Is Iran's plan for an oil exchange trading in Euros the real issue?
Or is it Israel? And why haven't the nuclear powers fulfilled their treaty obligations?
Iran has an "inalienable right" to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes
such as the production of electric energy, and the enrichment of uranium for
its nuclear reactors. Could it be that Iran's plan for an oil exchange
trading in Euros is the real issue? Or is it Israel?
1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the
inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research,
production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without
discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.
2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the
right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment,
materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful
uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so
shall also cooperate in contributing alone or together with other States
or international organizations to the further development of the
applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the
territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due
consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.
Thus, not only does Iran have an "inalienable right" to use nuclear energy
for electricity, the NPT obligates the nuclear powers to "further
development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes."
Iran has gone beyond its obligations under the NPT to assure others of it's
peaceful intentions.
According to Dr. Gordon Prather - a nuclear physicist who was the top
scientist for the army in the Reagan years, in December, 2003, Iran signed an
Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement and had volunteered to
cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - pending
ratification by the Iranian Parliament - as if the Additional Protocol were
actually "in force."
The IAEA Safeguards
Statement for 2004 states: "As of the end of 2004, 40 non-nuclear-weapon
States party to the NPT had not yet brought comprehensive safeguards
agreements with the Agency into force."
Iran also
offered, says Dr. Prather, "to voluntarily forego a complete fuel cycle
. . . if the Europeans would get the United States to reverse the campaign
of denial, obstruction, intervention, and misinformation."
Iran had already
offered on March 23, 2005 a package of "objective guarantees" (developed
by an international panel of experts) that met most of the demands later
made by the conservative, Washington based Heritage foundation says Dr.
Prather.
The IAEA has found no "smoking gun" in Iran that would
indicate a nuclear weapons program, said Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei -
Director General of the IAEA, on December 6, 2005.
To further ease U.S. fears, "America can take part in international
bidding for the construction of Iran's nuclear power plant if they
observe the basic standards and quality," said Foreign Ministry spokesman
Hamid Reza Asefi at a news conference on December 11, 2005.
Thirty years ago, Iran developing a nuclear capacity "caused no problems for
the Americans because, at that time, the Shah was seen as a strong ally, and
had indeed been put on
the throne with American help", says Tony Benn, Britain's secretary of
state for energy from 1975-79. "There could hardly be a clearer example of
double
standards than this, and it fits in with the arming of Saddam to attack
Iran after the Shah had been toppled, and the complete silence over Israel's
huge nuclear armoury" he says.
With world oil production expected to
peak in 5 to 25 years, and demand to exceed supply sometime after that,
it makes sense for Iran to look toward alternative means for generating
electricity, and to reserve its oil for other purposes including increasing
revenues from export.
Iran is about to commit a far greater
"offense" than Saddam Hussein's conversion to the euro for Iraq's oil
exports in the fall of 2000. Beginning in March 2006, the Tehran government
has plans to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with
respect to international oil trades - using a euro-based international
oil-trading mechanism," says William R. Clark - author of Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the
Dollar
According to Toni Straka, a Vienna, Austria-based financial analyst who runs
a blog, The Prudent Investor, Iran's
"proposal to set up a petroleum bourse was first voiced in Iran's
development plan for 2000-2005. . . . Cheaper nuclear energy and increases
in oil exports from the current level of roughly 2.5 million barrels a day
will result in a profitable equation for Iran.
"Only one major actor stands to lose from a change in the current status
quo: the US" says Toni Straka, "which with less than 5% of the global
population, consumes roughly one third of global oil production."
Israel - not a signatory to the NPT - has had this capability for years, is
believed to have more than 200
nuclear weapons, the missiles to deliver them to Iran, and it is no
secret that it has been threatening strikes on Iran's Bushehr nuclear
electric power plant - just as it launched an unprovoked and illegal attack
on Iraq's, Osirak nuclear electric
power plant in 1981.
