Faisal The Fox
munaeem | 02 November, 2007 14:59
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
02 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org
It is hard to image the foreign minister of a third world country more capable of hypocrisy than Mr. Bush - but, without a doubt, Prince Saud al-Faisal takes the prize for being the more obnoxious of the two. Such insincerity and double-standards must surely make Mr. Bush feel inclined to ask himself if he got short-changed by having Rove as his ‘brain’ – or perhaps Mr. Bush has a prince as the new ‘brain’.
Reports have it that Saudi Arabia has called on Iran to respond to an Arab proposal for a joint uranium enrichment plant outside the Middle East which would ‘satisfy Tehran’s demands for nuclear technology and diffuse tensions’ . Perhaps the Saudis can propose this because their own plans have never been leaked.
According to documents released from the British National Archives under the 30 year rule (dated December 12, 1973 and marked 'UK Eyes Alpha', it was revealed that after the 1973 war “ [that] British intelligence believed the United States was ready to take military action," i.e. invade, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1973 "to prevent further disruption to oil supplies" and "to secure control of their oil fields." (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1018971.htm).
The jittery Saudis offered to pay for the reconstruction of Iraq’s Osirak-reactor destructed by Israel in 1981 (funds that helped Saddam in the Iraq-Iran war, no doubt). As late as 1985 Iraqi and Saudi military and nuclear experts were co-operating closely, this included sending Saudi nuclear scientists to Baghdad for months of training.
Between 1985 and 1990, up to the time Saddam invaded Kuwait, the payments were made on condition that some of the bombs be transferred to the Saudi arsenal. Muhammad Khilewi, the second-in-command of the Saudi mission to the United Nations Khilewi, provide a cache which included transcripts of a secret desert meeting between Saudi and Iraqi military teams a year before the invasion of Kuwait. The transcripts depict the Saudis funding the nuclear program and handing over specialized equipment that Iraq could not have obtained elsewhere.
What Khilewi did not know was that the Fahd-Saddam nuclear project was also a closely held secret in Washington. According to a former high-ranking American diplomat, the CIA was fully apprised. The funding stopped only at the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991. The defector's documents also showed that Riyadh had paid for Pakistan's bomb project and signed a pact that if Saudi Arabia were attacked with nuclear weapons, Pakistan would respond against the aggressor with its own nuclear arsenal.
The fact that the CIA was aware of this could explain why Khilewi was not granted federal protection when he abandoned his UN post and became an opponent in late June 1994 even though he had brought with him more than 10,000 documents he obtained from the Saudi Arabian Embassy. Nor does it explain why the United States did not push for investigation of these activities, although it does explain why the Saudis are so eager to use Iran’s legal civilian program as a diversionary tactic and in spite of their own track record, would want Iran to renounce its legal rights.
It is also important to be reminded that Saudi Arabia played an important role in encouraging war in the region. Bob Woodard (State of Denial) explains the Saudi role during his interview on ‘60 minutes’. “Bandar, who's skeptical because he knows in the first Gulf War we didn't get Saddam out, so he says to Cheney and Rumsfeld, ‘So Saddam this time is gonna be out, period?’ And Cheney - who has said nothing - says the following: ‘Prince Bandar, once we start, Saddam is toast.’" “Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.”
Indeed, after having paid for nuclear bombs and arming Sunni insurgents to the teeth in Iraq to kill Americans and underdmine the legitimate Shiite government, is it plausible that the Saudis now want to turn over a new leaf and be the business of ‘peace-making’ instead of the lucrative business of say – Carlyle and the like? After all, G.W. Bush has armed them to the teeth – not to forget the arms purchased from Britain at the cost of ‘shared values’ – that is for Britain to expel Saudi progressive thinkers who were pro-democracy. However, before giving up the rights of other sovereign nations, it would be worthwhile recalling a few things that Iran has had to endure while defending her rights.
While the Saudis were secretly working to acquire a bomb, Iran was openly exercising her right under the NPT to have nuclear energy. Each time, the United States used its economic domination and stopped Iran from restarting its civilian nuclear project. In 1982, the president of Iran at the time, approached Kraftwerk Union who had left their contract with Iran incomplete after the 1979 revolution and asked them to complete the Bushehr power plant project. Under US pressure, they refused and would not even deliver the reactor component to Iran. Citing a 1982 International Commerce Commission (ICC) ruling a lawsuit was filed which remains unsettled . This pattern has been repeated until Iran started its cooperation with Russia. However, given the decades of hardship, sanctions, and investment Iran has put into its civilian nuclear program, it would seem rather generous on the part of the Saudis to take it away from Iran and give it to all Arab States in Switzerland.
Perhaps one thing that has escaped Prince Saud al-Faisal, is that Iranian are defending their right and their integrity. It is possible that a few in the Muslim world will see this as good will gesture, but what is more important to Iran and any nation that values sovereignty, is the reality that in order to escape colonialism, a nation-state must be self-sufficient. Iran has reached that stage – it has shed the shackles of colonialism and is free. A country that has been isolated for so almost three decades has taken 5th place in the ‘British Invention Show’ . This fact speaks not only to the talent of the nation, but what it can achieve. Does the Prince suggest that Iran should capitulate and allow others to fish for it when it can fish so very well for itself?
In Academic Circles, Criticism Of Israel Is Increasingly Off-Limits
munaeem | 28 October, 2007 20:57
via CBS News:
Meet Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, a notorious Barnard College professor now up for tenure who:
# claims the ancient Israelite kingdoms are a "pure political fabrication,"
# denies the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE and instead blames its destruction on the Jews,
# does not speak or read Hebrew yet had the temerity to publish a book on Israeli archaeology that demanded such expertise,
# is so ignorant of her topic that she quotes one archaeologist on how a dig might have damaged the ancient palaces of Solomon - oblivious to the fact that those palaces, if they existed, were far from the site in question.
