Archive for the ‘Iran’ Category
By Thomas E. Brewton
It is said that diplomats must be prepared to negotiate with the Devil, which raises the question whether anything can be gained by negotiating with pure evil. Is it realism to assume that the Devil can be made less than evil?
Release of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report puts the doctrine of foreign policy realism in the middle of the table. One implication of that doctrine is that values should play no role in foreign policy; only material national interests deserve consideration.
Yet liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats have been touting the forthcoming report (predictably leaked and already widely discussed by the New York Times) as a counter to the administration's policy.
How does diplomatic realism square with the endless barrages of criticism from liberals that the Bush doctrine of preemptive action has squandered the United States's moral capital with the rest of the world?
How does diplomatic realism square with liberals attacking all forms of clandestine surveillance of enemy activity? with demands that terrorists be treated like prisoners of war under the Geneva convention?
Senators Kerry, Kennedy, Levin, and Dodd apparently regard "sensitivity" and popularity as values that trump other national interests, ergo the UN and not US military action: ingratiation, not defense. Where does the expected diplomatic realism of the Baker- Hamilton Iraq Study Group report fit into that picture? Are "sensitivity" and popularity moral values?
By Sharon Hughes
I’ve been chewing on whether to write about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s letter to us ‘Noble Americans,’ and have decided I can’t just let it pass.
It’s unbelievable that the dictator could be so presumptuous as to think the American people would listen to him after all the anti-American rhetoric and calls for ‘death to America,’ but then we’ve already had examples of his thinking and manner, as demonstrated in his interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, and his speech at the UN last September, so we shouldn’t be surprised.
But, let me raise just a few questions about what he wrote…
1. First of all, who is Ahmadinejad, the self-appointed ‘John the Baptist’, talking about in the opening of his letter to Americans leading into the Christmas season? Not Jesus.
“O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers.”
The evidence in the following press release from the National Council of Resistance of Iran shows the turmoil Iran is in and how the support for the government is fading.
560 protests, strikes and clashes in Iran during last month
NCRI – The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran reported that more than 560 protests, strikes and clashes with suppressive forces took place by people in Iran’s towns and cities during the past month.
In many instances, the protests which took place in Tehran as well as other cities including Tabriz, Mashhad, Isfahan, Kerman, Bukan, Baneh, Qom, Karaj, Rasht, Babol, Zahedan, Hamedan, Qazvin, Khoramabad, Bushehr, Shiraz, and Khoramshahr led to clashes between people and the suppressive forces.
Workers took part in 140 such protests and students and academics took part in 20 others. Bus Drivers Union, Tehran’s Iran-Khodro Diesel, Rasht’s Iran Electric, Gharchak's brick factories, Hamedan Sawmeko, Qazvin Naznakh, Western Textile, bus drivers of the Copper Factory in Sarcheshmeh in Kerman, Bouran Refrigerator Factory in Lorestan Province, Dezful Sugar Cube Factory and dozens of other factories were the scene of protests by angry workers.
In September, 40 clashes were reported between people and State Security Forces' Anti-Riot Units.
In the same time period, waves of arrests were reported by state-run media. Twenty people were hanged publicly by the mullahs' judiciary and 53 death sentences were handed down.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
The politically incorrect solution to the nuclear standoff in Iran is to employ a cartoon of the bombing of Iran's nuclear plants.
by Tom Attea
European negotiators, intent on reaching a peaceful agreement with Iran about its controversial nuclear program, resorted to a tactic that has recently proven to be the most reliable way to elicit a response in much of the Muslim world.
Remembering the extraordinary reaction to Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad and, again last week, demonstrations by an Iranian Turkish minority over a new cartoon that, they think, portrays them in an unfavorable light, the Europeans opted to incorporate a cartoon in their latest proposal that depicts bombs dropping on Iranian nuclear facilities.
During the next meeting with the usually smiling but dismissive Iranian nuclear negotiator, the French representative held up the explosive cartoon.
The Iranian negotiator sat back, and asked, “This cartoon is upsetting. Is it intended to be a hint?“
“I’m afraid so,” the British negotiator volunteered.
“Do you mind if I excuse myself?” he requested. “I must report this to our President!”
Then he ran with his Koran to call Iran.
“What? Another western cartoon that is insulting to Muslims?” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exploded. “Wait till the mighty mullahs I report to hear about this! Email me a copy right away!”
