There's Something Rotten Far Beyond the State of Denmark

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There's Something Rotten Far Beyond the State of Denmark

Iran and the IAEA

From an article by Gary Zatzman*, http://www.dissidentvoice.org, February 7, 2006

At the ideological level, the racism of those by-now-notorious Danish cartoons is clear enough. The denunciation of this racism is growing and this is positive.  However, in terms of the forces actually organising and mobilising something quite dark by means of this allegedly light-hearted caricature of a "war" among caricaturists, it is seriously incumbent on all of us also to penetrate its political significance.

What is being organised via Danish media, in some semi-respectable garb, is nothing less than a pole of public opinion that is not just religiously bigoted in its racism. This is a pole of public opinion that surpasses the Hitlerian dimension in its effort to justify the extermination of literally billions of other fellow human beings on this planet.

[…]

Julius Streicher [publisher of Der Stürmer, the Nazis' official anti-Semitic rag], was the only journalist to be convicted at Nuremburg for crimes against humanity and hanged. During the 1930s, amid widespread public disquiet about the ongoing economic and political problems occasioned by Nazi rule and its termination of social and political rights, Der Stürmer blamed all difficulties on "the Jews". It popularised a line of cartoons that repeatedly portrayed hook-nosed stereotypical representations of mediaeval Jewish moneylenders, conspiring together in a counting house and cackling over the misfortunes befalling the German people.

[…]

Months ago, after their initial appearance and the initial response of Muslims throughout Europe, the Danish cartoons seemed a minor racist tiff. In the intervening period since, however, NATO has been called upon to expand its agenda of annihilation in Afghanistan as part of enabling the US to exfiltrate 4,000 troops from Afghan duty to the Iraq front. There is clearly an attempt under way in the name of "freedom of the press" to reprint and spread the cartoons far more widely throughout the NATO countries, making use of the insult to Muslims and their vocal response to justify this spreading by republication.

[…]

This matter is actually a major question both for supporters of Palestinian rights and for the anti-war movement. NATO and the US empire are the source and basis of this hysteria and the most deserving target of people's outrage. There is nothing to be defensive about. In order to defend the social and political rights of all, "freedom of speech" either for Zionists to exterminate Palestinians or for genocidally minded militaries of NATO to exterminate the Muslim world must be exposed, and denounced.

* Gary Zatzman is co-editor of Dossier on Palestine

POSTSCRIPT

[…] What is of particular importance here about "disinformation" is its anti-people intention. This becomes discernible mainly – sometimes only – in its effects and impacts, which notably include the infliction and spread of a certain paralysis, either temporary or longer-term, amid the very forces that need to mobilise against the unleashing of yet another heinous act of imperialist aggression.

Although, as already discussed, the Danish cartoon began life as just one of possibly thousands of similar, everyday, garden-variety, Eurocentric racist acts of degradation of Islamic conscience, evidence continues to mount that, as opposition to it mounted from Arab states, as well as from Muslim organisations within Europe, the NATO establishment was also taking note. The inner meaning of the IAEA reference this weekend of the Iranian dossier to the Security Council can only be that an entire military, diplomatic and economic intervention against Iran has been in preparation for some time, with the EU-3 playing a crucial delaying role.

Proceeding further and stepwise along the chain of logic and reasoning opened by such considerations, there must have been decisions taken at a very high level regarding the reprinting of the cartoon throughout various parts of the EU. The reprintings went ahead in those European countries where it has become an urgent matter of the highest priority, as part of planning a further military strike in central Asia, to disable and isolate Muslim opinion at home and thereby pre-empt the emergence of any massive expression of anti-war feeling in their own countries. (One possibility that springs to mind as soon as one looks at a map is to set up a NATO-protected corridor on the Afghan side of the Iranian border to prepare a US-led invasion of the Islamic Republic.)

