Defying UN Iran Opens Nuclear Reactor

[Joanne98]

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/08/26/ap2974660.html An Iranian plant that produces heavy water officially went into operation on Saturday, despite U.N. demands that Tehran stop the activity because it can be used to develop a nuclear bomb.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the plant, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes.

The announcement comes days before Thursday's U.N. deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment - which also can be used to create nuclear weapons - or face economic and political sanctions. Tehran has called the U.N. Security Council resolution "illegal" and said it won't stop enrichment as a precondition to negotiations.

Mohammed Saeedi, the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said the heavy water plant is "one of the biggest nuclear projects" in the country, state-run television reported. He said the plant will be used in the pharmaceutical field and in diagnosing cancer.

[hogwyld]

1. Iran has the right to persue nuclear energy.

And if they go for the bomb, well, that will just level the playing field for them, and make the U.S./Israel think twice b4 taking them on.

[Joanne98]

3. I don't care if Iran gets the bomb. It might stabilize the ME!

Pakistan has it and they haven't bombed India.

[Deja Q]

7. Or India to Pakistan.

Yet.

[Joanne98]

10. Yet. But MAD seems to work pretty well.

[Kagemusha]

2. Hey, Forbes! Heavy water plants aren't reactors. Just FYI.

Not like anyone at that magazine will read, but just well, letting everyone else know.

[Joanne98]

5. Forbes has so many pop-ups. I hate to post it. But....

it was the newest report.

[IntiRaymi]

14. New York Times link:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html?hp&ex=1156651200&en=3652721f0daab6c1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[izzie]

4. One wonders just how we think we can stop them?

Have we ever stopped any country from this path?

[Deja Q]

6. 'Right' or not, I hope it blows up in their faces.

The UN said "No". Iran is saying "fuck off". And who has forgotten Iran's not-very-lovely comment about blowing Israel "off the face of the map"?

I don't believe they are trustworthy.

I believe they have been wantonly looking for a fight.

Eventually, they're going to get what they want. :( :scared:

But, oh well. What can we do? :shrug:

Maybe China and Russia, the closest things to allies Iran's got, will get them to shut the machine off. Even they expressed concern one time in the past too. And are they not on the UN as well?

[wakeme2008]

8. You almost make it sound like the leadership of Israel and the US

are sane.

IMHO Bush would nuc before Iran would.

[Deja Q]

11. By comparison, possibly.

Ultimately, I don't know what's going on.

All I know is Iran is defying all sorts of things -- including defying the UN, that has told them to not to go through with nuclear activity. What Iran has done is a huge slap in the face. (it also gives the UN credibility and also gives Bush what he wants. Like I've said, Iran is provoking conflict. It's not my fault if other people are responding just as how Iran wants.)

Unfortunately, with the Iraq war early on, the UN said "no" to the US and the US went ahead anyway. Maybe the UN lost its credibility.

I'm only saying what I am seeing. Iran is goading with its own commentary and its own actions, and thusly justifying a response that most people genuinely are going to agree with.

Yes, Bush has made comments of his own in the past too. But Iran has made bigger ones. And other countries' leaders have expressed concern over Iran as well, which only makes the US look less undignified despite the Iraq mess.

I can't (and won't) support Iran whatsoever. (their human rights abuses are far worse than the US's too.)

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Comments are not deeds.

Iran has not attacked any other nation for around 200 years or so. They simply do not have a history of belligerancy.

Iran is completely within its rights and complying with its NPT treaty obligations.

Why are you pushing for war?

[Deja Q]

12. I push for nothing.

Don't put words into my mouth. I am not pushing for war or for war. I am merely observing what the leaders of these countries are saying and doing. Iran is the provocative one; provoking people who have made war for less reason.

The leader for Iran is pushing for war.

Bush is buying into it.

So are the leaders of other countries; they have expressed concern over Iran as well.

And during the Iraq mess, people were pissed off that the UN wasn't doing much of anything. Now that the UN is even making dire warnings against Iran, we are now supposed to give the UN the finger and be supportive of Iran's decision to break it?!

I am siding with Bush as much as I am siding with the UN, France, and Germany too. And every other country that has expressed concern over Iran, who is now openly violating UN mandates - assuming the UN still has any credibility left. Now maybe Russia and China are correct in that stern action is premature, but sanctioning the country might be a good start. Very probably.

Again, I don't know, but too many people in too many countries are saying "No" and Iran is telling them to piss off, in action! Yet you claim I am pushing for war? Bull shit. Iran is the one not doing what it's told, especially by an organization I thought we were all supposed to listen to.

I'm sorry over Iraq. That's Bush's mess and Bush's quest for glory. But Iran is not the same thing and, unlike Iraq, many in the world seems to be agreeing.

I only hope I'm wrong and that all I am reading has been cooked up by the media. But when countries that opposed us over Iraq are out there worried about Iran, you bet I'm going to listen seriously.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. Yes you are siding with Bush. I agree.

By the way it is an UNSC resolution not a mandate. And yes you seem to be calling for actions against Iran. Russia and China have been playing with us on this issue. They walk with us for a while, agree to resolutions that if read carefully agree to nothing, and then when we start drawing lines in the sand, they simply ignore us. We have lost all credibility and the rest of the world's major powers are just trying to keep us from causing too much more damage.

Iran is completely within its rights under the NPT it signed to develop nuclear programs. Until they actually move to produce weapons, they have not violated any treaties. We seem to have not had too big an upset over the actions of Israel, India, and Pakistan and even North Korea with respect to developing nuclear weapons, I wonder why Iran thinks that perhaps our concern has more to do with their oil than with their potential to develop nukes?

We can ram all the UNSC resolutions we want through the UN, as we did with Iraq, and then attempt to use those resolutions as justification for our next big move in the middle east, but we will once again be left standing with our pathetic coalition of the billing.

What is astounding is that good people will once again willingly sign up to get fooled. Three years later and some of us are getting talked right back into buying another shit sandwhich from the same bunch of lying crooks.

What was it Dear Leader said? "Fool me once..."

[LynnTheDem]

15. "Iran is completely within its rights under the NPT"

And that's a FACT.

Glad some of us are aware of that fact!

[focusfan]

16. i say we leave Iran along

and if they threaten to bomb us then maybe we should take
action.but you know it's killing Bush that he can't go to war
with Iranhe just needs any excuse to do it.

[independentpiney]

19. Exactly!

This entire issue should be a non-starter. They are fully within their rights under the npt, and how that's being ignored by the european and us governments is just beyond me.

[MrPrax]

18. Yeah..it does

certainly seem like the usual GOP warmonger garbage.

The other way of looking at it is that the US has used a series of unexamined statements and claims to attack and occupy oil-rich ME nations and Iran is next up...it's the one in the middle of the other too.

Virtually everything you wrote is either Bushite propaganda or just plain bullshit, like Iran violating UN mandate? You meant to say, 'deadline', perhaps?

Now as far as respecting the UN or it's rules, well it seems pretty deranged for someone to point out 'non-compliance' of an arbitrarily imposed 'deadline' for Iran, while ignoring the patently illegal invasion and continued occupation of Iraq and other territories being occupied by US-client states, namely Israel, which has a stack of fucking UN mandates ordering it to do various things that it, like the US, completely ignores with the tacit approval of people like you.

Why don't you just say that you are afraid of Arabs, Muslims, etc and you want to kill them?

[bluedog]

17. Iran is surrounded by countries

that have nukes...why wouldn't a country want one to defend their nation?.........as they have seen what the US and UK have done.invade a sovereign nation and occupy it.......