Category Archives: Middle East Nuclear

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

Knesset Bill HR 1905: US Congress Going Rogue on Iran………..

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“The “Iran Threat Reduction Act” HR1905, passed on November 2 by the House Foreign Relations Committee, neither reduces an Iranian threat, nor puts significant pressure on Iran’s leaders to change policies with which the United States disagrees. A corresponding bill has been introduced in the Senate (S1048). If passed, the House bill would, however, make it illegal for any American diplomat to speak to or have any contact with an Iranian official unless the President certifies to Congress that not talking to the Iranian officials “would pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the vital national security interests of the United States” 15 days prior to that contact. Former U.S. Ambassadors William Luers and Thomas Pickering point out that this bill is not only illegal, it places the United States in greater danger in the world…….”

“(c) RESTRICTION ON CONTACT. — No person employed with the United States Government may contact in an official or unofficial capacity any person that — (1) is an agent, instrumentality, or official of, is affiliated with, or is serving as a representative of the Government of Iran; and (2) presents a threat to the United States or is affiliated with terrorist organizations. (d) WAIVER. — The President may waive the requirements of subsection (c) if the President determines and so reports to the appropriate congressional committees 15 days prior to the exercise of waiver authority that failure to exercise such waiver authority would pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the vital national security interests of the United States.”
Cheers
mhg


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Ali Khamenei, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Sanctions, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Game of Chess: Sanctioning Central Bank of Iran, Sanctioning Grocers of Natanz……………..

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“The legislation requires the US president to impose sanctions on Iran’s central bank if he determines it is facilitating terrorism or the development of nuclear weapons, or supporting Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “I believe the central bank of Iran is not only engaging in those activities; I believe it is the ultimate engine of those activities,” said the author of the central bank provision, Representative Howard Berman, a Democrat. The sanctions would effectively block from the US economy any foreign bank involved in significant transactions with Iran’s central bank. The legislation was approved by the House panel …………..”

There are many institutions and individuals in Iran that contribute to their nuclear program:

  • The Central Bank of Iran, by virtue of operating in Iran, supervising banks and the balance of payments and maintaining the exchange rate and monetary policy in general helps the nuclear program.
  • An Iranian doctor, by virtue of working in Iran helps the nuclear program (he may treat some nuclear scientist or a procurer of ‘yellow cake’ from Niger).
  • A street sweeper in Tehran (there are many of them since Iranians like their cities clean) helps the nuclear program by virtue of improving the quality of life of nuclear scientists and procurer of ‘yellow cake’ from Niger.
  • A grocer in any Iranian city almost certainly feeds some workers on some not-so-secret nuclear plants, let’s call him the green grocer of Natanz.
  • A home vintner in North Tehran, by virtue of supplying some secret party that some nuclear scientist or some clerk at a nuclear plant might attend, is helping the nuclear program.
  • A baby sitter or a housemaid in Tehran, by virtue of……..


You get the drift. It could be a virtual declaration of war, to which the Iranians will most likely only respond in kind, with virtual retaliation. That is how the Iranians, including the dogmatic mullahs, operate in the game of chess their ancestors invented. That is why the alleged Saudi ambassador plot sounds so ridiculous, regardless of all the “weighty” Western leaders who endorsed its veracity. It does not fit the pattern of a game of chess.
(one good thing is that the bill leaves it up to POTUS to decide if the Central Bank is engaged in such activities, The bad news is also that it leaves it to POTUS).

Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Pakistan, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy

An Iranian Mystery, a Western Dilemma…….