This invasion has claimed the lives of over 2000 U.S. soldiers, and
over 180,000
Iraqis. It has left uncounted others wounded and maimed. It has
destroyed much of Iraq's - indeed the world's - cultural heritage.
And it is estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers "between $1 trillion and $2
trillion, up to 10 times more than previously thought," according to
Linda Bilmes - former assistant secretary of Commerce, and Joseph Stiglitz -
recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics.
The U.S. news media is showing the same timidity that it displayed before
and during the Iraq war in investigating U.S. allegations against Iran, and
again Israel
is pushing the U.S. to attack.
John Ward Anderson of the Washington Post wrote: "The foreign ministers
of Britain, Germany and France called Thursday for Iran to be referred to
the UN Security Council for violating its nuclear treaty obligations."
Neither he, nor the editors, nor the ombudsman at the Post have responded to
our request to identify which "nuclear treaty
obligations" is Iran violating.
In fact it is the
U.S. and other nuclear powers that have not fulfilled their obligations
under the NPT, including those stated in Article VI:
Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in
good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear
arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty
on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective
international control.
In 1996, the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously held that Article VI obligates states to
"bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all
its aspects."
And Robert S. McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961 until 1968, has
written: "I have never seen a
piece of paper that outlined a plan for the United States or NATO to
initiate the use of nuclear weapons with any benefit for the United States
or NATO."
Despite the ICJ decision, the questionable utility of a nuclear arsenal,
and 37 years after agreeing to "pursue negotiations" toward "complete
disarmament," Russia and the U.S. maintain a stockpile of about 10,000
nuclear weapons each, and the Guardian has reported that the U.S. is
considering "the construction of a new
generation of nuclear weapons, including 'mini-nukes', 'bunker-busters'
and neutron bombs designed to destroy chemical or biological agents,
according to a leaked Pentagon document."
Writing in the November/December 2005 issue of the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson say,
"In pursuing a civilian nuclear program, Iran has international law on its
side. . . . The best way to know the full extent of Iran's nuclear doings is
to offer it help."
[Although a matter of conjecture, some observers consider Iran's threat to
the petrodollar system so great that it could provoke a US military attack
on Iran, most likely under the cover of a preemptive attack on its nuclear
facilities, much like the cover of WMD America used against Iraq.
In November 2000, Iraq began selling its oil in euros, its Oil For Food
account at the UN was also transferred into euros and later it converted its
$10 billion UN held reserve fund into euros. --Emilie Rutledge, "Iran - a threat to the petrodollar?," Aljazeera,
November 3, 2005]
[Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that his country does not
need nuclear weapons.--"Iran 'does not
need nuclear arms'," BBC News, January 14, 2006
[There is little doubt Israel is preparing to attack Iran's nuclear
infrastructure, repeating its 1981 destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor. The
US has provided Israel long-ranged F-15I strike aircraft and new deep
penetrating bombs for this mission. Israeli aircraft need only overfly
Jordan, which is a virtual US-Israeli protectorate, then US-controlled Iraq,
to reach Iran. A similar route would be used to attack Pakistan's nuclear
infrastructure.--Eric Margolis, "Nuclear Showdown With Iran,"
ericmargolis.com, January 16, 2006]
[United States . . . is deploying a larger and more accurate preemptive
nuclear strike capability in the Asia-Pacific region--Robert S. Norris and
Hans M. Kristensen, "U.S.
nuclear forces, 2006," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
January/February 2006]
[The US government assumes that global demand will grow to around 120
million barrels a day, 43 billion barrels a year, by 2025. . . . the oil
industry won't come close to producing 120 million barrels a day; . . .
Most US presidents since the Second World War have ordered military action
of some sort in the Middle East. American leaders may prefer to dress their
military entanglements east of Suez in the rhetoric of democracy-building,
but the long-running strategic theme is obvious. It was stated most clearly,
paradoxically, by the most liberal of them. In 1980 Jimmy Carter declared
access to the Persian Gulf a national interest to be protected "by any means
necessary, including military force". . . .
