Category Archives: War on Iran

Canada, Iran, War on Iran

Netanyahu Becomes Prime Minister of Canada, Declares Iran Greatest World Threat (Ever)……

   

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                          Neck of the woods

“Canada closes Iran embassy, says Tehran ‘most significant threat’ to world peace. Citing nuclear program, hostility to Israel and assisting Assad, Foreign Minister John Baird said Canada will expel all Iranian diplomats within five days; Netanyahu: Canada took a moral step. Canada has closed its embassy in Iran and will expel all remaining Iranian diplomats in Canada within five days, Foreign Minister John Baird said on Friday, denouncing Tehran as the biggest threat to global security..…………”

No doubt the Iranian help for Assad deserves condemnation: he is, after all a repressive dictator (and a Ba’athist to boot). Yet if diplomatic relations are broken on that basis, then they should be broken as well with countries that help repressive regimes in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (among other places). As for hostility to Israel, that is true: the Iranian regime is hostile to the Jewish state. Yet it is more than reciprocated: there isn’t a day that Israeli leaders and media (along with some of their toadies in the U.S. Congress) do not threaten an unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran.
The Canadians forgot the Hitler comparison! Bibi will have to call Mr. Harper and remind him.
Cheers
mhg
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Iran, Israel, NATO, War on Iran

Israel’s ‘Man in Drag’ Orders the West to Attack Iran……

   

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                          Neck of the woods
“Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called on Wednesday for major powers to speed up efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program, cautioning it would be tougher to confront it once Tehran managed to cross an atomic threshold. Israeli media interpreted Barak’s comments as pushing for a possible Israeli strike against Iran to stop a project the West sees as a drive to achieve nuclear weapons though Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying its program is intended solely for peaceful purposes……….”

A couple of years ago I read somewhere that a younger and lighter Ehud Barak was once disguised as a woman during a surprise attack on some PLO leaders in Beirut (he was part of a covert attack team in the 1970s). Ever since then, I have always thought of him as ‘the man in drag’. Nothing wrong with dressing as anything, of course, in certain situations.
I think with this new/old statement he was just adding to the built-up air of war-normalcy that the Israelis and the American right-wing are creating in our region. The goal: to make the war of aggression, if and when it comes, like a normal expected and unavoidable thing. Ehud Barak can never outdo Netanyahu who has been screaming “wolf” at the top of his voice for several years now. May they both continue whistling (or making other rude noises) in the wind, or as we call it “fi souq el-sofafeer: making a rude noise in the (noisy) copper-mongers market”. As we say back home.
Cheers
mhg
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Iran, Israel, nuclear wepoans, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Netanyahu Raises Chutzpah to a New Level: Hiroshima Mon Amour…….

 

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“They all said it would end the war,
And we thanked Christ for the bomb,
And the priests and witches all agreed,
They should die to keep them free.
The fireball that shamed the sun,
Burning the shadows on the ground,
As the rain falls to dry the land,
Leaving the desert for the thirsty man.

Hiroshima Mon Amour………………”  Alcatrazz

  
“Netanyahu: Iran must commit to halt all enrichment in upcoming nuclear talks. In unusual move, PM invites Barak, Lieberman and newcomer Mofaz to join meeting with EU foreign policy chief Ashton, in which he accused Iran of playing for time and said world powers must demand that Iran take tangible steps toward halting uranium enrichment……….. On Wednesday afternoon, the prime minister met with European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton, who arrived in Israel to brief Netanyahu on the preparations for the second round of nuclear talks with Iran………….”

It would be funny if it weren’t so outrageous. Here is the leader of a small Middle East country, one that has built many nuclear bombs and never joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and it is annexing occupied lands against international law. And he is “demanding” that Iran stop all uranium enrichment. He should be the last person, his government the last government that would talk about nuclear threats and enrichment and hiding and deception. Demanding: and European leaders actually listen to this charlatan and hustler! I can understand how they would worship him in the U.S. Congress: selling snake oil in some constituencies is an honorable old tradition that goes back to the Frontier days.
Now he is trying to set the agenda for the Baghdad meeting, perhaps hoping to provoke an Iranian withdrawal. That would apply more pressure on the White House in this year of Our Lord of Elections.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, OPEC, Sanctions, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Plan B? Western Sanctions Tighten, Iran Launches Huge New Oil Tankers……..

