Armed with the disclosure of a secret Iranian nuclear facility, President Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Britain demanded Friday that Tehran fully disclose its nuclear ambitions “or be held accountable.”

(Ed Hale | Transcendence Diaries | 25 September 2009) - CNN the most rusted name in fake-news reported today that the United States, France and Britain have presented “detailed evidence” to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog that “Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility,” President Obama said Friday before the start of the G-20 economic summit here.”

What’s ironic of course about this sudden announcement is that those same three countries — in a covert CIA-led coup d’etat never reported by Western media but largely known about now after the fact — invaded and then ousted Iran’s democratically elected president, Mosaddeq, in 1953 after they became a democracy in the early nineteen-fifties. Those same three countries — United States, France, Great Britain — then installed ‘the Shah’ as a puppet leader against the people’s will and split Iran’s oil up three ways for themselves, paying the Iranians pennies a barrel for it for nearly thirty years; they called their new “company” British Petroleum, or BP – you might have heard of it. This led of course to the extreme ‘Islamic revolution’ of 1979. (Religious fervor as the powers that be would have dumbed-down TV guzzlers believe had nothing to do with the American Embassy hostage “crisis,” but rather thirty years of rage and frustration over imperialist domination and their oil being stolen from them.)

Next up came the eight year US-led Iran-Iraq war where the Reagan administration funded a young CIA operative named Saddam Hussein, giving him millions of dollars and chemical and biological weapons to use against the Iranian people, where over 20 million of them died. And then when Iraq proved unable to defeat the strongly proud and patriotic Iranians, Reagan decided to play both sides against the other in the infamous Iran-Contra Affair and started illegally selling weapons of mass destruction to Iran as well, thinking one assumes that if both countries destroy each other in the process with US money and weapons that the US and Britain could walk right in and grab at all the oil in the region. Of course the plan didn’t work. The United States added yet another fallen hero to its shelf of publicly shamed and sham presidents. Iran and Iraq eventually called a truce.

The Iranian people sit at a crossroads now.

Gordon Brown accuses Iran of deception in its pursuit of a nuclear programme and warns of more sanctions.

Their first Democratic Revolution of 1950 didn’t work because the Great Britain wouldn’t allow it. They needed Iranian oil too badly to win World War I, so they installed Shah number one and forced the Iranian people into totalitarian monarch rule. Their second democratic revolution of 1950 didn’t work because the United States and Britain wouldn’t allow it due to still wanting all their oil. And now unhappy with their third ‘Islamic Revolution, they need help, but can’t trust the largest alleged democracies in the world due to past deceit and abuses; so they fight, or sit as many do out of fear and rightly so, helplessly alone not sure of what to do. It is obvious to anyone who visits Iran, as I did in 2008, that the people there are no different than any other country, West or East. They dress the same, look the same, act the same, and want to be LED democratically, not RULED by an Islamic dictatorship. They just don’t know how to make it happen, and don’t know who to trust.

One thing is for sure, anything that the United States, Great Britain, or France “say” about Iran is probably no more credible or legitimate than their BP corporation was when it was first formed. So they know they can’t trust these countries. But at the same time, they don’t want to continue to be led astray by their current government. Another thing is also obvious when one is so closely associated with Iran’s people as we now are at the non-profit PeaceWithIran.com, and that is this: the Iranian people do not hate America, nor do they harbor any negative feelings toward American people. In fact, they are rather awe struck by Americans and love their art and entertainment. Most Iranians are too young to remember the past abuses levied upon them by the United States. (Iran has the youngest population out of any country in the civilized world today.)

The most blatant disregard for ‘truth’ and respect if one is still hoping for an ounce of it to come out of Washington or mainstream media about this whole charade is that the same countries that are demanding that Iran “not be allowed” to make nuclear weapons all currently have, make, and sell for profit nuclear weapons themselves. An irony that is not lost on Iran – a deeply intelligent, insightful and wise country that was once the largest empire on planet earth known as Persia. Newly selected Bilderberg Group Managing Director, better known to most as “President Obama” is being forced by his bosses to go public and mandate “rules” to the country of Iran regarding their nuclear program, a preposterous notion given that Iran, just like the United States, is a sovereign nation of planet earth and doesn’t have any ‘rules’ to follow. (Isn’t that precisely what then-select GW Bush said when he broke every “rule” in the “rulebook” and even international law when he illegally invaded the country of Iraq?)

