UPDATE: The U.K. Telegraph picks up on the story only on Sunday March 5th (via Powerline). Let's see if the rest of the MSM still carries on ignoring it.
Thursday last week the Iran Press Service (written in poor English, see edited version below) published a damning article quoting remarks of Hojjatoleslam Hasan Rowhani, former Secretary of Iran's Supreme Council of National Security (SCNS) and chief nuclear negotiator:
”We need time in order to put into practice our potentials. The day we can master full nuclear cycle, the world would face a fait accompli. The world did not want Pakistan to have [an] atomic bomb or Brazil to possess full nuclear cycle. But both achieved their goals and the world accepted [it]. Our problem is that we have achieved neither, even though we are not that far.”
Anyone read this in the MSM? Even questioning its authenticity? No. INSTEAD the MSM is still wildly speculating what Iran's intentions are (via Michelle Malkin), quoting the embargoed report by IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, "Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran," which came out today (thanks to Vital Perspective):
The report "provides an update on the developments that have taken place since November 2005, and an update of the Agency’s September 2005 overall assessment, in connection with the implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in Iran and on the Agency’s verification of Iran’s voluntary suspension of enrichment related and reprocessing activities."
In the Current Overall Assessment section, ElBaradei writes that after even after three years of intensive Agency verification, the IAEA still cannot conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.
Well, I don't know what ElBaradei is playing at, but the admission of one of Iran's top officials, that they were playing games with the IAEA so as to gain more time to complete their true nuclear ambitions, the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, is good enough for me and most certainly worth reporting.
But, alas nothing. Not even at this current stage of last minute diplomatic wrangling, of looming UN sanctions and the MSM's keen awareness of possible military strikes against Iran!
Not even when the man making these extraordinary admissions is Mr. Rowhani, the signatory of the October 2003 accord with Britain, France and Germany, now known as EU3 or the European Troika, which was committing Iran to voluntarily suspend all sensitive nuclear activities and to accept the Additional Protocol to the non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Speaking in a closed door meeting with members of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (SCCR), Mr. Rowhani, now the Head of the Expediency Council’s Strategic Studies acknowledged for the first time that the Islamic Republic has a record of hiding some sensitive nuclear projects and avoided to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on many other occasions, “hence the confidence problem we have with the Agency and the international community”.
Isn't it newsworthy when, following the publication of large excerpts of the meeting by the Germany-based Iran-Emrooz website in Farsi on 21 February 2006, we are told, that...
Analyst could not understand why the damaging acknowledgments were publicized at a time [when] Iran’s case at the IAEA is about to be referred to the United Nations Security Council.
Isn't it newsworthy when we are told, that this information could not have reached the outside world "without prior authorization from very high above”:
“There is no doubt that the meeting was held behind [closed] doors, there is no doubt that Mr. Rowhani’s lecture to members of the SCCR on the history and backgrounds of Iranian nuclear activities, the programs, projects and secret purchases of nuclear components, [which] they deliberately avoided to report to the IAEA and the difficulties the regime face with the international community etc could not reach the outside without prior authorization from very high above”, one prominent political dissidents told Iran Press Service.
Isn't it newsworthy when we understand that these remarks were made by the former secretary of the Supreme Council on National Security (SCNS) and when we understand the importance of this Council: "This forum discusses, calculates, and formulates [Irans'] responses to threats to national security".
On paper, Iran has a coherent structure for security decisionmaking. The President exercises considerable day-to-day authority, and he controls budget planning, which is essential for incorporating military priorities into overall grand strategy. [...]
Today, the SCNS, chaired by the President [thug-in-chief Ahmadinejad], is the key national defense and security assessment body. Representatives of the Artesh [stands for Islamic Republic of Iran Regular Forces], the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps], other security agencies, and the Faqih sit on the council. This forum discusses, calculates, and formulates responses to threats to national security. [...]
