Israel says Kerry remarks on Iran nuclear threshold 'not acceptable'

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: Reuters

Israel described as "unacceptable" on Monday remarks by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting cautious openness to negotiating a nuclear deal that would keep Iran six to 12 months away from bomb-making capability.

"In the past, and also recently, what we heard from the Americans, including publicly, and from the Europeans and even from the Russians, was that Iran must be distanced years - not months but years - from nuclear weaponry," said Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli cabinet minister in charge of nuclear affairs.

Iran, which denies seeking nuclear arms, is in talks with Washington and five other world powers on rolling back its work on uranium enrichment and a potentially plutonium-yielding reactor.

Briefing U.S. senators last week, Kerry stopped short of saying negotiators would "settle for" a timeline of six to 12 months in which Iran could amass enough fissile material for a nuclear device but said it would be "significantly more" than the current two months it would take.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/14/us-iran-nuclear-israel-idUSBREA3D0BM20140414

[raindaddy]

1. Feeling Safe

I get it Isreal wants to feel safe. I assume Iran wants to feel safe as well. How is Isreal a (nuclear power) contributing to the stability of the area with its leaders continually trying to dictate US foreign policy and threatening war all of the time?

[FiveGoodMen]

2. How is Israel empowered to tell us what's acceptable?

Who's in charge of US foreign policy?

[AndyTiedye]

3. Sheldon Adelson

He'll pay whatever it takes, and thanks to the new Supreme Court ruling, it's perfectly legal.

Where does the money come from? Who knows? He's a casino magnate.
How difficult would it be for Nuttyahoo to circulate a bunch of that nice foreign aid money into Sheldon's casinos?
That's perfectly legal too, or at least it would be impossible to prove otherwise.

[24601]

4. How is any nation not entitled to say what they judge acceptable? Any reasonable person would

judge it as Israel's position.

The President makes foreign policy, aided by his WH staff.

The Secretary of State carries it out.

[lark]

16. It's Israel trying to tell us how to run our country that is unacceptable.

They think the only alternative is war because that's what keeps the military in power and that's what Bibi wants. They don't want peace with their neighbors, they want domination and want us to supply it for them. Hell no, is what I say.

[24601]

18. I believe that most nations, nearly all nations, act in their own interests and do their utmost to

get their message out to others - neighbors, allies, adversaries about what they judge acceptable & unacceptable.

Words, even heated words between countries that maintain mostly good relations, are better than bombs. Even the closest families squabble internally once in a while.

[okaawhatever]

5. I think 6 mos isn't long enough. I thought 12 months was what we were going for. I don't want this

to be another N Korea situation where Bush was asleep at the wheel when they went nuclear. Granted, they tested missiles under Clinton, but it was under Bush they got the full Monty. I know Iran is more closely watched, but still. 12 months and they have my support. Israel will have to wait until Bibi, Bennett and Lieberman are gone before they get my support back (the gov't not the people)

[shaayecanaan]

6. Its not six to twelve months away from a bomb

its six to twelve months from "bomb making capability", which in this case they define as having enough uranium stockpiled to construct one nuclear device.

Having enough fissile material to make a bomb is a bit like me having enough iron ore to make a car - ie its just about fucking meaningless whether its 2 months or 6 or 12, its still going to take me years to build the actual car from scratch.

[okaawhatever]

8. Ah, thanks for the info. I didn't know that. I wonder what the time estimate is for making a bomb

once they have the fissile material?

[shaayecanaan]

19. Getting the stuff is easy

Uranium ore is not particularly rare, its about as common as tin or lead. Extraction and refinement aren't that challenging either.

The time consuming part is separating the U-235 uranium isotope (2% of unenriched uranium ore) from the U-238 isotope (98%). The atomic weight of both is almost exactly the same, so you have to gasify the uranium into uranium hexafluoride gas and slowly, slowly separate the *slightly* weightier U-235 from the U-238. Repeat and rinse, repeat and rinse, and slowly you end up with a more enriched product.

Takes ages, and generates a lot of spoil, waste and byproduct.

