The New IAEA Report on Iran: An Initial Response to the Explosive Reactions… of the Press
Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep In America | November 8, 2011
The leaking of the newest IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program has predictably sent the media into a fear-mongering frenzy.
The Jerusalem Post giddily reports that the IAEA says “the Islamic Republic was working to develop a nuclear-weapon design and was conducting extensive research and tests that could only be relevant for such a weapon.”
The New York Times‘ Sanger and Broad published a story entitled “U.N. Agency Says Iran Data Points to A-Bomb Work,” The Washington Post‘s Joby Warrick noted the exposure of “secret nuclear research by Iran,” Reuters‘ Fredrik Dahl and Sylvia Westall reported that “Iran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be conducting secret research,” Ha’aretz‘s Yossi Melman declared that “Iran has been working toward building a nuclear weapon since 2003,” and Associated Press‘ George Jahn wrote that “the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency is its most unequivocal yet suggesting that Iran is using the cover of a peaceful nuclear program to produce atomic weaponry.”
The Guardian writes that Iran “may be researching nuclear warhead”, the BBC said Iran is “studying nuclear weapons”, the Financial Times got in on the action by stating that “Iran has sought to design a nuclear warhead and has continued to conduct research on an atomic weapons programme,” the Los Angeles Times reported that “credible evidence indicates Iran may be secretly working to develop a nuclear weapon,” while CNN posted headline “Iran developing nuclear bombs,” despite going on to report that the IAEA has “found no evidence that Iran has made a strategic decision to actually build a bomb.”
Curiously, as of this writing, Commentary‘s Michael Rubin has so far stayed away from actually commenting on the report, posting only some excerpts from the document instead, and The Weekly Standard has yet to weigh in at all.
Anyone familiar with the history of IAEA reports on Iran will find very little in the way of revelation in the 13-page “bombshell” that everyone seems to be freaking out about. It’s big on fluff, weak on substance.
Most of the allegations, described for the first time at great length and in minute detail, are resurrected claims, the so-called “alleged studies documentation” – long known to rest somewhere on the spectrum of dubious to fabricated – gleaned from a mysterious, stolen laptop. Because of its questionable origin and authenticity, the IAEA has consistently shied away from giving such information much credence.
As a result, the agency has in the past been accused by “senior Western diplomats and Israeli officials” of “hiding data on Iran’s drive to obtain nuclear arms.” In response, IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire issued this statement:
“Regrettably, time and again unidentified sources feed the media and Member States with misinformation or misinterpretation. This time around, there are articles claiming that the Secretariat is hiding information, and that there are sharp disagreements among staff members involved about the contents of the report. Needless to say, such allegations have no basis in fact.”
In 2009, the IAEA “admitted that some of the material in the now-infamous ‘secret annex’ about Iran’s nuclear program exists, but claims it wasn’t verifiable enough to release.” Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy reported that “the classified information…was collected as part of the IAEA’s annual volume on Iran but never made the final cut” due to the fact that IAEA authorities “decided they weren’t confident in the authenticity of the information contained in the extra document, and they couldn’t verify what that research had found.”
In October 2009, IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei explained, “The IAEA is not making any judgment at all whether Iran even had weaponisation studies before because there is a major question of authenticity of the documents.”
It appears that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, the U.S.’ man in Vienna, who in 2009 said, “I don’t see any evidence in IAEA official documents about this,” when asked whether he thought Iran was seeking nuclear weapons, has decided to change his mind.
For its part, the IAEA does its best to sound serious. By way of introducing the supposedly damning “Annex” section of its new report, the IAEA purports to having obtained “a large volume of documentation (including correspondence, reports, view graphs from presentations, videos and engineering drawings), amounting to over a thousand pages,” documentation “of a technically complex and interconnected nature, showing research, development and testing activities over time.”
The report concludes, “The information which serves as the basis for the Agency’s analysis and concerns, as identified in the Annex, is assessed by the Agency to be, overall, credible.”
The insertion of the word “overall” and without going into specifics about which documents were verifiable and which were not is but one indication that the IAEA itself may not be wholly buying what it’s trying to sell.
