US and European powers threaten Iran

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US and European powers threaten Iran
By Patrick Martin
26 September 2009

In what has all the hallmarks of an orchestrated political
provocation, the United States, Britain and France, with the support
of Germany, denounced a supposedly secret Iranian nuclear plant,
threatened stepped-up economic sanctions and possible military action
unless the facility was immediately open to inspection.

In a joint announcement Friday morning at the G20 summit in
Pittsburgh, US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy appeared together before
television cameras to issue the warning. Germany’s Chancellor Angela
Merkel, who had left Pittsburgh to return home, issued her own
statement of support for the threats against Iran.

Obama declared, “The Iranian government must now demonstrate through
deeds its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international
standards and international law.” He gave Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad six days to respond—by the time of an October 1 meeting in
Geneva. His approach echoed that of George W. Bush seven years ago in
citing an alleged nuclear weapons program as the basis for going to
war against Iraq.

This time, however, France has joined the US and Britain in the
manufacture of a casus belli.

Both Brown and Sarkozy made even harsher threats than Obama at their
joint press conference. Brown demanded the drawing of “a line in the
sand” and denounced what he called a shocking “level of deception by
the Iranian government and the scale of what we believe is the breach
of international commitments.” This from a man who happily embraced
all the lies peddled by Bush and Blair throughout the launching and
waging of the war with Iraq.

Sarkozy declared, “If by December there is not an in-depth change by
the Iranian leaders, sanctions will have to be taken.” In what was
taken by observers as a direct threat of military force, he added,
“Everything, everything must be put on the table now. We cannot let
the Iranian leaders gain time while the motors are running.”

The plant singled out by the imperialist powers is a facility much
smaller than the main Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz and has not
yet become operational. Nonetheless, Obama claimed, “The size and
configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful
program.” According to figures supplied to the press by US Defense
Department officials, Natanz has 8,500 centrifuges and room for many
more, while the previously undisclosed facility, near the city of Qom,
about 100 miles southwest of Tehran, can operate about 3,000 centrifuges.

This equipment is not in and of itself of military value, since the
use of centrifuges is an essential part of the generation of fuel for
nuclear reactors, by purifying uranium to the level of 3 to 5 percent
concentration of the isotope uranium 235. Weapons-grade uranium
requires a much higher concentration of U-235, as much as 75 to 80
percent.

The Iranian government sent a letter Monday, September 21, to the
International Atomic Energy Authority, the United Nations agency that
monitors civilian nuclear power operations, informing it of the
existence of the previously undisclosed plant, but not detailing its
location or scale.

IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said: “I can confirm that on September
21 Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel-enrichment
plant is under construction in the country. The letter stated that the
enrichment level would be up to 5 per cent.”

Subsequent statements from Tehran suggest that the facility is a
backup for Natanz, which has been identified as a prime target for air
strikes by Israel or the United States. Israeli officials have
repeatedly suggested that they will undertake such a military assault
by the end of this year unless Iran surrenders to the US-led pressure
campaign and dismantles its nuclear program.

The plant is built into a mountainside, making it more difficult to
target militarily. The location only 20 miles from Qom makes a
military strike more dangerous politically as well, since the city is
a long-established center of Shiite Islam with many seminaries.

The American media immediately took its lead from Obama, Brown and
Sarkozy, raising a hue and cry over the Qom plant, without the
slightest evidence portraying it as a factory for making atomic bombs
and a danger to the world. The plant is not even in operation yet, and
the maximum degree of purification of uranium achieved by Iran at any
plant is 5 percent, adequate only for a nuclear fuel cycle, not
weapons production.

Citing “a US counter-proliferation official,” Newsweek magazine
reported on its web site: “The reason why the US and other countries
think this facility is probably intended for producing highly-enriched
uranium for weapons is that it is too small for the kind of plant that
would be needed to enrich the large quantities of uranium needed for a
civilian power program….”

The opposite argument has been repeatedly made about the Natanz
facility—that its size greatly exceeds the requirements of a civilian
fuel generation plant. In other words, whatever facts are available
can be twisted to suit the purpose of those who are seeking to provoke
a direct conflict between the major powers and Iran, which could
become the pretext for efforts to overthrow the Iranian regime and
install one more amenable to the dictates of US imperialism.

US intelligence officials have readily admitted that the existence of
the Qom facility has been known for a year or more. Press reports said
the Bush administration specifically briefed Obama on the “secret”
plant in discussions during the presidential transition. Obama in turn
informed Russian President Dmitri Medvedev earlier this week, after
obtaining his support for tougher sanctions.

The timing of this “revelation” demonstrates that the sudden campaign
of publicity and threats is a provocation, set to coincide with the
opening of the UN General Assembly session, the G20 summit, and next
Thursday’s talks in Geneva between Iran and the so-called P5+1
group—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the US,
China, Russia, Britain and France, plus Germany.

There has been a carefully prepared buildup to the October 1 talks,
which will now feature an ultimatum from the six powers to Iran, with
a deadline as early as December for the imposition of draconian
economic sanctions, possibly including a ban on gasoline imports.
While Iran has huge oil and natural gas reserves—the real reason for
the US-led campaign—it lacks the refining capacity to fully supply its
domestic market with gasoline and diesel fuel.

Over the past 10 days, the Obama administration announced a shift in
its missile defense policy, abandoning Bush administration plans for
missile bases and radar stations in Poland and the Czech Republic, in
order to obtain Russian support for a tougher line with Iran. Then
came Obama’s speech to the UN General Assembly Wednesday, followed by
a Security Council session chaired personally by Obama, which adopted
a general resolution opposing nuclear proliferation, and then Friday
morning’s sensational announcement.

US press reports suggest that a major purpose of the Security Council
meeting and the Friday press offensive was to induce China, the last
holdout among the P5+1, to drop its opposition to much tighter
economic sanctions against Iran. China voted for the Security Council
resolution, which passed unanimously.

High-ranking Democratic Party leaders lined up behind Obama’s
bellicose posture. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Qom
plant “a clear challenge to the international community.… This
facility sharpens our sense of urgency and underscores Iran’s absolute
need to engage seriously with us on October 1 and take immediate steps
to demonstrate the exclusively peaceful nature of their nuclear program.”

Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee,
issued a statement saying, “In light of Iran’s continuing deception,
the international community must step up its demands that Iran halt
its enrichment and reprocessing work.”

A major argument being made behind the scenes—albeit openly in the US
right-wing press—is that sanctions are the only alternative to an
Israeli air attack on Iran that would have incalculable consequences
for the peoples of the Middle East, and the entire world

A column posted on the web site of the Wall Street Journal, written by
Pentagon consultant Anthony Cordesman, suggested that an Israeli
attack on Iran could include nuclear weapons.

“There are reports that Israel is increasing the range-payload of its
nuclear-armed missiles and is developing sea-based nuclear-armed
cruise missiles for its submarines,” he observed. He added, “While
Iran is larger than Israel, its population centers are so vulnerable
to Israeli thermonuclear weapons that Israel already is a major
‘existential’ threat to Iran.”

The Washington Post took note of the apocalyptic tone of the speech to
the UN General Assembly Thursday by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, which its reporter described as a “final warning to the
world,” saying that it “could one day be seen as a milestone in the
Mideast’s march toward war.”

Copyright © 1998-2009 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/iran-s26.shtml

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