For first time, Iran directly confronts Israel on alleged nuclear arms

Source: AP

Israel accused Iran of lying, while Tehran challenged the international community to send inspectors to probe of its arch-rival's nuclear capabilities, in an unusually bitter and rare direct confrontation on Friday.

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The exchange came after chief Iranian delegate Ali Asghar Soltanieh - like Arab delegates before him - said that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had acknowledged earlier this year that his country possessed nuclear weapons - something that Israel says Olmert never did.

Soltanieh also criticized the "continuous silence of the U.S. ... vis a vis the atrocities, aggression, bloodshed and violations of over 30 resolutions of the United Nations."

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"Those who call for the elimination of Israel have no right to criticize Israeli policies aimed at defending Israel's very existence," said Michaeli.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/906132.html

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Or is that the big open secret everyone knows but no one talks about?

He was released earlier this year, but was thrown back in prison for speaking out against Israel's nukes.

He was released after spending eighteen years in prison. He is now under house arrest and cannot leave the country or give interviews.

~ PM admits on TV that Israel has atomic weapons

~ Blow to longstanding policy of ambiguity

<snip>

"Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was yesterday trying to fend off accusations of ineptitude and calls for his resignation after he accidentally acknowledged for the first time that Israel had nuclear weapons.

After decades in which Israel has stuck to a doctrine of nuclear ambiguity, Mr Olmert let slip during an interview in Germany that Israel did indeed have weapons of mass destruction.

He told Germany's Sat.1 channel on Monday evening: "Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?"

Mr Olmert's admission comes less than a week after the incoming US secretary of defence, Robert Gates, speculating at a Senate confirmation hearing on Iran's possible motives for trying to build nuclear arms, suggested that Israel had the bomb."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1970861,00.html

We'll open up our country for inspection when Israel is forced to open up their country.

Israel has preemptively attacked its neighbors twice, that's reason enough to have inspections in that country.

And they feel the need to protect themselves.

As for me, I do believe Israel has nukes and that Washington is well aware of it. It's sort of an open secret: don't ask, don't tell. The hypocrisy of deciding a sovereign nation is not allowed to have even nuclear power while ignoring even the possibility that Israel has nuclear arms is obvious to everyone but Americans, I believe.

Israel must be open to real nuclear inspections. If they have nothing to hide, let them prove it as they demand their neighbor countries prove it.

our Congress and Senate get lobbied by AIPAC I'm sure we'll have none of that. And with an assministration filled with duel status citizenship with Israel doesn't help either.

What we have here is strangely reminiscent of the Iran Hostage Crisis.

The Iranians stormed the US embassy in 1979 under the premise that the CIA was using it as a base of operations in Tehran. Naturally, it was. The protesters used their newfound media limelight to highlight some of the Shah's more egregious abuses of human rights, all of which were true. Then, a number of high-profile left wingers start voicing condemnation of the continued support the Shah received from the United States. That's all fine and dandy, but most of these people overlooked the fact that the Iranians were holding US State Department personnel against their will, which is NOT justified, no matter how brutal or oppressive the Shah was.

It is the classic two wrongs make a right fallacy. Just because Israel has the bomb doesn't mean everybody on the planet should get one, compliments of Viktor Bout.

It is worth noting here that Ahmadinejad does not run Iran. He merely performs the "classical" duties of a head of state. He's a pretty face the mullahs put in front of a camera to maintain the pretense of democracy in Iran, a distraction from the ultra-conservative, self-serving mullahs who actually run the state. With that in mind, why should take anything he says with even the slightest bit of seriousness?

Secondly, the commander-in-chief of the Iranian military is Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad, which renders all speculation as to whether or not he is seeking nuclear weapons moot. It doesn't matter whether or not he wants a nuclear Iran, because it is not his decision. Likewise, when he goes in front of a camera and says, "Iranians want peace, not war, we do not seek nuclear weapons, to hell with Israel", his words are likewise irrelevant. If Khamenei wants nukes, he's going to get them regardless of what Ahmadinejad says. If our man Mahmoud has any problem with that, then Khamenei will just yank his name or his party from the ballot in the next election.