None of these charges are true. You could look it up. I did, in El-Haj's book “Facts on the Ground,” about which these charges are made. The statements for which a network of right-wing critics assail her book are not there.
I asked Paula Stern, the Barnard alum who has organized an online petition demanding that El-Haj be denied tenure, how she squared her petition's charges with El-Haj's book. "The petition takes pieces of criticisms from experts. It may not be quoted 100 percent accurate," she admitted. Still, more than 2,500 people, including many Barnard and Columbia alumni, have signed on to its claims. Tellingly, Stern, who now lives in the West Bank, voiced astonishment at being asked to justify her charges in terms of what El-Haj's book actually says. "I've spoken to many newspapers," she said. "No one has done what you've done."
I looked that up, too. In the key media venues, at least, Stern was right; and not just with regard to her target. In case after case, a network of right-wing activists has started an online furor based on a mélange of distorted or provably false charges against someone involved in Middle East studies. They supported these charges with quotes yanked out of context or entirely made up and wielded a broad brush of guilt by association. Right-wing media megaphoned the charges, stoking the furor. And mainstream media ultimately noticed and responded, often focusing their stories on the furor rather than the facts.
Under pressure from these assaults, some academic institutions buckle and a professor's career is derailed; in other cases it is permanently stained. More insidious, even when tenure puts an academic beyond the reach of his or her assailants, more vulnerable junior faculty and grad students take note. "There certainly is a sense among faculty and grad students that they're being watched, monitored," said Zachary Lockman, president of the Middle East Studies Association. "People are always looking over their shoulder, feeling that whatever they say - in accurate or, more likely, distorted form - can end up on a website. It definitely has a chilling effect."
This is the modus operandi of the New McCarthyism. It targets a new enemy for our era: Muslims, Arabs and others in the Middle East field who are identified as stepping over an unstated line in criticizing Israel, as radical Islamists, as just plain radical or as in some way sympathetic to terrorists. Its purveyors include Campus Watch, run by Arab studies scholar Daniel Pipes; the David Project, supported by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation; and David Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine (in October Horowitz organized an "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" on campuses across the nation).
Their efforts often appear to be linked. As first noted by blogger Richard Silverstein, the earliest web attack on El-Haj's book was posted simultaneously by Campus Watch and FrontPage, in October 2005. Alexander Joffe, identified as a professor at SUNY, Purchase, published a harshly negative review of the book in The Journal of Near Eastern Studies that same month. The prestigious journal did not note - and was not informed - that he was then-director of Campus Watch. Soon after, he became research director for the David Project. Less prominent researchers like Stern, the online PipeLine News and writers such as Beila Rabinowitz and William Mayer provide raw material to the more well-known portals, such as Pipes and Horowitz. Pipes's and Horowitz's material is, in turn, picked up by key conservative papers like the New York Post and New York Sun.
There is an undeniable security threat, but as in the 1950s the New McCarthyites use it as a base for demagogy. Their distinguishing feature is not concern about this threat but cynical indifference to the truth or decency of their charges. Take the case of Debbie Almontaser, the New York City public high school principal forced to resign in August as head of a new Arabic/English secondary school. The furor revolved around her attempt in an interview with the Post to explain the meaning of, rather than simply condemn, T-shirts bearing the words Intifada NYC. This provoked a firestorm. United Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten, a key supporter of Almontaser's school, condemned her in a letter to the Post. The next day Almontaser resigned - a move publicly welcomed by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Almontaser has since stated she was told to resign or the school, which she founded, would be closed.
In its obscuring, anodyne postmortem on the affair, the New York Times vaguely described Almontaser as a victim of the city's "treacherous ethnic and ideological political currents" rather than of specific charges that were demonstrably false - like Pipes's widely publicized claim, based on a truncated quotation, that she denied Muslims or Arabs were involved in the 9/11 attacks. The Times report on El-Haj adopted a similar hands-off stance, simply quoting supporters and attackers. It did not once compare the activists' charges with what El-Haj actually said in her book.
As it happens, Almontaser's forced resignation was the city Education Department's second dive in the face of pressure from the New McCarthyites. Three years ago it dismissed Professor Rashid Khalidi, the esteemed director of Columbia's Middle East Institute, from lecturing teachers enrolled in professional development courses. The dismissal came in response to a Sun article claiming Khalidi had denounced Israel as "a 'racist' state with an 'apartheid system.'" Khalidi denied the quote fragments as they were used in the story. "I do not think Zionism is racist," he told the Forward. "When we talk about some of the contemporary laws, there are policies that I consider racist and discriminatory." Asked if the department had verified Khalidi's purported remarks before dismissing him, a department spokesman avoided answering Times columnist Joyce Purnick.
Khalidi still has his day job, as does - so far - a nontenured Columbia colleague, Joseph Massad, who according to a special school investigative committee was falsely accused several years ago of discriminating against Jewish and Israeli students. The same cannot be said for Norman Finkelstein, who was terminated at Chicago's DePaul University in September after the school's president - in a rare departure from standard procedure - rejected the overwhelming tenure approval Finkelstein had received at both the departmental and college levels. Finkelstein's scholarly work has accused Jewish groups of exploiting the Holocaust and Israel of egregious human rights violations. He had incurred the special wrath of Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, whose book defending Israel Finkelstein had devoted an entire book to savaging. Dershowitz, in turn, tried unsuccessfully to prevent the University of California Press from publishing Finkelstein's book, and sent Finkelstein's tenure committees a dossier that he said documented his "most egregious academic sins, and especially his outright lies, misquotations, and distortions." Clearly, the tenure committees were not impressed by Dershowitz's claims. DePaul president Dennis Holtschneider, for his part, denied that Dershowitz's intervention affected his decision.
Beshara Doumani, a University of California history professor, has mapped the systemic strategy of the New McCarthyism, highlighting that more than just its targets are new. First and foremost, private advocacy groups, not Congressional committees, are by and large today's means of pressuring academic administrations - at least, so far. These groups often retain important ties to government figures. But they are most focused on organizing alumni and students, with an eye toward generating public outrage and eventually government and donor pressure.
