You are so very right, Marko. As one born in 1921, and been through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression and WW2, the second Great War to end all wars. Could reckon after finishing up in retirement with Honours in the social sciences, one could now have insight enough to suggest a few things?

We need to admit that as so-called Christians we have never really come to believe in the Sermon on the Mount as spoken by the young Jesus, but more the Old Testament tale of the Promised Land, giving us the excuse for the Western piracy that enabled the British to almost colour our 1929 schoolmaps mostly in colonial Britannia pink.

We now have Pax Americana's George W Bush disgracing the anti-colonialist promises after WW and upholding the Royal Britannic colonial tradition with Tony Blair onside as well as our Johnnie Howard.

The doubtfully courageous threesome is now battling to uphold the English-speaking Anglipholic tradition in Iraq. However. it looks like the problems in Iraq might yet prove a winner - giving our allies the excuse to capture the ME country the Yanks, Brits and Aussies were after all the time.

It might not be well known that Iran has by far the highest quality oil in the world, and similar to Iraq, among the easiest to recover.

Certainly what we need from our leaders is much less Spin and more the true facts of the matter

As Iran is I believe in oil depletion at present they do need to look
ahead as to what energy source they will use in the future.
Granted that a nuclear power industry may be desirable, then they should
have no objection to making their whole nuclear sceintific and
industrial complex available for inspection.
If it has no military value then what is the problem ?

The recent non-technical people that inspected the Iranian facilities
were not allowed to see another site where it is suspected that they
are running or building inrichment centrafuges.

Why not ? Is there a military secret there ?

If Iran is secretly out to produce nuclear warheads, Bazz, it could be said that she has every right to, seeing that she has had Israeli nuclear warheads pointing at her for the last ten years or so.

Remember that the Americans never complained one bit when the French illegimately gave or sold the Israelis the nuclear designs way back in 1978, while the rest of the world remained silent.

This is the way genuine historians should work, Bazz, to nip uncover activities like the above in the bud when necessary, especially when our leaders deliberately cast aside any part of history that might incriminate not so much ourselves, but the unipolar nation we are supposed to look up to.

Marko,

It's nice to see an informaed and rational view of Iran. The usual Zionist hysterics get tiresome after a while.

I think the Iranians have a huge strategic interest in developing a nuclear deterrent. Israel and the US see this too, which explains their fervent opposition. After all, a nuclear armed Iran would mean the end of Israeli hedgemony in the region. It may even then be in Israel's interests to pursue peace. And we wouldn't want that would we? Better start a war with them just in case...

I would just add that even if Iran actually had nuclear weapons the chances of them being used for a first strike or given to terrorists is close to zero.

Limiting inspections could be an attempt to prevent intelligence gathering for a military strike. Perhaps they think this is something UNSCOM did in Iraq. Limiting inspections doesn't mean bomb programme. Also, it could be a political gesture given recent sanctions.

I suggest checking out todays New York Times which has a good story on Iran and enrichment. Notice that the US intelligence estimate is based on a figure for SWU (seperative work unit) that many analysts argue is too genenrous.

Also, in relation to the first comment, going through all these world events in your time certainly means you have a good store of knowledge. You would be surprised but there exists a growing and vibrant school in the university system that considers these events to be quite irrelevant. For them a treatise on Foucault or Habermas or some other arrant nonsense, rather than "objective analysis of the facts", would greatly fascinate them.
Marko.

Marko

This is a very wide ranging and convincing paper. We think alike. See my website article of June 2006 "Nuclear Iran: Regional Implications" http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/2006/06/nuclear-iran-regional-implications.html .

I put the implication of Iranian nuclear weapons for its influence over oil in a slightly different way:

"Iran has frequently had political disputes with its weaker neighbors (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE) and a bitter war with Iraq (1980-88). A nuclear weapons capability would not only give it greater political prestige in relation to these countries (and in OPEC) but Iran could use its capability to increase anxiety amongst these countries in any serious political, economic or military dispute.

Greater influence in OPEC (the world’s major oil price and production setting club) would increase Iran’s say in setting world oil prices and production levels."

There is also a risk that the Saudis will develop a nuclear capability to counter Iran's.

Just a little nitpicking over "If the IAEA is to solely rely on intelligence from the US". The IAEA would no doubt get intelligence from other experienced intelligence players in the Middle East including Israel, UK, France and Germany. The last 2 despite the Curveball fiasco (see wikipedia) shared an accurate assessment in 2002 of the folly of invading Iraq.

I look forward to reading more of your articles and will soon visit your website.

Regards

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com

I agree Bushbred, although I was just marginally pre baby boomer, born Jan 1945 but experienced the horror of Vietnam, but

Marko Beljac is a Monash University PhD student . He maintains the blog Science and Global Security. He is co-author of An Illusion of Protection: The Unavoidable Limitations of Safeguards on Nuclear Materials and the Export of Australian Uranium to China. Marko tutored under Professor Joe Camilleri at Latrobe University.

Joe Camilleri is a singer [Black Sorrows] and this dude is Joseph Camilleri - looks to me a bit like "cashing in" on a name

The call by the QPU for more cameras fails to understand or acknowledge that custody means in custody of police in any circumstances that can range from being detained to being transported to actually being confined in a police lock up.

Sixty-three of the deaths from the Royal Commission research were associated with “police- custody”, thirty-three with prison custody and three with juvenile detention.

CCT Cameras won't film every possible incident or record what happens when police apprehending people before being locked up outside the view of the camera.

I find their sudden concern for the custodial safety of Aboriginal people pretentious and insulting to those who have already died in their care. There sense of public good is clearly not about Aboriginal people but about appeasing the political and public perceptions of public good.

