Subject: Fw: Asia Times, September 21, 2012
From: "fariborz fatemi" <[email-masked]>
To: "fariborz fatemi" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 18:40:25 -0700 (PDT)

ASIA TIMES

September 21, 2012

[Re Obama rethinks 
																							the Arab Spring, September 18] The people of Israel should be proud of 
																						their prime minister for giving new meaning to the word "gall". He appeared on 
																						US television last week to promote getting America into a war with Iran based 
																						on the totally bogus premise that Iran is "racing to develop nuclear weapons" - 
																						which by the way are the exact words he used when he appeared before the 
																						Congress of the United States in 2002 testifying that Iran was "racing to 
																						develop nuclear weapons".

																						And, since early 1990s, every year he and others in the Israeli leadership have 
																						declared Iran will have a nuclear weapon the next year. These are the real 
																						facts so conveniently ignored by the prime minister and his cheerleaders in the 
																						US that gave him such a propaganda platform.

																						With such a fanatical and apocalyptic record, is it not time to stop taking 
																						such pronouncements seriously? Most of Israel's intelligence and military 
																						chiefs are opposing the prime minister's rush toward war with Iran, calling it 
																						"messianic". For example, Meir Dagan, the chief of Israel's Mossad agency from 
																						2002 to 2010, said such an action is "the stupidest thing I have ever heard".

																						Does Iran have a nuclear program? Of course. Is it a weaponization program? Of 
																						course not. How do we know? Both US and Israeli intelligence services have said 
																						that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. James Clapper, director of 
																						the US National Intelligence Agency, and General Rowland Burgess, of the 
																						Defense Intelligence Agency, appearing at a Senate Armed Services Committee 
																						hearing, both testified to that. And, Israeli Military Intelligence Chief 
																						General Aviv Kochavi told a recent Knesset hearing that Iran is not working on 
																						building a nuclear bomb.

																						Furthermore, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors are 
																						constantly monitoring every aspect of Iran's nuclear program under the most 
																						intrusive inspection regime. The IAEA, in its September 13, 2012, report, 
																						continues to say what it has said through countless reports on Iran, that "the 
																						Agency [IAEA] continues to verify the non-diversion of declared materials at 
																						these [16 nuclear] facilities and [nine locations outside] LOF's."

																						Yet, all the breathless, alarmist commentary about this report has been that 
																						since IAEA's previous report, Iran has doubled its stockpile of enriched 
																						uranium at the 20 percent level. But what was left out in these news reports 
																						was that half of that 20 percent enriched stockpile was used for conversion to 
																						fuel plates for the Tehran nuclear research reactor, to help cancer patients - 
																						fuel that cannot be used for weaponization.

																						Why then Netanyahu's constantly crying "wolf" and his "direct appeal to the 
																						American public" in the middle of a presidential election? Perhaps he thinks, 
																						by his incessant focusing on Iran, he will not have to focus on the thorny 
																						problem of achieving a two-state solution with the Palestinians. And, by 
																						his"brazen" actions through fear mongering, he can bully the President of the 
																						United States. With such gall, the prime minister has set himself up for a rude 
																						awakening, when his buddy Mitt Romney is resoundingly defeated.

Fariborz S Fatemi

																						United States (Sep 21, '12)