Called to Account: Iran, IAEA, United Nations

"Like the atomic archive, it’s another innocent looking compound. Now for those of you at home using Google Earth, this no-longer-secret atomic warehouse is on Maher Alley, Maher Street. You have the coordinates, you can try to get there. And for those of you who try to get there, it’s 100 meters from the Kalishoi, the rug cleaning operation. By the way, I hear they do a fantastic job cleaning rugs there. But by now they may be radioactive rugs."
"Iran has not abandoned its goal to develop nuclear weapons…. Rest assured that will not happen. What Iran hides, Israel will find."
"[IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano should now undertake to] do the right thing, go and inspect this atomic warehouse immediately — before the Iranians finish cleaning it out. [Inspect] right here, right now, and inspect the other sites we told you about… Tell the world the truth about Iran."
"In Lebanon, Iran is directing Hezbollah to build secret sites to convert inaccurate projectiles into precision guided missiles, missiles that can target deep inside Israel within an accuracy of ten meters."
"Hezbollah is deliberately using the innocent people of Beirut as human shields. They have placed three of these missile conversion sites alongside Beirut’s international airport."
"[Tyrants of Iran, Israel knows what you’re doing, and Israel knows where you’re doing it. [Israel will] never let a regime that calls for our destruction develop nuclear weapons. Israel will do whatever it must do to defend itself against Iran’s aggression."
"We will continue to act against you in Syria, we will act against you in Lebanon, we will act against you in Iraq, we will act against you whenever and wherever we must act to defend our state and to defend our people."
"The same week Iran was caught red-handed for trying to murder European citizens, European leaders were laying out the red carpet for President Rouhani, pledging to give them more money. Have these European leaders learned nothing from history? Will they ever wake up?"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, UN General Assembly, plenary session, 26 September 2018

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, holds up a placard showing a suspected Iranian atomic site while delivering a speech at the United Nations during the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2018 in New York City. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images/AFP)

All manner of international corporations were champing at the bit to get into Iran, with the release of that huge lump sum treasury after the signing of the nuclear agreement. They all wanted a piece of the action, investing in Iran's oil industry, selling arms, you name it. Of late, those investors have pulled back since the Trump administration signed off the agreement and implemented further economy-crippling sanctions on the Islamist regime. This was an action threatened and taken, in recognition that the Islamic Republic continued to destabilize its neighbours and to fund terrorist groups and to invest in its own advanced ballistic missiles.

None of which meant that those same international conglomerates that swooped in and then out of the Iranian economy aren't eager to get back in, as long as there are assurances their own interests won't be harmed by U.S. sanctions and the tightening of international banking leading to fears that they will impact on any foolish enough to risk the U.S. administration's retribution. But, where there's a will there's a way and Europe appears to be willing to continue overlooking Iran's corrupt and destabilizing presence in the Middle East, anxious to resuscitate the agreement and defy the U.S.

The EU seems less interested in Iran's backsliding, its malign presence in Syria supporting the regime's massacres of its Sunni Syrians, along with its support of the Yemeni Houthis; two civil wars that Iran encourages and tasks its Shiite militias and surrogate military, Hezbollah, to involve themselves in. There's also the not-inconsiderable matter of Iran's penchant for charging foreigners and Iranians alike with trumped-up charges of espionage, imprisoning them and all-too-often applying capital punishment; alternately prisoners finding themselves suddenly dead due to "heart attack".

An image from a placard displayed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly showing a suspected ‘secret atomic warehouse’ in the Turquzabad district of Tehran containing up to 300 tons of nuclear material. (GPO)

 

The Israeli Secret Service managed to find more than ample evidence of Iran stockpiling nuclear-fissile materials in "a secret atomic warehouse". The evidence is as credible as any could be, since a library of meticulous notes along with some of the material itself was slipped out of Iran by Israeli agents and taken into Israeli custody. The data was shared with the U.S. and with the International Atomic Energy Agency; IAEA, failed to respond. Just as they also had no comment when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu once again startled the General Assembly with an instructive revelation of Iran's duplicity.

None of which seems to really bother the EU. Which august body appears to be satisfied that Iran's meddling in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon keeps it out of Europe. European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini for whom Iran has favoured status, appears to have reached an agreement with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif with plans for a new financial instrument to bypass U.S. sanctions, allowing European companies to continue to do business with Iran. An effort on the part of the EU to persuade Iran to remain within the nuclear deal.

Irrespective of the fact that by all measures that same deal's guidelines were never meant by Iran to be respected; the regime had no problem whatever assuring its gullible Western agreement partners that it meant no harm, had no intention of carrying on with nuclear work which it wasn't to begin with either interested in or planning to use as a deterrent against its neighbours' efforts to oppose the Shiite regime's plans to threaten the Sunni majority nations into irrelevance as it took the lead in power and control in the Middle East.

President Netanyahu's revelations, accusations and challenges? Yawn. Does no one care? Evidently not.

Photographs from the Iranian nuclear weapons archive, showcased by Israeli officials, of a metal chamber that Israeli officials said was housed at the Parchin military site and was built to conduct experiments as part of the Iranians’ rogue nuclear weapons program (Israeli government)