The [Islamic Republic of Iran Regular Forces] Artesh’s main forum is the SCNS, which is charged with overseeing all national security matters. However, by virtue of having a seat at the cabinet table, the Artesh also expresses its opinions in cabinet discussions of foreign affairs, the national budget, procurement, allocation of resources, and so on. The Artesh also has informal access to the Supreme Leader’s office, but it does not seem to regard this as being a decisive arena of influence.
Is it not newsworthy when this top official actually tells us that Iran had turned to "the black market, middle men and international networks" to get the bomb:
Rowhani is quoted saying to the members of Iranian's Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (SCCR): “When we started thinking to acquire nuclear technologies back 15-16 years ago, we already were thinking full nuclear cycle. We tried to get it (the nuclear technology) from many countries and considering the general international situation, we were looking more towards China and the Soviet Union, but no nation was willing to give us that technology”, explaining: “that’s the reason why we turned to the black market, middle men and international networks from one particular nation, which we never named, but they (IAEA) concluded it is Pakistan”.
And just in case the MSM still has any doubt, that Rowhani knows what he is talking about, we get an even better picture of the importance of the SCNS and who Mr. Hassan Rowhani is from an article published in Iran Focus in August last year:
(Don't forget to click "Continue Reading" if you're not in Permalink mode)
In one of his most forthright comments since losing the presidential elections in June [2005], former President Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Monday criticised the removal of Hassan Rowhani as secretary general of the Supreme National Security Council, the country’s highest decision-making body on security-related issues.
“It would have been much more beneficial for [Rowhani] to have remained [secretary general of] the Supreme National Security Council, but this did not happen”, the elderly cleric told a high-level meeting organised to honour Rowhani’s services during his tenure as SNSC secretary general.
Rowhani has been replaced by hard-liner Ali Larijani, a former Revolutionary Guards brigadier general and a close confidant of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
“The SNSC is the mainstay of maintaining the country’s security”, Rafsanjani said. “This is where the country’s destiny is shaped and it must be led in a non-partisan manner, transcending political tendencies”.
Rafsanjani’s criticism of the changes in the SNSC was his most direct public attacks on decisions taken by Khamenei in recent years. He made it clear that Rowhani had been his protégé since the early days of the 1979 Islamic revolution that swept the Shiite clerics to power in Iran.
“He was with me during all my war trips and even though he was not a military man, we found his views very useful”, Rafsanjani said, referring to the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, when he was the acting commander in chief of Iran’s armed forces.
Mr. Hasan Rowhani is clearly no small fish and his comments matter. He's now the Head of the Expediency Council’s Strategic Studies, with the chairman of the Expediency Council being none other than former president Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The timing of these leaked admissions from Rowhani are potentially even more important and certainly better assessed in the context of a proper understanding of what the Expediency Council does and says:
Immediately after Iraq was occupied by the US government the authoritarian wing of the Iranian regime made a turn in their policy towards America. This turn is headed by former president Rafsanjani.
In its first issue after the occupation of Iraq, Rahbord, a periodical which is published by the Strategic Studies Centre, a body which is tied to the Iranian regime’s Expediency Council, published a 24 page interview with [former president] Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the chairman of this Council. In the interview Rafsanjani deals with the role of the Expediency Council in resolving difficulties between Iran and America.
He said that “as Muslims we have no problem with resolving any of the foreign issues facing us… We have a tenet in Islam which is the precedence of the expediency of power over the expediency of weakness… In principle, the Expediency Council has been created on the basis of this need.”
He referred to Khomeini’s view which specified that one can even stop prayers and fasting if it is for the expediency of the system, and added that: “To endanger our country and imagine that we are acting in an Islamic way is not Islamic.” In this interview he claimed that the foreign policy apparatus of Iran, because of the inexperience of its officials, had in many cases missed opportunities, but now it has reached a state under which it appreciates the world’ s political issues and can assess and analyze them!
