Iran US War

Majid Mohammadi, an Iranian Sociologist Refutes Neocons on Iran Intentions in Iraq

2005-08-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

NEWS ANALYSIS / The Iranian factor in Iraq insurgency / Country is influencing rebellion, U.S. says -- analysts not so sure: ""Iran is seeking security, regional influence ... and a market for (its) production," said Majid Mohammadi, an Iranian sociologist who is currently a resident in the Democracy, Development and Rule of Law project at Stanford University.

Critics also see Iran's influence in the drafts of Iraq's new constitution, which calls for Islamic Shariah law to be the main source of legislation and requests that Shiite clerics be granted special status, paving the way for Iraq to become an Iran-like theocracy.

"They want to have control over Iraq," said Michael Leeden, a consultant to the National Security Council under former President Ronald Reagan, and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Their favorite way of doing it would be to create an Islamic republic," said Ledeen, who has urged the overthrow of the Iranian regime.

But other analysts warn that Iran needs to be cautious in its policy toward its neighbor, with whom it waged a bitter, eight-year war in the 1980s that cost more than a million lives.

Wayne White, a former deputy director for Middle East and South Asia in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, said Iran's interests in Iraq should more closely coincide with those of the United States.

"Iran should have concerns over instability inside of Iraq because if Iraq fails and there's a civil war, Iran has a major mess on its western frontier that it should not want," said White.

However, Milani, of the Hoover Institution, says Tehran wants to see American troops bogged down in Iraq, because of fears of a possible U.S. attack on Iran -- an option President Bush raised last week when he said, in remarks about Iran's nuclear program, that "the use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country."

"The U.S. forces are so deeply entrenched (in Iraq) that the possibility of taking on another war -- with Iran -- is simply untenable," said Milani.

There is also the financial factor. The instability in the Persian Gulf region, combined with Iraq's weakened ability to pump oil, has kept the price of crude above $65 a barrel, "and that has been a godsend for the mullahs," he said.

"Tehran is very much interested in controlled chaos."

That chaos could easily get out of control, warn some analysts, especially if Iraq splits up. An independent Kurdish state in the north, for example, would encourage Iran's own 4 million Kurds to demand independence, said Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan.

But such concerns are "small potatoes" for Iran compared to the opportunity to wield greater power over the Persian Gulf region, argued O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution.

"Iran's situation is pretty good," he said. "But if they want to aim more ambitiously, I suppose they could try to splinter Iraq into three pieces, in the belief that a Shia country in the south would be too small to threaten them."

A smaller Shiite Arab state in the region could also provide Tehran with "potentially a kindred spirit on various matters," O'Hanlon said.

Despite Iran's denials, it is possible that the Islamic Republic is sending weapons to Iraq -- but to the Shiite militias in the south, such as the Badr Brigade, said Noyes.

Mohammadi agreed.

"Iran does not really need to send weapons to Sunni insurgents; they have enough," he said. "Iran is and has been willing to interfere with Iraq, but through (its) friends," such as the two biggest Shiite political factions, SCIRI and the Dawa party, Mohammadi said.

Yet, there is always the possibility that certain Iranian groups are supporting the insurgency in Iraq without the government's authorization, said O'Hanlon. One of them, analysts say, could be the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's militantly anti-American paramilitary force.

"You could also imagine Iranian hardliners saying: 'Let's go for broke,' " O'Hanlon said.

E-mail Anna Badkhen at abadkhen@sfchronicle.com."

Unrequited Love Source of US Policy on Iran - Rice Got Dumped

2005-06-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

Iran News - 'Unhappy love affair explains Rice view on Iran': " 'Unhappy love affair explains Rice view on Iran'

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, June 30 (IranMania) - Perplexed by the vitriol of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's attacks on Iran, one lawmaker believes he has uncovered the secret of her enmity -- that she was spurned by an Iranian boyfriend at college, according to ISNA.

"The reason that the US secretary of state attacks Iran is because she had her heart broken by a young man from Qazvin while they were students," a confident Shokrollah Attarzadeh was quoted by the ISNA agency as saying.

Somewhat mysteriously, he added: "This is the result of an investigation by a woman MP, who cannot be named."

Qazvin is an unremarkable city 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Tehran, hitherto not known for playing a major role Iran-US relations, which have been frozen for a quarter of a century.

Attarzadeh did not offer any other details on the alleged affair or, for that matter, any interesting new proposal on how ties between the two arch-enemies could be warmed up.

Surprising as it may be, amorous explanations for diplomatic machinations are nothing new here.

It was rumoured last year that German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer hardened his tone towards Iran after acquiring a girlfriend who supports the exiled opposition.

The alleged leniency of International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohammad ElBaradei towards Iran's nuclear programme has also been explained by ... him having an Iranian wife."

Iranian daily advises president-elect to heed lessons of past polls

2005-06-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

Iranian daily advises president-elect to heed lessons of past polls: "Media Monitor

Iranian daily advises president-elect to heed lessons of past polls
Jun 26, 2005, 15:10 GMT

Text of unattributed editorial: "The secret of an election!", published by the Iranian newspaper Aftab-e Yazd web site on 26 June

The 3 Tir [24 June presidential] elections have surprised everyone. A little reflection however can turn our amazement into belief, and our beliefs into experience for the future.

Within six weeks, Dr Mahmud Ahmadinezhad will take charge of the executive branch. He can, and must, do much. But if his supporters and rivals fail to correctly understand the message of the 3 Tir elections, the country will suffer the same fate Iran and Iranians have suffered because certain victors of the [May 1997] elections and their rivals failed to understand the message of those polls.

Without the support of the right-wing faction, and without even the unified support of the dailies that claim to represent values and principles, Ahmadinehzad won more than 17 million votes, and is now Iran´s president-elect. While still challenged by the non-participation of some 30 million eligible voters, he can with his acts ensure that he will not only keep his 17 million votes but instill regret in many of the 30 million who did not vote for him. To attain those conditions, we would have to correctly analyse the elections, and ensure certain people do not hijack the polls for themselves and proceed to use them to settle scores and vent their frustrations. This writer would first congratulate the new president, then remind him of certain points, and ask him to carefully consider these points, to prevent anyone exploiting the nation´s startling vote.

1 - Aftab-e Yazd has been among Mr Rafsanjani´s most serious critics in past years. But in past days, it saw evidence indicating that he was stepping into the electoral arena with a new determination, and with changed programmes. This evidence prompted us to prefer him over his rival in the second round of elections. We stated in our editorial on [21 June]: "If Hashemi-Rafsanjani is precisely the same as in the so-called reconstruction period, then we cannot support him. But a look at his supporters and his programmes gives one the hope that one may look forward to a new period, when reformist views and efforts to resolve the people´s problems will come to have a suitable place in the presidential office."

But the reality is that what we believed was not accepted by a great many people, or there was an insufficient opportunity to convey that sense to the majority of the people. Or perhaps, as Mr. Rafsanjani claimed, a systematic campaign to discredit him, costing billions from the public purse, contributed to the situation. Whatever the case, people showed on 3 Tir that most politicians, political groups and papers have an inaccurate impression of their ability to make an impact on the people, who prefer their own convictions to the subjective interpretations of politicians.

On 3 Tir, the people did not for whichever reason accept the counsels and guarantees of Left and Right-wing politicians, national-religious activists, or cultural personalities on the efficacy of Mr Rafsanjani´s new programmes. Even the breadth of the range of Mr Rafsanjani´s new supporters, going from [the poet] Mahmud Dowlatabadi to Ayatollah Javadi-Amoli, could not change many people´s previous perceptions of the president of the reconstruction period.

In other words, faced on 3 Tir with two persons, one who had already shown his mettle and of whose record many were critical, and another with little experience of government but whose campaign proved attractive, voters chose the latter.

The election on 3 Tir showed that when people develop a negative perception of a politician, and when his supporters perhaps spend more time denigrating rivals than making sincere efforts to answer doubts and questions, people find enough of a motivation to ensure victory for his rival. That is what happened on 3 Tir. About 12 million people who had not voted for Ahmadinezhad in the first round, went to the polls with determination, and concerned at the possible repetition of certain past events, and presented him with their votes.

This happened before, though differently, on 2 Khordad 1376, when people showed that they rejected those who were doing everything to place their man in the presidential office. Now, the failure to understand the real reason for that startling vote for Khatami has made many of his supporters, who backed Rafsanjani this round, suffer the fate of their former rivals.

2 - If Dr Ahmadinezhad seeks success, he should accept that however competent and suitable he considers himself, his abilities had yet to be evidenced for many, and he only won [in the first round] the votes of 5.7 million people. We wrote earlier that even certain Tehran legislators from the Developers [and Ahmadinezhad allies] had yet to be convinced of the feasibility of Ahmadinezhad´s programmes and his ability to implement them. They preferred Qalibaf, Larijani and Rafsanjani in the first round to Ahmadinezhad. Even in the second round, some of these people, who had supported his conservative rivals in the previous round, did not directly support him, and Ahmadinezhad now owes his victory mostly to those who did not, for whichever reason, want Rafsanjani´s re-election.

A factor that can turn this negative vote to a positive and affirmative vote, is if Ahmadinezhad does behave the way he did on his television programme, which many voters found attractive.

Likewise he can study the programmes of rivals that also attracted the attention of voters, and turn concerns at the election of unwanted candidates into hopeful hearts at the end of the first round and the start of his work. He may thus turn those voters into supporters backing constructive programmes for the country´s future.

3 - Four years ago, many conservatives who today support the president-elect, expressed concern at the non-participation of some 14 million voters in elections for Mr Khatami´s second term. They said nothing about the absence of twenty-something million voters in the seventh parliamentary elections, and seem disinclined today to comment on the absence of 20 million or so in the two rounds of the present elections. Ahmadinezhad is now the president of all Iranians, including the 30 or so million people who did not vote or did not vote for him. His conduct can turn them into 40 million or more, or encourage them to reconsider their electoral conduct.