    

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“Iran has procured a new oil tanker with a capacity of 2.2 million barrels, one of the world’s largest. The tanker, which is valued at around $300 million, will join the Iranian fleet within the next few days. The oil tanker is a ‘floating storage and unload vessel’, said Managing Director of Iranian Offshore Oil Company Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh. The National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), Iran’s oil shipping operator, is expanding its tanker fleet with the first of 12 supertankers to be delivered from China in May, fortuitous timing for the OPEC member as Western sanctions force Tehran to rely more on its ships to export oil, Reuters reported. The new tankers, each capable of carrying 2 million barrels of crude, add much-needed capacity to NITC’s fleet at a time when the number of maritime firms willing to transport Iranian crude has dwindled significantly amid European sanctions. The EU will prohibit European insurers and reinsurers from indemnifying tankers carrying Iranian crude oil anywhere in the world from July, threatening to curtail shipments and raise costs for major buyers like China, India, Japan and South Korea. The NITC managing director announced in December 2011 that 21 new tankers will be added to the national fleet by the end of 2013…………”


Either the Iranians are optimistic about an end to Western sanctions soon or they have one hell of a Plan B. Since I know for certain that Western sanctions will not be lifted or even eased this year, then there must be a Plan B.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, nuclear Iran, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Obama Painted into a Corner on Iran: Why Hillary Clinton Should Leave State…..

    

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“L’Iran a appelé lundi les Occidentaux à envisager la levée des sanctions s’ils veulent parvenir à une solution de la crise liée à son programme nucléaire controversé, et laissé entendre qu’il pourrait discuter du niveau d’enrichissement de son uranium. «Si l’Occident veut construire (un climat de) confiance, il devrait commencer par les sanctions, car cela peut aider à accélérer les discussions pour parvenir à une solution», a déclaré le chef de la diplomatie iranienne Ali Akbar Salehi à l’agence de presse ISNA………..”

That is the dilemma of the Iran negotiations with P5+1. Even if the Iranians agree not to enrich uranium to the 20% level, the Western regimes are in no position to lift the sanctions. Provided they are really willing to provide the isotopes needed for research. The Obama administration has painted itself into a corner, where it cannot lift the sanctions in exchange for Iranian concessions. In this political year, the sanctions have been tightened more than ever before, mainly for domestic US political reasons, pressure by the Republican right and AIPAC and the likes of Joe Lieberman. There is no way Obama can lift any sanctions this year; he certainly can’t get the Congress to go along. There is also no way the Iranian will agree to yield on the enrichment issue without a lifting of the Western blockade. That would be tantamount to surrender.
In their eagerness to accommodate the American and Israeli right-wing, Obama and Hillary Clinton have made sure that there can be no deal this year. Not a very good job by the Clinton State Department. If Obama is reelected, he really should look for another secretary of state: the current one has not done a good job.
Cheers
mhg


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AIPAC, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, NATO, War on Iran

An Iranian Nuclear Message to the Wrong Ears……………..

    

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“Work hard in your mind       
So you can come alive

You beter prove to the man      
You’re as strong as him

Cause in the eyes of god        
You’re both children to him

Da da doo doo                  
Everybody come alive

Everybody live alive           
Everybody love alive

Everybody hear my message………………” Jimi Hendrix

“Forty-five years ago, the United States sold my country a research reactor as well as weapons-grade uranium as its fuel. Not long afterward, America agreed to help Iran set up the full nuclear fuel cycle along with atomic power plants. The U.S. argument was that nuclear power would provide for the growing needs of our economy and free our remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals. That rationale has not changed. Still, after the Islamic Revolution in our country in 1979, all understandings with the United States in the nuclear field unraveled. Washington even cut off fuel deliveries to the very facility it supplied. To secure fuel from other sources, Iran was forced to modify the reactor to run on uranium enriched to around 20 percent. The Tehran Research Reactor still operates, supplying isotopes used in the medical treatment of 800,000 of my fellow Iranians every year. But getting to this point was not easy……….We have never failed when faced with no option but to provide for our own needs. All relationships — whether between parents and children, spouses or even nation-states — are based on trust. The example of the Tehran Research Reactor vividly illustrates the key issue between Iran and the United States: lack of trust………..”