Additionally, at the beginning of certain subcategories of the detailed “Annex”, the report gives brief explanations of various aspects of nuclear weaponization, information that one would expect any member of the IAEA Board of Governors to already know. For example, the section about “Nuclear components for an explosive device,” opens with this tutorial: “For use in a nuclear device, HEU retrieved from the enrichment process is first converted to metal. The metal is then cast and machined into suitable components for a nuclear core.” The next section, labeled “Detonator development,” begins, “The development of safe, fast-acting detonators, and equipment suitable for firing the detonators, is an integral part of a programme to develop an implosion type nuclear device.” The section marked, “Initiation of high explosives and associated experiments,” explains that “Detonators provide point source initiation of explosives, generating a naturally diverging detonation wave. In an implosion type nuclear explosive device, an additional component, known as a multipoint initiation system, can be used to reshape the detonation wave into a converging smooth implosion to ensure uniform compression of the core fissile material to supercritical density,” while the “Hydrodynamic experiments” section begins, “One necessary step in a nuclear weapon development programme is determining whether a theoretical design of an implosion device, the behaviour of which can be studied through computer simulations, will work in practice.”
Introductions like these to sections heavy on technicalities and minutiae give the impression that the intended audience for this report is not a panel of experts and Agency ambassadors familiar with nuclear physics, but rather a malleable media and a gullibly alarmist public.
Whereas a lot of ground already covered regarding allegations of weapons research before 2003 is rehashed in the report, there is little in the way of new charges. In fact, the IAEA admits, “The Agency’s ability to construct an equally good understanding of activities in Iran after the end of 2003 is reduced due to the more limited information available to the Agency.”
The report cites information provided by two unnamed member states (Palau and Vanuatu, perhaps?) claiming that in 2008 and 2009, conducted studies involving “the modelling of spherical geometries, consisting of components of the core of an HEU nuclear device subjected to shock compression, for their neutronic behaviour at high density, and a determination of the subsequent nuclear explosive yield.” The IAEA says “[t]he application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear explosive is unclear to the Agency.”
Furthermore, one paragraph of the report states, “In an interview in 2007 with a member of the clandestine nuclear supply network, the Agency was told that Iran had been provided with nuclear explosive design information. From information provided to the Agency during that interview, the Agency is concerned that Iran may have obtained more advanced design information than the information identified in 2004 as having been provided to Libya by the nuclear supply network.” (GOV/2011/65 C4.35)
If true (there are is no source material or footnoted reference available for this particular claim), it’s curious to note that the same year, IAEA head Mohammad ElBaradei told the press in Washington D.C., “I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear weapons program going on right now.” Shortly thereafter, in February 2008, ElBaradei told the IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors, “We have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran’s enrichment programme.”
In September 2009, the IAEA “reiterated that the body has no concrete proof that Iran has or has ever had a nuclear weapons programme,” and a month later, ElBaradei said, “I have been making it very clear that with regard to these alleged studies, we have not seen any use of nuclear material, we have not received any information that Iran has manufactured any part of a nuclear weapon or component. That’s why I say, to present the Iran threat as imminent is hype.”
One wonders what makes the 2007 interview with the “member of the clandestine nuclear supply network” so compelling now.
Despite all the allegations and supposed evidence found in the latest report, the IAEA still “continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs [locations outside facilities, all of which are situated within hospitals] declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement,” as it has numerous times a year for nearly a decade. This verification, as affirmed in Article 2 of the IAEA’s 1974 Safeguards Agreement with Iran, is the agency’s “exclusive purpose” with respect to the Iranian nuclear program.
Overall, the release and subsequent fallout of this report, as has been the case so many years now with similar attempts to stoke fear about Iran, feels a lot like this scene from the brilliant 1983 John Landis film Trading Places, with the United States and Israel playing the part of Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and Iran as Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy).
Unfortunately, it appears IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, whose independence and credibility may be irreparably damaged due to his decision to kowtow to Western demands and provide ample fuel to the warmongers’ fire, is unaware that “it ain’t cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving.”
Libya: ‘U.S. took a back seat’ myth takes another hit as Obama admits Americans flew French jets
By Martin Iqbal | Empire Strikes Black | 7 November 2011
One of the many myths of the Libya war is the claim that the Americans took a ‘back seat’. Discerning observers will acknowledge that U.S. niche capabilities such as Predator drones for bombings and intelligence gathering have played a crucial role. On top of this, political skulduggery on the parts of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have played a huge part in expediting the war, in tandem with CIA assets on the ground since very early on.(1) These factors, coupled with a very revealing recent development, completely blow the ‘back seat’ myth out of the water.
