More "democracy in action" in Iran. From AP:
Parliament approved a bill Sunday requiring the government to block international inspections of its atomic facilities if the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency refers Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.The bill was approved by 183 of the 197 lawmakers present at the session, which was broadcast live on state-run radio. The vote came four days before the International Atomic Energy Agency board meets to consider referring Tehran for violating a nuclear arms control treaty.
When the bill becomes law, as is expected, it will strengthen the government's hand in resisting international pressure to abandon uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear reactors or an atomic bomb.
The United States accuses Iran of trying to build a nuclear weapon. Iran says its program is for generating electricity.
The bill will go to the Guardian Council, a hard-line constitutional watchdog, for expected ratification.
"If Iran's nuclear file is referred or reported to the U.N. Security Council, the government will be required to cancel all voluntary measures it has taken and implement all scientific, research and executive programs to enable the rights of the nation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," lawmaker Kazem Jalali quoted the bill as saying...
The 35-member IAEA board of governors meets Thursday. In a preparatory report, the U.N. agency found that Iran received detailed nuclear designs from a black-market network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic program. Diplomats say those designs appear to be blueprints for the core of a nuclear warhead...
With such incompetent bomb-sniffers like newly minted Nobel laurette Mohammed Al-Baradei and Hans Blix, one wonders what good inspections do anyway?
I wholly agree with waterdragon and would like to add that every day we wait is time foolishly wasted.
It's already too late. Bush has given up on diplomacy by conceding to Iran's desire for "peaceful" nuclear resources (in one of the most oil-rich countries in the world). Even if he had resisted Putin's request, leaving this matter to the U.N. is as good as giving Iran the green light for nukes. And if you think Al-Baradei isn't a faithful footsoldier for Jihad, throwing up a huge smoke-screen for Islam's nuclear weapons program, you are naive.
So that leaves only the military option. Unfortunately, Iran learned its lessons well from Iraq's difficulties in 1981 with Israel, and Iran's nuclear program is hidden, secured and decentralized. Israel might be able, at best, to slow Iran down temporarily. Unless a huge multi-national force is willing to attack and occupy all of Iran for a protracted period, Iran will go nuke within the year. And Iran has the delivery systems that they need to create a credible threat to most of Europe, the Near East and Western Asia. Iran also appears more willing to use nukes than just about any other country with WMDs. Perhaps the only thing that will give Iran pause is Israel's expanding second strike capability, via submarine.
Care to ellucidate and link, What bombs have al Baradei and Hans Blix failed to sniff out.
If you know something that we don't know, this could be monumental..if you have some information I'm sure that it can be given to AP, Reuters, UPI, or at least the Israel Press...oh that's right. They haven't sniffed out Israel's nukes, so you have a point.
I'm sure glad that they haven't though, Israeli nukes might be the wests last and best defense.
Let's see... The vote by Iranian lawmakers was 183 of the 197. If we do the math.. that means that 14 lawmakers were executed for being apostates and traitors to their country. Expect the next round of voting to be 100% in favor of whatever the Mad Mullahs want them to vote on.