Iran Affairs

U.S. Company Built Iraq's Scud Launchers

Even though the US tried to hide the fact that Western (German and American, in particular) companies were arming Saddam, the facts are still were coming out before the invasion too:

An American truck manufacturer made off-road Scud missile launchers that Iraq used against American forces in the Persian Gulf War, an international consultant, formerly of Bethlehem Township, has told a U.S. congressional subcommittee.

(THanks k_w)

Update: Zakaria in Tehran

Update to my previous post about Fareed Zakaria in Tehran:

Zakaria grows a pair and writes in the Washington Post:

The regime still has some domestic support, and it uses a mix of religious authority, patronage and force quite effectively. Sanctions have made people somewhat resentful of the West for hurting them more than the regime.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.

Well, I suppose this is progress though he sounds quite grudging in making these points. "Some" domestic support? 80% of them turned out to participate in the presidential vote. 60% votes for Ahmadinejad. That's not just "some" support. 

However he continues to promote yet another fallacy:

To be fair, the administration started out in 2009 by making overtures to Iran, which were rebuffed by its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Well, no, that's not what happened. Obama's "overture" to Iran was little more than a verbal ruse. He had extended sanctions on Iran exactly 11 days before making his "new begining" speech. Even before then, and within weeks of taking office, he had decided to keep a former Bush administration official in charge of sanctioning Iran in his administration too, had agreed to "work closely" with Israel on Iran's nuclear program, and his appointees were trying to undermine the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (which had concluded "with high confidence" that there was no nuclear weapons program in Iran.) After all, this is the same fellow who apppointed Hilllary "Obliterate Iran" Clinton as Sec of State, and Dennis "Israel's Lawyer" Ross to manage US policy in the Mideast. As Steven Walt noted:

We've made it clear that we think Iran's current government is illegitimate and ought to be replaced, and then we wonder why they don't immediately respond when Obama says he really does want to cooperate.

And rather than "rebuffing" Obama, Khamenei specifically said that Iran would judge the sincerity of the US based on actions not words:

In a televised address in the city of Mashhad, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama called for a new beginning in the troubled U.S.-Iran relationship, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said: “We have no experience with the new American government and the new American President. We will observe them and we will judge. If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude.”...

The Iranian leader reiterated that his country was looking practical changes on the ground as a precondition for an engagement with the Americans. “Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials? Have you given up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime?” he asked.

Earlier, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a top adviser of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also stressed that Tehran was looking for concrete action from Washington so that ties could improve.

Actions to indeed speak louder

Hillary Clinton's crocodile tears for Iran

So Hillary Clinton, Obama's Secretary of State, has expressed concern about the supposed "militarization" of Iran. Remember folks, this is the same Hillary Clinton who had promised to "obliterate Iran" during her presidential election bid, and who regularly now states that attacking Iran is an "option on the table."

And, even more funny: this concern about "militarization" in Iran comes from a government official of a country which is not only the world's largest arms dealer but itself has the world's largest military budget (exceeding that of all of the military budgets of all of the other countries on the face of the planet) and which has been quite busy selling arms to countries like Saudi Arabia whose own military spending far exceeds that of Iran, both on an aggregate basis (11.2% of GDP versus Iran's 1.8%) as well as per capita basis... nevermind the fact that these arms are used to put down popular revolts in places like Bahrain and in its own Eastern provinces.

And if THAT wasn't enough, the "militarization" of the domestic US economy would put any country to shame when you consider that it amounts to almost $2000 per person in the US, eight times more than what the US spends on education, and has grown 10% per year (while the rest of the economy has crashed and burned.) Indeed much of the US economy is controlled by American defense contractors, which also own US media and news organizations (whose ownership, by the way, has become more concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer major corporations.) In fact, not only are large chunks of the US economy dependent on military spending, the US is leading the world in actually privatizing the business of war, effectively making war a blatantly for-profit venture especially for KBR and Halliburton as well as others.

AND THEN there's the entire issue of the "militarization" of the domestic US political process, where politicians are the beneficiaries of campaign donations from the same military-industrial complex that they fund using public money.

Talk about a messed-up system.

 

 

Craig Murray: Gould and Fox-Werritty Schemed for Attack on Iran

 

Gould and Fox-Werritty Schemed for Attack on Iran

 

Iran alternative energy

Iran dramatically increases its solar power program and cuts oil/gas consumption subsidies, whilst other countries still massively subsidize the consumption of oil and gas.