4 - Iran´s political groups have in turn faced a difficult test. They must realize that a four-year presidency will neither give them everything for ever, nor wipe off the face of life and history. Events of the past quarter century have shown that if people believe that politicians have changed, they will overlook their past or adjust their prejudices and once more place their trust in them, and correspondingly vote out more recently elected officials. Thus politicians can reconsider their past actions and those of rivals without fascination or resentment, and help people make a better choice in the future. Otherwise as in the past, people will again vote for those they believe have a less negative record. We shall write more on the recent elections.

Source: Aftab-e Yazd web site, Tehran, in Persian 26 Jun 05, pp1,2

BBC Mon ME1 MEPol kasz"

FT.com / Middle East & Africa - Rumsfeld casts doubt on legitimacy of Iran poll

2005-06-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

FT.com / Middle East & Africa - US casts doubt on legitimacy of Iran poll: " casts doubt on legitimacy of Iran poll
By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Published: June 26 2005 18:56 | Last updated: June 26 2005 18:56

The Bush administration on Sunday cast doubt on the legitimacy of Iran's newly-elected president, setting the stage for a more intense confrontation over the future of the Islamic state's nuclear programme and the direction of democracy in the Middle East.

Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, denounced the landslide victory of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, regarded by US officials as a hardline fundamentalist, as the result of a “mock election”.

Speaking on Fox News, Mr Rumsfeld admitted he did not know much about “this young fellow”.

“But he is no friend of democracy. He's no friend of freedom. He is a person who is very much supportive of the current ayatollahs, who are telling the people of that country how to live their lives. And my guess is over time, the young people and the women will find him, as well as his masters, unacceptable,” Mr Rumsfeld said.

The consolidation of power of all branches of the Iranian government in the hands of hardliners has been mirrored by a parallel struggle over policy inside the Bush administration. Washington's “hawks”, including Mr Rumsfeld and Elizabeth Cheney, who is in charge of state department policy on promoting democracy in the Middle East, have emerged on top.

Members of the US Congress who want the Bush administration to adopt a more forthright policy of “regime change” are likely to step up their efforts to reduce foreign investment in Iran.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, reflecting conservative suspicion over the motives of foreign investors, declared at his first press conference on Sunday: "In all fields, including oil, priority will be given to local investors.”

Mohammad Sadeq Kharrazi, Iran's ambassador to Paris who is involved in nuclear negotiations with the European Union, told the FT the new president would not bring “fundamental change” in either Iran's stance or the make-up of its negotiation team.

Patrick Clawson, senior analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that although key decisions in Iran remain with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the election of a hardline president would add to US concerns that Iran could not be trusted with anything short of complete cessation of its uranium enrichment programme.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad reiterated Iran's right to produce nuclear fuel for electricity generation.

EU leaders repeated their long-stranding demand that Iran should permanently end uranium enrichment, which it has suspended as a 'goodwill gesture' since October 2003.

Jack Straw, the UK foreign secretary, said there had been “serious deficiencies” in the elections, which had further damaged “an already flawed” process.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said diplomatic relations with Washington, suspended since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, could be reopened only if the US “gives up its hostility”. But he added that Iran “did not have considerable need for the US”.

This contrasted with campaign promises of improved relations made by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president defeated by Mr Ahmadi-Nejad on Friday.

Additional reporting by Carola Hoyos"

POLITICS-US: Bush and Hawks Try Pre-Emptive Strike Vs. Iran Vote

2005-06-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

POLITICS-US: Bush and Hawks Try Pre-Emptive Strike Vs. Iran Vote: "POLITICS-US:
Bush and Hawks Try Pre-Emptive Strike Vs. Iran Vote
Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 18 (IPS) - A familiar clutch of hardline U.S. hawks who led the march to war against Iraq have tried to carry out yet another pre-emptive strike. But this time it wasn't military.

As millions of Iranians prepared to vote for the successor to Pres. Mohammed Khatami Friday, the group, helped along by a strong denunciation by Bush himself, mounted what could only be described as an orchestrated public-relations campaign to discredit the elections even before they took place.

”Today Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world,” Bush declared in a statement issued by the White House Thursday afternoon. ”Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy.”

Bush's statements, which were echoed by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, and to a somewhat less categorical extent by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, offered some reassurance to the hawks, particularly some prominent neo-conservatives outside the administration who have pressed their own longstanding campaign for ”regime change” in Teheran with growing intensity.

At the same time, however, their own efforts to discredit the election at the eleventh hour highlight their growing concern that a new president in Iran may actually be someone with whom, as Margaret Thatcher first observed about incoming Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev 20 years ago, the West might actually be able to do business.

That concern rose sharply late last month when State Department officials quietly urged both the Republican Congressional leadership to hold off action on the Iran Freedom Support Act that would impose new sanctions on Iran pending ongoing negotiations between the so-called EU-3 -- Britain, France, and Germany -- and Iran over its nuclear programme.

”These guys want regime change,” said one knowledgeable source who asked not to be identified, ”and they're very worried about anything that could divert from that. They want to ensure that the White House won't get any funny ideas about making a deal with a new Iranian government.”

Thus, the hawks' mantra Thursday on the eve of the balloting, was that the elections won't make any difference because hardline elements led by the unelected supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, and the Guardian Council, which did so much to hobble outgoing Pres. Mohammed Khatami and the reformists, will continue running the country regardless of who wins.

”Any normal person familiar with the Islamic republic knows that these are not elections at all...,” wrote Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in an article headlined ”When Is an Election Not an Election?” posted on National Review Online (NRO) Thursday morning.

”They are a mise en scene, an entertainment, a comic opera staged for our benefit. The purpose of the charade, pure and simple, is to deter us from supporting the forces of democratic revolution in Iran.”

That theme was echoed in a series of events and other columns published Thursday, including one, by Kenneth Timmerman in NRO (and reprinted Friday by the Washington Times) entitled ”Fake Election, Real Threats” in which he predicted that no more than five percent of eligible voters in Teheran would turn out.

Another appeared in the Washington Times by Nir Boms, vice president of the new Centre for Freedom in the Middle East and previously vice president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and Elliott Chodoff entitled ”Facing the Iranian Elections,” and a third in the New York Times by AEI vice president Danielle Pletka, entitled ”Not Our Man in Iran,” a reference to the front-runner, former President Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose presumed victory, she wrote, was due to the ”machinations of the mullahs.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Sam Brownback, a Christian Right leader close to both hard-line neoconservatives and Iranian-American followers of Reza Pahlevi, the ambitious, U.S.-based son of the former Shah, charged in a floor speech that the elections were ”bogus,” while at AEI headquarters across town, a discussion on the elections featured a presentation by founder of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohsen Sazegara of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who predicted, ”No matter who wins the presidential elections, there will be no real changes in Iran's domestic or foreign policy.”

Despite the certainty with which these views were expressed, many U.S.-based Iran specialists, while agreeing that powers of Khameini and the Guardian's Council clearly circumscribed what an elected president could do, said that the depiction of the election as a sham was simplistic at best, a deliberate distortion at worst.

Contrary to Pletka's assertion that Rafsanjani was chosen by the mullahs, said Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University, ”Those who are closest to the actual election process have stated repeatedly that Rafsanjani was seen as dividing the mullahs and was not-so-subtly opposed in his candidacy by Khamenei.”

That view was echoed by Abbas Milani and Michael McFaul, directors of the Project on Iranian Democracy at the conservative Hoover Institution in California, in an article in Friday's International Herald Tribune. Rafsanjani and Khamenei, they wrote, ”now àare at each other's political throats,” signaling ”clear division within the ruling elite” of the kind that could well presage ”the beginning of political liberalisation.”

What's more, according to Milani and McFaul, Rafsanjani and Mostafa Moin, a reformist who is tipped to be Rafsanjani's likely rival in a run-off Jul. 1, have both gone further than Khatami ”in challenging the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic and its current leadership” and in advocating improved relations with the United States.

A close reading of the hawks themselves also disclosed serious inconsistencies. While insisting, for example, that ”millions of 'officially cast' ballots (were) manufactured weeks ago, to ensure the right guy wins and that enough votes will have been cast,” Ledeen confessed that even he didn't know who would win.

Like Pletka, Ledeen had assumed ”that Rafsanjani would walk away with it.” But since Khameini overruled the Guardian Council so that Moin (”a nasty pseudo-reformer”) could join the field, he was no longer so sure. Moin ”might be more convincing as he plays that most difficult role,” Ledeen went on: ”the moderate face of islamofascism.”

To some Iran specialists, such speculation serves only to demonstrate that, as in the run-up to the war in Iraq, some hard-liners are trying to fit the facts into their preferred policy.

”Michael Ledeen has never been to Iran; he speaks no Persian,” said Brown University Professor William Beeman, who observed the campaign in Teheran during the past week. ”He has minimal credibility in assessing the Iranian elections, or evaluating the political situation there.

”It is clear that the neo-cons are desperate to deny any credibility to the Iranian people in this election àby continuing to promulgate the image of helpless Iranians cowering under tyrannical rule -- the better to justify some kind of attack leading to 'regime change,”' Said Brown, author of a forthcoming book, ”The 'Great Satan' vs. the 'Mad Mullahs:' How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other.' (END/2005)"

Iran press: Guardian Council qualification process 'not political' - spokesman

2005-06-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

Iran press: Guardian Council qualification process 'not political' - spokesman: "Iran press: Guardian Council qualification process 'not political' - spokesman
Jun 7, 2005, 16:46 GMT

Political Affairs Desk: Referring to the way the Guardian Council is reviewing the qualification of candidates in the presidential elections, the Guardian Council spokesman announced: "The council's decision-making process is not at all political."

Gholamhoseyn Elham said: "From among the 1,014 people who have registered to participate in the elections, the Guardian Council initially determined who qualified as a "political dignitary," and in a second review determined whether they are religious and political dignitaries based on their record and what has been indicated in their dossiers. Later these candidates were discussed in the Council's meeting, where reports by official bodies, such as the State Inspectorate General Organization and the Judiciary, concerning the functions of some of them who have held executive responsibilities, which were taken into consideration. Overall, an independent, written, and secret vote was held in regard to every one of these individuals."

