Carnegie Endowment for Peace | Washington D.C. | 20 November 2009

Dr. Trita Parsi, one of America’s foremost experts on Iran, is the author of Treacherous Alliance – the Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States (2007) which won the Council on Foreign Relations’ Arthur Polk Award. Dr. Parsi has a PhD from Johns Hopkins/SAIS. He is now the President of the National Iranian American Council, adjunct scholar at the Middle East Insitute and a regular writer and sought-after commentator on Iran. He will speak on the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranian decision making process, the Iran dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and prospects for a resolving the crisis.

This event is sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Americans for Peace Now, Churches for Middle East Peace and the Middle East Institute.

EVENT DETAILS:

Friday November 20, 3-4:30pm
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Avenue
Washington, DC

RSVP: Foundation for Middle East Peace, info@…, 202-835-3650

(The Real News Network | 7 October 2007) - In this five-part series, retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern and Iraq whistle-blower Greg Thielmann discuss respectively the role of faith-based intelligence in disinformation (Part 1) and under what conditions Iran would restart its suspended weapons program (Part 2).  In the question and answer session, McGovern and Thielman discuss the implication of US silence on Israel’s nuclear weapons (Part 3); the disconnect between the intelligence community, government and the public (Part 4); and the potential causes of armed conflict in Iran (Part 5).

Part 1:  Disinformation and Faith-based Intelligence

(Ray McGovern | The Real News Network | 7 October 2009) - Retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern speaks on disinformation, Iran, and “faith-based intelligence”

Part 2:  Military threats may push Iran to restart suspended weapons program

(Greg Thielmann | The Real News Network | 7 October 2009) - Iraq whistle-blower Greg Thielmann, ” Military threats may push Iran to restart suspended weapons program.”

Part 3:  Israel’s nukes and Iran

(McGovern & Thielmann | The Real News Network | 7 October 2009) – McGovern & Thielmann on consequences of US silence on Israel’s nuclear weapons.

Part 4:  What’s intelligence got to do with it?

(McGovern & Thielmann | The Real News Network | 7 October 2009) – Ray McGovern and Greg Thielmann discuss the disconnect between the intelligence community, government and the public.

Part 5:  How would a US-Iran war begin?

(McGovern & Thielmann | The Real News Network | 7 October 2009) - Ray McGovern and Greg Thielmann on the potential causes of armed conflict in Iran.

The revelation late on 24 September 2009 that Iran is in the process of building a second uranium-enrichment plant inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom introduces a fresh source of dispute to a longstanding contest of wills between the Tehran regime and western states. The information – supplied by Iran itself to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 21 September, after it emerged that western intelligence sources had become aware of the project – is not in itself evidence that Iran has an active nuclear-weapon programme; but it most certainly does mean that Iran will have that option at a time of its choosing.

The varying parts of the differentiated Iranian leadership have been consistent in denying that their state intends to acquire a nuclear-weapon capacity, though they also affirm – and foreign governments and international agencies agree – that Iran has the right to develop civil nuclear technologies. The information about the second installation both heightens the ambiguity that has always surrounded this issue, and creates a new source of tension.

Iran responded to the moment on 27-28 September by test-firing short- and long-range missiles on successive days (the latter the liquid-fuel Shahab-3 and the solid-fuel Sajil, each with a range of up to 1,987 kilometres). This forms a tense backdrop to the already scheduled meeting in Geneva on 1 October 2009, part of the ongoing cycle of diplomatic discussion among the “five-plus-one” group (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – plus Iran).

The context

The strategic and economic relevance of nuclear power for an oil-and-gas-rich state such as Iran has been endlessly disputed. There is a strong and longstanding belief in Iran that the possession of a thriving nuclear-energy sector forms one of the attributes of modernity, a sentiment arguably reinforced by western nuclear lobbies’ powerful advocacy of this energy source as a big part of the response to climate change.

The development of a nuclear-weapons capacity carries the civil-nuclear argument into another realm, but for many Iranian politicians there are pressing security reasons to take this course, even if their public stance (including that of the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) is to disclaim any interest in a military nuclear capacity.

The most immediate argument is the perceived need to counter Israel, a nuclear-weapons state since the late 1960s that now has a substantial arsenal. This extends to a sense of Iran existing alongside (if not indeed being encircled by) other nuclear-weapons states in the region – Pakistan and India to the east, and Russia to the north. Many western analysts pay little attention to such concerns, as indeed to Iranian perceptions of the massive United States presence in the vicinity of Iran, but this is all the more reason for registering their existence.