Iran had already done most of the legwork in getting the uranium to 20% enriched. They have agreed to scrap all of that work by downblending all of their 20% enriched uranium and cap their stockpile of 5% enriched uranium (lightly enriched uranium which is used for reactors).

Basically they have agreed to roll over completely. At this point it will take them probably the best part of a decade to get back to where they were, even if they tore up the agreement tomorrow.

The issue at this point is whether triumph will get the better of the Americans and whether they will inflict humiliation on Iran for the sake of it.

[FarrenH]

17. Iran and North Korea are very different countries

Very, very different. Not all bad things are equal. My pol-sci academic friends have generally held in past discussions that Iran is a rational actor in its foreign affairs. Rational, here, not referring to their brand of fundamentalist rhetoric or support for nasty groups elsewhere in the Middle East, but their tendency not to do batshit insane things like start nuclear wars. Even if they are looking for the bomb there is a 99.999999999% certainty that they will not start a nuclear war. The vastly more likely purpose would be to stop any of the superpowers from ever even considering invading them for any reason. In Iran's case, the USA and UK, although recent events in Crimea are relevant. Russia's annexation of Crimea (after agreeing to respect their sovereignty if they dismantled their nuclear arsenal) was merely the latest in a long history of superpowers militarily interfering in weak countries and, more importantly, not interfering in other weak countries, that has convinced a great many governments that the surest guarantee against being interfered with is having nuclear capability.

[bemildred]

7. I don't care what Bibi thinks about it. He is a fool. nt

[Jefferson23]

9. The Iranian Nuclear Weapons Programme That Wasn’t

By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Apr 12 2014 (IPS) - When U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen M. Ortiz unsealed the indictment of a Chinese citizen in the UK for violating the embargo against Iran, she made what appeared to be a new U.S. accusation of an Iran nuclear weapons programme.

The press release on the indictment announced that between in November 2005 and 2012, Sihai Cheng had supplied parts that have nuclear applications, including U.S.-made goods, to an Iranian company, Eyvaz Technic Manufacturing, which it described as “involved in the development and procurement of parts for Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”
The text of the indictment ...was yet another iteration of a rhetorical device used often in the past to portray Iran’s gas centrifuge enrichment programme as equivalent to the development of nuclear weapons.

Reuters, Bloomberg, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune and The Independent all reported that claim as fact. But the U.S. intelligence community, since its well-known November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, has continued to be very clear on the pubic record about its conclusion that Iran has not had a nuclear weapons programme since 2003.

Something was clearly amiss with the Justice Department’s claim.

The text of the indictment reveals that the reference to a “nuclear weapons program” was yet another iteration of a rhetorical device used often in the past to portray Iran’s gas centrifuge enrichment programme as equivalent to the development of nuclear weapons.

in full: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/04/iranian-nuclear-weapons-programme-wasnt/

Gareth Porter bio: Gareth Porter (born June 18, 1942) is an American historian, investigative journalist, author and policy analyst specializing in U.S. national security policy. He was active as a Vietnam specialist and anti-war activist during the Vietnam War, serving as Saigon Bureau Chief for Dispatch News Service International from 1970-1971, and later, as co-director of the Indochina Resource Center. He has written several books about the potential for peaceful conflict resolution in Southeast Asia and the Middle East,[1] the most recent of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, an analysis of how and why the United States went to war in Vietnam.[2] He has been criticized for his writings about the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia. Porter has also written for Al Jazeera English, The Nation, Inter Press Service, The Huffington Post, and Truthout, and he was the 2012 winner of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, which is awarded annually by the Frontline Club in London to acknowledge reporting that exposes propaganda.[3][4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Porter

[karynnj]

10. To me this looks more likely a poorly written sentence

The items violate the embargo because they COULD be used for a nuclear weapons program. The sentence as written says they ARE for Iran's nuclear program) (which assumes thee IS a program.

The Justice Department, the treasury department and the US attorney for MA do not make US policy. President Obama has been both negotiating with Iran and insuring that sanctions are enforced.