Likewise, the Guardian Council spokesman stressed that the Guardian Council is duty-bound to guarantee the qualities specified in Article 115 of the Constitution; therefore, in this case, disqualification is not mooted and what is relevant is whether the candidate qualified or not. Likewise, the Guardian Council spokesman considered that the law has determined the authority to establish qualifications, and by stating the status of the Expediency Council, as well as the eminent leader in determining the expediencies of the system, it pointed out: "If everyone were to want to become an authority in this regard, it will prove problematic for us."

Criticizing the views being propounded concerning the council's approach concerning the review of qualifications and the fact that at times this institution is introduced as a sector that is responsible for helping the principle-ists (osulgarayan) to reach consensus, and at other times, after the announcement of the names of those who have qualified, it is considered as an element responsible for bringing consensus in the reforms front and at yet another time it is introduced as the element responsible for damaging public participation, Elham said: "lf these demonstrate that the council's function is not influenced by political considerations."

In continuation, in regard to the fact as to whether or not the Guardian Council has interpreted the eminent Leader's letter to this council as a state decree, the Guardian Council spokesman said: "The council considers this letter as a state decree."

Likewise, concerning the Guardian Council's response to objections by those who have been disqualified by this council, by pointing to the careful measures taken by the council concerning the review of the qualifications of the 1014 registered candidates, which has been conducted based on their records and dossiers, he reiterated: "The law has made no mention of publicly stating the reasons as to why candidates have not obtained qualification."

Likewise, in regard to the reasons for not granting qualification to candidates who had obtained qualification in previous terms, the Guardian Council spokesman said: "The criterion for granting qualification is the current status of candidates and their record has influenced the decision-making process."

According to a report by ISNA [Iranian Student News Agency], in response to a question concerning the accuracy of the report related to the selection of the heads of supervisory boards of two townships from among the armed forces, Elham said: "The law does not forbid the presence of military forces in executive and supervisory areas." Regarding the fact as to whether there is the possibility of reconsidering the qualification of candidates, and should they commit a violation at this juncture, he said: "Usually this does not happen, but if the candidates' qualification is seriously compromised, according clause 58 of the election law the council can reconsider the qualification of candidates, but we hope that the need for this would not arise."

Further on in his remarks, in response to criticisms made concerning the way the Guardian Council announces the list of names of candidates who have gained qualification, the Guardian Council spokesman remarked: "The Guardian Council has the duty to announce the names of candidates who have gained qualification to the interior ministry and after this announcement by the council this ministry is obliged to inform the public of the names of candidates, on the basis of which the period determined for publicity officially begins."

Source: Iran website, Tehran, in Persian 29 May 05
BBC Mon ME1 MEPol lr
Copyright 2005 BBC Monitoring Service distributed by United Press International "

Iran Daily: First Vice President Aref greets the visiting Leader of Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim

2005-06-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Unity Will Help Form Popular Iraqi Gov't

First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref (l) greets the visiting Leader of Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim in Tehran, June 15. (IRNA Photo)

TEHRAN, June 15--First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said on Tuesday religious authority and national unity will be effective in forming a popular government.
Aref made the remark during a meeting with the visiting Leader of Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, IRNA reported.
He said the Iraqi nation and government are able to handle their own affairs and achieve stability and independence. Aref added that security and stability of regional countries are inter-linked, adding that Iraq's stability will affect the whole region, including Iran.
"The two countries can cooperate in different fields such as economy, oil, railway and pilgrimage," he said, adding that the establishment of a joint commission would pave the way for assisting the Iraqi nation and promoting economic cooperation. For his part, Hakim appreciated the Islamic Republic's policies toward Iraq.
He hailed the massive turnout of Iraqis in election and also briefed Aref on Iraq's latest developments and problems, particularly in the fields of economy and reconstruction. Hakim said Iran enjoys cultural and religious privileges that other states are deprived of."

Iran Daily: Big Vote From the Minorities - Christians, Armenians, Nomads and Tribal Peoples and Sunni Vote in big numbers

2005-06-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Rafsanjani, Moin Better Placed

Ahmadinejad Leading Rightist Vote
Heavy Turnout Belies Predictions
Second Round Imminent
Scenes of voting underway in Tehran on Friday (ISNA Photos)

TEHRAN, June 17--Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Friday a vote for any of the candidates of the ninth presidential election is a vote for the Islamic system, as widespread and heavy voting belied predictions that voter turnout will not exceed 50 percent.
Speaking to reporters after casting his vote at Imam Khomeini Mosque in northern Tehran, the leader said, "When we come to the polling stations to cast our votes according to the constitutions, it means that we are voting for the Islamic system."
The leader hoped that the next president would be able to solve the problems of the country and meet its requirements.
Referring to the mischievous moves of some western states to prevent Iranians from voting, Ayatollah Khamenei said such measures have nothing to do with the concept of Western democracy.
Preliminary reports of the voters' choice reveal that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was the top choice for president and Mostafa Moin ranked second. Among the rightist candidates, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a better position compared to his rightist rivals.
In East Asia and in countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, North Korea, South Korea and Japan, the following has been reported so far:
Moin tops the list with 575 votes while Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Ali Larijani, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Mehralizadeh followed with 492, 117, 90, 73, 42 and 23 votes respectively.
Although voters in the tribal belt surprisingly showed their enthusiasm for Moin, the breakdown of votes in different cities is expected to be diverse.
And by all indications, the presidential election will most likely enter the second round for the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic.
Also on Friday, President Mohammad Khatami said after casting his vote that the negative propaganda of dissidents has had no impact on the people's wide presence in the election.
"The level of people's participation in election is satisfactory, despite the high volume of negative propaganda preceding the election," he said.
According to IRNA's correspondent at the Interior Ministry's Election Headquarters, President Khatami told Iranian and foreign reporters, "Those whose hearts beat for the grandeur and prosperity of Iran agree that the path toward grassroots democracy is lengthy and the process toward that end is gradual."
The president noted that in moving from a despotic, dependent society to an open, democratic one relying on religious and cultural norms, some people do not find the resulting developments to their liking and boycott the election, "which is their democratic right".
"I hope the dynamic presence of all eligible men and women voters in this election would ease the tough path toward institutionalizing democracy in this country, that is the fruit of the Islamic Revolution," he said.
Asked by a foreign reporter whether the outcome of this election would help promote democracy in Iran, Khatami said, "Elections are essentially the manifestations of democracy and I hope this one, too, would strengthen the foundations of democracy here."
He expressed hope that as in previous elections, the president would be elected during the first round of election.
Meanwhile, Zoroastrians of Yazd also joined hands with their compatriots to participate in the ballot exercise.
Khosrow Khosrawi told IRNA that voting is the duty of all citizens.
"Zoroastrians consider it to be their national duty to vote. We live in complete freedom in the Islamic system and we choose our president vigilantly," he said.
Esfandiyar Pirouzmand said, "It is our duty to participate in the vital undertaking. Voting is the indisputable duty of all Iranians who love their motherland."
Ardekan Electoral Headquarters designated a special ballot box for the comfort of Zoroastrians celebrating 'Nik Banou' (literally meaning Fine Lady) rituals at Chak Chak Temple. Some 10,000 people are participating in the five-day ritual that began on Tuesday.
About 6,000 Zoroastrians live in Yazd, Ardekan and Taft.
In another development, governor of Bandar-e Turkman said a large number of Sunnis showed up at polling stations in the early hours of Friday.
Members of the Armenian minority group turned out massively to cast their votes.
Christians throughout the country, along with their Muslim compatriots, took part in the election.
The Interior Ministry earlier announced 46,786,418 people are eligible to participate.
AFP reported that Iranians living abroad trickled to voting stations on Friday amid apathy, protests and calls by exile opposition groups to boycott Iran's presidential election.
An estimated 3 million Iranians live abroad, more than one-third of them in the United States and several hundred thousand in Europe."

Iran Daily: Israel Apologizes to US Over China Arms Sale

2005-06-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Israel Apologizes to US Over China Arms Sale

BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, June 19--Israel publicly apologized to the United States on Sunday over arms exports to China that have drawn criticism from Washington and strained US-Israeli security ties, Reuters reported.
"It is impossible to hide the crisis between Israel and the United States with regard to the security industries. We are doing everything possible to put it behind us," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said on Israel Radio.
The dispute centers on Israel's sale of Harpy attack drones and other advanced technology to China that the Pentagon fears could tilt the balance of power and make it difficult to defend Taiwan, which Beijing deems a renegade province.
"If things were done that were not acceptable to the Americans then we are sorry but these things were done with the utmost innocence," Shalom said in comments that coincided with a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"The United States is our biggest ally and none of the things that were done with the intention of harming US interests," Shalom added.
The dispute has strained security ties between Israel and the United States, its main ally and provider of about $2 billion in annual defense aid, at a time when it seeks US assistance to help implement its planned withdrawal from Gaza.
Commenting on the arms dispute ahead of her trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Rice said Israel should be "sensitive" to US concerns on arms sales to China particularly given its close defense cooperation with Washington.
"We have had some very difficult discussions with the Israelis about this. I think they understand now the seriousness of the matter and we'll continue to have those discussions," Rice said.
An Israeli official is negotiating an agreement which would likely enable the United States to supervise Israeli arms sales to countries that Washington deems problematic, including China and India.
Washington torpedoed Israel's multi-billion dollar sale of Phalcon strategic airborne radar systems to China in 2000, citing concerns it could upset the regional balance of power.
US displeasure over the Harpy deal played a role in a decision in April to suspend Israel from involvement in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project."

Curt Weldon Book Warns of Iran (Curt Put Your Tinfoil Hat Back On The Aliens Are Controlling You)

2005-06-10T06:11:00.000-07:00

Lawmaker's Book Warns of Iran: "Lawmaker's Book Warns of Iran
Weldon Accuses CIA, Colleagues of Ignoring Secret Information

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 9, 2005; Page A08

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), whose flair for drama has included lugging around a replica of a suitcase-size nuclear bomb, alleges in a new book that Iran is hiding Osama bin Laden, is preparing terrorist attacks against the United States, has a crash program to build an atomic bomb and, as a Shiite country, is the chief sponsor of what is a largely Sunni-directed insurgency in Iraq.

In "Countdown to Terror: The Top-Secret Information that Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America . . . and How the CIA Has Ignored It," Weldon accuses the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and his colleagues on the House and Senate intelligence committees of ignoring his trove of information.

