Contrary to Bush’s Lie – Iran Does Not Want Nukes

August 7, 2007

It is tiresome to again and again refute U.S. lies about Iran’s civil nuclear program. But it is important to not let the propaganda win and to refute it every time it threatens to take the lead.

Bush yesterday said:

[I]t’s up to Iran to prove to the world that they’re a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force. After all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon.
President Bush Participates in Joint Press Availability with President Karzai of Afghanistan, August 6, 2007

Will someone in the U.S. media please call this what it is – simply an outrageous lie?

Why is this a lie? Because the Iranian government has consistently proclaimed that it does NOT desire to build a nuclear weapon.

Here is, again, proof:

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a member of the IAEA and is committed to the NPT. All our nuclear activities are transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eyes of IAEA inspectors.
Transcript of Ahmadinejad’s U.N. Speech, September 19, 2006

—

Hojatoleslam Mohsen Gharavian, a scholar at Qom Seminary, on Monday rejected rumors appearing on some websites quoting him as saying that the use of nuclear weapons is allowed according to the Islamic tenets.

[…]
The theologian, who was talking in an exclusive interview with IRNA, added, "We do not seek nuclear weapons and the Islamic religion encourages coexistence along with peace and friendship."
Islam forbids use of nuclear weapons: Theological scholar, 21-02-2006

—

Iran is a nuclear fuel cycle technology holder, a capability which is exclusively for peaceful purposes, read a statement issued by the Islamic Republic at the emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors here Tuesday evening.

The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has issued the fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons, IRNA quoted from the statement.

Leader’s Fatwa Forbids Nukes, Aug 11, 2005

—

Led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s "supreme leader," Iranian clerics have repeatedly declared that Islam forbids the development and use of all weapons of mass destruction.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran, based on its fundamental religious and legal beliefs, would never resort to the use of weapons of mass destruction," Khamenei said recently. "In contrast to the propaganda of our enemies, fundamentally we are against any production of weapons of mass destruction in any form."
Nuclear weapons unholy, Iran says Islam forbids use, clerics proclaim, October 31, 2003

So will the media tell us that Bush lied?

Don’t wait for it …

Posted by b on August 7, 2007 at 08:58 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Well, if you assume that everything Bush has ever said about the US sticking to its commitments is a lie and means exactly the opposite then it makes sense that Iran’s saying it doesn’t intend building nukes is in fact a proclamation that it will.
See? All makes sense in Bushworld.

Posted by: Colman | Aug 7 2007 9:46 utc | 1

No one is going to call this a lie.
No one will even report what you just said. Investigative reporting in this country is dead. Even if it were not, no one would read it.
I just gave up the minute the Democrats passed the illegal wiretap bill without even once considering that it was illegal under the laws of this country. All Bush has to do is demand something to get it.
The question is, why?

Posted by: hopping madbunny | Aug 7 2007 10:31 utc | 2

Bernhard, we heard that statement “up to Iran to prove to the world that they’re a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force.” on the radio in the car yesterday and just Roared. The mind bending hypocrisy. Will it ever end?

Posted by: beq | Aug 7 2007 11:08 utc | 3

Now c’mon, George, building nucular weapons is not incompatible with being a stabilizing force, just look at our friends India and Pakistan…

Posted by: ralphieboy | Aug 7 2007 11:11 utc | 4

Yes, Bushworld it is. There are no lies in Bushworld.

Posted by: Rick | Aug 7 2007 12:26 utc | 5

A good analysis on how the push for war on Iran works see The Framework for Debate on Iran

There is a very narrow and rigidly defined framework within which discussion of U.S. policy towards Iran is confined in political discourse and mainstream media. This framework effectively precludes the possibility that there could be a change of foreign policy which would produce more positive results than the present status quo, policies which at best are counterproductive and at worst could have disastrous consequences both for the U.S. and Iran, with repercussions that could extend throughout the Middle East. An alternative framework is possible, but it requires the dispensation of certain attitudes and myths and a reevaluation of the facts concerning U.S. policy towards Iran.
…

Posted by: b | Aug 7 2007 12:55 utc | 6

c’mon now. 52% of Iranians polled want nuclear weapons.
link
apparently the people will state what the state will not.

Posted by: dk | Aug 7 2007 13:29 utc | 7

Back in the early days it was America who was prodding Iran to build nuclear power plants, starting back in the 1950s. By the 1970s, the Shah had plans to build 23 power plants with our blessings, having been convinced by the US that the oil wouldn’t last forever and Iran needed them.
But interestingly, there were some then also (you can figure out the culprits) who jumped up screaming that the Shah really wanted only nuclear weapons. See, even our best ally of the era was accused, so how can we expect a less-than-best-ally to be treated?
I am waiting to see if Saudi Arabia gets to build their nuclear power plant as announced several months ago.

