Wisdom discourages a US attack against Iran (Lebanon: Daily Star)

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http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=7296#

By Charles V. Pena
Special to The Daily Star
Friday, August 13, 2004

When President George W. Bush first named the "axis of evil" in his January 2002 State of the Union address, almost everyone knew that he was laying the groundwork for military action against Iraq. But now that the United States has invaded Iraq, the question is whether Iran will be deja vu all over again.

It's worth noting that based on the Bush administration's charges against the Iraqi regime - its development of weapons of mass destruction and support for terrorism - a better case can be made against Iran than Iraq. Prior to Dec. 2002, the focus of Iran's capability to develop nuclear weapons was on the Bushehr light water reactor. But at the time it was discovered that Iran was constructing two secret nuclear fuel cycle facilities at Natanz and Arak. Natanz was believed to be a uranium enrichment plant and Arak was thought to be a heavy water reactor. Iran denied any military purposes for these facilities and agreed to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.

In August 2003, however, IAEA inspectors at Natanz found traces of highly enriched uranium, deemed questionable for non-military purposes. In February of this year, the IAEA found blueprints for building P2 gas centrifuges that are better suited for producing weapons-grade plutonium than the hundreds of P1 centrifuges that Iran already acknowledged possessing.

Subsequently, actual P2 centrifuge parts were discovered. And after the IAEA passed a resolution in June 2004 deploring the fact that "Iran's co-operation has not been as full, timely and proactive as it should have been" - which sounds eerily like the lack of cooperation provided by Iraq to UN weapons inspectors as claimed by the Bush administration - Iran announced that it was going to resume centrifuge activities, which are allowed for peaceful nuclear energy, but not for making weapons. Former CIA director Robert M. Gates thinks the Iranians can "go with a weapon whenever they want to."

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1. I'd like to point everyone over to Koko01's thread re: US Attack on Iran

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2204561#2206865

[frylock]

2. if we're relying on wisdom, then we're phucked..

with a capital P.