Indeed, it is hard to understand the tortuous arguments over Iran’s nuclear plans over the past decade without taking the view from Tehran centrally into account. In this respect, President Bush’s state-of-the-union address in January 2002 – which identified Iran as a core member of the “axis of evil” alongside Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea – was hugely significant. This speech, after all, was delivered while Iran was still ruled by the relatively moderate Mohammad Khatami, whose government had – just two months earlier, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks – aided the United States in terminating the Taliban regime across Iran’s eastern border in Afghanistan.

The George W Bush administration went on to demolish an even more bitter adversary of Iran,  the Ba’athist regime across Iran’s western border, in 2003; but the accompanying rhetoric and the underlying dynamic meant that this also was perceived in Iran as threatening. Iran attempted to address this new situation by offering a “grand bargain” with Washington in spring 2003, but this was rejected. Iran’s elite came to see the US leadership as representing a “clear and present danger”, which may have been one factor in the election of the hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Khatami’s successor in June 2005.

It is true that the outcomes of US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq were in some ways helpful to Iran: the despised Taliban were driven back, Tehran was handed greater influence in Iraq, Barack Obama is clearly different to George W Bush. But the Iranian leadership – armed with a perspective that is rooted (as authors such as Fred Halliday emphasise) in 3,000 years of continuous statehood – also understands that Obama may continue in office only until January 2013, and could well be replaced by a new president every bit as hawkish as Bush.

The calculations

At present, however, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cohort do have a problem: that Barack Obama is not functioning sufficiently as the embodiment of the “evil empire”. This fact is strikingly confirmed in the United States administration’s reaction to the news of 24 September 2009; for it is becoming clear that Obama has effectively ruled out a military option and is sticking forcefully to diplomatic engagement. If Iran does not so engage, then US policy will be to isolate Iran through even more stringent sanctions, anticipating that even Russia will come at least part of the way (see Glenn Kessler, “U.S. Aims To Isolate Iran if Talks Fail“, Washington Post, 29 September 2009).

True, China may present difficulties here, given its close relationship with Tehran over oil-and-gas deals as well as armaments supplies (see Michael Wines, “China‘s Ties With Iran Complicate Diplomacy“, New York Times, 30 September 2009). But even without China’s aid, a United States-led coalition could significantly increase the damage to Iran’s already shaky economy.

In a broader frame, the foreign-policy approach of the Obama administration poses serious difficulties to Ahmadinejad, who badly needs an external enemy to divert attention from the failing economy and the deep political divisions inside Iran (see Nazenin Ansari, “Iran’s unfinished crisis“, 16 September 2009). In the absence of such an enemy, and with the United States highly unlikely to take the war option, the obvious and logical option is to use every opportunity to identify Israel as the core threat.

This motive is matched and even exceeded on the other side: for both the rightwing government of Binyamin Netanyahu and a wider, deep-seated and cross-party view in Israel hold that Iran simply cannot under any circumstances be allowed to become a nuclear-weapons power. This combination of circumstances makes it more than likely that the period following the Geneva meeting on 1 October 2009 will be characterised by Iran’s further diplomatic stalling and high-pitched anti-Israel rhetoric, and Israel’s own repeated warnings about the imminent nuclear danger from Tehran.

This means that Obama will have the tough job of persuading the Israelis not to take military action against Iran on their own account. He will persist in this, both out of conviction and from underlying concern over the probable results of any Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. These were explored in an Oxford Research Group briefing  – Iran: Consequences of a War (February 2006) – which at the time of publication and after was widely read, in Tehran as well as in Washington. The document is still pertinent.

In military terms, Israel has the capacity to inflict serious damage on most of Iran’s current nuclear facilities, principally by using its recently acquired long-range F-15I and F-16I strike-aircraft as well as its ballistic and cruise missiles. It might even be able to conduct an operation without overflying Iraqi territory – if Jordan and Saudi Arabia, whose leaders have their own concerns about Iran, give such permission; but in any case, it is unlikely that any attack would do more than set Iran’s nuclear ambitions back by two or three years.

The consequences

In the short term, and especially from an Israeli perspective, there would be value in accomplishing even this: for it could be seen as sending the necessary message that Iran will not be permitted to take the nuclear-weapons path, either now or in the future.

