‘The way in which the growing confrontation with Iran is being sold by the US, Israel and West European leaders is deeply dishonest. The manipulation of the media and public opinion through systematic threat exaggeration is similar to the drum beat of propaganda and disinformation about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction that preceded the invasion in 2003.

The supposed aim of imposing sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and central bank, measures officially joined by the EU, is to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program before it reaches the point where it could theoretically build a nuclear bomb. Even Israel now agrees that Iran has not yet decided to do so, but the Iranian nuclear program is still being presented as a danger to Israel and the rest of the world.’

Read more: American & Israeli Propaganda: The Ongoing War on Iran

The European Union (EU) embargo on oil imports from Iran may push world oil prices to $150 per barrel, the head of Iran’s state oil company has said.
“It seems that we will witness prices from $120 to $150 in the future,” Ahmad Qalehbani, head of the National Iranian Oil Company, said in an interview with IRNA news agency Sunday.

I assume Mr. Qalehbani intended this to sow terror in the hearts of consumers across the western world. And maybe it should, because that’s generally what’s happened in the past when similar threats were made. But all I could think when I read it was, “so what?”

So what, because how long have oil-rich Arab states been making these threats? I was around for the big oil shock in the 1970s, which really was a shock, and forced immense changes in the way westerners went about their lives. But since then the price of oil has risen and plunged, risen and plunged, to the point that few people ever think of oil and stability in the same thought bubble anyway.

In 1972 the annual average price was $3.60, or  $21.52 in today’s money, allowing for inflation. In 1980 it was $37.42, or $102.61 in today’s money. It fell back as low as to $11.91 ($16.50) before starting 12 years of almost uninterrupted growth, to about $87.04. (Remember, these are annual averages, so there have been peaks and valleys well above and below those figures).

There is always a great outcry when the price goes too high, then it falls again and we all forget it happened, and go back to buying SUVs. Since that first great shock, the uncertainty has been so constant that it’s become the norm. Anyone who buys a car without calculating where gas prices may go over the life of the vehicle is under-utilizing their brain cells. Plenty of people can be found spending $100 every time the coast into a gas station, and shrugging it off. It may be that, from years of practice, we’ve developed the ability to adapt to a far greater degree than the crazy people in Tehran appreciate.

It is also worth pointing out that, for all the increase in oil prices over the years, the vehicles people buy are as big as they’ve ever been, and economies seem to chug along. The U.S. auto business didn’t come close to collapse a few years ago because of oil prices, but through years of inept management and poor products. The economic downturn that started three years ago had nothing to do with oil and everything to do with stupidity in government and blind greed across two continents.

So the Iranians can threaten all they want. I suspect if they barricade the Strait of Hormuz and shut off oil exports, there would be far more damage to the decrepit, tottering, unpopular regime in Tehran than there would be to the rest of us. The impact on the West might be significant, but we’d manage. The mullahs, cut off from their main source of income, might not.

National Post

Instead of intensifying relations with Iran, perhaps the U.S. could focus its attention on more pressing foreign policy issues, like withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Many U.S. public officials – mainly Republican – have attacked Obama for being too soft on Iran. If we wait too long, they say, Iran may obtain nuclear weapons, which would threaten the U.S.’s closest allies, namely Israel, and its most precious interests in the region.

The U.S. should keep in mind however that nations like Israel, Pakistan, India, China & Russia flaunt their own lavish assortment of nuclear weapons, ones they’ve been harboring for years.

What is rather odd is that a nuclear-armed Pakistan seems much more threatening to international security than a nuclear Iran, considering the fact that most terrorists are trained in Pakistan.

But for Iran, a nuclear Israel is the real threat.

According to recent news in the Gulf, Iran is threatening to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, a major trade route in the Persian Gulf.

Recently, a U.S. aircraft carrier made its way into the Strait in response to threats by Iran to initiate the blockade.

According to an article by Farhad Pouladi from the AFP international news agency,  the Iranian government is ‘unconcerned’ about an oil ban implemented by the EU (link here: Iran ‘unconcerned’ about imminent EU oil ban).

According to an article by Reuters, economic sanctions on Iran have had adverse effects on the well being of the people. The price of staple foods has increased by 40% in recent months.

The idea is – I assume – that the Iranian people will grow so intolerant of their government that they will rise against it, but is that necessarily going to happen? Currently, the average Iranian is suffering, and the Iranian government is only growing more ‘bellicose’.

Furthermore, an oil embargo may further weaken the European economy as it struggles to dig itself out of a horrible economic crisis. Can the EU handle any more weight?

Ultimately, the question is whether the Iranian people are supportive of their government – or at least its position on the West – or not.

There is a chance that the Iranian people will rally around their government, and at a time when the West is trying to cripple the Iranian state, the prospect of a unified nation isn’t exactly a work in progress.

3 January 2012--the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has ordered US warships out of the Strait of Hormuz, where nearly one-fourth of the global petroleum shipments pass every day. The US is maneuvering to cutoff Iranian exports while ensuring ongoing oil exports of neighboring countries. The EU says it will join the call for US sanctions on Iran, by the end of the month

by Larry Everest, Revolution

The danger of a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is escalating rapidly. The U.S. and its allies are ramping up their all-around assault on Iran, including new crippling sanctions, and openly threatening to attack. Ground is being laid daily in the headlines and statements by politicians of every stripe in mainstream U.S. politics calling for aggression against Iran—all justified by unsubstantiated assertions that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

Whether or not Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons technology (and there is no proof they are), this U.S. imperialist narrative and framework is an outrageous effort to turn reality upside down—the reality of which of the clashing oppressive forces in the region is the dominant threatening oppressor and bully.

Iran is a non-nuclear, Third World country. The U.S. is the world’s most powerful nuclear weapons state—with over 4,000 warheads.  It’s the only country to ever use nuclear weapons, killing 150,000-240,000 people in the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan (with many more dying of the effects of radiation for years after). It’s the main backer of the one country in the Middle East that actually does have nuclear weapons—Israel.

Now the U.S. and its allies have launched a massive, all-around campaign of aggression against Iran in the name of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. These weapons are horrible, and they should be banished from the earth. If the U.S. rulers were really against these tools of mass murder they’d insist everyone get rid of them—but they’re not. They and their media mouthpieces aren’t saying word one about getting rid of their nukes, or Israel’s nukes, or Britain or France’s nukes.

Instead, the U.S. and its allies are threatening war over the possibility that Iran could get a bomb, a war that would be terrible for the people of the world. In a 2006 statement, Kurt Gottfried, Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University, said: “The [Bush] administration is reportedly considering using the B51-11 nuclear ‘bunker buster’ against an underground facility near Natanz, Iran. The use of such a weapon would create massive clouds of radioactive fallout that could spread far from the site of the attack, including to other nations. Even if used in remote, lightly populated areas, the number of casualties could range up to more than a hundred thousand, depending on the weapon yield and weather conditions.” And any attack by the U.S. and Israel on Iran would be military aggression to preserve their military dominance—including their nuclear monopoly—in the Middle East. There is absolutely no justice in anything the U.S. is doing in pursuit of this criminal goal.

• • •

The last half of December saw a sharp spike in the U.S.-led assault on Iran’s Islamic Republic. On December 31, President Obama signed a defense authorization bill that included by far the harshest sanctions the U.S. and its allies have yet imposed on Iran. These new sanctions target Iran’s oil exports (which account for well over half of government revenues) for the first time, as well as its financial sector. (One provision calls for punishing foreign firms and banks which purchase Iranian oil, including through its central bank.)

