Category Archives: nuclear Iran

AIPAC, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, U.S. Foreign Policy

Israeli Lobby in the Washington Knesset Works to Derail Nuclear Talks……

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“In a letter obtained by Foreign Policy, Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, demand that any deal allow international inspectors to probe Iranian facilities for “at least 20 years.” It also says the inspections “must be intrusive,” with the International Atomic Energy Agency gaining “access to any and all facilities, persons or documentation” necessary to determine Iran’s compliance with the deal……… The letter, which is addressed to the president, went out to members of the Senate Banking Committee, Foreign Relations Committee, and Armed Services Committee on Friday, July 11. It has the support of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, an AIPAC official confirmed……………”

Nothing new here, just something worth revisiting briefly. We all know that an unregistered all powerful omnipotent lobby for a foreign government now shapes Obama Administration and U.S. Congressional foreign policy about anything that has to do with Iran, Lebanon, and Palestinian-Israeli issues. AIPAC has a virtual veto over U.S. policy on these issues: its tools are truly bi-partisan.

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Iran, Israel, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

What Prince Bandar Would Say about the Geneva Nuclear Deal………

      

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This is what Saudi Prince Bandar wants the West to think of the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran.

P.S.: he was apparently incognito (no, not that one: in disguise) when he wrote this piece for Foreign Policy. Or so I think. He even threatens that his family, the Al Saud, will go nuclear if a deal is finalized, meaning he will be  a nuclear bomb from somewhere (Pakistan, North Korea,  UmmAl-Quwain, Jordan, WTF……..). But that is also exactly what the Al Saud and their vast media mouthpieces had threatened to do if there was NO deal in Geneva.

On the other hand, that is also what Ben Netanyahu has been saying for two decades, that he will go nuclear, even more nuclear than he has been for some four decades. Could he be the writer in disguise?

Cheers
mhg

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Blockade of Iran, Europe, Iran, Israel, nuclear Iran

Leap of Faith: Netanyahu Warns Europeans to Keep Heeding his Warnings of Twenty Years…………

      

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“PM warns Europe against Iran: ‘Don’t let them have enrichment’
Netanyahu holds interviews with European media outlets to warn against reducing sanctions to Islamic republic, urges world not to ‘let a radical regime have awesome power’. As Europeans are suggesting that economic sanctions against Iran may be reduced, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held several interviews with European media to stress the dangers of the Tehran regime. In interviews with representatives from the Frankfurter Allgemeine, the French daily Le Monde, the British Financial Times; as well as the the German ARD television station, the French France-24 and the British Sky News, Netanyahu addressed the issue of nuclear Iran………………”

Netanyahu is also quoted to have said to the Europeans: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you ……………”
He sure did warn them. He has been warning them for more than twenty years now that the Iranians are only six months away from a nuclear bomb. From way back in the 1990s, when he was fear-mongering to win his first election, he claimed that the mullahs were about to go ‘nuclear’. I am surprised Europeans still listen to him (American politicians are different, they have their own ‘compelling’ excuses for listening to him).

Over two decades, Mr. Netanyahu and his ministers have promised the world a lot of unrealized nuclear slam dunks about Iran. I am beginning to suspect they are not serious about their predictions, that they don’t do the necessary “due diligence”. Unless the Iranians pull back in time just to frustrate them.
I suspect Netanyahu has been programed to repeat this nuclear Iran mantra; he feels that it is his “raison d’etre”. And what would he do once it is gone? I can imagine him continuing, long after the nuclear issue is settled, picketing the UN headquarters, or the offices of the net Israeli prime minister, urging them not to ease their vigilance. I can imagine the NYPD arresting him for disturbing……… no I don’t think they’d do that. It is a thought.

Cheers
mhg

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Ali Khamenei, Iran, nuclear Iran, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Mission Accomplished? the Ayatollah and the American Election Cycles……

      

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“We support the movement in government’s diplomacy, including the New
York visit, since we hold trust in the … government and we are
optimistic about it, but some of what happened in the New York visit
were not proper because we believe the US administration is
untrustworthy, conceited, illogical and unfaithful to its pledges,” Ayatollah Khamenei said………”

Khamenei seems here to be eager for a nuclear deal, but he seems to be warning his people of the pitfalls of high expectations. Or perhaps he is also warning the American side of the pitfalls of declaring: “Mission Accomplished“.
No doubt Khamenei has been following the Iran “debate” in the United States. No doubt he knows that it is controlled by long-term forces as well as by short-term election cycles. No doubt he, a speaker and reader of at least three languages, is aware of the current U.S. election cycle of 2014 and how it overlaps the next election cycle of 2016. No doubt he knows there is a very narrow window for diplomacy in the middle of this continuous election posturing and white noise. No doubt he is aware of the jingoist strain in the U.S. Congress that has been revived in recent years. No doubt he has serious doubts and misgivings about the chances of a deal that is acceptable to “all” sides, and I mean “all” sides including those not present at the table.
On the other hand, most American leaders and politicians feel the same way, even worse, about their Iranian counterparts. A small world, no?


