U.S. to Demand Inspection of New Iran Plant ‘Within Weeks’
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to tell Iran this week that it must open a newly revealed nuclear enrichment site to international inspectors “within weeks,” according to senior administration officials. The administration will also tell Tehran that inspectors must have full access to the key personnel who put together the clandestine plant and to the documents surrounding its construction, the officials said Saturday.
The demands, following the revelation Friday of the secret facility at a military base near the holy city of Qum, set the stage for the next chapter of a diplomatic drama that has toughened the West’s posture and heightened tensions with Iran. The first direct negotiations between the United States and Iran in 30 years are scheduled to open in Geneva on Thursday.
American and European officials say they will also press Iran to open what they suspect are nuclear-related sites to international inspectors, and to turn over notebooks and computers that they think may document efforts to design weapons.
President Obama has repeatedly said that Iran must show significant cooperation by the end of the year, establishing what officials say is effectively a three-month deadline. Interviews with American and European officials, however, suggest differences of opinion about how much time Iran should be given to show full compliance.
On Saturday, Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the International Atomic Energy Agency would be invited to visit the site near Qum that American intelligence agencies estimate was designed to house 3,000 centrifuges, enough to produce about one bomb’s worth of material a year. But he did not say when, nor did he say whether Iran would meet any of the other American and European demands.
Mr. Salehi, who spoke on Iranian state television, added that Mr. Obama’s dramatic release of the information about the site at a global economic summit meeting was a “plot” meant to “unite the whole world against us.”
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It appears that no matter
It appears that no matter what Iran says or does at this point, the US and Israel have decided on some kind of military confrontation against Iran. The drums for war, as indicated in this article, are beating faster and more loudly than ever. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at some kind of Israeli-engineered "false flag" operation in the not too distant future to get such a war going.
This confrontation may well not guarantee the desired geopolitical outcome, and will galvanize every Iranian citizen to stand behind a government and military they may not care for.
US soldiers in Iraq will be sitting ducks for a counter-attack.
Russia has warned Washington and Tel Aviv that such an attack will very quickly escalate into WW3.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of hubris in the halls of power in both cities. That hubris may send the world careening into yet another global confrontation, and Russia has made it very clear whose side it will be on, should such an attack take place.
Unfortunately, there's a lot
I'm not seeing hubris in this case in Tehran. The Iranians are under no obligations to take orders from the United States or this alleged "international community" that our leaders continually refer to when making demands on other nations. The French and Belgians, for example, still need to explain why they did everything in their power to thwart and prevent the United Nations from putting a stop to the genocide in Rwanda. The reality of the world today is nobody is going to roll over and just take an ass-whipping from the United States. Nobody.