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Khamenei stamps authority on US relations, AFP http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jxlz-o2pTtBtLRTktl169QEIxL1w
Iran’s response to US shows mind-set of leadership, AP http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/21/AR2009032101079.html
Editorial: Obama strikes new tone with Tehran, Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/617f1fb4-1713-11de-9a72-0000779fd2ac.html
Roger Cohen: From Tehran to Tel Aviv¸ International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=20978866
Rami G. Khouri: Dialogue or Dictating to Iran?, Middle East Times http://www.metimes.com/International/2009/03/23/dialogue_or_dictating_to_iran/9371/
Despite Iran’s tepid response, experts hail Obama approach, McClatchy http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/64536.html
Iran sets terms for U.S. ties, AP http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090322/wl_nm/us_iran_usa
‘No proof’ Iran seeks atom bomb: Russian minister, AFP http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hBPU3NuguY_rj19oOwLADdyt-E2w
John Bolton: Iran’s Axis of Nuclear Evil, Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123759986806901655.html
Amir Taheri: Iran Has Started a Mideast Arms Race, Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123776572203009141.html%20http:/online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=AMIR+TAHERI&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND
Wife of founder of Iran’s Islamic republic dies, AP http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ikwGcpqo0p2JwanEHkViYsOE0s2QD9739J480

Khamenei stamps authority on US relations, AFP, March 22, 2009
The swift response from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to US President Barack Obama’s overtures to Iran shows the supreme leader’s determination to keep a tight grip on the issue of ties with Washington, analysts said on Sunday. “He wanted to send a message to the whole world that he is the one who takes the big decisions,” said Parviz Esmaili, who is close to Iran’s dominant conservatives. “The silence of both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the foreign ministry proves it,” Esmaili told AFP. Another analyst, Said Leylaz, who is close to the reformist minority in the Iranian parliament, also commented on the unusual silence on the issue from the hardline president. “I am certain that President Ahmadinejad would have wanted to give this response to President Obama himself as that would have boosted his chances of re-election,” Leylaz said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jxlz-o2pTtBtLRTktl169QEIxL1w

Iran’s response to US shows mind-set of leadership, AP, March 22, 2009
The Iranian leader’s rebuff on Saturday to President Barack Obama’s offer for dialogue was swift and sweeping: Words from Washington ring hollow without deep policy changes.  But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s response was more than just a dismissive slap at the outreach. It was a broad lesson in the mind-set of Iran’s all-powerful theocracy and how it will dictate the pace and tone of any new steps by Obama to chip away at their nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze.  ”It’s the first stage of the bargaining in classic Iranian style: Be tough and play up your toughness,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of regional politics at United Arab Emirates University. “The Iranian leaders are not about concessions at this stage. It’s still all about ideology from the Iranian side.”  For Khamenei and his inner circle, that means appearing to stay true to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the political narrative of rejecting the United States.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/21/AR2009032101079.html <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/21/AR2009032101079.html>

Editorial: Obama strikes new tone with Tehran, Financial Times, March 22 2009
Barack Obama’s overture to Iran, delivered by video on the eve of Monday’s Iranian new year, is a smart move, tone-perfectly delivered, and a clear departure not just from George W. Bush’s bellicose attitude but the visceral animosity that has bedevilled relations between Washington and Tehran since the Islamic Revolution of 30 years ago. Mr Obama managed simultaneously to address Iran’s innate sense of cultural superiority as an ancient civilisation, and its paranoid sense of vulnerability. “The US wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations,” he said. “You have that right but it comes with real responsibilities and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilisation”. His use of the formal title of Islamic Republic implies US recognition of the revolution and abandonment of regime change. The emphasis on rights and responsibilities – the sort of discourse tailored for, say, China – suits Iran’s sense of entitlement and ambition to be acknowledged as a regional power. The address is well aimed, furthermore, not just at Iran’s leaders but at the Iranians, arguably the most instinctively pro-American people in the wider Middle East.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/617f1fb4-1713-11de-9a72-0000779fd2ac.html