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“And we keep forgetting the inconvenient fact that, even if the regime changed, the nuclear program — which is popular as an expression of Iranian nationalism and power — will continue. The leaders of the Green movement strongly support that program and have repeatedly criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for making too-generous offers to the West. (All Iranian officials repeat constantly that they would never develop nuclear weapons. And in a recent interview with Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he had never “seen a shred of evidence that Iran has been weaponizing, in terms of building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials.”…………“

This is another dilemma that the West will continue to face from Iran, something I and a few others have written about. What they don’t seem to understand is that no matter who is in power in Tehran, be it the mullahs, the Mujahideen Khalq, the Greens, the Communists, or the American Tea Party, they all want to keep the nuclear program going. They all claim they have no intention of developing nuclear weapons, but they know that an independent nuclear program, of the sort the Israelis and the Pakistanis have, is a matter of national pride. Regime change in Iran is desirable by the West and very likely by many Iranians, but that does not mean an acceptance of the loss of independent decision-making.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Middle East Nuclear, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Is Condi Rice as Smart as Henry Kissinger? Iraq, Iran, and Indochina……………

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“Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday that it’s time for the United States to confront Iran, and that it should never take the military option off the table, in an ABC interview with Christiane Amanpour. “I think it’s time to confront the Iranian regime because It’s the poster child for state sponsorship of terrorism, it’s trying to get a nuclear weapon, it’s repressed its own people. The regime has absolutely no legitimacy left. We should be doing everything we can to bring it down and never take military force off the table,” she said.
In addition to keeping the military option open, Rice pointed to “even tougher sanctions” as a means of confronting the Islamic Republic…………Rice also commented on plans for the United States to withdraw its troops from Iraq this year, noting that, “This is one of the downsides of having our forces out of Iraq, because we can confront the Iranians in Iraq.” ………….”

I am beginning to think that Condi Rice is almost as smart as Henry Kissinger, almost. Kissinger had a brilliant solution for the United States to stop losing the Vietnam War: escalate into Cambodia and Laos. Brilliant move: within four years the Communists were in power in South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
So Rice wanted the Obama administration to keep forces in Iraq to “confront Iran”. I assume she doesn’t mean having a few thousand American boys and girls sitting targets in a hostile environment. Maybe she would also agree to leave Palo Alto and go to Iraq to advice the troops she wants to remain in harm’s way. maybe Messrs Romney and Gingrich and Perry and some of the airwaves gasbag warriors will volunteer go go with her.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, US Foreign Policy

New IAEA Iran Nuclear Report and another “Slam Dunk”………

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“This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to release its latest report on Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. If the leaks are to be believed, that report will accuse Iran of constructing a steel tank at the Parchin military complex for testing explosives associated with atomic weapons design. The allegation is hardly new. Since 2004, there have been suspicions of work at Parchin related to weapons design and in May this year the agency listed a series of research projects it suggested could not make sense unless related to weapons research. If the report is significant, it is because with each new IAEA report on Iran comes a familiar diplomatic ritual of threatened new sanctions from the US and its allies and reports of threatened military strikes from Israel. If there is a difference this time, it is in the strong impression, after years of veiled threats from Israel, that it will act alone if necessary to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, that the country’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his closest allies in a cabinet split on the issue would like to launch a pre-emptive military strike, a view opposed by other senior figures in Israel’s security establishment…………..”

So the IAEA chief flies to Washington, media report, but not to Tehran, and soon after leaks start springing about Iran moving closer to a nuclear weapon, or is it just a nuclear capability. Maybe it is so, but it is so reminiscent of the preparations for the 2003 Iraq war and all the talk and leaks and “intelligence” about WMD, isn’t it? That one even tricked me, not that I needed much convincing of the need to get rid of Saddam Hussein and his vile Ba’ath Party rule.
So the Iranians, it is now leaked, may have constructed a steel tank at the Parchin military complex for testing explosives “associated” with atomic weapons design. And what are the sources of all this? Reports say the sources are “Western” intelligence. So some Western intelligence services supply the IAEA with new “intelligence” about Iran’s nuclear intentions, the IAEA dutifully includes it in its report, then the same Western governments scream that the IAEA has provided proof.
It is possible that the unnamed “Western” intelligence, be it the CIA, Mossad, or the Germans are correct this time. It is also possible that they are not. Remember: according to “Western” intelligence, the Iranians were supposed to have developed a nuclear bomb some six or seven years ago. The same folks who brought us “slam dunk” (no not the late Chick Hearn of the L.A. Lakers) and the Iraq invasion in 2003. These guys would never win an NBA title with the kind of “slam dunking” they are capable of.

