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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Treasury terror official plans Iran announcement |
| 2007-01-08 |
| U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey will make an announcement on Iran at a news conference on Tuesday, the Treasury said on Monday. A Treasury spokeswoman declined to provide further details about the announcement, scheduled for 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT), but the Bush administration has been ratcheting up pressure against Iran over its nuclear enrichment program. The scheduled news conference comes three after weeks the United Nations Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology in an effort to halt enrichment work that could be used to produce nuclear bombs. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons. As Treasury's point man for combating terrorist financing and money laundering, Levey has warned international banks in recent months to watch for flows of money from Iran to finance illicit activities such as terrorism or weapons proliferation. In September, Levey announced measures to cut off one of Iran's main state-owned banks from dealings with the U.S. financial system, accusing the Iranian government of using the bank to transfer money to terrorist organizations. He charged that the bank, with 3,400 branch offices, was transferring money to Hizbollah and Hamas as well as other groups including Palestinian Islamic Jihad. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #10 Actually Japan could still be number 2. They have been cutting drastically back on Iranian oil due to expectations of war. Still want to sink, Chinese, Indian and Japanese shipping? |
| Posted by: ed 2007-01-08 22:38 |
| #9 Do you recommend sinking Chinese ships, the same ones that bring consumer goods into the US? How about the second largest importer of Iranian oil and gas, the Indians? |
| Posted by: ed 2007-01-08 22:31 |
| #8 really, Ed? How would they do that? By shipping? Trains or roads through Pak or Afghanistan? Air? just how would that happen? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-01-08 22:26 |
| #7 Iran is immune to western sanctions. China is their largest trading partner and would gladly accept their entire oil exports. The Chinese would gladly sell Iranian consumers any goods they require. All sanctions do is delay war until the Iranians have a nice stockpile of nukes on top of their North Korean ballistic missiles. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-01-08 22:22 |
| #6 SW- I thought the same thing, more or less, after reading the Spengler article earlier today. |
| Posted by: eltoroverde 2007-01-08 22:00 |
| #5 "whatever could they be doing?" Lol! Deposing the Mullahs without bombing would be much then less fun than deposing them via bombing. Plus, Bush gets 30 days before he needs Congressional consent. If done right, a lot could be done in that time frame. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2007-01-08 21:52 |
| #4 Interesting how a plan comes together, huh? 1) Squeeze the Iranians financially. They have lots of money but there's all sorts of things we do can around the edges to make life uncomfortable. 2) Squeeze their oil industry. Financing for new projects and infrastructure, spare parts, maintenance (insha'llan!), key imports. We can meddle with all of that. 3) Squeeze them politically/ diplomatically. Harder to do with friends [cough] like the Euros, IAEA and UN, but we can make life harder for them. 4) Squeeze them in their internal public opinion. The Mad Mullahs™ aren't well loved, and we ought to be working that quietly, continuously. Expect setbacks, keep going forward. 5) Rattle the saber. Is that a carrier air battle group over there? No, it's two carrier air battle groups! Gorsh, whatever could they be doing? Bush could conceivably have his cake and eat it too -- depose the Mad Mullahs™ without bombing/invasion. Wouldn't that be sweet? |
| Posted by: Steve White 2007-01-08 20:34 |
| #3 Based on recent speculations, comments + articles on the Net zabout Radical Islam's links wid world Mafias or "Mafia-style" activities/orgs, dare to find the new "RFK vs MAFIA" which led to DALLAS = AMER HIROSHIMA(S) agz Dubya??? Iff the 12th Imam/Mahdi does NOT "appear" this Spring, Moud + Mullahs will likely suffer deep humiliation and ideo-political discreditment - Radical Iran must give up its support for Terror, OR ATTACK. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-01-08 20:28 |
| #2 Seems to have worked really well with Norks. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2007-01-08 20:08 |
| #1 :-) the Kim treatment. Expect seething |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-01-08 19:20 |