These secrets, he says, come from "an impeccable clandestine source," whom Weldon code-names "Ali," an Iranian exile living in Paris who is a close associate of Manucher Gorbanifar. Gorbanifar is a well-known Iranian exile whom the CIA branded as a fabricator during the 1980s but who was used by the Reagan White House as a middleman for the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran.

Switch Iran for Iraq, and Gorbanifar for Ahmed Chalabi -- an Iraqi exile whose claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction were distrusted by the CIA but were embraced by the Defense Department and the White House -- and Weldon's book reads like the conservative argument for the invasion of Iraq.

Weldon, who has become a leading conservative voice on weapons of mass destruction and other defense issues, acknowledges this upfront, in a way: "The intelligence community may be avoiding Ali like the plague, despite his excellent intelligence, because they want to avoid, at all costs, drawing the United States into a war with Iran." But, of Ali's tip that Iran was planning a terrorist attack against a U.S. nuclear reactor that would destroy Boston, he says that "this alone is a reason for a military response, a legitimate casus belli."

The CIA and former intelligence officers vehemently dispute Weldon's charges.

"The CIA thoroughly pursued this issue and did so on more than one occasion," said CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise.

Other U.S. intelligence sources, who declined to speak on the record because, they said, Weldon is an influential member of Congress who might retaliate against the agency, said Ali is actually Fereidoun Mahdavi. His allegations and connections to Gorbanifar and Weldon were laid out in the April 1, 2005, issue of the American Prospect, a liberal magazine.

Weldon, who according to his book publicist was not available to give a comment yesterday, asserts in his book that the CIA first ignored Mahdavi and then threatened him.

Bill Murray, the former CIA station chief in Paris, said that, after interviewing Mahdavi on several occasions and investigating his claims, the CIA determined he was lying. Mahdavi never gave the CIA anything specific about Iran's weapons capability, terrorist activities or any of the other charges.

"He peddled the same stories to several other governments," Murray said. "He is a fabricator."

The CIA set up a clandestine channel of communications for Mahdavi, which he was supposed to use for talking with the agency and for sending information, said several former intelligence officials. He used it only twice, once to repeat vague information he had already supplied, and a second time to try to persuade the CIA to participate in his plot to overthrow the Iranian government.

"We tried to vet the information and never found anything that was credible," said Murray, who recently retired from the agency. He said he agreed to respond on the record because the allegations in Weldon's book are so absurd.

Mahdavi "wanted $150,000 to start," Murray said. "I gave him a cup of coffee. The American taxpayers work hard for their money. . . . I wasn't going to give him any of it."

Weldon's book is filled with "Dear Curt" memos from Mahdavi. One of his most urgent allegations is that terrorists were plotting to fly a hijacked Canadian airliner into the Seabrook Nuclear Reactor, which is four miles outside Boston. Weldon credits Mahdavi with thwarting the attack and points to the August 2003 arrest in Toronto of 19 men, most of whom were Pakistani and who were initially thought to make up a sleeper cell.

Within a month, however, the Toronto arrests were downgraded to a case of routine immigration fraud. Seven of the men remain in Canada and have applied for refugee status, arguing that the terrorist label they now have makes it impossible for them to return safely to Pakistan.

The chairmen of the Senate and House intelligence committees, as well as the House leadership, were briefed on the CIA's reports on Mahdavi, sources said. The lawmakers were not spurred to investigate the matter further.

A man who answered the phone yesterday at Mahdavi's residence in Paris said Mahdavi, 74, is very ill and could not respond to questions about Weldon's book."

Iran: Rice angry about Kharrazi's 'successful' Iraq visit - Irna

2005-06-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Iran: Rice angry about Kharrazi's 'successful' Iraq visit - Irna: "Iran: Rice angry about Kharrazi's 'successful' Iraq visit Tehran, June 3, IRNA
9th Presidential Election-Rice
Iran reacted Friday to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's comments on IRI Presidential elections, arguing, "Ms. Rice is 'actually' angry about IRI foreign minister's successful visit of Iraq.

IRI Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi added, "Rice feels belittled due to comparing IRI Minister of Foreign Affairs Kamal Kharrazi's successful visit with her own (almost simultaneous) visit of Iraq, that was ridiculed even in US media."
According to a Friday report by Information and Pres Bureau of the IRI Foreign Ministry, Assefi added, "Iran is, beyond doubt, not moving in line with the imposed plans drafted by the united States for the region, believing that the regional nations are politically mature enough to decide their own fates."
The comment was a response to US secretary of state's accusation that Tehran is not in line with US policies for the region Denouncing Rice's comments on Iran's Presidential Elections, Assefi said, "Her comments are not only undiplomatic since they are interference in Iran's domestic affairs, but also not to the point, due to her lack of knowledge about the way different organs have taken shape in Iran and their legal functions."
Foreign Ministry spokesman emphasized, "Vast participation of our people at upcoming presidential elections would be a resolute and to the point answer to US officials."
Rice had said in an interview that the United States' picture of the upcoming Iranian elections is bleak due to vast disqualification of hopefuls."

Gene Sharp's War Against Iran

2005-05-31T18:28:00.000-07:00

War by other means - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Ideas - News: "War by other means
Boston's Gene Sharp learned how to turn nonviolence into a weapon - and helped quite literally change the world.
By Laura Secor | May 29, 2005

A CURIOUS THING started happening in the formerly Communist world in the year 2000. One after another, hated, repressive governments gave way to mass movements of nonviolent refusal. First there was Serbia, then Georgia, then Ukraine, and now Kyrgyzstan. It was as if a virus were spreading - one that led long abused populaces to wake up to their own power, which they could withhold from authorities to stunning effect.

But it wasn't a virus. Among other things, it was an 88-page booklet by a Boston scholar named Gene Sharp, which has circulated in local translation at the site of every one of these nonviolent democratic revolutions.

Called ''From Dictatorship to Democracy," Sharp's booklet lays out a theory of power that explains the mechanisms of dictatorship and their weaknesses. It also details the nuts and bolts of nonviolent resistance: which tools to use in order to undermine a regime's sources of power, how to sustain discipline in the face of violent response, and the crucial importance of entering such struggle as one would a military campaign, with a strategic plan. Tactics include demonstrations and posters, strikes and sit-ins, boycotts and campaigns of non-cooperation. Some of these techniques work to paralyze the society and thus convince rulers that they cannot govern without budging on the issues at stake - or that they cannot govern at all.

Sharp, now in his late 70s, has a gentle manner and an air of humility before a vast and complex world in which his ideas have attained powerful purchase. Since he began his work more than 50 years ago, he has essentially invented the study of nonviolent struggle. In 1983, he founded both a program on the subject at Harvard and the Albert Einstein Institution, which focuses, as he puts it, ''not on pacifism, not on any mahatma nonsense, but on pragmatic nonviolent struggle." His books - he has written some 13 of them, including the just-published ''Waging Nonviolent Struggle" - are written almost like textbooks. They betray no literary pretension; the language is clear but abstract, and they are designed to be read across cultures.

Even as Sharp's work reaches the height of its influence, the Albert Einstein Institution, which publishes educational materials, hosts workshops abroad at the request of foreign activists, and painstakingly manages and vets the translations of ''From Dictatorship to Democracy," has run out of funding and may be forced to close its doors in September. The staff has already been reduced from four to two employees, including Sharp.

I caught up with Sharp by telephone to his office last week.

IDEAS: How did you come to this subject?

SHARP: I grew into this topic in the very late 40s and early 50s. The Second World War was just over, and the Holocaust was new information. Stalin was still in Russia. There was European colonialism, racial discrimination in the United States, and the threat of war with nuclear weapons. And there had to be some better way. And so I began learning about nonviolent resistance. The literature was terrible, but the more I read the more I realized there was lots of substance here - and that we really didn't know much about it. And so bit by bit, I moved into the field, starting with a heavy study of Gandhi, not as a mahatma but as a political strategist. I grew increasingly interested in figuring out what made this kind of technique succeed or fail, and how it could be made more effective.

Later on I lived in Norway, where I met people who had taken part in the resistance during the Nazi occupation. One of the big insights I gleaned was that the pacifist position, which holds that you can just renounce violence, doesn't work. But if you don't have a realistic alternative, people will either capitulate in passive submission or they'll turn to the only kind of struggle they think is available, which is war and violence.

IDEAS: Which ideas did you modify as you witnessed history?

SHARP: At one stage I shared the view that it's necessary to have both the religious and the moral belief and the knowledge of the technique. And later on I realized that was not necessary at all. You could take only a political approach, only a pragmatic approach. And in many of the historical cases, that was indeed what happened.

IDEAS: Where have you seen your theories in action?

SHARP: We did some of them ourselves in very simple ways as undergraduates, at lunch counter sit-ins in Columbus, Ohio. I was in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania when their independence-minded governments were trying to exit the Soviet Union. I met with government leaders in all three countries, and they drew heavily on a book of mine that we then had the English page proofs of, called ''Civilian-Based Defense." I was also in Tiananmen Square with a friend of mine.

IDEAS: What do you think went wrong at Tiananmen?

SHARP: They had no plan, no strategy. It was more or less an accidental movement that then attracted great support. People kept flooding into the scene, and once they got there the people who had been leading it were sort of flooded out. Even after there'd been a decision to evacuate the square, new people decided to stay on because they hadn't had a chance to demonstrate yet. But they didn't have a plan.

People also really didn't understand the essential importance of withdrawing support from the system. We heard stories when we were there of civil servants within the government buildings throwing money out the windows for the resisters. But they didn't go on strike. And there were reports that some [soldiers] refused to shoot [demonstraters]. If that had happened on a large scale, it would've done it.

I was there that night. We'd just been to dinner and were walking back to the hotel across Tiananmen Square as the troops and the armored personnel carriers came in. We were inclined to sort of hide around the corner to look and see what was going on, but the local Chinese people scurried us out of there, and I guess that's why we're alive today. There was a lot of killing. It was really terrible.

IDEAS: How did ''From Dictator to Democracy" come into being?

