The UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector has warned against the use of force against Iran, in what UN officials said was an attempt to halt an "out of control" drift to war.
His outspoken remarks, which drew a parallel between Iran and Iraq, appeared to take aim at the US and Britain. They followed comments on Sunday September 16 by the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who said: "We have to prepare for the worst," adding "the worst is war".

Remember Hans Blix? Remember WMDs? Fast-forward four years, and read on. Once again, there is a stand-off between US intentions and international law and events. The new Hans Blix is called Mohamed ElBaradei, and the WMDs have become nuclear power plants. Colin Powell has been renamed Condoleeza Rice and like Powell, her desires to use the corridors of international diplomacy and not outright force, have recently been put aside.
Hence no doubt why the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency are stepping up to the plate, realising that if they do not speak out, 2007 will be the new 2003.

UN officials stress that ElBaradei, an Egyptian diplomat who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2005, is attempting to slow down what seems to be an accelerating march to war.
"I would not talk about any use of force," Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."
As to comment, "There's a strategic reason for doing these things," one UN official said about ElBaradei's remarks. "He really is alarmed. He sees this thing going out of control. The feeling around here is that this looks like the run-up to the Iraq war."

As discussed in this week's REAL NEWSpaper (September 23 edition), Iran insists on its right to run a comprehensive nuclear programme, including the enrichment of uranium, which it says is intended for peaceful electricity generation. Since the 1950s, Iran has largely been supported in this effort, until the co-operation went bad in the 1980s, and Russia stepped in to help out Iran from slipping into a major energy crisis.
But the US currently believes Iran does not have the right to determine its own future and is using its work on nuclear power plants as the stick to beat the country with. Hence, the US called a meeting of senior European and Russian officials in Washington to discuss the deepening crisis over Iran. Britain, the US and France are likely to push for more sanctions over Iranian defiance, while Russia and China are expected to resist, pointing to a deal ElBaradei struck with the Iranian government in August, in which Tehran agreed to answer unresolved questions over its nuclear programme.
The US, Britain, France and Germany complained to ElBaradei that they had not been consulted and that the agreement did not mention the UN Security Council's demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment while its programme is assessed. In their eyes, the deal gave Tehran a means of stalling new sanctions while continuing to produce nuclear fuel - as well as, of course, slow down the possible timeline of an attack.

France is determined that if the UN is unable to agree on a new round of sanctions against Iran, the European Union should impose its own. The French government has said that leading French companies such as Total and Renault had been urged not to sign new contracts with Iran.
Meanwhile, the French Prime Minister, François Fillon, tried to play down the talk of war, saying that everything must be done to avoid a conflict. The French Socialist leader François Hollande called for an immediate parliamentary debate on Iran, demanding to know if the government had new intelligence on Iran's nuclear intentions. A British official said that when the French foreign minister had raised the spectre of a conflict, he was "stating the obvious". "The worst case scenario is a war with Iran, but meanwhile we are seeking a diplomatic solution," the official said.

France's presence alongside the US might seem novel, but as discussed in the REAL NEWSpaper, France is one of those countries losing more than one billion dollars after pulling out of nuclear contracts with Iran in the 1970s.
The man felt to be guilty of calling for war is Minister Bernard Kouchner, who has, since uttering them sought to play down his remarks, saying they had been meant as a warning against war. "I do not want it to be said that I am a warmonger!" he told Le Monde newspaper. "My message was a message of peace, of seriousness and of determination," the paper quoted Kouchner as saying. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it clear that these remarks had disturbed a Kremlin that, like China, is less inclined to sanctions than the West - specifically as it was Russia that has completed what the West did not provide Iran with - as well as largely guaranteeing that Iran will not be able to produce nuclear weapons from the installation.

Meanwhile, the White House claims it is not aiming for war either. "We believe that there is a diplomatic solution," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "We are working with the French and the rest of the EU (European Union) community in order to pressure Iran to comply with their obligations under the UN Security Council regulations."
One might almost forget that this is all about Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad downplayed the rhetoric, stating that Kouchner's comments were meant only for the media. "We do not consider these threats to be serious." Obviously, people within the UN think he should.