New START is a Bad One for America

The new START treaty should not be passed by the Senate, in fact, it should not even be brought up right now. There are way too many ambiguities and disagreements, even between the Russians and the US of A. And the fact Obama wants it shoved through now indicates that there is something rotten in Denmark. From Heritage:

While the meeting took place behind close doors, the President had this to say about his two-hour chat with the Democratic and Republicans leaders of the House and the Senate:

I reminded the room that this treaty has been vetted for seven months now; it’s gone through 18 hearings; it has support from senators of both parties; it has broad bipartisan support from national security advisers and secretaries of Defense and secretaries of State from previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican; and that it’s absolutely essential to our national security. We need to get it done.

If only we knew what the treaty actually meant.

Indeed, six months after Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee formally requested access to the negotiation records to clarify a crucially important ambiguity in the treaty, New START’s implications remain unclear.

Steven Groves has shown how the treaty’s reference to “the interrelationship between strategic offensive and defensive arms” in the preamble is ambiguous and has been interpreted very differently by the United States and the Russian Federation. The Obama administration and the Russians not only disagree about the meaning of the preamble, they don’t even agree about its legal status. While the State Department maintains the “preambular language is not legally binding,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says it is “legally binding.”

The Obama administration’s continued refusal to grant access to the negotiation record prevents an informed debate and deliberation in the Senate, thereby obstructing the Senate’s constitutionally mandated role to provide “advice and consent” on all U.S. treaties. As Marion Smith has argued:

This denial is tantamount to refusing the Senate an honest debate and undermines the Senate’s role in providing advice and consent. For many on the Left, however, the lack of debate is not a problem since the virtues of arms control are assumed and any debate is viewed as divisive partisanship. But Senators and the American people should not accept this misunderstanding of the Senate’s function. Policy arguments are not disruptive to the legislative process; informed debate is essential to deliberation.

Like President Washington who enabled Senators to exercise fully their constitutional role by providing negotiation records surrounding the Jay Treaty, President Obama must help the Senate resolve any lingering ambiguities before any vote takes place.

Denying and usurping governmental power is old hat by now to Barry the Dictator.
And there are way too many giveaways of advantage to Russia, and possible undermining of our defenses of ourselves and Allies:

Russia has moved short-range tactical nuclear warheads to facilities near NATO borders this spring. This revelation comes amidst the Obama Administration’s efforts to pass New START, a strategic arms control agreement with Russia, in the “lame duck” session of the Congress.

Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Council of the Federation (the upper house of Russia’s parliament) foreign affairs committee, brushed off the news, stating, “We have relations of trust now with our American partners and don’t take any steps without informing our partners and consulting with them.” He does not say that the WSJ report is untrue.

However, the Russian Federation has no interest in eliminating its massive tactical nuclear weapons arsenal, which is 10 times stronger than the U.S.’s. That is why Russia insisted that tactical nuclear weapons are not mentioned in New START.

During the Bush Administration, Russia used its advantage in tactical nukes to intimidate NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic into cancelling the ballistic missile defense plans on their territory. Moscow threatened to deploy Iskander short-range nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave between the borders of Poland and Lithuania. With Washington’s support, the threat tactics failed.

For decades, NATO allies have relied on the U.S. strategic nuclear weapons to deter Soviet and later Russian aggression. This mechanism is often referred to as “expended deterrence,” as it extends the U.S. nuclear might to protect its allies. However, because the U.S. withdrew almost all of its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, leaving its NATO allies still within range of Russia’s superior tactical nuclear arsenal, the U.S. extended deterrence is threatened. Allies may think that the U.S. will not use its strategic weapons if they are attacked.

So, Barry is looking to further emasculate our defenses in Europe, thereby ceding most of Europe to Russian control and domination. Not since FDR and co. allowed Stalin to take over Europe and keep German occupied lands has the United States so willingly sold out her allies. This is a bad idea that needs further discussion, at the very least, and ramming it down a lame duck session is not good government.

Even some Democrats agree this should have further review and discussion:

“Most of the (legislation) being dealt with right now should be held over until 2011, because we should be focused on jobs, taxes, and debt reduction,” Nelson says. “I think we can hold off on START; I don’t want it to crowd out taxes, debt reduction, and jobs.”

North Korea Could Produce 2 Nukes a Year? Where was the State Department?

