Coming War With Iran - All Iran News Here

[Optimus]

Jul 27, 2008 23:23 | Updated Jul 28, 2008 8:27
Officials: US talks to Iran to legitimize attack
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331116435&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
By YAAKOV KATZ

Recent talks the United States held with Iran are aimed at creating legitimacy for a potential attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, defense officials speculated on Sunday as Defense Minister Ehud Barak headed to Washington for talks with senior administration officials.

Barak will travel to Washington and New York and will hold talks with his counterpart Robert Gates, Vice President Dick Cheney, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Michael Mullen, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Officials said it was likely that President George W. Bush would join the meeting between Barak and Hadley. On Wednesday, Barak will fly to New York for a brief meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon.

Barak's departure to the US came as IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi returned to Israel on Sunday from a week-long visit to the US as Mullen's guest. Ashkenazi held talks with Cheney, Hadley and other senior officials with a focus on the Iranian nuclear program.

"There is a lot of strategic thinking concerning Iran going on right now but no one has yet to make a decision what to do," said a top IDF officer, involved in the dialogue between Israel and the US. "We are still far away from the point where military officers are poring over maps together planning an operation."

In recent weeks, Mullen has said publicly that he is opposed to military action against Iran which would open a "third front" for the US military which is currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Barak's talks in the US come a little over a week after the Bush administration sent its number three diplomat to Geneva to participate in European Union talks with Iran over its nuclear program.

The move led to reports that the US was changing its isolation tactic vis-à-vis Iran but Israeli defense officials speculated Sunday that the move was really a ploy to buy international support in the event that Bush decides to attack Iran in his last months in office.

"This way they will be able to say they tried everything," one official speculated. "This increases America's chances of gaining more public support domestically as well as the support of European nations which are today opposed to military action."

Diplomatic officials have speculated that the Iran-US talks were also connected to the presidential elections.

According to the IDF officer, the frequent meetings between Israel and the US in recent weeks - Mullen was in Israel in June - is a sign of the strong ties between the two countries as well as the mutual interest both take in different regional issues such as Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas and Syria.
 

[bigron]

Ron Paul: US would back Israeli strike on Iran


Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:40:24
 
 http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=65029&sectionid=351020104

Former US presidential candidate Ron Paul says should there be an Israeli strike on Iran over its nuclear work, it would not be unilateral.

The Texas congressman told Press TV that there is no 'such thing as independent Israel doing anything', dismissing speculation that the world may witness unilateral Israeli bombardments of Iranian nuclear sites.

"No matter what they do, it is our money, it is our weapons, and they are not going to do it without us approving it," said the 72-year-old Republican.

While the UN nuclear watchdog admits that there is no link between the use of nuclear material and the 'alleged studies' of weaponization attributed to Iran, the West continues to allege that Tehran is pursuing a military nuclear program.

Under US pressure, the UN Security Council has intervened in the nuclear case and has imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran.

Upper Israeli echelons, who seek Washington's green light for attacking Iranian nuclear sites, have publicly threatened Tehran with the military action should the country continue uranium enrichment.

Tel Aviv, believed to possess the sole nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, reportedly staged a large-scale air maneuver in early June in preparation for a unilateral strike against Iran.

Top US officials and military commanders, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, have spoken against such military action.

In a recent article, Gates said 'another war in the Middle East is the last thing' the United States needs right now. He warned that a war with Iran would be 'disastrous on a number of levels'.

When asked last week about the prospect of an Israeli or US attack, Admiral Mullen said that he worries about 'the possible unintended consequences of a strike' on Iran.

"If they (Israelis) get in trouble, we are going to bail them out," continued congressman Paul, who is a staunch advocate of a diplomatic approach toward Iran over its nuclear program.

As the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) acknowledges the rights of all signatory states in uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes, Iran has cited diplomacy as the only means acceptable in settling the dispute surrounding its nuclear program.

MD/AA
 

[bigron]

Acts of War

By Scott Ritter

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080729_acts_of_war/

29/07/08 " TruthDig" -- - -The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities which result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions which took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.

Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating “accident” involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.

The MEK traces its roots back to the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeg. Formed among students and intellectuals, the MEK emerged in the 1960s as a serious threat to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. Facing brutal repression from the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, the MEK became expert at blending into Iranian society, forming a cellular organizational structure which made it virtually impossible to eradicate. The MEK membership also became adept at gaining access to positions of sensitivity and authority. When the Shah was overthrown in 1978, the MEK played a major role and for a while worked hand in glove with the Islamic Revolution in crafting a post-Shah Iran. In 1979 the MEK had a central role in orchestrating the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and holding 55 Americans hostage for 444 days.

However, relations between the MEK and the Islamic regime in Tehran soured, and after the MEK staged a bloody coup attempt in 1981, all ties were severed and the two sides engaged in a violent civil war. Revolutionary Guard members who were active at that time have acknowledged how difficult it was to fight the MEK. In the end, massive acts of arbitrary arrest, torture and executions were required to break the back of mainstream MEK activity in Iran, although even the Revolutionary Guard today admits the MEK remains active and is virtually impossible to completely eradicate.

It is this stubborn ability to survive and operate inside Iran, at a time when no other intelligence service can establish and maintain a meaningful agent network there, which makes the MEK such an asset to nations such as the United States and Israel. The MEK is able to provide some useful intelligence; however, its overall value as an intelligence resource is negatively impacted by the fact that it is the sole source of human intelligence in Iran. As such, the group has taken to exaggerating and fabricating reports to serve its own political agenda. In this way, there is little to differentiate the MEK from another Middle Eastern expatriate opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, which infamously supplied inaccurate intelligence to the United States and other governments and helped influence the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today, the MEK sees itself in a similar role, providing sole-sourced intelligence to the United States and Israel in an effort to facilitate American military operations against Iran and, eventually, to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran.

The current situation concerning the MEK would be laughable if it were not for the violent reality of that organization’s activities. Upon its arrival in Iraq in 1986, the group was placed under the control of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, or intelligence service. The MEK was a heavily militarized organization and in 1988 participated in division-size military operations against Iran. The organization represents no state and can be found on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, yet since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 the MEK has been under the protection of the U.S. military. Its fighters are even given “protected status” under the Geneva conventions. The MEK says that its members in Iraq are refugees, not terrorists. And yet one would be hard-pressed to find why the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees should confer refugee status on an active paramilitary organization that uses “refugee camps” inside Iraq as its bases.

The MEK is behind much of the intelligence being used by the International Atomic Energy Agency in building its case that Iran may be pursuing (or did in fact pursue in the past) a nuclear weapons program. The complexity of the MEK-CIA relationship was recently underscored by the agency’s acquisition of a laptop computer allegedly containing numerous secret documents pertaining to an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Much has been made about this computer and its contents. The United States has led the charge against Iran within international diplomatic circles, citing the laptop information as the primary source proving Iran’s ongoing involvement in clandestine nuclear weapons activity. Of course, the information on the computer, being derived from questionable sources (i.e., the MEK and the CIA, both sworn enemies of Iran) is controversial and its veracity is questioned by many, including me.

Now, I have a simple solution to the issue of the laptop computer: Give it the UNSCOM treatment. Assemble a team of CIA, FBI and Defense Department forensic computer analysts and probe the computer, byte by byte. Construct a chronological record of how and when the data on the computer were assembled. Check the “logic” of the data, making sure everything fits together in a manner consistent with the computer’s stated function and use. Tell us when the computer was turned on and logged into and how it was used. Then, with this complex usage template constructed, overlay the various themes which have been derived from the computer’s contents, pertaining to projects, studies and other activities of interest. One should be able to rapidly ascertain whether or not the computer is truly a key piece of intelligence pertaining to Iran’s nuclear programs.

The fact that this computer is acknowledged as coming from the MEK and the fact that a proper forensic investigation would probably demonstrate the fabricated nature of the data contained are why the U.S. government will never agree to such an investigation being done. A prosecutor, when making a case of criminal action, must lay out evidence in a simple, direct manner, allowing not only the judge and jury to see it but also the accused. If the evidence is as strong as the prosecutor maintains, it is usually bad news for the defendant. However, if the defendant is able to demonstrate inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the data being presented, then the prosecution is the one in trouble. And if the defense is able to demonstrate that the entire case is built upon fabricated evidence, the case is generally thrown out. This, in short, is what should be done with the IAEA’s ongoing probe into allegations that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons. The evidence used by the IAEA is unable to withstand even the most rudimentary cross-examination. It is speculative at best, and most probably fabricated. Iran has done the right thing in refusing to legitimize this illegitimate source of information.

A key question that must be asked is why, then, does the IAEA continue to permit Olli Heinonen, the agency’s Finnish deputy director for safeguards and the IAEA official responsible for the ongoing technical inspections in Iran, to wage his one-man campaign on behalf of the United States, Britain and (indirectly) Israel regarding allegations derived from sources of such questionable veracity (the MEK-supplied laptop computer)? Moreover, why is such an official given free rein to discuss such sensitive data with the press, or with politically motivated outside agencies, in a manner which results in questionable allegations appearing in the public arena as unquestioned fact? Under normal circumstances, leaks of the sort which have occurred regarding the ongoing investigation into Iran’s alleged past studies on nuclear weapons would be subjected to a thorough investigation to determine the source and to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to end them. And yet, in Vienna, Heinonen’s repeated transgressions are treated as a giant “non-event,” the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone pretends isn’t really there.