Dr. Salehi is probably addressing the American people and not the government. Otherwise he would be better off addressing the government of Israel which is holding the peace of the Middle East hostage over the alleged Iranian nuclear bomb. The Israelis get a lot of help in that from the Saudi princes. Salehi should forward a copy of his editorial to the AIPAC.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, Middle East Nuclear, United Nations International Organizations, War on Iran

Honest Netanyahu in 2009: “Iran has Two Nukes on Missiles Ready to go”……….

    

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“Continuing the release of the US Stratfor research site’s e-mails, Wikileaks Wednesday, March 28 issued a batch of mails which indicated that Binyamin Netanyahu may have been a source of the site’s Vice President for intelligence Fred Burton (a former Deputy Chief of the Department of State’s counterterrorism division for the Diplomatic Security) from at least May 2007 up until 2010 after he became Prime Minister of Israel. The Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem has not commented on the publication. According to one e-mail from Burton, Netanyahu is said to have revealed in Dec. 2009 that “Iran has two nukes on missiles ready to go.” Burton went on to report that the White House (Barack Obama) was “doing everything possible to block Israel’s next steps. He added the view that “Israel will go it alone. Israeli subs are off Iran’s coast.” In answer to a question, Burton replied: “My source is bb (eyes only).”…………….”


If this report that originated through Wikileaks is true, it confirms many suspicions about the role of Israeli intelligence regarding the Iranian nuclear program. At this rate, why not rely on the Saudi grand mufti as a source of intelligence? He may be as reliable as Netanyahu about the Iranian nuclear program (but not an iota more reliable). The Salafi Mufti also has as much interest and eagerness for an Israeli or American (or both) attack on Iran as the best Likudnik.
Cheers
mhg


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Ali Khamenei, Egypt, Iran, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Suicidal Iranians: Another Dastardly Terror Plot in the Suez Canal……….

    

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“The Egyptian authorities claim to have foiled an Iranian attempt to blow up Israeli vessels in the Suez Canal, a government-linked newspaper has reported. Details of the alleged plot are likely to escalate tensions between Israel and Iran, who are locked in a stand-off over Tehran’s nuclear programme that many fear could trigger a new war in the Middle East. Israeli officials were unable to confirm the details, but said it was significant that the report had been published in Al-Ahram Weekly, a semi-official newspaper. Quoting state prosecutors, Al-Ahram said Egyptian police were holding two Egyptian nationals who are charged with receiving orders and payment from Iranian agents to blow up an Israeli ship. The two allegedly offered a third suspect, Mohammed Zakri, £5.1m to carry out the attack. Mr Zakri was reportedly told that he would be “paid by the Shiites”, apparently a reference to Tehran.…………..”

Oh oh, this is now an epidemic. Yet another Iranian plot surfaces, this time in Egypt, just two days after the last one, which was about four days after the one before it, which was just days after the one preceding………
And the suspect in Egypt knew just the exact words to say to the police; “paid by the Shiites“. He sounds so sincere, he almost sounds like a Salafi that equates Shi’as with Iranians (the way I often equate Salafis with a Saudi fifth column). There hasn’t been an Iranian plot against Egypt since they tried to take over the country with the help of Hizbollah about two months ago, as reported by Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat. A couple of months before that the Iranians were plotting with al-Qaeda to take over Egypt again, for the second time in 25 centuries (according to the same Saudi daily). Before that, some two years ago, they had tried to convert all 80 million Egyptians to the Shi’a sect, but Hosni Mubarak and the Shaikh of al-Azhar saved the day.
This new plot is uncovered exactly one day after an Iran-Hizbollah-Hamas plot was exposed by Ambassador Gerald Feierstein to take over Yemen, barely two days after the plot in New York to take photos of tourist sites. I am not even going to list all the other plots exposed so far, leaving their masterminds, the Iranian mullahs, in a state of un-consummated frustration.
Apparently the (extremely stupid) Iranians are itching to be bombed and have their infrastructure destroyed by Israel and the United States. Preferably with the blessings of the UN Security Council (they already have all the al-Saud and Salafi blessings they need). The mullahs must be disappointed with nothing to show for their efforts: that their country is still standing on its feet after all the previous plots they concocted and tried to execute all around the world. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must have called in the chief of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and given his a dressing down:  ”If you are so smart, then why are our cities, out command and control centers, our ports and our oil infrastructure still standing?”
What must be frustrating for the mullahs is that all their terror plots consistently fail. From the Persian Gulf to Egypt to Georgetown to New York to Asia, not one of these dastardly plots has been consummated. Maybe the best thing for the West to do about their nuclear program is to leave it alone. Just let them botch it up like all their other plots.

