Russia: What Iranian nuclear-weapon program?
posted at 12:05 pm on January 2, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
Say, remember when the Obama administration sent Hillary Clinton to Geneva with a “reset button” for Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to show that they would improve US-Russian relations, in large part to put more pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear-weapons program? Recall when Barack Obama betrayed the Poles — on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion in World War II, no less — in abandoning the eastern Europe missile shield in order to get more Russian cooperation on Iran? How has that demonstration of smart power worked out for us?
About as well as we thought (via Andrew McCarthy):
Russia has proof that Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapon programme, a top Russian diplomat ha[s] said.
“We have verified data showing that there is no reliable evidence for the existence of a military component” in Iran’s nuclear programme, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.
“To put it simpler, there is no proof of a military component in Iran’s nuclear program,” Mr. Ryabkov told Russia-24 TV news channel on Friday.
Ah well, I guess we can stop worrying about it, then — even though the IAEA found “credible” evidence that the Iranians have tested bomb components for a nuclear weapon, and could have enough fissile material to build a bomb within months. They just finished testing their first domestically-produced nuclear fuel rod and have it installed in their research core, according to the Iranians themselves:
Iran has succeeded in building and testing the country’s first domestically produced nuclear fuel rod, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday.
The uranium fuel rod was tested successfully and installed in the core of a research reactor in Tehran, the news agency said, citing Iran’s atomic energy agency website.
Fuel rods are stacks of low-enriched uranium pellets that are bundled together at the core of a nuclear reactor. Sunday’s announcement appeared aimed at demonstrating Iran’s growing sophistication in developing a home-grown nuclear program, amid fears from the West that it will use its knowledge to build nuclear weapons.
That’s not the only effort the Iranians have been making over the last few months. According to the Washington Post, the Iranians are wooing Latin America in what looks like a replay of the Soviet Union’s diplomatic effort to put pressure on the US, as well as a way to evade sanctions:
Iran is quietly seeking to expand its ties with Latin America in what U.S. officials and regional experts say is an effort to circumvent economic sanctions and gain access to much-needed markets and raw materials.
The new diplomatic offensive, which comes amid rising tensions with Washington and European powers, includes a four-nation swing through South and Central America this month by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His government has vowed to increase its economic, political and military influence in the United States’ back yard. …
Iran has also dramatically expanded its diplomatic missions throughout the hemisphere and dispatched members of its elite Quds Force — the military unit U.S. officials in October linked to a foiled assassination plot in Washington — to serve in its embassies, U.S. officials and Iran experts say.
The importance of Ahmadinejad’s visit was underscored last week by Iran’s state-owned Press TV, which said promotion of “all-out cooperation with Latin American countries is among the top priorities of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy.”
What about those sanctions? The Russians scolded the West for their harshness towards Tehran:
“Sanctions have gone way too far. They heavily outweigh what is being done in the sphere of talks. We must push harder on the negotiating track,” said the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister.
Smart power. Maybe we should just start building the missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic after all.
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UN out of US, US out of UN.
Rebar on May 14, 2013 at 8:46 PM
Leave Kermit Gosnell out of this.
Happy Nomad on May 14, 2013 at 8:46 PM
It’s like having Gosnell babysitting your kids..
It’s like Al Qaeda running security for our Consultants..
It’s like have Barrack Obama Presiding over The United States..
Electrongod on May 14, 2013 at 8:47 PM
The three biggest jokes in the world are the Nobel committee,green energy and the U.N.
NeoKong on May 14, 2013 at 8:48 PM
I have an idea. Quit the U.N. Charge these flea bags an exhorbitant rent in order to continue to use the building.
justltl on May 14, 2013 at 8:48 PM
Stop.UN.Funding>now.
Evict.UN.From.USA.
ladyingray on May 14, 2013 at 8:49 PM
5 billion!
That is a lot of Whitehouse tours that wouldn’t get cancelled
Ditkaca on May 14, 2013 at 8:50 PM
Which means that every year since the waning days of the Carter administration a bunch of diplomats have gotten together and accomplished absolutely nothing of value to the world. Declarations that gather dust. Treaties never ratified by the nations of the international community that matter. Etc.
So for 34 years of wasting the world’s time. Congrats or something. That Iran is presiding says all that one needs to know about the UN as an international organization.
Happy Nomad on May 14, 2013 at 8:52 PM
The UN should move to Oslo.
Jocundus on May 14, 2013 at 8:55 PM
Aw, come on guys – fair suck o’ the sav! The UN is merely trying to drag the Iranians into the eighth century.
OldEnglish on May 14, 2013 at 8:57 PM
Because when a certain rat-eared coward leaves DC he has higher aspirations. Secretary General of an organization already so corrupt he will be mocked as the Mother Teresa of Turtle Bay.
Happy Nomad on May 14, 2013 at 8:57 PM
The UN should never have existed. It cannot even stand theoretical scrutiny, let alone the twisted, unnatural entity it is in actuality. No one but the dimmest among us would even think that a peerless, competitionless, empowered entity should ever exist. It is an abomination – even in theory, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with evolutionary theory, capitalist theory, or just plain common sense knows.