Heinonen has become the pro-war yin to the anti-confrontation yang of his boss, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Every time ElBaradei releases the results of the IAEA probe of Iran, pointing out that the IAEA can find no evidence of any past or present nuclear weapons program, and that there is a full understanding of Iran’s controversial centrifuge-based enrichment program, Heinonen throws a monkey wrench into the works. Well-publicized briefings are given to IAEA-based diplomats. Mysteriously, leaks from undisclosed sources occur. Heinonen’s Finnish nationality serves as a flimsy cover for neutrality which long ago disappeared. He is no longer serving in the role as unbiased inspector, but rather a front for the active pursuit of an American- and Israeli-inspired disinformation campaign designed to keep alive the flimsy allegations of a nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to justify the continued warlike stance taken by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.

The fact that the IAEA is being used as a front to pursue this blatantly anti-Iranian propaganda is a disservice to an organization with a mission of vital world importance. The interjection of not only the unverified (and unverifiable) MEK laptop computer data, side by side with a newly placed emphasis on a document relating to the forming of uranium metal into hemispheres of the kind useful in a nuclear weapon, is an amateurish manipulation of data to achieve a preordained outcome. Calling the Iranian possession of the aforementioned document “alarming,” Heinonen (and the media) skipped past the history of the document, which of course has been well explained by Iran previously as something the Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan inserted on his own volition to a delivery of documentation pertaining to centrifuges. Far from being a “top-secret” document protected by Iran’s security services, it was discarded in a file of old material that Iran provided to the IAEA inspectors. When the IAEA found the document, Iran allowed it to be fully examined by the inspectors, and answered every question posed by the IAEA about how the document came to be in Iran. For Heinonen to call the document “alarming,” at this late stage in the game, is not only irresponsible but factually inaccurate, given the definition of the word. The Iranian document in question is neither a cause for alarm, seeing as it is not a source for any “sudden fear brought on by the sense of danger,” nor does it provide any “warning of existing or approaching danger,” unless one is speaking of the danger of military action on the part of the United States derived from Heinonen’s unfortunate actions and choice of words.

Olli Heinonen might as well become a salaried member of the Bush administration, since he is operating in lock step with the U.S. government’s objective of painting Iran as a threat worthy of military action. Shortly after Heinonen’s alarmist briefing in March 2008, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, emerged to announce, “As today’s briefing showed us, there are strong reasons to suspect that Iran was working covertly and deceitfully, at least until recently, to build a bomb.” Heinonen’s briefing provided nothing of the sort, being derived from an irrelevant document and a laptop computer of questionable provenance. But that did not matter to Schulte, who noted that “Iran has refused to explain or even acknowledge past work on weaponization.” Schulte did not bother to note that it would be difficult for Iran to explain or acknowledge that which it has not done. “This is particularly troubling,” Schulte went on, “when combined with Iran’s determined effort to master the technology to enrich uranium.” Why is this so troubling? Because, as Schulte noted, “Uranium enrichment is not necessary for Iran’s civil program but it is necessary to produce the fissile material that could be weaponized into a bomb.”

This, of course, is the crux of the issue: Iran’s ongoing enrichment program. Not because it is illegal; Iran is permitted to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not again because Iran’s centrifuge program is operating in an undeclared, unmonitored fashion; the IAEA had stated it has a full understanding of the scope and work of the Iranian centrifuge enrichment program and that all associated nuclear material is accounted for and safeguarded. The problem has never been, and will never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and economic supremacy. The specter of nuclear enrichment is simply a vehicle for facilitating the larger policy objectives. Olli Heinonen, and those who support and sustain his work, must be aware of the larger geopolitical context of his actions, which makes them all the more puzzling and contemptible.

A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department.

I have studied the minutes of meetings involving John McCloy, an American official who served numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, in the decades following the end of the Second World War. His diplomacy with the Soviets, conducted with senior Soviet negotiator Valerein Zorin and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev himself, was real, genuine, direct and designed to resolve differences. The transcripts of the diplomacy conducted between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to bring an end to the Vietnam conflict is likewise a study in the give and take required to achieve the status of real diplomacy.

Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to “observe” a meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification, to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send him there was hailed as a “significant concession” on the part of the Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the new policy option of choice for the Bush administration.

Of course, the Geneva talks produced nothing. The United States had made sure Europe, through its foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, had no maneuvering room when it came to the core issue of uranium enrichment: Iran must suspend all enrichment before any movement could be made on any other issue. Furthermore, the American-backed program of investigation concerning the MEK-supplied laptop computer further poisoned the diplomatic waters. Iran, predictably, refused to suspend its enrichment program, and rejected the Heinonen-led investigation into nuclear weaponization, refusing to cooperate further with the IAEA on that matter, noting that it fell outside the scope of the IAEA’s mandate in Iran.

Condoleezza Rice was quick to respond. After a debriefing from Burns, who flew to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rice was holding closed-door meetings with the foreign ministers of six Arab nations on the issue of Iran, Rice told the media that Iran “was not serious” about resolving the standoff. Having played the diplomacy card, Rice moved on with the real agenda: If Iran did not fully cooperate with the international community (i.e., suspend its enrichment program), then it would face a new round of economic sanctions and undisclosed punitive measures, both unilaterally on the part of the United States and Europe, as well as in the form of even broader sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (although it is doubtful that Russia and China would go along with such a plan).

The issue of unilateral U.S. sanctions is most worrisome. Both the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through SR 580, are preparing legislation which would call for an air, ground and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation, opined that “a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act of war.” Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of aggression. One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, “How did that happen?” The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it.

Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and marine intelligence officer who has written extensively about Iran.

Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C.

[bigron]

Plan Facts About Iran's Military

By Eric Margolis
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20376.htm


29/07/08 " -- -The intensifying saber rattling and war of words between the US and Israel, on one hand, and Iran have generated a great deal of hysteria, war fever and confusion.

Senior Israeli cabinet members have threatened nuclear war against Iran. The western media has given the erroneous impression that Iran is poised to wipe Israel off the map. Some understanding of the military issues involved is badly needed.

First, missiles. Iran announced its Shahab-III missile is ready to retaliate against any Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities. This missile is not long-ranged, as media wrongly claims, but a medium-ranged. Iran says it can deliver a two ton warhead over 2,000 km. But Israeli and US sources say Shahab’s maximum range is around 1,200 km, which puts much of Israel out of its range.

This obsolescent missile is highly inaccurate, particularly at maximum range. It is liquid fueled, meaning it is very vulnerable to air and missile strikes while being prepared to fire. Israel has developed tactics using aircraft, missiles and drones to attack enemy missiles in pre-launch phase. Iran has an estimated 24 Shabab-III’s.

The other missiles Iran fired this week were short ranged models of no strategic value. Tehran was even caught doctoring the pictures it issued of the multiple missile launch to cover up the failure of one of the missiles to fly. This embarrassment reinforced the view that Tehran is trying to hide its military weakness behind a lot of chest-pounding and missile theatrics.

Israel, by contrast, has around 50 Jericho-II nuclear-armed missiles with a range from 900-2,700 miles, putting every Mideast capital and parts of Russia, Pakistan, and Europe within range. Each Jericho-II carries a warhead that can destroy a major city.

Medium-ranged missiles are almost useless without nuclear warheads. Iran has no nuclear weapons, and even if it did manage to develop them, it would be many years before a compact warhead could be developed that could be carried atop a missiles and withstand heavy G-forces. Until Iran has nuclear warheads, Iran’s Shabab’s will be more for show than military utility.

*Other systems - Israel has an indestructible nuclear triad. In addition to the Jerichos, which are housed in caves and mobile, Israel has one of the world’s top air forces with long-ranged US-supplied F-15I’s and F-16’s that can deliver nuclear weapons to Iran. Germany provided Israel with three Dolphin-class subs that are said to be armed with nuclear cruise missiles. At least one sub is always on station off Iran’s coast. In addition, Israel new Ofek-3 military satellite provides full coverage of Iran and surrounding region. Israel also shares US satellite and other sensor data in real time.

Israel has probably the world’s second or third most potent air force, with around 400 state of the art, US-supplied combat aircraft and among the world’s most skilled pilots. The IAF is supported by a galaxy of electronic warfare systems, drones, and long-range recon. Israel’s Arrow is the world’s most advanced operational anti-ballistic missiles system and is expected to down over 85% of any incoming missiles.

Iran’s Air Force has only about 165 airworthy combat aircraft, mostly of 1960’s and 70’s vintage. The only aircraft it has that can reach Israel are 18-20 Soviet-era SU-24’s, and a handful of decrepit 40-year old, US-supplied F-4 Phantoms and F-14’s dating from the Shah’s day.