Note that it is NOT US policy to take on face value that Iran will not try to build a weapons program - if it was, there would be no estimates of "breakout time" and no list of embargoed items. In the recent SFRC meeting, Kerry spoke of that time having been increased. You could say that because it is not zero, they do not have a weapons capability. However, it does not address whether there is work towards one (ie a weapons program) - and that is why the US has an embargo of certain items.

[Jefferson23]

11. Take on face value? No, the hypocrisy in our approach to Iran goes back many many years.

There is more than enough documentation pointing to our questionable tactics, and
why we should not pursue aggressive actions toward nations who will then want to
protect their sovereignty with nukes.

snip*The escalation of tensions between Iran and the United States is entirely absurd to Chomsky in light of the widespread acceptance of the rights of Iranians to develop civilian nuclear technology. He sees the cult of American Empire in the government's condemnations of Iran for refusing to follow the demands of the international community, because the definition of "international community" used in such rhetoric amounts to little more than the opinion in Washington, D.C. and among its allies. He cited to the hypocrisy of the U.S. position in its historical relationships with the three nations that did not ratify the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty: Israel, India, and Pakistan. These three nations, said Chomsky, have all received nuclear technology from the United States in violation of security council resolutions, but most Americans would not realize this, given the pro-government bias of the media.

Essentially, Chomsky believes that President Obama's foreign policy has embodied a continuation of the policies of George W. Bush's second term in office. But he believes we are fortunate to be living in a time when the anti-war movement is much stronger than it was during the 1960's. He recalled a demonstration he was involved in during 1965, when state police violently dispersed a crowd from Boston Common. The next day, the Boston Globe, one of the most liberal newspapers in the country, denounced the protesters. Just three years later, following the Tet Offensive, public sentiment had moved enough that protests became common, but he ascribed this to a growing sentiment on Wall Street that the country had paid too high a price in Vietnam. Looking back at the lessons of that war, Chomsky said that the United States had essentially achieved its goal of "innoculating" the region from the domino-theory chain reaction by 1970 by installing dictators in neighboring countries and helping Suharto come to power in Indonesia

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/12-0

[karynnj]

12. Would love to see Chomsky's proof on the highlighted comments

It is common knowledge that Israel developed its nuclear capability directly from France - one reference the current book by Ari Shavit.

Pakistan built its bomb with funding from BCCI and the US was blind sided by it. I have never read that the US gave any nuclear technology to India, but have read nothing of where it came from.

[Jefferson23]

13. It is not new.

Chomsky: US Supported Indian, Pakistani Nuclear Programs

[karynnj]

14. Chomsky saying it earlier is not proof - any more than him saying it now

What possible gain to the US - at any time - would have occurred by giving Pakistan nuclear help? At the point that they demonstrated their capability, the US response was negative.

[Jefferson23]

15. Okey dokey. n/t

[ForgoTheConsequence]

20. We weren't "blindsided", the Bush and Reagan administrations knew and covered it up.

He soon discovered, however, that senior officials in government were taking quite the opposite view: they were breaking US and international non-proliferation protocols to shelter Pakistan's ambitions and even sell it banned WMD technology. In the closing years of the cold war, Pakistan was considered to have great strategic importance. It provided Washington with a springboard into neighbouring Afghanistan - a route for passing US weapons and cash to the mujahideen, who were battling to oust the Soviet army that had invaded in 1979. Barlow says, "We had to buddy-up to regimes we didn't see eye-to-eye with, but I could not believe we would actually give Pakistan the bomb.


How could any US administration set such short-term gains against the long-term safety of the world?" Next he discovered that the Pentagon was preparing to sell Pakistan jet fighters that could be used to drop a nuclear bomb.


The man who knew too much
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/13/usa.pakistan


Onetime CIA analyst alleges Cheney, Libby lied to Congress about Pakistani nukes

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/They_sold_out_world_for_F16_0426.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Barlow




You can thank Reagan, Rumsfeld, Bush Sr, Cheney, Libby.

[HeiressofBickworth]

21. Hey, Israel

Kerry is OUR Secretary of State and WE will determine whether what he says is "acceptable" or not. You don't get to script our Secretary of State to fit your purposes.