Perhaps if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were more concerned with keeping the peace instead of having diplomats spy and learn about what makes the leader of Argentina cry, we would have been more in front of this North Korean Debacle:

North Korea, which fired dozens of artillery shells at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong this morning, could make one or two bombs' worth of enriched uranium per year if its new enrichment facility is fully operational, a nuclear analyst says.

The shells killed two soldiers and set houses ablaze, according to Reuters, in one of the heaviest attacks on South Korea since the Korean war in the 1950s. The two countries then exchanged further fire.

These events closely follow reports on 20 November by an engineer and two nuclear policy experts from the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in California that they saw an industrial-scale uranium enrichment plant in a visit a few days earlier to North Korea.

North Korean officials told the team that the plant has 2000 centrifuges that are already being used to separate fissile uranium-235 from the more abundant uranium-238.

If that is true, North Korea could make 30 to 40 kilograms of highly enriched uranium per year, enough for one or two nuclear weapons, says Hui Zhang of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Although North Korea is believed to already possess plutonium-based nuclear weapons, uranium-based weapons can be more efficient, allowing them to produce more powerful explosions, says Robert Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC.

However, it is nice to know what Nick Sarkozy is eating and that Quadaffi travels with a Ukrainian blonde nurse. Don't you feel safer knowing these things?

Obama Lied about Israel Concessions-Iran Compliance Connection

One of the sad benefits of the wikileaks debacle is seeing how sinister and manipulative this administration is. For the purpose of doing nothing, Obama artificially tied Israel making concessions to Hezbollah and Hamas to getting sanctions from Iran, knowing that in fact it did not matter to heads of state in the MidEast (like King Abdullah) who privately expressed fear and a desire to be rid of Iran. Check it out:

But -- as the Wikileaks disclosures make clear -- Israeli concessions have (and had) nothing at all to do with stopping Iran. Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries wanted Iran crushed -- as King Abdullah put it, "cut off the head of the snake" -- period.

Let me repeat: Obama knew all along that Israeli concessions had nothing to do with stopping Iran's march to nuclear weapons. Yet he persisted in linking the two, even though it raised the risk of an atomic conflagration that could engulf the world.

And, in typical Jimmy Carter 2.0 fashion, he overly trusted the Russians, trading our defense shield for aid in cajoling Iran from Russia that never materialized. Who exactly are you trying to help, Barry? The free world does not appear to be it.

Even the UAE Realizes Iran is a Threat!

Gosh, the UAE is more realistic and sensible when it comes to Iran than President Obama and his idiotarian state department and advisers are. From Fox News:

ASPEN, Colorado — The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that the benefits of bombing Iran’s nuclear program outweigh the short-term costs such an attack would impose. In unusually blunt remarks, Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba publicly endorsed the use of the military option for countering Iran’s nuclear program, if sanctions fail to stop the country’s quest for nuclear weapons.”
Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba: “I think it’s a cost-benefit analysis. I think despite the large amount of trade we do with Iran, which is close to $12 billion… there will be consequences, there will be a backlash and there will be problems with people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country; that is going to happen no matter what. If you are asking me, ‘Am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?’ my answer is still the same: ‘We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.’ I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the U.A.E.”

C'mon, everybody, sing along with Johnny:

Obama's Apology Tour Has Done Nothing But Weaken America

Barack Obama's bowing, IPod giving, I'm a Citizen of the world, taking Michelle out on expensive dates on your dime, America Sucks and We're Sorry Apology tour has done nothing but add to the national debt and erode confidence and respect for the strength of our country. While Obama has been apologizing to the likes of Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Japan, and others, while flipping the bird to our allies in Polnd and elsewhere; nothing has come good of his globetrotting. He can't even get an Olympics with Oprah's help! Iran is laughint at us, continuing to build up nuke techonology. North Korea ignores us unless a Clinton photo op is promised. Don't just take it from me. Check this out from the WSJ:

'He talks too much," a Saudi academic in Jeddah, who had once been smitten with Barack Obama, recently observed to me of America's 44th president. He has wearied of Mr. Obama and now does not bother with the Obama oratory.

He is hardly alone, this academic. In the endless chatter of this region, and in the commentaries offered by the press, the theme is one of disappointment. In the Arab-Islamic world, Barack Obama has come down to earth.

