If we can cut a deal with Iran that will allow them to enrich uranium up to 5% purity in exchange for meeting the international community’s demands for transparency on their nuclear activities, that is actually an excellent deal. Part of that deal would entail Iran shipping all its 20% enriched uranium out of the country. I’m not a nuclear scientist, but my understanding is that Iran has no reason to enrich to 20% other than to learn how to enrich to a weapons grade purity. At 5%, they can meet any medical needs they might have. It is unambiguously Iran’s right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferaton Treaty to have a domestic nuclear energy program provided that they meet the other requirements of the treaty. If we insist they do no enrichment at all, even after they meet our demands for transparency and inspections, then we will be the ones violating the NPT. Yet, Congress will not stand for any talk of letting Iran enrich anything, ever, to any degree of purity. The only way around this is to get members of Israel’s cabinet to explain to Congress that the deal makes sense. In an election year, Netanyahu’s government is probably unwilling to do that and, even if they were, the Republicans would almost definitely ignore them and go ahead and politicize the issue. So, I’m not very hopeful that we’re about to see a peaceful and satisfactory breakthrough on the Iranian predicament. Still, there is hope:
Israeli officials have talked of attacking Iranian’s nuclear facilities before they are so advanced and hidden so deeply underground that they are invulnerable to bombs.
But Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview last month with the Jerusalem Post, outlined goals that would allow Iran to retain some low-enriched uranium for nonmilitary purposes. He did not call for an end to all enrichment.
“There have been many signals lately that the red line has shifted and they’re no longer pushing for full suspension,” said Michael Singh, who served as President George W. Bush’s top Iran advisor and who strongly opposes allowing Iran to enrich any uranium.
George Perkovich, a nonproliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he was among the U.S. hawks who believed until recently that “you have to hold the line on enrichment by Iran.”
Now, he said, “that view has been overtaken by events.” Iran has enriched more uranium, public support for the program is widespread, and the prospects of giving up all enrichment “has become a nationalist taboo in Iran.”
The real issue is that the hawks around Netanyahu and the neo-conservatives in this country are really pursuing a policy of regime change. Any negotiation that leaves the Mullahs in power in Teheran is not going to be acceptable to them. And they have enough clout to cripple any rational response in DC.
Part of being a neocon is never taking yes for an answer.
Iran has a small research reactor in Tehran, a gift from the USA to the Shah, back in the day.
That research reactor needs ~20% enriched uranium to run, but it’s a small reactor, so not enormous amounts.
And yes, for some (most? all?) of the medical isotopes, you DO need to use a reactor like the one described, that’s one reason the US is currently having problems with medical isotopes. You need a large number of fast neutrons, without disturbing the reactor stability; power reactors are a bad choice for that, but small research reactors do it well.
The reactor in Tehran has been under IAEA’s eye for decades, no complaints about getting the runaround, so I’d say it’s pretty reasonable to let them refuel, if done with close inspection.
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See my recent diary on 20% enrichment – Iran’s Enrichment for the US Built Research Reactor
Shortage Isotopes for Cancer Treatment
Problems have dogged the production of 99Mo. About three-quarters of the world’s supply is made in just two nuclear research reactors – the Chalk River plant in Canada and the High Flux Reactor at Petten in the Netherlands. Unscheduled shutdowns have caused shortages of the isotope in the past and both plants are now ageing and expected to close in the next five years.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Important Israeli military leaders and security have had about enough of Netanyahu …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/julian-borger-global-security-blog/2012/apr/25/israel-iran
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-s-former-shin-bet-chief-i-have-no-confidence-in
-netanyahu-barak-1.426908
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Cross-posted from today’s diary.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Avigdor Lieberman has recently been indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust, and money laundering. However, he remains popular.
During a diplomatic visit to China, Lieberman told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth: “”If, God forbid, a war with Iran breaks out, it will be a nightmare. And we will all be in it, including the Persian Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia. No one will remain unscathed. We have to do everything we can to urge the international community to assume responsibility and take action to stop the Iranians … “
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/avigdor-lieberman-iran-war_n_1399854.html
Amazing, he’s mouthing the U.S. position. Total opportunist. Lieberman is trying to become the next PM.
Netanyahu is floundering, Lieberman smells blood in the water. As you see in the article, even the Israelis find it astonishing to hear such a ststement coming from Lieberman, who normally makes Netanyahu look like a moderate.
