Britain pushes for Sanctions at UN against Iran

[Teddy Bear]

An article I read today in The Times about the threat of UN sanctions against Iran for pursuing their nuclear ambitions. I decided to compare this article with what was being reported by the BBC on the subject.
Here are the 2 articles. First The Times (highlights mine)
Britain pushes for sanctions at UN after Iran declares nuclear intentions

By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor

BRITAIN, France and Germany were drafting a resolution last night that would refer Iran to the United Nations for possible punitive sanctions because of Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.
The move, which could have serious consequences in relations with one of the most powerful nations in the Islamic world, signalled the end of two years of intense diplomacy aimed at persuading Tehran voluntarily to curb its nuclear ambitions.

The endgame will be played out today and tomorrow at a meeting of the 35-nation International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, where the states of the European Union look likely to support America’s longstanding demand that Iran be referred to the UN Security Council. Tehran raised the stakes still further yesterday by threatening to resume uranium enrichment if that happened.

Any hope of a compromise was shattered over the weekend when President Ahmadinejad, the newly elected Iranian leader, used his maiden speech before the UN General Assembly to attack the West and declare his intention to build a civilian nuclear industry, which many suspect is a cover for acquiring an atomic bomb.

“If some try to impose their will on the Iranian people through resort to a language of force and threat with Iran, we will reconsider our entire approach to the nuclear issue,” said Mr Ahmadinejad, who accused the West of trying to enforce “nuclear apartheid”.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who listened to the speech in New York, described it as disappointing and unhelpful. He was holding discussions with counterparts from other key countries yesterday on what concerted action should now be taken.

“We need to get a feel of whether now is the right time to push for a referral or not,” a British diplomat close to the negotiations said. “We might be able to get a majority at the IAEA. Jack Straw is sounding out his counterparts on where they stand.”

Officials in Vienna believe that 20 members of the IAEA would support action against Iran. Those in favour include the United States, the EU, Japan and Australia, Singapore and Peru.

However, the move would split the organisation in half with opposition from Non-Aligned Movement states including India, Brazil and South Africa. China, which relies heavily on imports of Iranian oil, is also opposed as is Russia, which has the contract to build Iran’s multibillion-pound nuclear reactor at Bushehr.

One possible outcome is that the 14 non-aligned states would abstain in a vote. As of last night, only Russia and Venezuela had decided to vote against.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, is still hoping for a deal. He wants Iran to be given one more chance to comply with its commitments to the IAEA.

In return there were reports yesterday that Tehran may allow UN experts to question senior Iranian military officials and visit closed military sites.

Now the BBC article:
Bush and Putin stand firm on Iran

US President George W Bush has said he believes Iran will be referred to the UN Security Council for sanctions if it does not "live up to its agreements".
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking with Mr Bush in Washington, said he agreed that Iran should not become a nuclear power.

Iran argues its nuclear programme is only for civilian purposes.

Its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is set to raise the issue in a speech at the United Nations on Saturday.

The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due to meet in Vienna on Monday and could decide to refer Iran to the Security Council.

The European Union, which has been engaged in talks with Tehran, has already signalled that it is preparing to take the matter to the UN.

Russia, which has the power of veto on the Security Council, has been calling for more diplomacy.

However, the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says Mr Bush and Mr Putin tried to present a united front following their talks at the White House.

"I am confident that the world will see it to it that Iran goes to the UN Security Council if it does not live up to its agreements," Mr Bush said.

"When that referral will happen is a matter of diplomacy and that's what we talked about. We talked about how to deal with this situation diplomatically."

Diplomacy

Mr Putin said Russia would continue to co-operate in dealing with both North Korea as well as Iran's nuclear ambitions, though he added that diplomacy was far from exhausted.

"The potential of diplomatic solutions to all these questions is far from being exhausted," the Russian president said.

"And we will undertake all of the steps necessary to settle all of these problems and issues, not to aggravate them."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardliner elected in June, is expected to set out his proposals to address international concerns in his speech at the United Nations.

Earlier this week, on the sidelines of the UN summit in New York, he met the British, French and German foreign ministers in the highest-level talks on the subject since his election.

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said they wanted to avoid referring Iran to the UN Security Council.

Iran has insisted it has the right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme for peaceful purposes, but the US suspects it of pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.

I may not be a journalist, but isn't the fact that Russia stands to make a lot of money from the Iran nuclear programme relevant? So why isn't it mentioned by the BBC article? I certainly don't see a "firm stand" by Putin along with Bush if Russia has already indicated they would vote against sanctions.

[steevo]

I'm not sure if this is a proper response for examples of bias but this is an interesting article concerning Russia's dilemma:

www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/19/153602.shtml

"He (Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov) is really pissed off with them (the Iranians)," one Russian diplomat explained to NewsMax's Stewart Stogel.

The frank assesment came after a private 30 minute meeting on Sunday between Lavrov and newly minted Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki at U.N. headquarters in New York.

[Teddy Bear]

What concerns me about the failure of the BBC to explain the motivations of various countries to vote in a particular way for sanctions against Iran, is that they did the same at the time of the last Iraq war.

