Rex Regnant Sed Non Gubernat

US and Israeli governments plan a military attack against Iran, possibly using nuclear bombs [1] [2] [3] [4] [5], possibly this month (March 2006) for reasons including:

stopping the planned opening of an international oil-petrochemical-gas stock exchange for oil trade in euros [1] [2] [3] [4] [5];
control of Khuzestan province [1] [2] [3] where most Iranian oil lies, on the border with Iraq (US war plan OPLAN 1002-04); to distract attention from USA domestic political problems; and for Christian fundamentalist reasons - Bush says he was just following God's orders when he ordered the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.

The official excuse for the attack is the possible nuclear weapons program in Iran: ex-CIA agents Paul Pillar and Ellen Laipson as well as retired United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix state that if Iran were really trying to build atom bombs, then the most effective way to stop this would be a guarantee from the US and Israel not to attack Iran.

Key facts:

• Iran has not (yet) violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), though the National Intelligence Community in the USA estimates that Iran could build nuclear bombs in about 10 years' time, and it seems that nuclear proliferator (US ally) Pakistan gave some help to Iran to do this [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
• USA, France and the UK grossly violate Article VI of the NPT, which requires disarmament
• Germany violates Articles I and II of the NPT by nuclear sharing
• Israel has about 75-200 nuclear bombs and has neither signed nor ratified the NPT, but it is a member of the IAEA - the agency making inspections for the NPT
• in June 2005, the USA blackmailed IAEA chief El Baradei to either "get tough" on Iran or lose his job
  

info: iranbodycount wikipedia Iranian blogs Workers' Left Unity Iran

action: campaigniran defendiran stopwaroniran medialens.org StopWar.org.uk Global Days of Action 18-20 March

Three years after the US attack on Iraq, controlled by the dictator Saddam Hussein 53 years after the US+UK coup d'etat in Iran against the democratically elected prime minister Mossadegh and 18 years after the shooting down by the USS Vincennes of Iran Air Flight 655, killing the 290 people on board ( 274 passengers, 16 crew), the USA and Israeli regimes plan a military attack against the theocratic democracy in Iran.

According to various analysts, [1] [2] [3], the attack may use "mini-nukes" (small nuclear bombs), in order to destroy deep underground facilities. Because of the official reason for the attack (the possible Iranian program to build nuclear bombs), the US/Israeli attack on Iran is expected to be a single, fast, massive simultaneous attack on nuclear energy (civilian or suspected military) and military facilities in sixteen different towns in Iran [1] [2] including e.g. Bushehr (165,000 inhabitants), Arak (511,000), the mountain town of Natanz (40,000), Isfahan (2,000,000) and Tehran (12,000,000) - for a total population in the listed towns (including Tehran metropolitan area) of 23 million.

Even though it's realistic that some sectors of the Iranian government may be hoping to build nuclear bombs in violation of the Iranian head of state's fatwa (religous order) banning the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons, there are several reasons why this alleged bomb-building program is not a credible reason for the planned attack:

• practical: Iranian engineers and scientists would have great difficulty building nuclear warheads, since Iran has been party to the NPT since 1970. It is credible that there has been some transfer of technical knowledge from Pakistan and P.R.China to Iran. However, in November 2004, Iranian authorities voluntarily accepted to follow an Additional Safeguard Agreement, under which during the last few years, the IAEA has carried out frequent and intrusive inspections of Iranian facilities. According to the Iranian authorities, 1200 person-days of inspections were carried out from November 2003 to November 2005, while the total number of person-days of inspections carried out by the IAEA each year is about 10,000 for 140 states;
• motivational: the threat of attack by the USA/Israel is a strong motivating factor for Iranian politicians and voters to build atom bombs. Ex-CIA agents Paul Pillar and Ellen Laipson and the previous IAEA chief Hans Blix have said that if Iran were really trying to build nuclear weapons, then the most effective way of stopping this would be for USA and Israel to provide guarantees that they will not attack Iran - which the USA seems to have done for North Korea;
• ineffectiveness: Many analysts e.g. at the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies say that since the most likely effect of the attacks would be to increase motivation to build nuclear bombs without destroying the existing uranium supplies (underground) nor being able to totally destroy the technological knowledge among Iranians, the attack would only delay a nuclear bomb building program by a few years.