Roger Cohen: From Tehran to Tel Aviv¸ International Herald Tribune, March 22, 2009
With his bold message to Iran’s leaders, President Obama achieved four things essential to any rapprochement. He abandoned regime change as an American goal. He shelved the so-called military option. He buried a carrot-and-stick approach viewed with contempt by Iranians as fit only for donkeys. And he placed Iran’s nuclear program within “the full range of issues before us.” By doing so, Obama made it almost inevitable that one of the defining strategic issues of his presidency will be a painful but necessary redefinition of America’s relations with Israel as differences over Iran sharpen. I will return to that below. The innovations in the president’s Persian New Year, or Nowruz, overture to Tehran were remarkable. He referred twice to “the Islamic Republic of Iran,” a formulation long shunned, and said that republic, no other, should “take its rightful place in the community of nations.” Here was explicit American acceptance of Iran’s 30-year-old clerical revolution.
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=20978866

Rami G. Khouri: Dialogue or Dictating to Iran?, Middle East Times, March 23, 2009
We should not underestimate the courage and self-confidence it took for Obama to move in this direction and to make several gestures towards Iran since taking office. He reflects real strength, political realism and much humility in being able to reverse many aspects of the belligerent Bush approach and instead to reach out to Iran. Yet the persistent flaw in the Obama approach that might prove to be fatal is a lingering streak of arrogance that is reflected in both the tone and the substance of his message. This is most obvious in his insistence – after telling the Iranians that they are a great culture with proud traditions, which is presumably something they already knew, experienced and felt on their own — on lecturing Iran about the responsibilities that come with the right to assume its place in the “community of nations”, and then linking Iran’s behavior with “terror of arms” and a “capacity to destroy.”
http://www.metimes.com/International/2009/03/23/dialogue_or_dictating_to_iran/9371/ <http://www.metimes.com/International/2009/03/23/dialogue_or_dictating_to_iran/9371

Despite Iran’s tepid response, experts hail Obama approach, McClatchy, March 20, 2009
Triti Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, which favors U.S. engagement with Iran, called Obama’s latest message “historic.” He said the president took the right tack in not trying to ignore Iran’s leaders and speak only to the Iranian people, as Bush almost always did. Bush’s rhetoric helped the fiery Ahmadinejad, and Obama’s approach “now may ‘un-help’ Ahmadinejad,” Parsi said. Iranian reformists, who favor improved ties with the United States, also say the previous approach helped the hawkish camp in Iran’s divided political system, which often manipulates anti-American sentiment for political ends. While Bush was in the White House, “reformists became weak,” reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh said in a recent interview in Tehran. The Carnegie Endowment’s Sadjadpour said that while Iran’s internal political battles won’t be resolved anytime soon, the new U.S. diplomacy “will undermine (hardliners) and their narrative of a hostile U.S. government bent on oppressing Iran.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/64536.html <http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/64536.html

Iran sets terms for U.S. ties, AP, March 22, 2009
Iran wants the United States to show concrete change in its behavior toward it, for example by handing back frozen assets, but Tehran is not pursuing “eternal hostility,” said Professor Mohammad Marandi at Tehran University. “I think they (the Iranian leadership) are quite willing to have better relations if the Americans are serious,” said Marandi, who heads North American studies at the university. Marandi said Khamenei did not dismiss Obama’s overture but was “effectively saying that this is simply not enough, that the United States must take concrete steps toward decreasing tension with Iran.” But Professor Hamidreza Jalaiepour, who teaches political sociology in Tehran, said Khamenei had delivered a pragmatic message rather than one based on ideology on Saturday. If the United States eased sanctions imposed on Iran or released frozen funds, Iran was likely to respond, for example in helping to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan, he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090322/wl_nm/us_iran_usa http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090322/wl_nm/us_iran_usa