"I'm worried about untenured professors trying to get tenure," said Doumani, co-chair of the Middle East Studies Association's Committee on Academic Freedom. "I'm worried about entire departments saying, 'We need people in Middle East positions, but we're not going to hire certain kinds of people. It involves too much headache, too much risk.' How do you quantify that? You can't. But it's going around. I can tell you, it's a real issue."
By Larry Cohler-Esses
European nations, Russians and Chinese should back US sanctions
munaeem | 28 October, 2007 13:03
via Munaeem's Blog:
I agree with Dr. Rice that a nuclear weapon in the hands of Iranian Mullahs will destabilize the Middle East. Since 1979, they have been exporting terror and inciting their co-religionists in Sunni dominated countries to destabilize these countries.
International community will have to support US sanctions against Iran to force it to stop its nuclear enrichment. But it looks that European nations, Russians and Chinese are not willing to back or complement US sanction because of their lucrative business ties to Iran.
Commentary : Peres blasts U.S. school for hosting Iran leader
munaeem | 26 September, 2007 10:18
Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday lambasted Columbia University in New York for hosting Iran's president. He compared the event to attempts to engage Adolf Hitler in dialogue before World War Two.
Instead of lecturing others to correct their behaviors, Israelis should learn to behave themselves. There is no doubt that Ahmadinejad is a "petty and cruel dictator". But Israelis are oppressor, occupier and tyrant too.
They ignored all UN resolutions. They are oppressing Palestinian people. They are denying them their legitimate rights.
World should press Nuclear powers to destroy their arsenals
munaeem | 24 September, 2007 14:53
According to reports , Officials of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members held talks to impose further sanctions on Iran. They wanted to force Iran to halt its its uranium enrichment activities.
In my opinion , the stance adopted by these world powers are illegal and unjustified, because NPT gives Iran to pursue to uranium enrichment activities for peaceful activities.
UN members should press these rogue world powers to destroy Nuclear arsenals to make world nuclear free.
We should remember that America is only nuclear power, which used atomic bomb to subdue Japan.
Iranian Military Game: Propaganda or Fun?
munaeem | 03 May, 2007 13:49
via gamepolitics.com
While we don’t hear of too many video games coming out of Iran, PC World reports on Saving the Port, a strategic title developed by the Multimedia Office of Tebyan.
Tehran-based Taliya News writes that Saving the Port was created “in a bid to counter the West’s cultural onslaught and in order to promote the Islamic-Iranian culture.” PC World’s Matt Peckham ponders the political aspects of the game and whether it will be used as a propaganda vehicle.
The game, which sounds as though it could be turn-based, is set in the World War II era, a time when the Middle-East was largely under European rule. English and Russian forces invaded Iran in 1941 to prevent it from allying with Axis forces. As described by IranMania.com, the game took two years to develop:
The usual high level of violence found in world games has been replaced by thinking… First, the user gets familiar with the whole idea of the game (um, tutorial?), and then enters the marine war in the second stage. Confrontation with the enemy takes place in the third stage, and in the fourth, the captain and the enemy’s commander meet.
At the fifth stage, the captain and his crew attack the enemy at midnight… In the final stage, the enemy’s airforce is destroyed in order to prevent them entering the port (Anzali Port, in northern Iran).
The faster the user plays the game, the more points he will get. At the end of each stage, a medal of bravery is granted to the person with the highest score, and whoever gains four medals will be the winner.
Saving the Port launches tomorrow, so still time to pre-order…
Russia Skeptical About Iran Announcement
munaeem | 10 April, 2007 07:38
Iran said Monday it has begun operating 3,000 centrifuges - nearly 10 times the previously known number. Russia said it had not received confirmation of the claim.
Iranian officials said on Monday Iran had started injecting gas into a batch of 3,000 atomic centrifuges being installed at Natanz. They gave no figures for the number of machines set up and running, saying U.N. inspectors would confirm numbers.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement.
"We haven't got a confirmation yet that they have actually begun uranium enrichment at the new cascades,'' of centrifuges."
Iran's enrichment activity, until now at an experimental level, has drawn international criticism, including from Russia, its closest big power ally. The U.N. Security Council has slapped sanctions on Iran for not stopping the work.
Russia has developed close economic ties with Iran and is building its first nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr.
Tensions over the nuclear row have underpinned oil prices and helped them higher on Tuesday towards $62 a barrel.
Iran emboldened
munaeem | 07 April, 2007 09:50
Beware of Shiite Iran’s grand ambitions! The rogue state is becoming ever more emboldened, writes FSM Contributing Editor Peter Brookes. What should our response be? Stay informed! Read Peter’s expert analysis of this looming threat.
With the creeping possibility of a nuclear breakout, its vigorous sponsorship of international terrorism and its escalating intervention next door in Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a triple threat — at least — to international security and America's Middle Eastern interests. Indeed, perhaps no country fits the definition of rogue state as well as Iran does. Making matters worse, Iran's confidence and clout in the region — and beyond — are indubitably on the rise.
But that is only the beginning. Shiite Persian Iran is not content with being just an inconsequential pariah. Iran has grand ambitions. Tehran wants to be the predominant state in the Middle East, replacing the U.S. as the region's power broker and lording over its Sunni Arab neighbors. With the fall of its most fearsome competitors for regional pre-eminence — Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan's Taliban — Iran is unabashedly reasserting itself on the international stage.
Buoyed by high energy prices, emboldened by continuing American challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan, encouraged by consistent, unimpeded progress in its nuclear program and the increased influence of its extremist allies — Hamas and Hezbollah — Iran has its eye on becoming the regional hegemony. If unchecked, Tehran may pull it off.
The Family Security Foundation, Inc. has more...
