German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that heading off the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, with tougher sanctions if needed, remains a "vital interest" for the world community, according to a report Thursday. Iran's nuclear program is "one of our biggest security policy concerns," Merkel wrote in an article for the daily Handelsblatt, which the newspaper posted on its Web site ahead of print publication on Friday.Germany, along with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, has played a leading role in addressing worries over Iran's nuclear work.Earlier this month, an American push for new sanctions was dampened with the release of a new US intelligence report concluding Iran had halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003 and had not resumed it since.Merkel did not refer specifically to that assessment, but wrote that "it is dangerous and still grounds for great concern that Iran, in the face of the UN Security Council's resolutions, continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment," Handelsblatt reported.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that heading off the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, with tougher sanctions if needed, remains a "vital interest" for the world community, according to a report Thursday. Iran's nuclear program is "one of our biggest security policy concerns," Merkel wrote in an article for the daily Handelsblatt, which the newspaper posted on its Web site ahead of print publication on Friday.
Germany, along with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, has played a leading role in addressing worries over Iran's nuclear work.
Earlier this month, an American push for new sanctions was dampened with the release of a new US intelligence report concluding Iran had halted a nuclear weapons development program in 2003 and had not resumed it since.
Merkel did not refer specifically to that assessment, but wrote that "it is dangerous and still grounds for great concern that Iran, in the face of the UN Security Council's resolutions, continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment," Handelsblatt reported.
Thus nuclear Iran is a security issue, but not the one everybody thinks - or pretends to talk about. Again, I'll repeat my theory that the real game on Iran and nuclear is containment of the current US administration.
Come 2009, the topic will still exist, but will (hopefully) make a lot fewer headlines. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I have gradually come to realise that our polictical classes must be some of the worst informed political junkies going. Example after example proves they don't know anything except what their minions and flunkies tell them. And if the flunky feels there will be problems in contradicting policy with reality, the lords and masters never get told about it.
Still, it goes to prove that,despite the NIE, Bush hasn't changed the policy, else UK & Germany would have laid off the war drums.
Which suggests that maybe war will be arranged to give the GOP a good bounce coming into the post-primary presidential season. Suddenly 9ui11iani seems like a good long-odds bet. keep to the Fen Causeway
Judging by my own personal experience of the difference between public announcements in Iran about projects and the actual reality, I doubt whether Iran would ever be able to progress to a nuclear weapon without significant foreign assistance.
Iran suffers from a cosmic level of public managerial incompetence: much worse than the UK, and that is saying something. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