At the same time, this assessment could be deeply mistaken in that it underestimates greatly the immediate consequences an attack on Iran is almost guaranteed to provoke:

* It unites much of Iranian political opinion behind Ahmadinejad and his intransigent allies – at least for some months. He may be disliked in many circles and hated in some, but if the country is under attack this will transcend political differences

* Iran formally withdraws from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. This will disallow any future inspections, and allow the country to rebuild its bomb-damaged facilities and move as rapidly as possible to develop a nuclear-weapons capability. This alone means that more attacks from Israel will be necessary – leading to a long-term state of war

Iran also has other options, although it may chose to wait for months or even years to utilise them:

* Engineer a series of crises over transit through the Straits of Hormuz, not sufficient to demand an out-and-out response from the United States fifth-fleet but more than enough to send shock-waves through the oil markets. Such a process could be sustained for many months

* Increase engagement with the Shi’a majority in Iraq, to the extent of encouraging more forceful opposition to any continuing US presence in the country

* Provoke more difficulties for the US-led coalition in western Afghanistan, less by aiding Taliban elements than by expanding Iranian influence from Herat eastwards and undermining central governance in Kabul

* Aid the Hizbollah movement in Lebanon even more overtly in its confrontation with Israel.

If any of these actions and strategic choices were in turn to lead to a forceful US response -  perhaps around 2013-14, after the end of the Barack Obama presidency – then Iran has more extreme options in its armoury: including the paramilitary targeting of oil-and-gas production and transport facilities in western Gulf states.

The predicament

It is relevant to these prognoses that most Arab elites would quietly welcome an Israeli strike on Iran, but that Arab public opinion would be bitterly opposed. The absence of any real political progress in achieving a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a key factor here. An additional relevant factor is that while Iraq is the only major Arab state with a Shi’a majority, there are substantial Shi’a communities in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. There is particular concern in security circles in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that Shi’a minorities would react with great anger to an Israeli attack on Iran.

All these issues have been analysed in great depth in Washington policy-circles. The Barack Obama administration is facing a difficult position as a new period of negotiations with and about  Iran gets underway (see Godfrey Hodgson, “Barack Obama’s great test“, 30 September 2009). Some of the wilder voices on the American right argue even now for military action against Iran. But this constant domestic refrain pales against a far greater external challenge: from elements in Tehran that actively want confrontation, and from an Israeli government that could be all too ready to oblige.

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. Paul Rogers’s books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007) – an analysis of the strategic misjudgments of the post-9/11 era and why a new security paradigm is needed. A third edition of his Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 2009) is forthcoming.  He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001.

Is Iran’s latest action a genuine move towards reducing tensions over its nuclear programme – or simply a ploy to divert attention from its nuclear activities and buy time to avoid further sanctions?

(Al Jazeera English | Riz Khan | 2 September 2009) – Tehran has announced that it is now ready for talks with world powers, to present a new package of proposals to ease international concerns on its activities.

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report saying that even though it could not find “smoking gun” proof of a bomb-making agenda in Iran, it did find serious and credible suspicions.

Meanwhile, a September 15 deadline set by Barack Obama, the US president, is looming for Iran to respond to a six-power offer of trade talks, if it halts nuclear fuel production – or face stronger sanctions that could affect its gasoline supplies.

Is Iran’s latest action a genuine move towards reducing tensions over its nuclear programme – or simply a ploy to divert attention from its nuclear activities and buy time to avoid further sanctions?

On Wednesday, Riz speaks with Martin Navias, a defence analyst at King’s College in London, and Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, an independent Iranian-American writer and peace activist.

This episode of the Riz Khan show aired on Wednesday, September 2, 2009.

(Mike Shuster| NPR – Morning Edition | 25 August 2009) - Iran’s leaders say the country’s nuclear program exists only for the purpose of generating electricity. Western intelligence agencies say the Islamic republic aims to produce nuclear weapons and intimidate its neighbors. How close is Iran to getting the bomb? How might it be stopped? And what are the implications for the United States and the rest of the world if Iran succeeds? This week, NPR looks at Iran and its suspected nuclear weapons programs in a series. For a full transcript, click here. Iran’s leaders insist they do not intend to acquire nuclear weapons, and there is no evidence at the moment that they possess an atomic bomb.