They did not make public that France and Germany had huge contracts with Saddam, which would obviously affect how they would vote against removing him. Nor did they present the Oil for Food scandal of the UN that would influence how this organisation would view a change in the status quo, which probably accounted for the choice of Hans Blix to head the weapons inspections. It would appear no co-incidence that Hans Blix, who as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1981 to 1997, was in charge of overseeing inspections of the country's nuclear programme. During that time, the Iraqis managed to hide an advanced nuclear weapons development programme from the IAEA. It was only discovered after the Gulf War in 1991. He also didn't 'find' the nuclear reactor that was destroyed in the 80's by Israel. I was recently informed by another poster here that he also gave a clean bill of nuclear health to N. Korea.

Would these facts have made a difference to peoples understandings of why these countries and organisations were acting the way they did? No doubt of it! So why didn't the BBC make it clear?

Well it seems they are doing the same again now.

[steevo]

I completely agree with your objective, and you intent making the comparison is obvious. It is vital to understand motivations and by not pointing them out indeed reveals the BBC’s. I didn’t read much of what they’d written concerning the vote but such omissions are remarkable.

I’m glad you included the info on Hans Blix, some of it news to me and not insignificant. Needless to say he’s not a Bush fan.

[Teddy Bear]

The strange thing is that none of the M$M reported about Blix's illustrious past, and I only found it by private research on the web. Then I could understand why the US didn't want him to lead the UN weapons inspection team, as he has a history of not finding things that are there. I'd love to be able to access his bank accounts, especially those that might be in Switzerland.

[steevo]

;D and you'd be a lonely guy posting it, picked up by fellow bloggers of course.

[Teddy Bear]

More on the subject with bias by omission. Predictably, because of the financial gain that Russia stands to make over Iran, and despite the previous headline that Russia and the US were in some sort of accord over Iran, it seems was only short term.
On seeing the headline todayRussia and US disagree over Iran

Ms Rice is trying to drum up support for US pressure on Iran.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has openly clashed with Russia over whether Iran can pursue a nuclear energy programme.

I had to read the article to see if now the BBC would mention the fact that Russia has contracts with Iran to build several nuclear plants and provide nuclear material. They didn't, neither did they even link to an article they have on the subject.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4299657.stm
Now why do you think they omitted this little detail?

[Teddy Bear]

If the BBC was unbiased, and in this case, was not trying to maintain radio contracts with Iran, the above story would read like this:
Russia defies Washington over Iran ties
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 16/10/2005)

It is the new Great Game, and the stakes could not be higher. The more Washington puts pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear ambitions, the more determined Moscow becomes to ensure that there is no disruption to its lucrative contract to turn Iran into a nuclear power.
What is more, as The Sunday Telegraph reports today, former senior officers in the Russian armed forces are acting as go-betweens to help Iran to acquire missile technology from North Korea that will enable it to develop a missile system capable of reaching France.

The revelation will increase anger in Washington and London at Moscow's support for what the West regards as one of the world's most dangerous regimes, bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

The official Russian line is that there is nothing wrong with helping an ally to develop its energy needs. Iran may be sitting on the world's second largest known oil reserves, but the Russians fully support Teheran's desire for alternative energy sources.

Indeed, at the height of the stand-off between Washington and Teheran last summer over evidence that Iran has a clandestine programme to build an atom bomb, Moscow announced that it would help the Iranians to build a further six nuclear power plants in addition to the controversial Bushehr reactor.

Supplying nuclear technology to Iran is good business for Moscow. The contract to build Bushehr is worth $1 billion and that is before the 10-year contract to supply nuclear fuel for the reactor is taken into account.

Nor is Russia's high-tech co-operation with Iran confined to nuclear power. Last January the Russians signed a contract with Teheran to build the "Zohreh" communications satellite, to be launched in mid-2007. Western defence experts believe that the project will help Iran to acquire further technical expertise on ballistic missile systems.

Russian officials denied all knowledge of the missile technology deal between North Korea and Iran when the issue was formally raised by American diplomats. But Western intelligence believes that the former Russian army officers involved are working with the tacit support and approval of the FSB, Russia's foreign intelligence service.

"People who have held senior positions in the Russian military retain close links to the defence and security establishment long after they have left," said a senior Western intelligence official. "It is hard to imagine that this kind of deal could be negotiated without someone in the Kremlin knowing."

Moscow's determination to maintain its lucrative trade ties with Teheran explains Russia's reluctance to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council for its failure to co-operate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna - the world's nuclear watchdog body that has been trying to make a detailed inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities for the past two years.

If Iran is reported to the UN for non-compliance, Washington would immediately call for the imposition of hard-hitting economic sanctions, with disastrous financial consequences for Moscow. In addition to having to cancel contracts worth billions of dollars, the Russians would be obliged to make heavy compensation payments.

But trade is not the only motive for Moscow's determination to maintain ties with Teheran. It sees the alliance as a bulwark against Washington's military expansion into central Asia and the Middle East and the presence of large American troop formations in Iraq and Afghanistan has prompted closer links.