Cheers
mhg


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Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

Starry-Eyed Maureen Dowd of Wry Absolute Arabia: PR and “Keeping America Safe” …………

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”I asked if he thought he was targeted because of his tough position on Iran, underscored in a 2008 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks quoting him reiterating that King Abdullah wanted the United States to “cut off the head of the snake.” “You should ask the perpetrators, not me,” he said wryly. “We do what we have to do, and we can’t let issues like this deter us.”……… Some worry that America spends too much time hoping Iran will become more reasonable when, in reality, it’s trying to get nuclear weapons so it can become less reasonable. News of the plot, denounced by the kingdom as “sinful and abhorrent,” has made Saudi Arabia more sympathetic in an enemy-of-my-enemy sort of way…………” Maureen Dowd (allegedly in the New York Times)

Not one of her best columns; Maureen Dowd is too starry-eyed here toward an absolute tribal monarchy where sorcerers and witches and Asian housemaids are beheaded almost every week. Not her usual witty style, it reads more like something from Liz Cheney’s “Keep America Safe”, but almost a wittier style. Not that Liz Cheney ever seems starry-eyed about anything (not even about the dangers of building more mosques). This also reads suspiciously more like something another lobbyist or Public Relations person would write, as part of a PR campaign.
“He was targeted because of his tough position on Iran” yet he was “reiterating that King Abdullah wanted the United States to……..” So whose position is it that was the “tough” one, urging war: his or the absolute king’s (and the thousands of princes who loot the Arabian Peninsula each and every day)?
(At least now we learn from Dowd that the ambassador does not frequent Georgetown fast food joints like Cafe Milano as Peter Bergen had claimed. Bergen also dined with Bin Laden once, but most likely outside Georgetown).
Cheers
mhg


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Hezbollah, Iran, Media, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

Unreliable Sources: on Ignatius, Saudi Intelligence, Pakistani ISI, Arab Spring……….

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Update on the David Ignatius-Saudi Intelligence-Pakistani ISI joint effort which I posted on here. Looks like quite a racket going on between Ignatius and the Saudi officials and media. He quotes an anonymous “Saudi official” about the Washington plot and ties it to the Bahrain uprising and Hezbollah and the drug trade and global warming and Fukushima. The Saudi media in turn publicizes his column with fanfare, quoting him in turn, claiming the Washington Post has reported that all these are connected. Of course, the Saudis do not say that they were the original source of the Ignatius allegations (along with some Pakistani ISI person). Not bad, but not new or original either. CNN and others reported on this without noting the Saudi-Pakistani source.
Cheers
mhg


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Hezbollah, Iran, Lebanon, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism

David Ignatius Joins Saudi Intelligence, or is it Bahrain News Agency…………

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“But a Saudi official said Thursday that his country and the United States agree that Iran’s Quds Force was involved in the Karachi killing. That allegation, if true, adds important new detail to the portrait of an Iranian covert-action service that has been escalating its attacks against Saudi targets. The Saudi official, reached by telephone, said that Pakistani intelligence had identified the killer as a member of a Shiite dissident group known as Sapih Mohammed, which has connections with the Quds Force. The Saudi official said this conclusion, that the group had links with Tehran, was based on messages between Iranian officials in Islamabad and members of the dissident group. The Saudi official noted additional examples of Iran’s campaign against Riyadh and its allies. He cited the 2005 killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri. A U.N. Special Tribunal charged this year that the murder was plotted by four officials of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite militia in Lebanon. …………. According to the Saudi official, Shakuri was among the Iranians who met Hasan Mushaima, a radical Bahraini Shiite cleric, during a stopover in Beirut last February, when Mushaima was on his way back home to lead protests in Bahrain. A cautionary note: These are all just allegations, and raw intelligence sometimes leads to hasty conclusions, but………..”

