Iran Affairs

The "Jewish Spring"

While there was a lot of speculation on how the Arab Spring would supposedly come into Iran, seems like what was not mentioned is that Israel itself may be undergoing a Spring of its own and by that I'm not just referring to the Palestinians but the Jewish residents of Israel (dare I call it a "Jewish Spring"?)

In the past two weeks, small protests held by mostly university students in Tel Aviv in response to rising housing costs have grown into large scale demonstrations. Tent cities have sprung up along Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard, the equivalent of New York's Park Avenue, as well as in Jerusalem and several other outlying cities. Some reports said that as many as 30,000 people participated in protests over the weekend. What's more, a poll conducted by Israeli newspaper Haaretz showed that 87 percent of the Israeli population supported the protesters

But then again, it is a well-known fact that Israel has been suffering some major problems, as "aliyah" (immigration into Israel) has reached historic lows, while emigration has consistently increased and now exceeds immigration as more Israelis are seeking second passports. -- all perhaps a reason for the general anxiety over Jewish assimilation and post-Zionism.

Popularity polls of Iran in the Mideast

There's a report that shows according to a poll, the Palestinians have grown disenchanted with HAMAS. Shocking! Problem is, the poll was conducted by The Israel Project ("TIP") which is a rabidly right-wing pro-Israeli advocacy organization.

We are also told that according another poll, Iran's popularity in six specific Arab countries has dropped significantly. Course, what doesn't get mentioned is that just one week ago, it was reported that according to a poll by the same organization, Iran and Iranian President Ahmadinejad were significantly more popular than the US or Obama, whose popularity had fallen to less than Bush's:

In 2008, the final year of the Bush administration, only 9 percent of Egyptians had a favorable attitude towards the United States. A year later, after Obama took office, that number jumped to 30 percent. But now it has plummeted to just 5 percent of Egyptians who view the United States favorably.

Similar figures in Morocco, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates show that the United States is viewed less favorably now than the final year of the Bush administration.

In a worrisome sign for US policymakers who would like to enlist the region’s support in isolating the Iranian regime, the poll shows that the policies of Iran are viewed more favorably than the policies of the United States.

In Egypt and Jordan, only 3 percent of people polled said they agreed with Obama’s policies in the region, compared to 31 percent and 20 percent who said they agreed with the Iranian president’s. In Saudi Arabia, only 10 percent agreed with Obama’s policies, compared to 4 percent who said they agreed with the Iranian president.

What does this all mean? It means that single polls cannot be trusted.

Rampant Islamophobia and fearmongering in the USA

In the wake of the Norway attacks which were falsely initially attributed to Muslims, lets remember that across the US, police are being trained by professional hatemongers (like Walid Shoebat -- a self-identified "former terrorist" -- which comes as a surprise to his relatives and alleged victims) to equate all Muslims with terrorism, and this is an example of what happens to officials who stand up against this sort of government-funded Islamophobia.

And if you think this sort of thing is limited to Muslims, I have bad news. 

This is what's happening in America today, folks.

 

 

Gen. Welsey Clark, terrorist-funded felon?

In an article about the MEK, the NY Times reports that Amb. Butler, who is in charge of negotiating with the MEK, accuses former American officials of taking money from the MEK in return for providing their support to the group:

Adding to his difficulties, the group has a formidable and well-financed communications machine. It has attracted political figures like Howard Dean and Wesley K. Clark, the retired Army general, by paying them to make speeches in support of the group, fueling its resistance to a move and angering officials trying to bargain with it, like Mr. Butler.

Referring to General Clark, Mr. Butler asked the group, “How much was he paid?” He added, “He doesn’t get out of bed for less than $25,000.”

“I’m guessing about a million dollars was spent on this over the last six months,” Mr. Butler said, referring to the overall advocacy campaign. “If I was on your board of directors, I wouldn’t be pleased with the results.”

This, if true, is no small accusation levelled against Gen. Clark and the other officials who speak for the MEK, since providing such "material suppport" for groups listed on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 10 years to life.

Of course, since when have these laws been enforced against the MEK anyway? See the photos of Ali Safavi and Jafarzadeh issuing their walking instructions to US senators before they hold a Congressional hearing on the MEK? Was there a check in those papers?

Fred Fleitz article on Iran's "nuclear weapons"

If you're wondering why I'm not actually blogging much these days, it is because Nima Shirazi at WideAsleepinAmerica is saying everything I'd say plus more, and much better! His latest post on the article, entitled "America's Intelligence Denial on Iran", written by former CIA agent Fred Fleitz, is a MUST read.

Panetta, Elliot Abrams push for war on Iran

So rabid neocon and convicted felon Elliot Abrams has been pushing the idea that Iran is "killing Americans" in Iraq, claiming that Iran has been providing arms to the Iraqis. This is hardly the first time that this claim was made by various US officials, and of course, after some prodding, they admit eventually that they don't have, you know, any actual evidence or anything of that, just as they did back in 2007 too...nevermind that EFP factories were found in Iraq, proving that the Iraqis don't need Iranian help to make the bombs the US claims come from Iran.