In late December, with these new sanctions looming, Iran staged large-scale naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf and the commander of Iran’s naval forces declared, “Closing the Strait of Hormuz [the narrow chokepoint at the mouth of the Gulf through which one-fifth of the oil traded on the world market flows] is very easy for Iranian naval forces.” The U.S. Fifth Fleet, stationed in Bahrain (directly across the Persian Gulf from southern Iran), immediately warned that “any disruption” to shipments through the Gulf “will not be tolerated,” adding that “The U.S. Navy is a flexible, multi-capable force … always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation.”

This latest U.S. saber-rattling comes after several months of escalating actions and rhetoric directed against Iran, including open threats of war.

In early November, 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were reportedly actively “trying to muster a majority in the cabinet in favor of military action against Iran.” A few days later, Israeli President Shimon Peres warned that such an attack was becoming increasingly likely. (“Netanyahu trying to persuade cabinet to support attack on Iran,” Haaretz, November 2, 2011)

On November 8, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an imperialist-controlled international body monitoring nuclear activities, issued a new report on Iran, claiming that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.” The U.S., Israel, Britain and France, seized on the report to call for more diplomatic, political, and economic aggression against Iran—while explicitly leaving the military option “on the table.”

A few days later, on November 12, massive explosions rocked a base near Tehran where Iran’s ballistic missiles were being developed. Seventeen people were killed, including a top ranking Iranian military official. This follows the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities by the Stuxnet computer worm earlier this year, as part of what Roger Cohen of the New York Times called almost certainly a “covert American‑Israeli drive to sabotage Iran’s efforts to develop a military nuclear capacity.” Cohen concludes, “An intense, well-funded cyberwar against Tehran is ongoing.” (“Doctrine of Silence,” November 28, 2011)

On November 21, the U.S., Britain and Canada imposed new, more punishing sanctions against Iran’s central and commercial banks, with the U.S. also announcing sanctions against Iran’s nuclear and petrochemical industries. These moves are aimed at cutting Iran off from the international banking and financial system and crippling its economy.

A week later, on November 29, pro-regime Iranian protesters stormed Britain’s embassy in Tehran in retaliation, prompting Britain to formally break diplomatic relations and close down Iran’s embassy in London. On December 1, 2011, the U.S. Senate and the European Union also passed new sanctions against Iran.

The early December downing of a U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel surveillance drone in eastern Iran, 140 miles from the Afghan border, possibly due to an Iranian electronic counter‑measure against the drone flights, sparked a flurry of speculation in the U.S. media over whether Iran—or Russia and China which have ties to Iran—could gain any military advantage from studying the near-intact drone. The blatantly aggressive and illegal nature of this violation of Iranian sovereignty and airspace, and how drones could be part of any military attack on Iran, was pointedly not part of imperialist press discussion. Iran rebuffed President Obama’s request to return the unmanned aircraft, and warned Afghanistan not to permit further U.S. drone flights over its territory. “Until this week, the high-altitude flights from bases in Afghanistan were among the most secret of many intelligence-collection efforts against Iran,” the New York Times (December 7, 2011) reported, “part of an increasingly aggressive intelligence collection program aimed at Iran.”

“[A]cross the region the largely hidden ‘cold war’ between Tehran and its enemies is escalating fast, bringing with it wider risk of conflict,” reports Lebanon’s Daily Star. “From proxy wars in Iraq and Syria to computer worm attacks and unexplained explosions in Iran—to allegations of an assassination plot in Washington—a confrontation once kept behind the scenes is breaking into increasingly open view.” (“New cold war with Iran heats up Middle East, raises risk of conflict,” December 6, 2011)

The Imperialists’ Real Nuclear Concern: Preserving Their Unchallenged Military Superiority

The U.S.-European-Israeli charge that Iran is trying to obtain nuclear weapons, which could then plunge the region into a nuclear conflagration, has been the central justification for imperialist aggression against Iran. When the IAEA report was released, the U.S. media called it “definitive” proof of these claims.

But on closer inspection, the report contained no such proof. Instead it was largely a rehash of unproven suspicions and allegations along with “evidence” refuted years earlier. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh concluded that the IAEA report was a “political document,” not an objective report, and that “no evidence” has been produced “of a facility to build the Bomb.” (“Iran and the I.A.E.A.,” New Yorker, November 18, 2011; see also, “New Threats of U.S.-Israeli Aggression Against Iran,” Revolution #251, November 27, 2011)

Why are the U.S. and its allies stepping up their attacks even if there’s no conclusive proof Iran is attempting to build nuclear weapons? Because the core issue has never been whether or not Iran is actually trying to build a nuclear weapon. The U.S. and Israel’s real concern has always been that even if Iran gained the technological know-how for a nuclear weapons program or was seen to have crossed that “threshold”—it would undermine the perception of unchallengeable U.S.-Israel military regional supremacy, thus strengthening Iranian influence and undercutting U.S. imperialist dominance. (This is also the central U.S.-Israeli concern should Iran obtain nuclear weapons.)

From that logic, the logic of a big time gangster worried about a small time gangster infringing on his turf, even allowing Iran to continue its nuclear power program is seen as dangerous.

The failure, to date, of the U.S.-European-Israeli covert war and international pressure to force the Islamic Republic of Iran to halt its nuclear program, or to weaken its grip on power, along with Iran’s reported progress in mastering aspects of nuclear technology, is helping drive the escalation of tension and increasing the chances that the imperialists will turn to more extreme measures, possibly including war. (See, “Clock Ticking for West to Act on Iranian Nuclear Program,” New York Times, December 29, 2011 for imperialist claims and concerns about Iran’s technical advances.)

A Battle for Regional Dominance on Rapidly Shifting Terrain

The nuclear issue, however, is not the underlying factor intensifying the U.S.-Iran clash. That conflict is part of something much larger: a sharpening battle for dominant influence across the entire region, a battle with profound global implications.

The U.S. full-court press against it isn’t aimed at ridding the region of nuclear weapons (if so, they’d demand Israel dismantle its 150 plus nuclear warheads), or liberating the people. The U.S. rulers are going after the Iranian regime because it’s become a major impediment to their continued hegemony over the Middle East. And for over 60 years, control of this region has been a central pillar of their global power and the functioning of world capitalism. As the reactionary Weekly Standard put it, the U.S. rulers have viewed “a favorable balance of power in the greater Middle East as key to a favorable international order.” (“Iran’s Clock Ticking,” December 19, 2011)

But what is that U.S.-dominated “international order”? It is an imperialist system that has caused unimaginable and ongoing suffering and violence, including in the Middle East. To cite but one of many examples, according to a 2006 survey published in the British medical journal Lancet, the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq caused more than 650,000 “excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war” up to that point. It also led to over 4.7 million Iraqis fleeing as refugees either inside or outside their country. (See “U.S. Threatens Another War: Who Is the REAL Aggressor in the Middle East?” Revolution #253, December 18, 2011.)

Regional confrontations, escalating fast, becoming harder to control

The Iranian regime has never sought to fully break out of the framework of global capitalism-imperialism, but rather to increase Iran’s leverage and reach within that framework, which is linked to preserving their oppressive rule over the Iranian people. In that context, Iran’s rulers have their own needs and ambitions, including extending their influence across the Middle East and beyond.

Scan the regional map and you’ll find a complex, sometimes behind-the-scenes, battle pitting the U.S., a global imperialist superpower which has strangled the region’s peoples for decades, against Iran and its allies. This conflict—which is evident in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and the Persian Gulf—has grown much sharper over the past year as uprisings throughout North Africa and the Middle East, clashes between Iranian-aligned and U.S.-backed forces, and big power interventions shake up the regional political order.

