Disinformation flies as US raises Iran bar
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
A new report on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is about to be released and US "pre-emptive" diplomacy, aimed at preventing an IAEA "clean bill of health" that could derail Washington's effort for a new round of UN sanctions on Iran, is at full throttle - with the timely help of disinformation.
Setting the bar unusually high, the US envoy at the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, has warned that unless Iran "confesses" about its "past work on weapons designs and weaponization and the role of the Iranian military", international efforts to resolve the nuclear standoff will be "doomed".
Washington's brand new benchmark comes in the wake of a spate of US media reports that the US has "shared new intelligence" with the IAEA that corroborates American allegations of past Iranian nuclear proliferation activities. According to the New York Times, the US decided to "turn over intelligence data" and allow the IAEA privileged access for "divulging confidential information" by reversing "longstanding refusal to show the data, citing the need to protect intelligence sources".
A widely published report by Associated Press cites diplomats as saying that the material forwarded to the IAEA over the past two weeks expands on previous information from the Americans...cont'd
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