Iran condemned by Western leaders over test of long-range missile

Source: Times UK

Western governments united to denounce Iran’s test-firing of a long-range ballistic missile yesterday, warning that it would only increase international determination to press for more sanctions on Tehran if it refused to negotiate over its nuclear programme.

Gordon Brown led the call for stricter sanctions, calling the missile test a cause for serious concern that drew further into question Iran’s professed peaceful intentions over its nuclear programme.

The United States, France and Germany joined in the condemnation. Germany called the test alarming, and France described it as “a very bad signal to the international community”.

---

The extended range of 1,200 miles puts not only targets across the Middle East within striking distance but also reaches southeastern Europe. The new solid-fuel missile is also believed to have greater accuracy than previous models, which were capable of hitting Israel.



Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6959649.ece

---

So Iran has self-produced solid fuel missiles?

the doubt is gone.

This is not any neo-con game.

So I guess you are right, they will fight if attacked.

they have no defense from the US. So all they have is a weapon to use to drop a nuke on jews. Very simple.

can kill them to a man woman and child. They are just jerking off wasting time on the nuclear issue.

Everything is under control after all?

I mean the USSR was actually a threat. Iran not so much. They are like the punk ass little kid spilling the wine at the adult table. Someone needs to find the belt.

Everybody take a deep breath, that's what I say.

I'm sure that is good enough for them at the moment.

I mean it seems obvious that deterring anyone, Israel and the US in particular, from bombing them is a big motivation for Iran here, but why put "Jews" in quotes? Why not just say Israel?

out flame bait.

I don't really get what he is trying to say either. One could only speculate as to why that is so. My apologies for getting on your case about it.

Iran is obsessed with Israel. They are consumed by it, well the people who run Iran are. The missile has no impact on the US as we have many avenues to deal with the problem. This is about Russia not going down on two knees and backing them up. Sanction time.

backing up Iran, to a degree.

Lot's of business between them.

we have. China has nothing in iran near the value of the us market. They like to sell worthless plastic trash to walmart customers.

of Iran. Lot's of new $Billion Dollar business have been signed within the past 5 years.

Not sure if China sides with Israel or Iran, but there business partnership is real & growing.

behind Iran. China could give a fuck and would sell your grandmother for a profit. This boils down to dollars.

Iran/China did about $25 Billion worth of business & growing.

But you know this. right???

how much iranian debt does china own. hmm. like i said, the US government publicly backstopped iran with the us nuclear arsenal. You understand that right?

What is the US China trade market? How much will russia and europe bend iran over for in sanctions?

we were a thermonuclear power when they killed our guys in Beirut and tried to start a gulf naval battle, which they lost. They killed french guys to, so the french, another nuclear power, bombed their allah guard. So by crazy iran logic, an already existing nuclear power should be quite happy to fuck them up. Hopefully not going to happen. Hopefully their theocratic craziness will collapse.

Distance kept them from retaliating with missile technology when it came to us and the French. If israel wants to bomb them to stop a nuke program they will have to hit missile sights also because Iran is crazy enough to launch an attack back at them.

assuming they went nuclear they are all dead. No one is lending them an arsenal to backstop their crazy shit. We set 3000MTs behind israel. That kills them all. That makes a move by them irrelevant. They make a conventional strike, then they just started a conflict with a power that can say, blow up every dam at the exact same time. say 2 am. Lots of dead folks from that kind of work. They are playing a game and they are to stupid to realize they have already lost.

They are a nation run by theocratic fuckups and get no benefit from this play. The gulf arab states, like the one running a quiet border war in yemen, are the real players. They will eat their lunch and there is no pesky infidel aspect to the killing.

But if Israel were to bomb them, why wouldn't they return the favor? If they can master long range missile technology that is a huge deterent no matter how you slice it. At some point Iran could have thousands of these things and then you have to ask youself what benefit will israel get from a strike that could cost them heavily unlike in the past.
I think Israel needs to come to terms with reality and see that eventually they will not be the only superpower in the ME and plan accordingly. Whether or not they can do that is anyones guess.

but they got reamed, twice. Iran's obsession with israel could put into place a race that involves their non jewish neighbors. Iran and saudi sit on two sides of a conflict in yemen. I wonder which would get western support if a big event kicked off?

As for all the other side games, which both sides play, I don't see either side giving missile technology like this away.

That was the part that I thought was interesting.

Didn't we (the USA) used to have a project to mount nukes on rail cars and move them around all the time so there could be not "first strike"? Makes it much harder to target things when they don't have a fixed address and your intelligence is lousy.

is currently 1000 Gazans to an Israeli.
Will it be the same death ratio for Iranians and Israelis?
Sad calculation but bearing in mind that Iran has 75 million lives, lets say we kill them all and they kill 1000 time less in Israel. That makes for 75,000 Israelis. Would that be acceptable?

We are talking about medium range missiles.
If the Mulahs think its their end, they will use their thousands of "short range" missiles on within-range GIs in Iraq, Afaghan, Azarbaijan, Kuwait, Sausi, Bahrain etc. Something like 50,000 US soldiers.
Before blowing the horns of war, are you ready to explain the WHAT, the WHY and the HOW to their families?