The UN must be put to sleep. It’s well past time. It came to be in the wake of WWII as a reaction to the great trauma of the war – much like the idiotic name given to WWI in the same traumatic aftermath, as “THE War to End ALL Wars” … again, as if anyone with a brain thought that could possibly be true.
The UN was kept powerless and constrained during the Cold War, as reality kept it from having any real power, but the minute the USSR fell the UN started being truly empowered and took off on its grotesque and destructive growth – as any peerless, competitionless empowered entity is guaranteed to do.
End the UN and shun any idiot who supports it, since such a dolt is too stupid to be taken seriously in public and too dangerous to be allowed any power, at all.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on May 14, 2013 at 8:58 PM
Who cares? The UN is about as important as a prom committee. So what if they let Iran hire the DJ?
EricW on May 14, 2013 at 8:59 PM
I disagree. If not a rotational thing where the diplomats have to make new arrangements every few years, put the UN HQ in a place much closer to where the need is. Yemen or the Sudan comes to mind. They have become far too comfortable in Vienna, Geneva, and New York.
Happy Nomad on May 14, 2013 at 9:00 PM
Screw IRAN and all the other Muslim countries who refuse to condemn Islamic terrorism.
TX-96 on May 14, 2013 at 9:01 PM
What else would we expect from the UN? And why do we keep funding it, even when GOP is in the WH?
Give us a president and Congress with spine, let them cut off our UN funding for four years, and let’s see what happens.
petefrt on May 14, 2013 at 9:03 PM
I’ve related this story before so, for the regulars, I am not trying to be redundant. When I took a tour of the UN (largely for intrest in the architecture) the propaganda experience was excruciating. Long corridors of displays about mine warfare and hunger- and all the good things the UN does with other organization’s and nations’ money.
We got to a particular point in the tour and were told that we had to stay in the public spaces because the UN is a working organization. My snort was not totally supressed.
Happy Nomad on May 14, 2013 at 9:04 PM
Didn’t they also put Syria in charge of the human rights council several years ago?
/That or another totalitarian regime.
AZfederalist on May 14, 2013 at 9:08 PM
..so that means JugEars will send flowers?
KOOLAID2 on May 14, 2013 at 9:09 PM
…I think Somalia would be a better choice!
KOOLAID2 on May 14, 2013 at 9:11 PM
get that un out of the us…
ridiculous
cmsinaz on May 14, 2013 at 9:17 PM
They remind me of the cantina scene from Star Wars IV.
“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”
kurtzz3 on May 14, 2013 at 9:19 PM
The comedy for me was listening to a missionary friend tell about a massive delivery of powdered milk from the UN to poor people in Africa, and how no one bothered to research that well over half (70% or more?) of the natives were lactose intolerant.
He said they used it as whitewash. Entire villages were suddenly white. All the nutrition and money wasted because the basics of the people they were “helping” were absolutely foreign to the people making the decisions.
You know, now that I think about it, it’s essentially the same mindset as most (D) one-size-fits-all arguments. Peas in a pod, I suppose.
rogerb on May 14, 2013 at 9:29 PM
On one level your story is funny. Lactose intolerant villagers making the best use of what they get from the United Nations.
But here’s the kicker to that. Whoever in the United Nations asked these people, or their governments, or the NGOs what they most needed. It is the kind of paternalism at the heart of any “humanitarian” efforts of the UN that makes me think the whole organization should be disbanded despite the sudden spike in unemployment among the idiot relatives of the world’s dictators.
Happy Nomad on May 14, 2013 at 9:39 PM
Move the UN to Zimbabwe.
Manhattan’s brothels and pretentious restaurants hardest hit.
viking01 on May 14, 2013 at 10:11 PM
Whoa…deja vu all over again.
Must be a glich in the matrix.
justltl on May 14, 2013 at 10:28 PM
The UN has delusions of grandeur.
The proper response to the UN acting in an absurd manner is to start working around or indifferent to it. Hold meetings and conferences outside the UN’s structure. Most diplomacy already happens outside the UN. Its not as if the state department files for a meeting at the UN every time they want to talk to certain allies or even rivals.
The UN has a place in that it allows many nations to interact with each other at once at the same time. But the vast majority of diplomacy doesn’t require that sort of action.
How we underscore the irrelevance of the UN is by simply not using it. Its not that hard. Pick up the phone and talk to country B. Arrange a conference of all the countries you’d care to collect. Do not run it through the UN at all.
Do that enough and UN will have no one listening to them but Wilson the Volleyball.
Karmashock on May 15, 2013 at 10:02 AM
Elsewhere in Dar al-Harb, emboldened Wahhabists were arrested last night probing Boston’s water supply.
CDC has a duty to quarantine and test these perps.
This is likely either a dry-run (or an actual) bio-terrorism attack.
Terp Mole on May 15, 2013 at 12:32 PM