The vital question the MSM should have asked, is this the opposition's attempt to communicate with the West. But evidently the West, or rather its voice, the MSM, doesn't seem to be interested. Why?
Fortunately, Wizbang and Polipundit remind us that the President has seen the writing on the wall--soon the MSM won't matter anymore.
The original article is written in poor English, which makes it at times hard to understand, but it is explosive stuff, so make sure you read it all. Below the remaining article, which I have edited as much as possible for better understanding.
After revealing the “very grave and sharp differences” opposing the Foreign Affairs Ministry, warning it of the “seriousness” of our case going to the Security Council and the Atomic Energy Organization and that they were taking the matter “very lightly”, Mr. Rowhani said there were the same kind of difference of opinion concerning the talks with the European Troika, with some saying this is futile because Europe has no power facing the United States determination to take us to the Security Council and others insisting that this is a good idea because it would buy us time. “However, even then and from the outset, neither the Europeans nor Russia wanted [us] putting aside full nuclear cycle”, he told the audience.
Continuing with the background of the nuclear crisis, he revealed that most of the countries Iran had approached to buy nuclear components from, had reported to the IAEA without informing Iran, which, in turn, had not told the Vienna-based Agency. “This was the case with China and Russia that had sold some equipments”, he said without saying what kind of equipments.
“We even learned, that the Agency (IAEA) knew some of the experiments we had carried out before, without telling us that they had monitored them”, he added.
It was under such circumstances that Tehran undertook to suspend nuclear activities and accept the Additional Protocol that allowed snap, unrestricted inspections of nuclear sites and projects by international inspectors against pledges by the EU3 to help Iran getting advanced nuclear technologies for peaceful aims, helping Iran getting into the World Trade Organisation and signing an advantageous Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the European Union.
But Libya, by making damaging revelations, dealt a severe blow to Tehran’s difficult confidence building process with both the IAEA and the EU3.
“Libya, which had both nuclear material and equipments from the same source as ours, had revealed everything to the Americans and the British and we ignored that until it was an open secret”, Mr. Rowhani went on, adding that Iran had told the IAEA “everything except the P2 centrifuges, something they knew and because of which our action were considered as a breach of confidence and concealment”.
“This was a hard blow to the confidence the Europeans had put on us. It was a bad blow to the confidence-building process we had initiated painfully. What made the Europeans angrier with us, was, that from the start of our negotiations with them, the Americans were telling them to be aware of Iranians. They [the Iranians] are liars. But the Europeans were responding that they trusted us. When the P2 affair blew up, the European started to strongly wonder whether we had also got designs for making a nuclear bomb, as all the plans were coming from the same source”.
Though Mr. Rowhani did not identified the source, according to IAEA documents, both Libya and Iran were furnished by AKL, the nuclear laboratories belonging to Mr. Abdol Qadir Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s A bomb.
According to Pakistani journalists who were briefed by the officials on the issue on February 2004, Professor Khan told investigators he had provided nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and the Communist North Korea helping them become nuclear powers and help decreasing international pressures over Pakistan.
"Dr. Khan transferred ageing technology for enriching uranium for personal greed, without the authorisation from Islamabad, but certainly with the help of some colleagues", Reza Khan, a Pakistani journalist told the Persian service of Radio France International after the scandal was blown open.
The international community became more suspicious about Iran’s real intentions after inspections by the IAEA experts of the second hand P2 centrifuges showed an enriched level of 70 to 80 per cent.
“We were astonished and surprised by the facts, for the simple reason that at that time, we had no such activities. We even thought it was an American plot. But latter we realised that the centrifuges, though second hand, had been used by a third country, which was identified as being Pakistan, which had told the IAEA without informing Iran. What made the matter more complicated was that we told the IAEA that we are assembling them in a small factory which, in their eyes, does not make sense”, Mr. Rowhani admitted, (referring to the Kalaye Elektrik factory near Tehran).