“But” indeed. “But a Saudi official said…… The Saudi official said……… The Saudi official noted……. According to the Saudi official……….” Has Ignatius joined Saudi intelligence? If he has, then maybe he can find out from their officials the fate of so many Saudis who have disappeared in their own country: no trials, to charges, no news, and from all over the country. At least CNN bought this tale, according to Wolf Blitzer. This writer is building an all powerful worldwide network around the allegations of a Saudi intelligence official. Apparently, according to Saudi intelligence (and no doubt their Bahrain sidekicks) the uprising in Bahrain was orchestrated by Iran through their Hezbollah proxies. According to the Saudi official the whole thing is tied to the assassination of Hariri. Maybe with some help from Oliver Stone. Now if the Egyptian uprising had gone in a different direction, it still may, the writer would have tied that to the omnipotent mullahs in Iran.
No doubt those Iranian scientists who get murdered by “terrorists” in the streets of Tehran and get kidnapped in Mecca and Istanbul and Europe are not targeted by a network similar to the Karachi network.

(About the Hariri assassination: no doubt Mr. Ignatius, as other Western media, was also convinced two or three years ago that the Syrians had killed Hariri, and most likely wrote something about it. But that was before Hezbollah replaced Syria as the ‘target’ du jour).
Cheers
mhg


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Algeria civil war, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Sanctions, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Quoting Frank Sinatra: Was the Iranian ‘Plotter’ Entrapped?………….

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“And all at once it seems so nice
The folks are throwing shoes and rice
You hurry to a spot that’s just a dot on the map
And then you wonder how it all came about
It’s too late now there’s no gettin’ out
You fell in love, and love is the tender trap…………..” Frank Sinatra (The Tender Trap)

“The question now is: Can the claim possibly be true? Before addressing the question, let me first emphasize that there is almost nothing that the Tehran hardliners might do that could surprise me………… Having said that, however, I must state that at this point, I am highly skeptical about the entire episode. In fact, the more I learn about the claim and the indictment, the more I think this may be a classic case of entrapment on the part of the FBI/DEA agents, of the kind that has happened too many times in the past in the United States to be ignored. But let us analyze the claim carefully to see whether it is plausible at all. Hence, for the sake of argument, let us assume that the claim is true. The question is, What would the hardliners have gained, had they succeeded? As I see it, nothing but more trouble and intense international pressure, not to mention the further wrath of the United States and Saudi Arabia………One may argue that the targets of the operation were Saudi Arabia and Israel. But this seems even more absurd. If the IRI really intends to harm Saudi Arabia, due to the increasing tension with the Riyadh government, why should it try to do it here in the United States and in Washington?……….. As for attacking the Israeli Embassy in Washington, that appears even more absurd…………Thus, at this point, I find the claim that the IRI was involved in the plot highly unlikely. The more information that becomes available, the more it appears like a frame-up of Manssor Arbabsiar, a classic case of entrapment………….”
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

The Iranian DC Bombing Plot: was it Too Fast and Furious? WTF Analysis………..

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“Iran’s supreme leader and the shadowy Quds Force covert operations unit were likely aware of an alleged plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, but hard evidence of that is scant, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. The United States does not have solid information about “exactly how high it goes,” one official said…………… The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their confidence that at least some Iranian leaders were aware of the alleged plot was based largely on analyses and their understanding of how the Quds Force operates. They said it was “more than likely” that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Quds Force commander Qasem Suleimani had prior knowledge………….”

Not only does the story of the plot look like a Hollywood B-movie (Reagan peaked too early as an actor). The aftermath is even worse. Now we hear that they think it “likely” but “without hard evidence”, that it was based largely on “analyses and understanding how…”. WTF kind of case is this exactly? Normally any court of law outside the Middle East would blow this case out to the middle of the (Pacific) ocean. Next we’ll hear Tony Blair blowing the trumpet of another Gulf war based on this. This whole thing is moving too fast and furious for total credulity.
Cheers
mhg


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