IAEA chief warns against military strike on Iran
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • 4 years ago • 34 commentsBy: Keir Simmons, Saphora Smith and Laura Saravia
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The head of the U.N. watchdog responsible for inspecting Iran's nuclear program has warned against launching a military strike on Iran.
"I would hope there would never be a time for a military attack," the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, told NBC News in an interview Wednesday in Vienna.
His comments come after The New York Times, citing four current and former U.S. officials, reported Monday that President Donald Trump had asked advisers last week what options he had to take military action against Iran's main nuclear site.
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Mariano Grossi.Christian Bruna / Reuters
During a meeting last Thursday, a range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike, the Times reported. NBC News has not independently verified the reporting.
Grossi called suggestions that America was considering such an attack "total speculation."
"A military attack would be detrimental to any inspection activity, let alone the safety of my inspectors, which is the first thing I have to think about if somebody is planning to do something like that," he said.
Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated since 2018 when Trump walked away from the landmark 2015 nuclear deal struck by his predecessor, Barack Obama. The U.S. has pursued a campaign of maximum pressure on Iran, imposing sanctions that have helped devastate the Iranian economy and sent the local currency into free fall.
In response, Iran — which has always denied it is seeking a nuclear arsenal — has slowly abandoned the limits set by the deal.
On Wednesday, the U.S. hit Iran with another round of sanctions, with the Treasury announcing that it had targeted an important Iranian charity, as well as a number of its affiliates. The Mostazafan Foundation is suspected of providing material support to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for malign activities, including for the persecution of the "regime's enemies."
Iranian Minister of Intelligence Mahmoud Alavi attends a session of Iran's Assembly of Experts in the capital Tehran.Atta Kenare / AFP - Getty Images file
The Treasury also targeted Iran's minister of Intelligence and Security, Mahmoud Alavi.
Many of the sanctions supplement previously announced penalties by simply adding another layer to them, according to The Associated Press. However, they come as the Trump administration appears to be trying to lock in its policy toward Iran before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
The IAEA has reportedly set out ways in which Iran is no longer adhering to the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Other signatories to that agreement -- the U.K., France and Germany -- called on Iran Thursday to "reverse its steps and return to full compliance."
The statement follows an internal IAEA report that said Iran breached the nuclear deal by using advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges that it had installed underground at its Natanz site.
Referring to the report, Grossi added that Iran has not explained the origin of uranium particles found at an "undeclared" site. The organization's inspection regime was robust, he said.
"There have been instances in the past where Iran did not declare things that it should have declared," he said. "At the moment, I don't have any indication that there is any secret activity that they are carrying out."
An adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also warned Wednesday that an American attack on the Islamic Republic could set off a "full-fledged war."
Hossein Dehghan, a former member of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, who served as defense minister under President Hassan Rouhani, told the Associated Press that Iran would not "negotiate its defensive power ... with anybody under any circumstances,"
"We don't welcome a crisis. We don't welcome war. We are not after starting a war," Dehghan said. "But we are not after negotiations for the sake of negotiations either."
Reuters contributed to this report.
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"Ahhhh why the Hell NOT, i'm out of here in 65 days anyway, and Covid hasn't killed em;' quick enuff for me"
and Covid hasn't killed em;' quick enuff for me"
Can Trump actually be desperate enough and stupid enough to start a war? Now that I think of it, don't answer that question - I'd like to be able to sleep tonight.
I'd rather see him blow up Iran's nuclear sites while he has the chance, we know Biden won't do it. Remember making a nuke isn't that hard once you have the fuel, making the fuel is the hard part. I'm surprised you'd side with Iran given the likely target for Iranian nukes or dirty bombs.
Where did I say I'd side with Iran? For years I've been saying I was concerned that they were advancing too close to having a bomb, and that they were allowed to self-inspect their military bases (where I'm sure the bomb is being developed) where the IAEA was not permitted to inspect.
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Can Trump actually be desperate enough and stupid enough to start a war
Trump is first president in decades to not invade another country and start a war that would benefit the multinationals and the military/industrial complex. In fact, for those paying attention, he wants us out of shitholes like Iraq and Afghanistan, which might yet happen.
No, it was the Dems that paid a bribe and made a sham deal with Iran that allows them to keep developing nukes
That's a good point that Trump has not started a war and at least is talking about bringing soldiers home. My concern is what he might do in his illogical behaviour and desperation to save at least enough of his Pied Piper sheep to run again in 2024.