He has not made the world anew, history did not bend to his will, the Indians and Pakistanis have been told that the matter of Kashmir is theirs to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the same intractable clash of two irreconcilable nationalisms, and the theocrats in Iran have not "unclenched their fist," nor have they abandoned their nuclear quest.
There is little Mr. Obama can do about this disenchantment. He can't journey to Turkey to tell its Islamist leaders and political class that a decade of anti-American scapegoating is all forgiven and was the product of American policies—he has already done that. He can't journey to Cairo to tell the fabled "Arab street" that the Iraq war was a wasted war of choice, and that America earned the malice that came its way from Arab lands—he has already done that as well. He can't tell Muslims that America is not at war with Islam—he, like his predecessor, has said that time and again.

It was the norm for American liberalism during the Bush years to brandish the Pew Global Attitudes survey that told of America's decline in the eyes of foreign nations. Foreigners were saying what the liberals wanted said.

Now those surveys of 2009 bring findings from the world of Islam that confirm that the animus toward America has not been radically changed by the ascendancy of Mr. Obama. In the Palestinian territories, 15% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 82% have an unfavorable view. The Obama speech in Ankara didn't seem to help in Turkey, where the favorables are 14% and those unreconciled, 69%. In Egypt, a country that's reaped nearly 40 years of American aid, things stayed roughly the same: 27% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 70% do not. In Pakistan, a place of great consequence for American power, our standing has deteriorated: The unfavorables rose from 63% in 2008 to 68% this year.

Damn, and Barry worked so hard to pronounce it Pahhh-kee-stahn.

We had once taken to the foreign world that quintessential American difference—the belief in liberty, a needed innocence to play off against the settled and complacent ways of older nations. The Obama approach is different.

Steeped in an overarching idea of American guilt, Mr. Obama and his lieutenants offered nothing less than a doctrine, and a policy, of American penance. No one told Mr. Obama that the Islamic world, where American power is engaged and so dangerously exposed, it is considered bad form, nay a great moral lapse, to speak ill of one's own tribe when in the midst, and in the lands, of others.

Right here is proof Obama is not a Muslim, he doesn't know how they think over there. So see, he isn't a Muslim. But, such an abject ignorance of the psychology of a region belies a certain arrogance about the certainty of one's own self loathing for one's own country, does it not? But let's look at Iran....

Mr. Obama could not make up his mind: He was at one with "the people" and with the rulers who held them in subjugation. The people of Iran who took to the streets this past summer were betrayed by this hapless diplomacy—Mr. Obama was out to "engage" the terrible rulers that millions of Iranians were determined to be rid of.

On Nov. 4, on the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, the embattled reformers, again in the streets, posed an embarrassing dilemma for American diplomacy: "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," they chanted. By not responding to these cries and continuing to "engage" Tehran's murderous regime, his choice was made clear. It wasn't one of American diplomacy's finest moments.

It is obvious that when it comes to expanding liberty, Obama will not even vote present.

Mr. Obama has himself to blame for the disarray of his foreign policy. American arms had won a decent outcome in Iraq, but Mr. Obama would not claim it—it was his predecessor's war. Vigilance had kept the American homeland safe from terrorist attacks for seven long years under his predecessors, but he could never grant Bush policies the honor and credit they deserved. He had declared Afghanistan a war of necessity, but he seems to have his eye on the road out even as he is set to announce a troop increase

Check out the whole thing....

Black Market Nuke Arrest Update

AP News Alert:

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) Authorities say the three suspects who tried to sell uranium for $1 million are a Ukrainian and two Hungarians.

I have finally located a story buried in Yahoo News's world news section...

Two Hungarians and a Ukrainian arrested in an attempted sale of uranium were peddling material believed to be from the former Soviet Union that was enriched enough to be used in a radiological "dirty bomb," authorities said Thursday.

The three, who were arrested Wednesday in eastern Slovakia and Hungary, were trying to sell just under a pound of uranium in powder form, said 1st Police Vice President Michal Kopcik.

"It was possible to use it in various ways for terrorist attacks," Kopcik said.

One of my biggest concerns with the Bush administration has been how little they have done on the non-proliferation front in dealing with Russia on Soviet era weapons. And why hasn't Putin done more to secure this material?

Police spokesman Martin Korch could not say whether the seized material had been enriched to weapons-grade.

"I can confirm that it was uranium-235 and uranium-238," he told The Associated Press.

Slovak and Hungarian officials were to hold a news conference later in the day

Authorities said Wednesday they confiscated the uranium during the arrests of two suspects in eastern Slovakia and a third in Hungary. It remained unclear to whom the suspects were trying to peddle the material.