The re-printing of the cartoon was intended to provoke European Muslims' rage in a manner that would serve to isolate them from the rest of the societies where they are living and working. That is part of a general and ongoing strategy of pre-emptive attack on the antiwar movement. […]

The other huge piece of the current context is the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections. It is precisely in Palestine that the world imperialist system has been jolted. On January 25, they were utterly convinced as to what was absolutely and unconditionally their strongest link, namely, the "Jewish state" reportedly armed with 200+ nuclear warheads, highly-organised and ever-ready state terrorist squads, formal and informal ("settlers"), prepared to kill anywhere among a captive Arab civilian population living on occupied territory. The next day on January 26, 2006, their indisputably strongest link was converted completely unexpectedly, by a certifiably free and fair democratic election devised in fullest possible conformity to the "National Endowment for Democracy" standard of the present-day American Empire, into one of their weakest links. Even though the revolutionary flow of the 1970s is now in retreat and the present political landscape is pockmarked with many signs of darkest reaction, we are nevertheless approaching an historic turning point, eerily akin – in an increasing number of ways – to the moment the people of Iran turfed out the Shah back in 1979.

by Siddharth Varadarajan, The Hindu, February 3, 2006

An interim report prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency on the implementation of nuclear safeguards in Iran has cited numerous instances of Iranian cooperation with its inspectors but has also stressed the need for Teheran to provide further information on three outstanding issues relating to past activities.

The confidential "update brief" prepared by IAEA Deputy Director-General Olli Heinonen – a copy of which is with The Hindu – contains no new allegations or facts based on discoveries the agency might have made in Iran during its visits in November and January. However, the report says that a 15-page document voluntarily shown by Iran to IAEA inspectors for the reduction of UF6 to metal in small quantities and the casting of enriched and depleted uranium metal into hemispheres was "related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components." The report adds: "[The document] did not, however, include dimensions or other specifications for machined pieces for such components."

Though the draft resolution circulated by the US at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna on Thursday refers twice to this issue, the document in question was actually first made available to IAEA inspectors last year and its existence was duly noted in the Director-General’s report on November 18, 2005.

Pointing to the availability of bomb-making manuals on the Internet, a senior Indian nuclear scientist told The Hindu on condition of anonymity that the document in question was not the smoking gun the US and its allies believed it to be. The Iranians have said the document was provided to them on the initiative of the Khan network and "not at the request of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI)." Observers also believe the fact that Iran voluntarily showed the document to the IAEA despite its potentially incriminating nature makes the official explanation for its existence more credible.

In general, the latest IAEA report notes: "Iran has continued to facilitate access under its Safeguards Agreement as requested by the Agency, and to act as if the Additional Protocol is in force, including by providing in a timely manner the requisite declarations and access to locations."

Among the acts of Iranian cooperation cited are the provision of additional information on its enrichment programme, the confirmation of the purchase by a contractor of magnets for the P-2 centrifuge design, providing access to a military site at Parchin, and the presentation of "documentation the Agency had previously requested on efforts by Iran, which it has stated were unsuccessful, to acquire a number of specific dual use items." In addition, high vacuum equipment, high strength aluminium and corrosion resistant steel, valves, and filters were made available to inspectors for environmental sampling.

On the negative side, the IAEA said the Iranians refused to allow inspectors to interview a professor who used to be head of the Physics Research Centre at the former military complex at Lavisan-Shian. However, the granting of such interviews is not mandatory under the terms of either the Safeguards Agreement or the Additional Protocol. The IAEA is also still seeking clarification on the timing and purpose of certain trips taken by AEOI scientists in the mid-1990s. All told, the three issues remaining are questions on the extent of the P-1 and P-2 centrifuge programmes and the use the above-mentioned professor might have had for the dual-use equipment he had ordered.

The only new issue to figure in the report is an unconfirmed allegation based on "information that has been made available to the Agency," a euphemism for material provided by the intelligence services of an IAEA Board member, presumably the US. This information is "about alleged studies, known as the Green Salt Project, concerning the conversion of uranium dioxide into UF4 ["green salt"], as well as tests related to high explosives and the design of a missile re-entry vehicle, all of which could have a military nuclear dimension and which appear to have administrative interconnections."

Indian nuclear scientists have told The Hindu that UF4 is an "intermediate product" which had legitimate civilian uses. In any event, the Iranian government told the IAEA on January 23 that the "issues related to baseless allegations" but agreed to "provide further clarifications later."