What Iran might be prone to do though is FOLLOW the United State’s lead… should they ever decide to lead again and disarm themselves. Obama is a smart man. He knows this. He just can’t say it out loud, not in public. He might get fired. The same way JFK was fired. In other words, he takes his orders and shouts about Iran every few weeks to keep the powers that be happy without once mentioning that the US is the largest owner and profiteer of nuclear weapons in the world. Sad. Funny. Ironic. Twisted. Truth is that way sometimes.

To the country of Iran/Persia, with a five-thousand year history and a claim to being the longest running and greatest kingdom on earth for hundreds of years, the United States — with its crumbling economy and long-ago eroded democracy — must seem like the tail that’s still trying to do the barking. Iranians are known for their patience and their skill in poetic diplomacy. While the US sits around complaining and name-calling over the last few years, Iran quietly walked into recently ‘liberated’ Iraq and discreetly took over that country’s fragile government in less than a day, turning it Shia overnight. The embarrassed United States is of course in a tizzy as it has over one-hundred and twenty thousand troops stationed there fighting to maintain stability in a country now being controlled by none other than the Iranian government. One reason possibly why the United States seems so hellbent on continuously publicly attacking Iran, rather than sitting down to diplomatic talks with them, an option that every country in the free world, even the US itself, knows that they will eventually have to do if they are going to get anywhere with either country; or with any other Middle Eastern country at this point. Iran is still one of the most respected countries in the entire region, being the only one bold enough to continue to not take United States bribe money like Turkey or Pakistan AND speak the truth about what is actually happening to them.

And yes, they still send their presidents and other government leaders to the United States to speak and invite Americans to come there as well, an honor that I partook in personally. Again and again they implore the United States to shut down its tail-barking, grow up, forgive the inequities of the past, and come to the diplomatic side of the fence to talk. The US continues to refuse. And in the process continues to lose respect in the international community. Twentieth century politics don’t work in the twenty-first century world of today. The United States is going to eventually have to sit down and start acting like a leader of the free world, and not its wanna-be ruler.

If one wants to learn more, simply google any of the keywords here. There is nothing here that is not common knowledge or easily obtainable. But most importantly head to PeaceWithIran.com to join up for free and stay in touch with world news about Iran/US relations which tends to be much less biased and more honest than White House-dictated US news.

God bless the United States. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.

(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/throwing-ahmadinejad-a-lifeline/ http://www.peacewithiran.com/throwing-ahmadinejad-a-lifeline/#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:00:39 +0000 admin2 http://www.peacewithiran.com/?p=1024 Throwing Ahmadinejad a Lifeline

(Hossein Askari and Trita Parsi | New York Times Op-Ed | 14 August 2009) – In an effort to squeeze Iran into submission over its nuclear policy, Congress and the White House are edging toward a gasoline embargo. This would do nothing to force Iran into submission. In fact, it would be a blessing for the hard-line government to once again be able to point to a foreign threat to justify domestic repression and consolidate its base at a time when opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is increasing among conservatives. An effective gasoline embargo can only be implemented through a naval blockade. This would require U.N. Security Council approval — a tortuous process with no certain outcome. An embargo without U.N. approval is an act of war according to international law, and Iran has declared that it would be met with force.

But even if the Security Council were to miraculously unite, success would still be out of reach. The economics of a gasoline embargo simply doesn’t make sense. Iran imports roughly 40 percent of its domestic gasoline consumption at world prices and then sells it along with domestically refined gasoline at a government-subsidized price of about 40 cents per gallon. As a result, domestic gasoline consumption is high. It is also smuggled and sold to neighboring countries.

Over the past 10 years, this policy has cost Iran in the range of 10 to 20 percent of its G.D.P. annually, depending on world prices and the government-mandated pump price. Yes, a whopping 10 to 20 percent of G.D.P. In need of additional revenues, the regime has wanted to eliminate this subsidy, raise the price to world levels and reduce consumption, but has been paralyzed by the specter of a domestic backlash.

Even assuming that a gasoline embargo would be effective, what would be its result? Consumption would decline by 40 percent and government revenues would go up, because no payment would be needed for gasoline imports.