SHARP: That booklet was originally written in 1983, at the request of a Burmese democratic exile who was living in Bangkok and editing an exile newsletter. It drew on previous work I had done, including on weaknesses of dictatorships and the nature of power.

The booklet was only written for the Burmese, but though I had been illegally in Burma two or three times in the area held by some of the resistance groups and ethnic minorities, I didn't really know Burma. You have to be very careful in writing about applying these theories to a country you don't really know. You can really mess people up.

IDEAS: The manual has been translated into Russian, Farsi, Chinese, Arabic, and other languages. Have you arranged these translations?

SHARP: They come as requests from activists within the countries. I didn't know at the beginning, but translations are dangerous. People may not really understand the phenomenon. They may not really know the equivalent terms in their own language, because the terms maybe don't exist.

IDEAS: I'm curious what you think about the potential use of training in this technique as a foreign policy tool by the US government.

SHARP: That's dangerous. What the government can do is provide money. And it doesn't.

IDEAS: The Albert Einstein Institution's president, Robert Helvey, led a workshop in Budapest for Serbian students prior to the ouster of Slobodan Milosevic. Where else have you held workshops?

SHARP: I did one about three years ago for Belarussians that had to be held in Vilnius, Lithuania. We did short-term things for Cuban exiles in Miami. It's been done for Venezuelans, and for Zimbabwe.

IDEAS: In your book there is a chapter on something you call political jujitsu, in which a regime uses violence against nonviolent resistance, and this backfires, creating deeper and more widespread defiance.

SHARP: When I was starting out this study the belief was, oh, this is fine for the Indians, they're all Hindus, they all believe in reincarnation so it doesn't make any difference if they get killed. Literally! But if you look at the Russian 1905 revolution, it's the same thing.

Political jujitsu will not work if the people get scared, if they don't know what to do, or if they don't understand that it's necessary to hold their ground and risk some danger. Guerilla warfare has huge civilian casualty rates. Huge. And yet Che Guevara didn't abandon guerilla warfare because people were getting killed. The same is true in conventional war, of course. But then they say if you get killed in nonviolent struggle, then nonviolent struggle has failed. Some people don't understand what they're doing and they say oh, we have to go over to violence.

IDEAS: Of course, nonviolent movements don't necessarily produce democracies. The Iranian revolution of 1979 was by and large nonviolent.

SHARP: Yes, but they didn't plan for the transition, and so various people who had their own ideas of what the new regime should be took over. Now we have this other booklet on the anti-coup, or how to block seizures of power and executive usurpations. That time after a successful nonviolent struggle is very dangerous.

Our work has had major influence in Iran, except that it hasn't got a movement quite succeeding yet. ''From Dictatorship to Democracy" is in Farsi on our website. The translation was all done inside Iran. That's dangerous, and people were gutsy enough to do it. But the booklet has been declared illegal to circulate in Iran. Still, the knowledge is there, and it fits into Persian history, like in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 and then more recently in the struggle against the shah.

IDEAS: Is there any new insight that has jumped out at you from this recent spate of nonviolent dissolutions of governments?

SHARP: I think what is new is the recognition that this technique can be learned, and that knowledge about it can be shared to make the attempt to use it more frequent and more successful. And I think that's one reason this particular booklet keeps spreading.

Laura Secor is a writer living in New York."

COVER-UP - Col. David Phillips Excuses Human Rights Abuses in MEK Enclave

2005-05-31T08:31:00.000-07:00

Iran Focus-News - Special Wire - US commander in MeK enclave clears Iran group of abuse: "US commander in MeK enclave clears Iran group of abuse Mon. 30 May 2005

Washington, DC, May 30 - A United States Army colonel in charge of security for the enclave of the main Iranian opposition group in Iraq in 2004 joined a chorus of criticism directed at New York-based Human Rights Watch from academics, human rights activists, Parliamentarians, and Iranian exiles for its recent report that alleged the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK) abused some of its members.

Col. David Phillips commanded the 89th U.S. Military Police Brigade, which was tasked with guarding the MeK’s main base, Camp Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad, from January until December 2004. Phillips wrote in a letter to Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth that during that time he was given “numerous reports of torture, concealed weapons and people being held against their will by the leadership of the Mujahedin e-Khalq”.

“I directed my subordinate units to investigate each allegation. In many cases I personally led inspection teams on unannounced visits to the MeK/PMOI facilities where the alleged abuses were reported to occur. At no time over the 12 month period did we ever discover any credible evidence supporting the allegations raised in your recent report”, he wrote.

Phillips was reacting to a 28-page paper by Human Rights Watch which alleged that the MeK tortured its “dissident members” who criticised or sought to leave the organisation.

While stating that he would neither have tolerated such abuses outlined in the HRW report, nor would have sanctioned any acts on the part of the MeK to hold people against their will, Phillips said, “Each report of torture, kidnapping and psychological deprivation turned out to be unsubstantiated”.

Phillips noted that the MeK notified his brigade on a routine basis of people who desired to leave the organisation, transporting such individual to their gate. “At your request, I can explain in detail specific allegations and the subsequent investigation by my units. To my knowledge, as the senior officer responsible for safeguarding and securing Camp Ashraf throughout 2004, there was never a single substantiated incident as outlined in your report”, he said.

The colonel, now back in the United States and serving at Fort Hood, Texas, said in his letter that he was very familiar with the MeK leadership and personally knew many of the personnel in Camp Ashraf.

“I’ve visited male and female units on a routine basis. Sometimes these visits were announced, but most frequently they were unannounced inspections. My subordinate units would randomly select billets, headquarters, warehouses and bunkers for no-notice inspections. Not one time did they discover any improper conduct on the part of the MeK/PMOI. Also, the MeK/PMOI never denied entry to any of their facilities”, he added.

Phillips said that he believed that the May 18 report by Human Rights Watch was based on unsubstantiated information from individuals without firsthand knowledge or for reasons of person gain, adding that he had very extensive first hand knowledge of the MeK and the operations at Camp Ashraf and that his comments were based on a full year of on-location experience.

He went on to say that he had had one-on-one private conversations with individual members and discussions with large groups of the MeK, and at no time did any member, ranging from young male and females to the very senior leadership, ever report any of the type conduct outlined in the report.

Noting the dangerous situation in Iraq throughout 2004, Phillips said that in his opinion, Camp Ashraf was the safest place within his area of responsibility, adding that there was not one incident or combat injury to his forces there.

“I personally felt safe even when surrounded in a room by hundreds of Mujahedin. We always had open dialog and debated difficult subjects”, he said.

“I was exceptionally impressed with the dedication of the female units. These units were professional and displayed strong support for freedom, democracy and equality for women. The dedication of these female members was inspirational”, Phillips said.

“I never discovered a single incident where a female or male was held in the organisation against their will. I observed a total freedom of choice on the part of the members to either remain or depart from the MeK/PMOI”."

Xinhua - English

2005-05-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

Xinhua - English: "Iran boosts Islam to counteract US

www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-31 14:00:53
BEIJING, May 31 -- An Iranian newspaper says President Seyyed Mohammed Khatemi is working to boost Islam to counteract US advocated democracy in the Middle East.

Iran's Keihan newspaper reported Monday that Khatemi proposed in a Sunday speech that Middle East nations should protect democracy, liberty and development by adopting widely recognized political systems in the Middle East and that any reliance on external power should be discarded.

His proposal is an obvious objection to US President George W. Bush, who put forward the Democracy in the Middle East plan last year with an aim to spread democracy and capitalism in the region."

Musharraf�s statement on Iran at US' behest: MMA: South Asia : Hindustan Times.com

2005-05-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

Musharraf�s statement on Iran at US' behest: MMA: South Asia : Hindustan Times.com: "Musharraf’s statement on Iran at US' behest: MMA

ANI

Islamabad, May 31, 2005|15:02 IST

Advertisement

The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a conglomerate of religious parties in Pakistan, has said that President Pervez Musharraf’s recent statement regarding Iran’s nuclear programme could damage relations with the neighbouring country.

MMA president Qazi Hussain Ahmed said that Musharraf made this statement simply to please the US and its ally Israel. He described Musharraf’s statement as baseless.

"Iran has successfully defended its nuclear programme, but Musharraf’s statements would create problems for both Iran and Pakistan," The News quoted the Qazi as saying.

In a recent interview with a German weekly, Musharraf had admitted that Iran was nurturing ambitions of acquiring a nuclear bomb.

The Qazi said that the President was trying to become a witness against the brotherly Islamic state for supporting `Uncle Sam’.

The MMA also accused Musharraf of working at the behest of the US when he defamed and detained the country’s hero Dr AQ Khan, who is widely known as Pakistan’s father of nuclear technology."

Daily Times - Attack on Iran will have dire consequences: Musharraf

2005-05-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

Daily Times - Site Edition: "Saturday, May 28, 2005

Attack on Iran will have dire consequences: Musharraf

* Musharraf vows to eradicate terrorism and militancy

ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf has said pre-emptive military strikes against Iran would have dire consequences for the world.

In an interview with a German weekly, he advised against opening a new front, saying a pre-emptive military strike against Iran would result in massive devastation and unrest among Muslims.

He said Pakistan was opposed to nuclear proliferation and that it developed nuclear arms to counter an Indian threat. He said the situation was different in Iran’s case and that Israel and Iran did not have common borders. “Unlike Iran, we were facing a real threat,” he added.

President Musharraf said Iran was certainly desirous of developing nuclear weapons but said it should not do so.

Meanwhile, President General Pervez Musharraf vowed on Friday to eradicate terrorism and militancy, saying terrorists were tarnishing the country’s image. He told officials after inaugurating Pakistan Steel Mills Gate, “In the presence of the Pakistan Army, the entity of any Lashkhar or Jaish will not be tolerated.” He said the government was committed to stamping out militancy and terrorism and terrorists would not be allowed to play their dirty game in the country any more.

The president condemned the Bari Imam suicide bomb attack and said he was trying to remove misperceptions about the country, but such attacks continued to tarnish Pakistan’s image abroad.

Earlier, President Musharraf said the government had worked out a three-pronged strategy to control the spread of poverty, joblessness and increasing prices. The president said steps were underway to increase the rural population’s income and also to create job opportunities in urban areas. He added that the price hike was also being checked.

