BOLTON: LESS THAN A WEEK TO STOP IRAN’S NUCLEAR THREAT? ADRIAN MORGAN

Posted By on August 18th, 2010

Bolton: Less Than a Week to Stop Iran’s Nuclear Threat?

August 18, 2010 - The Editor

John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the UN, has warned that Israel had only days to strike the nuclear reactor at Bushehr in Iran. Bushehr is in the south of Iran, on the coast of the Persan Gulf, and here there is a complex of nuclear reactors under construction. So far, only one of these reactors is ready to go online. Bolton claimed on Tuesday that once Russian technicians had loaded fuel into the reactor, any attack upon the reactor could release large amounts of radioactive material into the outside environment.
Talking of a previous Israeli strike against an Iraqi reactor, made in 1981, Bolton said:
“If Israel was right to destroy the Osiraq reactor, is it right to allow this one to continue? You can’t have it both ways.”
According to Iran’s Khomeinist propaganda website PressTV, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov claims that his country “has always been determined to complete the project.” Sergei Novikov, spokesman for the Russian nuclear power agency Rosatom, confirms that the Bushehr power station will come online in days. He said:
“The fuel will begin charging in the reactor on August 21. From this moment, Bushehr will be considered a nuclear installation.”
No nuclear reactor comes online instantly. The reactor will not be fully functional until September. The Bushehr reactor will provide power which Iran maintains is intended for peaceful domestic consumption. Back in 1995, Russia had signed an agreement to assist Iran to produce a nuclear energy plant. Germany also assisted at one stage with the Bushehr reactor.
Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council believes that if Israel were to make an attack, it would more likely be against the installations further inland, rather than Bushehr. He said:
“It’s not at all clear that Bushehr would be a high value target because it’s only tangentially related to any conceivable Iranian nuclear weapons program. My suspicion is this isn’t a game changer. This isn’t going to give Iran enough fissile material for a bomb overnight.”
It is in the central and northern regions of Iran that Iran has its facilities that are directly related to the production of weapons-grade uranium. It has uranium enrichment plants at Natanz and Qom. At Isfahan there is a gas storage tank (Uranium hexafluoride gas is essential in the production of weapons-grade uranium) and at Arak there is a heavy-water reactor. At Darkhovin there is a pressurized water reactor (built with French assistance) which is said to be for peaceful power purposes but is believed to be connected to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