When the dutiful Ahmadinejad received it, he quickly printed it out and ran from mullah to mullah, as he often does, displaying the cartoon in his smiling, deferential way.
“What? A cartoon showing our sacred nuclear plants being blown up?” the mullah who ranks highest in the official order of the Muslim menagerie gasped.
WASHINGTON, May 19 — Rev. Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK) is president of the National Clergy Council in Washington, DC, and is coordinator of an ongoing dialogue between American Evangelicals and Moroccan Muslims. He is a board member of the Evangelical Church Alliance and an advisor to the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. Mr. Schenck released this statement today regarding Iran's passage of a law requiring Jews, Christians and other religious minorities to wear markings on their clothing identifying them as non-Muslims:
"This only proves that the worst in human history does repeat itself. The Bible says the heart of man is 'desperately wicked: who can know it?' The Iranian leadership proves the point. Christians must speak out loudly and immediately to denounce this atrocious action. We were silent too long during the 1930's and millions were murdered as a result.
"Speaking for thousands of church leaders from all Christian traditions, I urge President Bush, Secretary Rice and Congress to take swift and severe action against Iran and enforce the most dire of consequences should the country enact this supremely inhuman decree.
"Furthermore, I urge all people of conscience in Iran and outside to resist this egregious violation of human rights and take whatever action necessary to rescue those in danger. We must open our hearts, homes and wallets to prepare now to save those who will suffer. May God have mercy and spare us the horror of 60 and 70 years ago."
Mr. Schenck is speaking tonight, May 19, 7:00 PM at the large Gloucester County Community Church, 359 Chapel Heights Road, in Washington Township, New Jersey, 08080
Background: Iran may force badges on Jews, Christians UPI TEHRAN, May 19, 2006
Contact: Dane Rose , 202-546-8329 ext. 106; Rev. Rob Schenck, 703-447-7686 cell, both of the National Clergy Council
Ahmadinejad & Co. starring in Armageddon
By: Slater Bakhtavar
“The Iranian nation will wipe the strain of regret on the foreheads of those who want to bring about injustice”, President Ahmadinejad scorned at a recent rally in the of Zanjan Iran “will cut off the hands of any aggressor”, any attack would be met with a response that is double-fold including suicide attacks across Europe and the United States, he warned. Israel should be wiped off the map”, the predominately Jewish nation “cannot survive” and is headed “towards extinction” quipped the fanatical President.
If one were to listen to his rhetoric alone, even the most astute political intellectuals would think Iran is a nation equipped with the most dangerous military arsenal capable of challenging any nation. But Iran’s rhetoric has little to do with their outdated and dismal military, their fledging economy or their detested government. The root of the government’s fiery tone may be traced to their Shi’te ideology messianic belief in a mysterious, mystical twelfth imam who ventured into hiding over a thousand years ago.
Some things are definitely meant not to be, like the Prophet Mohammed teaching capitalism to the West.
by Luigi Frascati
One great confusion in the otherwise already greatly confused societies of Islam is the combination and interaction of spiritual and temporal powers. Unlike the West where Church and State are separate, independent and each sovereign, Islam unites State and Religion together with less than auspicious results. Because State and Religion are one and only, for centuries Muslims have developed ways to integrate religious beliefs with the external economic realities of the nations they lived in. This has had varying degrees of compatibility with the empires and customs they encountered. For example, commerce has adapted to “al-urf”, the custom. But to adapt merchantism is one thing, to build a national financial structure with which to supervise and monitor all economic aspects of a country is quite another. The West has done it, sure … after two-thousand years of history, trial and errors. How can Islam even remotely hope to do it in twenty years.
Since the mid 80’s Muslim bankers and religious leaders have tried to develop ways to integrate Islamic Law on usage of money with modern concepts of ethical investing. By carbon-copying western financial systems and adapting them to the religious tenets of the Qu’ran, the idea was to reinvent the wheel. But the result is a hybrid of Capitalism mixed with Socialism and sprinkled with a heavy dose of politicism so characteristic of Islamic leaders – a kind of Frankenstein with a wicked soul, so to speak. Unfortunately this notion of Islamic economics and finance bound by religious tenets is a dysfunction of economic realities and an inhibition on the development of the regions of the world where Islam is most influential, and where traditional Islamic Law remains a factor in the Middle East ongoing economic disappointments. The weakness of the region’s private economic sectors and its human capital deficiency stand among the lasting consequences of the application of traditional Islamic Law to commerce and finance.
