The picture on Iran's deadly activities is becoming more and more clear.
U.S. intelligence agencies are convinced that Iran is working to build nuclear weapons in secret based on a confidential report produced last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and on information from a former Iranian opposition figure.Administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program is circumstantial, but includes information on the country's missile program and work on a nuclear payload-sized warhead for the Shahab-3 missile.
"In terms of Iran's pattern of behavior, it's a very clear picture that they are hiding and deceiving the world about their nuclear-arms program by claiming it is for peaceful purposes," one official said. "They have clearly lied, and they keep getting caught in one lie after another."
Even the EU is being forced to acknowledge Iran's duplicity, but the will to act is still not there.
The European Union yesterday accused Iran of having documents that show how to make nuclear warheads and joined the United States in warning Tehran it faced referral to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions.Iran, meanwhile, suggested it was considering a compromise to reduce tensions.
Britain, in a statement on behalf of the 25-nation bloc, offered new negotiations meant to lessen concerns over Iran's insistence that it be in full control of uranium enrichment -- a pathway to nuclear arms.
"But Iran should not conclude that this window of opportunity will remain open in all circumstances," according to a statement read by Peter Jenkins, the chief British delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), outside a closed meeting of the board.
Diplomats described the statement as a threat of Security Council referral.
Not much to the EU's threat, is there?
Michael Ledeen says we should, indeed must, support the forces within Iran (and Syria) who are willing to attempt a democratic revolution from within
The main arguments against this policy are that the repressive regimes in Damascus and Tehran are firmly in control; that any meddling we do will backfire, driving potential democrats to the side of the regimes in a spasm of indignant nationalism; and that the democracy movements are poorly led, thus destined to fail. The people who are saying these things — in the universities, the State Department, National Security Council and the Intelligence Community — said much the same about our support for democratic revolution inside the Soviet Empire shortly before its collapse. They forgot Machiavelli's lesson that tyranny is the most unstable form of government, and they forgot how much the world changes when the United States moves against its enemies. Most experts thought Ronald Reagan was out of his mind when he undertook to bring down the Soviet Empire, and hardly a man alive believed that democratic revolution could bring down dictators in Georgia, the Ukraine, and Serbia. All these dictatorships were overthrown by a small active proportion of the population; in Iran, according to the regime's own public opinion polls, the overwhelming majority hate the mullahs. Why should it be more difficult to remove the Iranian Supreme Leader and the Syrian dictator than it was to send Mikhail Gorbachev into early retirement?Posted by Alan at November 25, 2005 08:24 AMWhat is the alternative? If we do not engage, we will soon find ourselves facing a nuclear Iran that will surely be emboldened to increase its sponsorship of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jamaah Islamiah, and Hamas, and will redouble its efforts to shatter Iraq's fragile democratic experiment. Which is the more prudent policy? Cautiously defending Iraq alone, or supporting the revolutionaries against the terror masters?
Active support of the democratic forces in the Middle East would be the right policy, even if there were no terror war, and even if Iran were not a shallow breath away from atomic weapons. It is what America is all about.