Thanks to unlimited US support, Israel is two full military generations ahead of its enemies, and even further advanced in electronic warfare and command and control.

A single nuclear weapon would destroy Israel, as its partisans warn. But this is also true of Egypt, where a single nuke on the Aswan Dam would inundate the nation and kill millions. It also applies to the Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf Emirates, Jordan, and Iraq. Only Saudi Arabia and Iran have strategic space. Even so, one nuclear strike on Tehran would cripple Iran for years.

Thanks to its strategic triad, Israel’s nuclear forces are indestructible, hence capable of devastating retaliation against any enemy nuclear strike. The Bush administration has vowed nuclear retaliation against any nation that attacks Israel with nuclear weapons.

Given these facts, we can see how false are claims trumpeted by the west that Iran is a dangerous military power that is about to eradicate Israel. The facts are quite the reverse.

[bigron]

 
We lie and bluster about our nukes - and then wag our fingers at IranBy failing to disarm and breaking the rules when it suits, nuclear states are driving proliferation as much as Ahmadinejad


 
George Monbiot The Guardian, Tuesday July 29 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/29/nuclear.defence/print



What is the Iranian government up to? For once the imperial coalition, overstretched in Iraq and unpopular at home, is proposing jaw, not war. The UN security council's offer was a good one: if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment programme, it would be entitled to legally guaranteed supplies of fuel for nuclear power, assistance in building a light water reactor, foreign aid, technology transfer and the beginning of the end of economic sanctions. The US seems prepared, for the first time since the revolution, to open a diplomatic office in Tehran. But in Geneva, 10 days ago, the Iranians filibustered until the negotiations ended. On Saturday President Ahmadinejad announced that Iran has now doubled the number of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium. A fourth round of sanctions looks inevitable.

The unequivocal statements Barack Obama and Gordon Brown made in Israel last week about Iran's nuclear weapons programme cannot yet be justified. Nor can the unequivocal statements by some anti-war campaigners that Iran does not intend to build the bomb. Why would a country with such reserves of natural gas and so great a potential for solar power suffer sanctions and the threat of bombing to make fuel it could buy from other states, if it accepted the UN's terms?

Those who maintain that Iran's purposes are peaceful clutch at the National Intelligence Estimate published by the US government in November. While it judged that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, it saw the country's civilian uranium programme as a means of developing "technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so". The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency notes that no fissile material has been diverted from Iran's stocks, but raises grave questions about some of the documents it has found, which suggest research into bomb-making (Iran says the papers are forgeries). Those of us who oppose an attack on Iran are under no obligation to accept Ahmadinejad's claims of peaceful intent.

Nor do we have to accept the fictions of our own representatives. The security council's offer to Iran claimed that resolving this enrichment issue would help to bring about a "Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction". But like every other such document, it made no mention of the principal owner of weapons in the region: Israel. According to a leaked briefing by the US Defence Intelligence Agency, Israel possesses between 60 and 80 nuclear bombs. But none of the countries demanding that Iran scraps the weapons it doesn't yet possess are demanding that Israel destroys the weapons it does possess.

This subject is the great political taboo. Neither Brown nor Obama mentioned it last week. The US intelligence agencies provide a biannual report to Congress on the weapons of mass destruction developed by foreign states, which covers Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan and others, but not Israel. During a parliamentary debate in March the British defence minister Bob Ainsworth was asked whether he thought that Israel's nuclear weapons are "a destabilising factor" in the Middle East. "My understanding," he replied, "is that Israel does not acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons." Does Mr Ainsworth really buy this nonsense? If so, can we have a new minister? If Iran builds a bomb, it will do so for one reason: that there is already a nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, by which it feels threatened.

But we make the rules and we break them. The non-proliferation treaty (NPT) obliges the five official nuclear states, of which the UK is one, to work towards "general and complete disarmament". On Friday, the Guardian published the notes for a speech made last year by a senior civil servant, which suggested that the decision to replace the UK's nuclear missiles had already been made, in secret and without parliamentary scrutiny. Since then defence ministers have told the Commons on five occasions that the decision has not yet been made. They appear to have misled the House.

At the Geneva conference on disarmament in February, one delegate pointed out that the "chances of eliminating nuclear weapons will be enhanced immeasurably" if non-nuclear states can see "planning, commitment and action toward multilateral nuclear disarmament by nuclear weapon states" like the UK. If the nuclear states "are failing to fulfil their disarmament obligations", other nations would use this as an excuse for maintaining their weapons. Who was this firebrand? Des Browne, the secretary of state for defence. A man of the same name is failing to fulfil our disarmament obligations.

Browne claims that Britain must maintain its arsenal because of proliferation elsewhere, just as those proliferating elsewhere say that they must develop their arsenals because the official nuclear nations aren't disarming. With the exception of France, none of the other European states feels the need to deploy nukes. But the UK keeps preparing for the last war. Of course, no one is refusing to disarm; it's just that the task keeps getting pushed into the indefinite future. Opponents of British nuclear weapons maintain that a new generation of warheads would survive until 2055.

The permanent members of the UN security council draw a distinction between their "responsible" ownership of nuclear weapons and that of the aspirant powers. But over the past six years, the UK, US, France and Russia have all announced that they are prepared to use their nukes pre-emptively against a presumed threat, even from states that do not possess nuclear weapons. In some ways the current nuclear stand-off is more dangerous than the tetchy detente of the cold war.

The danger has been heightened by the US government's current offensive. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, is demanding that other countries accept her plans to destroy the last remaining incentive for states to abide by the NPT. The treaty grants countries which conform to it materials for nuclear power on favourable terms. It's a flawed incentive - as the spread of civil nuclear programmes makes the proliferation of military material more likely - but an incentive nonetheless. Now Rice insists that India should have special access to US nuclear materials despite the fact that it has not signed the NPT and has illegally developed nuclear weapons.

If she is successful, this effort - and the concomitant US demand that India is recognised as an official nuclear power - will blow the NPT to kingdom come. The treaty which survived the cold war, and which remains the most important of the wilting guarantees against global annihilation, is being nuked for the sake of a few billion dollars of export orders.

Here's where it gets really depressing. The Bush administration's proposal has been supported by both John McCain and Barack Obama. The contrast between Obama's position on India and his statements on Iran could not be greater, or more destructive of the inflated hopes now vested in him.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's insistence that Iran enriches its own fissile material, and the guessing game he is playing with Israel, the atomic energy agency and the UN security council is irresponsible and staggeringly dangerous. But if I were in his position I might be tempted to do the same.

www.monbiot.com

[Dok]

Dr. William Graham Says Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.

Source: NewsMax

Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests.

One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.

“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”

Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”

Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001.

The commission examined the Iranian tests “and without too much effort connected the dots,” even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said.

“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”

The commission warned in a report issued in April that the United States was at risk of a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation or a terrorist group designed to take out our nation’s critical infrastructure.

"If even a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure," the report warned.

While not causing immediate civilian casualties, the near-term impact on U.S. society would dwarf the damage of a direct nuclear strike on a U.S. city.

“The first indication [of such an attack] would be that the power would go out, and some, but not all, the telecommunications would go out. We would not physically feel anything in our bodies,” Graham said.

As electric power, water and gas delivery systems failed, there would be “truly massive traffic jams,” Graham added, since modern automobiles and signaling systems all depend on sophisticated electronics that would be disabled by the EMP wave.

“So you would be walking. You wouldn’t be driving at that point,” Graham said. “And it wouldn’t do any good to call the maintenance or repair people because they wouldn’t be able to get there, even if you could get through to them.”

The food distribution system also would grind to a halt as cold-storage warehouses stockpiling perishables went offline. Even warehouses equipped with backup diesel generators would fail, because “we wouldn’t be able to pump the fuel into the trucks and get the trucks to the warehouses,” Graham said.

The United States “would quickly revert to an early 19th century type of country.” except that we would have 10 times as many people with ten times fewer resources, he said.

“Most of the things we depend upon would be gone, and we would literally be depending on our own assets and those we could reach by walking to them,” Graham said.

America would begin to resemble the 2002 TV series, “Jeremiah,” which depicts a world bereft of law, infrastructure, and memory.

In the TV series, an unspecified virus wipes out the entire adult population of the planet. In an EMP attack, the casualties would be caused by our almost total dependence on technology for everything from food and water, to hospital care.

Within a week or two of the attack, people would start dying, Graham says.

“People in hospitals would be dying faster than that, because they depend on power to stay alive. But then it would go to water, food, civil authority, emergency services. And we would end up with a country with many, many people not surviving the event.”

Asked just how many Americans would die if Iran were to launch the EMP attack it appears to be preparing, Graham gave a chilling reply.

“You have to go back into the 1800s to look at the size of population” that could survive in a nation deprived of mechanized agriculture, transportation, power, water, and communication.

“I’d have to say that 70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after this kind of attack,” he said.

America would be reduced to a core of around 30 million people — about the number that existed in the decades after America’s independence from Great Britain.