Some interpret this dissension between Israel security/IDf and Netanyahu/Barak as a good cop/bad cop act. You might also think it could show some element of cahoots with Lieberman. But in reality it is way bigger than that. Netanyahu and Barak are really in La-la Land on Iran, and this is understandable when you realize where their main support comes from:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jum
ival=7867
“Journalist Max Blumenthal: And so he’s [Adelson’s] really, I think, out of anyone in the entire world, the greatest supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu, and he’s the link between Netanyahu and this political campaign . . . he wants regime change in two countries. The first country is Iran, the second country is the United States. He wants to replace Barack Obama with a Republican.” [Note, Adelson contributed virtually ALL of Gingrich’s campaign funds, but it is expected that he will switch over to Romney.]
Meanwhile, back in Israel . . .
http://www.timesofisrael.com/apart-from-netanyahu-and-barak-most-israeli-political-and-security-lead
ers-oppose-attack-on-iran/
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Brought to this theater by the Adelson family!
[This accounts for his US political influence, in Israel he plays a small part as Netanyahu has many more donor millionaires – Oui]
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Ron Lauder WAS a big supporter of Netanyahu. He’s been very critical of him since the middle of last year . . . for the right reasons.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/ron-lauder-repeats-his-critique-of-netanyahu-on-israeli-te
levision-1.370383
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=227227
From what I can tell, Adelson really is Netanyahu’s main supporter at this point. Even before . . . look, he started a whole newspaper to get Bibi elected. But he’s not running out of money any time soon . . .
Speaking of Lauder and his changing views, you might get a chuckle out of this. At least i did. The newspaper which printed this is on the far right of American opinion.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/01/24/when-ronald-lauder-calls-on-mahmoud-abbas/
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Booman seems to overlook some of Israel and Netanyahu’s domestic and foreign problems. Liberman has upset many
old alliances and friends of Israel, thus created an even greater isolation of the 64 year-old State.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Doesn’t look like Adelson’s about to run out of money.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2012/02/22/comeback-billionaire-how-sheldon-adelson-domina
tes-chinese-gambling-and-u-s-politics/4/
However, as we all know, money can’t buy happiness . . .
Thats extreamly important. If the isreali goverment has lost the confidence of the Isreali military and the Isreali inteligence community On this and other issues it might as well pack up and go home.
Normally that would be true, and hopefully it is still true. From what I can see, the American military is not too keen on the idea either. But Netanyahu has some extremely powerful supporters (see above).
However, the pattern I see is that Shelly Adelson, while brilliant at business, is politically tone deaf. Don’t forget that he is also one of the mainstays of the Jewish Republican Coalition, which has been a great fund raiser but a poor vote winner.
Oh, and by the way, can I say it? American Jews don’t vote like Caucasians. Overall 43% of white voters went for Obama in 2008 — Jewish voters for Obama were 78%. This of course reflects a bigger change in the white vote than the Jewish vote over the last 50 years.
A poll released April 4 of this year shows 62% of Jews for Obama, 29% for the GOP nominee.
http://tiponthetrail.com/2012/04/04/poll-two-in-three-jewish-voters-back-obama/
This is not much different from Hispanics as of last December, among whom Obama beats Romney 68%/23%.
http://www.people-press.org/2012/04/17/section-1-general-election-preferences/
Among white voters, Obama trails Romney 54%/39%. Quite a difference — but no great change from 2008 Obama/McCain.
Of course, Jewish voters are only 3-4% of total Obama voters, but it does say something about “the Jewish vote”. It’s not the Jewish VOTE that’s really the issue, it’s the $$$$$$ of a few crazy ultra-right wing Jewish tycoons. But my point is, money can’t necessarily buy happiness. And also that, while Jewish voters generally support Israel, their idea of what “support for Israel” means is rather different from the messiah-crazed Christian Zionists and minority of Jews who vote Republican. You will see this more and more now that there is a lobby JStreet to counter AIPAC.
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2011/04/j-street-speaks-up-for-american-jews.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/openzion.html
No cause for complacency, but no cause for despair either.
Perhaps someone with more experience will correct me, but as I understand it, the reactor in question (which we supplied to Iran during the rule of the Shah) was originally designed to operate with fuel enriched to more than 90% uranium. The Islamic Republic redesigned to operate with fuel enriched to only 20%. Back in 2009, Iran proposed to the IAEA that they be allowed to buy enriched fuel on the open market and bring it to the reactor under IAEA supervision.
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See link in my diary – Conversion from HEU to LEU based production for Medical Isotopes and info on Iran’s research reactor and nuclear program.
See my comment above and recent diary – Shortage Isotopes Cancer Treatment
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Thank you.
I’ve suspected for a while that in the long run the biggest obstacle to an agreement will not be Iran, but our own congress.
It’s even simpler than that. If Obama wins, there will be an agreement, If Romney wins, there won’t be.
These are more observations on the USA and Israel than on Iran. What a humiliating state of affairs, however self-evident, that members of the Israeli government are invited and needed to talk sense to the US Congress. Who’s not for Israeli oversight and control of US foreign policy?