All in all, it just goes to show that NeoCons are one-trick ponies. Lets not forget that it wasn't so long ago that Rumsfeld was busy instructing his underlings to "link Iran to Iraq" and to "keep elevating the theat."

William Hague misrepresents Iran's research reactor

Every now and then the scaremongering about Iran gets so pathetically amateurish that I have a good laugh. Take for example todays "comment is free" article in the Guardian by William Hague - the British Foreign Secretary, mind you! - entitled "Iran's nuclear threat is escalating" in which he claims that Iran's existing research reactor is already capable of producing enough medical isotopes, more than Iran needs, and so the production of additional fuel for it somehow is a threat.

Well, I guess he doesn't know that the Tehran Research Reactor is literally ancient and has long over due for replacement. In fact, it was not meant to produce medical isotopes per se - it is an academic research reactor at Tehran University. It was given by the US to Iran in 1968 along with some weapons-grade plutonium required to power it. After the revolution in 1979, the Iranians redesigned it to use low-enriched uranium (20%) for fuel and extended its life a bit longer. They also purchased fuel from Argentina.

As for the claim that there's already enough medical isotope production, well, that's just funny. It wasn't so long ago that the entire world was facing a medical isotope shortage. While Hague claimed a reactor in Belgium meets all the requirements of Western Europe, in fact the global demand for medical isotopes was satisfied by only two reactors - one in Canada and one in the Netherlands - both of which went offline for a while.

Note also that Iran was quite happy to import the fuel for the reactor, as it had done in the past, but was blocked from doing so. It was therefore forced to make fueld for the reactor itself by enriching to 20%. Iran had even offered to export its stock uranium and let the fuel fabrication occur overseas in a deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey, but the US killed that deal at the last minute (much to the surprise of the Turks and Brazilians, who had received supportive letters from Obama just days before.) That's yet another fact that Hague seems to forget to mention.

AP misrepresents Al-Qaeda's links to Iran

The newspaper USAToday is running an analysis by AP linking Iran to al-Qaeda. Even though the article is full of hedging statements, it strongly implies that Iran is cooperating with Al-Qaeda. No doubt laying the groundwork to link Iran to 9/11, I think. These are the sorts of articles that simply invite others to jump to such rash conclusions, and deliberately so. But in fact the author's lack of candor is apparent in at least one instance - when he only selectively refers to Hillary Mann Leverett's views on the presence of Al-Qaeda in Iran. 

The article claims:

"Iran put many under house arrest-style limits but refused to send them to U.S. allies, such as Saudi Arabia, where they could face extradition or interrogations by American forces. Tehran's leadership believed that holding bin Laden relatives and al-Qaeda officials could offer a guarantee against attacks by the terror group's anti-Shiite elements."

However, far from "refusing" extradition to Saudi Arabia, the Leveretts tell an entirely different story on their blog:

But Iran informed us directly that it could not repatriate all of the individuals it detained.  For example, the Islamic Republic had no diplomatic relations with Egypt—where Seif al-Adel is from—and Iranian diplomats told Hillary and her colleagues that Tehran was not able to repatriateal-Qa’ida operatives of Egyptian origin to Egypt.  

They also said that Osama bin Ladin’s son, Saad, had tried to enter Iran and that Iranian security forces had turned him away.  However, these Iranian diplomats expressed concern that, if Saad bin Ladin managed to penetrate the porous Iranian-Afghan border and enter Iranian territory—as he apparently did in 2003, after the Bush Administration had unilaterally cut off the talks with Iran regarding Afghanistan and al-Qa’ida—Tehran would encounter difficulty repatriating him to Saudi Arabia, which had already made clear it would not take either Saad bin Ladin or his father.

Instead of working to establish a framework within which Tehran could have made al-Qa’idaoperatives detained in Iran available to U.S. interrogators—as our Iranian interlocutors requested—the Bush Administration insisted that Iran detain and deport all the al-Qa’ida figures we believed might be in Iran, without any assistance from or reciprocal understandings with the United States.  (From the Bush Administration’s perspective, this was meant to be a “test” of Iranian intentions.)

So here we have two entirely contradictory representations of what happened: according to the USAToday article, Iran "refused" to extradite Al-Qaeda operatives, according to the Leveretts Iran not only attempted to do so, but requested assistance since it had no diplomatic relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia had refused to accept some of the Al-Qaeda members, but the US nixed the transfer. As the Leveretts conclude:

In the end, it was the Bush Administration, not Iran, that rebuffed a deal which would have given us access to important al-Qa’ida operatives—including, possibly, Seif al-Adel.