Again, the blogs picked up on it first, with Pajamas Media and the American Thinker spotting an article out of Israel about the surreal ad placed by UN-sanctioned Iran in the International Herald Tribune, April 25, inviting bids to build “Two Large Scale Nuclear Reactors in Iran.”
The ad reads like something out of a Graham Greene novel, including phone numbers, an email address for a “Mr. Esmaeili,” and details of an Austrian bank account to which interested bidders are invited to transfer a 15,000 Euro fee to obtain bidding specifications for the reactors. Wondering if it was a spoof, I called the phone number, and was directed — I’m not making this up — to the office of Iran’s ambassador to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, no less, in Vienna. There, an aide was unable to provide much detail, but did confirm that yes, indeed, the ad was the real McCoy. Here’s my column about it in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer.
And here’s the saga of finding out from the IHT (owned by The New York Times) where, exactly, the ad had run. On Wedneday, I phoned the International Herald Tribune head office in Paris, where a spokesman said he had no knowledge of the ad, and directed me to the IHT’s London office. There, a press officer told me he was unaware of the IHT running any such ad. He suggested it might have been carried by the English-Language edition of an Israeli-newspaper, Ha’aretz which is distributed together with the IHT out of Tel Aviv. So, I phoned Ha’aretz, and spoke with a helpful night editor, who said the ad had come with the rest of the IHT content transmitted from Paris, and had not originated with Ha’aretz.
So, I sent an email back to the IHT press officer in London, who on Thursday, contrary to the IHT statements of the previous day, confirmed to me that not only had the ad run in the IHT in Israel, but it had run in all IHT editions worldwide, which reach more than 240,000 readers in more than 180 countries. Another press officer then provided a statement in which the IHT defended its decision to run the ad on grounds that “We believe that advertising should be as free and open as the dictates of honesty and decency allow,” and “In our view, advertising is an essential ingredient in the broad concept of a free press.” Today’s Jerusalem Post has more on this view.
Further note: To double-check on exactly when and where the ad had run, I rang a friend in Paris, who happened to have a back copy for April 25, dug it up, and found the ad in the Marketplace section, on page 14. Which left me with the following vision, to borrow a line from my column, linked above:
In the street cafes of Paris and New York, people open their newspapers and over their morning coffee browse past this astounding solicitation – one of the signposts along a road leading toward horrors that could dwarf Sept. 11.
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3 Comments
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May 5, 2007 - 9:16 pm 2. Rod Adams:Claudia:
Why have you linked what seems to be a legitimate commercial solicitation for two large scale, conventional nuclear power plants with an assumed weapons program?
If the solicitation is as open and above board as it seems, it provides even more credence to Iran’s stated intention to build up its nuclear energy program, not a bomb program.
If Iran were to build and operate the two large nuclear plants – and the others that it has stated it intends to build – its enrichment program would be hard pressed to keep up with the demand for fueling those reactors. There would be no spare capacity to divert to other uses. If it has enrichment and no reactors – that is far more cause for concern.
Iran is a large country that has a population of more than 70 million people. More than half of those people are under the age of 25, and many of them are aggressively developing interests in western lifestyles. Those people are rapidly increasing their energy consumption.
Though Iran does have some oil and gas reserves, they know they are not infinite. If they do not develop some other indigenous power sources, they will be net importers within 15 years if current trends continue. That is not a sustainable choice for their economy – it cannot survive without massive changes from dependency on oil and gas revenues.
I think there is a lot more logic on the part of Iran than on the part of the US in this matter, even though I acknowledge that the current elected leaders in Iran are not very nice people.
Many “friends” of the US have long standing animosity towards Iran – and I am not talking about Israel only. Saudi Arabia has been a commercial and political rival of Iran since it was called Persia.
It is in the commercial interest of the Saudis to try to suppress Iran’s energy production capability – perhaps the ruling family’s personal and long lasting friendship with the Bush family is a contributing reason that the president is so adamant about doing something about Iran when he ignores many other similarly led countries.
May 6, 2007 - 5:38 am 3. OmegaPaladin:Nice reporting, Ms. Rosett.
Mr. Adams – As a fan of the Atomic Show, I find it disheartening to hear that you are once again making the case for the mullahs having nuclear energy. You are right to say that Iran has valid reasons for wanting a nuclear energy program. However, Iran lacks sufficient domestic uranium reserves to go it alone, and turned down an offer of Russian pre-enriched fuel. They do have enough for some bombs, though. That’s without considering the crazy rhetoric they keep on chanting. Israel is a one bomb state? The Holocaust never happened? This is beyond “not being nice”, this is salivating at the chance to kill Jews.
Do you realize what kind of negative impact on the nuclear power industry a nation successfully transitioning from civilian to military would be? Now think for a moment that they actually use nuclear weaponry on Israel in a mad attempt to bring about the apocalypse. Aside from the massive human tragedy, the nuclear industry is going to get hit with the worst stigma since Chernobyl. (The Greens would love it – nuclear power and Israel gone in one swoop!)
I’m all for nuclear expansion, but let’s actually be realistic here.
May 6, 2007 - 10:15 pm