“Allow?” Who are we…and who is the “international community”…to “allow” people anything, to tell others that they cannot do what we have done for almost 70 years?
The phrase “the international community” resembles what Noam Chomsky said about the word “stability” in his talk at Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting:
What “international community,” Booman? Which “international community?” Why…the one that agrees with us, I guess.
What bullshit.
We have “allowed” rogue states like Pakistan to have nuclear capabilities. Why? Because we…quite mistakenly, on plentiful evidence…thought that they would cooperate with us in the implementation of our own economic imperialist policies.
Israel is nuclear-armed to the teeth. Bet on it. What else would Iran want to do but have at least a chance at a nuclear stand-off with Israel right next door and acting like a ravening mad dog as far as Muslims in general are concerned.
Please.
If you are going to support economic imperialist activities, at least talk plainly about them.
Please.
The days that crap like that would fly are long gone. Since the Pentagon Papers at least, and most certainly since Wikileaks.
Please.
AG
Who are we?
We are the victors of World War Two, charged with putting both allies and foes back on their feet, and creating (with them) a new world order based on collective security, international law and cooperation, and nuclear non-proliferation. The idea? To prevent nuclear war and the end of the world. Toward that end, to prevent large nations from warring with each other and to find peaceful ways to resolve conflicts between minor parties. To respect the sovereignty of all existing nation states, and to create mechanisms for humanitarian relief.
Who is the international community?
They are the members of the United Nations, and their will is expressed through votes in the United Nations and the UN Security Council. To prevent the UN from falling apart like the League of Nations, the major victorious parties of World War Two were granted veto power. Better to have a bit of unfairness than a system that fails at the first major disagreement between major powers. The international community supports nuclear non-proliferation through the IAEA and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which only a few states are not parties, including Israel, India, North Korea, and Israel.
Those four nations preferred to build nuclear weapons, each for their own reasons. North Korea originally signed the treaty and then renounced their signature.
Insisting that the UN and nuclear non-proliferation are simply tools of economic imperialism is incredibly stupid. They are tools that have kept us from incinerating ourselves for 67 years.
No, Booman. What has ” kept us from incinerating ourselves for 67 years” has been nuclear stalemate. Nothing more and nothing less. Fear of retaliation.
The United Nations is a fraud. A stalemate on the East River, nothing more. All talk, almost no real action. Treaties are frauds as well, made and then broken time and again throughout the history of the world. The only instances where treaties have not been broken is when all signatories are equally powerful, allied in equally powerful blocs or the treaties themselves showed no promise of profit if they were broken. Should some scientist in the U.S., China oir any other truly powerful country in the world invent some sort of foolproof weapon that would put that nation in the ultimate catbird seat forever…or at least as far into forever as is rationally predictable…that weapon would be deployed just as fast as was the atom bomb during WW II.
Your naivete is often astounding, Booman.
Look around you.
Governments are just groups of really successful thieves; there is no honor amongst thieves and the federal government of the United States is simply an incredibly large, incredibly complex and…so far…incredibly successful ongoing criminal conspiracy. Also nothing more and nothing less.
WTFU.
AG
Oh, yes. We would certainly commit mass genocide on the Chinese and Russians and anyone else that looks at us sideways at the very first opportunity, and they would do the same to us.
I hope you don’t really believe that.
A truer statement is Hunter S. Thompson’s observation:
But that’s only partly true. That’s half our country. On a good day, it’s maybe 28% of our country. The 28% that stuck with Shrub through thick and thin. The 28% that voted for Alan Keyes over Barack Obama. The 28% that are so scared and so pissed that they see every problem as an excuse for violence.
Then there is another 28% who don’t blink an eye when America befriends a business-friendly dictator at the expense of a duly elected nationalist.
Then, if something happens, like 9/11 or an economic collapse, the fear and anger grow and the propensity for violence increases. And if leaders use that fear to advance violent political aims, then things turn truly ugly…here…or anywhere else.
This country, fortunately, is being very well led at the moment, and it is slowly recovering from a heat-fever of hatred stemming first from 9/11 and then from the housing collapse. Things took a long turn for the worse, and they can still go back. And we’re still a deeply sick population…still in recovery.
This can happen in any society with the right mix of trauma and bad leadership. And that is why the UN is so important. That’s why we built it in the first place. And it works.
And who’s hopelessly naive. You think we could have built this modern world without rubber and copper and oil and gas and diamonds and lithium? Were the bedouins and Bakongo going to start mass production for us?
When you talk about imperialism, you make it sound like something invented after the UN, rather than something that receded after the UN.
I’m aware of how western corporations have exploited the riches of third world nations and dictated to their politicians. But things are a lot better now than they used to be, largely because the UN established principles of self-determination and avenues for redress. And just look at the difference between North and South Korea or Myanmar and Japan to Turkey and Iraq if you want to see which path is better…ours or our ideological enemies.