[In fact the issue is a proxy for Iraq: try looking in the media prior to
the events in Fallujah, Iraq, for anything more than desultory mention of
this "issue". But once factions in Iran funded Muqtada al-Sadr to the tune
of $50 million and the US body count started to rise, then the issue began
to attain its current level of importance.--Chris Cook, " What the Iran
'nuclear issue' is really about," Asia Times, January 21 2006]
["Without advanced nuclear technology, scientific development would not be
possible in the agricultural, industrial, medical, and other scientific
fields,"--"
765 academics write to Annan on Iran's nuclear research rights," Tehran
Times, January 25 2006
[Iran's publicly stated intention to advance its nuclear technology
threatens a key element of Japan's energy strategy--development of the
Azadegan oil field.--Takashi Kamiguri and Hideaki Abe, "Iran
dilemma," Asahi Shimbun, January 25, 2006]
[The Bush administration is preparing a plan to expand civilian nuclear
energy at home and abroad while taking spent fuel from foreign countries and
reprocessing it, . . .
The main purpose for reprocessing spent fuel is to extract the radioactive
plutonium within it and use that to fuel a reactor. But the process is
considered dangerous, and many countries gave up civilian reprocessing years
ago.--Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer, "Nuclear Energy Plan Would Use Spent Fuel,"
Washington Post, January 26 2006]
[State Department officials appointed by President Bush have sidelined key
career weapons experts and replaced them with less experienced political
operatives who share the White House and Pentagon's distrust of
international negotiations and treaties.--Warren P. Strobel, "State
Department sees exodus of weapons experts," Knight Ridder Newspapers,
February 7, 2006]
[It would be suicidal for a country with a tiny nuclear arsenal to attack a
county with a large arsenal. One should not confuse repulsiveness with
suicidal tendencies. The current government of Iran is certainly repulsive,
but it has never given evidence that it is suicidal. --Ted Galen Carpenter,
"Dubious
Assumptions about Iran," Foxnews.com, February 8, 2006]
[Liberation speculates that while potential targets are "secret", it is
clear they include the Middle East or Asia--Kim Willsher, "France secretly upgrades capacity of nuclear
arsenal," Guardian, February 10, 2006]
[Leaving the NPT is allowed under the treaty, and would allow a state
free to develop nuclear power and weapons without inspection.
North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT in January 2003, the first
state to make such a move.
Several states with nuclear weapons - Israel, India and Pakistan - have
never joined the treaty."Iran 'could quit
nuclear treaty'," BBC News, February 11, 2006]
[Other countries enriching uranium on an industrial scale are the United
States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, China
and Japan.--Jack Chang, "Brazil
takes a major nuclear step," Knight Ridder, February 12, 2006]
[Like the invasion of Iraq, an attack on Iran has a secret agenda that has
nothing to do with the Tehran regime's imaginary weapons of mass
destruction. That Washington has managed to coerce enough members of the
International Atomic Energy Agency into participating in a diplomatic
charade is no more than reminiscent of the way it intimidated and bribed the
"international community" into attacking Iraq in 1991. Iran offers no
"nuclear threat." There is not the slightest evidence that it has the
centrifuges necessary to enrich uranium to weapons-grade material. The head
of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, has repeatedly said his inspectors have
found nothing to support American and Israeli claims. Iran has done nothing
illegal; it has demonstrated no territorial ambitions nor has it engaged in
the occupation of a foreign country - unlike the United States, Britain and
Israel. It has complied with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation
Treaty to allow inspectors to "go anywhere and see anything" - unlike the US
and Israel. The latter has refused to recognize the NPT, and has between 200
and 500 thermonuclear weapons targeted at Iran and other Middle Eastern
states. . . .
