Category Archives: nuclear Iran

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

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

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“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


[email protected]

Iran, Israel, nuclear Iran, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Israeli Red Herring? Gearing up for a New Futile War? Trapping Uncle Sam………..

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“Israelis are almost evenly split on whether Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, with 41 percent supporting such a strike and 39 percent opposed, a new Haaretz-Dialog poll has found. The remaining 20 percent said they were undecided…………The poll follows a spate of media reports in recent days about efforts by Netanyahu and Barak to muster a majority for such a strike in the forum of eight senior ministers. These reports coincided with several major military tests and drills………”

“Israel conducts a rare ballistic missile test; the Israel Air Force reports a successful exercise in Sardinia, far from home; Iran’s chief of staff says the “likelihood is low” of an Israeli attack, but threatens that his country would respond forcefully. British sources tell The Guardian of preparations for an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites coordinated with the United States; Britain’s chief of staff makes a secret visit to Israel……….” Haarez

“A disagreement within the government over whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities has sparked a political catfight between two members of the “octet” forum of eight senior ministers: Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Associates of Ya’alon charge that Barak is behind the recent spate of media reports about the octet’s deliberations on Iran, while Barak’s associates charge that Ya’alon’s judgment is becoming unbalanced…………..” Haaretz

Ain’t that sweet: Israelis are split on whether or not to attack Iran, a country that has never attacked them. Sitting on occupied Palestinian territory in “Judea and Samaria”, annexing territory against international law, and debating whether to attack a country that is a thousand miles (and a few yards) away. One that has never attacked them or anyone else in a few hundred years. Or maybe it is a red herring related to the expanding settlements and UNESCO and diversions.
Not only that: the cabinet is openly discussing if and when and how to launch a futile attack on Iran. If the Iranians were to publicly discuss if and when and how to attack Israeli installations, the UN would expel them and the West would attack them, armed with a UN resolution. Meanwhile the West is filling my Gulf with warships carrying more soldiers than there are people in….. Abu Dhabi.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Media, Finance, Iran, Media, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Zeitgeist and Iranian Illuminati: Expanding Media Domination Beyond the Arab World………..

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“THE wealthy Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was mulling acquiring a stake in Twitter. Prince Alwaleed, chairman of Kingdom Holding, reportedly held talks with at least one of Twitter’s co-founders about acquiring part of their shareholding in the microblogging site, Sky News reported overnight, citing sources. If a deal is confirmed, it would add Twitter to the portfolio of companies part-owned by one of the world’s wealthiest investors. A shareholding of between $US200 million and $US300 million was examined by Kingdom Holding, which after Twitter’s recent fundraising drive would equate to about three per cent of the company, according to the report. It was unclear whether Kingdom Holding already acquired Twitter shares or whether it simply was in discussions with Twitter’s co-founders, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Twitter declined to comment on the matter, the report said. In August, Twitter said it was taking part in a fundraising bid to fuel its global expansion. It reportedly drew in $US800 million from some existing investors, such as the US mutual funds giant T. Rowe Price. Prince Alwaleed already holds a seven per cent stake in News Corporation, the parent company of the publisher of news.com.au, which is a major shareholder in BSkyB – the owner of Sky News – and owns NewsCore. Kingdom is also a big investor in companies such as Apple and Time Warner…………”

Saudi princes and their retainers are grabbing media outlets worldwide with the same hunger as Abu Dhabi potentates grab the world supply of weapons. Theirownership is continuously expanding, and already dominates Arab airwaves. The list is long and growing longer as I write:
Asharq Alawsat (headed by a son of Prince Salman but owned by the father), Al-Hayat (owned by Prince Khaled Bin Sultan), Alarabiya (headed by a son of King Fahd but owned by an in-law), MBC, LBC, Rotana, News Corp which owns Fox News and Sky and others (partly owned by Prince al-Waleed). The latter also owns a hefty share of Times Warner (Time, CNN, etc.). Prince al-Waleed is also starting his own rival news network to Alarabiya and Aljazeera. There are more, many more that I probably can’t even imagine, like the Pyongyang Herald, Qom Tribune, Drudge Report, and Granma. Anything is possible in this age of Saudi zeitgeist.