Now, I'm not supporting Israel or disparaging the Iranian people. It just seems to me like some people on this board are latching on to men like Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad simply because they stand up to Bush. That's hardly the criteria we should be using when selecting people to get behind or admire. Ahmadinejad is the stooge of a brutally repressive regime, and despite my misgivings about Bush, it'll be a cold day in hell before I find myself praising his words, no matter who he happens to be criticizing.

He's largely a figurehead anyway, he has NO control over Iranian foreign policy under the provisions of the Iranian government.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Ahmadinejad. This has to do with the hypocrisy of the propaganda that's being catapaulted against Iran. It's bullshit. Bullshit is bullshit no matter how much you may dislike the target of the bullshit.

I think the whole Middle East would be better off if Iran DID develop a nuclear weapons capability -- which they most certainly do NOT have now. I grew up during the whole of the Cold War, and I will say without equivocation that MAD ("mutually assured destruction") was a way better deal than what's going on now.

sw

Over the past week or so people have made similar posts regarding Ahamdinejad's declarations of US and Israeli hypocrisy. While Ahmadinejad was not directly mentioned in this article, it fits in nicely with those previous posts. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, like Ahmadinejad, is merely a mouthpiece for the mullahs, which means everything this man says should be viewed as a turd falling into your drink. He didn't step up to the plate to altruistically demonstrate to the world that Israel's got its finger on the button, he was told to say those things to persuade the international community Iran is responsible enough to be trusted with nuclear technology.

Whether or not the United States and Israel are acting hypocritical in their efforts to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power is irrelevant. Being a hypocrite does not, by virtue alone, make you wrong. It is a fundamental violation of the rules of logic.

Furthermore, I am reluctant to agree with your assumption that a nuclear Iran would produce a state of MAD in the Middle East.
Here are my reasons for suspecting MAD won't work with Iran:



1: One is hardly a statistically significant number. As I've said in previous posts, you cannot simply look at the Cold War and think that because MAD kept us from destroying the planet that the same scenario would apply to other nations. The future holds no obligation to the past.

2. The infrastructure of Iran is in no way comparable to that of the United States or the Soviet Union. What safeguards will be in place to assure there's no accidental launches? Who will be keeping an eye on the stockpiles? Who will be involved in the manufacture of these weapons? Who will be keeping track of nuclear fuel?

3. No present theory indicates MAD would have any effect on non-state combatants such as Hezbollah. Given Iran's support for this organization, which has shown a strange knack for acting against its own best interest, the last thing anyone in the Middle East needs is for one of these militant organizations to get their hands on a nuclear weapon.

4. MAD does not address rulers who believe they are Allah's voice on Earth. No amount of logic or reasoning can persuade a True Believer once he has his mind made up. If Khamenei really believe Allah will protect Iran from destruction, then what is to stop him from launching a nuke?

5. MAD only applies to countries with second-strike capabilities. Israel is probably capable of such an attack, but it would most likely take Iran years, if not decades, to build a second-strike system.

ISRAEL!

For most Middle Easterners, Israel is really nothing more than a rallying point to be abused by the powers that be. Numerous political and terrorist leaders use hatred of Israel to woo the public, but few of them are actually willing to take Israel on. After all, why would you want to destroy your primary selling point? Osama likes to talk about the sins of Israel and the plight of the Palestinians, but he hasn't shown much interest in lending the Palestinians a hand. He'd much rather have them continue to suffer so his image doesn't.

Where does that leave the Palestinians? Abused by Israel and patronized by the rest of the Muslim world. They are in a very unenviable position.

next week and lays bare the hypocrisy on all sides. There's a lot of ignorance out there on what is really going on, and Iran isn't totally free of complicity on that score either.
They've got a lot of covert stuff going on I'm sure.
But on the other hand Iran didn't invade any countries recently that I know of, and they were'nt the ones who destroyed another nation with little provocation either. Such as was the case with Lebanon recently.
We all know at some level that Israel has nukes. Obviously the U.S. does too, but yet the Iran Pres is the loose cannon mad man here with the itchy trigger finger.
This whole thing is unbelievable.