The modern electronic economy would shut down, and America would most likely revert to “an earlier economy based on barter,” the EMP commission’s report on Critical National Infrastructure concluded earlier this year.

In his recent congressional testimony, Graham revealed that Iranian military journals, translated by the CIA at his commission’s request, “explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States.”

Furthermore, if Iran launched its attack from a cargo ship plying the commercial sea lanes off the East coast — a scenario that appears to have been tested during the Caspian Sea tests — U.S. investigators might never determine who was behind the attack. Because of the limits of nuclear forensic technology, it could take months. And to disguise their traces, the Iranians could simply decide to sink the ship that had been used to launch it, Graham said.

Several participants in last weekend’s conference in Dearborn, Mich., hosted by the conservative Claremont Institute argued that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was thinking about an EMP attack when he opined that “a world without America is conceivable.”

In May 2007, then Undersecretary of State John Rood told Congress that the U.S. intelligence community estimates that Iran could develop an ICBM capable of hitting the continental United States by 2015.

But Iran could put a Scud missile on board a cargo ship and launch from the commercial sea lanes off America’s coasts well before then.

The only thing Iran is lacking for an effective EMP attack is a nuclear warhead, and no one knows with any certainty when that will occur. The latest U.S. intelligence estimate states that Iran could acquire the fissile material for a nuclear weapon as early as 2009, or as late as 2015, or possibly later.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld first detailed the “Scud-in-a-bucket” threat during a briefing in Huntsville, Ala., on Aug. 18, 2004.

While not explicitly naming Iran, Rumsfeld revealed that “one of the nations in the Middle East had launched a ballistic missile from a cargo vessel. They had taken a short-range, probably Scud missile, put it on a transporter-erector launcher, lowered it in, taken the vessel out into the water, peeled back the top, erected it, fired it, lowered it, and covered it up. And the ship that they used was using a radar and electronic equipment that was no different than 50, 60, 100 other ships operating in the immediate area.”

Iran’s first test of a ship-launched Scud missile occurred in spring 1998, and was mentioned several months later in veiled terms by the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, a blue-ribbon panel also known as the Rumsfeld Commission.

I was the first reporter to mention the Iran sea-launched missile test in an article appearing in the Washington Times in May 1999.

Intelligence reports on the launch were “well known to the White House but have not been disseminated to the appropriate congressional committees,” I wrote. Such a missile “could be used in a devastating stealth attack against the United States or Israel for which the United States has no known or planned defense.”

Few experts believe that Iran can be deterred from launching such an attack by the threat of massive retaliation against Iran. They point to a December 2001 statement by former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who mulled the possibility of Israeli retaliation after an Iranian nuclear strike.

“The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely, while [the same] against the Islamic only would cause damages. Such a scenario is not inconceivable,” Rafsanjani said at the time.

Rep. Trent Franks, R, Ariz., plans to introduce legislation next week that would require the Pentagon to lay the groundwork for an eventual military strike against Iran, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and EMP capability.

“An EMP attack on America would send us back to the horse and buggy era — without the horse and buggy,” he told the Claremont Institute conference on Saturday. “If you’re a terrorist, this is your ultimate goal, your ultimate asymmetric weapon.”

Noting Iran’s recent sea-launched and mid-flight warhead detonation tests, Rep. Franks concluded, “They could do it — either directly or anonymously by putting some freighter out there on the ocean.”

The only possible deterrent against Iran is the prospect of failure, Dr. Graham and other experts agreed. And the only way the United States could credibly threaten an Iranian missile strike would be to deploy effective national missile defenses.

“It’s well known that people don’t go on a diet until they’ve had a heart attack,” said Claremont Institute president Brian T. Kennedy. “And we as a nation are having a heart attack” when it comes to the threat of an EMP attack from Iran.

“As of today, we have no defense against such an attack. We need space-based missile defenses to protect against an EMP attack,” he told Newsmax.

Rep. Franks said he remains surprised at how partisan the subject of space-based missile defenses remain. “Nuclear missiles don’t discriminate on party lines when they land,” he said.

Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, a long-standing champion of missile defense, told the Claremont conference on Friday that Sen. Obama has opposed missile defense tooth and nail and as president would cut funding for these programs dramatically.

“Senator Obama has been quoted as saying, ‘I don’t agree with a missile defense system,’ and that we can cut $10 billion of the research out — never mind, as I say, that the entire budget is $9.6 billion, or $9.3 billion,” Kyl said.

Like Franks, Kyl believes that the only way to eventually deter Iran from launching an EMP attack on the United States is to deploy robust missile defense systems, including space-based interceptors.

The United States “needs a missile defense that is so strong, in all the different phases we need to defend against . . . that countries will decide it’s not worth coming up against us,” Kyl said.

“That’s one of the things that defeated the Soviet Union. That’s one of the ways we can deal with these rogue states . . . and also the way that we can keep countries that are not enemies today, but are potential enemies, from developing capabilities to challenge us. “
 

[Boubear]

That is such lies, they just want to scare people, so they can wage another war.  Haven't people learned their lesson yet with Iraq?

[Optimus]

Obama to House Dems: If Sanctions Fail, Israel Will Likely Strike Iran
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/obama-to-house.html
July 30, 2008 9:30 AM

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, met with House Democrats yesterday, talking about his trip abroad and his observations.

Obama told the caucus, according to an attendee, "Nobody said this to me directly but I get the feeling from my talks that if the sanctions don’t work Israel is going to strike Iran."

The notion that Israel is preparing for such an action against Iran's myriad nuclear facilities is not new, with conjecture heating up in May after an Israeli military exercise featuring 150 aircraft flying almost a thousand miles over the Mediterranean Sea in what was seen as a dress rehearsal for an air strike. Now that the Bush administration is engaged in diplomatic efforts with Iran, many Israeli officials are worried the US is getting soft on Iran, prompting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to travel to the US this week to meet with  Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Barak's office released a statement saying "a policy that consists of keeping all options on the table must be maintained."

Another attendee at the meeting of House Democrats recalls Obama saying that the good news is that Obama got the sense that the Arab states understand just how destabilizing a nuclear Iran would be -- a "game changer," Obama said -- because they know Israel would probably strike and that would be bad for everyone.

A senior adviser to Obama told ABC News that Obama was heartened to hear Jordan's King Abdullah share that view with him in their private meeting.

The Obama campaign had no comment.

[Godfather77]

Iran vows to stay on 'nuclear path' as UN deadline looms
Thursday July 31 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/31/nuclear.iran

Iran will continue its nuclear "path", the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted yesterday, just days before a deadline set by world powers for Tehran to accept a deal that could defuse the dispute over its nuclear programme.

Khamenei, who has the final word on all big issues in Iran, suggested there was no mood for compromise in Tehran, despite the threat of new sanctions or an attack by the US or Israel. EU officials announced new restrictions that would be implemented if Iran did not back down.

"They [the west] know that the Iranian nation is after using nuclear energy to provide electricity but they say because this work gives you capability, we will not allow it," he was quoted as saying. "The Iranian nation does not pay attention to such talk and will continue with its path."

"Taking one step back against arrogant [powers] will lead to them to take one step forward," he argued. "The idea that any retreat or backing down from righteous positions would change the policies of arrogant world powers is completely wrong and baseless."

The remarks seemed to preclude halting uranium enrichment, the key demand being made of Iran. Iran flatly denies it is seeking to build nuclear weapons.

The Iranian leader made similar comments before the July 19 meeting in Geneva between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN security council, plus Germany. Iran was then given two weeks to respond to their offer to delay imposing more UN sanctions if it would agree to freeze any expansion of its nuclear work. There was no sign after that meeting of any resolution of the standoff.

Arrangements are being made for a telephone conversation early next week between Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, and Saeed Jalili, Iran's nuclear negotiator, in the hope of obtaining a definitive answer. But a European diplomat said yesterday that the EU had agreed to go beyond UN sanctions, instructing financial institutions to exercise "restraint" on export credits.

Britain, France, Germany and Italy wanted go beyond what Russia and China had been prepared to support in the security council, the diplomat said.

Iran has been offered help with civilian nuclear technology and other economic incentives of it stops enrichment. But its only response has been to call for a three-stage process which would involve talks about "modalities" for further talks, a freeze on sanctions and cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Analysts say Iran appears to have been emboldened by divisions within the international community, signs that the US is not willing to use military action and has urged Israel to refrain from doing so.

[Optimus]

Strike on Iran still possible, U.S. tells Israel
Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense chief, is visiting as Washington is perceived to be softening its stance toward Tehran.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usisrael30-2008jul30%2C0%2C625643.story
By Paul Richter and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
July 30, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials reassured Israel's defense minister this week that the United States has not abandoned all possibility of a military attack on Iran, despite widespread Israeli concern that Washington has begun softening its position toward Tehran.

In meetings Monday and Tuesday, administration officials told Defense Minister Ehud Barak that the option of attacking Iran over its nuclear program remains on the table, though U.S. officials are primarily seeking a diplomatic solution.