Iran Air 727 landing without nose gear

I am sure that everyone by now has seen the video of the Iran Air 727 airliner that landed without front wheels - a fantastic display of professionalism and skill by the pilot and other crew members - and yet ironically no one mentions that the US sanctions on selling civilian aircraft parts to Iran not only violates international law but also places the lives of innocent Iranians in danger every day. Remember that everytime some moron gets on a podium and proclaims his endless support for the people of Iran - but I guess the US formally gave up on that a while a ago too. I guess "human rights" in Iran are only selectively important.

 

NY Times rewrites history of US-Iraq relation

The New York Times has a long, long article on Saddam's mindset as evidenced by Iraqi archives, where they review US-Iraqi relations and mentions Irangate -- the fact that the US provided a small weapons shipment to Iran and funneled the profits to Nicaragua contrary to a Congressional ban --  but yet somehow manages to totally skip over the fact that by 1983, the same Reagan Administration had formally removed Iraq from the State Department list of terrorist-supporting countries in order to facilitate the flow of financing and weapons (including chemical weapons) to help Saddam prosecute the war against Iran (going as far as to instruct US diplomats to blame Iran for Saddam's gassing of the Kurds in Halabja.) It also talks about Saddam's rise to power without mentioning that the CIA was key to Saddam's career.

 In a few months the NY Times will no doubt talk about Ghaddafi's "mindset" without mentioning Ghaddafi's long history of cooperation with US and European intelligence agencies.

Fareed Zakaria's snapshots of Iran (Well, Tehran)

Some shots of Tehran shown on CNN whilst Zakaria narrates here.

Not exactly sure what he means when he says that Iranians are a cosmopolitan people who resent the sanctions but are also a nationalistic people who resent their governement for causing the sanctions. That makes no sense - nationalists by definition don't resent their own governments, they resent foreign government interference in their nation's affairs. The whole idea that the sanctions are the "fault" of the government, as implied by that tortured phrasing deployed by Zakaria, is blatant spin which implcitly validates US sanctions policy on Iran as something "caused" by the Iranian government.

I think that bit of nonsense is attributable to the fact that Zakaria couldn't bring himself to say that the same Iranian people support their nuclear program and resent foreign interference in that program. The domestic popularity of Iran's nuclea program is something which is essentially forbidden to be acknowledged openly in the US controlled media. The media here do their best the avoid mentioning that and avoid exploring its implications. On the rare occasion that they do mention it, they dismiss it as merely the result of mass brainwashing and propaganda by the Iranian government, and something which greateraccess to foreign media will "correct."

In general, whenever there is a North-South conflict, the nationalism of the Southerners is deemed irrelevant. Their nationalism is dismissed as something pathological or even dangerous. Indeed the term "nationalist" was deployed against Mossadegh as an epithet. Only Americans can love their country, after all, and they're labelled as "patriots" for doing so. The dangers of such a stupid view of The Other is obvious, but apparently the lesson is never learned.

And it is funny that he can't bring himself just to say that Tehran is cleaned simply because it is cleaned - and not attribute even that to something nefarious about the government (something about a government "obsession" with order... as if other governments in the workd don't clean their towns.)

But do pay attention to what Zakaria says at 3:00 about Ahmadinejad.

UPDATE: Zakaria grows a pair and writes in the Washington Post:

The regime still has some domestic support, and it uses a mix of religious authority, patronage and force quite effectively. Sanctions have made people somewhat resentful of the West for hurting them more than the regime.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.

Well, I suppose this is progress though he sounds quite grudging in making these points. However he continues to promote yet another fallacy:

To be fair, the administration started out in 2009 by making overtures to Iran, which were rebuffed by its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Well, no, that's not what happened. Obama's "overture" to Iran was little more than a verbal ruse. After all, this is the same fellow who apppointed Hilllary "Obliterate Iran" Clinton as Sec of State, and Dennis "Israel's Lawyer" Ross to manage US policy in the Mideast. As Steven Walt noted:

We've made it clear that we think Iran's current government is illegitimate and ought to be replaced, and then we wonder why they don't immediately respond when Obama says he really does want to cooperate.

And rather than "rebuffing" Obama, Khamenei specifically said that Iran would judge the sincerity of the US based on actions not words:

In a televised address in the city of Mashhad, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama called for a new beginning in the troubled U.S.-Iran relationship, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said: “We have no experience with the new American government and the new American President. We will observe them and we will judge. If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude.”...

