hello there (:

Iran has more than 25 nuclear sites and 500 Pakistani nuclear technicians are assisting the Iranians to surface the nuclear devices.Iran has the record of using torture to its citizens,while Isreal is democratic state and its rulers are being elected by the people and it is out of question that Isreal use a WMD against any human being while Iran won't hesitate to do so. To eleminate the Iranian nuke program it will be the effective step to cease an cap the Pakistani nuclear Program as the Pakistanis are the providing source to the Iranian nuclear program.

If the Middle Eastern inhabitants fear an Isreali nuke then how they feel safe having a nuclear power(Pakistan)on their eastern borders as they are fully aware that Pakistanis are assisting Iran with 500 nuclear technicians in its 25 nuclear sites starting from YAZD to NATANZ in Isfahaan.Isreal is the only state in middle East where the ruling heads are being elected by the people democratically and it is out of any debate that the people of Isreal which have/had been suffering hundreds and hundreds years by the Brutal Kings and NAZIS,will be having any such intentions to harm the HHMAN being using WMD,while the Iranians are not trusted at all as the Iranians are ANNIHILATING the people of occupied Balochistan and it sure will be a great threat to the regional countries and the world if it possesses the nuclear devices.To contain the Iranian nuclear program it is the best and effective step to cease and cap the PAKISTANI NUCLEAR institutions.

israeli intelligence is obviouesly severly biased and doctored and should never be trusted by the US;how can it ever be trusted when israel itself spies on the US? Remember Jonathan Pollard The Spy who is still rotting in US maxium security jails as we speak.

Thanks Rami for the clarity and honesty.

If israel,the racist apartheid jewish miltaristic theocracy which has terrorized the entire ME region with its wars and occupatin can own a nuclear arsenal,then Iran should unequivoaclly own a nuclear arsenal to bring peace and stability to the region;with its monoploy over nuclear weapons the apartheid theocracy will never accept peace and hence its chronic intransigence and aversion to peace-with a momopoly over US foreign policy in the ME and monopoly over nuclear weapons,israel has absoultely no incentive for peace.

The communist bloc-an absolute dictatorship- owned nuclear weapons but never used them because of MAD,the US,a democracy,used to them decimate hundreds of thousands of civilains in Japan;it's very likely that the jewish apartheid thecoracy with a siege mentality will be the first to use nuclear weapons-and the only way to stop it is for Iran and other Arab states to acquire nuclear umberalla to protect themselves from israeli aggression and occuaption.

israel is the prime existential threat to the Arab World-Iran is not.

I don't have a problem with Iran having nuclear power (weapons) as long as it is US policy that any nuclear attack or terrorist activity with nuclear material that can not absolutely be traced to another source be attributed to Iran and its "friends" and we turn the entire area into a a radioactive desert. We can live without the Middle east far easier than we can live with Islamic fundamentalists.

I don't have a problem with Iran having nuclear power (weapons) as long as it is US policy that any nuclear attack or terrorist activity with nuclear material that can not absolutely be traced to another source be attributed to Iran and its "friends" and we turn the entire area into a a radioactive desert. We can live without the Middle east far easier than we can live with Islamic fundamentalists.

Absolutely, Mr. Khouri. There is nothing threatening about allowing the doomsday cult that rules Iran free access to nuclear power.

And as far as the "intrusive monitoring systems" are concerned, can we try to be serious here? Iran has been repeatedly caught lying and hiding its nuclear weapons development programs, and I'm sure even you would not argue that its enrichment plant and its heavy water plant were built for "peaceful purposes". Iran can hide whatever it wants to hide from international monitors, and when it gets caught it continues on the WMD development path as if nothing happened. So what good are your "monitoring systems"?

The problem is not "counter-balance to the U.S. power". The problem is with one country openly and publicly threatening to destroy another and doing everything possible to acquire the means to do so. If you want to call that a "political problem", I guess you could.

And lastly, when you say "In contrast, many ordinary people in the Middle East do not fear such a regime as much as they do the U.S. and Israel, which they see as more serious threats", how do you know that? Have you taken a poll to find out how many people in the Middle East would be happy to live under the rule, or just the "hegemony", of a shiite theocracy holding absolute power?

Iraq under Saddam was a secular expansionist Arab power with crystal clear pretensions of becoming the dominant power in the region. With the fall of Saddam, the theocratic leadership of Iran is the bastard heir apparent of Saddam, aspiring like the latter, to be the dominant power not only of the region but of the whole Muslim world. And in the thinking of the mullahs, the acquisition of nuclear weapons, especially in defiance of all the major nations, including the U.S., is the penultimate step that will bring Iran to the "sultanic" power.

Khouri's "Israeli-American axis", is the only axis that can prevent this duplicitous and stealthy attempt of Iran to become, in the carapace of nuclear weapons, the theocratic leader of Muslims, blessed by the apocalyptic twelfth imam Mahdi.

An Israeli intelligence delegation is in Washington to enlighten the Bush administration regarding the blindness of the NIE. They are to lobby that Iran is a threat. Israel, cannot attack Iran in isolation, the alliance with US is key to current domination over a fractured Palestine. Condi Rice announces aid package for the area, but endorses the continuation of the current animal farm situation of 1.2 million surviving on the Strip.

Expect Bush to respond as he has for 7 years. We will win in Iraq, the oil flows again...and the next White House will have to deal with refugees from 1948 Palestine, present day Gaza, and the 6 plus million from Iraq.

History has shown that the trickle down affect from oil profits flows from a dam into a dried out riverbed, never reaching those who need or deserve it.

Do you really suggest that America and Israel drop their trash talk behaviour and act reasonably and respect the law? When did we have the first example of that, to have a repeat?

By the way, Ahmadinejad is going to Mecca for Hajj tomorrow, as a special invited guest of King Abdollah! Talk about Mubarak and the Jordanian King Abdollah, and their peace treaty with Israel, being marginalised!

Mr. Khouri's observations are correct, but for the lack of inclusion of Iran's ample hydrocarbon supplies as it applies to the USA desire for control.

One other point Mr. Khouri seems to have overlooked, that with respect to GLOBAL WARMING AT THIS TIME NUCLEAR POWER IS THE SOLUTION. Without doubt Iran has a legal right of peaceful nuclear development notwithstanding the UNSC resolutions. For the fault of the UNSC is that the same measures, as applied to Iran, were not applied to Israel, nor can they be applied to any other country which proposes to ease the CO2 production via nuclear energy. Biomass conversion to usable hydrocarban at this time restricted to production from food resources, a counterproductive measure as can be observed by the PRICE inflation in basic food products [milk, eggs, meat] and energy audits indicate at most trivial CO2 savings.

So let us settle for USA desire for HEGEMONY, a misplaced dream after the destructive economic, military and political forces as perpetrated by the Bush administration in the last 7 years.

I am convinced that a USA/Israel attack on Iran, and its forseen and unforseen consequences would immidiately result in the fall/destruction of the USA as a major economic power, with possible extinction of the ZIONIST Government of ISrael, though not of Israel herself.