Speaking to U.S. troops at Forward Operating Base Warrior, near Kirkuk, northern Iraq, on December 11, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates predicted that the international community will impose stronger economic sanctions on Iran unless its leaders change their policy and live up to agreements related to their nuclear program.

Gates spoke with several hundred U.S. troops during a 45-minute town hall-style meeting on the base. When he was asked whether there is any plan for military action against Iran,  he replied that he never takes any option off the table, but that such a move would only delay Iran's nuclear weapons development by a few years. He said the international community is instead mores likely to increase sanctions.



"I think that you're going to see some significant additional sanctions imposed by the international community, assuming that the Iranians don't change course and agree to do the things they signed up to do at the beginning of October," said Gates, noting that Iran's defiance has convinced nations involved in the issue, including Russia and China, that stronger action is warranted.

"At the end of the day, the way to avoid a nuclear-armed Iran is to put together a package of incentives and disincentives that persuade the Iranian government that they would actually be less secure with nuclear weapons than if they had them," he added.

The New York Times reported that under a deadline imposed by President Obama, Iran has until the end of 2009 to demonstrate that it is prepared to limit its nuclear ambitions. The report noted that Gates’ comments were “the first from a senior member of the Obama administration to say that tougher sanctions were now likely.”

In a separate statement originating with the European Union, and approved by the 27 EU leaders at a summit in Brussels, the EU urged international action against Iran because of its refusal to cooperate over its nuclear program. The statement read, in part:

AP news and Agence France Presse both quoted Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown from Brussels on December 11, who stated: "Now if there is no response from Iran ... we have always said in Britain that we are prepared to consider sanctions and that is what we are prepared to do in the New Year if we don't have satisfactory responses.”

Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was quoted by the Christian Science Monitor: "Iran has now been caught breaking the rules. Such violations are unacceptable. The illicit smuggling of weapons from Iran to Syria is not just a sanctions violation. It is also an important factor in the destabilization of an already fragile Middle East."

The strong language and threat of sanctions against Iran is predicated upon the unproved assumption that Iran’s uranium enrichment programs will be used to produce nuclear weapons, rather than peaceful atomic power.

However, Iran has so far not been proven to have the capability to enrich a sufficient supply of uranium to a sufficient degree to manufacture even one crude nuclear weapon. And even if it managed to do so, there is the challenge of delivery. While the recently tested Iranian missiles have the range to reach all of the Middle East and parts of Southeastern Europe, they have not been proven to have the accuracy needed to strike their intended targets. Furthermore, launching one or two nuclear-armed missiles would be a suicidal exercise for the Iranians, since they lack the defensive capabilities to prevent retaliatory annihilation by a number of nations, including Israel, which the  Natural Resources Defense Council and the Federation of American Scientists believe possesses as many as 75–200 nuclear weapons.

Always ignored when the danger or Iran becoming a member of the nuclear club is voiced is the fact that the most radical Islamic terrorist groups operating out of Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East have long subsisted on Soviet-Russian support. And what is not widely known is that most of the terrorist attacks against the West have been carried out by individuals motivated not by Islamic faith, but by a longstanding communist agenda geared towards world domination.

In view of this, against which nation should sanctions be leveled — Iran, which has no nuclear weapons, or Russia? Consider the article “Russian nuclear forces, 2008” published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists for May/June 2008:

The size of Russia’s arsenal, combined with the “former” communist nation’s support of Middle Eastern terrorism, perhaps explains the following observation made in the Wall street Journal for December 11:

Russia no more wants to disarm Iran than a Mafia godfather wants to disarm one of his best hit men. And if the West is wise, it will concentrate on the hands that are controlling the Iranian puppet, not the puppet, itself.
















 

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rprew said:

	The Constitution be d*amned! The more wars the better! Gates should consider attacking Switzerland, too! And Monaco! Monaco should be easy, 4-5 years, tops!
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December 11, 2009
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SCHNORCHEL said:

Look at Former CIA Director and now Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' association! Robert Gates is listed in the Membership Roster section, on page 33, of the 2009 Annual Report of the Council on Foreign Relations. He already was a member of this organization while in his former position as CIA Director. As a result, he has always carried out the globalist policies of this "Hidden Government," the Council on Foreign Relations. And the Council on Foreign Relations has always carried out the dictates of the INSIDERS. With his Membership in this one-world cabal, what chances do you think there are of Robert Gates going after the Russian CIS, instead of Iran?

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December 13, 2009
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Stophel said:

	... I don't want to be part of the "International Community". I want to be an American. I guess that's just a pipedream.
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December 14, 2009
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