Category Archives: Iran

Britain, Iran, Israel, Middle East Nuclear, Mossad, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Short Western Memories: Khomeini, the Chemical West, and the Bomb………………

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“The Israeli President warns us now that Iran is on the cusp of producing a nuclear weapon. Heaven preserve us. Yet we reporters do not mention that Shimon Peres, as Israeli Prime Minister, said exactly the same thing in 1996. That was 16 years ago. And we do not recall that the current Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in 1992 that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999. That would be 13 years ago. Same old story. In fact, we don’t know that Iran really is building a nuclear weapon. And after Iraq, it’s amazing that the old weapons of mass destruction details are popping with the same frequency as all the poppycock about Saddam’s titanic arsenal. Not to mention the date problem. When did all this start? The Shah. The old boy wanted nuclear power. He even said he wanted a bomb because “the US and the Soviet Union had nuclear bombs” and no one objected. Europeans rushed to supply the dictator’s wish. Siemens – not Russia – built the Bushehr nuclear facility. And when Ayatollah Khomeini, Scourge of the West, Apostle of Shia Revolution, etc, took over Iran in 1979, he ordered the entire nuclear project to be closed down because it was “the work of the Devil“. Only when Saddam invaded Iran – with our Western encouragement – and started using poison gas against the Iranians (chemical components arriving from the West, of course) was Khomeini persuaded to reopen it………………”

Even within the short span of the past year we have heard and read several different conflicting assessments of the Iranian nuclear program:

  • It is military. No, it is civilian. No, it is both.
  • They are zeroing on the nuclear bomb. They have not decided yet.
  • They already have everything the need for a bomb.
  • They will have a bomb this year. They will not have a bomb until at least next year.
  • They won’t be able to before 2014, or is it 2015.
  • The IAEA says they have suspicions, but no proof, that it is possible that the Iranians may be thinking of perhaps maybe looking into the possibility of  staring to think of the probability of the degree of feasibity and applicability of the likely scenario of …………..
  • Dagan of Mossad says they have not started the bomb yet.
  • Netanyahu says they will have a bomb soon and that Ahmadienjad is worse than Hitler, will continue to be worse than Hitler even after his term expires and he leaves office in 2013.
  • Ehud Barak says war is closer unless the Iranians relent. Ehud Barak says war is months away. When asked about it, Ehud Barak responded “what war?”
  • They want to be able to build a bomb whenever they want.
  • But Ahmadinejad said they don’t want a nuclear bomb.
  • The Saudi princes, who never ever lie, are convinced they are building a bomb. So are their Salafi muftis.
  • The shaikh (sorry, king) al-Khalifa of Bahrain is certain they are building a bomb. Foreign minister al-Khalifa of Bahrain (aka Bon Vivant) is taunting us, saying “are you going to take that from the mullahs?” WTF that be. Several other al-Khalifa potantates seem to concur with the two already mentioned.
  • Shaikh Mohammed Bin Rashid of Dubai says he does not believe the Iranians are building a bomb. He thinks they have no reason to. Besides, he says “Even if they did, who gives a fuck”?
  • The al-Nahayan brothers of Abu Dhabi who own the UAE want the United States to attack the Iranian, and be quick about it.
  • The ayatollah has issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.
  • Obama, since he is only secretly a Muslim, can’t openly abide by the Khamenei fatwa.
  • Newt Gingrich says their goal is to attack the United States.
  • Rick Santorum insists he had a vision that their aim is to establish a Persian Caliphate in all the Blue States, before sweeping through Georgia.
  • Ron Paul thinks everybody this side of the Atlantic (and some on the other side) are out of their minds. He is most likely right.

Cheers
mhg


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Anti-Semitism, Europe, Iran, Israel, Middle East

Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust: Demagoguery and Spreading the Bull……….