Uranium is considered enriched if it contains more than 20 percent uranium-235, the fissile form of the element. It is considered weapons-grade if it contains at least 85 percent uranium-235. Natural uranium contains less than 1 percent of the fissile isotope, and uranium-238 is a lower grade form of the element.

The arrests heightened concerns that Eastern Europe could be a source of radioactive material for a so-called "dirty bomb," which would use conventional explosives to scatter radioactive debris.

To be perfectly honest, I am surprised this sort of thing hasn't happened sooner...

Richard Hoskins, the IAEA official who administers the database, said that last year alone the U.N. nuclear watchdog registered 252 reported cases of radioactive materials that were stolen, missing, smuggled or in the possession of unauthorized individuals — a 385 percent increase since 2002.

But Hoskins cautioned that the spike probably was due at least in part to better reporting and improved law enforcement efforts. Of the 252 cases, about 85 involved thefts or losses, and not all the material was suitable for use in a weapon, he said.

Even so, "there are far too many incidents of material not being properly controlled," Hoskins told AP in a telephone interview. "If we can do a better job, we can help keep these materials from falling into terrorist hands."

Concerns about nuclear smuggling have generally been focused on Russia and countries of the former Soviet Union, where security at nuclear-related industries deteriorated after the 1991 Soviet collapse.

If the United Nations ever were to be relevent, here is an issue they should have done something about...but didn't.

Black Market Nuke Arrest

AP News Alert:

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) Police say three people have been arrested in Slovakia for trying to sell more than two pounds of an unspecified nuclear material.

This alert is the only thing I have found on the story so far...

Iran Update

Two AP News Alerts:

VIENNA, Asustrai (AP) The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog suggests Iran has told the truth about key aspects of its past nuclear activities while confirming that Tehran continues to defy the Security Council on uranium enrichment.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran's top nuclear negotiator says the U.N. nuclear watchdog report proves Tehran is cooperating and that it would be "wrong" to pursue further sanctions.

The UN has, once again, tried to have it both ways. And, once again, we're seeing a rogue regime use this institution to delay action that we all know need to be taken in order to resolve this situation peacefully. All the UN is doing here is guaranteeing more war by refusing to deal with these threats up front.

Good News! Syria Might Have Nukes

Last week, I was seeing all these reports about an alleged Israeli air strike in Syria. It even came up a couple of times in the daily State Department briefings.

Turns out, that there is some serious evidence that Syria may have some nuclear facilities that are being funded by...wait for it...Iran...and stocked by...wait for it...North Korea.

Want more info? Check out the stories at YNet and the New York Times.

UPDATE: /good news sarcasm...

War on Bumper Stickers Update: Homeland Security Edition

Check out this bumper sticker left on the front lawn of a woman who lives on the flight line of a New Jersey airport:

JERSEY CITY A Jersey City woman made a shocking discovery on her lawn this morning when she noticed a military rocket launcher lying in the grass.

Niranjana Besai was leaving her house, located at 88 Nelson Street, to go to work just after 8 this morning when she spotted the launcher on her front lawn. "I read it and it [said] 'missile,'" Besai told CBS 2 HD. "There was little 'missile' [writing] on it."

She immediately called police.

Sources tell CBS 2 HD that the device is the type used to shoot shoulder-fired rockets and is capable of taking down an aircraft.

What's more troubling, sources add, is that Besai's house is located along flight path for Newark Liberty International Airport.

Nothing to see here. Move along...

And then there is this guy who wanted to sell bumper stickers to a foreign country:

Investigators are calling the theft a serious breach of security at one of the country's most important nuclear research labs. Officials said there was serious concern the documents could have fallen into the hands of enemy states or even terrorist organizations.

NewsChannel4 has learned that among the materials allegedly stolen was classified information about the uranium enrichment process. Officials familiar with the case said Oakley will face charges including violations of the Atomic Energy Act.

Oakley worked as an escort at East Tennessee Technology Park, located on the Oak Ridge reservation. Officials said his contracting job was to escort visitors to and from offices at the lab. Officials said Oakley also performed maintenance work at the facility.

Sources said it is unclear how a low-level contract worker was able to obtain some of the nation's highly guarded nuclear documents.

I feel totally safe from the bumper sticker threat...don't you?