The Iranian leader reiterated that his country was looking practical changes on the ground as a precondition for an engagement with the Americans. “Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials? Have you given up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime?” he asked.

Earlier, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a top adviser of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also stressed that Tehran was looking for concrete action from Washington so that ties could improve.

“I really don’t care what happens to Iran. I am for Israel.”

More digging through old files:

After Emerson’s presentation, Pooya Dayanim, a Jewish-Iranian democracy activist based in Los Angeles, chatted with Adelson. Recalling their conversation, Dayanim observed that Adelson was dismissive of Reza Pahlevi, the son of the former Shah, who had participated in the Prague conference, because, Adelson said, “he doesn’t want to attack Iran.” According to Dayanim, Adelson referred to another Iranian dissident at the conference, Amir Abbas Fakhravar, whom he said he would like to support, saying, “I like Fakhravar because he says that, if we attack, the Iranian people will be ecstatic.” Dayanim said that when he disputed that assumption Adelson responded, “I really don’t care what happens to Iran. I am for Israel.”

Pooya joon, What's the old saying about laying with dogs...

New IAEA report on Iran - more hype as usual

There are some news reports which state that the Obama administration is leaning on the IAEA to issue a report on Iran that will supposedly contain some earth-shattering revelations about 'secret nuclear weapons research' and other nonsense.

Just FYI, we've been here before. These are a rehash of the so-called "Alleged Studies" (which was renamed "Possible Military Dimensions" (PMD) once Elbaradei was replaced by Amano at the IAEA.) In the past, the US, France and Israel viciously attacked IAEA head Elbaradeo for the IAEA's refusal to release a supposed "secret annex" to the Iran reports, accusing the IAEA of "covering up for Iran".

The IAEA shot back and said there is no 'secret annex':

Director General Mohamed ElBaradei warned that continuing allegations that the IAEA was withholding information on Iran are politically motivated and totally baseless.

The Agency receives information from a variety of sources that may have relevance to the implementation of safeguards. All such information is critically assessed by a team of experts working collectively in accordance with the Agency´s practices.

And the IAEA spokesman in Washington said that the so-called secret annex is just background material and allegations that the IAEA thought were not reliable enough to release. 

So now with the replacement of ElBaradei with the more pro-US and pliant Amano as the head of the IAEA, the IAEA has apparently decided to release these "less than verifiable" documents, as part of the escalating US propaganda campaign on Iran.

 

Contradictory scaremongering about Iran continues

Like I said before, some of the standard propaganda on Iran and Iran's nuclear program has become so repetitive that you sort of miss it when it doesn't show up as usual. So imagine my joy when David Albright's "ISIS" organization issued a recent report claiming that Iran's centrifuge program was falling behind. The funny thing is how the same organization had said essentially the same thing back in 2006.

And yet, with every such report that claims Iran's nuclear program is "falling behind" we are also treated to another article or think tank report claiming that Iran is on the absolute immediate verge of building nuclear weapons.

This sort of thing has been going on for years now. Albright himself is a case in point: one minute he's calculating how "close to the bomb" Iran has gotten based on counting number of atoms of low-enriched uranium, and the next minute he's saying that Iran's nuclear program is falling behind.

So what explains it? Why this pattern of self-contradictory propaganda?

The reason is this, I think: on one hand it is necessary to scaremonger about Iran's nuclear program and hype the "threat" in order to justify the supposed "need" to attack Iran. On the other hand, the same propagandists know they can't "over do" it. In hyping the threat, they have to be careful to avoid portraying Iran's alleged nuclear aspirations as a fait accompli, which can no longer be stopped either. There's fine balance there, which has to be maintained, in order to serve as a pretext for their ultimate desire: a US attack on Iran. They have to keep the issue on a slow boil.

Anyway, here are some facts missing from the reports about Iran's "failing" nuclear program: first of all, Iran has been replacing the IR-1 centrifuges in favor of a domestically-built faster centrifuge. This model does not use the "maraging steel" that the recent ISIS report refers to. It used carbon fiber, which is on the list of sanctioned material, so Iran has recently developed its own production facility for this material. And, despite the claims that Stuxnet dealt a severe blow to Iran's enrichment program, Iran's net enrichment actually increased during the period of the alleged Stuxnet attack. And despite claims that Iran could not possibly make the fuel plates that are used to power the TRR, Iran recently announced that it was just a few months from doing so. So, Iran's nuclear program is making steady progress, it is neither stalled nor on the verge of making nukes.