Doha Debates backs Palestinian refugees' right to return
munaeem | 06 April, 2007 02:11
A huge majority of the participants at Qatar Foundation's Doha Debates
yesterday rejected the idea when they overwhelmingly defeated the
motion that suggested Palestinians should give up their full right to
return. Only 18.4 per cent of the participants voted for the motion.
The debate was marked with the presence of two prominent Jewish
personalities from Israel, opposing each other. Equally interesting
was the presence of two Palestinians facing each other on the two
sides of the panel.
Speaking for the motion were Bassem Eid, founder and director of the
Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group and Yossi Belin, currently a member of the Israeli Knesset and Chairman of the Meretz, Yachad
Party. He has been a leading proponent of the peace process with
Israel's neighbours and especially the Palestinians.
Dr Ilan Pappe, a noted Jewish author and historian and senior lecturer
of political science at the Haifa University spoke against the motion.
He was joined by Ali Abunimah, son of a Palestinian refugee and
co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, an Internet gateway about
Palestine and the Palestine-Israel conflict. Tim Sebastian was the
moderator of the Debates.
Bassem opened the discussion by arguing that the Palestinians living
in miserable situations in refugee camps are fed up with their 60
years long suffering.
They can no more pin their hopes on the corrupt and inefficient
Palestinian political leadership and the only option left for them is
to comprise their right of return to Palestine to get a decent living
elsewhere.
'Having spent 40 years in a refugee camp I have lost all hope and
energy to fight. If any Palestinian still maintain that spirit, he is
most welcome to continue fighting," said Bassem.
His views, however, found only a few supporters among the audience,
which included several Palestinian students, who are children of
refugees. One student participant at the question-answer session went
to the extend of questioning his right to call himself a human rights
activist. "What role model you are presenting to the younger
generation of Palestinians?," he asked Bassem.
The view that dominated the debates was that strongly upheld by the
panellists who opposed the motion. Right of return to the homeland is
a fundamental right of any human being which has to be protected at
any cost.
It is unacceptable to say that Palestinians should give up this right
to gain few concessions from Israel, pointed out Pappe. Abu Nimah said during his visits to the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and
Jordan, he found that despite their sufferings, majority of the
refugees are still longing to go back to Palestine.
Both the speakers called for a solution to the Palestinian issue in
the same way the Apartheid system in South Africa was tackled. The
racist system in South Africa prolonged for about 300 years but now
the Blacks and the Whites live in harmony in the country."The same
could happen in Palestine, if there is international pressure on
Israel to change its racist policies," said Pappe.
Both the panelists proposed a one-state solution to the Palestinian
issue, where Jews, Muslims and Christians can live in harmony under a point government.
Yossi Bellin said on the practical front, majority of the Jews in
Israel will never accept the full return of the Palestinian refugees,
which is sure to change the demographic pattern of the Israeli society.
Israel can allow a limited return of the refugees and provide a
compensation for those who agree to give up their claim for return. No
peace process is going to succeed without a permanent solution to the
refugee issue, he added.
Iran decides the rules of the ugly game
munaeem | 06 April, 2007 01:59
BULENT KENES notes :
"The entire world exhaled a sign of relief with the end of the sailors’ 13-day ordeal without any incidents. What remains now is to comment on this event.
Iran has staged a “sack” operation against the foreign forces in the region, which have been ignoring the honor of the region’s peoples, occupying one country after another, humiliatingly putting a sack over the heads of military or intelligence personnel and arresting some and abducting others. It is obvious that this event will in the medium and long term have an important impact on the mentality prevailing in international relations.
Iran has above all demonstrated to the whole world that it is able to devise its own game plan, whose rules it will decide, instead of being part of a game of others who are far stronger than it. It has demonstrated that the threats of war and sanctions had no effect on it."
Detention: Iran and the West
munaeem | 03 April, 2007 15:20
VIDEO images released by Iran, showing some of the British naval personnel in detention after illegally entering the Iranian waters, have been aired all over the “civilized West”. Everyone could see how the Iranians are treating their captives.
The sailors appeared in a good health, showed no signs of electrocution or burn marks; and, there were no signs of beating on servicewoman Faye Turney’s face. There were no signs of stress or torture. In some scenes, the detainees were eating.
And still, the West, in particular the UK, is complaining. It accuses Iran of being uncivilized, describing the incident as “appalling”. It is also unacceptable to the West that the British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. It must be noted that the Iranians didn’t put any duct tape over their mouths, unlike the British do to their captives, so that they wouldn’t be able to talk at all.
Compare the video of the sailors to Abu Ghraib’s appalling images and humiliation the occupation forces inflicted on the Iraqis, as was depicted in the disturbing photographs circulated all over the world. What does it say about Western values?
The Iranian videos demonstrated the noble values of the Muslim world. There are some who say the only woman under detention among the British sailors appeared wearing the Islamic headscarf. What’s so wrong and harmful in wearing a piece of cloth on one’s head? Compare this to the images of hooded men held at Abu Ghraib jail by the US.
—Syed Sajjad Mahmud, Dubai
Iran should avert crisis over 'minor trespassing'
munaeem | 03 April, 2007 07:34
Iran's seizure of 15 British naval personnel threatened to become a major crisis unless reason and common sense prevailed.
Whether or not the sailors crossed into Iranian waters illegally was irrelevant since they clearly had no hostile intentions, adding that 15 people armed with light weapons hardly constituted a real threat to Iranian national interests or security.
Munaeem's Blog has more...
We've lost the authority to lecture Iran
munaeem | 31 March, 2007 10:22
via The Independent
"The British Government wasn't directly responsible for Guantanamo Bay, but it colluded in the illegal seizure of suspects taken there and mistreated to an unimaginably worse degree than appears the case with LS Turney.
It assisted the Americans in their pioneering extension of the concept of outsourcing to take in torture, allowing CIA jets to refuel at British airports while transporting suspects to countries.
And it never raised a squeak about such criminal acts as the kidnap of Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, an EU citizen who was walking down a Milanese street in February 2003 when CIA operatives snatched him, bundled him into the back of a white van, and flew him to Cairo for interrogation.