President Musharrafsaid the government’s strategy in rural areas had been highly successful. He said that cotton yield of 15 million bales and wheat yield of 22 million tons had generated Rs 60 billion, adding that motorcycles’ sale had increased 500 percent in rural areas. agencies."

Reuters.co.uk: WTO agrees entry talks with Iran, U.S. drops veto

2005-05-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

World News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "WTO agrees entry talks with Iran, U.S. drops veto
Thu May 26, 2005 6:17 PM BST

WTO Begins Talks With Iran
By Richard Waddington

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreed on Thursday to start membership negotiations with Iran after the United States dropped a long-standing veto.

The U.S. decision appeared to be the first tangible reward for Iran after it agreed on Wednesday to maintain its suspension of all nuclear activities in a deal with the European Union.

Mohammad Reza Alborzi, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, welcomed the breakthrough at WTO's General Council, whose 148 member states take decisions by consensus.

"I take note that a decision that has long been overdue has been now established," Alborzi said in remarks to the closed-door meeting.

Iran applied to join the WTO in September 1996 and its candidacy was first considered in May 2001. But Washington had blocked agreement ever since at 22 General Council meetings.

"Today this house with this decision has done service to itself by correcting a wrong," Alborzi said in his statement, which was given to journalists.

Iran's Commerce Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari told state radio: "Naturally, we are at the beginning of a long road."

Carlo Trojan, the EU's trade ambassador, welcomed the decision as "positive news". Joseph Akerman, a trade envoy from member Israel, said if Iran fulfils the basic principles of the WTO, "then they are welcome like any other country".

Linnet Deily, U.S. ambassador to the WTO, did not take the floor at the WTO talks, according to diplomats.

Amina Mohamed, Kenya's ambassador who chairs the General Council, told a news conference: "Universal membership is our goal and this brings us one step closer to it."

POLICY SHIFT

The United States accuses Tehran of wanting to build nuclear weapons and of supporting terrorism. Iran denies the charges.

But in a policy shift in March designed to bolster EU-Tehran negotiations, the United States offered Iran economic incentives to abandon its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons, including letting WTO accession talks start.

But that U.S. commitment was put at risk when Iran recently declared its intent to resume sensitive nuclear activities. An imminent crisis was averted on Wednesday when the so-called "EU3" -- Britain, France and Germany -- agreed with Iran on a two-month breathing space for a deal.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani told Iranian state television that the EU deal could still unravel if the Tehran government objected to the terms.

Iran has repeatedly said there are no incentives the West can offer that would persuade it to give up a nuclear programme it insists will only produce electricity, and not weapons.

But the green light to talks from the WTO, which sets the rules for world trade, does not mean that Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, will be joining soon.

Accession talks can take years, with Russia still negotiating its entry after a decade of discussions.

In all, 30 countries including Iran and Sao Tome and Principe, whose request was also approved on Thursday, are now in or about to start negotiations on terms of WTO accession. These include Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer.

Iran would have to accept much more openness in its trading system and would face tough questions about the subsidised energy supplies enjoyed by its domestic producers, experts say.

Syria, which applied in 2001, has yet to have its request taken up formally by the global trade watchdog amid continuing U.S. opposition, trade sources said."

Syria severs military cooperation with U.S. - NYT - Yahoo! News

2005-05-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

Syria severs military cooperation with U.S. - NYT - Yahoo! News: "Syria severs military cooperation with U.S. - NYT Tue May 24,12:14 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Syria has severed military and intelligence cooperation with the United States, its ambassador to Washington told The New York Times in an interview published on its Web site on Monday.

The ambassador, Imad Moustapha, told the newspaper in an interview given last Friday at the Syrian Embassy in Washington, that his country had, in the last 10 days, "severed all links" with the U.S. military and Central Intelligence Agency because of what he called unjust American allegations.

Moustapha said he believed the Bush administration had decided "to escalate the situation with Syria" despite steps the Syrians have taken against insurgents in Iraq, and despite the recent withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, in response to international demands.

"We thought, why should we continue to cooperate?" he said.

The comments were in response to Bush administration complaints that Syria was not doing enough to halt the flow of men and money to the insurgency in Iraq.

Moustapha said his government had done all it could to respond to American complaints, including taking steps to build barriers and add to border patrols.

Relations between Syria and the United States have been strained for months, and some Bush administration officials said Syria's level of cooperation had been dwindling even before the latest move to halt cooperation.

Bush administration officials said Syria's stance has prompted intense debate at high levels in the administration about new steps that might be taken against the Syrian government, The Times reported.

The officials said options included possible military, diplomatic or economic action. But senior Pentagon and military officials cautioned Monday that if any military action was ordered, it was likely to be limited, the report said.

"There's a lot of discussion about what to do about Syria and what a problem it is," the administration official, who works for an agency involved in the debate, told The Times."

Officers Plot Exit Strategy - Army Not Prepared To Invade Iran

2005-05-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

Officers Plot Exit Strategy - Yahoo! News: "Officers Plot Exit Strategy By Mark Mazzetti Times Staff Writer
Sun May 22, 7:55 AM ET

KILLEEN, Texas — Army Capts. Dave Fulton and Geoff Heiple spent 12 months dodging roadside bombs and rounding up insurgents along Baghdad's "highway of death" — the six miles of pavement linking downtown Baghdad to the capital city's airport. Two weeks after returning stateside to Ft. Hood, they ventured to a spartan conference room at the local Howard Johnson to find out about changing careers.

Lured by a headhunting firm that places young military officers in private-sector jobs, the pair, both 26, expected anonymity in the crowded room.

Instead, as Fulton and Heiple sipped Budweisers pulled from Styrofoam coolers next to the door, they spotted nearly a dozen familiar faces from their cavalry battalion, which had just ended a yearlong combat tour in Iraq.

The shocks of recognition came as they exchanged quick, awkward glances with others from their unit, each man clearly surprised to see someone else considering a life outside the military.

"This is a real eye-opener," said Fulton, a West Point graduate who saw a handful of cadets from his class. "It seems like everyone in the room is either from my squad or from my class."

More than three years after the Sept. 11 attacks spawned an era of unprecedented strain on the all-volunteer military, it is scenes like this that keep the Army's senior generals awake at night. With thousands of soldiers currently on their second combat deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan and some preparing for their third this fall, evidence is mounting that an exodus of young Army officers may be looming on the horizon.

It is especially troubling for Pentagon officials that the Army's pool of young captains, which forms the backbone of infantry and armored units deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, could be the hardest hit.

Last year, Army lieutenants and captains left the service at an annual rate of 8.7% — the highest since 2001. Pentagon officials say they expect the attrition rate to improve slightly this year. Yet interviews with several dozen military officers revealed an undercurrent of discontent within the Army's young officer corps that the Pentagon's statistics do not yet capture.

Young captains in the Army are looking ahead to repeated combat tours, years away from their families and a global war that their commanders tell them could last for decades. Like other college grads in their mid-20s, they are making decisions about what to do with their lives.

And many officers, who until recently had planned to pursue careers in the military, are deciding that it's a future they can't sign up for.

The officers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan just wrapped up a year of grueling counterinsurgency operations — a type of combat the U.S. largely avoided after its struggle in Vietnam and that many in the Pentagon believe is the new face of war. They were in Iraq during last spring's uprisings in Fallouja and Najaf, June's transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government and block-to-block fighting during the retaking of Fallouja in November.

These officers have, in most cases, more counterinsurgency experience than any of their superiors. And they are the people the Army most fears losing.

The officers interviewed for this article are proud of what they accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they are generally optimistic that the two nations can eventually emerge as functioning, if unstable, democracies.

Those just returning from Iraq ended their combat tours on a positive note with successful parliamentary elections in January, which had been the singular focus of their deployment.

Yet their pride is tempered by uncertainty about what lies ahead in an unconventional war in which victory may never be declared.

"The undefined goals of the war on terror are making it really hard for the Army to keep people right now," Fulton said.

By the time they make captain, young officers are usually approaching the end of their four- or five-year commitment. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said the attrition rate for junior officers was not yet alarming, and the Army had several initiatives in place to help retain those deciding whether to make a career out of the military.

The Pentagon hopes that by next year, a significant troop reduction in Iraq will allow the Army to slow the pace of troop deployments, giving soldiers two years at home for every year in battle.

Yet Pentagon officials admit it is uncertain that this can happen by 2006.

"I still don't know if we can make it," said a senior Army officer at the Pentagon. "You tell me what Iraq is going to look like next year."

Meanwhile, the Army is dispatching combat units to Iraq and Afghanistan after soldiers have had just one year at home, a pace that is taking a toll around the country.

Timothy Muchmore, a civilian Army official at the Pentagon and a retired tank officer, said he was worried about an exodus of young officers. He summed up the problem this way:

"You take a junior officer, you send them overseas for a year. They win a lot of medals, and they're a hero. But when you send them back a second time, the odds go up that they won't make it home alive and it becomes even harder on their family. Are they any more of a hero for having served a second time? No.

"The guys returning from Iraq and Afghanistan believe they have done at least the minimum for the security of their country, and they are proud of their service," he said. "But the world is now their oyster."

Private-sector pitch

Inside the overheated conference room at the Howard Johnson in Killeen, Fulton and Heiple listened to a well-rehearsed pitch about what the world might have to offer.

At the front of the room, Andrew Hollitt, a beefy, gregarious former Army officer turned headhunter spoke in marketing terms about how eager private-sector employers were for young, combat-tested officers and senior noncommissioned officers.

"You are a commodity that brings a tremendous amount to the table," he told the packed room, sipping from a can of Budweiser. "I can sell something that I believe in. And it's people like you."

The Lucas Group was not trying to persuade them to leave the Army, Hollitt said, only to present them with another set of options.

"I am red, white and blue on the inside," the recruiter assured the capacity crowd.

In a telephone interview after the recruiting session, Hollitt said he had yet to see the same volume of young soldiers contact the Lucas Group as he did during the late 1990s, when the military drawdown forced the Pentagon to slash its numbers and push young officers out of the service.