At the same time, U.S. officials acknowledged that there is a rare divergence in the U.S. and Israeli approaches, with Israelis emphasizing the possibility of a military response out of concern that Tehran may soon have the know-how for building a nuclear bomb.

"Is there a difference of emphasis? It certainly looks as though there is," said a senior American Defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing the sensitive talks.

U.S. and Israeli officials believe Iran is enriching uranium with the aim of building nuclear weapons.

Tehran says that it is engaged in a peaceful enrichment program for civilian energy purposes.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said in an interview that U.S. officials have often made it clear to Israeli officials that Washington prefers to try to mitigate the threat from Tehran by applying economic pressure.

"The military option, although always available, is not our preferred route," Morrell said.

"We have made that point clear to them and the world in our public statements and private meetings."

Barak left Israel for Washington amid reports in the Israeli press that he would try to talk the Bush administration out of what many Israelis perceive as a more conciliatory policy toward Iran.

On Tuesday, the Israeli Defense Ministry released a statement saying that Barak had told Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that "a policy that consists of keeping all options on the table must be maintained."

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Barak said that there remains time for "accelerated sanctions" to try to persuade Iran to abandon the nuclear program.

Israeli officials were concerned in December when a key U.S. intelligence report concluded that Iran had abandoned an effort to build a nuclear bomb. They also have noted with concern comments this month by Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that an Israeli airstrike on Iran would further destabilize the Middle East and compound the strain on overworked U.S. forces.

Also this month, in a rare move toward engagement with Tehran, a senior U.S. diplomat took part in international talks in Geneva about the nuclear program.

And U.S. officials have floated a proposal for opening a low-level diplomatic office in Tehran.

These gestures have taken place at a time of intensifying discussion in Israel about the wisdom of an Israeli military attack on Iran before the Bush administration leaves office.

A senior State Department official said Tuesday that Israel "is a sovereign state and we understand that they view this as an existential threat. And we take the threat that's posed by Iran seriously as well."

But the official, who asked to remain unidentified in keeping with diplomatic rules, said the administration is "pursuing the strategy we believe is the right one."

Gates, in an hourlong meeting with Barak, told the minister that the United States intends to consider providing radar to Israel that can detect ballistic missiles launched from Iran and supplying weapons to counter rocket attacks from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, according to a senior Defense official.

[Optimus]

Iran: No deadline agreed on nuke deal
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/31/iran.talks/
July 31, 2008

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran has already responded to an international offer of incentives for suspending its nuclear enrichment activity, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told CNN on Wednesday.

Mottaki said Iran responded with its own proposal, which involves another set of talks.

And contrary to what others -- including the United States and the European Union -- have said, no deadline was agreed upon during talks between Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana during talks in Geneva earlier this month, Mottaki said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday warned Iran not to delay its response. A two-week deadline for the response to the offer made to Iran by envoys from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China ends this week, officials have said.

But Mottaki told CNN no deadline was discussed at the meeting -- one was mentioned only afterward.

Solana, in appearing with Jalili at a July 19 conference after the talks, said he expected to receive an answer from Tehran in two weeks.

The nations offered the package of economic and other incentives because they and others are concerned that Iran may be working to build nuclear weapons. Tehran has insisted its nuclear program is to produce energy, not for military purposes.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently said in an interview with NBC that there is room for "common ground" between the United States and Iran on the nuclear issue.

But on Tuesday, when asked about his comments, Rice said, "There is one way for the Iranians to make clear that they have found common ground. It's to come and say, 'We accept the proposal -- this is a good basis for the beginnings for pre-negotiations within a six-week period and then we can suspend our enrichment and reprocessing and we can begin real negotiations.' And the United States ... will be at the table."

[Dan]

IRAN :   The Nuclear Assumption  !!

http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/iran-the-nuclear-assumption/


THIS IS  MUST READ ! ! !

Bigron, I read this and at first glance I thought it is a clear cut case of how the American media is twisting everything about Nuke weapons to justify a war with Iran.  I mean, they constantly deny any wrong doing regarding Nuke weapons.  Right?  Unfortunately I am reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and I know that when Hitler gained power in Germany, he assured, time and time again, all the world that the last thing that Germany wanted was a war.  They were a peace loving country that looked to gain equality amongst their neighbors.  Under this guise, they were able to build such a military force that it would take the world's united effort to stop it.  It was such a clever, sneaky and disastrous agenda that took the world by surprise.  Especially those in Europe who bought into the lies.

Because of that, I noticed a similar banter to the Iranian Presidents repeated assertions that they are looking for a new peacefull energy source and that the don't want a war. 

Again, unfortunately, I also do not believe that they are pursuing nuclear weapons technology as claimed by our embarrassment of a government.

Therefore I have a dilemma.  I do not believe our government because I know that they lie to us about everything in order to do what they want.  And what they want is another war.  Yet, I do not believe Iran because it is too similar to what has happened in the past, and am I wrong in saying that the Iranian President has "idolized" Hitler?  something like that?

I am torn between two lies and neither has a good outcome.

what to do.....what to do?

Dan

[Boubear]

Bigron, I read this and at first glance I thought it is a clear cut case of how the American media is twisting everything about Nuke weapons to justify a war with Iran.  I mean, they constantly deny any wrong doing regarding Nuke weapons.  Right?  Unfortunately I am reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and I know that when Hitler gained power in Germany, he assured, time and time again, all the world that the last thing that Germany wanted was a war.  They were a peace loving country that looked to gain equality amongst their neighbors.  Under this guise, they were able to build such a military force that it would take the world's united effort to stop it.  It was such a clever, sneaky and disastrous agenda that took the world by surprise.  Especially those in Europe who bought into the lies.

Because of that, I noticed a similar banter to the Iranian Presidents repeated assertions that they are looking for a new peacefull energy source and that the don't want a war. 

Again, unfortunately, I also do not believe that they are pursuing nuclear weapons technology as claimed by our embarrassment of a government.

Therefore I have a dilemma.  I do not believe our government because I know that they lie to us about everything in order to do what they want.  And what they want is another war.  Yet, I do not believe Iran because it is too similar to what has happened in the past, and am I wrong in saying that the Iranian President has "idolized" Hitler?  something like that?

I am torn between two lies and neither has a good outcome.

what to do.....what to do?

Dan

If you know the Iranian's President belief, and you can look them up all over the internet, he does want a war, but I think he wants the US or Israel to start it.  He believes in the Madhi, and believes only with a huge global chaos that he will appear and bring peace and Islam to the world.  This may be why it appears that both sides are lying!!

[Biggs]

If you know the Iranian's President belief, and you can look them up all over the internet, he does want a war, but I think he wants the US or Israel to start it.  He believes in the Madhi, and believes only with a huge global chaos that he will appear and bring peace and Islam to the world.  This may be why it appears that both sides are lying!!

the thing is he has very little power over foreign policy in Iran, that is controlled primarily by the  Iranian Revolutionary Council - i.e. the Ayatollah's of which he is not one.

further, it is worth remembering that much of what you read on the interne,t including all quotes on MSM are translations by MEMRI and SETI - both of which are neocon/ziocon political tools owned by hardliners which have a proven track record of mistranslating speeches and statements by the like of Ahmedinajad.

e.g. the famous "wipe Israel off the map" actually was correctly translated as "may the regime occupying Jeruslem dissappear from the pages of time" - which are two VERY different things.

not that I like the guy, he is a nasty piece of work, however, he is not quite the hardcorre nnutter that people claim, and is anyway impotent in matters of foreign policy being little more than an envoy for the ayatollahs.

[Boubear]

the thing is he has very little power over foreign policy in Iran, that is controlled primarily by the  Iranian Revolutionary Council - i.e. the Ayatollah's of which he is not one.

further, it is worth remembering that much of what you read on the interne,t including all quotes on MSM are translations by MEMRI and SETI - both of which are neocon/ziocon political tools owned by hardliners which have a proven track record of mistranslating speeches and statements by the like of Ahmedinajad.

e.g. the famous "wipe Israel off the map" actually was correctly translated as "may the regime occupying Jeruslem dissappear from the pages of time" - which are two VERY different things.

not that I like the guy, he is a nasty piece of work, however, he is not quite the hardcorre nnutter that people claim, and is anyway impotent in matters of foreign policy being little more than an envoy for the ayatollahs.

So he can only do what he's told? 

[Sasha]

Just saw a chilling video about a Congressman John Olver (Dem-Mass.) claiming that Bush was going to bomb Iran, declare a state of national emergency, then suspend the elections.  Smells like their MO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBv1Q0WGygw

[Boubear]

Just saw a chilling video about a Congressman John Olver (Dem-Mass.) claiming that Bush was going to bomb Iran, declare a state of national emergency, then suspend the elections.  Smells like their MO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBv1Q0WGygw

Wouldn't surprise me at all!!