None of this is to suggest, of course, that one nation's collusion in the illegal seizure of foreign nationals in any way justifies the use of the same indefensible tactics by another, or diminishes the seriousness of the offence. But British complicity in these American crimes raises questions about the source of the moral authority fuelling the current outrage about LS Turney's television appearance."
Shi'ite leaders squabble with Arabs over Baghdad conference
munaeem | 09 March, 2007 13:45
AP reports :
"The Iraqi government and Arab countries have broken into bitter squabbling ahead of a Baghdad conference.
Sunni-led Arab governments plan to use the conference to press for a greater Sunni role in Iraq.
That has rankled Iraq's Shi'ite leaders, who believe the Arabs are trying to reverse their new-found power after decades of being marginalized under Sunni minority rule.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa suggested that Arab governments would take their proposals to the UN Security Council.
The Shi'ite coalition that dominates al-Maliki's government on Thursday angrily denounced Moussa's comments, saying they were a "flagrant interference in Iraq's internal affairs" and "ignored the march of the Iraqi people to build a free and democratic state."
Shites and Kurds complain that they were treated badly during the rule of Saddam. They are doing the same to Sunnis.
They should give Sunnis their due rights and share in the power. Otherwise things will not improve.
Arabs should boycott US and British. They should kick these two Satan out of the Middle East. Because these two countries are responsible for the rising power of Shiites in the region.
If they do not deal with these two Satan, they will doom.
Iranian president Ahmadinejad is identified with Messianism
munaeem | 09 March, 2007 10:35
n recent years, there has been a growing public debate in Iran around Messianism. Messianism is a popular grassroots movement which has given a concrete dimension to the return of the Hidden Imam (Imam al-Mahdi), to the point of calling for action.
Iran's president Ahmadinejad is identified with Messianism and, after being elected president, made many public references to the return of the Hidden Imam.
The belief that the imam is a superhuman, omnipotent, and faultless leader is one of the unique tenets of Shi'ite Islam. According to Shi'ite belief, the first imam was Ali, the “leader of the faithful”, Muhammad's son-in-law and, according to Sunni tradition, the fourth caliph. The prevailing school of thought in Shi'ite Islam (the Twelvers) holds that there were twelve imams between the death of Ali in A.D. 661 and A.D. 874, when the twelfth imam disappeared. The Hidden Imam, according to Shi'ite belief, will return to the world as a “mahdi” (“guided by Allah on the path of righteousness”). He will return bearing the word of salvation, dispatch the Shi'ites' enemies, and usher the world into an era of Islamic justice.
Messianism, which considers the Imam's return to be a distinct, tangible possibility, poses a theological-conceptual threat to the foundations of the Iranian Islamic regime. Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, based his rule on the combination of religious authority as a model to be followed ( Marja' Taqlid ) and political-governmental authority. Messianism, however, disconnects (in theory) Shi'ite belief (waiting for the “mahdi”) from the vanities of this world. That is one of the reasons that holders of such views have been persecuted in the beginning of the revolution; accusations of Messianism are still used to besmirch political opponents; and the movement is strongly criticized by senior officials of the regime and the religious establishment.
Ahmadinejad as a representative of Messianism
Iran 's president Ahmadinejad is notable for his public statements on the coming return of the Hidden Imam. More than just political rhetoric, such statements stem from his authentic religious beliefs and his social and political background. The president of Iran seems to belong to the Jamkaran group, itself a part of the larger movement of Hojjatiyeh (see below), which holds that a true Islamic regime is only possible when the Hidden Imam returns, and that the time of his return is drawing ever closer. Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's spiritual teacher (his Marja' Taqlid , or “role model”) is the spiritual leader of the Jamkaran group.
Since being elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made many statements about the possible return of the Hidden Imam, claiming divine inspiration. For example:
a. Speaking at a convention of clerics on November 16, 2005, Ahmadinejad declared that “the main purpose of the Islamic revolution is to pave the way for the reappearance of the twelfth imam and to define economic, cultural, and political policy in accordance with the policy of the return of [Imam] al-Mahdi.” Before that, a television camera captured the president telling a religious cleric named Ayatollah Amoli that during his speech at the UN (September 2005), he had felt himself “bathed in a divine aura” (and that he had even had a direct connection with Allah).
A picture of President Ahmadinejad with a holy aura around his head (Fars, an Iranian official news agency)
Tehran suspects US agents snatched missing ex-deputy defense minister Gen. Alireza Asquari
munaeem | 04 March, 2007 13:31
Debkafile reports :
Iran’s dep. defense minister for eight years up until 2005 - and before that a prominent Revolutionary Guards General, Alireza Asquari, 63, has not been seen since his disappearance in mysterious circumstances in Istanbul on Feb. 7.
The missing general has been identified as the officer in charge of Iranian undercover operations in central Iraq, according to DEBKAfile’s intelligence and Iranian sources. He is believed to have been linked to – or participated in - the armed group which stormed the US-Iraqi command center in Karbala south of Baghdad Jan. 20 and snatched five American officers. They were shot outside the Shiite city.
An Middle East intelligence source told DEBKAfile that the Americans could not let this premeditated outrage go unanswered and had been hunting the Iranian general ever since.
The BAZTAB Web site reported that Feb. 6, two non-Turkish citizens made a reservation for Gen Asquari for three nights at the Istanbul Ceylan Hotel paying cash. He arrived the next day from Damascus and immediately disappeared.
The Turkish foreign ministry said only: “It is a very sensitive intelligence matter and the Interior Ministry is dealing with this issue.”
BAZTAB speaks for the faction associated with Mohsein Rezai, former Revolutionary Guards commander, deputy head of Iran’s most powerful governing council and a man very close to top intelligence circles in Tehran
The Iranian general’s arrival at Ataturk international airport on a flight from Damascus is recorded at border control, but he never reached the hotel.