Posted by: Ensley | Aug 7 2007 13:40 utc | 8

dk,
Yes, a good point you make. In simple and broad terms, I believe the majority of people and the state of Iran generally want nuclear weapons. I do not believe they want them for a first strike against Israel, but for defensive purposes. Unfortunately, in Bushworld, it is all but a necessity to have nuclear weapons if a nation, along with its people, desire sovereignty and independence.

Posted by: Rick | Aug 7 2007 13:43 utc | 9

qk – what you are pandering is not what the link you give says.

A new poll by sponsored by Terror Free Tomorrow and conducted by D3 Systems shows that a slight majority of Iranians (52%) believe their country should develop nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, overwhelming majorities support a deal under which Iran would provide “full inspections and a guarantee not to develop or possess nuclear weapons” in exchange for incentives, including:
…

Posted by: b | Aug 7 2007 13:59 utc | 10

b, you beat me to it. more from the link..

The Iranian public is ready to support a deal committing the Iranian government to renounce the development of nuclear weapons and allow full inspections. Iranians are not willing, however, to support giving up the enrichment of uranium for nuclear energy….
overwhelming majorities support a deal under which Iran would provide “full inspections and a guarantee not to develop or possess nuclear weapons” in exchange for incentives, including: …
trade and capital investment overall to create more jobs (favored by 80%)
trade and capital investment in energy refineries to lower the price of gasoline (79%)
medical, education and humanitarian assistance to Iranian people in need (80%)
technological assistance for developing peaceful nuclear

i wonder what percentages americans and israelis embrace their nuclear weapons. how many of our representatives believe we should ‘not take any options off the table? which we all know is code for nukes.

Posted by: annie | Aug 7 2007 14:57 utc | 11

It’s up to the United States to prove to the world that they’re a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force.

Posted by: Copeland | Aug 7 2007 16:58 utc | 12

the euphemism “stabilizing force” really means ‘establishing & maintaining order subservient to official u.s. interests’, which essentially revolve around [1] free access to the world’s raw materials, markets, and labor pool, [2] preservation of u.s. global dominance in all spheres & spectrums, and [2] preservation of global inequality.

Posted by: b real | Aug 7 2007 17:31 utc | 13

please excuse my incremental incompetence – that last point was obviously #3

Posted by: b real | Aug 7 2007 17:34 utc | 14

Well, I’ve never heard of anyone saying that they wanted nukes. They just build them and there you are. But Iran would be insane not to want them: nukes are essential for their defense. There’s a book out by a bloke named Holloway on Stalin’s Bomb which shows clearly that Uncle Joe built the Red Bomb as a defensive countermeasure to the US one, which was pointed right at Moscow. Iran’s in the same boat and there’s no way to stop them if they mean business short of letting STRATCOM turn the place into green glass. Hopefully that won’t happen, since the US would be outcasts for the rest of all time if they nuked a country back to the stone age on suspicions.

Posted by: John Shreffler | Aug 7 2007 19:00 utc | 15

Annie, ”i wonder what percentages americans and israelis embrace their nuclear weapons”
In my opinion, that is a worst than” pollyanna” type statement, and the same can be said for the poll in general. Of course, anybody in their right mind would want all countries to be free from not only possession, but also the threat of nuclear destruction.
Now if anyone here wants to talk about reality, I’m all for it. If we want to talk in the hypothetical, then let’s us consider exactly how many millions of lives via war and sanctions may have been prevented, if Iraq really did have Weapons of Mass Destruction. Does anyone here honestly believe that either Bush I or Bush II would have invaded Iraq if Iraq had instant and assured ability to inflict major damage on the U.S., or even the nearby Gulf States and Israel? If it were possible to bring back the dead, and now take a random poll of the dead Iraqis, I wonder how many would prefer that Iraq been able to defend itself from the U.S. Coalition, even if that meant by nuclear means, instead of what remains of Iraq and its people now. And of course, the dead would answer that they would have preferred economic assistance for them and their fellow Iraqis rather than war or sanctions. But by asking any of these poll questions, one is asking a question founded upon a lie. Just think of all the help the U.S. government has given to rebuild New Orleans and then answer me this question: “What help does one expect for the Iranian people”? And with the threat of “Peak Oil” looming upon the World, I will be amazed if even a single sanction or restriction is removed from Iran in the near future. Of course, I did read somewhere that Israel is getting a little bit of U.S dollars, and they don’t even have to abandon their nuclear bombs! I know I am not the smartest guy in the world, but I try to stick with some sense of reality. Perhaps Bernhard and Annie are trusting of either the U.S. or Iranian leaders to strike a bargain deal for the good of all humanity, but I am not. And I doubt the Iranian people are as trusting either.