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mhg

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Iran, nuclear Iran, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

US Congress and Iran: Is it Only the Nuclear Issue? Sanctions and Flags……..

      

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“However, the vast network of overlapping US sanctions, which have built up over three decades, cannot be easily unpicked by the Obama administration without the support of both houses of Congress. “If – and it is a big ‘if’ – the president needs to use an easing of sanctions to provide incentive to the Iranians, or to acknowledge a gesture on their part, our feeling is: it will be very difficult for the administration to deliver that,” one senior European diplomat said. Hawks in the House of Representatives in particular are in no mood to compromise. Two months ago, with bipartisan support, the House passed a bill to tighten the economic noose on Iran. The Guardian has obtained a copy of a second draft bill that goes further: approving the use of military force to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The bill states that the US would be “wholly capable, willing and ready to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining or developing a nuclear weapons capability” ……………”

It is also clear that both sides, in Tehran and Washington, have more than their fair share of crazies disguised as old-fashioned hawks. Right now the American crazies in Congress are making much more hostile noise and serious harm than their Iranian counterparts, mainly on behalf of their Likud allies in Israel. But there will be some fireworks in Tehran as well.
I have some strong doubts if many of the crazies in the US Congress would be content with a nuclear deal with Iran. I suspect, nay I know, that many of them want something beyond that complex nuclear deal, something that is probably not do-able.

On the other hand, the Iranian conservatives have their own extremist wackos who stupidly chant after every Friday prayers “Marg Bar Amrika = Death to America” and some of them occasionally desecrate Old Glory (no, they don’t call it that). They have been doing it for so many years, one would think it is second nature to the more extremists among the mullahs and their followers. Something I know most of their people disagree with.

Cheers
mhg

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Iran, Israel, Mossad, Mujahideen Khalq, nuclear Iran

Next Year with the Bomb: Mossad’s Iranian Proxies Claim Secret Nuclear Site………

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“An exiled Iranian opposition group claimed on Thursday to have evidence of a hidden nuclear site located in tunnels beneath a mountain near the town of Damavand, 70 kilometres (44 miles) northeast of Tehran. The Paris-based militant group the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), alleges the site has existed since 2006 with the first series of subterranean tunnels and four external depots recently completed. The group also claims the recently elected president Hassan Rowhani, a former nuclear negotiator, had a “key role” in the programme…………….”

MEK, MKO, PMOI, former pals and henchmen of Saddam Hussein, are as credible on Iranian nuclear matters as the North Korean intelligence services are on South Korean politics, possibly less. In matters Iranian and nuclear, they are as credible as Mr. Netanyahu, who has been predicting an Iranian nuclear bomb “next year” since the 1990s. Which points them out as being much less credible than the Mossad.
The Iranians retaliate by claiming that the MEK was involved as proxies for Mossad (even for some Western agencies) in murdering Iranian academics and scientists and their families inside Iran. (But that can’t be, can it? After all, that would be called terrorism if the targeted victims were Westerners). They have also claimed that the MEK were involved in terrorist acts abroad for which the Iranian regime was blamed (maybe). Normally this new secret site would have been reported to the United States intelligence community and the Mossad (not necessarily in that order) before publicizing it in the media, if it were true. Unless the newly legitimized MEK has gone off the reservation. Therefore, my fatwa is that it is probably not true. Besides, with more than half the world’s satellites focusing their powerful cameras and audio receivers on Iran there is not much the mullahs can do that is not known by Western governments (and I mean they better have that noisy fan on and the curtains closed when necessary)……………

On Nuclear Weapons and Authoritarian Regimes and Crying Wolf Deliberately

Obama Goes Nuclear in Israel: Pushes Iran Threshold Beyond 1995 and 2001 and 2007 and 2013 and……..

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mhg

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Iran, Jews, North Korea, nuclear Iran, nuclear wepoans, Pakistan, US Foreign Policy

North Korean Bomb: Israeli Speculation, Iranian Angle, Joe Stalin and the Rosenbergs, Frying Burgers at the Sing Sing Greasy Spoon……….

