| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 11:29 am Post subject: Kucinich calling for impeachment and mentioning war with Ira |
| Subject: Kucinich calling for impeachment and mentioning war with Iran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztpq16eGzqk | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 11:55 am Post subject: |
| http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ27Ak05.html
Oct 27, 2007
Explosive charge blows up in US's face
By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - When the United States military command accused the Iranian
Quds Force in January of providing the armor-piercing EFPs (explosively
formed penetrators) that were killing US troops, it knew that Iraqi
machine shops had been producing their own EFPs for years, a review of
the historical record of evidence on EFPs in Iraq shows.
The record also shows that the US command had considerable evidence that
the Mahdi Army of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had received the
technology and the training on how to use it from Hezbollah, rather than
Iran.
The command, operating under close White House supervision, chose to
deny these facts in making the dramatic accusation that became the main
rationale for the present aggressive US stance toward Iran. Although the
George W Bush administration initially limited the accusation to the
Quds Force, it has recently begun to assert that top officials of the
Iranian regime are responsible for arms that are killing US troops.
British and US officials observed from the beginning that the EFPs being
used in Iraq closely resembled the ones used by Hezbollah against
Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, both in their design and the
techniques for using them.
Hezbollah was known as the world's most knowledgeable specialists in EFP
manufacture and use, having perfected this during the 1990s in the
military struggle with Israeli forces in Lebanon. It was widely
recognized that it was Hezbollah that had passed on the expertise to
Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups after the second Intifada
began in 2000.
US intelligence also knew that Hezbollah was conducting the training of
Mahdi Army militants on EFPs. In August 2005, Newsday published a report
from correspondent Mohammed Bazzi that Shi'ite fighters had begun in
early 2005 to copy Hezbollah techniques for building the bombs, as well
as for carrying out roadside ambushes, citing both Iraqi and Lebanese
officials.
In late November 2006, a senior intelligence official told both CNN and
the New York Times that Hezbollah troops had trained as many as 2,000
Mahdi Army fighters in Lebanon.
The fact that the Mahdi Army's major military connection has always been
with Hezbollah rather than Iran would also explain the presence in Iraq
of the PRG-29, a shoulder-fired anti-armor weapon. Although US military
briefers identified it last February as being Iranian-made, the RPG-29
is not manufactured by Iran but by the Russian Federation.
According to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, RPG-29s were imported from
Russia by Syria, then passed on to Hezbollah, which used them with
devastating effectiveness against Israeli forces in the 2006 war.
According to a June 2004 report on the well-informed military website
Strategypage.com, RPG-29s were already turning up in Iraq, "apparently
smuggled across the Syrian border".
The earliest EFPs appearing in Iraq in 2004 were so professionally made
that they were probably constructed by Hezbollah specialists, according
to a detailed account by British expert Michael Knights in Jane's
Intelligence Review last year.
By late 2005, however, the British command had already found clear
evidence that the Iraqi Shi'ites themselves were manufacturing their own
EFPs. British Army Major General J B Dutton told reporters in November
2005 that the bombs were of varying degrees of sophistication.
Some of the EFPs required a "reasonably sophisticated factory", he said,
while others required only a simple workshop, which he observed, could
only mean that some of them were being made inside Iraq.
After British convoys in Maysan province were attacked by a series of
EFP bombings in late May 2006, Knights recounts, British forces
discovered a factory making them in Majar al-Kabir north of Basra in June.
In addition, the US military also had its own forensic evidence by the
autumn of 2006 that EFPs used against its vehicles had been manufactured
in Iraq, according to Knights. He cites photographic evidence of EFP
strikes on US armored vehicles that "typically shows a mixture of clean
penetrations from fully-formed EFP and spattering ..." That pattern
reflected the fact that the locally made EFPs were imperfect, some of
them forming the required shape to penetrate but some of them failing to
do so.