Was the Iran plot AIPAC's "shock to the system"?

Ben Smith over at Politico has published a piece where he discloses AIPAC's marching orders given to US Congressmen regarding a congressional hearing on Iran and Syria. This list of loaded "proposed questions" AIPAC "suggested" that Congressmen raise during the hearings reads like a standard AIPAC talking points memo, repeating their usual positions: that "diplomacy has failed", that Iran is "on the verge" of making nukes and has to be stopped, that sanctions thus far have not been enough, etc. etc.

However this is what's interesting and something I've never seen before amongst the AIPAC standarding talking points:

"Have you begun to consider what could be done to shock the system to bring about a change in Iran’s behavior?"

Hmm... what sort of "shock to the sytem" did AIPAC have in mind? Something like, oh, I don't know... an assassination plan involving a schlubby used car salesman and a Mexican narc?

This sounds a lot like the "catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor" that the Project for a New American Century once called for.

 

Iran will have the bomb...ten years ago.

So as November 2011 approaches, I happen to glance over my collection of news articles from 10 years ago, and what do I see?

C.I.A. Says Iran Makes Progress On Atom Arms
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
New York Times, November 30, 1992

A draft Central Intelligence Agency report on Iran concludes that the country is making progress on a nuclear arms program and could develop a nuclear weapon by 2000, senior Administration officials say...

But don't worry, if Iran didn't have the bomb last year, doesn't have the bomb today, it will in another couple of years. Or another couple years after that. And so on, and so forth, for ever and ever...

Book Reviews: The Missing Martyrs and Interpreting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Two books I highly recommend:

First, Daniel Joyner's "Interpreting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" which does a masterful job of explaining the laws and policies behind the NPT, and especially the on-going conflicts between the developed vs developing states in their interpretation of the treaty. Specifically, Joyner, a law professor at the University of Alabama, explodes certain myths that have become common-place statements in the media's coverage of the nuclear issue - the assumption that the nuclear-armed or developed states can impose arbitrary limitations and ad hoc, extra-legal restrictions on the nuclear progress of developing/non-nuclear armed states. Even though this is a highly complex legal matter, Joyner explains it all in terms that any reasonably intelligent reader can easily comprehend.

Next, "The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists" by Charles Kurzman. While the book occasionally meanders to the academic and theoretical aspects of sociology, he nevertheless resoundly refutes (with hard numbers) the notion, promoted by some quarters, that the world is facing a rising tide of Islamic terrorism. For example, regarding the wide-spread yet totally specious claim that while “all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are Muslim,” Kurzman shows - using the FBI’s own publications - that 6% of all terrorist acts on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 could be attributed to Muslims while Jewish extremist groups accounted for 7%, Latino groups 42% and “extreme left wing groups” 24%, and “others” 16%. He also points out that there has been a net decrease in terrorist incidents since the 1970s.

 

Iran terror plot: Why?

UPDATE: A friend and kind reader pointed me to an article entitled "Half of Terror Cases Investigated By the FBI ... Were Also Hatched by the FBI." 

I'm sure you've heard about the alleged plot to assasinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US and bomb the Israeli embassy etc etc. which was supposedly "directed by factions of the Iranian government" (whatever that means.)

Simple question: Why? Suppose the alleged plot was successful - then what? Apart from risking a major diplomatic incident should such a plot be uncovered, what would Iran have to gain from doing any of this? Would Saudi Arabia or Israel simply disappear? Are the Iranians just crazy people who like to blow up places for no real gain?

I call BS.

There have been many such 'terror plots' foiled in the US - and the one thing they all had in common was that there was a government informant who was involved and even instigated the plot by recruiting some otherwise hapless and simple-minded "terrorists" and provided them with the tools and financing - including buying them the military boots that were later presented in their trial as evidence of their militancy, as well as the cameras that they used to photograph their intended targets.

How hapless and simple-minded? Remember Jose Padilla who was supposedly going to launch a nuclear "dirty bomb" attack? Did you know he was planning to convert plain uranium ore (ie: rocks) into enriched uranium ... by swinging a bucket of the stuff in a circle over his head? Yes folks, these are the "terrorists." They can't even light their own shoes or underwear on fire.