         

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“In addition to provoking the West, North Korea’s nuclear test on Tuesday may have also been carried out on behalf of Iran, and in the presence of Iranian atomic scientists, a security expert warned on Tuesday. North Korea is making progress both in its nuclear weapons capabilities and its ICBM missile research, Dr. Alon Levkowitz, coordinator of Bar-Ilan University’s Asian Studies Program and a member of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies, told The Jerusalem Post. “The most disturbing question is whether the Iranians are using North Korea as a backdoor plan for their own nuclear program. The Iranians didn’t carry out a nuclear test in Iran, but they may have done so in North Korea,” Levkowitz said. “There is no official information on this… but Iran may have bypassed inspections via North Korea. If true, this is a very worrying development.”………………”

This is purely Israeli speculation. But it is to be expected under the circumstances. It would be stupid not to speculate on this issue, even if the speculator is the right-wing Jerusalem Post which has an axe (possibly even ax) to grind. After all: it was Pyongyang which provided Bashar Al-Assad with all those nuclear facilities that probably existed only in Western and Saudi media but the Israelis bombed anyway for mysterious reasons.

Besides, does anyone know any country that willingly provided either nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons technology to another country? Other than the USA giving it to Joe Stalin, something which exposed both the two Rosenbergs to the undeniably barbaric horrors of the electric chair at Sing Sing. Justly or unjustly, I don’t know. A few years earlier, the Nazis would have tortured then beheaded them on the guillotine for it (or just for being there). But the electric chair must be more barbaric than beheading (provided the blade is sharp and the executioner is sober). I read somewhere that it took long minutes to die on the chair in those Rosenberg days. Like frying a burger at a greasy spoon. I don’t think anyone uses ‘the chair’ it anymore, I hope not, probably not even Texas nor any God-fearing neighboring states that we see in those BP commercials on TV. Executions of any kind  are barbaric and only some theocracies (Muslim and Christian and other) in third world countries and the USA impose them.
(Speaking of pushing nuclear weapons technology: I know there were reports about nuclear ‘pusher’ A.Q. Khan of Pakistan, who became their national hero, even more so than Osama Bin Laden. There have even been reports of the Pakistanis promising to supply the Al-Saud and the Wahhabi Mufti with nukes at some future date, if and when the princes decide to become a world power).
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mhg

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Iran, nuclear Iran

There They Go Again! US Nuclear Experts and Netanyahu have new Slam Dunk Date Estimates for Iran………..

         

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“Iran to reach ‘key point’ for atom bomb by mid-2014. Islamic Republic could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one or more nuclear bomb by mid-2014, US experts say, urging Obama to emphasize military option. Iran could produce enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more nuclear bombs by mid-2014, and the United States and its allies should intensify sanctions on Tehran before that point is reached, a report by a group of US nonproliferation experts said. The 154-page report, “US Nonproliferation Strategy for the Changing Middle East,” produced by five nonproliferation experts, was expected to be released on Monday. “Based on the current trajectory of Iran’s nuclear program, we estimate that Iran could reach critical capability in mid-2014,” the report said…………….”

Here we go again. I worry that they will be wrong again and break our hearts, these experts. They have done it so often, that I feel like a fool if I believe them (I could also feel like a fool if the Iranians do develop a nuclear bomb next year). Every year, sometimes every few months or weeks for the past 15 or twenty years, some respected kook in the West or in Israel has warned that the Iranians are months away from having a nuclear weapon. They go on Slam-Dunking us about the mullahs’ nuclear plans.
It doesn’t say so in this latest “slam dunk’ report. But my funny special source on nuclear matters claims that this most recent report was co-written by the David Albright in cooperation with John Bolton and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Minister Field Marshal Al Khalifa Bin Technocrat of the Bahrain Defense Forces (not sure how he fits in, but that is what she claims or maybe it seemed like fun to include him). She tells me Albright and his co-writers swear that this time they are getting it right, unlike 1995, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 (this last one looks suspicious). Those were the times when they all swore that Iran was months away form a nuclear bomb, cross their hearts and hope to die. Iran never developed the bomb on schedule and these experts did not die.
I hereby issue a Fatwa, I Fatwa, that come December 31 of 2014, the Iranians will still not have their bomb(s) ready. I also issue a supplementary Fatwa that: come December 2015, Western media groupies. In fact, I can go a step or two more, and I Fatwa that: come December 2016, with Bubba and Hillary Clinton ready to re-enter the White House, the Iranians will still………. ad nauseam.
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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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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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