But if the country does eventually become a nuclear-armed state, one option available to the United States to counter that power is an approach that worked for nearly half a century: deterrence — using the threat of nuclear retaliation and complete destruction to prevent an attack.

In recent years, deterrence has not been a prominent factor in the debate over Iran’s possible acquisition of nuclear weapons. The Bush administration had little interest in deterrence as a foreign policy option, focusing instead on war — preventive or pre-emptive war — as a tool to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

That proved a disaster in Iraq, says Joshua Pollack, an expert on nuclear weapons issues. As a result, deterrence moved to the forefront with the arrival of the Obama administration.

“The alternatives to deterrence are what, after all? There’s not a lot there. We tried preventative war in the case of Iraq. This turned out to have costs and difficulty that were not entertained at the outset. Most people believe that in the case of Iran, those costs and difficulties would be considerably greater,” says Pollack, who also contributes to the ArmsControlWonk Web site.

A Suicidal Regime?

The core argument that critics of deterrence make is that Iran is undeterrable — because Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other leaders are fanatics who believe in religious apocalypse. Nuclear war could suit their purposes, this argument goes, even if Iran used the bomb and the U.S. retaliated.

Thomas Fingar, former deputy director of national intelligence and now a scholar at Stanford University, disagrees.

“I don’t think this is a suicidal regime. I don’t dismiss out of hand at all the idea that they could be deterred,” he says.

The picture of Iran as a suicidal regime doesn’t work for Muhammad Sahimi either. Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California who writes for the Web site Tehran Bureau, is a longtime critic of Iran’s conservative government.

“They know that if they, for example, attack Israel, the Israelis and the United States would have the capability to completely destroy Iran and in the process completely destroy the regime,” he says.

Cold War Provides Precedence

For advocates of deterrence, history works in their favor.

The Soviet Union and China are cases in point. The Soviet Union acquired the bomb when Stalin was in power, and China when Mao was its leader, points out Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Stimson Center in Washington and now a diplomat-scholar at the University of Virginia.

“Mao Zedong and Josef Stalin make Ahmadinejad look like a Boy Scout. And I’m not belittling the worrisome nature of Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime. But we have dealt with far, far worse,” he says.

In the case of China, the U.S. government learned in the early 1960s that Beijing was pursuing a nuclear weapon and might soon test it. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson considered bombing China’s nuclear sites, and even considered using nuclear weapons for that purpose, says Krepon. Ultimately, they rejected that option in favor of deterrence.

“Several successive U.S. administrations decided to play the long game, to eventually engage diplomatically, to contain, to deter, to shore up friends and allies along the periphery of these two massive states, and to bet that the character of these countries and the threats that they pose would eventually change and abate,” Krepon says.

Iran’s Unpredictability

Still, there is a problem with deterrence that nags at many analysts: There is no proof, no certainty that it will work in all cases.

Gary Milhollin, the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, which maintains the Web site Iran Watch, argues that even if the American and Israeli nuclear arsenals deter Iran’s use of a nuclear weapon, Iran might be in any case tempted to behave differently toward its neighbors.

“If Iran gets the bomb, we’re going to have a period of experimentation in the beginning, where Iran is trying to figure out how much power this new capability has conferred,” Milhollin says.

Some critics of deterrence think Iran would share the bomb with others, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. But if a nuclear device ever exploded inside Israel, the Israelis would assume immediately that responsibility rested in only one place — Iran.

‘Stepping Into The Unknown’

Milhollin worries about other unpredictable scenarios, such as miscalculation, in which bellicose statements from Iran and counterstatements from the U.S. and Israel might lead to a conflict that no one intended.

“At that point, you’re stepping into the unknown. And I think it would be very risky to assume that a combination of containment and deterrence would be adequate to protect us,” he says.

Deterrence, though, may already be at work in the minds of Iran’s leaders. If they do decide to acquire nuclear weapons, Sahimi believes their goal will be to deter an attack from the United States.

“Whatever they may build, everything that they may build would be for the survival of the regime against foreign attack,” he says.

If Iran does eventually build nuclear weapons, its deterrent is unlikely to grow beyond a handful of bombs. Iran’s own supply of natural uranium is believed to be quite small and dwindling already. Acquiring uranium from other nations could be difficult if Iran sought to keep it secret.