Instead, he booked himself into the more modest and cheaper Hotel Ghilan. He left his luggage in the room, walked out of the hotel – and vanished.
A police official in Istanbul said: “We are trying to find out whether he left or was taken. Clearly the reservation made for him at the luxurious Ceylan Hotel was made to mislead. Tehran’s application to Interpol, which has issued a yellow bulletin, means that the Iranians are not treating Asquari’s disappearance as a defection but as involuntary.
DEBKAfile adds: Tehran sees the hand of US undercover agencies or contract gunmen and believes Washington has stepped up its war against Iranian officers running Tehran’s clandestine operations in Iraq. The kidnapping of an Iranian general outside Iraq would expand President Bush’s permission for the capture or killing of Iranian agents helping Iraqi insurgents and al Qaeda murder Americans in Iraq.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly 288 reported on Feb. 2 that the gunmen who abducted the American soldiers in Karbala - and then shot them dead execution-style – belonged to a special commando team of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, which was sent to Iraq especially for this mission.
The team was made up of intelligence officers who speak American English and were trained to masquerade as US troops, kidnap US soldiers and hold them as hostages for bargaining.
These officers are from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and other Arab countries, who studied in the US and can talk like Americans - even in the idiom of US troops. Teams of these masqueraders roam at large in Iraq, clad in American uniforms, armed with US weapons and driving stolen American vehicles.
Tehran’s plan was to snatch a group of US soldiers and hold them hostage against the release of the 8 Revolutionary Guards paratroops in American custody. However, according to our intelligence sources, the plan went awry for some unknown reason and the Iranian commandos decided to execute their captives before making a fast getaway from the Karbala region.
Tehran views this operation as a fiasco because it did not achieve its goal. At the same time, Iranian intelligence has not been put off its plan to take American soldiers hostage in Iraq. Its chiefs are determined to do whatever it takes to obtain the release of the third top man of the Revolutionary Guards al Quds division, Col. Fars Hassami, who DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports is not the only high-profile Iranian officer in American hands. Another is Mohammad Jaafari Sahra-Rudi, who was the kingpin of Iran’s terrorist operations in large parts of Iraq. His long record includes leading the Iranian death squad which assassinated Iran’s Kurdish Democratic Party leader Dr. Abdol-Rahman Qasemlou in Vienna in 1989.
Austrian security services caught the assassin but sent him back to Iran as part of a secret transaction between the two countries.
Qasemlou operated in Iraq under his real identity and even met with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani just a few days before he was captured in the American raid of the Iranian “liaison office” in Irbil Jan 11.
The Iranians have explored every channel they can think of to break the agents out of American custody. When they realized that the United States was adamant about holding on to them, the heads of the Revolutionary Guards decided to go ahead with their campaign of abductions against US troops in Iraq. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad approved.
Russia demands that Israel join Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
munaeem | 04 March, 2007 13:23
DEBKAfile reports:
Defense minister Sergey Lavrov’s comment to the Syrian News Agency Friday was repeated by the foreign ministry in Moscow. DEBKAfile’s sources report Lavrov’s comment was released in reprisal for disclosures in Israel 24 hours earlier that Moscow was selling large amounts of sophisticated anti-air and anti-tank missile systems to Syria with Iranian funding. Moscow was fighting off Israel’s accusations with a threat of more pressure unless Jerusalem backed down.
The Russian minister said Israel, who has never admitted nuclear status, must join the NPT if the Middle East is to become a nuclear-free zone. Israeli has consistently refused to join the treaty and submit to international nuclear watchdog control.
Iran cleric says Pakistan becoming 'terrorist sanctuary'
munaeem | 02 March, 2007 17:59
Via Yahoo News : Iran cleric says Pakistan becoming 'terrorist sanctuary'
A top Iranian cleric accused Pakistan on Friday of becoming a "terrorist sanctuary," following an upsurge of violence on the two nations' border area that Tehran blames on plots by arch foe the United States and on Pakistan's inability to control its border. "Though Pakistan is our neighbour, little by little it is losing its neighbourly manners. Pakistan has become a sanctuary of terrorists who kill people in Zahedan," hardline cleric Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami told Friday worshippers in Tehran.
"Pakistan should be careful not to fall into the US trap, since it will be the loser, undoubtedly," Khatami added in a sermon broadcast live on state radio.
Khatami's provocative remarks will inflame sectarian hatred in Pakistan.
History tell us that Iranians have been interfering the internal affairs of Pakistan.
Shia militant organizations have been trained and financed by Iranians. I know several of my Shia friends have received training in Parachinar.
Nuclear Hypocrisy and Iran
munaeem | 02 March, 2007 13:09
Via www.fpif.org :
The Bush administration is very focused these days on Iran’s nuclear program.
“A nuclear-armed Iran is not a very pleasant prospect for anybody to think about,” Vice President Dick Cheney told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl in Australia.
The new round of hand-wringing and saber-rattling about Iran’s nascent but worrisome nuclear program comes just a few weeks after the Bush administration announced its new budget, which included billions for nuclear weapons development.
The Department of Energy’s “weapons activities” budget request totals $6.4 billion, a drop in the bucket compared to the Pentagon’s $481.4 billion proposed budget. But the budget for new nukes is large and growing -- even in comparison to Cold War figures.
During the Cold War, spending on nuclear weapons averaged $4.2 billion a year (in current dollars). Almost two decades after the nuclear animosity between the two great superpowers ended, the United States is spending one-and-a-half times the Cold War average on nuclear weapons.
In 2001, the weapons-activities budget of the Department of Energy (DOE), which oversees the nuclear weapons complex through the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), totaled $5.19 billion.
There has been more than a billion-dollar jump in nuclear spending. Included in the $6.4 billion 2008 request is money for “design concept testing” of two new nuclear warhead designs that officials hope will be deployed on submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles-- even as U.S. warships set their helms towards the Strait of Hormuz to menace Iran back from the nuclear brink.