If Tehran allowed the reduced supply of gasoline to be sold at a price that would equate demand to supply, the price would increase to a level that would eliminate the subsidy, meaning no subsidy for imported gasoline and no subsidy for domestically refined gasoline. The government would have more revenue to spend elsewhere. The sanctions would have done what Tehran has wanted to do for years and the government would not be held responsible!

What about the political fallout? Proponents of the embargo believe that increased economic pressure would cause Iranians to revolt against their unpopular rulers. This is a fundamental misreading of the psychology of an embargoed people.

Iranians have suffered tremendous hardships under the Islamic Republic. And while the Iranian economy is in tatters today, Iranians have seen much worse times. During the Iran-Iraq War, they faced unprecedented economic hardships. This did not ignite a popular uprising.

What caused Iranians to rise up two months ago was not economic hardship, but anger over the fraudulent election.

If the back of the Iranian economy is broken, the first casualty will be hope. Economic misery will kill people’s faith in a better future. The result will be political apathy. And rather than blaming Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iranians are likely to blame the United States.

Moreover, Iran’s ruling hard-liners are in disarray. The politics of fear is their bread and butter; they have long benefited from invoking foreign plots and Washington’s discredited regime-change policy. But now — with President Obama’s new outreach to Iran — the hard-liners have lost their 9/11. President Obama has deprived them of their perennial boogeyman.

This has helped the opposition find the maneuverability to challenge Iran’s vote-robbers. The hard-liners have no credible threat to rally around. Their disgraceful show trials on Iranian TV reveal their desperation. This has not only allowed fissures between various factions in Iran to grow, but also increased tensions among the conservatives themselves.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is desperately in need of a threat to help consolidate his conservative base and lend credibility to accusations of conspiracy against his moderate opposition. Imposing a gasoline embargo could be his last, best hope. Congress and the White House should think long and hard before throwing a lifeline to Iran’s vote-robbers.

Hossein Askari is professor of international business and international affairs at the George Washington University. Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and author of “Treacherous Alliance — The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States.”

David Batty
guardian.co.uk, Friday June 13 2008

Shirin Ebadi at a media forum in Germany this month. Photograph: Felix Heyder/EPA

The Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi is not a woman easily stopped in her tracks – she has been held in jail and faced repeated death threats, but continues to speak out against the abuses of the theocratic regime. On the doorstep of the BBC’s Bush House in central London, though, an American tourist waves the Nobel peace laureate and her entourage aside, complaining loudly: “Do you mind? We’re trying to take a picture!”

It serves, perhaps, as a reminder for Ebadi – who has spent the day being treated like a VIP by the BBC World Service – of the challenge she faces in attracting western interest to her cause.

With the international community fixated on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Ebadi says there is dwindling scrutiny of human rights in her homeland, and the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has taken advantage of this to increase repression.

“Since the world started focusing on the nuclear programme, the human rights situation in Iran has worsened every day,” says Ebadi, who won the Nobel prize in 2003.

Dozens of activists have been prosecuted and condemned to prison, the lash or both. Arrests, detention and judicial harassment are increasing, with journalists, lawyers, students and trade unionists particularly targeted.

“The morality police interfere more in people’s everyday lives,” she says. “They recently announced they would carry out inspections in private homes and companies. In Tehran there was also a plan to target hooligans on the streets, but it led to a lot of innocent young people and women being arrested.”

Ebadi, 60, has been relatively lucky. She was born in 1947 to a non-traditional Muslim family. She was treated as an equal with her brother and encouraged to go to college. In 1975, aged 23, she became Iran’s first woman judge. She lost her position after the Islamic revolution in 1979 when conservative clerics insisted that Islam prohibits women from holding such an office. She was allowed to practice law again in 1992, and since then has turned her legal skills against the Islamic republic she once supported but now opposes due to its human rights abuses.

Ebadi recently took her campaign to the mid-west United States, where she found sympathy among ordinary Americans upset by bellicose rhetoric about Iran. She is perturbed at how contestants in the US presidential race have cited their preparedness to attack Iran. In April, Hillary Clinton said she would “obliterate” the country if it attacked Israel.

“It is very concerning,” she says. “Undoubtedly a military attack on Iran would worsen human rights in the country. Look at Iraq – now the fundamentalists have a pretext for their extremism. No one talks about freedom of speech or human rights. People just want a safe shelter.

“Do you think that since the US troops arrived in Iraq that the Iraqi people have become prosperous? As a human rights activist I tell the people of the world that if you want to help people in Iran the solution is not to launch an attack.”