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“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust and the danger a nuclear-armed Iran, said on Tuesday that Israel must not shy from acting alone to thwart any threat to its existence. Addressing parliament ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, Netanyahu praised a European Union decision on Monday to place sanctions on Iranian oil exports. “But on this day of international cooperation and an important achievement against Iran, I want to remind everyone of the main lesson of the Holocaust against our people – that ultimately when there is threat to our existence, we must not leave our fate in the hands of others,”………”

Ahmadinejad used to specialize in near denials of the Holocaust. He taunted the West, especially the Europeans who were the planners and executioners and enablers of the Holocaust, with his nonsense. He knows exactly what happened so many decades ago in Europe, what was committed by the parents and grandparents of these Europeans, from Berlin to Krakow to Warsaw to Paris and other places. Not just by Germans: local police forces helped their new German masters round up their own Jewish neighbors to be shipped ‘east’. They were barely less guilty than the Gestapo and the Waffen-SS and even the Wehrmacht. Only about two decades ago, Austria
elected a known former Nazi officer as president (before that he was
their foreign minister then secretary general of the United
Nations!).
Yet his taunts are understandably insulting to the memory of the victims and to their descendents. One dreads what he will say later this week. Mercifully he has been silent on the subject for over a year; maybe someone told him it is not endearing. Maybe he will choose to shut up for once, being embroiled in more important issues at home.
Which brings us to that other Middle Eastern demagogue, Mr. Netanyahu. It is hard to take seriously, or find credible, someone who famously claims that “Ahmadinejad is worse than Hitler“.
Netanyahu has in recent years made quite a political art of using the terrible memory for his own political ends. He is an accomplished expert at what Americans call ‘spreading the bull’, and he knows how to spread it far and wide. In pushing for a destructive war in the Middle East, away from his own borders, he is willing to use any means. He is not being as disrespectful as Ahmadinejad, not nearly so, but he seems to exploit the memory in order to maintain the far right-wing uncompromising coalition that keeps him in power.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, Middle East, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

SOTU: Obama as a Middle East Hostage………..

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Under Mr. Obama, American Middle East policy has become practically a political hostage of the Likud coalition and a resurgent pro-Israeli lobby. Not necessarily a Jewish lobby that is in fact divided, but more a Rapture lobby of Christians eager for new converts ‘when the moment is right’. That is not all: the administration has several high-ranking strongly pro-Israeli advocates, like Susan Rice who naturally aspires to replace Hillary Clinton at the State Department.
Arabs often complained that U.S. policy was strongly influenced by Israeli interests. That is not exactly the case anymore: U.S. Middle East policy is now truly shaped by ‘perceptions’ of Israeli interests in an unprecedented way. That perception is not necessarily in the interests of Israel in the longer term. Look for Republicans to continue applying pressure on Obama between now and November, pushing him to leave the West Bank alone for now, pushing him to ensure Israeli supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean.
SOTU: all that pressure was reflected in the Iran part of the State of the Union speech, when Obama repeated the mantra that “all options” are on the table. “All options” means a possible unprovoked war in the Persian-American Gulf.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Media, Iran, Iraq, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Godfather of Unreliable Sources: Saudi Princes Claim Iran to Take Over Iraq Soon………..

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“Don Corleone: Tattaglia’s a pimp. He never could’ve out fought Santino. But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along…….” The Godfather

Alarabiya network is a semi-official Saudi media outlet managed by a son of the late King Fahd on behalf of his uncles. Its English headlines are relatively more moderate and are targeted to appeal to Western readers (and maybe policy makers). The English headlines represent the front, the moderate cover for the ‘unique’ Arab headlines.
The Arabic headlines of Alarabiya are the most sectarian, divisive, distorting of any major Arab media, or any other media outside North Korea. This item here is typical of the unsubstantiated rubbish it headlines in Arabic, with the goal or stoking fears and sectarian hatreds, mainly in the Gulf region where most of its website readers are. Here the topic is headlined as “Ruling parties Preparing for an Iranian Takeover of Iraq”. The network claims it has received a ‘statement’ from “Iraqi parliamentarians” about a statement Alarabiya had originally claimed was made by chief of the al-Quds Brigade of the Iranian IRGC. There is no reference to such item anywhere in Iranian news agencies. It is probably part of preparing the Saudi people, and other gullible Gulfies, for choosing the right side, the Western-Israeli side, if and when war erupts in the Persian-American Gulf region.
This is the modus operandi: Alarabiya headlines in Arabic a fake news item it ascribes to “sources”, than it creates “news” threads based on that, with more fake news from more fake ‘sources’. Many people with a sectarian bent in the Gulf GCC countries tend to believe this openly crass propaganda, especially the Wahhabi faux-liberals who dominate the media and some academic institutions of the ruling potentates.
Cheers
mhg


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CIA, Iran, Middle East, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

The War that Bush Rejected but Obama may Wage: Mrs. Clinton and GOP War Evaders………..