And remember that particular government informant - Emad Salem - the Egyptian who had, with the assistance of the FBI, infiltrated the group that committed the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993? And remember how he had offered to switch the explosives used in that bomb with a safe substitute, but his offer was ignored by the FBI?

Of course the line between informant and agent provacatuer is very negligble. Some of you may remember Tommy the Traveler, a government agent who travelled to college campuses across the US in the 70's and infiltrated student anti-war movements, in order to provoke them into commiting acts of violence for which they could be arrested? And then there's always the  smear.

This sort of thing is particularly interesting, and potentially worrisome, in light of recent revelations of massive secret surveillance of Muslim Americans.

We've been here before.

And notice how suddenly Iran's recent repeated offer to cease enriching to 20% in return for receiving the necessary fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor simply fell out of the news... yet another Iranian nuclear compromise offer that is deliberately ignored, downplayed or actively torpedoed, so the usual pattern continues.

Debunking Oli Heinonen on Iran's nuclear program

Oli Heinonen, former International Atomic Energy Agency official, has given an interview with Der Spiegel accusing Iran of dishonesty in conducting the nuclear program there. The most interesting part is the dig that he takes at former IAEA Director General Mohammad Elbaradei, in addition to the blatant falsehoods that he's now telling Der Spiegel. I've selected the best parts below with my comments:

Heinonen: In early June, Abbasi announced that Iran was moving the 20-percent enrichment of uranium from Natanz to Fordow, where they are tripling production. Incidentally, the construction of the Fordow plant near Qom was so shrouded in secrecy that the Iranian authorities first admitted it existed less than two years ago.

FACT: Iran didn't "admit" its existence - Iran formally declared it to the UN, and did so earlier than it was required to do. Under the terms of Iran's safeguards agreement, Iran did not have to formally declare the existence of the site until 180-days prior to the introduction of nuclear material into the site. Iran announced the existence of the site months earlier than required. Furthermore, IAEA inspectors visited the site, and former IAEA head Mohammad Elbaradei said that the site was nothing more than "a hole in a mountain...nothing to be worried about."

SPIEGEL: And none of this makes sense for a civilian nuclear program?

Heinonen: You don't need 20-percent enriched uranium to generate electricity for light bulbs.

FACT: Oli knows perfectly well that fact Iran is generating 20% enriched uranium for an IAEA-safeguarded reactor that is used for the production of medical isotopes and is not used for the production "electricity for lightbulbs." But that doesn't prevent him from lying anyway.

Incidentally, the Tehran Research Reactor was given to Iran by the US in the late 1960s, along with a couple of pounds of weapons-grade plutonium that was used to power it. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranians converted it to use low-grade (20%) enriched uranium, and they bought the fuel from Argentina. The reactor is and always has been under IAEA safeguards, yet now that Iran has attempted to purchase more fuel for its continued operation, the US has blocked Iranian efforts to purchase the necessary fuel. So, Iran had to resort to making its own fuel, thus starting the 20% enrichment. Iran would not have had to take that step had the US not interferred in fueling an completely legitimate reactor that poses no weapons threat and was used for medical purposes, and Ahmadinejad has offered to cease the 20% enrichment if Iran is permitted to purchase the necessary fuel as is its right under the NPT and international law, yet the Iranians are now told that they can't buy fuel for this same reactor, and can't make the fuel themselves either. Ridiculous. Even more ridiculous: Iran offered to allow the uranium to be moved overseas for the manufacture of fuel rods, and it was the US that killed that deal at the last minute, even though it had earlier endorsed it. And just recently Iranian president Ahmadinejad has offered to cease 20% enrichment altogether, if Iran is allowed to purchase the necessary fuel for the reactor - and the US has ignored his offer.

What's more, Tehran has announced that it intends to build 10 more enrichment plants,

FACT: "Announced plans" were probably a rhetorical ploy by Iran and not a definite plant, but in any case, so what? These sites will be under IAEA safeguards, and according to the NPT Iran has the right to build as many as it wants.

And Iranian experts have conducted experiments with neutron sources and highly explosive detonators that would only make sense for military applications.

FACT: These are the so-called "Alleged Studies" which according to IAEA head Elbaradei are "hype" and for which there is no real evidence other than the so-called "Laptop of Death" that is widely considered to be a forgery

They're also making progress at the heavy-water reactor in Arak,

So what? The Arak reactor is not a secret and will be operating under IAEA safeguards

so much so, that by 2014 they'll have enough plutonium to build an atom bomb.