North Korea Update

AP News Alert:

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) The U.N. nuclear chief says inspectors have verified the shutdown of North Korea's nuclear reactor.

If this crisis is averted, does George W. Bush and his administration get some credit?

Iran Update

AP News Alert:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) State television reports that Tehran's top nuclear negotiator and the European Union foreign policy chief will meet Saturday in Portugal for a new round of talks over Iran's disputed nuclear program.

To paraphrase Harry Reid, "The diplomacy is lost." Support the diplomats...that's what I always say...

North Korea Update

AP News Alert:

VIENNA, Austria (AP) The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog says a team is scheduled to visit Pyongyang, North Korea next week.

And the dance begins again...

Mark's Remarks

The WMD SquareDance, as sung by Kim Jong Il, formerly by Saddam Hussein, etc.
Swing the UN round and round
Get em real dizzy and they'll back down
Lie to the UN, lie to the press,
They'll believe you and blame the US
Threaten nuclear war and devastation,
Get toys and bribes for your little nation....

Second verse, same as the first.....

WMD Blast

7:20AM - AP News Alert:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says it is "too late" to stop Iran's nuclear program.

Uh huh...and twelve years from now, when the United States has to go in after seventeen UN resolutions; we will find diddly-squat...

AP News Alert:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) Palestinian president says his people are on the verge of civil war.

Personally, I think it is better that Islamofascists kill each other off rather than our allies like Israel...your mileage may vary...

AP News Alert:

WASHINGTON (AP) Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas has died, according to his family.

11:00AM UPDATE

AP News Alert:

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) President Bush says that Russia under President Vladimir Putin has "derailed" once-promising democratic reforms.

I thought Bush had looked Vlad in the eye and saw that his soul was good...or something...

More later...

Crazy Kucinich Attacks Obama on Iran

From PR/US Newswire:

WASHINGTON, April 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Presidential candidate and US Congressman Dennis Kucinich today challenged Senator Barack Obama's assertion, made in an exchange with Kucinich in yesterday's Democratic Presidential Debate in Orangeburg, South Carolina, that Iran is in the process of developing nuclear weapons.

"In last night's debate, Senator Obama revealed that he has fallen into the same trap which wrongly took us into war against Iraq. In one breath he conjured Iran as a threat: ('But, have no doubt, Iran possessing nuclear weapons will be a major threat to us and to the region.')

"And in the next breath he asserted that according to experts, Iran is developing nuclear weapons: ' . . . but they're in the process of developing it. And I don't think that's disputed by any expert.' Where is Senator Obama's proof for such a provocative statement?" Kucinich asked.

Kucinich said that in the exchange with Senator Obama he tried to interject the fact that Mohammed El Baradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently asserted " ... the difference between acquiring knowledge and having a bomb is at least five to ten years away. And that's why I said the intelligence, the British, intelligence, the American intelligence, is saying that Iran is still years, five to ten years away from developing a weapon. "

Senator Obama's assertion is eerily reminiscent of the statements of President George Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top ranking members of the Bush Administration, who, back in 2002 and 2003 falsely claimed Iraq was a threat to the United States and our allies, that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons capability.

Kucinich at the time wrote and circulated an analysis http://kucinich.us/iraqplan of all false claims made by the Bush Administration. "Clearly all other Senators running for President failed to read the easily accessible intelligence reports, hence their alleged 'mistaken' vote to invade Iraq," said Kucinich, the only Democratic Presidential candidate to vote against both the authorization for war and any funding of the war.

"While Iran has taken steps to develop nuclear power, which is the right of all signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever they are developing nuclear weapons," explained Kucinich.

"Senator Obama's doctrine with respect to Iran is 'All options are on the table,' which is unmistakably a euphemism for the consideration of a preemptive attack against Iran, including the use of nuclear weapons, which the Administration has shipped to the region. Senator Obama's rhetoric parrots speeches given by both President Bush and Vice President Cheney, as well as Democratic Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Edwards regarding Iran."

"When you consider that last month the Congress took out of the Iraq Supplemental appropriation a provision that would have required congressional approval of a military attack on Iran, Senator Obama's faulty analysis and his mischaracterizations license an attack. This is the same kind of disastrous, faulty thinking that led us into war against Iraq and raises serious questions about Senator Obama's judgement on matters of national security."

Kucinich has long advocated reestablishing diplomatic ties with Iran as a means of deescalating tensions, opening up full diplomatic relations, resuming meaningful inspections of Iran's nuclear power program, and enlisting Iran's support in helping to end the war in Iraq.