In some instances, the U.S. seems to be maintaining its hold, even gaining ground. Its key ally, Saudi Arabia, intervened in Bahrain to suppress an uprising and shore up the solidly pro-U.S. regime there. The U.S. and its allies succeeded in toppling the Qaddafi regime in Libya and seem to have strengthened their hand there. The solidly pro-U.S. army remains the dominant factor in the Egyptian regime. And in Syria, the U.S. is increasingly supporting the uprising against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, a key Iranian ally. One U.S. analyst states, “changing Syria’s orientation away from Iran would be a major coup from America’s perspective.” (“Why Iran might be worried by Hillary Clinton’s meeting with Syria exiles,” Christian Science Monitor, December 6, 2011)

In other instances, Iranian aligned forces seem to be gaining ground. Iran greatly strengthened its position in Iraq in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Now, the U.S. rulers are extremely concerned that the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq will further increase Iranian influence. “[T]he U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will create a power vacuum that the Iranians are eager to exploit,” the imperialist think tank STRATFOR notes. “The potential for Iran to control a sphere of influence from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean is a prospect that not only frightens regional players such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey but also raises serious concerns in the United States … [which is] seeking to curb Iran’s sphere of influence by working to overthrow the Syrian regime, limit Iran’s influence in Iraq and control Hezbollah in Lebanon. (“The Covert Intelligence War Against Iran,” STRATFOR Global Intelligence, December 8, 2011)

Iran and U.S. ally Saudi Arabia are fighting “an intricate cold war” across the region, “competing for dominance in global energy markets and nuclear technology and for political influence in the Persian Gulf and the Levant. … The Iranian-Saudi rivalry has also expanded beyond Iraq and into the greater Middle East, especially in the wake of the Arab Spring.” Advances by one bring aggressive counter moves by the other. “A proxy Saudi-Iranian war in Iraq represents a very considerable threat to oil supplies,” the Daily Star reports. “Many such confrontations across the region appear escalating fast—and becoming much harder for Washington and its allies to control.” (Mohsen M. Milani, “Iran and Saudi Arabia Square Off: The Growing Rivalry Between Tehran and Riyadh,” Foreign Affairs, October 11, 2011; Daily Star, December 6, 2011)

Regional changes have the potential to threaten Israeli interests, including fueling mass protest and rebellion against Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, creating further international support for the Palestinians, and contributing to the strength of Islamist forces (for instance in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya).

In an article that cites and draws on a number of recent statements by key figures in the Iranian, U.S., and Israeli ruling classes, British journalist Patrick Seale writes, “The danger is that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may now seek to break out of Israel’s current political isolation by mounting a spectacular attack on Iran.” (“Will Israel Bomb Iran?” Agence Global, October 11, 2011)

A U.S./Israel Attack on Iran Would Be a Huge Crime

Efforts by the U.S. imperialists to contain, weaken, even overthrow Iran’s current regime have been underway since well before President George W. Bush launched the “war on terror” after the attacks of September 11, 2001 which escalated the U.S. campaign against Iran. War on Iran has been debated at the highest levels of the U.S. government. So far, the U.S., Israel and their allies have calculated that the outcome of such a war would be very uncertain. It may neither topple the Islamic Republic, nor stop its nuclear program, while possibly triggering regional upheaval on a level the imperialists could not control. But these difficulties do not change the U.S. and Israel’s need to confront Iran, so they’ve worked to cripple it through sanctions, diplomacy, and covert operations.

That the U.S., its allies, and Israel routinely carry out such aggression short of all-out war is outrageous and calls for much more visible opposition inside this country. And more, the fact that previous threats to attack Iran have not come to pass should not lull people into a false sense that the U.S. and Israel are just bluffing or using these threats merely to strengthen sanctions and diplomacy. Nor should the fact that Barack Obama not George W. Bush is commander-in-chief of the empire, and that the U.S. is drawing down from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The trajectory toward confrontation between the U.S. and Iran has not only continued, it has become more intense. Sanctions, diplomacy and covert actions can lay the groundwork, including in public opinion, for war. And Iran’s ongoing nuclear program, the U.S.’s inability to achieve its objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan, the upheaval across the Middle East, and the sharpening of different contradictions globally, are all increasing the necessity facing the imperialists to avoid another setback and to maintain their hold on the Middle East. So circumstances can shift the U.S. and Israel’s calculus of the risks and benefits of war.

And wars, including “covert wars,” have a logic of their own, and things can get out of control. There are many flashpoints between the U.S.-Israel and Iran, and clashes, even accidental clashes, can quickly escalate in a spiral of action and counter-action.

Stepped-up intervention against Iran, no matter how the U.S., Israel, and the United Nations attempt to justify it, is criminal aggression in the service of continued imperialist control of the planet. Anyone who wants to see an alternative to the “choices” between U.S. imperialist domination and aggression, and the reactionary forces represented by the Iranian rulers, must confront and act on the reality that support for, or passive complicity in the face of a U.S./Israel attack on Iran would strengthen both sides of this unacceptable paradigm. And, on the other hand, resistance to U.S./Israeli aggression could be part of bringing forward a radical alternative to both imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism on a global scale.

Any military attack or war on Iran would be a huge crime that would likely result in many, many killed and wounded along with enormous devastation. People, especially in the U.S., have to say—loudly, clearly, and actively—NO!

———————————————

http://revcom.us/a/255/danger-of-war-grows-en.html

A large number of protesters storm a security gate at the British Embassy in Tehran (Picture: Getty)

Flags were burnt, windows were smashed and cars were torched in the violent attacks at two diplomatic compounds in the city in a protest against the UK.

The UK ordered the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy in London in response to attacks on the British mission in Tehran, William Hague told the Commons.

In a statement to the Commons, he said it was ‘fanciful’ to think that the attacks could have taken place ‘without some degree of regime consent’.

Prime minister David Cameron condemned the breach of international law and branded the Iranian government a ‘disgrace’ for not doing enough to protect British staff in the country.

A Foreign Office spokesman has today confirmed embassy staff will be leaving Tehran, although he refused to confirm exact numbers.

Diplomatic police secure the area as a royal portrait lies strewn against a wall (Picture: Getty)

‘In light of yesterday’s events and to ensure the ongoing safety, some staff are leaving Tehran.

‘We do not comment on our contingency plans and we will make any announcement about our embassy and staff at the appropriate time,’ he said, adding the ‘immediate priority’ of the government is to ensure the safety of staff and their families.

All staff at the embassy were accounted for following the attacks, although properties experienced ‘extensive damage’, Mr Cameron said.

Protestors were seen cheering while the Union Jack and the flag of Israel were burning in the street, while mobs chanted ‘death to England’ as they threw stones and petrol bombs.

One group was also pictured carrying away the royal coat of arms from the diplomatic compound, which is protected from attack under the Vienna Convention.

PICTURES: See more photos of the attack on the British Embassy

Hardliners: The national flags of Britain and Israel are burnt by protesters outside the British embassy (Picture: FarsNews/Getty)

The foreign secretary said staff were put at risk and ‘extensive damage’ was caused when hundreds of protesters surged on two compounds in the capital.

He said all diplomatic staff had now been accounted for but played down ‘confusing’ reports of hostages being taken.

Iran had ‘committed a grave breach’ of the Vienna Convention, which demands protection of diplomats and diplomatic premises, said Mr Hague.

He added: ‘We hold the Iranian government responsible for its failure to take adequate measures to protect our embassy as it is required to do.’

He called the Iranian foreign minister to demand ‘immediate steps’ to ensure the safety of embassy staff and said he had received an apology.