At the same time, he said, the pace of Army deployments was clearly having an effect — and that the quality of those leaving was very high. "I am seeing the highest caliber of candidates now that I have seen in five years of doing this," he said. "The companies we work with are absolutely, unbelievably impressed."

Employers such as General Electric Co., Home Depot Inc. and others are always on the lookout for managerial talent, Hollitt said, and mid-level commanders tested in war are considered experienced leaders.

By the time they make captain, he said, the officers usually have command experience leading an infantry or armor company, which forces them to make life-and-death decisions on a daily basis.

After the session was over, Heiple and Fulton were wary about what they had just heard. And it was not that the average starting salaries of $50,000 to $70,000 were much more than they had earned in Iraq when combat pay and bonuses were included.

Instead, one of their biggest concerns about working in the civilian world was that it was "cheesier" and less serious than what they currently do for a living.

"I kind of worry that the corporate world is a lot like 'Office Space,' " said Heiple, referring to the 1999 movie that parodied American office park culture.

Combat experience

The 1st Cavalry Division was considered for the assault on Baghdad in 2003 but ended up staying stateside as commanders in Washington and the Middle East decided to pare down the invasion force.

When the division was notified that it would be heading to Iraq in 2004, a year after the fall of Baghdad, the 1st Cav's officers thought they had missed out on the action.

"I thought we were going to be the third string of the JV," Heiple said.

Far from being over, the war in Iraq had entered its bloodiest stage, and Heiple and Fulton's battalion was in charge of patrolling Baghdad's restive Al Rashid district. Their unit had the Sisyphean task of trying to secure Baghdad's airport highway, the road many in the battalion called the "shooting gallery" because of the constant attacks against U.S. troops.

Over time and through grim experience, they learned the brutal rules that govern counterinsurgency warfare.

They point with a certain amount of pride to a January incident that occurred soon after the battalion's most respected and indispensable Iraqi interpreter, Ethar, was assassinated.

Ethar had been lured to an insurgent safe house by another Iraqi interpreter who had been paid off by insurgents. There, Ethar was brutally beaten and shot in the head. Soldiers found his body while on patrol.

News of the death hit the battalion hard, and they planned their revenge. Acting on information from an Iraqi source, the battalion hit multiple targets around west Baghdad in a single night, which some of the battalion's officers only half-jokingly called "the night of justice."

"We took down the whole cell" in a night, Fulton recalled, capturing or killing all the insurgents on their target list.

"It was personal, and it felt really good," he added.

Heiple, a native of Jonestown, Pa., said he would not have traded for anything the experience of leading troops in combat or of earning the 1st Cavalry's trademark Stetson hat and gold spurs — given to cavalry soldiers when they have served in a combat zone.

Yet, with these achievements behind him, the Notre Dame graduate said he was looking for a life with more stability. Heiple decided while he was in Iraq that he would leave the Army when his commitment expires next month. He plans to move with his girlfriend to Austin, where he hopes to attend law school at the University of Texas.

Heiple's decision to leave the Army did not come suddenly. At 26, he felt his window of opportunity to change careers was closing. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that he wanted to follow a different path.

"I can only wait so long," Heiple said.

Fulton spent eight years of his youth in the Congo, where his father worked as a bush pilot. His family relocated to Haiti in 1990 and spent three years there before they were evacuated before U.S. troops landed on the island in 1994.

Fulton then moved to Redlands, Calif. When he was in high school there, the military piqued his interest and he visited an Army recruiting station. His test scores led one recruiter to suggest that he instead apply to West Point. During his senior year, the late Rep. Sonny Bono (R-Palm Springs) nominated Fulton for his military commission to the armed forces academy in New York state.

Fulton returned from Iraq in March and went on a cruise to Mexico with his wife during his 30-day leave. His wife, Fulton said, wants him to leave the military more than anything.

In June, the two will move with their 3-year-old son to Ft. Knox, Ky., where Fulton will begin a six-month course on commanding armored units.

He will still have a year left of his Army commitment when the course is completed, yet Fulton admits that given the Army's current pace of deployments, he is leaning toward leaving the service.

"If West Point didn't have a five-year commitment," he said, "I'd probably be pursuing something else right now. I know my wife would like me to choose something else immediately."

Careers in the balance

A college graduate with an Army ROTC scholarship usually owes four years of active duty to the military, along with a period in the Army Reserves or National Guard. A West Point graduate owes five.

Army officials know that if they are able to persuade captains to remain in uniform a few years past their initial commitment, the odds are good they will eventually commit to a full 20-year military career.

But in the words of one Army captain, a West Point graduate who spent 10 months in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004 and plans to leave the Army next year: "A lot of guys making their decision at the five-year mark are not making their decision for [just] the next three years. They are making their decision about whether to make a career out of the military.

"The guys in my age group are looking ahead and deciding that's not a life they want to live."

Mid-level officers around the country are confronting the same choice. The 1-34 armor battalion of the 1st Infantry Division returned last year to Ft. Riley, Kan., after a year in Iraq's so-called Sunni Triangle, the region of heaviest conflict. The battalion is expecting to return to Iraq later this year, and many young officers are choosing to get out before then.

Capt. Eric Emerling, the battalion's fire support officer, is one of three captains who decided to leave after returning from Iraq. Emerling said he initially looked forward to a career in the Army. When he returned, his superiors offered him command of an artillery battery, a milestone promotion for a career officer.

But he and his wife decided in January that they did not want to commit to a future of "repeated deployments for the next 13 years."

"What tipped the scale is that I have a 2-year-old daughter. I want more stability for her," Emerling said by telephone, his little girl in the background competing for her father's attention. "I missed the first half of her life. I'm not willing to do that again."

The 27-year-old captain is moving to Connecticut, where he has a job with a landscaping company. He said he was concerned about the Army's future, with many of the military's young leaders planning their exits.

"I see how many people are getting out here at my local unit level. It's a bit of a worry," he said. "We lost a lot of lieutenants and captains."

Life outside the zone

Heiple and Fulton live in an apartment complex in Georgetown, Texas, an Austin suburb 30 miles south of Ft. Hood's main gate. When searching for housing after they returned from Iraq, they specifically sought apartments some distance from the base.

Killeen, with its infrastructure catering to thousands of soldiers and their families, provides constant reminders of military life. But in Georgetown, a soldier walking the streets in desert camouflage is a rarity.

The young officers are coming to the end of their post-deployment "reintegration" period — several weeks of administrative briefings and counseling sessions before they are allowed to leave post for 30 days to visit friends and family.

With their feet propped up on a coffee table piled high with newspapers, DVD cases and back issues of the Economist, Heiple and Fulton watch "Matrix Revolutions" on the recently purchased 50-inch flat screen television in the living room of their neighbor — Capt. Vincent Tuohey, another member of their battalion just back from Iraq.

With distractions such as basketball, bars and new electronic equipment, there is plenty for the young officers to focus on besides their time in Iraq, or on the steady stream of violent news out of the country.

Said Heiple: "You don't purposefully avoid the news. But you don't go out of your way to find it, either."

Tuohey, a Harvard graduate from Annapolis, Md., who earned a master's degree from Cambridge University in Britain, served the last year as an executive officer for a cavalry unit in west Baghdad.

Like all of the soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division who just returned to Ft. Hood, Tuohey is readjusting to life outside a combat zone.

He is edgy sitting in traffic, having taught himself in Iraq to maneuver his Bradley fighting vehicle to avoid city traffic and the inevitable insurgent attacks. The first time he got into a car when he returned to Ft. Hood, his heart began racing and he broke out in a sweat.

Tuohey was a lieutenant during his deployment in Iraq and is proud that most of the decision-making for counterinsurgency missions fell to the Army's youngest officers.

"At no time before has the Army had LTs [lieutenants] who have made decisions like that on a daily basis," he said.

As he sees it, the military now has an entire generation of young officers who are battle-hardened and knowledgeable about battling insurgencies.

Even in Iraq, he said, senior commanders were keenly aware of those officers who might be considering leaving the military and applied various degrees of pressure to persuade them to remain in uniform.

They appeal to the sense of mission, Tuohey said, and the sense of purpose of military life that doesn't exist in the outside world. And they usually bring up an example of a friend who left the Army only to regret the decision.

Yet Tuohey, who was promoted to captain upon returning to Ft. Hood, said he was not sure whether he would stay in the Army when his commitment ended next year. He said he was tempted to work on Wall Street.

It's not the money he's after. It's the fact that an Army that was gutted after the Cold War was promising him a future of perpetual deployments fighting a war that could last for decades.

That is not a future he is sure he can commit to.

"What's the end point?" he asked. "When do you declare victory?""

BELLACIAO - Israel Plans Strike on Iran (brought to you by the makers of �Strike on Iraq�) - Collective Bellaciao

2005-05-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

BELLACIAO - Israel Plans Strike on Iran (brought to you by the makers of �Strike on Iraq�) - Collective Bellaciao: "Israel Plans Strike on Iran (brought to you by the makers of ’Strike on Iraq’)

Revealed: Israel plans strike on Iranian nuclear plant Uzi Mahnaimi
ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy fails to halt the Iranian nuclear programme.

The inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave “initial authorisation” for an attack at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert.

Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it. Their tactics include raids by Israel’s elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.

The plans have been discussed with American officials who are said to have indicated provisionally that they would not stand in Israel’s way if all international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear projects failed.

Tehran claims that its programme is designed for peaceful purposes but Israeli and American intelligence officials - who have met to share information in recent weeks - are convinced that it is intended to produce nuclear weapons.

The Israeli government responded cautiously yesterday to an announcement by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, that America would support Britain, France and Germany in offering economic incentives for Tehran to abandon its programme.

In return, the European countries promised to back Washington in referring Iran to the United Nations security council if the latest round of talks fails to secure agreement.

Silvan Shalom, the Israeli foreign minister, said he believed that diplomacy was the only way to deal with the issue. But he warned: “The idea that this tyranny of Iran will hold a nuclear bomb is a nightmare, not only for us but for the whole world.”

Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, emphasised on Friday that Iran would face “stronger action” if it failed to respond. But yesterday Iran rejected the initiative, which provides for entry to the World Trade Organisation and a supply of spare parts for airliners if it co-operates.