The pivotal point upon which this entire Islamic financial system is based, is that it operates on the basis of ‘zero interest’ in accordance with Qu’ran teachings. Because the Qur’an spoke against usury in the context of early Muslim society, it generally entails trying to remove or redefine interest rates from financial institutions. In doing so, Islamic economists hope to produce a more ‘Islamic society’. The new Islamic economic theory postulates that in Islam, much like the West, central banks would be the sole issuer of credit and money and this for very telling reasons: Islamic central banks should be moved by public interest and their very existence should be considered a social prerogative, so that the power to create money should be vested in them exclusively. In a ‘zero interest’ society, of course, manipulation of interest rates cannot exist. Therefore the tool of Islamic monetary policy is to be found in the expansion and shrinkage of base money supply, which would be allotted by central banks to individual banks to be administered. It is further postulated as obvious, that the larger the money supply, the more productivity it generates and the more spending it spurs. This idea, for now, does not seem to have worked well.
London, Mar. 11 – This cartoon appeared in Friday’s edition of the London-based Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat.
It depicts an Iranian cleric trying to save his atomic bomb from sinking.
But at the same time the burden of his struggle to keep the bomb is forcing him to drown.
The word “Iran” is written on the cleric’s turban.
Source: IranFocus.com
Press Release From National Council of Resistance of Iran – Foreign Affairs Committee:
NCRI – Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said yesterday, “The nuclear fuel cycle in Natanz has been completed and uranium 235 with 3.5% enrichment is being produced. We are not willing to let go of the technology we have achieved through the efforts of our own experts and become dependent on others.”
Mullahs' Foreign Minister, Manuchehr Mottaki, who spoke at the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, said, “For us uranium enrichment is the redline, which no official in Iran can cross under any circumstances.”
Comments by Mottaki and Aghazadeh, and the failure of the Brussels and Moscow talks, prove once again that the religious, terrorist dictatorship in Iran pursues no other objectives in these negotiations except to acquire more time in order to complete its nuclear projects. Obtaining nuclear weapons is strategic to the survival of the mullahs and appeasement would only assist them to reach that goal.
The Iranian Resistance once again warns of Iranian regimes deceptive maneuvers between Europe and Moscow and calls for an immediate and comprehensive oil, technological, arms and diplomatic embargo on Tehran to deny it the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 22, 2006
Iranian Resistance warns of Tehran regime’s concealment and deception
NCRI – According to news agencies, Seyyed-Ali Hosseini-Tash, Deputy Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, arrived in Moscow Sunday night to negotiate with Russian officials about the uranium enrichment plan on Russian soil. The day before, Tehran’s officials had insisted on enriching uranium inside Iran.
Hosseini-Tash, mullahs’ chief negotiator, told the Iranian regime’s state-run radio and television station that there was no connection between suspending enrichment in Iran and the Russian plan. He also added that regime would accept no preconditions to negotiate. Tehran’s former nuclear pointman, Hassan Rohani, speaking on the subject of Tehran-Moscow talks, said, “If they ask Iran to forego its own rights, they won’t succeed.”
Hosseini-Tash, is a Brigadier General in Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and has been one of the key officials involved in Tehran’s clandestine military nuclear program during recent years. Before the presidency of Ahmadinejad, he was the Deputy Defense Minister and in charge of the production of Weapons of Mass Destruction and specifically the nuclear weapons projects. The “Center for Preparedness on Advanced Defense Technology” operated under his direct supervision. The regime’s most senior nuclear experts such as Mohsen Fakhrizadeh work under Hosseini-Tash’s supervision. Malek-e-Ashtar Univesity, affiliated to the IRGC, and involved in WMD research, also operates under his supervision.
The Iranian Resistance warns of the mullahs’ regime deceptive maneuvers in a bid to delay international sanctions. Tehran’s blackmail and threats and the continuation and escalation of its activities are indicative of the mullahs’ ominous ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons. This necessitates the need for a complete oil, technological, arms, and diplomatic embargo against the regime. Any hesitation and delay will provide Tehran with more time, the most important thing they need to obtain nuclear arms.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 20, 2006