media channels, including all of the alphabet networks excluding FOX and their influence over most editorial boards on Birdcage liner manufacturers like the NYT and other nameless papers they have effectively controlled the press releases, and therefore all information.
Through that the Democrats have been able to conduct an open alliance with all of our enemies without actually declaring one.
All of us feed from the same trough, it's only the few who put together enough pieces of fact to arrive at the truth. Since the Bush Administration has proven incapable of circumventing the rat machine and communicating directly to the American people, the rats have the advantage every time.
President Bush will have a tough time achieving anything in his last 1.5 years. While many of the American people have failed to recognize that there's a war on terror, President Bush has failed to recognize the enemy on the home front.: The Democrats.
And history may very well remember him for that failure, especially if the rats write the history books.
One thing this issue has done is to ferret out the foggy-brained in the Republican and Conservative ranks. Those who believe like James Baker that having a constructive dialog with the moolah’s is the only solution to the problem.
Jorge - if you want the job done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.
>>WASHINGTON — U.S. President George W. Bush wants Russian and Chinese help tightening the screws on Tehran’s ruling mullahs in an effort to stop Iran from tipping its formidable arsenal of missiles with nuclear warheads.<<
Yes, well.... Russia seems less on our side with each passing month. China would like to see us weakened. And our President has very little political capital left here or elsewhere.
The situation, in short does not look good. This isn’t a case of us trying to enforce U.N. rules without the U.N.’s approval. This is the largest funder, trainer and weapons supplier to terrorists in the world. They train and give missiles to people who rain them down on cities.
And we have no good options.
If our President thinks that PootyPoot and Comrade Hu are going to help him with Iran, he’s sadly mistaken.
Those two reprobate Commies are interested only in selling the Iranians as much weapons technology (including nuclear) as they can get away with, with a ‘hi ho, allah-fuuubar, AWAY!’
Moscow and Beijing have nothing to gain by assisting the U.S. with Iran, because Ahmadinejad is continuing to defy the U.S., the U.N., and the Triple-A, all the while spewing threats at Israel, and that keeps America occupied, which IS in their interest.
You want to isolate Iran Mr. President?
a.) Inform every nation the United States has relations with, that if they continue to have diplomatic relations with Iran, that the United States will break off ALL relations with THEM, and make that a universal pledge, doesn’t matter who it is, make the world choose: have relations with the Iranian rogue state, or have no relations of ANY kind with US (as in ‘U.S.’). Only idiot nations would choose to stand by the side of the mullah-morons in Tehran, and if they do? So be it, that will prove they were not truly reliable friends or allies of the U.S. anyway.
b.) Announce that the little runt Ahmadinejad is being placed on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” List and that it will be U.S. policy to apprehend him and put him on trial for his role in the 1979 illegal invasion of our embassy in Tehran, and that ANY nation or individual assisting Ahmadinejad in eluding U.S. jurisdiction will be considered an accomplice and they too, will be added to that Most Wanted list.
c.) Sink the Iranian Navy. Do it now. They can’t stop us, and eliminating Iranian naval resources will eliminate potential threats to our own carrier task forces in the Gulf.
That’s three initiatives to get this ‘isolation’ project started. If the President was really serious about ‘isolating Iran’, he wouldn’t be going hat in hand to Putin and Comrade Hu, who are probably laughing their asses off right now.
Had dinner last night with the Russian painter Galina Perova.
Her insight about Putin was instructive in that every time his name came up she would giggle, raise her glass and make a toast to the KGB. Then she would say...you Americans so stoooopid...you believe that little bastard.
Maybe she could get an invite to the White House so she could paint a real picture for the President as to what’s really going on?
She was there with the first president Bush with her friend Jasper Johns.
Da. Iran presents no foreseeable danger to either one of these authoritarian regimes. In the case of China particularly they are aggressively courting Iran as a trading partner. Each sees the US as at best a rival and at worst an enemy. I can only wonder--what could Bush possibly expect from these states...they will pursue their own interests, and currently that includes encouraging headaches and stumbling blocks for America.
The USA is on it's own this time.
"Isolating" Iran will do absolutely NOTHING to solve the PROBLEM with Iran.
The "problem" with Iran is that those in power crave nuclear weapons and are drawing so close to having them, that NOTHING will dissuade them from completing their quest - EXCEPT force. It's too late for sanctions or "isolation"; the Iranians can _taste_ the overwhelming power of nuclear arms, and will not stop at trying to obtain them - unless they are stopped physically from doing so.
The entire western world knows this.
Yet the western world - including the United States - seems unwilling to take the extremely unpleasant, and extremely unpopular action necessary to break Iran of its dream of nuclear power.
Perhaps the exception is Israel, but I wonder if even Israel will take the required action before it's too late. If they shirk from this, they will almost certainly suffer a nuclear attack from weapons built in Iran at some point in the future. Samson option or not, such an attack will effectively end Israel's existence, becoming Islam's greatest triumph (regardless of how many Islamics die in the process, for Islam will survive, and Israel will be gone).
Again, the problems with Iran is they:
- Crave nuclear weapons
- Are drawing close to obtaining them
- Will stop at nothing to obtain them, unless they are stopped with force.
To deal with Iran, we first need leaders who will recognize and speak of the problems.
Where are they?
- John
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