Posted by: Rick | Aug 7 2007 19:22 utc | 16

Have you not yet realized that what people say they want might not differ from what they actually do want? And that a better way to assess that last might be to inspect what they are actually doing???
Fielding palpably false arguments is NOT a really good way to put a stick through the spokes of the warmongers’ bicycle.
You have not been keeping up on your reading. Spend some quality time at Arms Control Wonk. Then come back and repeat your thesis with a straight face.
I would call the Natanz facility pretty good indicator of what the Iranian government really wants.
If you really want something to use as a counter to the nutters who are beating the war drums, some facts might help.
Just how long is it going to take the Iranians to build even a single demonstrator nuke, the way they’re going at it? 5 years? 10? Chocolate Jesus, they cannot manage the centrifuges they have running right now. Again, peruse Arms Control Wonk.
They’ve been going through the agonies of the damned with those centrifuges. The techs at Natanz are probably the most heartfelt advocates of nuclear nonproliferation in the entire country of Iran right now.
And once they manage to get their “device”? It isn’t a “bomb” until they can fit it onto some sort of feasible delivery vehicle, you know. Just how the hell DO they plan to deliver it?
An IRBM of the sort we know they can produce would be fine and dandy, if their backs were to the wall and their enemy was just across the border. But Saddam is months dead, and what’s left of the Iraqi “government” is pretty much an Iranian client already these days, so where’s the use?
Does anyone with a functioning brain (I omit O’Lielly and rest of the frothing madmen who pontificate for the MSM these days) really think Iran is going to put in an unprovoked nuclear strike against Israel??? Myself, I think Ahmadinejad prefers breathing.
You know as well as I do what is going to happen in downtown Teheran if Israel finds itself in receipt of an Iranian nuke. There won’t be any stopping the Israelis.
The rest of the world? Taboo for the exact same reason.

Posted by: Stormcrow | Aug 7 2007 19:32 utc | 17

@John S. – nukes are essential for their defense.
The situation and the available resources are certainly much different from Iran today to Russia in the late 40s.
I for one doubt that Iran wants nukes. Why should they invest in that at all?
How should nukes help Iran? Difficult to make, at least 10 more years of stringent research, very, very, very difficult to deliver where they make sense, the “U.S. Homeland”, so why go that way at all?
Doesn’t make ANY sense to me.
Better to balance the various groups in Iraq to make sure that the US will leave under heavy losses (not of people, Iraqis will pay that position, but of money and reputation).
Better to balance the economic connections within the Middle East so nobody there has any interest to hit Iran and shuns the US.
That is happening right now.
There could be an “preemptive” US nuclear strike on that strategy, but that can not be countered at all. The Russians could/did build up a retaliating second strike force like the US (hit me and I will hit back). Iran knows that it can not by any means aginst 5,000 launchable US nukes. So why try to build a useless first strike force of a handful of nukes at all?
It is obvious that this isn’t about nukes.
Iran doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them. This is, like Iraq, not about WMD, but about control of energy markets.

Posted by: b | Aug 7 2007 19:38 utc | 18

b@18,
The clear and present US interest in hitting Iran clearly has nothing to do with nukes. I’m with you there. The fact that we have the interest is what makes me think the Iranians want the Bomb. Just having them deters, as the Russian example shows. It wasn’t until 1956 or so the Soviets could much about delivery, and second strike was only achieved in 1964, when the silo-based ICBMs deployed. During that whole time, the US was, in fact, deterred, i.e. no first-strike, even though SAC would have loved to do one. I agree that Iran has pulled off all kinds of other very sophisticated countermeasures of a non-nuclear 4GW sort. But the nukes are also there, I think. When the Soviets did get their early nuclear force of a handful of nukes riding bad copies of B-29’s, they aimed them at London and Paris and that seemed to work. For Iran, our proxy is Israel and that would work for deterrence too.