The October 20 assassination of Muammar Gaddafi was preceded by an airstrike on his convoy, which was travelling in the Sirte area. An American Predator drone performed the first strike, with a follow-up attack by French jets.(2) In a revealing November 04 Department of Defense press release,(3) Barack Obama admits that American pilots flew French jets in Libya:
“He noted that American pilots flew French fighter jets off a French carrier in the Mediterranean Sea during the operation. “Allies don’t get any closer than that,” he said.”
Thus, it is highly probable that the airstrike on Muammar Gaddafi’s convoy was an entirely American operation, as were many of the ‘French’ airstrikes on Libya.
This is all the more significant because, as of August 4, French planes had flown a whopping 33% of all strike sorties.(4)
Further underscoring U.S. involvement in the airstrikes on Libya, an October 30 New York Times report(5) finds that American planes flew 25% of all sorties, while ‘French’ and British aircraft provided 33% of total sorties:
“While U.S. planes flew a quarter of all sorties over Libya, France and Britain flew one third of all missions – most of them strikes,”
The notion that the Americans took a ‘back seat’ in the war can now be added to the long list(6) of big lies that have characterised the criminal, genocidal destruction of Libya.
Notes
(1) ‘Libya: Barack Obama ‘signed order for CIA to help rebels” – The Telegraph, March 30, 2011
(2) ‘The ‘rebel’ assassination of Muammar Gaddafi: a NATO operation from A to Z’ by Martin Iqbal
(3) ‘Obama: Libya Mission Underscores NATO’s Effectiveness’ – U.S. DoD, November 04, 2011.
(4) ‘National Composition of NATO Strike Sorties in Libya’ – Atlantic Council, August 22, 2011.
(5) ‘NATO’s Success in Libya’ – The New York Times, October 30, 2011.
(6) ‘The Top Ten Myths in the War Against Libya’ by Maximilian C. Forte.
“Nuclear Iran” Allegations: The Scary “R265 generator” Is Just Old Stuff
Moon of Alabama | November 8, 2011
Yesterday we looked at a The Washington Post piece on Iran’s alleged nuclear activities and found that two pieces of alleged “evidence” for illegitimate nuclear work, the cooperation with the Ukrainian scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko and the reported pictures of a detonation tank in Iran fit much better with Iran’s program to create nanodiamonds by detonation than with anything nuclear.
There is another scary bit of “evidence” mentioned in that Washington Post article and I will show below that this is not only old information but also quite murky stuff:
According to Albright, one key breakthrough that has not been publicly described was Iran’s success in obtaining design information for a device known as an R265 generator. The device is a hemispherical aluminum shell with an intricate array of high explosives that detonate with split-second precision. These charges compress a small sphere of enriched uranium or plutonium to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.Creating such a device is a formidable technical challenge, and Iran needed outside assistance in designing the generator and testing its performance, Albright said.
1. What is specifically an “R265 generator”? Can it kill me?
2. Iran “obtained design information” is one issue but did Iran actually build such a thing? From the second paragraph one might assume that because testing something would probably necessitate having the object available. But why then is the first paragraph quoted only about “obtained design information” not about producing it?
In a Guardian story Julian Borger today confirms at least some part of yesterdays analysis here and now points out the relation of nanodiamonds to Danilenko. Funny how that didn’t occur in Borger’s piece yesterday or any earlier pieces by him. He claims to have known Danielenko’s name since 2009 but only today, after I published on it, he mentions nanodiamonds. Doesn’t he know how to use Google or did he keep that information from his readers only to weasel it out now?
But today he also adds, like Washington Post based on Albright, a bit about that scary “R265 generator”:
One of the biggest areas of concern for the IAEA is evidence that Iranian scientists have conducted research on hemispherical arrays of explosives, of a type used in the construction of nuclear weapons to crush a spherical core of fissile material and thereby trigger a chain reaction.The central evidence for the research is a five-page document outlining experiments with the device, codenamed the R265 because it has a 265mm radius, but the UN inspectors are said to have gathered other corroborating evidence.
1. The “R262” name seems to be more of a joke than a specific type like the Washington Post piece lets one assume. It simply has a radius of 265mm and that is what gives the name. Still we are left with the “generator” part and the question of what it is supposed to “generate”.
2. There is nothing about a “a hemispherical aluminum shell” in Borger’s piece, just “hemispherical arrays of explosives”. Where does that aluminum in the Washington Post story come from? Is that the “corroborating evidence” Borger mentions?
3. Borger says the document is “outlining experiments with the device” and is not only “design information”. Which is it?
In a 2009 piece (as we already said – nothing new here) Borger described the device about the same way he does today. He also points to an older IAEA report as the real description.