Key to revitalizing nuclear weapons is Complex 2030, the NNSA’a “infrastructure planning scenario for a nuclear weapons complex able to meet the threats of the 21st century.” It is a costly, illegal, and dangerous program aimed at rebuilding the 50-year-old nuclear facilities where the weapons are both assembled and disassembled.
How Costly? The DOE estimates that Complex 2030 would require a capital investment of $150 billion. But the Government Accountability Office says that is way too low to fund even the basic maintenance of the eight nuclear facilities currently operational throughout the country.
Why Illegal? Complex 2030 promises a return to the Cold War cycle of design, development, and production of nuclear weapons, runs the risk of a return to underground nuclear testing, and could require the annual manufacture of hundreds of new plutonium pits -- the fissile “heart” of a nuclear weapon. These plans directly contradict U.S. treaty promises in 1968 “to negotiate toward general and complete disarmament.”
Iran 'a very serious threat'
munaeem | 17 February, 2007 15:22
Iran today poses a five-pronged threat, warned the man who first blew the whistle on the Islamic republic's nuclear program.
Iran is "a very, very serious threat to the free world," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, who outlines the dangers posed by the Islamic republic, as he sees them, in his new book, The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the coming nuclear crisis.
The whistle-blower is blunt from the outset: "Iran wants to extend its influence beyond its borders."
"The agenda of [Iran's late supreme leader] Ayatollah Khomeini was to establish global Islamic rule, to expand Iran's influence beyond the Iranian borders. They want to deliver Jerusalem via Karbala, [which means turning] Iraq into an Islamic republic and from there [using] it as a springboard to spread their revolution to other countries in the area," he said.
The author, who is close to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, was the first person to reveal the Islamic republic's secret nuclear processing sites at Natanz and Arak.
On Iran's role in Iraq, Jafarzadeh wrote: "The problem in Iraq is neither a civil nor a sectarian war. The main threat to Iraq is neither Al Qaeda nor the Sunni insurgents - [while] they both are cause for major problems ... neither can take the whole future of Iraq ... hostage. Rather, Iraq is now a battleground for the clash of two alternatives: Islamic extremist opinion [that] gets its orders from Tehran and seeks to establish an Islamic republic in Iraq, [or] a democratic alternative seeking a pluralistic democracy in the country. The former seeks sectarian violence and fans the flames of civil war, while the latter seeks to ease tension, provide security and stability, and establish democratic institutions."
Outlining those threats, Jafarzadeh, an Iranian exile who lives in Washington, underlined the five prongs followed by the regime in Tehran.
Firstly: Iran wants to pursue its nuclear program come what may. Iran is cognizant of the fact possession of nuclear weapons puts it in a different category altogether. The regime in Tehran believes nuclear arms will offer it protection from a potential invasion by the United States. Indeed, Washington is likely to think twice about waging war on a country that can draw on atomic protection.
Secondly: Iran's meddling in Iraq. Since the start of the Iranian revolution in 1979, Khomeini wanted to export the Islamic revolution to neighboring countries, particularly Iraq, Bahrain, and Kuwait, all of which have significant Shiite minorities. But try as they might, Iran's mullahs were unsuccessful in this aim until the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 offered the Iranians a unique opportunity to intervene in Iraq's internal affairs.
Immediately after Baghdad fell to the US-led coalition, Iranian Revolutionary Guards profited from the fact that Iraq's 1,450-kilometer (900-mile) border with Iran was largely unguarded, given that the Iraqi army was, firstly, on the retreat, and, secondly, disbanded by order of the US administrator of Iraq. Iranian forces thus immediately began to cross into Iraq and supporting anti-American and anti-coalition elements. Iranian agents started training Iraqis in insurgency tactics, and, according to several sources, Iran has provided training, financing, and explosives and weapons to the insurgency.
Thirdly: Iran's support of international terrorism. The United States accuses the Tehran regime of supporting terrorist groups, or groups considered to be terrorists by the US. Iran, says Jafarzadeh, poses a serious threat to the world by its support of terrorism. The Islamic republic has long been a supporter of groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, or the Islamic resistance movement in the Palestinian territories, better known as Hamas.
Fourthly: Iran continues to oppose the Middle East peace process. And, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does nothing to encourage harmony in the region with his repeated claims that "Israel should be wiped off the map," persisting in his insistence that the "Holocaust never happened."
Needless to say, this has raised concerns - not only in Israel, but also in the United States and the West - that a nuclear-armed Iran will only make matters worse.
Jafarzadeh writes: "For 27 years, the Iranian regime has voiced its hatred of the United States and the West, and for the same number of years attempts have been made to change the regime's behavior through external pressures, threats, negotiations, and appeasement. All these attempts have failed, and, as the Iranian regime accelerates its push for a nuclear arsenal, the world no longer has the luxury of waiting for Tehran to turn itself around and shed its medieval mindset. The Iranian regime has not budged from its original theme of hating the West and working to export its Islamic revolution."
"Ignoring this will only further step up Tehran's rush to the bomb," he warned.
And fifthly: the way Iran treats its own citizens. The mistreatment of women, abuse of human rights, and censorship and executions continue to preoccupy human rights groups and Iranians struggling and hoping to see democracy blossom in their country.
Claude Salhani is Middle East Times' Editor and International Editor at UPI. He wrote this article for United Press International. Comments may be sent to claude@upi.com.
Saudis To Purchase Nuclear Option, Advanced Missiles and Spy Satellites From Pakistan and Russia
munaeem | 15 February, 2007 19:33
Moscow will assist in Saudi development of a civilian nuclear
programme and build six "research satellites" for the oil kingdom.
DEBKAfile's Gulf intelligence sources report this was agreed in the
talks held in Riyadh earlier this week by visiting Russian president
Vladimir Putin and King Abdallah.