Next month, Iran is scheduled to shift its petrodollars into a euro-based
bourse. The effect on the value of the dollar will be significant, if
not, in the long term, disastrous. At present the dollar is, on paper, a
worthless currency bearing the burden of a national debt exceeding $8trn and
a trade deficit of more than $600bn. The cost of the Iraq adventure alone,
according to the Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz, could be
$2trn. America's military empire, with its wars and 700-plus bases and
limitless intrigues, is funded by creditors in Asia, principally China.--John Pilger, "The Next War - Crossing the
Rubicon," New Statesman, February 13, 2006]
[It would have been Plame's job to debunk Ali's tall tales. . . . All
indications are that an active campaign to set up Iran for attack was going
full gear even as George W. Bush was declaring "mission accomplished" in
Iraq. As we look at the different pieces of the puzzle, a definite picture
begins to emerge: what we are seeing are the outlines of a coordinated
covert action, engineered by neoconservative ideologues in and around the
Pentagon and Dick Cheney's office, and carried out in cooperation with the
Israelis. Their objective: gin up a war with Iran--Justin Raimondo, "Masters of
Deception," antiwar.com, February 15, 2006]
[The International Atomic Energy Agency "has not seen any diversion of
nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices,"
Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said in a report to the IAEA's board. But
the agency was not "in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared
nuclear materials or activities in Iran," the report added.--Molly Moore and
Dafna Linzer, "IAEA: Iran Advancing Uranium Enrichment: Report
Noncommittal On Pursuit of Arms," Washington Post, February 28, 2006]
[In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford signed a directive that granted Iran the
opportunity to purchase U.S. built reprocessing equipment and facilities
designed to extract plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel.--Ed Haas, "U.S. endorsed Iranian plans to build massive
nuclear energy industry," Globalresearch.ca, March 6, 2006]
[ACCORDING to the World Nuclear Association, there are now 441 nuclear power
plants in 30 countries.--Liz Minchin and Richard Baker, "Power to the people," The Age (Australia), March 7,
2006]
["For the euro to begin to challenge the reserve role of the U.S. dollar, a
virtual revolution in policy would have to take place in Euroland," Mr.
Engdahl wrote. "First the European Central Bank . . . would have to
surrender power to elected legislators. It would then have to turn on the
printing presses and print euros like there was no tomorrow."
A full challenge to the U.S. dollar as the world central bank reserve
currency, Mr. Engdahl added later, would entail a "de facto declaration of
war on the 'full-spectrum dominance' of the United States today," and that
is something no country or group of countries is yet willing to
launch.--Richard Baker, "Launch of Iranian oil trading hits wall: Oil exchange
unlikely to begin till at least midyear," globeandmail.com, March 14,
2006]
[Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Friday that in July Iran
will abandon dollar payments for its oil and natural gas exports in favor of
euros.--"Iran
to require oil payments in euros," UPI, May 15, 2006]
[Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy
Agency and responsible for verifying to NPT signatories that no source or
special nuclear materials are used in furtherance of a military purpose, had
just reported, after more than two years of unprecedented highly intrusive
inspections, "I have seen no nuclear weapons program in Iran." . . .
On March 23, 2005, Iran had offered a "confidential" package of "objective
guarantees" that included a voluntary "confinement" of Iran's nuclear
programs--Gordon Prather, "Condi vs. the
Truth," lewrockwell.com, July 12, 2006]
[The material produced so far would have to undergo further enrichment
before it could be transformed into bomb-grade material, and to accomplish
that Iran would probably have to evict the I.A.E.A. inspectors--David E.
Sanger, "Inspectors
Cite Big Gain by Iran on Nuclear Fuel," New York Times, May 15, 2007]
[Ronald Reagan told reporters on the campaign trail that he did not believe
the United States should stand in the way of other countries developing
nuclear weapons. "I just don't think it's any of our business," the future
president said.--David Armstrong and Joseph J. Trento, "America
and the Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise," Steerforth (October 23, 2007), p94]
