According to Frances Saunders, in her well-documented book, “The CIA and the Cultural Cold War,” the CIA financed and groomed the avant-garde art movement from which abstract expressionism, performance art and the other freak shows of the art world emerged. In the 1950s,... [read more]

The president of Iran has issued a list of threats through Hussein Shariatmadari, Editor of the daily Kayhan, and a key spokesman for the radical Khomeinist faction.

"The Americans must be made to understand the horrible consequences of any foolish act He then listed a series of warnings:

*** The Islamic Republic would attack American and allied troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

*** The Islamic Republic will stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, depriving the global market of 24 million barrels each day

*** A storm of missiles will be unleashed against Israel, turning that country into "an earthly hell before they go to the real hell."

*** Arab countries allied to the US will see their very existence endangered.

*** The peoples of Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain and "parts of Arabia" will be invited to state uprisings against their governments to take revenge from their rulers.

What does all this remind you of? The obvious answer is " Saddam Hussein and his delusions in 2003. The late Ba'athist leader was also confident that Arab divisions, Western rivalries, and the peculiarities of the democratic system in the United States would , in the end, shield his regime against any attack. Remakes of old movies, like " The Return of Tarzan", are seldom successful.

The same is true of a return of Saddam Hussein, this time with a beard and a blouson. Accusing the radical faction of insouciance, the conservative faction within the regime believes that the threat of war should be taken seriously.

Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, the standard-bearer of the conservatives, has told several meetings that unless the current trajectory is corrected, the regime was heading for war with the United States.

Rafsanjani's warning has been echoed by his protégés among the political mullahs, including former President Muhammad Khatami and former Speaker of the Islamic Majlis Mahdi Karrubi. The question is : will they be heard before it is too late?

"Some are trying to say that because we are helping ourselves in Iraq by stopping outside influence from killing our soldiers or hurting Iraqi people, that we want to expand this beyond the borders," he said. "That presumption is simply not accurate. We can solve our problems with Iran diplomatically."

" Iran has agreed to hand over records of its uranium enrichment work in a boost to UN efforts to determine whether Tehran seeks nuclear weapons, but diplomats and analysts said that more cooperation is needed."

Via International Herald Tribune: U.S. warns Iran to back off in Persian Gulf:

Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, who was in the Middle East to outline specifics of new U.S. strategies for Iraq and Iran following a visit to the region last week by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said:

"Washington would be a "willing partner" in support of civilian nuclear power programs in its six Gulf Arab allies, saying the Bush administration supports nuclear energy as a means to combat global warming."

Washington’s offer of support for civilian nuclear power programs in its six Gulf Arab allies displayed its double standard towards Iran.

It is morally reprehensible playing a double standard, condemning Iran for its nuclear program while offering help in building nuclear reactors for Arab countries.

Via International Herald Tribune :U.S. warns Iran to back off in Persian Gulf

Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs,was in the Middle East to outline specifics of new U.S. strategies for Iraq and Iran.

But the audience of Dubai-based diplomats and analysts appeared dismayed by Burns' tough talk on Iran. Some complained that U.S. actions were already threatening regional stability and asked the American diplomat to sort out Iraq and the Israel-Palestinian conflict before turning attention to Iran.

Response from Arab Diplomat:

"What we are not interested in is another war in the region," Mohammed al-Naqbi, who heads the Gulf Negotiations Center, told Burns. "Iraq is your problem, not the problem of the Arabs. You destroyed a country that had institutions. You handed that country to Iran. Now you are crying to Europe and the Arabs to help you out of this mess."

Please visit Munaeem's Blog for More Commentary 

The United Arab Emirates' Al Khaleej said it appears the new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has adopted President Bush's concerns and demands as he promised to accelerate reforms demanded by Washington in the UN and called on helping Iraq.

The pro-government daily added in its editorial that according to Ban, his main concerns are also related to Darfur, as well as the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea. "And thus, the new secretary-general has worn the American lenses regarding most global issues," it remarked.

The mass-circulation paper complained the role of the UN organization has in recent years been marginalized in allowing its member states to express themselves and has been subservient to the whims of the rich and powerful states, especially the US.

"The UN is not just a few countries or a few issues," it noted, "it is an advanced vision to how the world should look politically, economically, culturally, and security." The demand for some countries to adopt democracy should start within the UN organization, so that its policy is not dictated by just one or more powerful states, it said.

"And dealing with growing violence requires a comprehensive vision ... For violence is born out of wrong policies, constant injustices, and unjustified wars," it added.