There is little sign that western leaders are listening. This week, George Bush once again raised the possibility of military action, warning that “all options are on the table”. A US-EU summit in Slovenia threatened new sanctions against Iran if it fails to end uranium enrichment.

Ebadi says the nuclear standoff has made the Iranian regime attractive to disaffected young people elsewhere in the Middle East whose governments are unelected.

“Disenchanted young people have turned to Iran for inspiration, a country that takes every opportunity to burn the American flag. But can the Iranian government represent a good system of government? No.”

The world needs to know that every day the lives of Iranians are “getting poorer and more impoverished” due to the regime’s internal oppression and confrontational foreign policy, she says.

“There are close to 10 million people under the poverty line. That’s one out of every seven. And that is according to official government figures, so let’s imagine the reality.

“The consequences of Iranian policies domestically should be revealed around the world, so [young people in the Middle East] understand that just opposing the US isn’t going to solve the problems they face. We’ve been saying ‘death to America’ for years but our people have been getting hungrier.”

Ebadi says that to tackle the surge in support for Iran among the young in the region, the US must stop supporting its undemocratic regimes. “What is interesting is almost all the undemocratic regimes in the Middle East – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates – is they’re all friends of the United States,” she says.

“If the US were to stop supporting their governments they would fall immediately. So the people of those countries don’t feel good about American foreign policy and view it suspiciously.”

Ebadi was always unconvinced by the Bush administration’s view that regime change in Iraq would create a domino effect bringing democracy across the Middle East. “It was a flawed argument from the start. If a country genuinely believes in democratic reform it’s not going to wait for another country to reform before taking action.”

Her hopes hinge on obliging the regime to adhere to the international human rights conventions it has ratified. She is in London to promote a new book on the rights of refugees in Iran that sets out how international and Islamic law can be used to protect them.

Iran signed the United Nations declaration of human rights in 1975. Activists say the government is in violation of the treaty. But last year the much-criticised UN human rights council removed Iran from a list of countries that were being closely monitored.

There have been six visits to Iran by investigators since the council was established in 2006, but their recommendations have not been implemented. Ebadi says abuses have gone unchecked, and she is calling on the council to reappoint a special rapporteur to bring the regime to account.

At a conference in Geneva this week, Ebadi called on the international community to strengthen the council, as it remains a last resort for many victims.

“Unfortunately the Iranian government has not followed the recommendations of the UN rights agencies,” she says. “But the fact the recommendations are recognised by the government shows that the Iranian people do have rights and have the confidence to demand that they are respected. So though the UN reports may not have practically led to results, psychologically it has been a great boost to the morale of the Iranian people.”

Ebadi remains optimistic that reform is achievable. Her hope lies in Iran’s youthful population – almost 70% aged under 30 – which is hungry for change and prepared to fight for its freedom.

She cites the example of one of her clients, 32-year-old Maryam Hossienkhah, a journalist and member of the One Million Signatures Campaign for equal rights for Iranian women.

Hossienkhah was arrested in November for writing articles demanding respect for women’s rights under the Islamic constitution. Her bail was set at the equivalent of £75,000.

Ebadi says: “She told the judge, ‘I refuse to do that. I’m innocent but I’ll go to jail.’ As soon as she arrived in the jail, she started giving advice to the women about how to defend their cases.

“She sent a message out to her friends and colleagues that the prison library didn’t have a good book collection. So other members of the campaign brought in books and in less than 20 days the prison had a full library. Finally the judge said to the prosecutor, ‘You’ll have to get this woman out otherwise she will cause chaos!’”

Hossienkhah was released in January after her bail was reduced to just over £3,500. There are many similar cases before the courts, says Ebadi. “I’m glad to say that the more harsh women’s lives become, the more determined they are to overcome them. The will of these women is very powerful and that poses a challenge for the government.”

Shirin Ebadi’s latest book, Refugee Rights in Iran, is published by Saqi at £12.99. www.saqibooks.com

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/13/shirinebadi.iran

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.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Is the U.S. going to launch a war against Iran?

MICHAEL AXWORTHY: I believe the costs to the U.S. of military action are too high, and that there have been at least two effective rebellions against that idea within the U.S. system already — the most recent being the National Intelligence Report report last November, in which the U.S. intelligence community declared that Iran had not been pursuing a nuclear weapon program since 2003.