So if we continue to expand our use of imprisonment, if we continue to build more prisons to incarcerate more people, without a doubt we will continue to have increases of deaths in custody. This simple equation is appears to be beyond the intellectual capacity of policy makers.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjproject/rsjlibrary/rciadic/national/vol1/index.html

Peter,

Yeah, I agree with you and checked out your blog; interesting and wide ranging. It really wouldn't matter much if the IAEA was to get some info from the other intelligence agencies. The same point would apply. The IAEA needs its own independent intelligence "agency" esp since the post Iraq system of safeguards is gonna rely a lot on intelligence. Otherwise, the IAEA will not be seen as a neutral international organisation. This perception would be critical in overcoming incentives for non-disclosure.

Thanks Marko

Yes its now clear (as an example of what independent intelligence "agencies" can do) that the the UN Inpection team (UNSCOM) in Iraq was effective in detecting WMDs in that country and ultimately encouraging Iraq to cease its WMD programs. That was the collection and action side.

Yet UNSCOM, like the UN generally, was frequently vilified by the US as being ineffective.

In terms of analysis an independent agency has advantages as it may be less policy lead than many national agencies (I understand the ONA has been improving).

Case in point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter is the analysis by Scott Ritter (former Chief Weapons Inspector (UNSCOM)) "Ritter had become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq possessed significant WMD stocks or manufacturing capabilities, the primary rationale given for the US invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. His views at that time are well summarized in War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know".

Over the next big matter (Iran) an independent IAEA intelligence agency might, at a minimum, backup assesments that are at variance from those of the dominant UK/US/Israeli alliance in the Middle East.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/

Firstly any nation has the right to protect itself, moreso, after a full and tortured century of colonial meddling, plunder and rape of the gulf's oil resources. Once more, the old lies are being dusted off and repackaged, such as - Iran has weapons of mass destruction etc.,
Recently ex-national security adviser Mr. Brzezinki's warned that Bush is seeking a pretext to attack Iran.
Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran.” It would, he suggested, involve “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran.” Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a provocation—including a possible terrorist attack within the US—to provide the casus belli for war. “I’ll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according to the New York Times: ‘The memo states that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation.
Full story at ’http://wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/brze-f02.shtml

Well Bush certainly has it up there for thinking

he has seen an atlas and knows iran/iraq are both "over there together" so he can just flip his black troops across the border and save the fare home and back

by the time iran war is over it will be time for a cyclone "down there where those blacks live in America" so he can bring em home and drown em to save on repatriation

I also agree that the anglo/american military industrial complexes lust for oil & control thereof is a not insignificant factor.

" ... Wolves in sheep's clothing, killing in *God's* name. ... "
quote *HILL TOP HOODS* (Ozzie Hip Hop)

Indeed, it is *auntie sam* that is the problem when it comes to WMD's & not Iran. Even as we speak, significant 6 figure amounts are being invested into the ongoing research & developement of so called mini-nukes. What a sick hypocritical joke it is for them to parade around as if they are some sort of example for the rest of the world to follow.

A 1996 UN Resolution banned DU (more appropriately known as Uranium 235 enrichment waste munitions) as a WMD; the UN Human Rights
Commission 2002 stated that US/UK use of DU violated The Hague
Conventions, the Geneva Protocol, the Nuremberg Principles, the
Charter of the UN, Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, etc.

" ... Depleted uranium weapons are an unacceptable threat to life,
a violation of international law, and an assault on human dignity.
We have an obligation to do what is right for our servicemen and women, for our children and our grandchildren, and for all citizens of the world. We must ban the use of depleted uranium in our military and worldwide; we must provide medical care to all DU casualties; and we must clean up all the places where we've used this poison that has the power to kill for countless generations, far into the future. ... "

– Dennis J. Kucinich

Bushbred:

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negev_Nuclear_Research_Center , construction of Israel's reactor started in 1958, and Israel probably had nuclear weapons before 1967.

The NPT opened for signature in 1968.

Thus, France's assistance to Israel did not violate the treaty. (Israel also never violated the treaty because it is not a signatory.)

If, as seems likely, Israel already possessed nuclear weapons when the NPT was written, the treaty's terms should have recognized this, just as they recognized the other nuclear powers at the time. As a condition for its ratifying the treaty, Israel should have been considered one of the Nuclear Weapons States, alongside the US, USSR (now Russia), UK, China, and France. And like them, it should have received a permanent seat on the UNSC.

Perhaps the UNSC should now be expanded to include permanent seats for Israel, Pakistan, and India, and all seats should be conditioned on abiding by the NPT so that the "nuclear club" is not further expanded. That, after all, was the treaty's original intent.

This may seem to foolishly reward India and Pakistan, who only acquired their nukes after the NPT was written. The foreign governments that assisted their nuclear programs did so illegally. But India and Pakistan themselves, like Israel, never signed the treaty, and so did not violate it.

Also, this would provide a "necessary correction" to the current UNSC, which no longer reflects the real balance of power. India is a rising superpower and the largest democracy in the world; Israel a long-recognized regional power whose moderate, democratic voice has been unfairly vilified in and proscribed from the UNSC (to the detriment of Israel, its neighbors, and the UN); and Pakistan's inclusion would provide the Islamic world with permanent representation on the Council.

This expansion could be seen as symbolic, but the symbolism is important. It makes no sense that France and Britain get permanent seats while Israel has been prevented even from holding one of the rotating seats; and no sense that Europe has two permanent seats -- three if you include Russia -- and the entire Indian subcontinent and Islamic world none.