The USA did not pay a bribe, but were between the rock of an World Court order that would have returned Iranian fundsfrom
a broken contract for undelivered F4s and other military equipment paid for but not delivered around the time of the Iranian Hostage crisis.
Subsequent actions by the UN & the USA froze all Iranian bank accounts.
Iran fought for 37 year to have their $32 BILLION in assets unfrozen WITH THE AVERAGE INTEREST for each frozen year
estimated to be now be between 100 and 120 Billion, 2 Billion in the USA.
Did the Iranians have hostages, yes. Were they released after the US returned a portion of Iran's own funds to them, yes.
Smells like blackmail, not a bribe.
No, Greg the sham was Trump pulling the USA out of a multinational deal that put Iran back on the path of building nukes.
But deep inside, I know you know all of that.
No, Split, they have never stopped pursuing their goal of having nukes, and Trump called their bluff.
But deep inside, I know you know all of that.
Prove it. Pretty simple.
When I read the headline I keep reading it as Ikea...
Time to let Saudi Arabia handle their own business. We just gave them the arms....
What gets me the most about stories like this is that I am confident that table discussions like this have happened in every presidential administration going back maybe all the way to George Washington. Having discussions about options to a problem is standard for any executive (and that's what the President is) and a conversation around how we can possibly handle a problem is fairly standard. And when your military is the best in the world it's only natural that it would be included in the discussion. For anybody who thinks this is the first time a President has in discussion with his advisors asked about the possibility for military intervention, you need to go dig a big hole for yourself because you have given up on living in the real world.
What is so different now is that for the past four years we have had too many people in these situations who were willing to leak information to outside sources like the press AND we have a press who is more than willing to print it. Years back there were stories about how the press got a story but didn't print it because they felt it would only hurt the country and possibly put people in harms way. We no longer have a press that puts country first I'm afraid. If they continue this in the next administration I truly worry for this country because no country can survive when it's conversations are spread to the public.
I go back to the time when media could win an award for being the most unbiased source. The Christian Science Monitor won it back when I was editor of my university newspaper - it was our model for content and format, but it's made a left turn since then - and now no way that award could ever be given to the media again. As well, I recall reading of a situation when FDR fell on the steps coming out of an airplane, and every media photographer lowered their cameras, refusing to take a photo of it. Those days of integrity in the media are long gone as well.
This shits been happening for 50 years, it just seems worse now because we are numb to it and play follow the leader too often.
Woodward & Bernstein were lucky to survive.
Holy hell the conspiracy theorists are running batshit crazy with this.
The UN is a fucking joke. Has been for decades.
I would certainly agree that it has a rampant anti-Israel bias, but not if I were a third-world child who was saved from starving to death because of UNICEF, or a survivor of a vicious virus in a poor nation because of the WHO, or a refugee who got a good job because of an education provided by UNHCR (although UNRWA is just prolonging strife), or a family that has not been harmed because ot the UN Peacekeeping force. The UN may be useless to you, but a lot of the world's population has reason to feel differently.
You left out those that starved in Sudan because the UN wouldn't protect humanitarian aid to villages cut off by warlords.
You left out hindering (and at times preventing) the hunt for a person whose genocide is only out done by Hitler.
You left out interfering with combat operations in Afghanistan causing the loss of several US Service members in 2009.
But lets just discard out of hand somebody's experience over what you've been told.
There is a line in the movie A Knight's Tale, that says one has to take the bad with the good. At least there is some good.. Hey, I even thought that there was something good about Trump - when he moved the embassy to Jerusalem. Trouble in his case was/is that the bad so outweighs the good that I'm glad he's on his way out.
Sorry. When ot comes to the UN, the bad far outweighs the good. Too much corruption and death surrounding them to be useful to anybody but ISIS, al Queda or war lords.
So, in your opinion, the world would be better off with no UN or any international agency that would provide the beneficial services that it DOES provide. Okay, you're entitled to your opinion.
Would the world be better off with a corrupt organization such as the UN? Yes.
Okay, I'll buy that, as long as you buy that America is better off without Trump. LOL
Yeah not going to happen.
Yeah, I figured as much.
Trump is drawing down regional troops by the end of Dec. I don't think he's going to order strikes weeks later. Even Trump's Pentagon yes man can't be that stupid can he?
Yes.