(Fareed Zakaria | CNN | 16 August 2009) – An exclusive interview with the new Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren,  on Israel’s policy toward Iran.  For  summary, excerpts, and links to additional information  as provided in the GPS Briefing Book, please read  below.

Michael Oren is the new Israeli Ambassador to the United States.  To take the position he had to give up his U.S. citizenship.

Oren said that “Israel and the United States have agreed to differ about the issue of Jerusalem and the prime  minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, during his first visit to this country as prime minister in this term met with the president, President Obama, in the White House.  Here is an article on the Netanyahu position on Jerusalem.

Both Fareed and Michael Oren spoke about a specific speech made by Netanyahu.   Fareed also mentioned  this speech to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and we included her answer, a video of Netanyahu’s speech, and an analysis of the speech in last week’s briefing book.  In case you missed it:  Prime Minister Netanyahu made a speech in which he accepted a two-state solution, sort of, with some caveats.

Netanyahu’s Speech

On the speech, Oren said that it asked “the question of the American demand for a freeze in construction in Israeli settlements in the areas we call Judea and Samaria in America, known as the West Bank.  And the Israeli government has agreed to examine the possibility of such a freeze, but there is no agreement just yet on the scope and duration of that freeze.

And more importantly from an Israeli perspective, what happens the day after the freeze?  What happens ifyou go through the period of the freeze, and does it continue indefinitely?  We feel that that is not just a  political impossibility but physical impossibility.  You’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of people who have normal life requirements.  They want to build a room for a baby.  They want to build a nursery school for a neighborhood.  You can’t freeze them indefinitely.  It’s not proper (ph), inhuman.  On the other side of the coin…”

Watch the speech (in English).

Read an analysis of the speech: “Decoding Netanyahu’s Speech,” The New Republic (US).

Fareed asked Oren if the only state that Israel is offering the Palestinians is one that has no control over its borders.  Oren distinguished that from demilitarization, which Netanyahu is demanding. Fareed mentions that “Tom Friedman, the “New York Times” columnist, has written a couple of columns extolling the virtues of Salam Fayyad, the technocrat administrator who is running the West Bank.”

Oren made a distinction between Israel as a Jewish state versus a theocracy.  A distinction the “Prime Minister made in his speech as well.”  Oren said that “Israel as a Jewish state,” some people immediately thought theocracy. Israel, of course, is not a theocracy. Israel does not even have an official religion, unlike many countries in the world, does not have an official religion.”

Avigidor Lieberman, Hitler and the Mufti

Another point of contention was when Fareed asked Oren about Foreign Minister Lieberman. “The Foreign Minister’s attracted some attention because he has ordered diplomats to distribute an old photograph of the Mufti of Jerusalem sitting next to Hitler in 1941, in Berlin.”

Fareed asked if Oren received those instructions, which Oren denies getting but says he has heard of it and that there is background to it.  Oren said “the background to it was that one of the issues that came up in Jerusalem was a construction of a certain hotel in East Jerusalem, which had been acquired by fully legal process by Israeli contractors.  And who were transforming this old hotel complex into a modern apartment site.

And there — some people were claiming that this had — this was Palestinian property and the fact of the matter was that it had been Palestinian property.  Back in the 1940’s, it belonged to the Grand Mufti.  And the Grand Mufti, the Palestinian leader during much of the ’30’s into the ’40’s later left Palestine and became a close ally of Hitler.

And I think the prime minister’s point was I wouldn’t make — I wouldn’t be so proud about the former ownership of this property.  Fareed responded that the point that Jeffrey Goldberg — a good friend of Oren’s, says it is true that Mufti was an outrageous Nazi. It is also true that he’s dead.  The Palestinians of the West Bank are not Nazis.  Lieberman is going to have to get used to this idea.  Oren said that Jeffrey Goldberg is entirely entitled to this opinion.

Iran

John Bolton has recently said that he believes that Israel is likely to attack Iran by the end of this year.  Oren says he doesn’t think this is true and that Israel is “far from even contemplating such things right now….  But we were greatly confident during the prime minister’s visit here in May, when the president told the prime minister, assured him that there would be a serious reassessment of the engagement policy before the end of the year. Here is an analysis of the Ahmadinejad statement controversy.

Nuclear Umbrella

Fareed mentioned the possibility of the US extending “a nuclear umbrella to Israel and potentially other countries in the Gulf.” Fareed spoke to Hillary Clinton about this and mentioned it to Oren again this week.