Then US troops began finding EFP factories. Journalist Andrew Cockburn
reported in the Los Angeles Times in mid-February that US troops had
raided a Baghdad machine shop in November 2006 and discovered "a pile of
copper discs, five inches in diameter, stamped out as part of what was
clearly an ongoing order".
In a report on February 23, NBC Baghdad correspondent Jane Arraf quoted
"senior military officials" as saying that US forces had "been finding
an increasing number of the advanced roadside bombs being not just
assembled but manufactured in machine shops here".
Nevertheless, the Bush administration decided to put the blame for the
EFPs squarely on the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps, after Bush agreed in autumn 2006 to target the Quds Force within
Iran to make Iranian leaders feel vulnerable to US power. The allegedly
exclusive Iranian manufacture of EFPs was the administration's only
argument for holding the Quds Force responsible for their use against US
forces.
At the February 11 military briefing presenting the case for this claim,
one of the US military officials declared, "The explosive charges used
by Iranian agents in Iraq need a special manufacturing process, which is
available only in Iran." The briefer insisted that there was no evidence
that they were being made in Iraq.
That lynchpin of the administration's EFP narrative began to break down
almost immediately, however. On February 23, NBC's Arraf confronted
Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, who had been out in front in January
promoting the new Iranian EFP line, with the information she had
obtained from other senior military officials that an increasing number
of machine shops manufacturing EFPs had been discovered by US troops.
Odierno began to walk the Iranian EFP story back. He said the EFPs had
"started to come from Iran", but he admitted "some of the technologies"
were "probably being constructed here".
The following day, US troops found yet another EFP factory near Baqubah,
with copper discs that appeared to be made with a high degree of
precision, but which could not be said with any certainty to have
originated in Iran.
The explosive expert who claimed at the February briefing that EFPs
could only be made in Iran was then made available to the New York Times
to explain away the new find. Major Marty Weber now backed down from his
earlier statement and admitted that there were "copy cat" EFPs being
machined in Iraq that looked identical to those allegedly made in Iran
to the untrained eye.
Weber insisted that such Iraqi-made EFPs had slight imperfections which
made them "much less likely to pierce armor". But NBC's Arraf had
reported the previous week that a senor military official had confirmed
to her that the EFPs made in Iraqi shops were indeed quite able to
penetrate US armor. The impact of those weapons "isn't as clean", the
official said, but they are "almost as effective" as the best-made EFPs.
The idea that only Iranian EFPs penetrate armor would be a surprise to
Israeli intelligence, which has reported that EFPs manufactured by Hamas
guerrillas in their own machine shops during 2006 had penetrated eight
inches of Israeli steel armor in four separate incidents in September
and November, according to the Intelligence and Terrorism Center in Tel
Aviv.
The Arraf story was ignored by the news media, and the Bush
administration has continued to assert the Iranian EFP charge as though
it had never been questioned.
It soon became such an accepted part of the media narrative on Iran and
Iraq that the only issue about which reporters bother to ask questions
is whether the top leaders of the Iranian government have approved the
alleged Quds Force operation.
Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His
latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War
in Vietnam, was published in June 2005.
(Inter Press Service) | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:51 am Post subject: |
| US official warns Iran on nuke program
By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer
39 minutes ago
A senior U.S. official challenged Iran's hard-line president Thursday over his claim that Iranians are immune from further U.N. sanctions, saying such action is in the works unless Tehran meets demands to curb its nuclear program.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered his own warning in Tehran, saying his government would make unspecified economic retaliation against any European country that followed the U.S. lead in imposing sanctions on some Iranian banks and businesses.
A Saudi Arabian official, meanwhile, said Arab states in the Persian Gulf had proposed to Tehran that they set up a consortium to provide Iran with enriched uranium as way to defuse the nuclear fight.
U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns made his comment after a meeting with the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency that was meant to demonstrate unity following recent strains on how best to deal with Iran's defiance.
Burns stopped to talk with Mohamed ElBaradei at the International Atomic Energy Agency's headquarters before heading to London, where he was to discuss the Iran standoff with his counterparts from Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.