I “believe” that the U.S….and China and Russia and every world superpower, would do, has done and will continue to do whatever it can get away with doing sans effective retaliation. Only he mutal assured destruction idea stopped nuclear war during the ’50s, and I see no change in that situation today.
The non-nuclear destruction that we have seen from the U.S. in Southeast Asia and the current Iraq/pakistan/Who’s Next?-Step Right Up War is proof of the pudding as far as I am concerned. This current war has almost exhausted this country’s resources already. If it could have been be ‘won” by a simple Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombing with no threat of serious retaliation from any other country in the world do you not think that some Dr. Strangelove type would already have ordered his General Turgidson to drop a couple of big ones so that we could get back down to our real business of bogarting the feed trough of the world?
Get real.
G. W. Butch and his puppeteer Darth Cheney would have been there in a heartbeat…provided of course that either has anything even remotely resembling a heart…were the possible consequences of such an action not considered way too dangerous.
Please.
AG
Dick Cheney is an evil man. George W. Bush is a weak and insecure and petty man. They are not unique in our society but they are not typical. They were the worst leaders we’ve had in my lifetime, and as bad or worse than any leaders of our country that I can identify in history books. Would they use nukes if the could do so with impunity? It’s possible. But even they have limits to how evil they are prepared to be.
I’m not absolutely convinced that Dick Cheney would use nukes, although he is the likeliest candidate I can think of to do it.
In any case, I do not view all governments as criminal conspiracies. I view each person as a mix of good and evil impulses, and society is a reflection of that. Good leadership begets better people, and vice-versa. We’re in a political struggle with a party that caters to and nurtures violent nationalism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, religious intolerance, rapacious capitalism, naked greed, and active dislike of education, science, and refined culture.
But, you know, RON PAUL!!
Yes, I believe that I do.
But you obviously do not.
So it goes.
AG
Ron Paul — Jar Jar Blink’s answer to question #4
Always nice to know the view of the world from inside Ron Paul’s rectum.
STUPID stupid stupid stupid stupid comment…
AG
Well, he only needed one line to make his point.
So did the Three Stooges.
And Shakespeare as well, to go from the ridiculous to the sublime.
So what?
AG
You want Shakespeare? Ok.
“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Your welcome.
Hey, stop it. Dissing the Stooges is MY meme.
I wasn’t dissing them.
I love da bums!!!
AG
The ones who get wise to the scam.
Eisenhower tried to tell us.
Most missed it.
Every generation seems to miss the message.
So it goes.
This guy tried a generation before Ike.
Same result.
Carl Von Clausewitz:
Yup.
And if “politics” uses a racket as an instrument of policy, what does that make politics?
Yup.
Just another racket.
So-called “international” politics, like the U.N>
Just a bigger racket. The Appalachia meeting of the real Cosa Nostra.
Our thing.
Bet on it.
WTFU.
AG
The United Nations is the worst possible system for policing the behavior of nation-states, except for all the others.
We have “allowed” rogue states like Pakistan to have nuclear capabilities. Why? Because we…quite mistakenly, on plentiful evidence…thought that they would cooperate with us in the implementation of our own economic imperialist policies.
Umwut? We didn’t “allow” squat – they conducted their research in secret and presented us with a fait accompli. We threw a royal hissy fit over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, but there was nothing we could do about them about that point.
Last week’s cyber attack on Iran’s refineries was an interesting twist. Iran says they know who sent the virus.
A cyber enforced sanction poses a nasty pandora’s box but one that for the moment could push Iran back towards negotiation.
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Putting up our defenses …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Everything I’ve heard suggests that there has been a deal agreed in principle for some time.
The EU oil sanctions are easy – they’ll be the first to go – since the fringe EU nations who are in deep financial shit are champing at the bit to get cheap Iranian oil on easy credit terms.
The problem for the US is Obama’s inability to lift sanctions.
After 23rd May US oil sanctions will simply give rise to discounted sales of crude oil to China, India and so on, cleared through BRICS currency swap arrangements.
Contrary to the view (touted by investment banks with funds to sell to muppets) that US sanctions will raise oil prices, the effect of sanctions will be to lower the aggregate bid. So the more effective the sanctions, the lower the bid post 23rd May from those prepared to lift Iranian oil, and the more the downward pressure on prices.
The SWIFT cut-off of Iran is the interesting one in its potential for unintended consequences.
If Congress insists on keeping that sanction going – and they will – there will be side-effects which Wall Street really, really, really will not like as the prototype currency swaps already taking place by reference to (not in exchange for) the dollar become institutionalised.
SWIFT is just a secure messaging system after all.