Rice urges UN action on Iran

Rice urges UN action on Iran
Global
By Agencies

President Ahmedinejad insists on pursuing nuclear technologyCondoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has said the United Nations will have to take "strong steps" in response to Iran's claim to have successfully enriched uranium.

Rice said Tuesday's announcement was further proof that Tehran was not adhering to international regulations.

It was time for the Security Council to take "strong steps to make certain that we maintain the credibility of the international community on this issue", Rice said on Wednesday.

The Security Council last month gave Iran until April 28 to abandon nuclear activities the West fears is aimed at developing a nuclear bomb.

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -

RAY TAKEYH, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
“To properly address the complexities of the Iranian challenge, Washington should appreciate that its policy of relentlessly threatening Iran with economic coercion and even military reprisals only empowers reactionaries and validates their pro-nuclear argument.” [4/4/06]

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran - JAMES CARAFANO, HERITAGE FOUNDATION
“‘There are no good military options. … When you’re trying to stabilise Iraq and you’ve got this long border between Iran and Iraq, and you’re trying to keep the Iranians from interfering in Iraq so you can get the Iraq government up and running, you shouldn’t be picking a war with the Iranians,’ said Carafano. ‘It just doesn’t make any sense from a geopolitical standpoint,’ he said. Iran is believed to protect its most sensitive facilities by dispersing, burying and hardening them, learning from the 1981 Israeli air strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. So the payoff from surgical strikes on suspected nuclear facilities would be uncertain and temporary, Carafano said.” [1/24/05]

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
IRANIAN NOBEL LAUREATE SHIRIN EBADI
“Not only would a foreign invasion of Iran vitiate popular support for human rights activism, but by destroying civilian lives, institutions and infrastructure, war would also usher in chaos and instability. Respect for human rights is likely to be among the first casualties. [2/8/05]

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
RET. AIR FORCE LT COL. SAM GARDINER
Gardiner, a simulations expert at the U.S. Army’s National War College, after leading a “war game” on Iran: “After all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers. You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work.” [12/04]

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
FORMER BUSH STATE DEPT. POLICY DIRECTOR RICHARD HAASS
“So far, the Bush administration has shown it would like to resolve its problems with North Korea and Iran the same way it did with Iraq: through regime change. It is easy to see why. But the strategy is unlikely to work, at least not quickly enough.” [8/05]


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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
IAEA DIRECTOR MOHAMED ELBARADEI
“I don’t believe there is a military solution to the issue. I think that a military solution would be completely counterproductive.”

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AND DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
“‘The U.S. capability to make a mess of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is formidable,’ says veteran Mideast analyst Geoffrey Kemp. ‘The question is, what then?’ NEWSWEEK has learned that the CIA and DIA have war-gamed the likely consequences of a U.S. pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, ‘The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating.‘” [9/27/04

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
DAVID ALBRIGHT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
“David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, agreed that Iran ‘could cause all kinds of disruption clandestinely in Iraq.’ For that reason, and several others, he said there are no good military options on the table for confronting Iran. He also said loud external threats, especially from the United States, tend to backfire by sending Iranian moderates and reformers running under the banners of the clerical regime that Washington opposes.” [ 1/13/06]

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
REP. JOHN MURTHA (D-PA)
“There’s no way [President Bush is] going to take military action in Iran. Iran is, is three times as big geographically, there’s 58 million people vs. 26 million people in, in Iraq, and, and there’s no way. A fanatical government — I mean, the, the president of the United States does not have a military option. He can say he has a military option; he does not have a military option.” [3/19/06]

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
RAY TAKEYH, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
“To properly address the complexities of the Iranian challenge, Washington should appreciate that its policy of relentlessly threatening Iran with economic coercion and even military reprisals only empowers reactionaries and validates their pro-nuclear argument.” [4/4/06]


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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
FORMER COUNTERTERROR CHIEF RICHARD CLARKE
“[W]e’ve thought about military options against Iran off and on for the last 20 years, and they’re just not good, because you don’t know what the end game is. You know what the first move of the game is, but you don’t know what the last move of the game is. … [ABC’s Good Morning America, 4/3/06]

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (R-FL)
“Now, we are not going to go to war with — with Iran. So, that military option is probably off the table. Diplomacy, you have seen what has been taking place. We have been at this diplomatic maneuver for many, many months and many, many years, all to no avail. They have even built up their nuclear infrastructure. So, that leads us to the third tool in our toolbox, which is sanctions.” [Fox News, 3/15/06]

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Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran -
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT
“[A] military strike would be disastrous for the United States. It would rally the Iranian public around an otherwise unpopular regime, inflame anti-American anger around the Muslim world, and jeopardize the already fragile U.S. position in Iraq. And it would accelerate, not delay, the Iranian nuclear program. Hard-liners in Tehran would be proven right in their claim that the only thing that can deter the United States is a nuclear bomb. Iranian leaders could respond with a crash nuclear program that could produce a bomb in a few years.” [ 3/27/06]

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