Are you guys not forgeting something in your very rational debate?

the one hersch said would happen and never did. Iran is a poor third world dump with a great history currently run be theocrats. Iran does not have the ability or willingness to kill 50k us troops. If they did it would very unfortunate for them.

No one says anything about war. The ratio of death does not give value to life. It is just a measure of efficiency.

No one is making a point of acceptance. Just consequences of crazy people and advanced weaponry.

Haven't in over a Century.

the french bombed them for killing their people in Beirut when they killed us marines. Iran got their ass handed to them after attacking the US Navy. Praying Mantis. Iran is currently playing war in yemen against the saudis over some inter islam bullshit.

So that line is pretty much bullshit.

Please choose YES or NO for the following questions:

a) Is it true that Agrentina tests missiles?

b) Brazil tests missiles?

c) Russia tests missiles?

d) India tests missiles?

e) Japan tests missiles?

f) Israel tests missles?

g) France tests missles?

h) the UK tests missles?

i) the US tests missles?

j) Paskistan tests missles?

k) Chine tests missles?

l) Taiwan tests missles?

m) Venezuela tests missles?

n) Iran tests missles?

Well, I just had to say it! :)

http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/missile/basics.htm

But in any case, that should help deter the bullies from engaging in yet another war crime. They only like to attack defenceless countries and groups.

they served to protect saddam, even when aimed at the pesky jew...

The ones that hit Israel during the Iran/Iraq war did very little damage and caused only minor injuries.

the weapon is useless. These guys have no nuke to tip it with and even if they did it makes it even more useless.

Unless it's obvious.

There's still people who believe Iraq's scuds were capable of destroying entire cities, so it wasn't obvious in your post.

:)

if Iran was not run by a bunch of theocratic fuckups it would almost be funny. This is all fallout from the rest of the world putting the screws to them. Particularly Russia.

if Israel attacks them first.

they are looking for. If they create a radiological mess they will get one in return.

nobody wins.

proving this is a big circle jerk waste of time. Sanctions forthcoming.

..about the scud that hit a barracks in SA during the Gulf War, killing 28 and wounding 99. many from the Greensburg PA Guard unit.

The hypocrisy of these Western "powers" is staggering. So, Iran shouldn't prepare to defend itself against the almost daily threats of a military attack on its nuclear sites?

Several months ago Israel was reported to have conducted a test run along the sea in a mock attack of Iran. I didn't hear any leaders of the Western "powers" rebuking Israel for this gratuitous provocation.

A day before Obama held a state dinner for the Indian Prime Minister, India announced that it had successfully tested a missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons. I didn't hear a word of condemnation by Obama or any of the other leaders of the Western "powers." On the contrary, Obama heaped praise on the Indian Prime Minister, and the U.S. is assisting India to advance its nuclear program which includes nuclear weapons.

Iran has to be steadfast in defending its inalienable sovereign rights and its rights under the NPT.

how did that go? Iran has not followed the NPT and has been playing fast and loose with its threats. 10 new sites, undeclared sites, etc. Iran is theocratic mess and eventually it will start fucking with the gulf arabs who will piss all over their little campfire and not have the infidel stigma on the activity.

The US is selling India nuclear reactors, like we sell China. We are to fucking stupid to build more here, but we do sell the best in the world.

We do not export nuclear weapons technology.

I seem to remember Iran went much further than what was required under the NPT, but got nothing in return.

hence the sanctions. This is really simple.
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/irannptviolations.pdf

It is still adhering to the terms of the treaty. But what did it get for it's extraordinary voluntary cooperation far beyond the terms of the NPT. More sanctions. Attack threats.

Who can blame them for ending the voluntary part.

dupe

or quit fucking off. Poor Iran. Actually stupid fucking enough to get the security council to agree on something. Linky.

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=23884&prog=zgp&proj=znpp

Iran has the right to nuclear power provided it continues to follow the terms of the NPT. Now its up to the nuclear powers to cooperate for a change and help Iran with the peaceful generation of nuclear electricity instead of jerking them around over and over. Hypocrites.

was that chance. They are running out of friends. China is a long way away, europe and russia can bend iran over.

What's Europe going to do to Iran, stop buying their oil and gas?

In June, China National Petroleum signed a $5 billion deal to develop the South Pars natural gas field in Iran. In July, Iran invited Chinese companies to join a $42.8 billion project to build seven oil refineries and a 1,019-mile trans-Iran pipeline. And in August, almost as the Americans arrived in China, Tehran and Beijing struck another deal, this time for $3 billion, that will pave the way for China to help Iran expand two more oil refineries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/world/asia/30china.html

Last year's trade was $29 billion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/16/iran-china-nuclear-sanctions

The UK, France and the US have become irrelevant. All they have is bombs.

iran will not care. they could sack up and back out of the npt. You are talking billions, I am talking trillions, many trillions. No one is invading Iran, just telling them not to keep up the nuke path.

That money is like what you give some dude begging for change.