Unbelievable...

US Caving on Iranian Nukes?

AP News Alert:

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Officials say the United States and five other world powers may be ready for the first time to consider letting Iran keep some of its uranium enrichment program intact.

This is a serious mistake if true... Iran, like North Korea, has proven itself unworthy of any trust and should not be rewarded for its actions at any rate.

Hopefully, we'll get some more information from the State Department briefing...

Iran Update

Originally posted at 12:52PM on 4/18/07

AP News Alert:

JERUSALEM (AP) U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says diplomatic efforts with Iran over its disputed nuclear program are "working."

I'm not getting that impression from the State Department briefings...

3:40PM UPDATE - From today's State Department briefing received via email:

QUESTION: (Inaudible) today in Israel, I believe, Secretary of Defense Gates made some comments about some -- seeing some forward movement or said something to the effect that the diplomacy is working with Iran and the nuclear issue. I mean, are you aware of those comments? Do you agree with those comments? And can you tell us why you think it is?

MR. MCCORMACK: I haven't seen his comments, Charlie. You know, I'm not going to try to interpret them for you. I can tell you that in our view the diplomacy has moved forward in the sense that you -- if you turn back the clock to 2005, the United States found itself in a position of being relatively isolated on the issue of Iran and its nuclear program. We don't have -- when we looked around, there weren't too many people standing to either side of us, telling Iran that it has to meet the conditions of stopping their enrichment and actually get into negotiations so that they can realize a peaceful nuclear program and not a nuclear weapons program. The Europeans were -- came onboard early on in that regard.

But now we have gotten to a point where we have a -- two 15-0 Security Council resolutions, Chapter 7 resolutions that have made it quite clear to Iran that their behavior is unacceptable, that they need to take up the P-5+1 on their offer of negotiations and that you have had strong support in the IAEA Board of Governors, including among -- including from those states that count themselves as members of the Non-Aligned Movement. So in that sense, absolutely, the diplomacy has moved forward and in that sense, it has worked. Now, have we gotten to the point where Iran is stopping its enrichment-related activities? No, we haven't. But we are hopeful that the diplomatic strategy that we're pursuing of gradually increasing pressure on the Iranian Government to get them to change their behavior will yield positive results. And by that I mean actually getting them to the negotiating table under the conditions the international community has set out. We're not there yet.

Iran Update

AP News Alert:

NATANZ, Iran (AP) Iran's vice president says the country has begun "industrial scale" production of enriched uranium, the fuel required for nuclear reactors.

All of Iran's recent actions has been a hat to cover this issue...

UPDATE - AP News Alert:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran is now capable of producing nuclear fuel on an "industrial scale."

Swell...

UPDATE 2 - AP News Alert:

NATANZ, Iran (AP) Iran's top nuclear negotiator says the country has begun enriching uranium using 3,000 centrifuges.

Will Israel take the bait?

Iran Update

With word out now that Iran is planning a show trial for those fifteen Brit sailors and marines, Captain Ed makes a very valid point: Iran can't charge these guys as spies under the Geneva Convention:

2. A member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict who, on behalf of that Party and in territory controlled by an adverse Party, gathers or attempts to gather information shall not be considered as engaging in espionage if, while so acting, he is in the uniform of his armed forces.

And as Wretchard points out, even the Nazis knew that...

Burger, Dasch, Heinck and Quirin traveled from occupied France by submarine to Long Island, New York, landing in the hours of darkness, on or about June 13, 1942. The remaining four boarded another German submarine, which carried them down the Atlantic coast to Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. On or about June 17, 1942, they came ashore during the hours of darkness. All eight wore full or partial German uniforms, to ensure treatment as prisoners of war should they be captured on landing.

So what is all of this really about? Some think it might have to do wit hteh fact that President Tom was due to speak at the UN and the Mad Mullahs feared that someone in the delegation might defect.

Me? I think Iran knows exactly what it is doing...this is all a part of their plan for Armegeddon... Remember, President Tom has promised something would happen. There have been a number of "delay of game" calls on the field and let's not forget that Iran is not playing nice on the nuclear weapons front either.

The question remains: What are we going to do about it?

Iran Update

AP News Alert:

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously voted to impose new sanctions on Iran for its refusal to stop uranium enrichment.

12 years and 17 resolutions has to start somewhere...