illegal, pre-emptive military attack on Iran

CASMII Press Release

15 July 2008

On Monday July 14th Israel’s senior defence official, General Amos Gilad during an interview with BBC Radio four’s Today programme said that Israel is preparing itself to take military action against Iran and that it would do so if diplomacy fails. The statement came only a day after the Sunday Times revealed that “President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran”.

These threats are being made following reports of Israeli aerial military exercise in the first week of June which involved over 100 F-15 and F-16 fighters and was described by a senior Pentagon official as a dress rehearsal for a military strike on Iranian nuclear plants. In the same week, Shaol Mofaz, Israel’s deputy prime minister publicly stated that if Iran continues with its nuclear programme, Israel “will attack it”.

All of Iran’s nuclear plants are under Safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which after over five years of intrusive inspections has found no evidence of any diversion into a weaponisation programme. In mid June, Dr ElBaradei, the Agency’s Director General threatened to resign if there is any attack on Iran.

Israel’s threats against Iran are in gross violation of the UN Charter which clearly states in Article 2 that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

The Nuremberg Tribunal, which brought Nazi leaders to justice for their wars of aggression, confirmed that "War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

In relation to the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials who worked on the U.S. legal team and successfully convicted 22 Nazis, stated that "The United Nations charter has a provision which was formulated by and agreed to by the United States after World War II. It says that from now on, no nation can use armed force without the permission of the U.N. Security Council. They can use force in connection with self-defence, but a country can't use force in anticipation of self-defence.” Israel is neither under attack nor threat of immediate attack by Iran.

CASMII calls on all the international community, the UN, the US Congress, the EU, in particular the UK, France and Germany as well as Russia and China to condemn Israel’s threats of military action against Iran. We call on the US to enter into immediate, direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations with Iran on all points of dispute so that a catastrophic war and a major conflagration in the Middle East and beyond can be averted and the present stand-off can be resolved in a peaceful manner.

For more information or to contact CASMII visit //www.campaigniran.org

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