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“President George W. Bush’s administration concluded that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be a bad idea — and would only make it harder to prevent Iran from going nuclear in the future, former CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) chief Gen. Michael Hayden said Thursday. “When we talked about this in the government, the consensus was that [attacking Iran] would guarantee that which we are trying to prevent — an Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon and that would build it in secret,” Hayden told a small group of experts and reporters at an event hosted by the Center for the National Interest. Hayden served as director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005 and then served as CIA director from 2006 until February 2009. He also had a 39-year career at the Air Force, which he ended as a four-star general. Without an actual occupation of Iran, which nobody wants to contemplate…………….”

It is all about the goal and the exit plan. See? Even I, who is no military expert or strategist(yet) or eve newspaper columnist, know that.
As for an actual invasion of Iran, with ground troops: oh boy. Iran is at least three times the size of Iraq with more than three times the population with many huge cities and is very rugged territory. It stretches from the Persian-American Gulf deep into Central Asia, from the Arabian Sea-Indian Ocean to the Russian border. There is no flat easy terrain to Tehran or Isfahan or Mashhad or Qum. The Revolutionary Guard IRCG is not likely to run away and hide like the Iraqi Ba’athist army in 2003. Think of it as invading Russia but on a smaller scale, and we all know what happens when Russia gets invaded.
Of course, I can be wrong and the whole Iranian regime could collapse within days. But I doubt it: no doubt they have prepared for such a scenario.
Still, before November, Mr. Obama, prodded by an easily ‘disturbed’ Mrs. Clinton and a taunting Republican mob of draft dodgers and war evaders, may opt for a war that he will not be able to control.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Hormuz and Oahu: Dreaming of a Persian Gulf Pearl Harbor…….

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“The simmering standoff between Iran and the United States has some parallels with the origins of the Pacific war in 1941. To persuade Japan to withdraw its marauding army from China, the United States and other countries imposed ever-tightening sanctions, culminating with an oil embargo that put Japan’s back to the wall…….. Similarly, it’s politically untenable for President Barack Obama to fire the first shot at Iran. But Iranian military action that, say, closes the Strait of Hormuz for a time could result in the world’s begging for U.S. military action. Few doubt that Japan’s policymakers blundered badly when they opted for war against the United States. Yet these leaders also thought it was impossible to abandon their China policy. Iranian leaders are caught between demands for full International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of its nuclear program and the U.S. 5th Fleet. Iran may have a card or two left to play, but it would be illogical for shooting to be on…………….”

 

“Will Israel attack? Is Obama, coerced by domestic politics in an election year, being dragged into war by the Israel lobby? Will he lunch the bombers? Is the strategy to force Iran into a corner, methodically demolishing its economy by embargoes and sanctions so that in the end a desperate Iran strikes back. As with sanctions and covert military onslaughts on Iraq in the run up to 2003, the first point to underline is that the US is waging war on Iran. But well aware of the US public’s aversion to yet another war in the Middle East, the onslaught is an undeclared one. The analogy here is the run up to Pearl Harbor. Let me quote from a useful timeline. On October 7, 1940, a US Navy IQ analyst Arthur McCollum wrote an 8 point memo on how to force Japan into war with US…………”

Two Democrat presidents were elected on ‘peace’ (and bread & butter) platforms but ended up leading the United States into the two greatest wars of history. The merits of WWI were doubtful, but not WW II. In a way Pearl Harbor was a good thing, otherwise the Nazis may have consolidated their hold on Europe in spite of their greatest folly, attacking the Soviet Union.
Now, another Democrat president who came to power on promises of peace may end up waging an unprovoked war against a country half-way around the world. As for closing the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians are no retro-Japanese, they are not suicidal types. Contrary to what some GOP politicians and media types may think, they do not worship their clerics the same way the Japanese worshiped the emperor. They do not worship their clerics the same way most members of the U.S. Congress, especially but not only Republicans, worship Benjamin Natanyahu. Or Ronald Reagan. And their clerics are not suicidal either.
Yet there is still a silver lining, some hope, for the war camp in the West: there is always a point when anyone who is cornered will strike back. Now that is not any ‘change’ you can believe in.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Iran, Sanctions, Terrorism, Turkey, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Oh No, another Iranian-Hezbollah-Turkish-Kurdish Embassy Plot Uncovered……..

