Why not put sanctions on Europe and others as well?
By Gwynne Dyer, Winnipeg Free Press, June 15, 2010
The mountain laboured for a year and a half, and finally gave birth to a mouse. On June 9 the United Nations Security Council agreed on a fourth round of sanctions against Iran, for its alleged attempt to build nuclear weapons, that will cause Iran no grave inconvenience. But that’s only fair, since the crime of which Iran is accused has not been proven either.
In November 2007, all 16 United States intelligence agencies contributed to a National Intelligence Estimate saying that Iran had stopped work on nuclear weapons in 2003. It was a bureaucratic pre-emptive strike, intended to head off real air strikes against Iran by the Bush administration. And even now, the U.S. intelligence agencies haven’t changed their view.
In March 2009, the director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, and the Defence Intelligence Agency’s head, Lt.-Gen. Michael Maples, told Congress that Iran did not have highly enriched uranium for bombmaking and had not made the decision to produce any. They also testified that Iran’s missile program was not related to its nuclear program.