But if the U.S. and the wider international community are unable to stop the Iranian program (whether by warlike or peaceful means) then Israel could take action unilaterally.

>

LAT: What are some potential consequences of a war meant to target Iran’s nuclear installations?

AXWORTHY: Iran would have a range of retaliatory options, include attacks on U.S. installations on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf, attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf, and attacks against Israel. The situation in Iraq and Afghanistan could also change for the worse.

LAT: Could a war halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions?

AXWORTHY: Military action could not destroy an Iranian nuclear weapon program. The program could easily be dispersed to widely separated, secret locations, that could not be seen from the air, and repositioned deep underground, so deep that even nuclear weapons might not destroy them even if their locations could be hit.

Even if damage were done, once the applied knowledge of how to enrich uranium has been acquired, it is impossible to prevent the activity going ahead, if the will to do so is there. Military action against Iran is more likely to persuade ordinary Iranians of the need for a nuclear deterrent than anything else.

LAT: Do you think Iran is trying to obtain nuclear weapons?

AXWORTHY: Important Iranian religious leaders have declared that nuclear weapons, and all weapons of mass destruction, are immoral and unacceptable, and this matters. We should take those statements seriously (not least because, during the Iran/Iraq war, Iran refrained from retaliating with chemical weapons when Saddam Hussein used those weapons against Iranian troops, and against civilians. Many Iranian veterans are still suffering the after-effects of those weapons).

The NIE concluded last November that Iran had not been pursuing a nuclear weapon program since 2003. But western governments have good reason to believe that at various points they have pursued a nuclear weapon program. The explanation for this apparent contradiction could be that the Iranian leadership has wanted to develop a capability, short of an actual weapon, that would still serve as a deterrent. In other words, to have all the elements ready to produce a weapon if necessary, but not the weapon itself. The only practical value of nuclear weapons is as a deterrent, as is well known.

LAT: How can the West curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions without going to war?

AXWORTHY: Only by negotiation — direct, committed negotiation between the U.S. and Iran at an appropriately high political level, directed at a resolution of all outstanding disputes between Iran and the U.S.
LAT: What effects are sanctions currently having on Iran? Are they working?

AXWORTHY: Sanctions are having an effect on the Iranian economy, contributing to the high inflation and high unemployment that make miserable the lives of many Iranians (factors that were significant in 2005 in the election of Ahmadinejad). But sanctions are a blunt instrument, and whether they are working to produce the effects on Iranian government policy that the West hopes for is more uncertain.

The statement by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on June 3, restating Iran’s commitment to its nuclear program and saying that Iran seeks only civil nuclear power and not a nuclear weapon, would seem to suggest otherwise. This policy has broad support within Iran, irrespective of other political divisions.

LAT: What would it take to get Iran to stop supporting militant groups in Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and possibly Iraq?

AXWORTHY: A ‘Grand Bargain’ of the kind proposed by the Iranian government (and ignored by the U.S. government) in 2003. The proposal suggested talks toward a resolution of the nuclear dispute, and de facto Iranian recognition of Israel, in return for an end to the U.S. policy for regime change in Iran, and a normalization of relations between the U.S. and Iran. Note that 2003 is also the date at which the NIE concluded that work on the Iranian nuclear program stopped. Although Ahmadinejad came to power after that, his significance is often exaggerated (not least by himself) and the other elements in the leadership group are much the same as they were in 2003.

Incidentally, I would applaud the reports … showing that the picture of support from Iran for insurgent action against coalition troops in Iraq has been greatly exaggerated on the strength of very little evidence; and that the much greater destabilizing effect of action by foreign fighters and suicide bombers on the Sunni side, especially from Saudi Arabia but also from other countries in the region, has been scandalously neglected.

LAT: How would you describe the state of Iranian society today?
AXWORTHY: That is a big question, and the Iranian people have a way of surprising pundits. I have mentioned the problems of inflation and unemployment already — there is also a serious drug problem, as a result of Iran’s position on the drug highway from Afghanistan to Europe.

There seem in addition to be a number of trends at work — away from religion and toward nationalism in politics, though there is also a mood of disillusionment and nihilism among many young people after the failure of the reform project under the Khatami presidency of 1997-2005.

