The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

We have previously emphasized that the "Iranian exception" in the Nuclear Posture Review, from a purely strategic perspective, actually incentivizes Iran to move toward weaponization of its expanding nuclear capabilities. However, a www.TheRaceForIran.com reader in Iran argued that the real issue regarding the "Iranian exception" in the Nuclear Posture Review is not the prospect of "any change in Iran's policy regarding its nuclear program", but rather

"that the Iranians see Obama and even the U.S. media in a different light than before. To see a U.S. president threaten a nation with mass murder and then see that the U.S. and Western media is not outraged is a clear sign that Iran should never trust the U.S."

The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

In the midst of its Nuclear Security Summit and in the wake of President Obama's bilateral meeting with China's President Hu yesterday, the Obama Administration is vigorously spinning the U.S. and Western media that it has won Chinese support for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear activities. To say the least, this is an exaggeration on the Obama Administration's part, and wholly unreflective reporting on the part of those journalists who repeated the exaggeration without question or context.

Independent report.

China is being privately reassured that its supplies of oil would be guaranteed in the event that it supports tough new UN sanctions on Iran, its third largest supplier of crude.

[...]

Iran supplies an estimated 11 per cent of China's energy needs. Among oil suppliers to the Chinese it is only surpassed by Saudi Arabia followed by Angola. Were Iran to lash out and turn off the tap, the consequences for resources-starved China could be severe. Diplomatic signals over what China intends to do about the sanctions issue remain muddled.

Ynetnews report.

The under secretary of state stressed that Washington will adopt a "calculated ambiguity" policy towards countries which do not pose a threat to the US. Despite not explicitly pointing to Israel, it appears her statements were meant to reassure the Jewish state.

Hürriyet Daily News article.

Underscoring his concern over nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan draws attention to Israel rather than Iran. 'I will call on the international community, which is so sensitive toward Iran, to pay attention to Israel too,' he says ahead of a nuclear summit in Washington

The Leveretts write.

Iranian officials have said repeatedly, over years, that the Islamic Republic does not want nuclear weapons and is not seeking them. Furthermore, political and religious authorities have said that acquiring nuclear weapons would be a departure from Islamic ethical standards. (In this regard, it is interesting to note that Iran decided not to weaponize and use chemical agents during the Iran-Iraq war, even though Saddam Husayn subjected both Iranian military forces and civilian targets inside Iran to chemical attack.) Our understanding is that, within the Islamic Republic's decision-making circles, Ayatollah Khamenei has steadfastly rejected the weaponization of Iran's growing nuclear capabilities--and that opposition to nuclear weaponization remains his position. Certainly, Ayatollah Khamenei's public statements on the subject are consistent with such a position.

This is important in the context of the Islamic Republic's political order and culture. Given Tehran's record of official and religious rejection of nuclear weapons, for Ayatollah Khamenei to shift course at some point in the future and endorse nuclear weapons fabrication by the Islamic Republic would require him to explain, to the Iranian public and his followers throughout the Shi'a world, how Iran's strategic circumstances had changed to such an extent that it was now both necessary and legitimate for the country to develop a full-fledged nuclear deterrent. But, as a highly regarded Iranian analyst pointed out to us last week, having the United States threaten to "nuke" the Islamic Republic could plausibly be an important element in the changed circumstances that might warrant a fundamental shift in Iran's posture toward nuclear weapons.

New York Times report.

A large majority of Iranian lawmakers, angered over the Obama administration's new nuclear weapons policy that conspicuously makes Iran and North Korea possible targets, urged their government on Sunday to formally complain to the United Nations in a petition that called the United States a warmonger and threat to world peace.

Patrick Martin on wsws.org.

The new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) issued by the Pentagon Tuesday is being hailed by the Obama administration's apologists as a step towards global nuclear disarmament. It is nothing of the kind. The document lays out a rationale that would justify the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state for the first time since the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Iran and North Korea are singled out as potential targets.

Philip Giraldi on Antiwar.com. The report he refers to is here (PDF)

It all adds up to a toxic brew. If the US refuses to cooperate in bombing Iran conventionally, Israel might well accept the view that the Iranian nuclear program can only be destroyed by using other nuclear weapons. Tel Aviv, controlling its own nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver the bombs on target, would be able to stage such an attack unilaterally. An increasingly isolated Israel headed by reactionary and irrational politicians who are influenced by their own sense of racial superiority just might decide that the gamble is worth it. It would be a very bad decision for Israel, Iran, and for the United States.

BBC report.

Iran's president has unveiled new "third-generation" centrifuges that its nuclear chief says can enrich uranium much faster than current technology.

The centrifuges would have separation power six times that of the first generation, Ali Akbar Salehi said in a speech marking National Nuclear Day.

PressTV report.

Iran said on Friday that it has designed and tested the country's third generation of domestically-built centrifuges as the nation celebrated its nuclear energy achievements.

The machine is capable of spinning 900 times per second and producing 10 kilograms of UF6 in a year.

Juan Cole comments (Informed Comment).

The audience at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference is said to have gone wild with applause when Liz Cheney announced the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu not to attend next week's nuclear summit, called by President Barack Obama.

A person gets a little tired of pointing to the hypocrisy of the American right wing, which would have been up in arms if Democrats had sided with a foreign head of state against the American president, and, indeed, would have charged treason. The thing to remember is that to right wingers, only Republican presidents are really presidents. Democratic Presidents are always coded as usurpers. The politically immature are like 5 year olds who pick up their marbles and go home when they aren't winning

Ted Daley on Antiwar.com.

Although Gates said the NPR did pledge that America would not attack or threaten non-nuclear weapon states with nuclear weapons, he indicated that states "not in compliance with the NPT," specifically naming North Korea and Iran, had been placed by the drafters of the NPR in an entirely different category. For these states, he said, three times, "all options are on the table."

Such words can have only one meaning. The Obama Administration has now said to North Korea and Iran, "If you do not do what we tell you to do, we may launch a nuclear first strike upon you."

The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

As we have pointed out, it is simply not possible any more--if it were ever possible at some point in the past--to achieve Israeli-Palestinian or Arab-Israeli peace in a manner that excludes and marginalizes the Islamic Republic and its regional allies. Rather, today, the link between Iran and Palestine runs in the opposite direction: the United States needs a better and more productive relationship with the Islamic Republic, in part, because it will be impossible to achieve Arab-Israeli peace absent U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.

The Leveretts write.

Tomorrow--Tuesday, April 6, 2010--the Obama Administration will proclaim, as a matter of declaratory policy, that the United States claims the prerogative to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic of Iran, even as Iran remains a non-nuclear-weapons state. The Administration will make this declaration as part of its much anticipated Nuclear Posture Review, which will be issued two days before President Obama and Russian President Medvedev sign a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

Reuters report.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has voiced scepticism over the effectiveness of any further sanctions against Iran in the dispute over its nuclear programme, saying he still supported a diplomatic solution.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro published on Tuesday, Erdogan criticised countries pushing for another round of sanctions in the Security Council, of which Turkey is a non-permanent member.