Tuesday’s attack involved hard-line students who tore down the Union Flag, burned an embassy vehicle and threw documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the seizing of the US compound in 1979.

Mob: Protesters carry the royal coat of arms after storming the British Embassy in Tehran (Picture: FarsNews/Getty)

The mob surged past riot police to throw petrol bombs and stones while chanting ‘death to England’. They also tore down a picture of the Queen.

About 300 protesters also entered the British ambassador’s residence in the north of the city and replaced British flags with Iranian ones, state media said.

Violence erupted two days after Iran decided to downgrade diplomatic relations with Britain over its support of tough new sanctions over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme.

Pictures: Check out more pictures from the demonstration here

Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak has warned of a potential attack on Iran (Picture: AP)

Despite the regime’s claim that it has no ambitions to build a nuclear arsenal, a leaked report insisted secret experiments were being carried out.

Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak warned his country could launch a military strike against Iran. ‘We continue to recommend to our friends in the world and to ourselves not to take any option off the table,’ he said.

But the revelations were criticised by Russia, which last night  complained the report could ‘harm any chance of productive talks’ with the Iranian government.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran was suspected of carrying out tests with the sole purpose of developing atomic weapons.

They are ‘relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device’, it stated.

Iran also designed nuclear bombs and conducted testing in 2008 and 2009 – which was highlighted as of particular concern.

The report also mentions ‘the acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network’.

The Russian foreign ministry said: ‘We have serious doubts about the justification for steps to reveal contents of the report to a broad public.’

Iran’s official IRNA news agency dismissed the IAEA report saying it contained ‘worthless comments and pictures’.

It said it ‘repeats the past claims by the US and the Zionist regime’.

Similarly, a few months ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how youths in Iran used Facebook to spread the message about a day of fun at a water park for both men and women. Upon learning of this event the Iranian Government became concerned that this type of openly public interaction between males and females would lead to a rebellion, and instructed police to raid the water park and arrest the organizers. In the aftermath of this incident the youths involved responded to the government’s harsh actions by encouraging everyone to go to toy stores all of the country in order to buy water guns as a symbol of solidarity. Additionally, once again via Facebook, youth organizers set up a “Water War” day as an act of open defiance against the government which they believe has continually tried to repress their civil rights.

Technology and social media in recent years have become a uniting and driving force behind the ability for people to spread the word quickly and mobilize. On Change.org people can literally start a petition and begin rounding up support in minutes, which is an idea that blows my mind even though I have grown up in the technology age. Certainly, for a long time, sit-ins, hunger strikes, door to door petitioning and rallies were affective ways to garner support and push for change, and are all still tools that people all over the world effectively employ to fight injustice today; however our world has changed since the 1960’s and is continuing to progress at an unbelievable rate with people constantly finding new ways to speak out.

While young people aren’t the only ones who are starting these petitions and pushing for reform, in recent years it seems as though my generation has taken more ownership of our world and begun to more freely voice our opinions about what we would like to see changed. In my opinion the record number of young people who turned out, on both sides of the aisle, to vote in the last election jump started this shift since in order to vote in the election we needed to know at least a little about the issues. Furthermore, once we learned a little about the issues most of us were intuitively drawn to find out a little more, which before long led to a better informed and politically active generation.

I have always been interested in politics, and grew up with parents who made it a point to stay current with what was happening in Washington; however I didn’t really come into my own regarding my opinions on politics and our society until the primaries for the 2008 election. It was during that time, while I was living in New Mexico, when my parents encouraged me to watch Keith Olbermann on MSNBC when I got home from work and really think about which candidate’s ideas, policies and opinions resonated with me the most. From that point on I have fervently followed politics, and enjoy discussing it even when the conversation is with someone who doesn’t share my views.

After it was announced recently that the big banks would not be charging people to use their debit cards I was discussing with my mom the importance of not only the banks rescinding the proposed charge, but also how they had made that decision. Certainly it is unfortunate that the banks tried to impose such a selfish and shortsighted fee in the first place; however as a society we can’t always depend on every citizen, and therefore every organization, to do the right thing at first. In the end I believe that we all have the power to help our society change, therefore when a group, such as the big banks, makes a decision that negatively affects us the last thing that we should do is sit around and complain about how we are the victims of injustice because, as Molly Katchpole proved, one person, with one idea, who starts one petition, can lead to a major change.

Place your bets.

A screenwriter friend says the U.S. Department of Justice is lucky all it has to do is prosecute people. They would find making movies an uphill struggle. Just about any story can get a person indicted, but it takes a smashing yarn to get people into a movie theatre.

No screenwriter could say, as Attorney-General Eric Holder did last month at his press conference, that well, folks, what we have here is — and I quote — “a deadly plot by factions of the Iranian government to assassinate a foreign Ambassador on U.S. soil with explosives.”

“You mean, it wouldn’t fly?” I ask.

“It would fly right out the window of the studio executive’s office, in close formation with whoever came up with it,” he answers.

If the government had to make movies, it would have to come up with plausible plots. Studio executives are fussy about plausibility, unlike grand juries. Movies cost millions, and Hollywood needs convincing before it will greenlight a script.

Iranians are smart. If they weren’t smart, we wouldn’t have to worry about them building bombs. Do smart people come up with stupid plots? Not plausible. And look at the amateur pitch. Here’s a story that not only sounds like a B-movie, but is unveiled at a press conference that looks like a poster for a low-budget diversity flick: An African-American Attorney-General (Holder) flanked by a male Caucasian FBI Director (Robert S. Mueller) and a female Caucasian Assistant Attorney-General for National Security (Lisa Monaco) with a male Asian-American U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (Preet Bharara) hovering in the background. It’s early Hollywood multicultural chic. All that’s missing is the line “Coming to a theatre near you.”

This amuses the intelligence analyst. “The trouble with Hollywood-types,” he says, “is that they’ve manipulated reality for so long, they can’t even recognize it when they see it. Does your friend think Holder and Mueller and Monaco and Bharara are from Central Casting? Hello! They are who they are. Life has caught up with multicultural chic. It imitates art — or at least imitates Hollywood.”

My spook friend goes further. “Yes, it’s a stupid plot and that’s why it rings true to me,” he says. “Most true stories of international intrigue sound like B-movies.”

“Maybe you know something I don’t know,” I say to him.

“I know a lot of things you don’t know,” he replies. “But not about this thing. About this, I know only what’s in the papers. I agree that an alleged Iranian plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador in America is implausible, and that’s why I think it’s

probably true.

My friend is a wise old spook who did some remarkable things in his day. Though long retired, he hasn’t lost any of his edge. “Let me get this straight,” I say to him. “You believe this story because it’s unbelievable?”

“Please resist the temptation,” he says, “to put words in my mouth. What I believe is that the U.S. Attorney-General has some evidentiary basis for believing that Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old dual citizen of the U.S. and Iran, and his partner, an Iran-based member of Iran’s Qods Force, Gholam Shakuri, believed they were conspiring with Mexican drug dealers to blow up the Saudi Ambassador in the U.S. at the behest of some faction in Iran’s government. Okay? I don’t believe this story because it’s implausible; it just doesn’t bother me that it is. Other stories of espionage and clandestine warfare, stories that I know to be true, are just as far-fetched.

“Believability is a test for fiction. True stories are often unbelievable. A movie studio might reject them.

Life doesn’t.”

“This sounds like something Mark Twain might have said, except for the bit about movie studios,” I say suspiciously.