A more optimistic feature is the growing role of Iranian women in education and the job market — 65% of university entrants are women, and many of them go on to well-paid jobs, often earning more than their husbands.
LAT: What are the chances that Iranians themselves will bring about a change of Iran’s policies

AXWORTHY: The ruling clique have become more adept at manipulating the electoral system, and it is hard to be too optimistic. But there is still genuine politics in Iran, and significant differences within the political class.

For example, the Majlis is now strongly conservative, but it has successfully resisted appointments and policies proposed by President Ahmadinejad at a number of important points. A range of judicious observers, from Paul Wolfowitz to the son of the last Shah, from the dissident Akbar Ganji to the Nobel prizewinner Shirin Ebadi, have urged against military action, in favor of allowing Iranians to develop freer, more representative government themselves, without outside interference.

Borzou Daragahi, in Beirut

By Robert Scheer

How proud the Clintonistas must be. They have learned how to rival what Hillary once termed the “vast right-wing conspiracy” in the effort to destroy a viable Democratic leader who dares to stand in the way of their ambitions. The tactics used to kneecap Barack Obama are the same as had been turned on Bill Clinton in earlier times, from radical-baiting associates to challenging his resolve in protecting the nation from foreign enemies. Sen. Clinton’s eminently sensible and centrist—to a fault—opponent is now viewed as weak and even vaguely unpatriotic because he is thoughtful. Neither Karl Rove nor Dick Morris could have done a better job.

On primary election day in Pennsylvania, even with polls showing her well ahead in that state, Hillary went lower in her grab for votes. Seizing upon a question as to how she would respond to a nuclear attack by Iran, which doesn’t have nuclear weapons, on Israel, which does, Hillary mocked reasoned discourse by promising to “totally obliterate them,” in an apparent reference to the population of Iran. That is not a word gaffe; it is an assertion of the right of our nation to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale.

Shouldn’t the potential leader of a nation that used nuclear bombs to obliterate hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese employ extreme caution before making such a threat? Neither the Japanese then nor the Iranian people now were in a position to hold their leaders accountable, and to approve such collective punishment of innocents is to endorse terrorism. This from a candidate who attacked her opponent for suggesting targeted strikes against militants in Pakistan and derided his openness to negotiations with other national leaders as an irresponsible commitment on the part of a contender for the presidency.

Clearly the heat of a campaign is not the proper setting for consideration of a response to a threat from a nation that is a long way from developing nuclear weapons. Obviously the danger of Iran’s developing such weapons can be met with a range of alternatives, from the diplomatic to the military, that do not involve genocide and at any rate must be considered in moral and not solely political terms. Or is it base political ambition that would guide Clinton if she received that middle-of-the-night phone call?

If so, it cannot be assumed that Hillary Clinton as president would be less irrationally hawkish and more restrained in the unleashing of military force than John McCain. The latter, at least, has personal experience with the true, on-the-ground costs of militarism gone wild. Yes, I know that McCain still holds out the hope of winning the Iraq war that both he and Hillary originally endorsed, but for Clinton to raise the rhetoric against Iran in the midst of a campaign is hardly the path to Mideast peace, whether it concerns Israel or Iraq. It is bizarre that a politician who bought into the phony threat about Iraq’s nonexistent WMD arsenal now plays political games with the alleged threat posed by Iran.

The war has accomplished only one major change in the configuration of Mideast power: Iran now holds uncontested supremacy as the region’s key player. Whatever chance there is for stability in Iraq now depends on the blessings of the ayatollahs of Iran, whose surrogates were put in power in Baghdad as a consequence of the American invasion. It is totally hypocritical for Clinton or McCain to now talk about getting tough with Iran over the nuclear weapons issue, when both contributed so mightily to squandering U.S. leverage over Tehran.

To meet that potential nuclear weapons threat from Iran requires a serious, non-rhetorical, multinational response that makes clear that no nation has the right to obliterate the population of another, and that nations, even our own, that claim that right should be challenged as unacceptably barbaric. Instead, Clinton played into the thoughts of fanatics throughout the world who believe that might makes right and who take the United States—which spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined (including many billions on new sophisticated and “usable” nuclear weapons)—as both their enemy and an example to emulate.

What better argument do the ayatollahs need to justify their obtaining a nuclear “deterrent” than that the possible leader of the first nation to develop nuclear weapons, and the only one to ever use them to kill people, now threatens the people of Iran with obliteration?

Originally published by www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080422_robert_scheer_apr_23_clinton_and_iran