The IAEA says there is no corroborating allegations of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program in Iran.

The Bush administration has a long record of triggering crises, without much success in crisis prevention. The latter is clearly discernible in the cold shoulder the White House has given the call for a "time out" in the Iran nuclear crisis by Mohammad ElBaradei, the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

ElBaradei has asked for the simultaneous suspension of Iran's uranium-enrichment activities and the UN sanctions on Iran. Whereas Iran has given the call serious consideration, the United States has all but rejected it.

According to IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming, ElBaradei regards the regional situation as "potentially explosive" and wants to avert the escalation of a crisis that, if added to the present crises, could turn the situation "catastrophic".

In reaction to ElBaradei's proposal, Iran has put on hold its plan to install 3,000 centrifuges, and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has stated that Tehran will seriously "review" the proposal...

But that is precisely what may be wrong with the US approach, which involves upping the ante against Iran in Iraq, in spite of scant evidence of Iranian wrongdoing. The US is also fixated on the idea of a permanent suspension of Iran's enrichment and reprocessing program, even though the program is sanctioned by articles of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There is no legal basis for the United States' request, given the absence of any "smoking gun" corroborating allegations of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program in Iran.

Source: AsiaTimesOnline

Posted at February 5, 2007 3:37 AM in response to Iran Options

Hoppy, do you think it is possible that bin Laden was intentionally allowed to escape? I believe it is very likely. Can you imagine how much more difficult it would have been for Bush, Cheney and the neo-cons to sell their Iraq invasion to the American public and to the congress if we already had captured or killed bin Laden.

It is well known that "doing Iraq" was one of the top items on Bush's agenda when his administration took office. It was so important to them that they could not let anything get in their way. Plus they still have their bogeyman to trot out when it is politically convenient for them.

Sanger

Posted at January 27, 2007 6:36 AM in response to Still Clueless After Six Years

As Danius wrote, the Tet Offensive played an important part in influencing the American public's support for the war. If my memory serves me Westmoreland spoke before the Congress a few months prior to Tet and proclaimed that we had reached the "crossover point", that the enemy could not replace his losses in manpower as quickly as we were destroying them.

The US media prior to the Tet Offensive was, for the very large part, supportive of the war. Televised scenes of VC in the US Embassy in Saigon, the embattled Marines at Khe Sanh and weeks of house to house fighting in Hue had a major impact on how the public saw the war. Believability of the previous glowing reports of progress and public support declined from that point in time onward.

Posted at January 26, 2007 5:12 AM in response to An Electoral Vehicle for Anti-War Sentiment?

Actually all US combat troops were out of Viet Nam by early 1973. The phased withdrawal began in 1969. My second tour was shortened by several months and I left in March of 1970 as a part of the drawdown of the 3'rd Mar Div.

Posted at January 26, 2007 4:46 AM in response to An Electoral Vehicle for Anti-War Sentiment?

Okay, agree with you that the RVN leadership was incompetent and, if I might add, for the most part corrupt.

Whether you call them Viet Minh or Viet Cong, the movement was the same, opposition to the occupation by foreigners and their puppet governments. Viet Minh fighters came from the southern region and from central Viet Nam as well as from the North. They called themselves Viet Minh while they fought the French and later on the Americans called them Viet Cong.

Yes, it was the PAVN that led the final assault that captured Saigon, though their tanks carried the NLF flag. However the PAVN was not the only opposing force that brought on the fall of Saigon. Through the years the guerrilla forces of the Viet Cong along with their larger main force units brought large numbers of casualties to the US military which all added to the falling political support, and finally the collapse of that support, for the war in the US.

Posted at January 11, 2007 2:00 AM in response to You Can't Square an Iraqi Circle

They can wage it alright, but usually they do not have the staying power. Their own arrogance and ignorance prevents them from seeing this.

As General Giap once said "we were prepared to lose for longer than you were prepared to win."

Posted at January 10, 2007 5:56 PM in response to You Can't Square an Iraqi Circle

Also don't lose sight of the fact that our RVN allies had the 4th largest army in the world at that time.

You also did not mention that many welcomed the end of the fighting and the arrival of the NLF troops.

"In 1954, a few thousand French, Vietnamese, and Foreign Legionnaires had held off most of the North Vietnamese army at Dien Bien Phu before surrendering that single outpost after 55 days.

Twenty-one years later, the North Vietnamese overran all of South Vietnam--hundreds of posts, scores of major bases, cities, towns, villages, fields, mountains, rivers, bridges, and islands, and an army, navy, air force, Marine division, and police force of one million men.

This battle too, took 55 days."

Posted at January 10, 2007 5:46 PM in response to You Can't Square an Iraqi Circle

Quick question Kevin on your comments about the world oil supply - are you saying that if the Iraqi's, or the Iraqi Shia, control their own oil it won't reach world markets but if the US controls Iraq's resources, it will?

The nearly half trillion USD the neocons have spent on their wars would buy a lot of oil or go a long way towards funding alternative energy sources.

To me this whole affair, the invasion of Iraq and now ramping up the hype about Iran's nuclear "program", is all about us controlling their oil.

Everything else is for show.

Posted at January 9, 2007 4:39 AM in response to You Can't Square an Iraqi Circle

Yes, good observation Daniel. Cheney, and before he left, Rumsfeld, were the main string pullers of puppet Bush.

Posted at December 21, 2006 4:02 AM in response to Read Before You Leap

The corporations, the neo-cons and their puppet Bush, the American MSM, the religious right, American Enterprise Institute, Council on Foreign Relations and other business-centered policy groups, many of the leading dems - Pelosi, Harman, Reid, Rockefeller, Hillary, etc.

These people are all on the same team. They are not going to listen to the voters. They are going do what's best for themselves. They consider themselves the "elite", those who will decide what is best (for themselves). They are committed to global domination. They control the money and they have the power. Their roots run deep and they are prolific. Their children will not be sent to fight and die in their pre-emptive wars.

It's going to take a lot more than voting some people out of office before things change for the good of the common man in the US of A.

Posted at December 19, 2006 6:59 AM in response to Money on the Table