Here is more on the idea of extending a “defense umbrella” in the region and what Clinton has said, or hasn’t said about it.

“Clinton mum on Mideast defense umbrella”  The Associated Press

“Hillary Clinton’s Iran Indiscretion” Washington Post, Op-ed

Michael Oren’s book is entitled Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. According to Fareed, it is “an intricate history of a war and that brought significant changes to the landscape of the Middle East – both literally and figuratively. While many Arabs may disagree, it is about as fair a book as you can expect from one side of the conflict – he interviewed many Arabs for his research, and talks frankly about Israel’s shortcomings. It’s a great way to understand one of the critical turning points in this conflict”

]]> http://www.peacewithiran.com/israelis-ambassador-to-the-united-states-discusses-iran/feed/ 0 http://www.peacewithiran.com/john-bolton-believes-that-a-military-strike-against-iran-would-buy-time-and-lead-to-a-possible-regime-change/ http://www.peacewithiran.com/john-bolton-believes-that-a-military-strike-against-iran-would-buy-time-and-lead-to-a-possible-regime-change/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:19:36 +0000 admin2 http://www.peacewithiran.com/?p=959 John Bolton believes that a military strike against Iran would buy time and lead to a possible regime change

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
John Bolton
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

]]> http://www.peacewithiran.com/john-bolton-believes-that-a-military-strike-against-iran-would-buy-time-and-lead-to-a-possible-regime-change/feed/ 0 http://www.peacewithiran.com/irans-top-leader-warns-west-over-alleged-meddling/ http://www.peacewithiran.com/irans-top-leader-warns-west-over-alleged-meddling/#comments Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:28:48 +0000 admin2 http://www.peacewithiran.com/?p=346 Iran’s top leader warns West over alleged meddling

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer, Jul 6, 12:37 PM EDT

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Western governments on Monday of a “negative impact” on relations over what he called their meddling in Iran’s post-election riots.Meanwhile, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi on Monday made his first public appearance in a week, saying he was determined to persist in his challenge to the regime, but he stopped short of calling for more street demonstrations after a fierce crackdown on demonstrators.

“We need to make efforts to show our protest … within the framework of the law,” Mousavi said as he welcomed well-wishers at his home for a holiday commemorating Shiism’s most important saint, Imam Ali.

“The legitimacy of this government is in question because of the people’s lack of trust. This weakens the government from within even if it preserves it in appearance,” he said, according to the Iranian news Web site Parsine.

Mousavi and his supporters claim he was defrauded of victory in the June 12 presidential election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected. Massive street protests erupted calling for a new election, but were quashed in a crackdown in which Iranian authorities say 20 people were killed.

Khamenei upheld the results, and the cleric-led leadership has depicted the protests as instigated by foreign government, seeking to erase any lingering doubts about Ahmadinejad’s legitimacy.

The supreme leader, who holds final say in all state matters, lashed out on Monday against criticism from abroad in a speech for the holiday.

“Some leaders of Western countries at the level of president, prime minister and foreign minister openly intervened in Iran’s internal affairs that had nothing to do with them. Then, they said they don’t intervene in Iran’s internal affairs,” the television quoted Khamenei as telling thousands of Iranians during a ceremony to commemorate a revered Shiite saint.

Khamenei said Iran will pay attention to the remarks and behaviors of Western governments and said that it will definitely have a negative impact on future relations with Iran.

“These governments must be careful of their hostile remarks and behaviors because the Iranian nation will” react, the television quoted Khamenei as saying. “We will calculate the interventionist remarks and behaviors of these governments. Definitely, it will have a negative impact on future relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“As arrogant heads of state know, when the enemy comes near, the people of Iran, despite differences in taste, unite against their enemies into one fist,” he said.

Khamenei once again emphasized his support for Ahmadinejad, calling his re-election a “lasting and pure truth.”

In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy said his country stands by Britain amid tensions with Iran over the post-election unrest. In a joint news conference with the French leader, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday that “the Iranian regime must be clear that we will act together with our European partners.”

But Brown insisted that the outcome of the Iranian election is a matter for the Iranian people.

In the post-election fallout, Iran detained more than a thousand protesters, along with hundreds of activists, journalists and bloggers. While police say most of the protesters have been released, dozens of prominent political activists remain in jail on vague charges of “acting against national security.”