“Well, Twain didn’t,” is my spook’s triumphant answer. “Twain said: ‘Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.’ ”

Alfred Hitchcock’s hit movie Topaz was based on “Sapphire,” a spy-ring set up in 1946 after the Soviets had turned Georges Pâques, the French attaché to NATO, into a KGB asset. They say Hitchcock used to talk about how he had to change the story, because if told as it really happened, nobody would have believed it. And who, my spook wanted to know, would credit the true tale of social climbing George Blake, whose frustrated love affair with Iris Peake, later Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, led him into the arms of the Russians as a revenge on the British establishment in 1948, after finding employment with the British spy agency, MI6? The result, among other outrages, was the infamous betrayal of the MI6-CIA communication tunnel in 1955 to the KGB in Berlin. And so on.

There’s only one implausible thing in the world, according to my spook. Life. If a thing is implausible, bring it on. Chances are, it really happened.

National Post

News of a thwarted Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States is still on the front pages. Yet already, some public officials and pundits are trying to suggest that the scheme actually is the work of “rogue elements” within the Iranian regime, whose aim, apparently, is to undermine Tehran’s “moderates.”

U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder blamed “factions in the Iran government.” Two Indiana University scholars, Jamsheed and Carol Choksy, wrote on CNN.com that “those fundamentalist members of the Iranian government who have long sought to blow up any possibility for the normalization of relations between Tehran and Washington may just have succeeded.” In Britain, The Guardian’s Julian Borger wrote: “It appears very unlikely that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would approve such a brazen plot with such unpredictable consequences.” Mark Hosenball and Tabassum Zakaria at Reuters quoted an anonymous government official to the effect that “the United States does not have solid information about ‘exactly how high it goes.’ ”

[np-related]

Much of this speculation originates from a desire to believe that Iran can still be an interlocutor for the West — a hope that would be impossible to sustain if one accepts that the regime itself, and not some deviant faction, was behind a plot to blow up a Saudi ambassador dining in a crowded Washington restaurant.

Many Western leaders and analysts still believe that were it not for the sinister machinations of extremists inside the regime, reconciliation would be within reach.

The truth is very different: When Iranian agents and proxies murder and maim, it is because their rulers ordered them to do so, not because one faction is backstabbing another. Iran is not a medieval patchwork of fiefdoms run by warlords each with his own independent foreign policy. On the contrary, such decision cannot occur except under strict supervision and prior authorization from the highest authorities of state – from the Supreme Leader himself.

Dodging the policy dilemma arising from Iran’s ruthlessness in the hope of helping more “moderate” elements is the surest way to invite more, and potentially worse, provocations in the future.

Washington should know better. The Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, in 1996, which cost the lives of 19 Americans, bore Iranian fingerprints. The United States blamed al-Qaeda instead, so as not to jeopardize diplomatic outreach to Iran. Fifteen years later, that diplomacy hasn’t borne any fruit.

For years, Iranian agents gunned down exiled dissidents in broad daylight in European capitals – the Shah’s last Prime minister, Shahpour Bakhtiar, in Paris; Kazem Rajavi, brother of the Islamic-Marxist leader of the opposition Mujaheddin-e Qhalq, in Geneva; and Iran’s Kurdish dissidents, Abdol Rahman Ghassemlou in Vienna and Sadegh Sharafkandi, in Berlin, just to name a few.

European governments — weighed down by their commercial relations with Iran — looked the other way. It was the era of Iranian “pragmatism” under then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and of “reformism,” under his successor Mohammed Khatami. It was tempting to believe that these leaders were well-intentioned and moderate. Whenever some outrage betrayed Iran’s fingerprints, rogue agents had to be blamed — not the regime itself.

What helped change Europe’s approach to Iran were the inescapable conclusions, eventually drawn by German prosecutors of the Mykonos massacre of Kurdish Iranian dissidents in Berlin, on 17 September 1992 — which Roya Hakakian has masterfully documented in her recent book Assassins of the Turquoise Palace — that the highest echelons of the regime had ordered the attacks.

What made Iran carry out those attacks, until then, was the belief that its assassins could freely roam the streets of Europe and kill the regime’s critics with impunity. What made Iran stop was the groundswell of outrage across Europe as Iran’s responsibility became too obvious to deny. The joint European decision to withdraw ambassadors from Tehran was, alone, enough to force a halt to Iran’s murderous campaign against its exiled dissidents.

Fast-forward to 2011. What must have triggered an Iranian decision at the highest levels of government to order a daring and outrageous attack in the United States capital is the assumption that the current U.S. administration is too weak to respond vigorously, and too preoccupied with keeping the diplomatic door open to point an accusing finger at the very top of Iran’s power pyramid. Iran’s leaders have reasoned that there would be no price for Iran to pay.

The history of the Islamic Republic teaches us that Iran will back down only when faced with steely resolve and a readiness to fight. Washington’s record on Iran, regrettably, shows that the opposite response is more common. Let’s hope that changes.

National Post

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the author of The Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ Corps (FDD Press, September 2011).

Benjamin expressed skepticism about Iranian government involvement saying that the plot sounded as though it were conceived by “two guys sitting in a bar.”

Watch This Video:

Manssor Arbabsiar

Oldspeak:”One day after posting a expose about the FBI’s vast and shady network of informants helping to create and “foil” terrorist plots, I see this. Hmm. At first glance it looks like you score one for the good guys, but deeper examination of the facts of the case makes you ask yourself how does this make sense? Tim Padgett @ Time said it best -”If Iranian government operatives really did try to contract a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., as the Obama Administration alleges today, then they weren’t just being diabolical. They were being fairly stupid. Had Arbabsiar actually been dealing with the Zetas – and not a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration informant who posed as a Zeta operative – they probably would have conveyed that reality to him fairly quickly. And they would have likely dismissed the $1.5 million that Arbabsiar allegedly offered the D.E.A. informant. Ditto for the opium the Iranians allegedly threw into the deal. The Zetas, after all, are part of a Mexican drug-trafficking, kidnapping and extortion industry that rakes in as much as $40 billion a year. To risk that kind of cash flow by carrying out a five-alarm international hit for a million and a half bucks seems a non-starter. It also seems an organization like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, for whom the Justice Department says Arbabsiar may have been working, should know better. Arbabsiar, who lives near Mexico in Corpus Christi, Texas, certainly should have been wiser. All of those considerations may make it harder for many to believe that the alleged Iranian terror plot that the Obama Administration foiled was all that adept or serious.” Could this be another false flag operation used as pretext for attacking Iran?” “War Is Peace”

Related Stories:

Hiring Narcos to Murder the Saudi Ambassador? If It’s True, Tehran Is Pretty Dumb

U.S.-Iran Tensions Grow as Indictment Accuses Iranian Agents of Assassination Plot

Iran Is Accused by U.S. of Sponsoring Plot to Assassinate Saudi Ambassador

By Liz Goodwin @ Yahoo News:

A government informant posing as a member of the feared Zetas drug cartel in Mexico helped foil an Iranian plot to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States on American soil, the Justice Department says.

The informant “posed as an associate of a sophisticated and violent international drug trafficking cartel” who was willing to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador, according to the complaint. Government sources told ABC News that the cartel in question was the Zetas. The Zetas have been behind some of the worst violence in Mexico’s grisly drug war, including mass beheadings, arson in a Monterrey casino that trapped and killed 52 people and the murder of a U.S. immigration agent.

The complaint says the informant was busted on a narcotrafficking charge in the past and then was flipped by the Drug Enforcement Agency as a source who has helped them make arrests in other drug cases.

Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized American citizen who also had an Iranian passport, is accused of approaching the source thinking he was a member of the drug cartel on the direction of the Iranian military.

He wired the source $100,000 to a U.S. bank account as a down payment for assassinating the Saudi Arabian ambassador, and said he would pay the rest of the $1.5 million fee later. The government says Arbabsiar said he didn’t care if as many as 100 civilians were killed along with the ambassador in the explosion. He traveled to Mexico several times to meet with the informant.