Nevertheless, the former Chief nuclear negotiator confirmed that during the time Iran was negotiating with the European’s Big 3 and the IAEA, delaying Iran’s referral to the Security Council, Tehran gained precious time to complete Uranium Conversion Facilities (UCF) in Esfahan and the enriching facilities at Natanz, in central Iran.
According to Mr. Rowhani, the “danger” of the Security Council is that “once reaching that level, other questions like our missile program, which they are very sensitive about, would also come up. And at the Security Council, one can be sure that Russia or China would not sacrifice their interests with the West to theirs with Iran”, he stressed.
Informed military sources believe Iran has developed new versions of its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles capable of reaching as far as Israel and shores of southern Europe, carrying a nuclear device.
After responding to a flurry of questions like “what is P2” or “what is UCF” or “what is heavy water” and “what is centrifuges” etc, the former SCNS Secretary admitted that the Islamic Republic is badly isolated in the international scene, saying, “may be it would have been better if we had told everything to the IAEA, but one must have in mind that no country in the world was ready to help us”.
He also confirmed that the construction of Natanz site, started secretly, was revealed by the “Monafeqin” (hypocrites), the jargon officials in Iran use to name the Mojahedeen Khalq Organisation, the outlawed armed group led by the Mas’oud and Maryam Rajavi couple, who were dedicated to topple the Iranian theocracy with the massive help from the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
“The Monafeqin got some information about the site, took some pictures. One or two employees at the Atomic Energy Organisation also spied for some foreign nations”, he said, concluding:
“We still need a little bit of time. Once in full control of the nuclear cycle, we can have everything, but we don’t want the bomb. Then the world would change its attitude towards us, accepting the fait accompli. We would enter the Atomic Club”.
"But we don’t want the bomb"; Yeah right, we believe you.
Siggy picks up on my post, and amplifies the essence: "We can delude ourselves into the complacency of fools, if we choose. Nevertheless, reality will not accommodate our self indulgent fantasies. If we do not act, Iran will have a nuclear weapon and at some point, the Iranians will use that weapon.
They are the only nation that has publicly threatened to use a nuclear weapon. What is most significant is that the Iranian official that made that threat was Hashemi Ali Rafsanjani- the same Hashemi Ali Rafsanjani that is portrayed as a moderate as compared to Iranian President Almahdinejad.
Think about that. The 'moderate' Iranian leader advocated the use of nuclear weapons. His remarks are recounted here, in a press release issued by the Iranian Press Service.
MEMRI quotes Rafsanjani as saying:
...the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.
Nice words from someone so reasonable."
What does nuclear weapon capability mean to a country like Iran? Power. If you have nuclear weapons you suddenly carry a weight that commands respect in the sense that you are now considered extremely dangerous. The major cold war countries that have nukes (France, Great Britain, the USA, etc) generally have them as a deterrent to the old USSR. Those countries also have either powerful conventional militaries or belong to a network of allies who, if push came to shove, would fight in their defense, conventionally. Iran, by contrast, is a lone wolf with a strong, but still sub-par, conventional force which is still suffering from losses it took during the Iran-Iraq war. There are very few situations that would cause most western nations to even dream of actually using their nuclear arsenal but for countries like Iran, who are looking to be regional and national players overnight, it is their military and political “Golden Egg”. Iran dreams of becoming the first Islamic super-power and hopes to project its power in the middle-east and beyond. If they go to war they will find the world as its enemy, in which case their conventional forces are doomed. This will dramatically increase the temptation to actually use nuclear weapons in a strike of wild desperation or in an early attempt to decisively turn things in their favor before said arsenal is decimated. A gun in the hands of a stable, rational, and reserved human being is a still a dangerous weapon but it is not very likely to be used on another human except in a dire situation of last ditch self-defense. A gun in the hands of a desperate and wildly aggressive man, on the other hand, is deadly for anyone within range.