He planned to press them for agreement on a third set of U.N. sanctions to be threatened unless Tehran changes its position and obeys U.N. Security Council demands that it suspend uranium enrichment and related programs.
France and Britain back new sanctions if Tehran remains defiant, but Russia and China — the two other veto-holding permanent members of the Security Council — are skeptical.
Washington and its allies say Iran is using the program to secretly develop nuclear weapons, while the Islamic republic insists it needs enrichment technology to produce fuel for atomic reactors that will generate electricity.
Ahmadinejad has been adamant that Iran will not curtail its nuclear program and has ridiculed previous sanctions as ineffective.
On Thursday, he said Europeans would suffer if they matched the latest U.S. sanctions that bar American companies from dealing with businesses and banks linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a military force that has holdings in oil, construction and other sectors.
"If they plan to cooperate with the enemy of the Iranian nation, we cannot interpret this as a friendly behavior. We will show reaction," Iranian state radio quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. "You, Europeans, know well what will happen in the economic sphere if Iran takes a serious move in this matter."
According to Iranian statistics, Europe is Iran's largest trading partner.
ElBaradei angered Washington by suggesting it was too late to insist on a full Iranian enrichment freeze and then reaching an agreement with Tehran that commits Iran to answer questions it has been dodging about its nuclear program.
While Washington has since swung its support behind that approach, U.S. officials worry Iran will use the deal to try to weaken Security Council attempts to force an enrichment halt. Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials have said that if Iran meets its commitment to tell all to the IAEA, the matter before the Security Council will be "closed."
Burns took pains to rebut that view after his hour-long meeting with ElBaradei.
Ahmadinejad "said in September the Security Council case is closed," Burns told reporters. "I am sorry to tell him it's not closed. There are sanctions being implemented ... and there will be a third Security Council sanctions resolution" if Iran continues to defy the council.
Burns said he and ElBaradei agreed that "it's important that Iran finally tell the truth about its activities in the past ... but we also agreed that all of us" back a third round of sanctions if necessary.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, suggested a way out of the crisis is a proposal by the Arab nations around the Persian Gulf to form a consortium that would build a uranium enrichment plant to supply the region's states, including Iran, with reactor fuel.
Speaking with the Middle East Economic Digest in London, he said the plant should be sited in a neutral country outside the region.
"The U.S. is not involved, but I don't think it (would be) hostile to this, and it would resolve a main area of tension between the West and Iran," the magazine quoted Prince Saud as saying.
He said the idea had been proposed to Iran's government, which said it would consider the plan. The Iranians previously ignored a similar proposal from Russia — to host Iran's uranium enrichment facilities on its territory to allay Western concerns about monitoring.
The agreement between the IAEA and Iran commits Tehran to clear up by December all questions about its program — much of which the Iranians had kept secret until discovered four years ago.
In Tehran, Iranian officials and IAEA representatives wrapped up four days of talks on some of those questions Thursday, state media reported. The Iranian side expressed satisfaction with the discussions, but there was no comment from the U.N. agency.
___
Associated Press writers Veronika Oleksyn in Vienna and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 6:02 pm Post subject: Neoconservatism's heirs |
| http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-heilbrunn19oct19,0,1500804.story?track=rss
Opinion : Op-Ed
Neoconservatism's heirs
The movement isn't dead, it's regrouping under the sons of its founders.
By Jacob Heilbrunn
October 19, 2007
For several years, the conventional wisdom has been that neoconservatism is on the skids. Vice President Dick Cheney has been sidelined while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flexes her diplomatic muscles, and old neocon standbys such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith have largely disappeared from view. But the movement isn't dead yet. As shown by the announcement this week of former New York Post editorial page editor John Podhoretz's appointment to head the flagship neoconservative journal Commentary, the movement may be battered, but it is not going away. If anything, it is regrouping.
