No International Action Following IAEA Report

November 14, 2011

UPDATED below:

As I predicted in The IAEA Report: A Dud With Little Consequences For Iran there will be little international follow on to it.

There is simply nothing new in the report and it is written so badly with innuendo replacing facts that a former IAEA inspector even calls it “unprofessional“. Internationally David Albright’s frantic efforts to reinstate its credibility after I seriously damaged it will fail.

So while the tail continues to wag (Israel Lobbies Discreetly for More Sanctions After U.N. Report on Iran) the dog (Obama Seeks Agreement With Russia, China on Iran) over this, no international action will follow:

China’s Foreign Ministry joined Russia Thursday in warning Western countries that additional pressure on Iran would not solve the nuclear stand-off.
…
“We, as always, believe that dialogue and cooperation are the only effective approaches for properly resolving the Iran nuclear issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

“Imposing pressure and sanctions cannot fundamentally resolve the issue,” he added.

The IAEA and Amano are in deep trouble as the Non Aligned Movement and especially India are pissed off with them over the report:

Distancing itself from IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano’s report on Iran and its pursuit of a nuclear programme, India today associated itself with a statement by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) which criticised the language used in the IAEA chief’s report.
…
While India has been part of all NAM statements in the past, this time it is quite strongly-worded and has raised concerns on procedures followed by the IAEA. New Delhi has maintained that Tehran has an “inalienable right” to use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes but needs to abide by “international rules and obligations”.

There is no way the U.S. will get a new IAEA government board reference of Iran to the UN and additional UN sanction.

Amano can forget about a reelection when his term expires. The U.S. invested a lot to get him installed. Abusing the IAEA with this blatantly political report now fires back big time.

UPDATE (Nov 15 9:50am EST): I have to eat craw on this one. I only now realized that the India Express NAM piece is from 2010. There is not yet a NAM statement on the recent IAEA report I can find. Anyway – the old piece shows the mood the NAM had back then with regards to the IAEA. It is unlikely that it since changed to the IAEA’s favor.

Posted by b on November 14, 2011 at 18:52 UTC | Permalink

Comments

So much for non-proliferation. It was always a canard anyway….in order to maintain a monopoly. Otherwise, elimination of all nukes by everyone would have been the treaty.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Nov 14 2011 20:16 utc | 1

Sadly I am not as optimistic as you on the chances of the BoG votes or of Amano’s re-election. Remember, India voted to send Iran’s file to the UNSC (thanks to a bribe paid to them by the US, in the form of a nuclear cooperation agreement with India, in violation of the US’ own nonproliferation laws and NPT obligations.) In fact, none of the western media covered this NAM statement (I ran into it by accident)

Posted by: Cyrus | Nov 14 2011 21:03 utc | 2

has anyone posted this yet?
Russia urges IAEA to name ‘content provider’ for its report

Russia urges IAEA to list countries which provided documents for the report on Iran, which ‘contains no new details’, RIA Novosti quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying on Monday.
“The IAEA Director General’s recent report lacks anything new,” Lavrov told journalists. “It just reaffirmed that Iran has provided no necessary explanations for so-called ‘proposed military developments’.”
He noted that the IAEA claims the report was developed based on documents which were submitted by another country.
“We urge the IAEA to name ‘another country’ so that we could investigate the case,” Lavrov said.

Posted by: annie | Nov 14 2011 21:28 utc | 3

While I would be the first one to cheer a strongly worded statement from India as part of the NAM statement, why is the commentary dated Fri Sep 17 2010, 04:07 hrs?

Posted by: BDL | Nov 14 2011 22:39 utc | 4

@ 3.
Russia’s demand for disclosure of the anonymous countries who contributed the intelligence upon which the report purports to be based seriously damages the credibility of the IAEA and the report.
Only an excessively vacuous and sloppy report would, or could, attract such criticism.
Lavrov, unlike Shrillary, only speaks when he has something to say that’s worth listening to.
In his 1999 CNN interview (preserved on the Kremlin website), Medvedev pointed out that turning 70 million Iranians into refugees would be an “unthinkable catastrophe” or words to that effect.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 15 2011 2:35 utc | 5

Oops.
That should read ‘In his 2009 CNN interview’.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 15 2011 2:47 utc | 6

Congratulations to B. Hard to imagine some independent blogger unraveling an attempt by the world’s super power but here we have it. Keep up the good fight B., but I guess do not become too successful: after all these guys are killers.

Posted by: ToivoS | Nov 15 2011 7:22 utc | 7

With Europe about to crash and burn through the whole world economy I doubt there is much interest on more war adventures.

Posted by: ThePaper | Nov 15 2011 9:27 utc | 8

The following rewrite of history is funny
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MK16Dj01.html
however, I suppose, that is the strategy – the Clinton and Reagan playbooks used against the Soviet Union …
ironic that this time, it is “the west” bogged down in Afghanistan with an economic crisis …

Posted by: somebody | Nov 15 2011 11:10 utc | 9

@10, it’s precisely why there will be another war, and another one after that. Creative Destruction demands it. You must destroy in order to create in this brave new world. It’s the new bubble. Naomi Klein gave it the name Disaster Capitalism, but I believe that term is too narrow and confining. Creative Destruction is much broader and more flexible.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Nov 15 2011 11:48 utc | 10

Yes, because I see how much the destruction of Libya is helping France or Italy right now.