Posted by: John Shreffler | Aug 7 2007 20:31 utc | 19

Ensley, (at 8) thanks for recalling history.
Iran has signed the NNPT (nuclear non proliferation treaty) and has stuck by it. Complied.
Israel, India, and Pakistan have not signed, that is not a prob, as they are US allies.
And the US saw to it, for ex. that India, would be exempt from inspections. (I forget the details.) Israel everyone knows about, as they even trumpet their nuke supremacy.
North Korea has withdrawn.
The US of course has violated it under the radar since forever – who knows exactly what the radioactive pollution in Afgh and Iraq is like? Who talks about that, studies it? Depleted Uranium? Who knows? A few minor researchers, hysterical voices. Supposedly, the US has not used ‘nukes’….
The NNPT has been voided by the US. Yes they are responsible.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 7 2007 20:56 utc | 20

Why would any Nation want to develop a nuclear weapon when the worlds most powerful military, armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction, can be stymied by a ragtag group of mountainmen carrying gas cans and matches.

Posted by: pb | Aug 8 2007 0:57 utc | 21

b@#10
sorry, for the short comment. I was pressed for time and it was a condensed version of the comment I left at dKos.
I know what the link says, I’m just sayin that Bush would use that to justify his statement

Posted by: dk | Aug 8 2007 2:56 utc | 22

Why would any Nation want to develop a nuclear weapon when the worlds most powerful military, armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction, can be stymied by a ragtag group of mountainmen carrying gas cans and matches.

pb@21:
Well, I can think, after considerable thought, of absolutely NO good reason why any rational ruling elite would want to. For any practical purposes save deterrence, nuclear weapons are a big, fat, and goddamned expensive white elephant.
Fat lot of good they’ve done any member of the Nuclear Club.
Past the fact that World War III, by rights, should have happened about 25 or 30 years ago, going from the previously established Great Power timetable of one planetary mass bloodletting per generation. Not to mention the almost unbearable temptations each side repeatedly offered the other. Recall Reagan’s “We begin bombing in five minutes” joke? KAL-007? Able Archer?
And it just didn’t happen. All the potential players were scared too shitless of the idea to even show up at the table, let alone ante up the table stakes.
But do you really expect that humans, either individually or en-masse, are going to act rationally??? ROTFLMAO

Posted by: Stormcrow | Aug 8 2007 9:05 utc | 23

If a) Bush is for spreading democracy and b) a democratic majority of Iranians want nukes (see #7), then logically Bush should be actively supporting nukes for Iran. What could be more democratic than the Will of the People?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Aug 8 2007 9:44 utc | 24

Well, yeah, ralphieboy@24.
But neither of these two assumptions is true, hence the conclusion does not follow.
W would rather spread manure than democracy. And Iran has been a theocracy for more than 25 years.
If we’d just let those people be, without W shooting off his big fat ignorant lying mouth about the “Axis of Evil”, said Iranian theocrats might have been where they belong by now. Namely, out on the streets, beating drums for pennies.
Living in a theocracy sucks. As we are finding out in this country.

Posted by: Stormcrow | Aug 8 2007 21:47 utc | 25

“So will the media tell us that Bush lied?
Don’t wait for it …”

Matthew Yglesias writes:

Facts? In the Lede? Shocking!: Via Brian Beutler, the AFP tries a revolutionary experiment in writing their story in such a way as to make readers better informed about the issue at hand rather than more familiar with the president’s propaganda. Here’s the lede:
US President George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons — an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran.
Oh, my! Imagine the world we might live in if this were the standard way to open a newspaper story about the president making a false or misleading claim.
Kudos for Agence France Press!

Posted by: PeeDee | Aug 8 2007 23:48 utc | 26

I hardly recognize this country anymore. I hate and distrust our government and between the media refusing to report important news and instead focusing on Britney Spears’ newest pregnancy over Bush’s Iran lies or the Democrats letting Bush do as he damn well wants, I am growing to be embarrassed of our inability to take control of our country. From using torture to debunking the Constitution I don’t know what the hell we have to be proud of as a nation anymore. We don’t represent freedom anymore. We have a president that is blatantly exploring imperialism at the expense of the Arab World and at the endangerment of world stability. Our economy sucks, we work harder and harder for less and less. George W. Bush rules by terror, he has everyone scared silly and the conservative news media and Nancy Pelosi are his greatest aids. Sad to think she’s Speaker of the House and a DEMOCRAT! What a **cking joke.

Posted by: Craig | Dec 13 2007 3:11 utc | 27

Ahhh, it will be okay Craig, here’s some flowers to make you feel better… @—,— 😉

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 13 2007 3:17 utc | 28

We don’t represent freedom anymore – and you never did, other than on paper

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