At the moment, the future of neoconservatism hangs on its unspoken system of dynastic succession, in which the top posts of the movement are handed off to the sons of its leaders. A second generation is taking over from the first to lead the crusade against the liberal traitors at home and the terrorists abroad.
Like William Kristol, who edits the influential right-wing journal the Weekly Standard, Podhoretz is the son of neoconservative eminences. Kristol's father, Irving, was editor of the old neocon journal the Public Interest and helped create the movement's network in Washington; his mother, Gertrude Himmelfarb, was a conservative cultural critic and prominent advocate of Victorian morality.
In Podhoretz's case, his mother, Midge Decter, is a trustee of the right-wing Heritage Foundation and has written several books decrying feminism. His brother-in-law, Elliot Abrams, who played a leading role in the Iran-Contra affair, is a staffer on the National Security Council responsible for the Mideast and democratization programs.
But in this galaxy of notables, it is Podhoretz's father, Norman, who looms largest. Norman, now 77, is the patriarch of the neocon movement. An advisor to presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, a prominent advocate of bombing Iran, author of the bestselling book "World War IV" and himself the editor of Commentary for four decades, he exemplifies the intensely intellectual and combative first generation of neoconservatives.
A scholarship student at Columbia University who resented what he called the "WASP patriciate," Norman Podhoretz studied under the literary scholar Lionel Trilling and initially made his name by denouncing Jack Kerouac and the Beat movement in the late 1950s. His mentor at Commentary was Elliot Cohen, a former Trotskyist turned virulent anti-communist. After Cohen committed suicide in 1959, Podhoretz was named editor at age 30.
At first, Podhoretz turned against such mentors as Trilling and embraced the left. His memoir, "Making It," made matters worse by revealing his lust for success. The snobbish New York intelligentsia snubbed him.
But in the late 1960s, Podhoretz took yet another turn. Disgusted by what he viewed as the anti-Americanism of the antiwar movement, he moved sharply to the right. Under his leadership, Commentary defended Israel, denounced the Soviet Union and opposed affirmative action. Its articles helped Daniel Patrick Moynihan and then Jeane Kirkpatrick become U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations. Podhoretz was riding high.
For the hawkish Podhoretz, who had been raised on the Cold War and had written articles about Mikhail Gorbachev with such titles as "The Fantasy of Soviet Collapse," the end of the Soviet Union came as a shock. The neocons were reduced to gadflies as President Clinton won two terms in the 1990s.
With 9/11, Podhoretz and the neocon movement were revitalized. But it is the sons who will carry forth the standard in coming years.
John Podhoretz will undoubtedly seek to update his magazine, which has lost many of its readers. The younger Podhoretz epitomizes the ethos of the new generation; he has spent much of his time as a critic of pop culture, writing about films and television. If his father wrote books with such titles as "Ex-Friends" -- about intellectual grandees such as Hannah Arendt -- John Podhoretz's memoir, "Hell of a Ride," was about watching the antics of interns working for George H.W. Bush. Unlike his father's generation, John Podhoretz's has never really rebelled. As a result, it is not made up of disaffected liberals but of people who have been attracted to the right from the beginning. They have never flirted with the left but have been groomed to battle it.
And so Podhoretz has been tapped to continue the war against liberalism and to rejuvenate the magazine that played such a key role in the history of neoconservatism. After the debacle of the Iraq war, it will be a stiff challenge. Unless, of course, Giuliani wins the presidency. Then all bets are off, and an article in Commentary may once again be the ticket to a United Nations appointment, not to mention a Cabinet post.