Posted by: Stefan | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 07:06 PM
Maede - Iran a threat? Yes of course. Who with any kind of insight doesn't think so. As Alexandra said, this isn't a partisan issue, let alone national paranoia; this is internationally acknowledged, wherever you look.
As to "embryonic stages of developing nuclear weapons": I wish you were right and would love to know on which source you are basing your optimism. In the meantime, all published indication suggests that they're much closer to 'unveiling' their bomb.
As Jeff over at Protein Wisdom said yesterday in response to the NYT OpEd 'We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran': "Posen’s entire essay is predicated on the idea that Iran is run by rational actors—and fails, likewise, to take into account the international pressure not to retaliate in kind should Iran take aggressive action.
Once again, this is an example of an intellectual refusing to take at their word the threats of his enemies. Could the world live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Well, the answer is, it might well have no choice, provided something isn’t done to curtain such a scenario.
But to suggest that a nuclear-armed Iran is less likely to use aggression—while always holding the nuclear card—is, it seems to me, quite optimistic. That, and it flies in the face of what Iran has said it wishes to do with nuclear weapons once it manages to gather them.
Most of the people of Iran don’t fall in lockstep with the mullacracy running the country; but that mullacracy—and the religious fervor of its current President—make Iran uniquely likely to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, which they will regard as doing God’s work.
But who knows. Perhaps beneath the theocratic bluster beats the pragmatic heart of global statesmen. The question is, are we willing to find that out?
Posted by: North by Northwest | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 05:15 PM
Does anyone here really believe that Iran, in the embryonic stages of developing nuclear weapons (maybe), is any kind of thread to US, Israel or anyone else who has several dozen or several thousand nuclear warheads?
Comeon!
The arguments used here are ludicrous. Iran's president says things that have resonance in his local political sphere.
The reality he faces, from Tehran, is that Israel or US could wipe out him, and his fellow Iranians, at any moment of their choosing.
Let him have his chest-puffing moment. Reality is not lost on him or his handlers, the Iranian mullahs.
The only place that Iran comes off as an enemy worthy this kind of attention is in the imagination of people who are scared of their own shadow.
Posted by: meade | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 04:40 PM
Meade
"They are creating some security for themselves in a very insecure neighborhood."
And who has threatened Iran lately? Of course, I forgot, we, the U.S. And for what reason? Because we want to steal their Oil. Absolutely. Clearly nothing to do with orthodox Islam, ideology of Jihad, rampant anti-Semitism, Iran's geopolitical need to expand. Nothing to do with the current and former President's repeated desire to resolve the Jewish Question by wiping out Israel in one nuclear strike.
It's one thing to appease the threat and hope, as Churchill had put it, to be eaten last, there you can at least argue on the basis of a mutually recognized threat. It is quite another to be simply uninformed, hence the links.
Posted by: Alexandra | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 04:16 PM
Persia is not acting in her own self interest if she develops a weapon that will, by necessity, require a preeptive strike by the free nations of the world.
Iranian nuclear development is a danger to every one around the region and the country shall be dealt with accordingly. This is one country that does not get a free pass.
Posted by: Washington | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 03:43 PM
Iran is guilty of nothing, except acting in her own interest, and the interest of her citizens.
What Iran is doing is nothing that wasn't done previously by Israel, India, Pakistan and others.
They are creating some security for themselves in a very insecure neighborhood.
Posted by: meade | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 03:00 PM
There is always a third option: Arrogance. The MSM can't be seen to pick up a story from a website in Germany, can they. It's all about positioning, whether it is from one of their 'exclusive' sources. It's hard to imagine that they really missed out on it, but given the port issue and Iraq uproar last week, it might just slipped by. Well done, Alexandra for bringing us this detailed insight.
Posted by: North by Northwest | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 01:44 PM
Not suprising that the MSM would not pass this along. The only question is: Is it incompetence or design? More critical to me is whether our government has picked up on this, and are they treating it with due respect?
Posted by: TheRealSwede | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 12:38 PM