Read also : US Iraq strategy alienates neighbors

According to reports , Iran will carry out war games near near Garmsar city, about 60 miles southeast of Tehran on Sunday.

AP reports that Iran will test Zalzal and Fajr-5 missiles in the war games. These are short-range missiles.

Earlier in November Iran test-fired dozens of missiles — including the Shahab-3 that can reach
Israel.

Last year Iran conducted three large-scale military exercises. It tested "ultra-horizon" missile and Fajr-3 missile. These missiles can evade radar and use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously.

Russian paper Pravda reports :

Full story: english.pravda.ru 

While the United States and its Coalition partners have been focusing on countering the Sunni-led insurgency, the Shiite militias have grown not only in social, political and military strength, but also in external backing. Although rumors circulated at the onset of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that Iran was aligning itself with the political parties in Kurdish and Shiite populated areas, little examination let alone counter actions were taken to validate the claims. Since then, Iran's presence in Iraq has only grown. Last week, for instance, five Iranians were arrested in the Iraqi city of Irbil for suspected ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard - Qods Force (IRGC-QF).

In keeping with the official U.S. policy toward Iran, the Coalition's position on the activities of the IRGC is that it has been providing funds, weapons, improvised explosive device technology and training to extremist groups attempting to destabilize the government of Iraq and attack Coalition forces. If, in fact, the reality of the growing sectarian violence in Iraq becomes a full-scale civil war, as many experts have suggested, a thorough analysis of external forces operating behind the political and personal militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, must be taken for the Bush administration's new "surge" tactic to be effective.

The decapitated body of Barzan Ibrahim have angered Iraqi Sunnis.

The government video , which was shown to the journalists, was blurred. It showed him lying on his chest , while the severed head lay a few yards away.
According to witnesses, he looked tense.

"I did not do anything," he was quoted as saying. "It was all the work of Fadel al-Barrak." Al-Barrak ran two intelligence departments in Saddam's feared Mukhabarat.

Iraqi officials were trying to dispel the impression that his body was mutilated.

The mourners , who was gathered at the funeral were very angry. They were cursing the government. They were holding arms and firing in the air.

Sharon Warned Bush
The Strategic Interest

Yossi Alpher | Fri. Jan 12, 2007

. . .Publicly, Sharon played the silent ally; he neither criticized nor
supported the Iraq adventure. One reason for his relative silence was
Washington’s explicit request that Israel refrain from openly backing its
invasion of an Arab country or in any way intervening, lest its blessing
damn the United States in Arab eyes.

But sometime prior to March 2003, Sharon told Bush privately in no
uncertain terms what he thought about the Iraq plan. Sharon’s words —
revealed here for the first time — constituted a friendly but pointed
warning to Bush. Sharon acknowledged that Saddam Hussein was an “acute
threat” to the Middle East and that he believed Saddam possessed weapons
of mass destruction.

Yet according to one knowledgeable source, Sharon nevertheless advised
Bush not to occupy Iraq. According to another source — Danny Ayalon, who
was Israel’s ambassador to the United States at the time of the Iraq
invasion, and who sat in on the Bush-Sharon meetings — Sharon told Bush
that Israel would not “push one way or another” regarding the Iraq scheme.

According to both sources, Sharon warned Bush that if he insisted on
occupying Iraq, he should at least abandon his plan to implant democracy
in this part of the world. “In terms of culture and tradition, the Arab
world is not built for democratization,” Ayalon recalls Sharon advising.

Be sure, Sharon added, not to go into Iraq without a viable exit strategy.
And ready a counter-insurgency strategy if you expect to rule Iraq, which
will eventually have to be partitioned into its component parts. Finally,
Sharon told Bush, please remember that you will conquer, occupy and leave,
but we have to remain in this part of the world. Israel, he reminded the
American president, does not wish to see its vital interests hurt by
regional radicalization and the spillover of violence beyond Iraq’s
borders.

AP reported that insurgents had acquired Russian shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile called Strela. They bought these missiles through black market in Romania.

What an alarming development!

American forces will now confront enemy, who are better equipped.

According to reports, a U.S. Air Force F-16 went down in Anbar province on November 27. The plane was providing support to the troops in action. The US army denied this incident. However, a spokesman for the Baath party , claimed their fighters shot the plane down.

Khudair al-Murshidi, the spokesman for the Baath party, told AP ,”We have stockpiles of Strelas and we are going to surprise them (the Americans).”