Tim Padgett at Time Magazine argues that Arbabsiar, who used to live in Corpus Christi, Texas, would have had to be pretty stupid to think the Zetas would bomb an American target for only $1.5 million. “The Zetas, after all, are part of a Mexican drug-trafficking, kidnapping and extortion industry that rakes in as much as $40 billion a year,” he writes. “To risk that kind of cash flow by carrying out a five-alarm international hit for a million and a half bucks seems a non-starter. It also seems an organization like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, for whom the Justice Department says Arbabsiar may have been working, should know better. Arbabsiar, who lives near Mexico in Corpus Christi, Texas, certainly should have been wiser.”

Middle East expert Juan Cole speculates on his blog that Arbabsiar’s patron, allegedly a member of the Revolutionary Guards, may have had a side business in drug trafficking. Cole thinks the plot seemed so amateurish that it makes it more sense that it was the work of an Iranian drug cartel angry over the Saudi war on drugs than Iranian government operatives. The Iranian cartel may have been hoping to find new markets for Iran’s opium and heroin supply that typically go through Afghanistan.

-/AFP/Getty Images

Before the 9/11 attacks, before al-Qaeda, Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror, Iran was known to be the world’s number-one sponsor of terror. It still is.

As illustrated by the elaborate, alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States by blowing him up in a popular Washington, D.C., restaurant — revealed Tuesday by the U.S. Justice department and the FBI — the mullahs of Tehran still have scant regard for human life or civilized norms. Al-Qaeda may be more dangerous operationally at the moment. But with its oil wealth, fanatic leadership and viciously anti-Western state creed, Iran and its various terrorist surrogates remain, in the long run, the greatest threat to Western security and our way of life.

Iran is the principal underwriter of Hezbollah in Lebanon, of Hamas in Gaza and of the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. It is the largest supplier of arms to most Palestinian terror groups, as it was the largest supplier of small arms to Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Like all religious fanatics, Tehran’s mullahs regard the lives of “infidels” as worthless. These include not only Jews and Christians, but also those such as Saudi Arabia’s Wahabi leaders, who do not follow the Shiite branch of Islam favoured by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iranian-backed slaughter began shortly after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Through Syria, Iran supplied much of the funding and training to the terrorists who blew up the U.S. Marine Corps barracks at the Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 American servicemen. It was also responsible for a string of terror attacks against Jewish targets in Argentina in the early 1990s, culminating in the bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish community centre in 1994, in which 87 people were killed and 100 injured.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, as it has called itself for the last three decades, is and always has been a terrorist state. Like the U.S.S.R. under Stalin, its national mission is to spread a totalitarian ideology as far as possible. And it will use any means, however hideous, to accomplish this objective.

Yet the plot to blow up a restaurant in the American capital and kill hundreds of innocent civilians is brazen, even for the Iranians. American officials say that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps conspired to pay a naturalized American citizen US$1.5-million to perform the assassination using C-4 explosives. There reportedly also were discussions about attacking other targets — including the Israeli and Saudi embassies. The criminal complaint quotes the alleged would-be assassin as declaring: “They want [the Saudi ambassador] done, if a hundred go with him, f–k ’em.”

The plot might have succeeded had the would-be killer not sought out the assistance of a Drug Enforcement Administration informant. Had the attack worked, it would have been an act of war. Even the plot itself can be put in this category. And the Americans would be morally justified in pursuing military retribution, even though there is little chance they will do so.

The prospect of Iran being armed with the ultimate weapon is a true nightmare. In June, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared that Iran is “producing uranium metal … into components relevant to a nuclear device,” and is building a “missile re-entry vehicle” designed “for a new payload assessed as being nuclear in nature.” Many other nations have nukes, of course, including Israel. But Iran is a different case: Its leadership is not only steeped in poisonous anti-Western hatred, but also in Shiite eschatological fantasies that negate the presumption of self-preservation, the very basis of the military doctrine of deterrence.

Put another way, the mad mullahs could see their own annihilation as a price worth paying if they can take down Israel and a few million Americans with it.

An invasion of Iran is unfeasible at this time. And many experts in the United States and Israel doubt that a bombing campaign would permanently eradicate Iran’s nuclear program. But such drastic measures may be unnecessary: Iran’s repressive theocrats are loathed almost as much at home as abroad. And it seems a matter of only a few years before the regime falls. Until that time, the country’s diplomats should be prevented from travelling outside the country through the refusal of visa and landing permits by other countries. Tehran’s use of foreign banks should be cut off, and international trade sanctions increased. Israel, the United States and their Western allies should use every method at their disposal — including cyberwarfare and sabotage — to disable Iran’s nuclear program.

American law enforcement have done their country a great service in disrupting a plot that might have taken many lives, and even led to outright war. The Iranians, perversely, have performed a service, too: They have shown us their true, murderous face, and the urgent need of the civilized world to confront them.

National Post

It is clear that our efforts to put international media and political pressure on Iran to release Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani – who is facing execution for his faith – are having a tremendous impact.

The Iranian government has taken note of these efforts and has reacted by spreading lies about Pastor Youcef in an attempt to sway international attention from this horrific human rights abuse.

Over the last few days, we have reported that Iran’s semi-official news agency has spread false reports that pastor Youcef was never convicted of converting from Islam to Christianity, but that he had instead been charged with being a “Zionist” and committing “security crimes.” This is the worst possible charge that Iran could level at Pastor Youcef, and as one Iranian expert explained: “As soon as Iran’s regime is placed under international pressure because of its barbaric Middle Age laws, the regime looks for another reason to peddle” its execution sentence against Pastor Youcef.

Now, for the first time, the Iranian government has made a statement about Pastor Youcef, spreading blatant lies about his case. The official Iranian statement provides that “Iran has not issued any verdict on his case” and that “published news regarding the death penalty . . . are unsubstantiated.”

These are boldfaced lies being spread by the Iranian regime about Pastor Youcef because they have been caught in the act of attempting to execute a man for his faith, something that violates international and Iranian law and reportedly hasn’t happened in Iran for over 20 years.

We have the actual verdict from the Iranian supreme court (in original Farsi and translated into English by the Confederation of Iranian Students in Washington ), which provides undeniably that “Mr. Youcef Nadarkhani . . . is convicted of turning his back on Islam . . . .” The verdict further states, “During many sessions in court with the presence of his attorney and a judge, he has been sentenced to execution by hanging . . . .”

There is no question that Pastor Youcef has been convicted of apostasy and sentenced to death. It is crucial that Secretary of State Clinton – our top international diplomat – take the lead and that the United Nations (U.N.) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) end their silence on this issue and pressure Iran to spare Pastor Youcef’s life and release him unconditionally.

We can report from our contacts in Iran that, as of today, Pastor Youcef is still alive, but time is of the essence.

We know that the Iranian regime is taking note of our efforts, and now is the time to step up those efforts to keep this international pressure on Iran. You can help in this effort by joining the over 50,000 who have already signed the petition we are sending to Secretary of State Clinton and the U.N. to call on Iran for the immediate and unconditional release of Pastor Youcef.

Here is a Youtube link to the ACLJ Video: http://youtu.be/NKPQ7xuvK3Y

Courtesy of http://aclj.org/iran/iran-takes-note-efforts-save-pastor-spreads-lies

The delegation said the Iranian government is hopeful that the U.S. will reciprocate and review on compassionate grounds the cases of Iranians jailed in this country.

The delegation met for over an hour Saturday in Iran with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior government officials.

