There Is No Iranian Nuclear Crisis

Press TV is reporting the student demonstration in London while the BBC and Sky News refuse to, instead pretending that it is not happening. And Neil Clark writes:

Here we go again. They’ve just finished bombing Libya, so the serial warmongers now want us to focus again on the ‘threat’ posed by Iran‘s nuclear programme. After the non-existent ‘genocide’ in Kosovo, and the non-existence of Iraq’s WMDs, you wouldn’t think they’d have the nerve, would you?

It seems an appropriate moment to link to this piece of mine from 2006 on, why even if Iran was secretly developing nuclear weapons, it wouldn’t constitute a ’crisis’.

Here’s an extract.

"LEADERS meet to discuss Iran crisis." It all sounds rather familiar. In 1999, "leaders" met to discuss the Kosovo "crisis"; we now know there was no genocide in Kosovo. In 2003, "leaders" met to discuss Iraq's weapons of mass destruction crisis; we now know there were no WMD in Iraq. Now it's Iran nuclear ambitions that represent the "crisis". If past form is anything to go by, we can be fairly sure that once again this is a crisis of the Western powers' making.

Remember, there is no Iranian nuclear ‘crisis’. And repeat that to anyone who tells you that there is.

As Tony Oakroyd explains:

Breathless predictions that the Islamic Republic will soon be at the brink of nuclear capability, or – worse – acquire an actual nuclear bomb, are not new.

For more than quarter of a century Western officials have claimed repeatedly that Iran is close to joining the nuclear club. Such a result is always declared "unacceptable" and a possible reason for military action, with "all options on the table" to prevent upsetting the Mideast strategic balance dominated by the US and Israel.And yet, those predictions have time and again come and gone. This chronicle of past predictions lends historical perspective to today’s rhetoric about Iran.

Earliest warnings: 1979-84

Fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon predates Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, when the pro-West Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was deep in negotiations with the US, France and West Germany, on a nuclear-energy spending spree that was to yield 20 reactors.
Late 1970s: US receives intelligence that the Shah had "set up a clandestine nuclear weapons development program."

1979: Shah ousted in the Iranian revolution, ushering in the Islamic Republic. After the overthrow of the Shah, the US stopped supplying highly enriched uranium (HEU) to Iran. The revolutionary government guided by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned nuclear weapons and energy, and for a time stopped all projects.

1984: Soon after West German engineers visit the unfinished Bushehr nuclear reactor, Jane's Defence Weekly quotes West German intelligence sources saying that Iran's production of a bomb "is entering its final stages." US Senator Alan Cranston claims Iran is seven years away from making a weapon.

Original article in Christian Science Monitor.