Jacob Heilbrunn, a former Times editorial writer, is the author of "They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons," to be published by Random House this winter. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 6:48 pm Post subject: Why war with Iran is likely |
| Forwarded:
It is a losing cause trying to help prevent this (especially when the Israel first US media is pushing for it as well and won't convey the truth about the agenda by letting Americans know about the Mearsheimer/Walt book and similar to the extent that it should have by now - the AIPAC and Norman Podhoretz youtube videos at the end of the following piece by Raimondo are must views if you haven't already accessed them):
November 2, 2007
'Invade and Bomb With Hillary and Rahm'
Why war with Iran is likely
by Justin Raimondo
They're ginning up another war, and the target is Iran:
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11846
----------------------------------------------------------------------
AIPAC's Push for War with Iran:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SQ02gqqao
Re: AIPAC is Pushing US to War with Iran for Israel (see the Scott Ritter youtubes in the comments section for how he mentioned AIPAC and that nukes might be used on Iran as well):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/10/re-aipac-is-pushing-us-to-war-with-iran.html
Here is a tiny url for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/24mkej
Mainstream Media is Selling US another War:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/10/31/war-with-iran-real-risk-according-to-former-cia-operative-page-36.php
Jewish Neocon Podhoretz Wants Iran Bombed for Israel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bLq6pzOc5w
Podhoretz is mentioned in the 'Thinking about Neoconservatism' article (by Kevin MacDonald) which is linked near the top of the following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/04/06/neoconservatism-as-a-jewish-movement.php
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Charlie Cressman"
Subject: RE: Why war with Iran is likely
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 15:43:29 -0700
I think you're right; however, these fools never have been deterred by the likely sequellae from their attacks on Islamic countries. With oil hovering around $90 bbl and the dollar reeling against all major currencies, a Zio-inspired attack on Iran will have dire consequences. Consider some of the often reported scenarios:
After a made-for-TV extravaganza of waves of B-1, B-2 and carrier-based warplanes combined with hundred of cruise missile salvos, many observers may be deluded to think that the Iranians could never have survived such shock and awe. Several days later, however, America finds that its attacks were less than successful as retaliatory missile attacks of Onyx and Sunburn missiles sink a US aircraft carrier with over 5000 sailors and airmen on board as well as two tankers heading out of the Strait of Hormuz with full cargos of oil.
The US threatens to hit all known Iranian military sites with neutron bombs. Russia and China increase nuclear alert levels.
Lloyds of London drops all liability coverage for Gulf shipping, effectively suspending all oil exports from the Persian Gulf, accounting for two-thirds of the world's supply and 70% of Japan's and Europe's. Oil hits $200 bbl. and the pump price in the US moves to $7.00/gallon. The Dow drops 2500 points.
The UN condemns the US attacks and China and Russia call an emergency session of the Security Council.
Islamic rage against the US and Israel leads to a popular revolt in Pakistan and Musharraf is deposed and replaced by an Islamist lieutenant general from the ISI, the pro-Taliban military intelligence service of Pakistan. India reacts and puts its nuclear forces on the highest alert.
Ten days after the US air campaign, Iran sends 200,000 Revolutionary Guards into Shi'a areas of southeastern Iraq as a show of solidarity with its co-religionists. The US command declares an emergency and scrambles to secure an escape route to Kuwait, where it's increasingly evident that escape thorough the Strait of Hormuz is going to be extremely risky given the Iranian missile threat. The Dow drops to 10,000 and gas rationing begins in Europe, Asia and parts of North America.
I think you get the idea. The neocons' lunacy could put the US military force in Iraq in dire circumstances and necessitate a fighting retreat into Kuwait or north through Kurdistan into Turkey. Iraq would disintegrate and Iran would become the de facto overlord. The Israeli situation could become a strategic nightmare and emigration to the US of Israelis could increase.
Last edited by Alpha on Sat Nov 03, 2007 2:48 am; edited 1 time in total | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:24 pm Post subject: |
| Looks like Israel first (Zionist Jews) operatives are in place within the high command of the US Air Force as well (see the following URL) getting US ready to bomb Iran for Israel:
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/3717 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:27 pm Post subject: Britain: New Iran sanctions are possible |
| Britain: New Iran sanctions are possible
By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 55 minutes ago
The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council agreed Friday to move toward a third set of sanctions against Iran if the country does not answer key questions on its nuclear program, the British Foreign Office said.
