Faced with a new series of demands from IAEA chief Amano Yukiya, including a reiteration of the call for them to aceept the controversial “Additional Protocol,” the Iranian government rejected the calls, saying the IAEA can’t be trusted to conduct even wider inspections.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the international nuclear watchdog of leaking secret information regarding its civilian program to the United States. The United States has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran over its program.
The Additional Protocol would give the IAEA far greater rights of access to facilities, including the ability to probe any “suspected location” on short notice. Though Iran voluntarily complied with the protocol for a time, their parliament never ratified it, and ordered the government to stop complying with it in retaliation for UN sanctions.
Allegations of one or several secret nuclear weapons sites have endured, but barring specific evidence Iranian officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that the IAEA could be used to spy en masse against Iranian military sites simply by claiming those sites are “suspect.”
A hugely important story seems to be escaping attention …
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/af_nigeria_arms_seizur…
“”If Nigeria finds at the conclusion of the investigation that there has been a breach of international law, a breach of U.N. sanctions, Nigeria is a member of the U.N. Security Council (and) we will do what is necessary,” Ajumogobia told reporters.”
This is the usual flaming hypocrisy. The UN Security Council has no legitimate basis to forbid Iran to export weapons … the members of the Security Council pushing for this are the biggest weapons exporters in the world; US, China, Britain, France … as are some of the other countries that have been pushing for sanctions … Germany, Israel … so it’s all too obvious that there is no legitimate reason for such a sanction, and that one of the main reasons for the sanction against weapons export is to cut out a competitor. These sanctions are yet another example of extremely egregious ABUSE of the mandate and powers of the Security Council.
As for Nigeria, I believe it’s one of the most abusive and most corrupt governments in the world. The petroleum industry has wracked Nigeria for decades. Reportedly the US has blocked democracy in Nigeria and supported corruption, which seems to be the pattern set by US ‘national interests’ wherever our addiction to oil is at stake …
http://aderinola.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/between…
But, regardless of the right and wrong of the situation, regardless of context, regardless of Security Council abuse of its mandate, what we are looking at is – at least – a major propaganda step towards even more brutal sanctions and, almost certainly, war. But things could become even worse, fast. This event could easily be turned into precisely the sort of casus belli the Security Council sanctions set up a mechanism for; remember, if and when Obama chooses to start his war with Iran, all he really needs is to start interdicting Iranian shipping. That would lead to confrontation and – if pursued aggressively – war.
IAEA is a trojan horse. Good for Iran. If only other countries had so much courage.