Sunday, October 29, 2006  The Iranian Nuclear Crisis--Portland
OR October 29, 2006  The Iranian Nuclear Crisis  William O.
Beeman  Portland, Oregon  October 29, 2006  The United States
and Iran are moving laboriously toward confrontation—perhaps
military confrontation. John Bolton and Undersecretary of State
Nicholas Burns are working non-stop at the United Nations to try
and get international sanctions imposed on Iran. The latest
attempt is to get U.N. nations to prohibit Iranian students from
studying certain subjects, such as engineering, in member
nations.  Iran in turn has vigorously rejected any attempts to
limit its development of a full nuclear enrichment cycle. The
attempts on the part of the United Nations to impose trade or
other sanctions on Iran is leading to diplomatic difficulties as
Russia and China will likely oppose these measures.  An
examination of the U.S. position vis-à-vis Iran leads inevitably
to the conclusion that the nuclear issue is merely a pretext for
action against the Iranian g