It is a race against time: can the Saudi princes control all the world’s media before the Iranian mullahs develop their bomb and control all of our planet Earth? Can they both beat the Illuminati? Would Wolf Blitzer show up one afternoon for his News Hour, his white beard trimmed to a Saudi-style goatee and dyed jet black (Kiwi shoe polish)? Would Jack Cafferty show up attired in a thobe and shmagh? Can we expect a Republican or Democratic Presidential Debate on moderated by Tareq al-Humayyed on Alarabiya by 2016. Yes we can, maybe (zeitgeist).
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

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

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

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

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


[email protected]

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

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

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“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


[email protected]

Finance, Iran, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism

Cole on the Wackiest Master Terrorist, about that Money Transfer……………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

Juan Cole’s excellent summary analysis of the Iranian-Texan-Mexican Arbabsiar Bond:

“Here are the top 10 reasons that he cannot be Iran’s answer to 007:
10. Arbabsiar was known in Corpus Christi, Texas, “for being almost comically absent-minded”
9. Possibly as a result of a knife attack in 1982, he suffered from bad short-term memory
8. He was always losing his cell phone
7. He was always misplacing his keys
6. He was always forgetting his briefcase and documents in stores
5. He “was just not organized,” a former business partner remarked
4. As part owner of a used car dealership, he was always losing title deeds to the vehicles
3. Arbabsiar, far from a fundamentalist Shiite Muslim, may have been an alcoholic; his nickname is “Jack” because of his fondness for Jack Daniels whiskey
2. Arbabsiar used to not only drink to excess, but also used pot and went with prostitutes. He once talked loudly in a restaurant about going back to Iran, where he could have an Iranian girl for only $50. He was rude and was thrown out of some establishments.
1. All of his businesses failed one after another
I hypothesized yesterday that Arbabsiar and his cousin Gholam Shakuri might have been part of an Iranian drug gang. But after these details have emerged about the former, I don’t think he could even have done that. Indeed, I have now come to view the entire story as a fantasy…………..”

Then there is the money. Where did the money come from? Where was it wired from and from what account? How can the US authorities not know the source of a US$ 1.5 million into a US bank? In this day and age of the ‘war on terror’.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

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?………….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“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


[email protected]

Iran, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

The Bombed B-Movie Actor and B-Movie Actress of Georgetown and Tehran and New York …….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“Just 24 hours after American officials announced that they had disrupted an Iranian plot that sounded like a rejected Quentin Tarantino script — centering on an Iranian-American used-car salesman’s failed attempt to hire a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in Washington — a number of prominent American experts on Iran have suggested that Iran’s government might not have been behind the scheme at all. Even before the experts spoke up, it was hard to escape suggestions that the plot was too good, or too bad, to be true. In a radio interview on Wednesday morning, my colleague David Sanger observed that the alleged plot “sounds a little bit B-movie clumsy.”…….”

In that case, if this is like a B-movie, who is the B-movie actor? Or is it a B-movie actress? Are they in Tehran or in Washington or maybe somewhere in the great State of New York?
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Culture, Iran, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

Celebrities: Was Café Milano Behind the Assassination Plot?………….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“I mention this because the Saudi ambassador’s purported fondness for the place is merely the latest instance confirming that Cafe Milano has become the most fashionable restaurant in Washington, DC., without ever entering the usual intermediate stage of becoming one of the best. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it or anything. Zagat says a bit snottily that it’s got “chow that’s ‘better than you’d expect,'” but shouldn’t the chow be fabulous at such a place? (Zagat also says that “unless ‘your name regularly appears on the Washington Post’s front page,’ prepare for ‘long waits’ and ‘smug’ treatment.”) I can name half a dozen Italian restaurants in DC that offer better food, usually at lower prices. And I don’t get out all that much. Yet celebrities, especially Hollywood celebrities, adore the place. I’m no reverse snob. ………..”

They say Italian food goes best with a good bottle of compatible vino. Of course that is what they say. I wonder if the Ambassador/minion/now celebrity fully enjoyed the fare. And no, I am not hinting that Café Milano, mediocre food and all, was behind the ‘Keystone Cops plot’. Not some kind of twisted publicity stunt, maybe some other kind of stunt.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

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………..

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“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


[email protected]