Delegation members say they were invited by Ahmadinejad following their advocacy on behalf of Americans Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who were arrested in July 2009 along the Iraq-Iran border.

The two deny wrongdoing. Their families say they were just hiking in northern Iraq’s scenic and relatively peaceful Kurdish region when they may have accidentally strayed over the unmarked border. Iran has accused them of spying for the United States.

“We have been promised that our visit was productive and helped accelerate the (pending) release of the hikers,” said Nihad Awad, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and one of the four members of the delegation.

John Chane, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, said the delegation also met with some family members of more than 60 Iranian citizens who are currently jailed in the U.S. While Chane said there was no discussion of a quid pro quo exchange, “they are looking for some reciprocity here.”

The delegation did not discuss individual cases by name, but said there were cases where perhaps early releases could be arranged on compassionate grounds for sickly prisoners, and perhaps other cases where jailed Iranians have been unable to receive visits from family members. Awad said his group planned to investigate those cases.

Ahmadinejad, who appeared to be trying to get the Americans released in time for his arrival at the U.N. General Assembly, also left Monday for New York empty handed. Complicating the release is a deepening internal rift between the president and the country’s ruling clerics, who control the courts.

Ahmadinejad’s rivals in Iran might be seeking to hold up the deal in part to deprive him of the chance to claim credit on the world stage for the release of the Americans.

Iran’s courts have considered a deal to set aside the men’s eight-year prison sentences and release them on $500,000 bail each. But the hardline judiciary has not given any timetable for a possible release.

Last September, a third American who had been arrested with them, Sarah Shourd, was released after a similar bail payment and a nearly identical tussle between the president and his rivals in the judiciary.

The three Americans — friends from their days at the University of California at Berkeley — deny the charges.

The official explanation for the delay in their possible release is that a second judge needed to sign the bail papers was on vacation until Tuesday, according to their lawyer, Masoud Shafiei.

Last week, Ahmadinejad suggested a deal to free them could be on the fast track, and the Gulf nation of Oman appeared to be acting as a mediator, as it had with Shourd.

However, Iran’s judiciary — directly controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — quickly slapped him down with a blunt reminder that only the courts have the authority to set the ground rules and timing on a possible release.

More mixed signals followed.

Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the courts were willing to commute the Americans’ sentences in the “near future” as a gesture of Islamic mercy. But Mohammed Javad Larijani, the head of Iran’s Human Rights Council and a brother of the powerful judiciary chief, said the men’s “crime was not limited to illegal trespassing.” They were spying, he said, and “we do not reward spies.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday the United States continues to hope the Americans will be released, adding that Washington has received word through a number of sources that the two will be returned to their families.

The last direct contact family members had with Bauer and Fattal was in May 2010 when their mothers were permitted a short visit in Tehran.

Since her release last year, Shourd has lived in Oakland, Calif. Bauer, a freelance journalist, grew up in Onamia, Minn. and Fattal, an environmental activist, is from suburban Philadelphia.

Bauer proposed marriage to Shourd while in prison.

(© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, left, and Bashar al-Assad of Syria, center, in 2007, a more confident mood before the "Arab Spring"

[Iran's Ahmadinijad has not yet abandoned the alliance/partnership with the embattled and troubled Assad regime in Syria, and may have hopes it can yet be saved.  But, there are moves afoot to foster relations with whatever emerges in a post-Assad Syria.  In this maneuvering, there is a memorable whiff of the  US' abandonment of Mubarak in Egypt, and Gaddafi in Libya, at the onset of their popular challenges, and of the insertion of external dynamics in domestic rebellions--a move now adopted by Iran and applied to Syria.  All these contrary and competitive moves are described by the New York Times, the leading narrator for US imperialism. -- Frontlines ed.]

—————————————–

In Shift, Iran’s President Calls for End to Syrian Crackdown

September 8, 2011

For years, posters celebrating the decades-old alliance joining Syria and Iran festooned the streets and automobiles of the Syrian capital — the images of Presidents Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad embroidered with roses and daffodils.

But that alliance is now strained, and on Thursday, President Ahmadinejad of Iran became the most recent, and perhaps the most unexpected, world leader to call for President Assad to end his violent crackdown of an uprising challenging his authoritarian rule in Syria.

When the Arab Spring broke out, upending the regional order, Iran seemed to emerge a winner: its regional adversary, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, was ousted from power and its most important ally, Syria, was emboldened.

But the popular demands for change swept into Syria, and now, as Mr. Assad’s forces continue to shoot unarmed demonstrators, Iran sees its fortunes fading on two fronts: its image as a guardian of Arab resistance has been battered, and its most important regional strategic ally is in danger of being ousted.

Even while it has been accused of providing financial and material support for Mr. Assad’s crackdown, Iran has increased calls for Syria to end the violence and reform its political process, a formula Tehran apparently hopes will repair its image and, if heeded, possibly bolster Mr. Assad’s standing.

“Regional nations can assist the Syrian people and government in the implementation of essential reforms and the resolution of their problems,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said in an interview in Tehran, according to his official Web site. Other press accounts of the interview with a Portuguese television station quoted him as also saying, “A military solution is never the right solution,” an ironic assessment from a man whose own questionable re-election in 2009 prompted huge street demonstrations that were put down with decisive force.

The collapse of the Assad government would be a strategic blow to Shiite-majority Iran, cutting off its most important bridge to the Arab world while empowering its main regional rivals, Saudi Arabia and its increasingly influential competitor, Turkey, both Sunni-majority nations. Iran would also lose its main arms pipeline to Hezbollah in Lebanon, further undermining its ambition to be the primary regional power from the Levant to Pakistan.

Not long ago, Iran and its Arab allies like Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, were seen as folk heroes to many Arabs for their confrontational stance toward the United States and Israel.

But Iran has suddenly found itself on the wrong side of the barricades.

“Assad’s heroic image of resistance is being watered down,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at Tufts University and the author of “The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future.” “That’s the problem for Iran and for Hezbollah. They are trying to find out how to have their cake and eat it, too.”

Demonstrators clogging the streets from Tunisia to Egypt to Syria are demanding freedom and democracy, forcing Iran to openly struggle with the problem of how to endorse the revolutionary spirit while simultaneously buttressing its crucial strategic Arab ally.

“They don’t fit into the framework of toppling dictators and democracy and all that,” said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Lebanon.

Yet many analysts say that the Iranians have tried to play both sides of the barricades, supporting their allies in Syria with all manner of aid while simultaneously voicing support for the revolutions elsewhere, initially calling them the offspring of their own 1979 revolution.

“It is mostly for the Arab gallery, rather than a tangible policy shift,” said Cengiz Candar, a prominent Turkish columnist. “In terms of the Syrian opposition, there is nobody Iran can stand on in case the regime is replaced.”

Iran has been helping Syria with everything from money to advice on controlling the Internet, analysts say, offering its expertise to help stave off the catastrophe that Mr. Assad’s collapse would be for Tehran’s regional ambitions. Aside from propping up Syria with billions of dollars, it has pressed others, including Iraq, to support Mr. Assad.

Syrian protesters take it as a matter of faith that security forces from both Iran and Hezbollah have been drawn into the fray, trading cellphone videos that are said to show Hezbollah fighters streaming across the border in black S.U.V.’s.

Given that the Assad government has had about 40 years to perfect the instruments of repression, most analysts believe that it does not really need men or much advice from the outside.

But in its ever more stringent sanctions against Syria, the European Union included the Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, accusing it of providing “technical assistance, equipment and support to the Syrian security services to repress civilian protest movements.”

Analysts are convinced that behind the scenes the Iranians are pushing for a tough line, suggesting that their repression of the 2009 democracy protests in Iran is the model to follow.