‘No proof’ Iran seeks atom bomb: Russian minister, AFP, March 22, 2009
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday there was no proof that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon and urged the West to respect and reach out to the Islamic republic. “There is no proof that Iran even has decided to make a bomb,” he told the Brussels Forum conference, alongside EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who on behalf of world powers has led talks to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Lavrov said the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was best placed to monitor Iran’s activities and establish whether it might try to covertly develop a weapon under the guise of a civilian programme. Lavrov said that “as long as the IAEA works in Iran,” real concerns it may develop a bomb could be allayed.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hBPU3NuguY_rj19oOwLADdyt-E2w

Amir Taheri <http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=AMIR+TAHERI&amp;ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND> : Iran Has Started a Mideast Arms Race, Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2009
Make no mistake: The Middle East may be on the verge of a nuclear arms race triggered by the inability of the West to stop Iran’s quest for a bomb. Since Tehran’s nuclear ambitions hit the headlines five years ago, 25 countries — 10 of them in the greater Middle East — have announced plans to build nuclear power plants for the first time. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates [UAE] and Oman) set up a nuclear exploratory commission in 2007 to prepare a “strategic report” for submission to the alliance’s summit later this year. But Saudi Arabia is not waiting for the report. It opened negotiations with the U.S. in 2008 to obtain “a nuclear capacity,” ostensibly for “peaceful purposes.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123776572203009141.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123776572203009141.html

Wife of founder of Iran’s Islamic republic dies, AP, March 23, 2009
The wife of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, has died after a long illness, state media reported Sunday. She was 93. Khadijeh Saqafi, who was known as the “mother of the Islamic revolution,” died Saturday in Tehran, state TV said. Thousands of people, including Iran’s president and supreme leader, attended her funeral at Tehran University on Sunday. “After a lifetime of patience and perseverance, and months of sick health, the dear and respected wife of Imam Khomeini has finally passed way, leaving friends of the late imam in grief,” her grandson Hasan Khomeini said in a statement posted on the Web site of Iran’s English-language state television station, Press TV.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ikwGcpqo0p2JwanEHkViYsOE0s2QD9739J480 http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ikwGcpqo0p2JwanEHkViYsOE0s2QD9739J480

Tony Wilson
Program Assistant
Open Society Institute/Open Society Policy Center
1120 19th Street, NW- 8th Floor Washington, DC 20036
Tel. 1-202-721-5600
Fax: 1-202-530-0128

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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By Ed Hale

Part I of III

As United States 2008 presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama bickered over how they would “handle the Iran threat” in their first debate on Friday night, citing erroneous facts and competing with one another on who would hold out the longest from engaging in diplomatic talks with Iran, a small group of one-hundred and fifty American citizens representing fifty of the country’s most prominent peace and human rights groups were busy talking to the world’s media about the two-hour private meeting they held with the Iranian President two days prior.

The meeting – which was not revealed to the media until the next day to assure the safety and security for those in attendance – took place on Wednesday September 24 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City during the 63rd annual United Nations General Assembly Meeting. The goal of the meeting was “to introduce President Ahmadinejad to the peace community in the United States and to illustrate how this sector of civil society works to oppose war and the use of violence to resolve differences,” said the meeting’s facilitator, Mark Johnson, Executive Director of the global Fellowship of Reconciliation, the world’s oldest peace organization.

In an exhilarating live experiment in civilian diplomacy in action, the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Hotel was transformed into a veritable who’s who of some of the most outspoken and prominent members of America’s peace, anti-war, and human rights organizations, including Medea Benjamin of A Global Exchange, Jodie Evans of Code Pink and Women for Peace, Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition, yours truly representing PeaceWithIran.com, and Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice. There were also representatives from Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Mennonites, the Lutheran Peace Fellowship, American Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, among many others. American citizens flew in from almost all fifty states to hold the private meeting with President Ahmadinejad in an effort to begin the process of what many consider long overdue open dialogues with Iran regarding how our two nations can work peaceably together to secure more peaceful relations with one another.