You think china is producing something other than warm bodies and plastic trash? Nope, they still buy real stuff from us. Like westinghouse reactors, takes more than meatpuppets to make that stuff.

for westinghouse and others here in the US. The reactor vessel for this project was cut here by american employees from a metal made in one place in the country. I am not talking toasters and blenders here.

You should read more, though your sense of superiority may take a hit.

they are active in industrial espionage in the US and Germany. The US and Germany make the best CNC and tooling gear in the world. China is working to reverse engineer and steal proprietary control software and systems used for dual purpose technologies. This has been the status of the industry for 20 years. I spend plenty of time securing my work with whole disk elliptical encryption and transmitting data over the most secure configurations possible on the public wire. Lots of money spent to keep them from stealing work.

I have visited China and the real business there are quite bad. Brazil for example is far superior in working conditions and general state of most machine shops is better. Large aerospace clients there run state of the art shops.

China is a fine country and once they get some controls in place they may survive the industrialization process without killing the environment and large numbers of people.

Pakistan's export of technology to North Korea comes to mind.

The U.S. was well aware of Khan's dealings with North Korea and said nothing.

When these leaders send their children to the front lines then they will have my respect

And its run by a bunch of religious lunatics. Amazing that doesnt concern people here.
To top it off, the President of Iran would just love to see come the Shia version of the apocalypse, the return of the 12th Imman which is to occur as a result of a catacalysmic event. What better way to create one then to nuke Isreal. When you know this, his remarks to "wipe Isreal off the face of the Earth" takes on a whole new ,dare I say "evil" light.

Thankfully, Bibi has the stones to prevent this from happening.

We shall see about that....but I doubt Bibi is brave enough to undertake such a mission.

Something about people in glass houses throwing stones?

made in a vacuum. Not going to fly with me...

Iran should refrain from further interference in the internal affairs of other countries; however, it certainly has the right to develop its national security capabilities.

to any country who wants them, as long as they promise to stay out of the internal affairs of other countries....Heck, we can pay for healthcare reform with this!!!

The Pentagon will simulate an Iranian missile attack in a missile defense test next month, news reports said a day after Iran test-fired a Saijjil-2 medium-range missile. The launch of the Sajjil-2, which has a 1,200-mile range and is capable of reaching Israel and parts of Europe, hardened the West's resolve for sanctions on Iran's nuclear program.

Though the timing appears to be a coincidence, Time Magazine reports that the Department of Defense will simulate the launch of an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to test the ability of American interceptors in January. Previous missile defense tests have used fake North Korean missiles to test American defenses.

The ICBM has a longer range than the Sajjil-2, and is as of now only a hypothetical threat from Iran. Due to the more pressing threat of missiles such as the Sajjil-2, the US earlier this year halted a proposed land-based missile defense system that would have protected against ICBMs in favor of a ship-based system for defending against shorter- and medium-range missiles.

The Christian Science Monitor reported Wednesday that Wednesday’s launch was the “latest twist in the strategic stand-off between Iran and the West, especially over its nuclear ambitions.” Iran has defied UN Security Council demands that it freeze uranium enrichment and has failed to provide a clear answer to a UN-backed nuclear deal in which much of Iran’s low-enriched uranium would be removed from the country in exchange for fuel for a research reactor. Tuesday the US House of Representatives voted to give President Barack Obama power to levy sanctions on Iran.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2009/1217/US-to-stage-simulated-Iran-missile-attack-after-Sajjil-2-test

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, there's news tonight about North Korea. The White House confirms that President Obama sent a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The letter was hand-delivered by our special envoy to North Korea. The White House won't tell us what the president said in his letter.

Meanwhile, there is also news tonight out of Iran. You remember that on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the new administration's engagement with Iran has not been productive. Last night, right here, Ambassador Bolton told you about the ominous signs he sees coming out of Iran. And then, more bad news broke. The Pentagon confirms that Iran has test fired a missile, one that can reach Europe, Israel and many U.S. bases in the region. Iranian state television ran a brief clip of what it says is the launch.

Joining us is former U.S. ambassador to the United States -- the United Nations John Bolton. I keep saying United States -- United Nations. Nice to see you back, Ambassador. Since we last spoke last night, that news isn't good that they have now test fired this missile.

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Right. Well, the Defense Department is downplaying the launch, saying, We've seen it before. But this was clearly a very successful launch, and that's why you have testing of ballistic missiles, to increase your range, increase your accuracy, and continue to improve the performance of the missile, which the Iranians seem to have accomplished.

What was very interesting was the White House announcement today, saying, You know, this launch undercuts the claims that Iran makes that its nuclear program is peaceful. It was, I thought, a very interesting contrast to the very direct remark that Secretary Clinton made just a few hours before, in effect, and opens the question whether many people in the White House are still hoping against hope that they can negotiate with Iran.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580439,00.html

And that Obama is behaving in a Bush-light manner when it comes to his defense policy? Plus those PNAC report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century." didn't help our cause in convincing the world that the USA only has peaceful intentions.

Iran has been researching nuke weapons years before our troops were there.