[Optimus]

Iran Sets Up 31 Provincial Army to Respond to Threats
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2462778&title=Iran_Sets_Up_31.html
By: iStockAnalyst   Friday, August 01, 2008 7:55 AM

Excerpt from report by Iranian official government news agency IRNA

Tehran, 1 August: The representative of the Vali-e Faqih [religious jurisconsult, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamene'i] at the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps [IRGC], Hojjat ol-Eslam Ali Sa'idi, has said that the IRGC should be organized in a manner that it can be ready against all threats. He said: The establishment of 31 provincial corps was to create ability to take rapid measures against existing threats.

According to an IRNA correspondent, Sa'idi who was speaking before the Tehran Friday prayer sermons this week, told worshippers: IRGC has a major role in preserving the independence of the country and the revolution's achievements.

While commemorating the birthday of Imam Husayn [third Shi'i imam] and the guards' day, he added: We have witnessed that during the past three decades, the IRGC has attempted to defend and safeguard the revolution by sacrificing the blood and lives of their best personnel. [Passage omitted: reviewing the activities of the IRGC in the past]

The representative of the Vali-e Faqih referred to the presence of the IRGC in various construction fields since 1368 [1989] under the order of the supreme leader. He said: The IRGC by relying on its technical and engineering capabilities has been able to take giant strides in the economic arena and has so far implemented more than 1,600 big and small projects. It is also implementing 285 big projects at present among which one can refer to Karkheh Dam, Gatvand Dam, oil tanks of Asaluyeh refinery, motorways, bridges, Tehran's metro, etc.

He added: The Iranian nation today is the standard-bearer of the fight against the global arrogance. If we want to overcome the enemy, we need to rely on the principle of spirituality, loyalty to ideals and patience and resistance against the enemy.

Originally published by Islamic Republic News Agency, Tehran, in Persian 1022 1 Aug 08.

[Optimus]

Weekend deadline for Iran in nuclear showdown
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hfKUJfc4SCkuFd1n_i0LW_gEDhYg
August 1, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States on Friday set the weekend as a deadline for Iran to reply to the latest international offer of incentives for a freeze in its nuclear drive.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Thursday that there was no deadline and that his country had already replied. The US State Department had been vague about the deadline but narrowed it down on Friday.

"We expect a response this weekend," Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, told AFP without specifying Saturday or Sunday.

A diplomatic source in Brussels said an Iranian response could come in the next few days but insisted that the international community wanted an answer from Iran.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had given Iran two weeks to come up with a "serious" reply after an international meeting in Geneva on July 19 which saw Tehran broadly accused of stonewalling.

Washington broke with past policy by sending top diplomat William Burns to the talks in Geneva.

US officials said they wanted to encourage those in Iran who want to cooperate with the West to ease the economic and financial pressure caused by UN sanctions.

Gary Sick of Columbia University, an Iran expert who was interviewed after the July 19 meeting, said Washington and Tehran were both showing an increased desire to end the showdown that has raised fears of a military conflict.

"Neither side wants to show that it is losing face, or that it is caving in or appeasing the other side, but both sides are interested in finding a way out of this conundrum," Sick told the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a US think-tank.

Sick said another "change on both sides" is Washington's willingness to look at opening an interests section in Iran -- a first step toward restoring diplomatic ties cut three decades ago -- and Tehran's openness to the idea.

The expert said that Washington had learned that its past desire to isolate Iran with increasingly stiff sanctions had failed to stop Iran enriching uranium -- a key stage in efforts to make a nuclear bomb.

Along with the four other permanent UN Security Council members -- Britain, France, China, and Russia -- as well as Germany, the United States has taken a more conciliatory approach lately.

The so-called P5-plus-1 has offered Iran benefits in civil nuclear energy, trade, finance, agriculture and high technology if it freezes uranium enrichment.

If Iran accepts the package, there would be pre-negotiations during which Tehran would add no more uranium-enriching centrifuges and, in return, face no further sanctions.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana delivered the incentives package to Tehran in June.

In Brussels, the diplomatic source, who asked not to be named, said that for the Europeans "the Iranian reply should come in the next few days," without setting Saturday as a strict deadline.

"The situation today is that we want a clear reply to the question Solana asked in Geneva," the source said. "For the moment, the Iranian response has not been clear enough."

The source declined to speculate about what action the allies would take if Iran's fell short of expectations.

"We'll see at that time," the source said, recalling that the approach had always been sanctions and dialogue and that the Iranians risked a fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions.

Rice has warned of more "punitive measures," an allusion to more sanctions.

EU nations held a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday and are keen to apply existing UN sanctions against Iran more robustly, an EU diplomat said Wednesday.

[Optimus]

Israel ready to attack Iran without USA’s permission
http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/01-08-2008/105968-israel-0
August 1, 2008

Israel has entered the last phase of its war preparations against Iran. Recent resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a proponent of negotiations and concessions, and several other factors speak well for the imminent war. Israel’s recent creation of the US missile defense shield can be another addition on the list. The US administration also tries to use the Israeli forces to play a dirty trick on Russia.

The resignation of the Israeli prime minister has become another reason to raise the subject of imminent war between Israel and Iran. Many Israeli politicians dislike Ehud Olmert’s views on the need to conduct negotiations with neighboring states, as well as his intention to discuss an opportunity to return Golan Heights to Syria.

There are other aspects which testify to a possible war in the nearest future. The USA is going to ship a radar station to Israel to track down missile launches. Furthermore, the United States intends to use the radar together with Israel . The USA will provide Israel with early missile launch prevention information, as well as technical and financial aid for the creation of the missile defense system.

According to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the radar station will be deployed in Israel before the new US administration officially takes the White House in January 2009.

The US administration believes that the radar station is required to defend Israel against Iranian missiles. It does not go about the deployment of interceptor missiles yet. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the distance to Iran is almost the same as the distance to Russia, which vehemently opposes the deployment of US missile system in Europe.

The station will give the USA an opportunity to use its radar towards Russia freely, without any explanations or control. In addition, the station will give Israel more confidence in its war preparations.

Israel acts by the law of war and seriously prepares to attack Iran’s nuclear objects. It transpired that the top Israeli administration had had a secret meeting with architect of Operation Opera, Retired General Aviam Sela. It was Sela, who planned the surprised Israeli air strike against the Iraqi nuclear reactor 27 years ago. In addition to Opera, the general also elaborated and conducted several operations to destroy Syrian air defense batteries in Lebanon during the First Lebanese War in 1982.

Israeli officials have been talking about Iranian nuclear threat for about a decade. However, now is the time, when Tel Aviv seriously considers a question about the use of military force against Iran . The nuclear issue is obviously the key question in the opposition between Iran and Israel, but there is a more global question, which explains why Israel fears Iran.



Page 2
http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/105968-1/

Iran strives to obtain the status of a regional superpower against the background of its open hostility against Israel. Iran’s views and intentions pose a threat to Israel ’s role and place in the Middle East. Iranian nuclear weapons endanger the existence of the State of Israel even if the weapons are used with the deterrent value only.

One shall assume that Israel may claim its entire responsibility for the start of a military action against Iran, if the action takes place, of course. Ex-head of Mossad, Shabtai Shavit said that Israel would not be waiting for USA’s permission to attack Iran ’s nuclear facilities.

The US administration does not hurry to use its military force against Iran ’s nuclear program. US officials prefer to wage psychological war against Iran, which could also be a good start of a real war.

Nevertheless, there is a number of circumstances, which do not let the USA launch a large-scale military action against Iran. The current political stability in Iraq and Afghanistan leaves much to be desired. A limited contingent of coalition troops in Afghanistan is obviously not enough to conduct large-scale military operations in the south of the war-torn nation. US and coalition troops make up about 200,000 people in the region. The Pentagon cannot provide more.

Iran will not miss a chance to strike back on oil pipelines and oil structures of neighboring Arab states. Even a slight military action in the region may cause serious damage to the world economy. The European Union, China and India will suffer from the possible fuel crisis most. The USA would not mind weaker competitors, of course. It is an open secret that the economies of those industrial giants largely depend on crude shipments from the Persian Gulf. The war could be a good reason.

[Optimus]

Iran Heads Toward Nuclear `Breakthrough,' Israel Says (Update2)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=avrBXuuDL_Kw
By Mark Drajem and Janine Zacharia

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Iran is on a path toward a ``major breakthrough'' in its nuclear program that is ``unacceptable,'' Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz told a Washington audience today.

``It is an existential threat,'' Mofaz said at a forum on Iran at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ``We have to make sure we are prepared for every option.''

Mofaz, a former Israeli army chief of staff, is a potential future leader of Israel because of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's planned departure from office. Mofaz is competing with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for control of the ruling Kadima party after Olmert said July 30 that he won't compete in the party's Sept. 17 primary amid a corruption scandal.

While Mofaz accused the Iranian government of ``buying time'' in its resistance to international pressure to suspend uranium enrichment, he said the diplomatic ``track'' should continue.

``We don't want war, we want peace,'' Mofaz said. ``But we will not let the second Holocaust take place.''

The comments from Mofaz, who also serves as transportation minister, echoed statements he made last month to the Jerusalem Post that ``all options are on the table. If there won't be a choice other than a nuclear Iran or a military option, it's clear what our decision has to be.''