Israeli military sources report that Moscow in fact undertook to provide Saudi Arabia with half a
dozen military surveillance satellites, launch them and set up ground
control centres, thereby making the oil kingdom the first Middle East
national with a multiple spy satellite capability for tracking the
military movements of its neighbours, including Iran and Israel.
This Saudi-Russian venture has got Israel worried because it will
enable Riyadh to pick up highly sensitive intelligence on its
military movements and relay it to Egypt and the Palestinians.
This development confirms DEBKA-Net-Weekly's previous disclosures
that the Saudis do not intend wasting time developing their own
military capabilities but are going shopping for finished products.
On Jan. 21, Saudi rulers favoured visiting Pakistani president Gen.
Pervez Musharraf with exception honours when he arrived at the outset
of a tour of five Arab capitals.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly described King Abdullah as personally welcoming the visitor and driving him in the royal convoy to a palace outside the capital where they were closeted
alone for three hours. The king also conferred on the Pakistani ruler
the King Abdul Aziz Award.
This ceremonial led up to an epic accord of 7 secret clauses on the
terms in which Pakistan would make nuclear weapons available to, and
sell, Saudi Arabia nuclear-capable missiles.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources revealed that Musharraf undertook to make them available in the event of a nuclear emergency facing Saudi Arabia, the Gulf
emirates, Egypt or Jordan. A mechanism was thus set up for Saudi
Arabia to potentially beat Iran to the draw in acquiring a nuclear
bomb, as well as controlling the security of its allies.
Source: DEBKAfile website, Jerusalem, in English 15 Feb 07
(c) 2007 The British Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
No material may be reproduced except with the express permission of
The British Broadcasting Corporation.
US says it will shun future Hamas-Fatah coalition
munaeem | 15 February, 2007 19:20
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas resigned on Thursday in a procedural move aimed at launching a unity government with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, an official in Haniyeh's office told Reuters.
The official said Haniyeh tendered his resignation to Abbas during a meeting in Gaza, in a first step towards putting together a new government with the aim of ending factional warfare and overcoming a Western aid boycott of Hamas. "The prime minister has resigned," the official said.
But The United States has informed Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that it will shun a future Hamas-Fatah coalition government because it will not explicitly recognize Israel, Abbas aides said Thursday.
That position would be a severe blow to Abbas, who is trying to reach a power-sharing deal to end Palestinian infighting and to get crippling international sanctions on the government lifted.
Iran and US staging a drama of lies and deception
munaeem | 15 February, 2007 09:38
Via Khaleejtimes: Iran could talk if US shows goodwill
"Iran’s influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Wednesday said Teheran was prepared to ”remove obstacles” in starting talks with the United States if Washington showed goodwill."
"US President George W. Bush meanwhile on Wednesday flatly rejected direct talks with Iran, amid mounting international tensions over the Iranian nuclear programme, which the United States alleges is cover for a weapons drive."
Iran and U.S. are staging a drama of lies and deception. In my opinion, they are working in collaboration to carry out their hidden agendas. U.S. is using the Iranian rhetoric of political slogans as pretext for carrying out its imperialistic designs in the region.
While Iran is using the pretext of US threats to arm Shiites and militants to stabilize the Sunni governments in the region to assert Shiite dominance in the region. US collaborated with Iranians to overthrow the Taliban government in Afghanistan. In Iraq we see Iranian trained Shiite clerics dominating the government.
Sunni governments should wake up from slumber and counter the conspiracies against Sunni Arab and the Muslim world.
Top general casts doubt on Tehran's link to Iraq militias
munaeem | 14 February, 2007 07:20
Via CNN : Top general casts doubt on Tehran's link to Iraq militias
"Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace appeared Tuesday to question Bush administration assertions that the Iranian government is supplying weapons to Shiite militant groups in Iraq."
"We know that the explosively formed penetrators are manufactured in Iran," Pace told Voice of America during a trip to Australia about what senior military officials call EFPs.
"What I would not say is that the Iranian government per se knows about this. It is clear that Iranians are involved and it is clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say, based on what I know, that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit," Pace said." (More)
Defiant Ahmadinejad promises nuclear news in two months
munaeem | 11 February, 2007 13:41
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed on Sunday Iran would never surrender to Western demands to suspend its nuclear drive and promised announcements on Teheran’s atomic progress in the next two months.
Many observers had expected Ahmadinejad to make a major announcement on thenuclear programme in a speech marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic revolution but the president instead focused on Teheran’s continued defiance.
“If you are willing to negotiate why do you insist on a suspension (of nuclear enrichment)?” Ahmadinejad said, referring to the sensitive nuclear process the West wants Iran to halt as proof it is not seeking nuclear weapons.
“If we suspend our activities then what are we going to talk about? Why if your nuclear plants are working 24 hours a day why must Iran be pressured to shut them down?”
“We are ready to negotiate but under fair and even conditions,” he added.
Ahmadinejad boasted of Iran’s progress not just in nuclear energy but also in agriculture, industry and medicine. He said the Islamic republic would be making major announcements by April 9, without giving further details.
He also insisted that Iran would continue cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, despite a parliament law that gave the government the power to reduce its cooperation with the UN watchdog.
“We are willing to follow the regulations,” he said, referring to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of which Iran is a signatory.
Commentary :
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, one of the leading foreign policy interests of powerful states has been to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. Leading powers that have nuclear capability -- or that are allied with nuclear-armed states -- have put pressure on non-nuclear states to prevent them from developing and acquiring nuclear weapons. While no one state has a global nuclear monopoly, nuclear-armed states want to preserve their power over non-nuclear states. The reason that nuclear-armed countries have more power over non-nuclear countries is that there are less risks involved in attacking non-nuclear states versus attacking nuclear-armed states.
When a state acquires nuclear weapons, the cost of invading that state increases, making it more difficult and expensive to gain a military edge over a nuclear-armed state.
Israel is raising hue and cry, because she fears that she would lose its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East and thus likely lose foreign policy leverage with other countries in the region.