Reformist Web site Norooznews said late Sunday that Hamid Maddah Shourcheh, a member of Mousavi campaign office in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad died of torture during detention.

Shourcheh was “martyred as a result of wound inflicted during detention,” Norooznews said, adding that he was arrested after holding a sit-in in a Mashhad mosque to protest the election results.

Along with the other arrests, Iranian authorities also detained nine local employees of the British Embassy, leading to vocal protests from Britain and the European Union.

Britain’s Foreign Office said Monday that Iran has released another British Embassy staff member, leaving one employee still in custody.

But one staffer, Hossein Rassam, a political analyst at the embassy, still remains in detention, according to his lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshi. Khorramshi said Saturday that his client has been charged with “acting against national security.” Britain has dismissed claims of intervention as baseless.

President Barack Obama’s administration, which has made an effort to reach out to Iran since taking office, has left the door open to talks.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Vice President Joe Biden Sunday said the U.S. offer to negotiate with Tehran on its nuclear program still stands. Some thought the administration’s approach might change in light of the Iranian government’s harsh post-election crackdown.

“If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage,” Biden said.

Biden also signaled that the U.S. would not stand in the way should Israel opt for military action to eliminate Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying Washington “cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.”

Israel considers Iran its most dangerous adversary and is wary of Ahmadinejad. Israel and the U.S. accuse Iran of seeking to develop weapons under the cover of a nuclear power program, a claim Iran denies.

Iranian police have said that 20 “rioters” were killed during the violence, as well as eight members of the Basij militia tasked with putting down the protests.

The chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari, said in remarks late Sunday that the Guards played the key role in putting an end to street protests, the first admission that the Guards were directly involved in quashing the demonstrators.

The Guards’ intervention “gave the revolution new life and strengthened the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said, referring to the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran, according to the official news agency IRNA.

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.In an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program, Biden said Israel can determine for itself how best to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

“We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they’re existentially threatened,” Biden said.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, said neither the United States or Israel could allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapon.

“The U.S., like Israel … has determined unequivocally that Iran must not have nuclear military capability,” Ayalon told Israel’s Army Radio.

“A military operation in Iran is something difficult and complex and perhaps would have severe consequences and there could be serious damage, but this is much less dangerous and complicated than to allow a nuclear Iran,” he said.

Netanyahu, who took office in March, has said Israel cannot allow Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons and has not ruled out a possible military strike against Iran.

Israel has said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its existence, noting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s calls for Israel to be wiped off the map. Iran denies it is enriching uranium for military purposes, saying its nuclear development is aimed at generating electricity.

Israel bombed a site in Syria in 2007 that U.S. intelligence officials said was a nearly completed nuclear reactor being built with North Korean help. In 1981, Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.

“If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice,” Biden said. “But there is no pressure from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.”

Similarly, Israel said it had never asked for Washington’s permission for operations or strategic policy.

“Of course, as allies we coordinate things and we make joint assessments but there should be no confusion, we do what is right and good for us according to our own estimates,” Ayalon said.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions on Tehran for defying its demand to suspend uranium enrichment, which could also be used to produce nuclear weapons.

The United States has joined Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain in inviting Iran to talks to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Israel’s Mossad intelligence chief Meir Dagan said last month a world embargo had altered the course of Tehran’s nuclear program since 2003, but that Iran could have an atomic weapon by 2014 unless these steps were intensified.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Jon Hemming)

RELATED VIDEO:

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.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Biden: Israel has right to deal with nuclear Iran, Reuters, July 6, 2009.

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.

Biden says Israel has the right to attack Iran, Associated Press, July 6, 2009

Washington — Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing. Biden’s remarks suggested a tougher U.S. stance against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but administration officials denied that. Instead, White House officials said, his televised remarks Sunday simply reflected the U.S. view that Israel had a right to defend itself and make its own decisions on national security.

Israeli FM praises Biden on Iran stand, by MARK LAVIE (AP), Jul 6, 1:39 PM EDT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s hard-line foreign minister on Monday welcomed Vice President Joe Biden’s statement that Israel can make its own decision about whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, calling it “logical.”  But other Israeli leaders avoided comment, a low-key reaction that suggested Israel did not see Biden’s comments as a green light to strike against its biggest Mideast rival. President Barack Obama underlined that diplomacy with Iran remains an option.