The issues raised during the two-hour plus talk, many considered vital for the future security of both the United States and Iranian citizenry, revolved around how the countries can begin putting aside their mutual distrust of one another in order to move forward in peaceful negotiations; both the US and the Iranian government’s recent crackdown on human rights, freedom of assembly, and dissidents; the current US occupation of Iraq; Iran’s controversially viewed policy toward Israel; their treatment of women and other minorities; the difficulty on both sides of obtaining visas to visit either country. Of course the big issue of the moment, will Iran accept a compromise on its nuclear fuel enrichment program, was also addressed.

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Originally Published in truthdig here

The failure by Barack Obama to chart another course in the Middle East, to defy the Israel
lobby and to denounce the Bush administration’s inexorable march toward a conflict with
Iran is a failure to challenge the collective insanity that has gripped the political leadership
in the United States and Israel.

Obama, in a miscalculation that will have grave consequences, has given his blessing to
the widening circle of violence and abuse of the Palestinians by Israel and, most
dangerously, to those in the Bush White House and Jerusalem now plotting a war against
Iran. He illustrates how the lust for power is morally corrosive. And while he may win the
White House, by the time he takes power he will be trapped in George Bush’s alternative
reality.

“Humanity Does Not Change”

There is nothing in human nature or human history to justify the idea that we are
progressing morally as a species.

We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to stay the hand of Israel, which is
building more settlements—including a new plan to put 800 housing units in occupied
East Jerusalem—and imposing draconian measures to physically break the 1.5 million
Palestinians in Gaza. We need, most of all, to prevent a war with Iran.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, in a letter to President Bush on May 8, threatened
to open impeachment proceedings if Bush attacked Iran. The letter is a signal that
planning for strikes on Iran is under way and pronounced.

“Our concerns in this area have been heightened by more recent events,” Conyers wrote.
“The resignation in mid-March of Admiral William J. ‘Fox’ Fallon from the head of U.S.
Central Command, which was reportedly linked to a magazine article that portrayed him as
the only person who might stop your Administration from waging preemptive war against
Iran, has renewed widespread concerns that your Administration is unilaterally planning
for military action against that country. This is despite the fact that the December 2007
National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program
in the fall of 2003, a stark reversal of previous Administration assessments.”

The administration, in rhetoric that is eerily similar to that used to build the case for a war
against Iraq, asserts that the Iranian Quds Force is arming anti-American groups in Iraq
and providing them with high-tech roadside bombs and sophisticated rockets. It
dismisses the National Intelligence Estimate conclusion that Iran suspended its nuclear
weapons program. The White House has not provided evidence to back up its claims. I
suspect it never will. And when Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz tells the Israeli
newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth an attack on Iran is “unavoidable” if Tehran does not halt its
alleged nuclear weapons program, what he is really telling us is we should prepare for war.
Conyers’ threat is too little too late, especially if the Bush White House, possibly assisted
by Israel, launches airstrikes on some or all of 1,000 selected Iranian targets in the final
weeks of the administration. But it is an effort. Conyers tried.

This is more than we can say for the presumptive Democratic nominee. Obama went
before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Wednesday and said he will
stand with the right-wing Israeli government, even if this means backing an attack on Iran.
“As president I will use all elements of American power to pressure Iran,” he said. “I will
do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in
my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.”
Obama went on to blame the Palestinians for the conflict, although the ratio of
Palestinians to Israelis killed in 2007 was 40 to 1. This is an increase from 30 to 1 in 2006
and 4 to 1 in 2000-2005.