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“Intelligence units have warned that the Quds Force, a special unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, plans to send a group to Turkey to carry out a series of demonstrations that may include a bomb attack on the Embassy or Consulate General of the United States. The Turkish Security General Directorate (EGM) has warned police departments in all 81 Turkish provinces that they must be vigilant and remain alert to the existence of such a threat. The intelligence pertaining to the possibility of such an attack was delivered in a secret letter to the information department at Turkey’s General Directorate of Security. The written statement indicates that a team linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will be sent to Turkey and that it may be planning to bomb the US embassy or consulate general in the country. The Quds Force is infamous for its role in attempting to export Iran’s revolution to other countries through the instigation of chaos and by acting as the overseas branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp.……….”

Haaretz (Israel) has also pulled a rabbit out of its hat by adding Hezbollah to the mix, claiming that Iran’s Lebanese ally was to take part in the plot. The Turkish newspaper Zaman report makes no mention of Hezbollah, but maybe some federal district judge in New York or Washington DC will implicate them, as usual. They may throw in al-Qaeda as co-conspirators for good measure (Saddam Hussein is dead). No mention of a Mexican drug cartel connection, nor anything about Mr. Adel al-Jubair or a Venezuelan hand.

Clearly Republican 2012 candidates for POTUS don’t read the Turkish press, not even Rick Perry or Newt Gingrich. Otherwise the GOP would have called for an immediate declaration of war on all Muslims, including Mr. Perry’s pals in the terrorist Turkish government.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, no doubt, will take the opportunity to declare herself ‘disturbed’ by this ‘disturbing’ report.

An attack on an embassy is a serious act, nearly as much an act of war as blockading a country and preventing its exports and imports, surrounding it with warships and fleets and military bases. And threatening to bomb it. That is why it is highly unlikely that this story is true: the Iranians are not that stupid, or are they?
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Europe, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey

On Israelis, Turks, Kurdish Rebels, Iranians, and Arab Oligarchs without Vision…………..

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“According to reports by Turkish intelligence agencies, Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operated by Israel that have been observed in Hatay and Adana provinces in recent months spied for the terrorist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Turkish intelligence agencies prepared a report after the detection of two Israeli Herons in Hatay and Adana roughly two months ago, claiming that the Herons are collecting intelligence on Turkish military units in order to aid PKK operations in those regions. The report asserts that the PKK’s training camps in northern Syria, near Turkey’s Hatay border “where Turkish military border posts are relatively weak” were established in those locations based on intelligence collected by the UAVs. The report also claims that Kenan Yıldızbakan, a PKK member who commanded an assault against a Turkish naval base in İskenderun in 2010, has made repeated trips into Israeli territory, reinforcing suspicions of a possible link between Israeli and the PKK………….”

This was bound to happen. Once the Turks realized how racist the European Union feels toward them and their application for membership. Once they realized that they are the last on the list of countries that would be admitted, if they are ever admitted. Once the Turks realized that their usefulness to the Europeans as an anti-Soviet base and as a source of scarce labor has expired. Once they realized that they do need need Europe as much as they had thought. They turned their attention back to the Middle East, which includes Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

The Turks are in Syria now, more or less, possibly in rivalry with Iran for influence over Damascus now that the Arab leaders are helpless and have no independent vision for dealing with the situation. So far the only Arab vision seems to be pushing for the West to “liberate” Syria from its regime, just as the West “liberated” Iraq and Libya. The Turks are also in Iraq, possibly seen by some Arabs as their last hope to limit Iranian influence, at least in the north and west of Iraq. Odd, a new Turkish-Iranian rivalry over Iraq, just like the old Ottoman-Persian rivalry over Iraq.

All that because the stagnant Arab oligarchs, mainly the Saudis, decided to give up on Iraq because they did not like the way Iraqis chose their government (or maybe because the Iraqis actually had some choice, no matter how imperfect).
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Human Right, Iran, Muslims, Salafi, Saudi Arabia, Theocracy, US Foreign Policy

Mullahs, Princes, and Islamist Potentates: Prince Turki and Fitna……….

