Report: US discussing strikes on Iran

Here it is:

Slightly different:

Pentagon turns heat up on Iran

Washington and European Union on collision course over how to neutralise Tehran's nuclear capabilities

Peter Beaumont and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday November 21, 2004
The Observer

Pentagon hawks have begun discussing military action against Iran to neutralise its nuclear weapons threat, including possible strikes on leadership, political and security targets.
With a deadline of tomorrow for Iran to begin an agreed freeze on enriching uranium, which can be used to produce nuclear weapons, sources have disclosed that the latest Pentagon gaming model for 'neutralising' Iran's nuclear threat involves strikes in support of regime change.

Although the United States has made clear that it would seek sanctions against Iran through the United Nations should it not meet its obligations, rather than undertake military action, the new modelling at the Pentagon, with its shift in emphasis from suspected nuclear to political target lists, is causing deep anxiety among officials in the UK, France and Germany.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due to meet on Thursday to decide whether to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for being in breach of non-proliferation measures.

Sources close to the Bush administration have warned that Tony Blair will have to choose between the EU's pursuit of the diplomatic track and a more hardline approach from the White House.

While George Bush clearly favours more stick and less carrot, it is not yet clear what the stick might be: US administration sources say targeted air strikes - either by the US or Israel - aimed at wiping out Iran's fledgling nuclear programme would be difficult because of a lack of clear intelligence about where key components are located.


Despite America's attempt to turn up the heat on Iran, analysts remain deeply uncertain whether the increasingly bellicose noises which are coming from Bush administration figures represent a crude form of 'megaphone' diplomacy designed to scare Iran into sticking to its side of the bargain, or evidence that Washington is leaning towards a new military adventure.

Details of the emerging Pentagon thinking have come as US officials have spent the past week turning up the pressure on Iran before the deal comes into force........

Full story: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/

Oh god, when will it stop? I can't believe this.

Well, here's another "take" on the situation. Apparently the administration does not have much confidence in what the powers-that-be in Iran promise. Just the threat of military intervention might be what is necessary to keep the mullahs in line.




Link

This is a New York Times editorial from Nov. 20
This is not an Op/Ed article but the opinion of the Times editorial board

EDITORIAL
Groundhog Day
New York Times Published: November 20, 2004

Stop us if you've heard this one before. The Bush administration creates a false sense of urgency about a nuclear menace from a Middle Eastern country. Hard-liners talk about that country's connections to terrorists. They portray European diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions as a feckless attempt to appease a rogue nation whose word can never be trusted anyway. Secretary of State Colin Powell makes ominous-sounding warnings about new intelligence, which turns out to be dubious.

That is how President Bush rushed the country into an unnecessary conflict with Iraq in his first term, and we have been seeing alarming signs of that approach all week on Iran.
Let's be cleareyed about this: Iran has an active nuclear program, has not tried terribly hard to hide it and has been dishonest in its dealings with the West. But nothing we have seen suggests some new, urgent development in Iran that would impel American officials to start talking about "the military option." In fact, the most recent developments have been encouraging. Last week, under the threat of a looming U.N. deadline, Tehran said it would freeze all uranium and plutonium processing and invite back international inspectors.
It was a welcome step, resulting from efforts by Britain, France and Germany, and signaled that even the hard-liners in Tehran are susceptible to economic appeals. If the negotiations over Iran's nuclear programs go well, Europe promises to resume talks on a preferential trade agreement. If they don't, it will be time for international economic sanctions. After meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr. Bush went out of his way to praise and endorse the Europeans' efforts.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Powell suddenly offered scary sounding talk about new intelligence that supposedly showed that Iran was not only working on enriching uranium, a big step toward making a bomb, but was also working on ways to attach such a weapon to a missile. His alarmist tone was a bit puzzling, since everyone has already agreed that Iran has nuclear ambitions, and it's hard to imagine a country wanting to own a nuclear bomb without exploring ways to use it. The world has also known for years that Iran was testing guided missiles.
Puzzlement turned to alarm yesterday when The Washington Post reported that Mr. Powell's comments were based on unverified information that had been brought to the United States by a previously unknown source whose reliability and authenticity had not yet been vetted. That certainly did bring back old memories - of Mr. Powell assuring the world that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons, based on fanciful intelligence reports about aluminum tubes.
Steven Weisman of The Times reported that administration hawks were also talking about fresh intelligence on Iran's support for Hezbollah, which the world has known about for decades, and Iran's support for insurgents in Iraq, another old story. The hawks seem to be already starting to throw cold water on the prospects for a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear problem while trying to open the door to contemplating a military option. An administration official told The Times that Mr. Powell was trying to avoid meeting with the Iranian foreign minister at a conference both men are to attend in Egypt next week.
Small wonder, then, that the Europeans started to accuse Washington of trying to undermine diplomacy with Iran, just as the Bush administration thwarted their efforts to resume the U.N. inspections of Iraq - inspections that we now know had been highly effective.
Iran has long been a target of the hawks in the administration, who are undoubtedly feeling their oats after the election. But we hope that President Bush has learned enough from the Iraq adventure to understand the dangers of using flawed intelligence to create a false sense of urgency about a national security threat.
Obviously, a nuclear-armed Iran run by its current brand of extremists, who have twisted religion to support terrorism, would be a cause for real concern. But there is no military solution here. Iran's scattered and secretive nuclear program cannot be bombed out of existence. And even if the United States had not stretched its military to the limit in Iraq, invading Iran, a country of nearly 70 million people, would be a catastrophic mistake.
The Bush administration has said that stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons is at the top of its foreign policy agenda. That's where it belongs. But it's a goal that can be pursued only through truly multilateral diplomacy, in which the United States works with its European allies, rather than trying to undermine them, and the Europeans are prepared to stand behind Washington with a credible threat of economic sanctions when they are justified. It is not an excuse for war or even for pretending that war is a rational option.

crap -

quick, attack Iran, they're talking about stopping their enrichment program and we won't have an excuse in the near future!

There were no mass destruction weapons in Iraq after all. There were neither links between Sadam and Al Quaeda. Despite the Iraq War has not been the finest hour of American diplomacy, I still think it was a necessary and righteous action. Maybe the war arised due to economic interests, but a more complex and subtle analysis leads to the following conclusion: American neoconservatives were aiming at the creation of a democratic state in the Middle East- a region were almost everybody is under the despotic rule of an Ala blessed king or a ruthless dictator whose main objective is the entire annihilation of Israel. Iraq will also be a state comitted to international free trade, instead of the PECO ( a vilanous organization which is responsible for the most harmful economic crisis of the last 30 years ). So, once Iraq had retrieved peace, a big battle will have been won in the war against terrorism ( yes, all these governements are strong supporters of terrorism).

Well, take a look at Iran.

-Ruthless dictator( mullahs)(official objective: destroy Israel and the Jews allo ver the world)
+
-Strong commital to the PECO
+
-Development of technology which is mainly used to produce NUCLEAR WEAPONS. This means tactical nukes and, if we wait a little bit more, a few ICBM.
+
- By the time the International Community had tried to stop this program trough non violent means, it will be too late. Iran will be able to blackmail the free world. For example, they would obly us to suspend aid to Israel. That would be an unbearable burden

SO
If they DO NOT AGREE to dismantle their program due to the economic and diplomatical pressure of International Community

PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE on Iranian nuclear facilities is the best solution.