No sign Iran seeks nuclear arms: new IAEA head

By Steve Hynd

Promising to be neither a "soft" Director-General or a "tough" Director-General," the next IAEA chief, Yukiya Amano, has already rained all over the neocon parade. (H/t Kat)

VIENNA (Reuters) - The incoming head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday he did not see any hard evidence Iran was trying to gain the ability to develop nuclear arms.

"I don't see any evidence in IAEA official documents about this," Yukiya Amano told Reuters in his first direct comment on Iran's atomic program since his election, when asked whether he believed Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons capability.

That's a bit of a blow to folks like John "bomb them" Bolton and the Weekly Standard's Peter Berkowitz, who have busily been claiming that - despite and indeed because of Iranian election protests and the following clampdown - "the central question for Middle East politics" namely, "what to do about Iran's illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons," is best answered by an immediate Israeli attack because "relying on prayer for Mousavi and the Iranian people to overthrow the mullahs is no option at all, at least not for the state of Israel, the front line in Islamic radicalism's war against the West."

They go on to claim, beyond all credibility, that Israel could attack with relative impunity as far as Iranian blowback is concerned - using as part of their data for this wargames conducted by the neocon Heritage Foundation back in 2007 (which of course found the result the participants most wished to find) and for the rest wishful thinking.

So, this statement by the next atom watchdog head severely undermines their narrative, as it removes that first premise beloved of neocons and Clintonistas alike: that Iran is in "illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons." Expect the warmongers to ignore Amano as much as possible, just as they always ignore contrary expert advice and evidence. The point is to justify an attack by someone on Iran, not prevent a war.

And these warmongering, lying, cherry-picking Wormtongues are why I want to urge caution on the likes of Fareed Zakaria and Trita Parsi. I respect Trita immensely but he's forgotten the wolves in the wings when he says that the important criterion for American policy right now has to be to reject Ahmadinejad’s attempts at portraying his victory as final and that the best way to do that is by holding no negotiations for now. Steve Clemons points to pieces by Robert Dreyfuss and former UK ambassador to Iran Richard Dalton today and writes " I very much agree with Dreyfuss' kicker on engaging Iran and ignoring the John Bolton types who want to launch a new war." Ignore as in sideline, not hand them ammunition by derailing negotiation attempts.

I'd like to ask Trita - would he rather Obama talked or Israel bombed? Because I think those are going to be his choices. The meme that the election protests humanized Iranians and made an attack harder to justify - as repeated by Zakaria - didn't play at all in Tel Aviv or in US rightwing circles. White House opposition to an attack may also not be a meaningful deterrent factor if Obama himself has already implied, by disengagement, that the current Iranian government cannot be talked to. As long as Netan-yahoo, his Likudniks and their American neocon co-conspirators think US opinion is usefully split on an attack and that the waters of international opinion can be thus muddied, they will be highly tempted to tell themselves there will be no repercussions in the U.S. or internationally.

Comments

[Russ Wellen]

Encouraging, but Amano has yet to experience the pressure ElBaradei did from the U.S. Maybe he'll be spared that.

Meanwhile, if Obama holds off talks for a while where's the problem if Iran's not developing nukes anyway?

The meme that the election protests humanized Iranians and made an attack harder to justify - as repeated by Zakaria - didn't play at all in Tel Aviv or in US rightwing circles.

Figures. But if they show no sympathy to the Palestinians they certainly won't to Iranians.

[Steve Hynd]

Hi Russ,

"if Obama holds off talks for a while where's the problem if Iran's not developing nukes anyway?"

The problem is that the beltway set have been saying all along that Obama's plans to negotiate with Iran should get only one try, and if that fails then the bombing should begin. The danger, then, is that they unilaterally decide the time for talking is now ended and then try to make that a fait accomplis before Obama can begin talking again.

Regards, Steve