The main strategic target at Bushehr might not even be the completed nuclear power station (Bushehr 1). There are three other reactors under construction at Bushehr. One of these is a lightwater reactor, which when complete could be used to create plutonium.
On April 11, 2006, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced to the world that his country had produced its first batch of enriched (weapons grade) uranium. Speaking in a hall full of  Khomeinists who were chanting “Death to America,” Ahmadinejad boasted that his country had joined the “nuclear club” and declared that “our enemies cannot do a damned thing” to thwart its nuclear ambitions. The speech was broadcast throughout Iran.
The Bushehr reactor has had many false starts.
Iran’s defense minister, General Ahmad Vahdi, had spoken of the consequences of a possible attack against Bushehr. According to Mehr news agency, he said:
“In that case we will lose a power plant, but Israel’s existence will be in danger.”
Vahidi is still wanted in Argentina for his alleged involvement in a bomb attack upon a Jewish Cultural Center which took place on July 18, 1994 in Buenos Aires. 85 people died and 300 were injured. Vahidi is still on an Interpol Red Notice.
It seems that Iran is aware that it may be attacked. Maybe for this reason, it has shown some willingness recently to talk with America, as reported by Peter Huessy in today’s FSM. Amadinejad has recently said:
“We are ready to sit down with Mr Obama face-to-face and put the global issues on the table, man-to-man, freely, and in front of the media and see whose solutions are better. We think this is a better approach.”
Shortly after that announcement Obama’s natsec adviser, General James Jones, suggested that the president would be ready to engage in talks with Iran. Jones said:
“Ultimately if we find a convergence of paths all things are possible. One thing they might do is return our three hikers. That would be an important gesture. It could lead to better relations.”
Jones advised against any “theatrical” meeting. When asked if military action could be on the cards, should negotiations fail, General Jones said, “I’m not going to speculate on that.”
It is more likely that any potential action against Iran would come from the Israelis. In June this year, the London Times reported that Saudi Arabia had granted permission for Israel to launch an air attack by crossing its own airspace to reach Iran. That report was subsequently denied by the Saudis, but it is still not beyond the bounds of possibility. A US defense expert in the region had said:
“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way. They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department.”
On September 6, 2007, four Israeli planes entered Syrian airspace and reportedly dropped their spare fuel onto an unpopulated Syrian location, after being intercepted by the Syrian airforce. That is the Syrian account, anyway. It has been speculated, with some corroboration, that the attack was against a Syrian facility which had a nuclear warhead. The Israeli’s official line was that the airstrike in Syria was against weaponry that was to be sent to the Iranian-funded terror group, Hezbollah.
Israel has little to lose if it attacks Iran, and the only real resistance to such an attack – if aimed at Bushehr – would come from Russia. Any attack upon Bushehr at this time would automatically kill Russian technicians.
Almost as soon as President Ahmadinejad came to power in August 2005, he made several public statements that he intended to wipe Israel “off the map”. These were not just displays of rhetoric. Ahmadinejad also has a religious reasonfor calling for the destruction of Israel, involving Messianic prophecies which he believes in all seriousness.
But the Iranians are taking the threats seriously, it seems. Today’s Sydney Morning Herald carries an article in which Ali Akbar Salehi, who is head of Iran’s nuclear operations, warned:
“Attacking an international plant is an international crime as the consequences will not be limited to the hosting country but will have a global aftermath.”
Ramin Mehmanparast, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, tried to play down concerns. He said:
“These threats had become repetitive and lost their meaning. According to international law, installations which have real fuel cannot be attacked because of the humanitarian consequences.”
Iran, which openly declares its intentions to engage in genocide against Israel, is always willing to invoke “humanitarian” issues when threatened.  While I have been writing, Iran’s English-language propaganda agency, PressTV, claims that Iran will soon be announcing “good nuclear news”. The only good nuclear news to come out of Iran would involve an abandonment of its uranium enrichment program altogether.
Ali Akbar Salehi announced: “We have messages about new nuclear achievements which will be announced within the next few months.” On the issue of the Bushehr plant, he said:
“Inauguration of the plant will be a thorn in the eye of the ill-wishers.”
Whatever happens, no-one should blame Israel if it does take steps to defend itself with a pre-emptive strike. Lackluster international diplomacy, the spineless pronouncements of IAEA under its last director (a Muslim) Mohammed ElBaradei, an American president more concerned to suck up to Islamic nations than to defend its long-term ally Israel, have all contributed the situation that now faces the Middle East.
Few Sunni Muslim nations want a Shia bomb, but they have wasted so much of their energies colluding with Iran’s illegal proxies and strategic allies in the region (Hamas, Syria, Hezbollah) that they have allowed this situation to develop. One could also blame Pakistan’s Abdul Qadeer Khan, whose theft of nuclear centrifuge technology allowed Pakistan, and later North Korea, to develop working nuclear bombs.
An attack upon a working nuclear reactor could conceivably create a disaster such as Chernobyl, but a nuclear weapon, aimed at an Israeli town or city, would be worse. If any party is to blame for taking this situation as far as it has come, it is Iran.
Other nations try to use reason when negotiating with Iran. Such measures are futile as Iran’s insane Mullahs believe that their mythical 12th Imam (who vanished suddenly in the 10th century) will return to the world to act as the prophesized Mahdi only when the world is plunged into chaos. Currently, this character is said to live down a well in the Holy City of Qom, and faithful Shia “Twelvers” write letters and drop them down the well.
Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi was the patron of Ahmadinejad and this cleric’s support helped him to win the 2005 election. Mesbah-Yazdi is the foremost exponent of the theory of the returning of the 12th Imam from his “Grand Occultation.” In August 2009, Mesbah-Yazdi declared that it was a “religious obligation” to obey Ahmadinejad, and defying the diminutive leader was “sinful.” If Iranians believe that their promised savior will arrive if the world is in chaos, they have served him well.
Iran has been a curse on the world since it enacted its Revolution. It has interfered in foreign conflicts in Bosnia, in Iraq, and supports terrorist actions through Hezbollah in South America and Lebanon.
Iran must be prevented from gaining nuclear weapons. The survival of Israel depends on this, and the maintenance of peace in the Middle East also relies upon Iran not gaining such a strategic advantage. How Iran is persuaded to abandon its nuclear program is the real problem.
The Editor, Family Security Matters
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