Similar threats he made in June contributed to a surge in oil prices.

U.S.-Israeli Talks

Mofaz is heading the Israeli team taking part in a strategic dialogue with the U.S. this week in Washington, a forum in which the sides meet every few months to discuss regional threats.

Israel is seeking to be integrated into an American early warning system to help alert it to the firing of long-range missiles in the region. Iran test-fired such a missile earlier this month.

Nicholas Burns, the former U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, told the forum that diplomacy needs ``time and patience'' to succeed. Burns was instrumental in building the U.S. strategy of escalating sanctions on Iran through the United Nations Security Council.

``Before we can even begin to consider the prospect of force, we need to pursue this diplomatic process,'' Burns said.

The five permanent members of the Security Council, the U.S., Russia, China, France and the U.K., plus Germany have proposed an economic and technological incentives package for Iran in exchange for a halt to enrichment.

At talks in Geneva on July 19, European diplomats and U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns gave Iran two weeks to reply to the offer and to their repeated calls for it to halt enrichment.

[Optimus]

Iran, ahead of deadline, says will resist foes
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSDAH16809120080802?sp=true
Sat Aug 2, 2008 5:39am EDT

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Friday the Islamic Republic would "stand against" its enemies with its "power", speaking just before a deadline set by Western officials in a dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Western powers gave Iran two weeks from July 19 to respond to their offer to hold off on imposing more U.N. sanctions on Iran if Tehran would freeze any expansion of its nuclear work.

That would suggest a deadline of Saturday, although Russia, one of the six powers facing Iran, has opposed a deadline and Iran dismissed the idea of having two-weeks to reply.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the nuclear issue was just an excuse for the country's foes.

"The main reason for their enmity with this nation in the past 30 years is that they want to force the Iranian nation to retreat," the state broadcaster quoted him as saying, without mentioning any country by name.

"Whenever the enemies have failed against this nation they have tried to make excuses, but the Iranian nation will stand against them with its power," Ahmadinejad said, without elaborating.

Ahmadinejad's remarks drew a speedy reaction from the White House.

"Comments like those aren't productive. He should instead be focused on the generous incentives package we've offered," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The West accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear warheads under cover of a civilian power program. Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, denies the charge.

The freeze idea is aimed at getting preliminary talks started, although formal negotiations on an incentives package proposed by six world powers will not start before Iran suspends uranium enrichment, which has both civilian and military uses.

Iran has rejected suspension in the past and has given no indication so far that it is ready for a freeze.

[Godfather77]

Israel: Iran Will Soon Have Nukes
Saturday August 02, 2008
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Iran-Close-To-Getting-Nuclear-Weapons-Israel-Warns-As-UN-Deadline-Approaches/Article/200808115064344?lpos=World%2BNews_3&lid=ARTICLE_15064344_Iran%2BClose%2BTo%2BGetting%2BNuclear%2BWeapons%252C%2BIsrael%2BWarns%2BAs%2BUN%2BDeadline%2BApproaches

Iran is heading towards a major breakthrough in its nuclear capability, Israel's deputy prime minister has warned.Shaul Mofaz predicted Iran would be able to enrich uranium by next year and would be able to make weapons-grade materials by 2010.

Iran maintains its nuclear programme is peaceful and aimed only at providing new power stations.

"Iran is continuing to advance toward a military nuclear capability and is heading towards a major breakthrough," the Iranian-born deputy Israeli PM said.

"For us, such a situation that Iran will have a nuclear power is... unacceptable."

He said he favoured using diplomacy to find a solution to the problem but refused to rule out military force.

His comments came shortly before a deadline imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Western powers gave Iran two weeks from July 19 to respond to their offer to hold off on imposing further sanctions in return for halting any expansion of its nuclear work.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the nuclear issue was just being used as an excuse by the country's enemies.

"The main reason for their enmity with this nation in the past 30 years is that they want to force the Iranian nation to retreat," the state broadcaster quoted him as saying, without mentioning any country by name.

"Whenever the enemies have failed against this nation they have tried to make excuses, but the Iranian nation will stand against them with its power," he added.

Formal negotiations on an incentives package proposed by six world powers will not start before Iran suspends uranium enrichment, which has both civilian and military uses.

Iran has rejected suspension in the past and has given no indication so far that it is ready for a freeze.

[thadividedsky]

So the deadline is today, correct? We could be at war with Iran anytime now. Pakistan is a big possibility as well, with coalition forces fireing missiles into pakistan and the U.S. working with India on it's nuclear ambitions. Just to name a few of the many troubles we're facing. I'm speechless now..

[Freeski]

So the deadline is today, correct? We could be at war with Iran anytime now. Pakistan is a big possibility as well, with coalition forces fireing missiles into pakistan and the U.S. working with India on it's nuclear ambitions. Just to name a few of the many troubles we're facing. I'm speechless now..

Or maybe all this Iran attack hype is just a diversion... and there's a surprise coming for Chavez.

[KiwiClare]

Someone talented on Digg.com produced this YouTube video for everyone to spread around to wake people up to the false flag that analysts like Ray McGovern and Richard C Cook say is planned as a pretext to invade Iran.

 The False Pretext for World War 4 watch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LEyEpZhbeE
 youtube.com — The war mongers are looking for an excuse to go after Iran. When they can ’t find one that the public will accept, they consider how to cook up a phony event of their own at the expense of American lives. Note: The use of the word World War 4 is with respect to the idea that the Neo-Cons refer to the Cold War as World War 3. www.infowars.com

Digg here:
http://digg.com/politics/The_False_Pretext_for_World_War_4?OTC-em-sh2

[Brocke]

Syrian general assassinated

From correspondents in Beirut

August 03, 2008 07:15pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse

A GENERAL thought to be the Syrian regime's liaison with Hezbollah in Lebanon has been assassinated, Arab media has reported.
The reports came almost six months after the killing in a Damascus car bomb of top Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughnieh, which the Shiite militant group blamed on Israel.

The Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat  quoted "informed sources" in London as saying that a senior Syrian officer had been found dead.
 
"The circumstances of the incident are not clear," the London-based paper said in its report, which said the sources suggested that the slain officer had been "in charge of sensitive files and closely linked to the Syrian top brass."

Al-Bawaba, an Arab news website, named the officer as Mohammed Sleiman and said he was "Syria's liaison officer with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement".
 
It said he was killed by a sniper in the northwest Syrian town of Tartus and would be buried in his hometown of Driekesh today.

The Lebanese anti-Syrian daily al-Mustaqbal quoted a Syrian news site as saying General Sleiman was the head of security at the presidential palace in Damascus and President Bashar al-Assad's "right-hand man".

The paper made no mention of Hezbollah in its report.

A Hezbollah official in Lebanon said that he did not know Mohammed Sleiman and had not heard about any killing.

Israel has denied the Hezbollah charge that it was behind the assassination of Mr Mughnieh in the Syrian capital on February 12.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24121604-23109,00.html

[Sasha]

Olbermann Covers Dick Cheney Iran Flase Flag Story
Sunday, Aug 3, 2008

Besides LiveLeak featuring this story, Keith Olbermann was the only major U.S. media source to cover this huge story.

I do not think people realize that here is yet another person with damning war crime evidence and we still do nothing. Get this story out, talk about it and share the video.

Thank you LiveLeak for the feature and here is the video, watch it!

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=37d_1217534537

Prominent journalist Seymour Hersh exposes details of a plan considered by US Vice President Dick Cheney on how to provoke war with Iran.

“There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war [with Iran],” Hersh said recently in reference to the subject of discussion at a meeting held at Cheney’s office.

In a July article published in the New Yorker, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist revealed information about covert US operations carried out in Iran. He did not disclose the content of the talks with Cheney in his article.

In a recent interview with Think Progress, however, Hersh exposed that the meeting witnessed Cheney mulling over a proposal to dress up Navy SEALs as Iranians and shoot them in order to trigger a war with Iran.

“The one (plan) that interested me the most was why don’t we build - we in our shipyard - build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy SEALs on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Strait of Hormuz, start a shoot-up,” he revealed in his recent interview.

“Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of - that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation.”

The well-known journalist added that the proposal was ultimately rejected.

“Look, is it high school? Yeah. Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran,” he continued.

Hersh argues that should Washington engineer ‘the right incident’, Americans will ’support’ going to war with Iran.

Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Myron Hersh first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War.

[Sasha]

Democracy Now also reported:

Hersh: US Considered Ways to Provoke War with Iran
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/1/headlines#2

"Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed the Bush administration recently held a meeting in Vice President Cheney’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran. Hersh said it was considered during the meeting to stage an incident where it would appear that Iranian boats had attacked US forces in the Straits of Hormuz.

Seymour Hersh: “There was a dozen ideas proffered how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was, why don’t we build—we, in our shipyard—build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats, put Navy Seals on them with a lot of arms, and, the next time one of our boats goes through the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives. And it was rejected, because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. But that’s the kind of—that’s the level of stuff we are talking about: provocation. But that was rejected.”