To be used for a bomb, the plutonium would have to be extracted from the fuel rods of the Arak reactor in a procedure known as reprocessing, which cannot be done in secret, and which the IAEA would notice. In fact Iran already offered to forego the technology as a compromise gesture to the US.

SPIEGEL: So you think Iran will declare itself a nuclear power in 2014? Will the leaders of the theocracy already have a working atom bomb by then, or will they only threaten to build
one?

Heinonen: I don't know. I am, however, convinced that Tehran will reach the "break-out capabilty" -- in other words, the capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium -- as early as by the end next year. In that sense Iran aims to be a virtual nuclear power with the
capability of producing the ultimate weapons at any time.

"Virtual nuclear" state is a nonsense charge that can even today be equally applied to 40 other countries, all of which could equally theoretically build a bomb today, according to the IAEA and Green Peace, and can also be applied to over 100 other countries that can theoretically build a bomb if given a bit more time. This is simply because civilian nuclear technology is essentially the same as military technology - the same reactors, the same process of enrichment etc. - and so ANY country with a nuclear program is a "virtual" nuclear weapons state, not just Iran. Brazil, Argentina, etc. And furthermore, by acquiring this "virtual nuclear weapons tate" status, Iran is doing nothing illegal at all, as 6 former European ambassadors to Iran have written:

Most experts, even in Israel, view Iran as striving to become a "threshold country", technically able to produce a nuclear weapon but abstaining from doing so for now. Again, nothing in international law forbids this ambition. Several other countries are close to, or have already reached, such a threshold, with a commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody seems to bother them.

Also note what this accusation against Iran really implies, conveniently enough for the Iran-bashers: no matter how many inspections Iran allows beyond its existing obligations, and no matter what Iran does to attempt a compromise, short of absolutely giving up its right to enrichment, it can always be accused of seeking "breakout capacity" because no amount of IAEA inspections and prove that any country will not possibly do something in the indefinite future.

US policy on Iran - the truth is emerging.

Imagine my happiness when I read Ali Fathollah-Nejad's interview where he analyzed the positions of think tanks with respect to Iran:

The logic here is very simple: By making unrealistic demands, the failure of any negotiations is wilfully anticipated, which then, ... shall open the way for illegal measures such as an economic blockade and a military attack.

It is nice to see an expert confirm my suspicions.

As you all know, I've been saying for a long time now that the current US standoff with Iran is not really about Iran's nuclear program, and that the nuclear issue is merely a pretext for implementing a policy that is ultimately intended to prevent any US-Iran rapprochement, and instead get the US to attack Iran and/or topple the regime there.

And as you know I've noted how foreign policy experts have started to acknowledge that IF the US standoff with Iran was really about the nuclear issue, the US has strangely managed to implement policies that have thus far been singularly ineffective in stopping the program, but I've been frustrated by the fact that these same experts then refuse to take the next step, and really ask themselves WHY has this been the case - instead they've simply attributed this to vague notions of dumb thinking and incompetence etc. in the State Department, thus evading a truth that is in their faces: that despite all the daily speculation and hype about the alleged "threat" of the ever-imminent Iranian nuclear bomb, the conflict was not about the nuclear issue and it never was. Rather, it was about regime change all along - and so no amount Iranian compromises on the nuclear issue will ever suffice, and instead as we have already seen repeatedly, any Iranian compromises will be ignored, ridiculed, dismissed or deliberately torpedoed. After all, the last thing the US wants is for the nuclear issue to be resolved peacefully, leaving the current regime in power in Iran.

But, as the saying goes, none are so blind as those who refuse to see, so I'm sure there will still be other commentators out there who will continue to pointless stoke the nuclear issue, and will falsely try to pin the blame on Iran's supposed "intrasigence" and "failure to compromise" etc.

I should point out that Fathollah-Nejad of course attributes this policy only to "Neoconservatives and liberal hawks," and he goes on to outline the positions of "mainstream élite think-tanks" (who favor realpolitik, based on containing Iran) and "moderate groups" who include seasoned Iran experts and long-time diplomats (who favor engagement and serious dialog).

