Biden: Israel has right to deal with nuclear Iran

By JoAnne Allen, Monday July 6, 2009, in Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel has a sovereign right to decide what is in its best interest in dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions whether the United States agrees or not, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview on Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled that he agrees with U.S. President Barack Obama’s end-of-the-year deadline for progress in efforts to engage Iran diplomatically to resolve dispute over its nuclear program. Read the rest of this entry »

Biden on Iran. What’s Next?

On Sunday, July 5, 2009, George Stephanopoulos interviewed Vice President Joe Biden on ABC News “This Week.” The section of the interview focuses on the elections in Iran, US engagement with Iran, and Israel’s right to attack a militarily-nuclear Iran.

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Iran Cleric Says British Embassy Staff to Stand Trial

A June 15, 2009, file photo shows Iranian riot policemen standing guard outside the British embassy in Tehran during a protest by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against European interference in the Islamic Republic's election results. (Photo Atta Kenare AFP/Getty Images)

By ALAN COWELL and STEPHEN CASTLE
Published July 3, 2009 in the New York Times

PARIS — Brushing aside British and European efforts to seek the release of local British Embassy staff members held in Tehran, the Iranian authorities indicated Friday that they planned to put some of them on trial — a move that deepened a diplomatic crisis and could provoke the withdrawal of ambassadors.

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Iran’s Clenched Fist Election:  What’s next for US policy

The Carnegie Endowment For International Peace

Policy Discussion held on June 25, 2009 in Washington D.C.

With demonstrations across Iran subsiding under a brutal security crackdown, and opposition leaders hoping to turn protests into strikes and other acts of civil disobedience, Carnegie hosted leading Iran experts Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Abbas Milani, and Karim Sadjadpour to discuss the aftermath of the election and its implications for U.S. foreign policy in the region.  David Ignatius moderated the discussion.

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Iran ‘must free UK embassy staff’

Published by BBC News on June 28, 2009

The European Union has demanded the immediate release of Iranian staff at Britain’s embassy in Tehran detained on Saturday over post-election unrest.

EU ministers meeting in Greece warned that “harassment or intimidation” of embassy staff would be met with a “strong and collective” response.

Iranian media reported the detention of eight local staff at the UK mission over their alleged role in the unrest.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband dismissed the allegations as baseless.
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INTRODUCTION TO LYNN”S TALK followed by THURSDAY 25th TALK at IFTAR

On Thursday September 25th, over 250 US and international religious, political and cultural leaders gathered at a hotel in NYC to meet with the President of Iran in order to press the government of the United States and the government of Iran to engage in serious dialogue as well as to affirm the concept of interfaith dialogue. Given the climate of incendiary rhetoric, members of traditional peace churches that sponsored this event, including American Friends Service Committee, The Mennonite Central Committee, Religions of Peace and the World Council of Churches consider it their responsibility to step in and begin to cultivate the possibility for dialogue and engagement in behalf of peace when governments fail to do so. The previous evening, The Fellowship of Reconciliation hosted a meeting with over sixty peace activists with the president of Iran with the same intention. These groups are not alone in calling for diplomacy and dialogue. Five former secretaries of state urged similar action.

Meetings organized by peace and non-violence organizations and individuals with Ahmadinejad do not mean those attending agree or support specific Iranian governmental policies that are in conflict with the values of the peace community or the accompanying rhetoric about Israel, Jews or the United States. Rather, the intention is to promote the concept of dialogue and engagement precisely because of the vast gulf between governmental positions of the United States and Iran and to better understand the underlying issues of the conflict from the Iranian perspective. Ahmadinejad is a political figure who represents his country but is not identical with the whole of his country. In his role as president Ahmadinejad does not have the authority to initiate war, attack another country, promote or limit nuclear weapons or legislate Islamic law. A populist politician, his domestic policies have been failures, especially in the economic sphere. Moreover, he has not been an active proponent of human rights. On the other hand,  many US media and non-governmental organizations criticizing Ahmadinejad’s provocative rhetoric fail to educate the American public by providing in depth analysis of the underlying historic and geo-political issues that are provoking the wider conflict between Iran, the United States and Israel.

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Tuesday, June 10—Call-in to Congress for Diplomacy with Iran

This is a national action organized by the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran (www.newiranpolicy.org). Communicating with our representatives is an essential component of our representative democracy! Remember: of the people, by the people, for the people!

*When you call, ask for the aide who handles international affairs or foreign policy. Tell them you’re calling to encourage the Senator or Representative to: (1) Work for direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks between the U.S. and Iran; (2) Remind them that the U.S. and Iran share common interests in a stable Iraq, Middle East and Afghanistan. (3) And emphasize that just as the U.S. pursued negotiations with North Korea and Libya it’s now time to talk with Iran.

Capitol Switchboard at (202)224-3121 (Also, this toll free number is mentioned in publicity for the event: 800- 788-9372).

Folks,

About 6 months ago, 16 intelligence agencies in the US unanimously arrived at conclusions about Iran’s nuclear program that seem to have been totally forgotten in the new frenzy of preparing to attack Iran. What happened? I’m not asking this question rhetorically. Does anyone out there have a good answer?

Thanks,
Eshi

An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks “unavoidable” given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s deputies said today.

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=200639

So yes there seems to be some sort of contradiction here… all US intelligence reports clearly show that Iran is not now nor has any plans in the future of building nuclear weapons, and yet the US and Israel continue to beat their war-drum and threaten Iran almost daily. Perhaps as in times past there is something going on that “the people” just don’t know about? Perhaps that might be “OIL?” Perhaps it is something else. It certainly isn’t fear of a nuclear Iran as Israel claims… but just WHAT is it? That’s the question. Perhaps Israel might sit down one day and actually explain it to the rest of the world instead of threatening to inflict yet more war on an already embattled and beat up world… Perhaps if Israel focused more attention on PEACE rather than FEAR and WAR… just a thought…

Article originally published in the LA Times here

The possibility of a United States or Israeli war to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been an obsession among foreign policy wonks, diplomats and journalists for some time.

Many Iran experts believe such a war would be a disaster that would fail to halt Iran’s nuclear program. Michael Axworthy (pictured) is one of them.

During the 1970s, the British author and former diplomat traveled to Iran many times while his parents lived and worked there. He joined the British foreign service in 1986, serving as a head of the Iran desk from 1998 to 2000.

Over the last eight years he’s been writing books and teaching about Iran in the United Kingdom. His latest book, “A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind,” was released last month. It traces the country’s history from its earliest days,
emphasizing its religious, intellectual and cultural traditions.

Axworthy graciously agreed to an e-mail interview about Iran and its current confrontation with the West. “The crisis is a result of the hostility that has persisted between the U.S. and Iran since the revolution of 1979 and the hostage crisis.

“But it has its roots in the U.S.-Iran relationship earlier than that, notably in U.S. support for the regime of the Shah in the 1960s and 1970s, and the coup attempted by the British and the CIA against Prime Minister Mossadeq in 1953. The prime reason the clerical regime in Iran might want a nuclear weapon is as a deterrent to the U.S. regime-change policy.”

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Rabbi Lynn’s Trail Guide To Jewish Nonviolence

Wednesday, May 28, 7:30 pm

JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut Street in Berkeley

$10-$20 sliding scale, to benefit the Aquarian Minyan