The Foreign Office said the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France agreed, along with Germany, to come up with a new sanctions resolution with the aim of voting on it if November reports by the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency did not show improved Iranian cooperation.
Russia and China did not confirm that there had been an agreement, which would mark a surprising turnaround in the two countries' strong resistance to fresh sanctions against Iran.
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei will report to the U.N. on Iran's nuclear activities in mid-November. EU chief negotiator Javier Solana is also due to submit a report on Iran's cooperation.
The diplomats who met in London on Friday will hold talks again on Nov. 19 to assess the pending reports, a Foreign Office spokesman said.
He said that the Security Council members and Germany had agreed to "finalize a text for a third U.N. Security Council Sanctions resolution with the intention of bringing it to a vote in the U.N. Security Council unless the November reports of Dr. Solana and Dr. ElBaradei show a positive outcome of the efforts."
Russia in particular has spoken strongly against new sanctions on Iran, particularly unilateral measures imposed recently by Washington against Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
"Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end?" Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Portugal last week. "It's not the best way to resolve the situation by running around like a madman with a razor blade in his hand."
U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns had urged China and Russia to support harsher U.N. sanctions, saying the two nations were key to a diplomatic solution to the standoff.
"The U.S. believes very strongly there is a need to accelerate the diplomacy, to strengthen the sanctions," Burns told The Associated Press.
"We want a diplomatic solution, we do not want to give up on diplomacy, but we need the help of the P5 (permanent Security Council member) countries to do that, particularly the support of Russia and China."
The U.S. and its allies accuse Iran of using a civilian power program as cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge and insists it needs the technology to generate power.
Britain and France have backed the U.S. call for a resolution on a third round of U.N. Security Council sanctions if Iran continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment.
Burns said the U.S. believes China has increased trade with Iran in the last six months, sending the wrong signal about the international community's attitude toward the nuclear program.
Iran's former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, said Friday in Tehran that talks between Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog were making progress and he warned the U.S. to avoid resorting to threats.
"The U.S. is making mistakes. Iran is having talks (with the IAEA) and has said it will respond to IAEA questions. They are gradually coming and taking their response. One has to wait, talk and make discussions," he said.
Rafsanjani also spoke about the prospects of a U.S. attack against Iran, saying it would create a quagmire for Washington with unimaginable consequences.
Burns said participants at Friday's meeting did not discuss an offer from Saudi officials to create a Middle East consortium of users of enriched uranium.
The proposal by the Arab nations around the Persian Gulf is to build a uranium enrichment plant in a neutral country to supply the region's states, including Iran, with reactor fuel for nuclear energy programs.
Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband briefly discussed the proposal with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, during talks this week, a Foreign Office spokesman said.
Prince Saud told London's Middle East Economic Digest that the plan had been proposed to Iran's government, which said it would consider the proposal.
Burns said Washington would look carefully at the offer, but stressed a similar proposal from Russia — to host Iran's uranium enrichment facilities on its territory to allay Western concerns about monitoring — had been ignored. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 2:05 am Post subject: |
| Australia: No attack on Iran
http://www.presstv.com/Detail.aspx?id=28452§ionid=351020101
Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:10:46
Australian Premier John Howard says his government is against a pre-emptive strike against Iran and will not support such moves.
Howard said the Australian government believed that the challenging issues regarding Iran should be dealt with diplomatically.
"We're not looking at pre-emptive strikes, we're not encouraging pre-emptive strikes, we're against them and we want diplomacy to continue," said Howard.
He added that Australia would not be supporting any military action against the Islamic Republic.
But Labor leader Kevin Rudd slammed the lack of firmness in Howard's position and criticized him over his remarks saying that he favored a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes.
US Vice President, Dick Cheney had earlier warned Iran of 'serious consequences', if the country does not abandon its nuclear program.
CS/JR/RE
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