Despite UN Rebuke Iran Says It Will Continue Missile Program

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran said Saturday it will continue its ballistic missile program, after the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said that the missile tests aren't in the spirit of the country's landmark nuclear deal with world powers.

"Iran will strongly continue its missile program based on its own defense and national security calculations," foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said in comments published on the ministry's website.

Iran's missile program is not linked to the nuclear deal and does not conflict with the U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing the agreement, he said. "Iran's missile program has aimed at defense and it is not designed to carry a nuclear warhead," he added.

In the first six-month report to the U.N. Security Council on the implementation of the resolution, the U.N. chief called on Iran to stop the tests and said they increase tensions in the Mideast. The resolution, which was adopted on July 20, authorized measures leading to the end of U.N. sanctions on Iran.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_IRAN_MISSILE_PROGRAM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-07-09-06-43-18

[uawchild]

1. Aren't in the spirit...

So, does that mean we didn't get it all in writing?
We should have. Damn.

Now we know how Russia feels about our informal agreement not to expand NATO eastwards.
They should have got that in writing too.

[Igel]

2. Or at least had the "deal" mentioned at the negotiating table.

Instead of mentioned in a private conversation off to the side.

But hey, that's not according to RT or TASS, but those present.

The NATO "deal" has become an article of faith, it seems. Pinned up there on the iconostasis next to other imitation icons.

[uawchild]

3. Oh, I agree the Russkies got flim-flammed

They really were naive and as I suggested should have gotten what they wanted in writing. None of this gentlemen's agreement BS.

They got played big time. Our negotiators played them for fools, which they were in that case.

And we should have gotten the ballistic missile issue in writing too. I guess Iran film-flamed us too and played us for fools also.

So it goes.

[MisterFred]

6. Not really.

Why on earth would we have given them guarantees in writing? What on earth did they have to offer us? Nothing. The USSR fell apart due to internal politics. They had nothing to offer. As I read it, they did the best they could - got an informal agreement because it was impossible to get a formal one.

They weren't so naive as to fail to realize it was a flimsy promise, and I'm sure they knew all they really got was a possible bump in their favor if we weren't sure if eastern expansion was in our best interest or not.

We didn't get the ballistic missile issue in writing probably because we couldn't. Iran has a lot of not-nuclear-related reasons to not give up cruise missile technology. Remember their primary military threat to the United States is not nuclear missiles but the ability to shut down shipping on the strait of Hormuz. Cruise missiles give them the ability to threaten the strait of Hormuz, Riyadh, and maybe even Tel Aviv with conventional weapons even if all Iranian military assets along their coast have been destroyed. For a paranoid regime cruise missiles give them a much larger deterrent to a U.S. attack than they otherwise have - something they were going to hang on to for dear life if they gave up the bomb.

P.S. Until recently the longest-range Iranian cruise missile was WELL short of reaching Israeli territory from Iranian territory. The new one is a reverse-engineer of Soviet technology that's the first time Iran has had a weapon capable of reaching the Mediterranean coast. ...if the Iranian copies really work. Hence why they're not going to give testing.

But they're still just Soviet-era cruise missiles at best. Not to mention even if you give credence to the under a year nuclear breakout time they'd never be able to fit a nuke into one of those cruise missiles in time. Too much engineering complexity.

[uawchild]

7. Good points

Thanks for an insightful post. I have to confess that I was being a little, well, a lot tongue in cheek replying to igel, but your analysis seems spot on.

[MisterFred]

8. I appreciate the compliment. nt

[7962]

9. And Ukraine, who had IN WRITING that Russia would leave them alone

if they gave up their nukes
Bet the Ukraine would be in the situation they're in if they had walked from THAT "ironclad" deal.

[AntiBank]

4. "Iran's missile program has aimed at defense"

for good reason


Ex-Defense Minister: Netanyahu Wanted To Attack Iran But Was Overruled

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/netanyahu-attack-iran_us_55d8dec2e4b04ae4970375d9

JERUSALEM, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Israel’s political leaders pushed to attack Iran at least three times in the past few years but had to back down on the advice of the military and due to concerns about its ally the United States, former defense minister Ehud Barak said.

In interviews to his biographers aired late on Friday by Israel’s Channel Two, Barak said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had wanted military operations against Iranian nuclear facilities in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Israel has regularly hinted it could attack Iran to stop it getting nuclear weapons, something Teheran denies it is seeking.

In 2010, the Israeli leadership wanted an attack but the military said it did not have “operational capability,” said Barak, defense minister between 2007 and 2013, and prime minister in 1999-2001. In 2011, two ministers in a top security forum convened to discuss an attack changed their mind and decided against it, Barak said.

In 2012 the timing coincided with a joint military exercise with the United States. “We intended to carry it out,” Barak said, but going ahead with an attack on Iran while U.S. forces were conducting the exercise would have been bad timing.

snip



Leaked cables show Netanyahu’s Iran bomb claim contradicted by Mossad

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/23/leaked-spy-cables-netanyahu-iran-bomb-mossad


Binyamin Netanyahu’s dramatic declaration to world leaders in 2012 that Iran was about a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his own secret service, according to a top-secret Mossad document.

It is part of a cache of hundreds of dossiers, files and cables from the world’s major intelligence services – one of the biggest spy leaks in recent times.

Brandishing a cartoon of a bomb with a red line to illustrate his point, the Israeli prime minister warned the UN in New York that Iran would be able to build nuclear weapons the following year and called for action to halt the process.

But in a secret report shared with South Africa a few weeks later, Israel’s intelligence agency concluded that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons”. The report highlights the gulf between the public claims and rhetoric of top Israeli politicians and the assessments of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment.

[Purveyor]

5. ^^^this^^^ Iran has less than a year to be "prepared".... eom