“No pressure, bribe or threat can make Iran give up its legitimate right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes,” said an Iranian spokesman.

US officials warned last week that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israeli or American forces had not been ruled out should the issue become deadlocked at the United Nations.

Additional reporting: Tony Allen-Mills, Washington

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/articl...

by : Uzi Mahnaimi
Sunday 15th May 2005"

Over our dead bodies!: Iran's Chalabi

2005-05-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

Over our dead bodies!: Iran's Chalabi: "Iran's Chalabi
1- Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea for people like Mr. Ledeen, whom still promote interference in Iranian affairs, to assess Mr. Sazgara's popularity among young Iranians before and after he came to the U.S to "seek help".

A good start would be to surf among Iranian blogs, have the posts translated to english, and count the pejorative words!

2- For my english speaking journalist friends who don't read Farsi and consequently cannot accurately decode the reactions among Iranian bloggers, I would like to add that Mr. Sazgara, despite all his past services to the reform mouvement and his often courageous stands (which made him popular among many students), has now been dubbed as Iran's Chalabi!
It is so unfortunate... "

ABC News: U.S. Sanctions Bill Hides Support for Terorism - Ros-Lehtinen Tied To Terrorists

2005-05-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

ABC News: Support for U.S. Sanctions for Iran Grows: "Support for U.S. Sanctions for Iran GrowsSupport for New U.S. Sanctions Against Iran Quietly Building in Congress
By KEN GUGGENHEIM Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON May 16, 2005 — As Iran appears to move closer to resuming nuclear activities, support has been quietly building in Congress for new U.S. sanctions, including penalties that could affect multinational companies and this country's foreign aid recipients.

The legislation would put the United States on a more confrontational course than the one pursued by President Bush. He has supported European efforts to offer Iran incentives in exchange for abandoning its nuclear program.

More than 200 members of the House of Representatives nearly half the body are co-sponsoring a bill that would tighten and codify existing sanctions, bar subsidiaries of U.S. companies from doing business in Iran and cut foreign aid to countries that have businesses investing in Iran.

Podcast: The AfterNote
Reid Says Showdown Imminent in Senate
The Note: A Man Soon Forgets That He Trod on a Lion's Tail . . .

More lawmakers both Republicans and Democrats are adding their names to the bill every week.

The measure faces big hurdles before becoming law, however. Support may not be as strong in the Senate, which is considering a more limited version. Key lawmakers in both chambers could block the legislation. The White House has not taken a position, but it generally opposes congressional efforts to steer foreign policy.

"We will have the perennial and traditional battle with the executive branch as to who can have a say on foreign policy initiatives," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the House bill's main sponsor.

But momentum would likely build if Iran carries out its threat to resume some nuclear activities and its talks break down with Britain, France and Germany, which are negotiating on behalf of the European Union, or EU.

In Tehran, Iranian lawmakers instructed the government Sunday to develop a nuclear fuel cycle, which would include resuming the process of enriching uranium, which could be used in developing atomic weapons.

The legislation is expected to get a boost when one of the most influential lobbying groups, the American Israel Political Action Committee, holds its annual meeting in Washington this month. AIPAC has made the bill a high priority."

Iran Formally declares the U.S. "Not An Enemy"

2005-05-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

Iran Ruling Frees Man Jailed for Poll on U.S.: "May 14, 2005 latimes.com : World E-mail story Print Most E-Mailed

THE WORLD
Iran Ruling Frees Man Jailed for Poll on U.S.
From Reuters
TEHRAN — Iran has freed a leading political prisoner jailed for publishing a survey indicating that Iranians favored resuming dialogue with their supposed archfoe the United States, his lawyer said Friday.

Abbas Abdi was sentenced in 2003 to 4 1/2 years in prison for "selling intelligence to the enemy," referring to the poll, which found that three-quarters of Iranians wanted their country to have a dialogue with the U.S.

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But Iran's Supreme Court ruled last week that the United States was not officially defined as an enemy, and Abdi was released after 30 months in prison.

"This is an unprecedented ruling, because five senior judges, including a cleric, suggest the United States is not an enemy," said Abdi's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht.

Abdi was one of the student leaders who took dozens of U.S. diplomats hostage at their Tehran embassy in 1979 and held them for 444 days. Like many of the former hostage-takers, Abdi became a reformist advocating warmer ties with the West.

Washington severed relations with Iran in 1980 as a result of the hostage crisis, and any suggestion of talks with the U.S. is highly sensitive."

Iran News - Iran producing its first locally-built submarine

2005-05-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Iran producing its first locally-built submarine: "Iran producing its first locally-built submarine

Thursday, May 12, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com
LONDON, May 12 (IranMania) - Iran has begun producing its first locally-built submarine, state media reported Wednesday, saying the vessel was designed to remain undetected and fire missiles and torpedoes simultaneously.

The craft will boost Iran's inventory of submarines patrolling Gulf waters that according to foreign military experts includes up to six Russian-built SSK or SSI Kilo class diesel submarines, Iran Daily reported.

The defence ministry said the new submarine is called the Ghadir -- a religious holiday to mark the day Shiite Muslims believe the prophet Mohammad annointed Imam Ali as his successor.

The vessel, a prototype of which is undergoing tests, is designed for rapid deployment, said the ministry, which gave no further details."

The Observer | International | Iran ready to ignore US nuclear countdown

2005-04-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

The Observer | International | Iran ready to ignore US nuclear countdown: "Iran ready to ignore US nuclear countdown

Paul Kenyon penetrates the Islamic republic's most secret installations as weapons inspectors grow wary and America presses the UN for action
Sunday May 1, 2005
The Observer
Across a landscape scattered with snow, we drove along silent roads, past pitted fields, until the first gun tower came into view. A whole line of them followed the contours of the mountainside. What they're defending lies beneath, a warren of rooms and tunnels the size of eight football pitches. It's home to Iran's most sensitive nuclear facility, Natanz.
Iran says it is part of a peaceful nuclear energy programme, but it has been built underground in case of air attacks. The Iranians' worries are not far fetched.

In the minibus, the United Nations' nuclear inspectors swap stories of Iran's reaction to their presence. 'Whatever we do, they're behind us trying to record our movements and it's disturbing,' says one of the most senior inspectors, Chris Charlier. 'It's all part of the game.'

Charlier is a Belgian nuclear scientist who has travelled the world inspecting nuclear installations for the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], a nuclear arm of the UN. His conclusion on Iran is this: 'I believe they've tried to conceal their programme and their activities. And may be there are other things they're doing that we couldn't find. And that's why we're getting suspicious.'

The UN's suspicions about Iran went into overdrive 18 months ago. The Iranian Vice President, Reza Agazadeh, had just told the IAEA: 'Complete transparency of my country's nuclear activities is a serious commitment.' Then an Iranian opposition group operating outside the country tipped off the inspectors about Natanz, and other nuclear activities Iran had chosen not to declare.

Shortly afterwards, the inspectors asked for access to a nondescript warehouse in Tehran called The Kalaye Electric Company. At its heart were the highly-engineered centrifuges required to make nuclear fuel. The problem is, once a country has mastered enriching uranium for energy, it's not far off developing weapons grade uranium if it chooses. Which is why the UN inspectors wanted to test for nuclear particles. 'When they opened the door,' says Charlier, 'everything had been changed. There were new tiles to the roof, everything was brand new. It was still smelling of paint.'

More dramatic still was Lavizan, a suspected nuclear site on the outskirts of Tehran. It took two months for the inspectors to get access. When they arrived, the buildings, the equipment had gone. The satellite 'before and after' shot shows gleaming silver buildings being replaced by a triangle of rough brown earth.

Charlier is frank about what this pattern of behaviour means: 'The way they've been postponing, and trying to gain time, is suspicious. I don't think the IAEA has any facts to support the idea that they have a nuclear weapons programme, but the way that Iran has behaved in all those smaller issues has made the agency suspicious.'

The Americans are less cautious. 'There's no question that Iran is embarked on a project to acquire nuclear weapons,' says the assistant secretary of state for arms control, Stephen Rademaker. As in Iraq, there's no smoking gun but the circumstantial evidence leaves the US snorting in disbelief at anyone who doesn't share their conclusion.

Iran is unabashed by its apparent deceit. Its man at the IAEA is Syirous Naseri, a charismatic sharp-suited nuclear negotiator with an alligator grin, who appraised his handling of the American diplomats thus: 'If we talk to each other for five minutes we will have a fight.'

Naseri's position is that everything the inspectors have found is for nuclear energy. 'What we have is the right, an inalienable right to produce nuclear energy, not just to use but to produce nuclear energy,' he said.

He's right. Under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, each member state is supposed to share its peaceful nuclear technology with the rest. In theory that means that advanced countries, such as America, should be assisting the rest, Iran for example. The US sanctions imposed since the Islamic revolution, along with the West's traditional distrust of Iran, have put paid to that. Iran says that's why it has been so secretive. It went to the black market, built a multi-million pound nuclear programme and decided not to declare significant parts of it because, essentially, it knew everyone would be suspicious if it did. Simple. Nothing to worry about.

America doesn't buy it. It wants Iran referred to the UN Security Council as soon as possible. All that is preventing that from happening are the three European countries who believe there's still mileage in diplomacy. The UK, France and Germany have been in meetings with Naseri and his men for six months. The last round of talks was in London on Friday night. They persuaded the Iranians to temporarily suspend their nuclear enrichment programme.

But the Americans and Israelis are becoming impatient. There's a worry that these protracted negotiations with the Europeans are simply handing time to the Iranians to build a bomb. They have the centrifuges required - those they say are for making nuclear fuel - and they have the missile to launch them. So how long have we got before Iran goes nuclear? 'This issue is hotly debated among intelligent experts. We think it's measured in years, but not many years,' says Rademaker. Naseri is dismissive: 'Who are the Americans to say what we want to have, what we have, and what we should want? All they have done is made every effort that they could to deny us technology.'

With Iran determined to resume its nuclear enrichment programme and America equally determined that such a resumption will send it to the UN Security Council, this crisis seems certain not to be resolved by diplomacy alone.

· Paul Kenyon's documentary, 'Iran's Nuclear Secrets', is on BBC2 on Tuesday at 9pm."