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“Prince Turki al-Faisal, chairman of the board of the King Faisal Center for Islamic Research Studies called on Iran to stop spreading sectarian divisions (Fitna) among Gulf GCC citizens. He emphasized that these countries are not part of any dispute with the “international community” about its nuclear program. He made his statement in a speech to the Conference on National Security and Regional Security in the GCC, held in Bahrain………..”

I don’t know about this. No doubt the Iranian mullahs have pursued their own goals toward influence through interference in some Arab states: mainly in Iraq and Lebanon. Like all theocrats, the mullahs are no sweethearts in the pursuit of their goals. But the prince is being deliberately unfair and misleading toward the Shi’a citizens of the Gulf states. Prince Turki is hinting here that Iran is responsible for the popular uprisings in Bahrain and in Qatif. He is using the discredited al-Khalifa excuse of painting the peoples of Bahrain and Qatif as Iranian agents simply because they refuse to accept the current apartheid policies of the al-Saud and the al-Khalifa despots.
Yet no regime in the Middle East is as sectarian as the Saudi and Bahraini regimes, no regime has resorted to as much sectarian divisiveness and hatred as the Saudi Arabian. The vast semi-official Saudi media (all owned by princes and their retainers and tribal in-laws) has waged a campaign of several years spreading sectarian hatred wherever they could. No other regime in recent history has spread so much suspicion and hatred. Especially in the Gulf GCC states, but they have also tried well beyond the Gulf from Syria and Lebanon to Egypt and North Africa. All with the help of their local Salafi fifth columns and their Muslim Brotherhood tribal allies. (Most Gulf Muslim Brothers are very close to the Saudi princes, unlike those in Egypt and other places. Some like the demagogue Yusuf al-Qaradawi are close to the Qatari shaikhs, a few others are close to the UAE Abu Dhabi shaikhs).
It is the old divide-and rule policy once attributed to the British imperial power.
Cheers
mhg


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Anti-Semitism, Culture, Iran, Muslims, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Turkey

Iran Clerics Declare War on Barbie: Ugly Sara and Fat Dara and the Jewish Doll……………

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“Iran’s religious rulers first declared Barbie, made by U.S. company Mattel Inc, un-Islamic in 1996, citing its “destructive cultural and social consequences.” Despite the ban, the doll has until recently been openly on sale in Tehran shops. The new order, issued around three weeks ago, forced shopkeepers to hide the leggy, busty blonde behind other toys as a way of meeting popular demand for the dolls while avoiding being closed down by the police. A range of officially approved dolls launched in 2002 to counter demand for Barbie have not proven successful, merchants told Reuters. The dolls named Sara, a female, and Dara, a male arrived in shops wearing a variety of traditional dress, with Sara fully respecting the rule that all women in Iran must obey in public, of covering their hair and wearing loose-fitting clothes. “My daughter prefers Barbies. She says Sara and Dara are ugly and fat,”…………..”

That last one should do it, seal the deal, seal the fate of Sara and Dara.
This is not the first time Muslim clerics have had Barbie in their dour sights. Every few years some mullah or shaikh or mufti somewhere in the Middle East, especially in the Gulf region, wages a brief war on Barbie. Maybe it is time for Mattel to create a more “Islamic-looking” Barbie? The Turks and Saudis have also waged campaigns against Barbie (but not Ken) in the past:

“Saudi Arabia’s religious police have declared Barbie dolls a threat to morality, complaining that the revealing clothes of the “Jewish” toy — already banned in the kingdom — are offensive to Islam. “Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful,” said a poster on the site. ……” USA Today

“Ceylan said that “We want to protect students from the invasion of foreign culture and that is why we have ordered the technical institute for girls’ education to prepare bags and T-shirts that are decorated with images of famous Turkish citizens.” Local observers observed that Ceylan’s initiative is very similar to that launched against Barbie in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the Nineties……….”

(I don’t think these clerics, mullahs, and shaikhs realize how old Barbie is: if they did, they’d be shocked, and their own wives would be in deep deep trouble).
Cheers
mhg


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