(Humor and wit side: it is possible, just possible, that the Iranians, some faction of them, are behind all these wild worldwide plots that we read about almost every other day now. Some of them, besides Jack the Texan and his Mexican drug cartel pals, may have had a grudge against the Saudi ambassador. But in that case which faction is it? An internal Iranian faction or an external Iranian faction?)
Cheers
mhg


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Espionage, Hezbollah, Iran, Lebanon, Terrorism, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

New Iranian Terror Plot Uncovered by, You Guessed it, NYPD………..

    

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“A senior New York police official disclosed that at least 13 suspects with ties to the Iranian government had been questioned by authorities in the last seven years after conducting surveillance of possible attack sites. Mitchell Silber, the New York Police Department’s director of intelligence analysis, said the city’s large Jewish population and international significance as a terror target made it ripe for a strike by either Iran or Hizbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group it sometimes uses as a proxy. Testifying before the House of Representative’s Homeland Security Committee, he said the suspects included six people on a sightseeing cruise who were taking photographs and film of well-known New York landmarks such as the Brooklyn Bridge in 2005. And in September 2010, federal air marshals detained four people taking pictures and films at a heliport in the city. During questioning, all 13 people admitted that they were associated with the Iranian government, but they were ultimately released without charge…………”

I wonder if it is still legal to take pictures of the Empire State building. That used to be my favorite landmark in New York when I was a teenage student back east, it still is, along with the Statue of Liberty. I used to take photos of it, then climb on top and take more amazing photos.
I don’t know about this. They haven’t been able to catch any Iranian terrorists yet (just a few weapon and technology smugglers). Even with Hezbollah agents, the best they could find was some hapless Lebanese trying to smuggle bullets for pistols to Lebanon. Bullets for pistols! I guess he didn’t realize that Hezbollah has missiles and anti-aircraft guns and drones and is waiting for the first Iranian nuclear bomb.
I am near despair that they ever will catch a genuine Iranian or Hezbollah terrorist in the US: unless they can revive that old Cheney idea of a meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta and Iranian intelligence. Woops, that was Iraqi intelligence, allegedly. Then there is Jack the Texas used-car dealer who conspired with Ali Khamenei and the Quds Force and Hezbollah and the Mexican Cartel and FARC to blow to smithereens an Arab yes-man ambassador in Washington. I am beginning to suspect that there
probably are no such thing as “Iranian terrorists” in the United States,
none in New Jersey-NYC, none in Westwood. Not even any hiding under the bed of the Saudi ambassador or Representative
Peter King or, heaven forbid, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl).


More seriously: it pays to be vigilant these days. If there is a new war, all bets are off. Terrorism may become a reality instead of just an opportunity for some ambitious or overeager cop or agent or East Coast DA.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Is It Payback Time for Yukiya Amano Cheney? the IAEA Tehran Deception…………..

    

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“The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog at the heart of the growing Iranian crisis, has been accused by several former senior officials of pro-western bias, over-reliance on unverified intelligence and of sidelining sceptics. In November, it published an unprecedented volume of intelligence pointing towards past Iranian work on developing a nuclear weapon, deeming it credible. However, some former IAEA officials are saying that the agency has gone too far. Robert Kelley, a former US weapons scientists who ran the IAEA action team on Iraq at the time of the US-led invasion, said there were worrying parallels between the west’s mistakes over Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction then and the IAEA’s assessment of Iran now. “Amano is falling into the Cheney trap….”……… The acrid taste left by the election was heightened by the US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks which revealed Amano’s assiduous courting of American support. In an October 2009 cable, the US charge d’affaires, Geoffrey Pyatt, wrote: “Amano reminded [the] ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77 [the developing countries group], which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the US court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.”………..”


To me it has always sounded like déjà vu all over again (as the baseball man said). Like the buildup to the Iraq war (that I supported). Domestic American right-wing pressure, Israeli pressure, Arab princes applying pressure, shadowy exiles making wild claims, terrible intelligence (George Tenet’s “slam dunk), even more terrible analysis and interpretation of the terrible intelligence. It is so similar, almost a breathtaking repeat of the exact same steps. Then the years of demonization and Hitler-izing the prospective enemy. It is amazing how most people are not recalling that earlier deception of 2002-2003.
Cheers
mhg


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