The problem, of course, is that the two latter groups are nowhere nearly as influential on US foreign policy as the first group, and the first group has thus far managed to push the Obama administration in the same direction they pushed the Bush administration, down the path of eventual and inevitable confrontation even if Iran totally gives up her nuclear program.

 

Walt on Pollack, Takeyh regarding Iran policy - slowly coming around!

Stephen Walt posted a Foreign Policy blog entry entitled "Slippery when read" about a paper written by Kenneth Pollack and Ray Takeyh in which they -- guess what! -- said the US should continue doing more of what it was doing, even though it hasn't succeeded. Now, where have I heard that before? 

Walt however makes a mistake when he attributes this continuation of the standoff with Iran to chutzpah by these authors and "stale thinking." No, this is something more sinister than that, I am afraid. It is part of a deliberate policy of building up to something.

The fact is that even though people like Robert Dreyfuss like to falsely portray Iran as the recalitrant party in the nuclear negotiations, the Iranians have repeatedly made significant compromise offers that would have addressed any real concerns about weapons proliferation. That these offers have been totally ignored cannot be explained simply as a case of stale thinking in Washington - no, it is part of the policy. As I have written repeatedly and others  gradually are realizing, the responsibility for the continued standoff rests with the US, which  is always moving the goalposts, killing off opportunities to resolve this dispute peacefully, and making ludicrious demands on Iran that they know cannot be met, precisely because the US does not want to see the issue resolved because it needs the pretext. See, Takyeh and Pollack are not inadvertently giving a false impression that the US is insistent on regime change, as Walt seems to think. That IS indeed the policy, Walt.

Even Mohammad Elbaradei, the former IAEA head, noted that the US is operating with an ulterior motive here: creating a pretext for regime change. Like I've written before, it is nice that top level foreign policy experts are starting to openly state a taboo -- that the US stance is extending the standoff and the Obama administration was never serious about engaging Iran  -- but I wish they'd think more logically about the next question of WHY the US is doing this instead of simply attributing it to "stale thinking." Like I said, if you play chess, you can't watch your opponent engage in a series of moves that can only lead to one outcome and suggests a deliberate strategy, and yet simply ignore it.,,unless you're deliberately blind.

 

My blog blocked in Dubai?

I am told by reliable sources that this blog is being blocked in Dubai. Can anyone veryify?

Persian Gulf, Gulf of Tonkin - another pretext for war on Iran brewing?

Trita Parsi has an article in the LA Times with the title (which he didn't write) of "Iran's growing bluster spells danger."

After reading it, I have to wonder, who is really blustering and spelling danger to whom? Isn't the US the side which regularly threatens to bomb Iran? And how is Iran the "threat" when the US has its battleships parked off of the Iranian coastline, nevermind the repeated reports of how the US has authorized secret and clandestine operations against Iran?

Everyone remember how in 1988 the US Navy shot down their civilian airliners, inside their airspace, and while the US Navy ship was inside their waters (something the US Navy lied about for 4 years until Newsweek/Nightline exposed it.) And everyone remember the "Filipino Monkey" incident in which some random anonymous message sent on VHF radio by a prankster in the Persian Gulf was attributed to Iran and deliberately exaggerated by releasing a video onto which the US had superimposed the separate audio recording? (Iran video here, USN video here) when in fact the "Filipino Monkey" prank is decades old and so any US Navy officer would have known better than to automatically attribute it to Iran? As Scott McLeod concluded about this incident:

If "Filipino Monkey" or somebody of that ilk turns out to be the culprit, it means that the Pentagon either can't tell the difference between a prank and a threat, or that it's too busy confronting Iran to bother trying to do so. Either way, it's another reason to worry.

So the real worry and 'spelling danger' should not automatically attributed to Iran acting 'adventurously,' but is in that the US is perfectly willing and capable to fake-up a pretext which the media then accepts and promotes uncritically and at face value.

Nor is this sort of thing particularly new. According to the Newsweek/Nightline article, the USS Vincennes shot down the Iranian airliner as part of a 'secret war' in which the US Navy was attempting to provoke and draw out an Iranian attack in order to justify military aggression against Iran. And we now know that the US war in Vietnam was based on precisely such a manufactured event, known as the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which the US lied about a non-existent North Vietnamese 'second attack' on a US naval vessel.

So, all in all, who is the 'adventurous' threat here? Iran or the US?

All this talk about how Iran is the threat in the Persian Gulf seems to me to be a build-up to yet another "Gulf of Tonkin incident"