Posted by: ThePaper | Nov 15 2011 17:00 utc | 11

@11, do you also believe the destruction of the former Yugoslavia helped nobody?

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Nov 15 2011 18:12 utc | 12

Let me guess Morocco Bama what failed states are good for: Albanian mafia, drug dealers, slave traders, employers of mercenaries?
Al Qeida?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_mujahideen
“Following the end of the Bosnian War and, especially, after the 11 September attacks (committed by a group of 19 al-Qaeda agents that included two Saudi Bosnian War veterans), the links between the mujahideen, al-Qaeda and the radicalization of some European Muslims has become more widely discussed.
In an interview with U.S. journalist Jim Lehrer, Holbrooke stated:
There were over 1,000 people in the country who belonged to what we then called Mujahideen freedom fighters. We now know that that was al-Qaida. I’d never heard the word before, but we knew who they were. And if you look at the 9/11 hijackers, several of those hijackers were trained or fought in Bosnia. We cleaned them out, and they had to move much further east into Afghanistan. So if it hadn’t been for Dayton, we would have been fighting the terrorists deep in the ravines and caves of Central Bosnia in the heart of Europe.[26]
Evan F. Kohlmann wrote:
Some of the most important factors behind the contemporary radicalization of European Muslim youth can be found in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the cream of the Arab mujahideen from Afghanistan tested their battle skills in the post-Soviet era and mobilized a new generation of pan-Islamic revolutionaries.
He also notes that Serbian and Croatian sources about the subject are “pure propaganda” based on their historical hatred for Bosniaks “as Muslim aliens in the heart of Christian lands”.[27]
Some authors suggested that the United States fully supported Muslim militants including current and former top al-Qaeda members.[28]

Posted by: somebody | Nov 15 2011 19:24 utc | 13

Let me guess Morocco Bama what failed states are good for: Albanian mafia, drug dealers, slave traders, employers of mercenaries?
That’s certainly part of the laundry list. Where do you think the gobs of cash go for all that illicit trade? The Mattresses? Try again.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Nov 15 2011 19:33 utc | 14

Hi All,
Sorry to go off topic, but b et al. you need to read this question and answer session with David Albirght – it covers the Danilenko affair – your thoughts (and those of others) will be appreciated:
http://www.washingtonstakeout.com/index.php/2011/11/15/david-albright/
Dare I put this up on armscontrolwonk???

Posted by: Irshad | Nov 16 2011 12:30 utc | 15

@15, it looks to me like Albright was parroting and peddling the same shit….sticking to his illusory guns, and he pulled out the Ritter the Molester card when the interviewer brought Ritter’s criticism of his credentials up. It’s a tedious squabble that only underscores what’s discussed here, and most people aren’t going to see or hear this, so it will be ineffective.
By the way, were the charges against Ritter trumped? Was he set up? Or, did he really solicit underage girls?

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Nov 16 2011 13:25 utc | 16

Here’s MKB’s take on the result of “Obama seeking agreement with China, Russia on Iran.”
A three-way waltz in Honolulu
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/MK16Ag01.html
The interesting part begins 10 pars down from the top of the article…
However, Obama’s meetings with Medvedev and Hu also had some common features. Neither meeting produced any concrete outcome. Obama told the media that Russia and China would help place pressure on Iran over its nuclear program and that Medvedev and Hu agreed with him on the problem. But the Russians and the Chinese have since conveyed an entirely different position.
No sooner had the Russian delegation taken off from Honolulu than Lavrov told the Russian press party that the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran “contains nothing new” and provided no further evidence that Tehran was developing nuclear weapons.
Lavrov caustically observed that the IAEA report seemed to “stir up passions in public opinion and prepare the ground for imposing some kind of unilateral sanctions” against Iran. He repeated Russia’s opposition to any new sanctions in addition to those already imposed by the United Nations and the US.
Similarly, on Monday in Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman echoed Lavrov’s rejection of the sanctions route. He said, “Simply put, we believe pressuring, including blindly using economic sanctions, does not at all achieve the desired effect. From a long-term approach, we still want to resolve this problem through dialogue.”
Again, Obama singled out Syria as one of the “world’s trouble spots” that he discussed with Medvedev, but the latter merely nodded that Syria was discussed alongside the “situation in the Middle East” and Afghanistan.
However, the next day, a senior Russian military official maintained that Moscow would honor all its military contracts with Damascus and warned against a “repetition of the Libyan scenario” against Syria. Neither Obama nor Hu bothered to mention Syria in the recap of their meeting.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 16 2011 13:29 utc | 17

As predicted here: China, Russia Resist Sanctions Against Iran

VIENNA—A new U.S. and European-led push to censure Iran before the United Nations nuclear agency for alleged efforts to develop atomic weapons is facing resistance from Russia, China and a bloc of developing countries, which threaten to dilute any international punishment.
American and European officials on Wednesday said they believed they would reach an agreement with Beijing and Moscow on a resolution condemning Tehran’s nuclear work, which will be presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board of governors in Vienna on Thursday.
But they said this statement won’t refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council or lead to a fifth, more severe round of U.N.-backed sanctions against Tehran.
The fallout, diplomats fear, could allow Iran to emerge largely unscathed after the release of an IAEA report last week that detailed extensive evidence that Iran has been developing the technologies used in producing nuclear bombs.
…

Posted by: b | Nov 17 2011 7:01 utc | 18

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