Seymour Hersh discussed the report during a recent interview at the Campus Progress journalism conference."



...but that was it, just headlines.  Sy Hersh does need to sleep out this entire subject's information and reveal all of Cheney's False Flag intentions that he knows about.  I'm under no illusions about their financiers but, Democracy Now has had Hersh on many times and it might be a good angle to get him to do some confess'n.

Democracy Now:
call:  (212) 431-9090
fax:  (212) 431-8858
e-mail:  http://www.democracynow.org/about/contact

[KiwiClare]

Anti-'Iran war' rally near White House
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=65490&sectionid=3510203
Sun, 03 Aug 2008 10:54:23

Protesters demanded the US stop war plans for Iran.
Anti-war activists have staged a protest in front of the White House against the possibility of an Israel-US war on Iran.

Concerned voters took to the US president backyard and shouted anti-war slogans protesting the US and Israeli threats against Iran.

The protesters chanted Hands off Iran! and Jail to the Chief!. They stopped at Walker's Point, the summer home of President George W. Bush, to tell the president that attacking Iran would cause major economic hardship.

The group, who had gathered from all around the world and all over the country, demanded that the US government pull its war plan for Iran off the table.

Anti-war activists were harassed by police for violating boundaries despite the fact that the First Amendment of the US Constitution protects the right for all people to demonstrate peacefully anywhere they please.

Israel was also on top of the protesters' list, who stated the US and the Israeli threats against Iran are against the international law.

They called a possible war against Iran as AIPAC strategy. One of the most influential lobbies in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is an American lobbying group that advocates what it believes are pro-Israel policies to the Congress.

NAT/BGH

Digg here:
http://digg.com/world_news/Anti_Iran_war_rally_near_White_House?OTC-em-sh1

[NonCompliance]

Iranians have become the new communists. The communists were always one step away from invading America too. The Iran war is always just around the corner, coming next month.

[NonCompliance]

Iranians have become the new communists. The communists were always one step away from invading America too. The Iran war is always just around the corner, coming next month. It's not going to happen. There will be no Iran war.

[munkey]

as much as I would like to believe that, GWB will stop at nothing for the oil dollar, he did it to Iraq and he has to do it to Iran as well 

[NonCompliance]

I just quoted myself? Let it never be said I am not a retard. 

[Freeski]

I just quoted myself? Let it never be said I am not a retard. 

As long as you're not an elitist.

[NonCompliance]

Perpetually shoving the Iran threat in the face of the people is to let everyone know that it could be worse. This keeps the public in line, dulled and cowed. I've read a lot about this eminent attack. How it will play out. Who will be involved. What will be the likely outcome. Yet it never comes to be. It's like the psychics predicting that California will fall into the ocean every year. I'm wondering why people still bother listening.

If there was going to be an Iran invasion it would have began in April. Traditionally, military engagements begin during spring. A lot of things appeared to be in sync with an attack during that time such as the 5th fleet being deployed to the Gulf, media propaganda, and a high ranking general who opposed an Iran attack suddenly retiring. It didn't happen then and is probably not going to happen. It's a possibility but I believe most it has fallen into the realm of fear mongering.

[Sasha]

Perpetually shoving the Iran threat in the face of the people is to let everyone know that it could be worse. This keeps the public in line, dulled and cowed. I've read a lot about this eminent attack. How it will play out. Who will be involved. What will be the likely outcome. Yet it never comes to be. It's like the psychics predicting that California will fall into the ocean every year. I'm wondering why people still bother listening.

If there was going to be an Iran invasion it would have began in April. Traditionally, military engagements begin during spring. A lot of things appeared to be in sync with an attack during that time such as the 5th fleet being deployed to the Gulf, media propaganda, and a high ranking general who opposed an Iran attack suddenly retiring. It didn't happen then and is probably not going to happen. It's a possibility but I believe most it has fallen into the realm of fear mongering.

I don't mean to be contentious Noncompliance but, do you really believe that the arch-criminals in the White House are going to waltz out the door into happy retirement, just to be replaced by lesser thugs?  I bet they don't.  They will not be able to go into public anywhere in the free world without being confronted with their crimes.

They've started somthing that that 4th plane on 9/11 that was shot down in Penn. was supposed to finish but didn't -  Martial Law and indefinate rule.  There is no escape for them other than playing all the cards they have in their hand, and that includes anything under the sun that will continue the police state machina and their continued rulership without prosecution for their crimes. 

[NonCompliance]

we have about 6 months to figure it out.

[Sasha]

we have about 6 months to figure it out.

Here's to hopeing you're right and that a lot of iranians don't have to suffer the same fate as the iraqis - scant hope thought it be.

[bigron]

It is time for U.S.-Iran détente 

03/08/2008 10:07:00 PM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=145700

 
 Both Iran and the U.S. now have an extraordinary opportunity to change their mutual destinies, will they hold the line?


By Dr. Muqtedar Khan

For the past two years Iran and its nuclear program have dominated America's foreign policy agenda. Iran's refusal to stop enriching Uranium, which in its opinion it is entitled to as a signatory of the NPT treaty but the West believes is an effort to develop nuclear weapons, has made Iran the number one enemy in the eyes of the West.

But now there seems to be a change taking place in U.S.-Iranian relations and prospects for a détente seem real. Now not only is Ahmedinajad saying nice things about U.S. diplomats, but Iran is responding positively to U.S. overtures.

American failures in Iraq, in Afghanistan, on energy pricing, in housing and financial markets in addition to the weakening of the dollar, have handcuffed the Bush administration or else we would have surely witnessed a war against Iran.

Lack of domestic appetite for another war which would surely shoot oil prices through the roof has removed the use of force option from the table. After asserting for years that it will not talk to Iran unless it agrees to all its demands, the Bush administration is now engaging in direct negotiations. The decision to send William Burns, a very senior U.S. Diplomat, to meet with Iranian nuclear negotiator along with Europeans last week, clearly signals a significant shift in U.S. policy.

It remains to be seen however, whether this is an isolated episode or the beginning of a new modality in U.S.-Iran relations. The talk that the U.S. might even announce the opening of a U.S. mission in Iran next month, which has already been welcomed by Iranians, is genuinely path breaking. If President Bush follows through, then there is no doubt in my mind that Iran could become an important partner of the U.S. in shaping the emerging Middle East.

But before U.S. and Iran can start normalizing relations, it is important that the mutual demonization that both sides have indulged in be deconstructed. Iran has been painting the U.S. as a "Great Satan" and the source of all evil in the Middle East and the U.S. has consistently labeled Iran as a terrorist sponsor and as a threat to global peace.

Reports from Iran clearly suggest that Iranians are alienated by their own leadership and its failure to provide better governance and yo deliver on populist promises made in electoral speeches. Their resentment towards their leadership is manifesting in higher regard and esteem for the U.S. negating the anti-U.S.  rhetoric of some of its leaders. Azadeh Moaveni wrote in the Washington Post on June 1, 2008 "It might startle some Americans to realize that Iran has one of the most pro-American populations in the Middle East."

Scholars of the Middle East have repeatedly pointed out this paradox of U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. had become most hostile to the people who were most favorably disposed towards the U.S. in the Middle East. It will take little to win the Iranians over. A gesture of friendship from Bush, a surprise visit to Tehran by Rice, or a gift of six passenger aircrafts, should be enough to send Ahmedinajad packing in the elections due in 2009.

While Iranians are becoming pro-U.S., Americans are becoming anti-Iran. In order that the U.S.-Iranian détente flourish it is important that politicians and opinion makers stop demonizing Iran and recognize its positive contributions.

U.S. intelligence agencies are convinced that Iran abandoned its efforts to acquire nukes in 2003 (National Intelligence Estimate, November 2007). Iran helped Western powers in establishing the new government and democracy in Afghanistan and has cooperated with the U.S. to stabilize southern Iraq and restrain militias in Iraq.

While Ahmedinajad does rant about making Israel disappear, he is not in charge of Iranian foreign or military policy and his claims are not repeated by those who actually do manage Iran's external affairs. A regular acknowledgement of these realities and positive Iranian contributions will help prepare American public opinion for better U.S. -Iranian relations.

The perception that a nuclear Iran ruled by a madman poses a major threat to the world is the driving force behind Western paranoia about Iran. A sensible foreign policy from Washington is not possible until this misperception is deconstructed. Iran is not a threat; it is not capable of posing a serious threat.

Iran's air force is defunct. Its economy is in a bad shape. High oil prices do not help Iran too much since it is a net importer of gasoline and its crude oil exports are inferior to its competitors. Add to this the fact that the U.S., France, Britain and Israel all have powerful air forces and huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Additionally Islamic Iran has not invaded any country for any reason since the revolution in 1979. A record that neither the U.S. nor Israel can match given the U.S.'s unnecessary invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Israel's overreaction in Lebanon in 2006.

Both Iran and the U.S. now have an extraordinary opportunity to change their mutual destinies, will they hold the line?

-- Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware and Fellow of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (Ijtihad.org).




-- Middle East Online