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ASIA TIMES


September 21, 2012


[Re Obama rethinks
the Arab Spring, September 18] The people of Israel should be proud of
their prime minister for giving new meaning to the word "gall". He appeared on
US television last week to promote getting America into a war with Iran based
on the totally bogus premise that Iran is "racing to develop nuclear weapons" -
which by the way are the exact words he used when he appeared before the
Congress of the United States in 2002 testifying that Iran was "racing to
develop nuclear weapons".


And, since early 1990s, every year he and others in the Israeli leadership have
declared Iran will have a nuclear weapon the next year. These are the real
facts so conveniently ignored by the prime minister and his cheerleaders in the
US that gave him such a propaganda platform.


With such a fanatical and apocalyptic record, is it not time to stop taking
such pronouncements seriously? Most of Israel's intelligence and military
chiefs are opposing the prime minister's rush toward war with Iran, calling it
"messianic". For example, Meir Dagan, the chief of Israel's Mossad agency from
2002 to 2010, said such an action is "the stupidest thing I have ever heard".


Does Iran have a nuclear program? Of course. Is it a weaponization program? Of
course not. How do we know? Both US and Israeli intelligence services have said
that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. James Clapper, director of
the US National Intelligence Agency, and General Rowland Burgess, of the
Defense Intelligence Agency, appearing at a Senate Armed Services Committee
hearing, both testified to that. And, Israeli Military Intelligence Chief
General Aviv Kochavi told a recent Knesset hearing that Iran is not working on
building a nuclear bomb.


Furthermore, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors are
constantly monitoring every aspect of Iran's nuclear program under the most
intrusive inspection regime. The IAEA, in its September 13, 2012, report,
continues to say what it has said through countless reports on Iran, that "the
Agency [IAEA] continues to verify the non-diversion of declared materials at
these [16 nuclear] facilities and [nine locations outside] LOF's."


Yet, all the breathless, alarmist commentary about this report has been that
since IAEA's previous report, Iran has doubled its stockpile of enriched
uranium at the 20 percent level. But what was left out in these news reports
was that half of that 20 percent enriched stockpile was used for conversion to
fuel plates for the Tehran nuclear research reactor, to help cancer patients -
fuel that cannot be used for weaponization.


Why then Netanyahu's constantly crying "wolf" and his "direct appeal to the
American public" in the middle of a presidential election? Perhaps he thinks,
by his incessant focusing on Iran, he will not have to focus on the thorny
problem of achieving a two-state solution with the Palestinians. And, by
his"brazen" actions through fear mongering, he can bully the President of the
United States. With such gall, the prime minister has set himself up for a rude
awakening, when his buddy Mitt Romney is resoundingly defeated.


Fariborz S Fatemi


United States (Sep 21, '12)