A more credible reason for the attack is control of Khuzestan province[1] [2] [3] where most Iranian oil lies, on the border with Iraq. British troops and US marinesstudying ethnic tensions have already been accused of carrying out provocations in Khuzestan and studying ethnic tensions there in order to more efficiently provoke local conflict and "justify" military intervention. Iranian authorities have claimed that a letter calling for Arabs from Khuzestan to be moved to another part of Iran was a fake intended to provoke ethnic conflict (which it did), and that recent bombings in Khuzestan were provoked by British agents, and that two recent military plane crashes occurred due to radio-jamming. The British Ahwazi Friendship Society, which states that it does not support separatism and opposes any invasion of Iran by foreign forces and condemns all forms of terrorism and has no links to any armed group, disagrees with at least some of these claims. The US war plan for invading Khuzestan apparently has a codename OPLAN 1002-04.

According to William Clark, Elias Akleh, Krassimir Petrov and Chris Cook, a more realistic reason for the planned attack is the opening (originally planned for 20 March 2006) of an International Oil Bourse (or Iran Petroleum Exchange) on the island of Kish, at which oil trading in euros (the so-called petro-euro) will become possible. At present, international oil trade happens in US dollars. European, Chinese, Japanese, West Asian and other companies and institutions wishing to buy or sell oil are presently forced to trade using large quantities of dollars, and in practice to keep large reserves in dollars.

After the opening, initially announced for 20 March 2006 though probably greatly delayed, of the Iranian oil exchange, which is expected to use euros, it would become possible to buy oil directly in euros. The risk for the USA would be loss of control over a large part of the world economy due to selling of the dollar, possibly leading to either an economic depression or hyperinflation in the USA. In late 2000, Saddam Hussein changed oil related transactions from the dollar to the euro. Also, he changed $US 10 billion in the Iraqi reserve fund at the United Nations to euros. These are considered to be important factors in the US decision to invade Iraq. On 23 March 2006, the Federal Reserve (central bank in the USA) will stop publishing the "M3" statistic, which (more or less) represents the amount of US cash dollars circulating around the world.

Other likely factors in the threat to attack Iran are Christian fundamentalist reasons, both for retaining support from the Christian fundamentalist electorate in the US - and for what seems to be Bush's personal belief that God has as much (if not more) right to make US foreign policy decisions as the US electorate: Bush says he was just following God's orders when he ordered the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.

The mainstream media propaganda is focussed on the possible Iranian program for developing nuclear weapons, even though:

• there is not (yet) any evidence that Iran has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty1200 person-days of intrusive inspections from Nov 2003 to Nov 2005, though the National Intelligence Community in the USA (CIA, etc.) estimates that Iran could build nuclear bombs in about 10 years' time, and organisations more pro-war than the CIA claim shorter delays
• USA, France and the UK grossly violate Article VI of the NPT, which requires disarmament
• Germany violates Articles I and II of the NPT by nuclear sharing
• Israel has about 75-200 nuclear bombs and has neither signed nor ratified the NPT, but it is a member of the IAEA - the agency making inspections for the NPT.
• On 4 November 2004, at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations 147 countries (including Iran) voted in favour of creating a committee for the negotiation of a treaty against producing fissile material which could be used for producing nuclear weapons; 2 countries abstained (UK, Israel); only one country voted against (USA); (see also other related votes);
• the world's largest democracy, India, struggled for many decades in favour of nuclear disarmament and did not ratify the NPT. However, in 1998, India became an overt nuclear weapons state (Pokhran II). During the next few days (first week of March 2006), Bush will visit India in recognition of India's status as a nuclear weapons state (but will also be "welcomed" by activists for his status as a mass murderer and war criminal).

Mainstream media attention has also focussed on comments by the recently elected president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad spoke against the existence of Israel as a state and expressed doubts about the Holocaust, leading to strong media and parliamentary criticism in Europe. Ahmadinejad made statements relating to the "wiping out" of the state of Israel in a similar way, according to him, that the USSR, the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlawi and Saddam Hussein's regimes were "wiped out". The accuracy of the translation of his words from Farsi to English remains disputed. The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel discusses this in more detail. See also the explanation on 20 Feb 2006 by Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Ahmadinejad's election and somewhat weakened power as president demonstrate the complex balance of political forces in post-1979 Iran:

• the 2005 presidential election was the first which had to go to a second round of voting (runoff)
• four of Ahmadinejad's proposed ministers were rejected by parliament - the first time that a cabinet was rejected
• the appointment of Khatami to the State Expediency Council's Strategic Research Center in October was criticised and perceived as a weakening of Ahmadinejad's power

more info: iranbodycount wikipedia Iranian blogs Workers' Left Unity Iran

Do something! Stop the attacks before they start! campaigniran defendiran stopwaroniran medialens.org StopWar.org.uk Global Days of Action 18-20 March