“I will bring to the White House an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security. That starts
with ensuring Israel’s qualitative military advantage, …” Obama told AIPAC. “I will ensure
Israel can defend itself from any threat, from Gaza to Tehran. …”
Obama spoke about Israelis whose houses were damaged by the crude rockets, most
made out of old pipes, fired from Gaza on Israeli towns. He never mentioned the Israeli
siege of Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison, or that Israel was deploying fighter jets
and helicopters to attack densely crowded refugee camps with missiles and iron
fragmentation bombs or that it had cut off food and fuel. He ignored the steady expansion
of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. He called for Jerusalem to become the
“undivided capital” of the Jewish state, erasing Arab East Jerusalem from the map in
contravention of international law. East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are
internationally recognized as occupied Palestinian territories, which Israel took over in
1967. Obama’s stance is the moral equivalent of assuring the Johannesburg government
during the apartheid era that one would support their repressive efforts to punish the
restive blacks in the townships.

The deterioration of the conflict in Israel, which would be accelerated by airstrikes on Iran
and an ensuring regional war, will propel us into the Armageddon-type scenario in the
Middle East relished by the lunatic fringes of the radical Christian right. And so, with
Obama’s enthusiastic endorsement, we barrel toward a Dr. Strangelove self-immolation.
No one will be able to say we did not go out with a spectacular show of firepower, gore
and death. Our European and Middle Eastern allies, who are numb with consternation over
our death spiral, are frantically trying to reach out to Tehran diplomatically.

The instant we attack Iran, oil prices will double, perhaps triple. This price increase will
devastate the American economy. The ensuing retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well
as on American military installations in Iraq, will leave hundreds, maybe thousands, of
dead. The Shiites in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, will see an attack on Iran as
a war against Shiism. They will turn with rage and violence on us and our allies. Hezbollah
will renew attacks on northern Israel. And the localized war in Iraq will become a long,
messy and protracted regional war that, by the time it is done, will most likely end the
American empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering ruins.

The Israeli leadership, like the Bush White House, is increasingly bellicose and threatening.
The Israeli prime minister, after a 90-minute meeting with Bush in the White House on
Wednesday, said the two leaders were of one mind. “We reached agreement on the need to
take care of the Iranian threat,” Ehud Olmert said. “I left with a lot less questions marks
[than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and American
resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian
threat and the need to vanquish it and intends to act on the matter before the end of his
term in the White House.”

This time around, unlike about the war with Iraq, the Washington bureaucracy, loathed by
the Bush White House, did not remain silent and complicit. The National Intelligence
Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program released last Dec. 3 distinguished Iran’s enrichment of
uranium at Natanz and Arak from its formal nuclear weapons program, which it said had
halted in 2003 after the American invasion of Iraq. Adm. Fallon, who put his country and
his integrity before his career, spoke out against a war with Iran, tried to stop it and lost
his job as the head of CENTCOM. He has been replaced with Gen. David H. Petraeus,
whose devotion to his career admits no such moral impediments.

” … There is no greater threat to Israel or peace than Iran,” Obama assured AIPAC. “This
audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. And the enemies of Israel should
have no doubt that regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in support
of Israel’s security. … The Iran regime supports violent extremists and challenges us
across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race
and … its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. … [M]y
goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

Barack Obama, when we need sane leadership the most, has proved feckless and weak.
He, and the Democratic leadership, is as morally bankrupt as those preparing to ignite our
funeral pyre in the Middle East.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama on screen receives applause during
his address before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference 2008 in
Washington.

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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by Mark Hare • May 20, 2008 Originally published in the Democrat Chronicle, Rochester, New York

When Hillary Clinton suggested recently that, were she president, an attack on Israel by Iran would result in the “total obliteration” of Iran, some recent visitors to that country cringed. As they did when President George W. Bush likened talking to Iran or Hamas with “appeasement.” Lynda Howland, Tom Moore and Judy Bello have all visited Iran within the last year — Howland, in March — under the auspices of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, one of the country’s oldest peace groups. “A lot of the American public sees Iran as primitive, terrorist and uncivilized,” says Howland, of Pittsford. But that’s not what visitors find in Iran, she says. Iranians are increasingly well-educated, respectful and eager to speak to Americans, she says. She showed me a photo of some soldiers smiling and flashing a peace sign when they learned the group in front of them were Americans. Read the rest of this entry »