“Iran calling for Syria to dialogue rather than use force against its population is akin to Silvio Berlusconi telling Charlie Sheen not to womanize,” said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who is a sharp critic of the Iranian leadership.

Analysts say the scale and the duration of the protests in Syria just became too great for the Iranians to ignore, and yet they still try.

“Muslim people in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and other countries are in need of this vigilance today,” the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a recent sermon marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. “They must not let the enemies hijack the victories they have gained.”

Then he talked about the oppression of people in Bahrain — which is mainly Shiite — before moving on to the famine in Somalia.

On the other hand, the constant focus on the potential repercussions of the uprisings clearly shows that Iran’s leaders are worried. Not least among their worries is that the protests could set off renewed demonstrations at home, although aside from some environmental protests in the northwest, nothing significant has been reported.

There is also an increasingly vocal school of thought in Iran that says it has too much vested in the Assad government. Among other things, it has allowed regional competitors like Turkey, a largely Sunni country, to advance at the expense of Shiite Iran. The Iranians’ minority status across much of the Arab world can make their religious credentials suspect to the majority — who might accuse them of being a force for sectarianism.

“The reality of the matter is that our absolute support for Syria was a wrong policy,” Ahmad Avaei, a member of Parliament, told the Web site Khabar Online. “The people protesting against the government in that country are religious people, and the protest movement there is a grass-roots movement.”

At stake is Iran’s image in the wider region, and its ability to add teeth to its claim to be upholding Arab and Muslim interests in confronting Israel.

“Iran wants to be perceived as the voice of the downtrodden in the Middle East, the one country that speaks truth to power,” Mr. Sadjadpour said. “Their close rapport with the Assad regime undermines that image.”

Would you believe Iran?

According to the Tehran Times, the usually bellicose Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had this to say about the brutality in Syria, one of Tehran’s few close friends:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called on the Syrian government and the opposition to resolve their problems through dialogue. 

Ahmadinejad made the remarks during a televised interview with Radio e Televisao de Portugal broadcast live on Iranian television on Wednesday night.

Asked about Iran’s stance on the developments taking place in Syria, Ahmadinejad said, “The principle that the Islamic Republic of Iran believes in applies everywhere and to every nation and government. We believe that all nations have the right to freedom and justice as well as the right to be respected. And all governments should accept that. However, we believe that nations and governments should resolve their problems together. A resort to military solution and NATO’s intervention will not help settle any problem. Basically, Democracy and freedom do not come out of the barrel of a gun.”

Democracy and freedom do not come from the barrel of a gun? From the regime that wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and is generally believed to be developing its nuclear capability towards that end?

Iran’s Persian majority has for long drawn much of its humor from vulgar jokes told at the expense of the country’s minorities: the incorrigibly stubborn Lors of the southwest; the “honourless” Rashtis of the Caspian region; and – most commonly – the Azeris, who comprise almost a quarter of the population and are often derided as “Turkish donkeys.” While most are good-natured, these jokes nevertheless reflect ethno-sectarian tensions simmering just beneath the surface of Iranians’ otherwise polite mores and manners.

A typical Azeri joke runs like this: One day, Iranian Azeris took to the country’s streets to voice their frustration with Persian chauvinism. “The Azeris are all jewels atop Iran’s crown,” they chanted. “The Persians are the ‘Turkish asses!’”

For the past week or so, the Azeris of northwest Iran have staged an actual uprising, not against lame racist jokes, but against the policies of Tehran’s theocratic dictators. Specifically, they have been expressing their outrage at the desiccation of Lake Orumiyeh in Iran’s Azeri-majority provinces.

Over the past two decades, the lake – the world’s third largest salt lake – has lost approximately 60% of its surface area. The protesters in Iranian Azerbaijan blame the regime’s mismanagement, including irresponsible damming and the construction of a mile-long causeway bridging its banks, for endangering the UNESCO biosphere reserve site. If the lake were to disappear altogether, it would leave behind ten billion tons of salt – and potentially displace up to 14 million people.

The protesters’ anger has been exacerbated by Tehran’s refusal to address the problem. On August 24, the Iranian parliament flatly rejected calls for reviving the lake. In response to the legislative snub, Azeri activists and teachers issued a statement calling for mass gatherings. Thousands poured into the streets. “We are ready to lay down our lives,” their chant went. “We are all Babak’s soldiers.”

Babak Khorramdin was a 9th century Iranian warrior with roots in Azerbaijan, who valiantly fought the occupying Abbasid dynasty for years before ultimately being captured and executed. Some eleven centuries later, the Islamist regime’s crackdown in Babak’s home region matches Abbasid cruelty. With the international community’s attention focused on the pro-democracy uprisings in the Arab world, Iranian authorities have turned to the only crowd control methods they excel at: beatings, arbitrary detention, and torture.

Yet the mullahs’ paranoid overreaction to what is ostensibly an environmental protest is telling. It reveals the fragility of the clerical grip on a society no longer willing to tolerate their claim to power. Isolated and outgunned, the demonstrators in Azerbaijan are no doubt fearful – but the regime is even more so.

All around them, the powers in Tehran are confronted with omens of their inevitable demise: an economy in shambles, with skyrocketing inflation and unemployment; ongoing labour strikes across key industries; renewed unrest among bazaar merchants; and the potential loss of a key regional ally and strategic lynchpin, Syria’s murderous Baathist regime.

But the protests in Azerbaijan must be especially troublesome for Iran’s rulers. More than any other issue, Iran’s ethno-sectarian challenge is one which the regime is genetically incapable of resolving. For decades, the mullahs have sought to downgrade – even erase – the country’s diverse identities: be it the historical legacy of the pre-Islamic Persian empires or the rich cultural contributions of ethno-sectarian minorities that have been an integral part of Iran’s social fabric for millennia. In their place, the clerics have only offered an intolerant pan-Islamism that has not only failed to unite citizens but actually frayed ethnic cohesion among them.

Sadly, the ideology underlying Iran’s establishment reform movement too often mirrors the regime’s. In continuing to insist, for example, that democratic activists work within the framework of the current constitution – the same one that mandates absolute allegiance to a supreme religious “guide” – the reformists fail to confront the structural flaws embedded in that corrupt document. Moreover, in morally situating their movement within the broad Islamist fold, Iran’s reformers betray the age-old yearning for an authentic and inclusive Iranian identity.

That yearning is perhaps the democrats’ greatest strategic asset against the mullahs. Yet until activists successfully capitalize on it, radical Islamism – in all its forms – will have the last laugh in Iran. And the joke will be told at the expense of the country’s boundless human potential.

National Post

Sohrab Ahmari and Peter Kohanloo are activists in the U.S. Iranian-American community. 

Smallville E4, 9pm

Pick Of The Day – Smallville E4, 9pm

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Jamie’s Food Revolution Hits Hollywood C4, 10pm

It’s the final episode of the series but only now is a sea change looking possible, as Ramon Cortines, the man who barred Jamie from filming in LA schools, quits his job. The mission now is to bring Cortines’s replacement on side and, judging by the fact Jamie and the newbie end up on national TV together, singing from the same hymn sheet, maybe this fight against the US’s junk food addiction has all been worthwhile.

True Stories: For Neda More4, 10pm

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Film Of The Day – Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels ITV2, 10pm

You can blame Guy Ritchie’s debut for the slew of rubbish British gangster flicks that followed it and you can blame it for launching Vinnie Jones’s movie career but, as crime capers go, it’s otherwise pretty darned faultless: a fast-paced, funny and stylish yarn about how a group of young chancers attempt to pay off a crime lord.