The West Is Getting Ready to Surrender to the Ayatollahs over Iran's Nuclear Project

UPDATINGS 12-10, 14, 17, 19-2009 at bottom

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

The Obama administration, even more so than the Bush administration before it, goes through some ineffective, rather transparent motions pretending to try or pretending to want to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. But in Europe, some serious people are very worried indeed, as Israelis are. We have already noted French President Sarkozy's rather overt criticism of Obama for not taking the Iranian bomb project seriously enough, for not doing anything really capable of stopping A-jad's quest for the bomb. Some French political authors have written seriously on the subject, more than is usual --it seems-- in the USA where Columbia University seems to have considered it perfectly acceptable to accept a large cash "contribution" from an Iranian-controlled foundation in exchange for inviting A-jad to speak at Morningside Heights.

In Italy too concerned voices have been raised. Indeed, the Italian political commentator, Carlo Panella, recently wrote that the West is getting ready to surrender on the Iranian nuclear issue, while the newspaper Il Foglio deplores Muhammad al-Barada'is' endeavors to water down and obfuscate the issue and conceal Iran's rather obvious nuclear bomb intentions. Panella discusses the futility of the Geneva talks --if one really wants to end Iran's nuclear bomb project, as well as criticizing Obama for temporizing.

Muhammad al-Barada'i took on the not so difficult task of explaining to the world --i.e. to Barack Obama-- what it means to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that he received in 2005: playing three cards, cheating naturally. He did not deny himself yesterday when, at the end of the second Geneva meeting on the Iranian nuclear project between Teheran's delegation and the Four Plus One (USA, UK, France, Russia plus Germany), he triumphantly announced: "It was a good beginning"!
. . . .
Even worse, after Ali Shirizadian, the Iranian spokesman, announced that the transfer of uranium enrichment abroad, the subject of the negotiations, was only meant to contain costs, but did not in fact mean the end of the enrichment programs developed in Iran or the full transfer of these programs outside the country." In short, Iran will never transfer all of the nuclear processing outside its borders (and therefore will be quite free to obtain the heavy uranium that it needs for the atomic bomb) and will restrict itself to transferring a part of it abroad, but only for the savings. A solemn joke at the expense of the gullible, to which was added a dry kick in the teeth for France that Iran accuses of thwarting the negotiations. Therefore, it will never ever agree to transfer any enrichment processing to that country. A humiliation of one of the principal countries seated at the negotiating table, which follows dozens of other provocations.

. . .
Therefore, the Geneva negotiations are turning out to be what Iran wanted them to be: a loss of time which allows the pasdaran and the ayatollahs to proceed undisturbed to bestow an atomic bomb on themselves. It is the nth confirmation of the total failure of the "change" undertaken by Barack Obama, of the end of the carrot and stick policy started by George W Bush, and the obvious result of the end of any threat of reprisal against Iran --including military-- that the new president wanted. From delay to delay, Obama has given the Iranian military atomic program more than one year's time to develop undisturbed (Bush suspended his policy, based on negotiations but also on concrete military threats, in the Fall of 2008, specifically on the possibility that Obama might win the elections and make it moot), and now he continues to move back the date of a final check. First he set the end of September and then the end of October. Now it will go to December and then he will continue temporizing. Obama is giving the world a proof of extraordinary weakness and absolute blindness. He is demonstrating that he fully deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Like al-Barada'i.

Here is Panella's original:

Mohammed el Baradei si è assunto il non difficile compito di spiegare al mondo –ae a Barack Obama- cosa significhi essere insignito del Nobel per la Pace, che ricevette nel 2005: giocare alle tre carte, barando, naturalmente. Non si è smentito ieri, quando, a conclusione del secondo incontro di Ginevra sul nucleare iraniano, tra la delegazione di Teheran e i “quattro più uno”, ha annunciato trionfante: “E’ stato un buon inizio”!
. . . . .
Ancor peggio, dopo che Ali Shirizadian, portavoce iraniano, ha annunciato che lo spostamento dell’arricchimento dell’uranio all’estero –oggetto della trattativa di Ginevra- punta solo ad un contenimento dei costi, ma che non significa affatto la fine dei programmi d’arricchimento sviluppate in Iran o il trasferimento integrale di queste operazioni al di fuori del paese”. Insomma, l’Iran non trasferirà mai l’intero processo nucleare fuori dalle sue frontiere (e quindi sarà liberissimo di arrivare all’uranio pesante che gli serve per la bomba atomica) e si limiterà a spostarne una parte all’estero, ma solo per risparmiare. Una solenne presa per i fondelli, a cui si aggiunge un secco calcio nei denti alla Francia che l’Iran accusa di avversare la trattativa, per cui mai e poi mai accetterà di trasferire nessun processo di arricchimento in quel paese. Una umiliazione ad uno dei principali paesi seduti al tavolo della trattativa, che segue decine di altre provocazioni. . .

. . . . . .
La trattativa di Ginevra si conferma dunque per quel che l’Iran voleva che fosse: una perdita di tempo, che permette ai pasdaran e agli ayatollah di procedere indisturbati a dotarsi di una bomba atomica. E’ l’ennesima conferma del fallimento pieno della “svolta” impressa da Barack Obama, della fine della politica della carota e del bastone avviata da Gorge W. Bush e il risultato ovvio della fine di ogni minaccia di ritorsione all’Iran –inclusa quella militare- che il nuovo presidente ha voluto. Di rinvio in rinvio, Obama ha dato al programma militare atomico iraniano più di un anno di tempo per svilupparsi indisturbato (Bush sospese la sua politica basata su trattative, ma anche concrete minacce militari, nell’autunno 2008, proprio nell’eventualità che Obama vincesse le elezioni e che la vanificasse) e ora continua a spostare in avanti la data per una verifica finale. Prima inidcò fine settembre, poi fine ottobre, ora si andrà a dicembre e poi si continuerà temporeggiando. Una prova di debolezza straordinaria e di cecità assoluta che Obama sta dando al mondo, dimostrando però di essere pienamente meritevole del Nobel per la Pace. Come el Baradei. [qui]

Links:
Arab agreement with Israel on the Iran nuclear bomb project and concomitant disagreement with the Obama Administration on that issue.
Curiously, while the American president, Mr Obama, seems to be consciously allowing Iran to develop a nuclear bomb, some Europeans, so often derided by Americans in the past for softness on threats to Western civilization, find that it is Obama and his administration who are soft on the threat represented by Ahmadinajad's Iran, not only Carlo Panella in Italy but in France, President Sarkozy, Francois Thual, Richard Darmon, Michel Gurfinkiel and others.

Several years ago I wrote here that it seemed that nobody really important in the West wanted to stop the Iranian bomb and therefore, that that bomb would become real. Unfortunately, my ominous prophecy was right. I don't always want to be right [also see here]

UPDATING12-10-2009
Barry Rubin on Obama's collaboration in building the Iranian nuclear bomb [here]
Prof Jean-Pierre Bensimon argues that "the cost of a nuclear Iran is certainly infinitely greater than what Western experts now assign to it" while "an ideology of appeasement is now winning a decisive victory among the Western decision-makers," including Obama [in French ici]
Ari Shavit of HaArets faults Obama's leadership [here]. ". . . Obama is liable to leave our children a world in a state of nuclear vertigo. If the Nobel laureate does not want to be remembered as the leader in whose term of office the nuclear genie escaped from the bottle . . . must gain his composure immediately. He must use the little time remaining to lead a resolute campaign against the extremist forces acquiring nuclear capability."
12-14-2009 A document in Farsi describing a detonator for a nuclear bomb said to have been found [here]
12-17-2009 Carlo Panella writes [qui] that Obama should stop thinking that harassing Israel will solve the problem of the Iranian nuclear bomb project.
12-19-09 Former French official Olivier Debouzy in the Wall Street Journal [here]