The IAEA described (pdf) the five-page document even earlier in its May 26 2008 report on Iran:
A. Documents shown to Iran in connection with the alleged studies
…
A.2. High Explosives Testing
…
Document 3: Five page document in English describing experimentation undertaken with a complex multipoint initiation system to detonate a substantial amount of high explosive in hemispherical geometry and to monitor the development of the detonation wave in that high explosive using a considerable number of diagnostic probes.
This is again mentioned in a September 2008 report by the agency:
[17] (d) With reference to the document describing experimentation in connection with symmetrical initiation of a hemispherical high explosive charge suitable for an implosion type nuclear device, Iran has stated that there have been no such activities in Iran. Since the Director General’s previous report, the Agency has obtained information indicating that the experimentation described in this document may have involved the assistance of foreign expertise. Iran has been informed of the details of this information and has been asked to clarify this matter.
So according to the IAEA Iran has not tested the hemispheric charge but the five-page document describes experimentation. The “corroborating evidence” mentioned in the second IAEA report is that it “may have involved the assistance of foreign expertise.” Could that “assistance of foreign expertise”that “may” have been involved be a hint to the expert for detonation nanodiamonds Vyacheslav Danilenko?
In late September 2008 Iran responded (pdf) to the “Alleged Studies” documents it had been shown:
An Assessment of So-called “Alleged Studies”Islamic
Republic of Iran – September 2008
…
In spite of the fact that the so called alleged studies documents had not been delivered to Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran carefully examined all the materials which have been prepared in power point presentations by the US and provided to the IAEA, and informed the Agency of its assessment.The Agency has not delivered to Iran any official and authentic document which contained documentary evidence related to Iran with regard to the alleged studies.
…
The document which the Agency is considering it as an important document regarding alleged studies and referring to it in paragraph 17D of the September 2008 report, is document 18 [in the power point presentation].There is no evidence or indication in this document regarding its linkage to Iran or its preparation by Iran.
It even does not contain one single word in Persian. The document does only contain some English words and 3 hand-drawn graphs drawn by the Agency.
The said document is shown in order to be judged by the public opinion whether it is fair to make accusation against a country merely on the basis of such a document?!
Iran requested the agency to publish the five-page document so it can be seen and judged by everyone. It may be Iran will get lucky tomorrow and the IAEA will publish it.
From the above I conclude:
There is nothing really new in the recent allegations in Washington Post or other media. They have been in IAEA reports all along and come from files on the dubious “laptop of death” which the U.S. got from somewhere, allegedly inside Iran, and showed to the IAEA even back in 2005. Iran rejects the documents on that laptop as false which they probably are.
There is one question that is still open in the above: Where does that “aluminum shell” in the recent Washington Post report come from? It is not in any other report I am aware of.
There’s Nothing Idealistic About the One-State Solution
A Response to Michael Neumann
By JONATHAN COOK | November 08, 2011
This is at least the third time in the past four years that philosophy professor Michael Neumann has used these pages to lambast the supporters of a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. On each occasion he has offered a little more insight into why he so vehemently objects to what he terms the “delusions” of those who oppose – or, at least, gave up on – the two-state solution.
In his most recent essay, Neumann suggests that his previous reluctance to be more forthright was motivated by “politeness”. Well, I for one wish the professor had been franker from the outset. It might have saved us a lot of time and effort.
Even though I have identified myself as a supporter of the one-state solution, I find much to agree with in what Neumann writes on this occasion. Like him, I do not believe that a particular solution, or resolution, will occur simply because the Palestinians or their wellwishers make a good moral case for it. Success for the Palestinians will come when a wide array of regional developments force Israel to conclude that its current behaviour is untenable.
There are plenty of signs that just such a power shift is starting to take place in the Middle East: Iran’s possible development of a nuclear warhead; an awakening of democratic forces in Egypt and elsewhere; the fraying of the long and vital military alliance between Israel and Turkey; the exasperation of Saudi Arabia at Israel’s intransigence; the growing military sophistication of Hizbullah; and the complete discrediting of the US role in the region.
Neumann is wrong to assume that one has to be an idealist – believing in the political equivalent of fairies – to conclude that a one-state solution is on the cards. It does not have to be simply a case of wishful thinking. Rather, I will argue, it is likely to prove a realistic description of the turn of events over the next decade or more.
While Neumann and I agree on the causes of an Israeli change of direction, his and my analyses diverge sharply on what will follow from Israel’s realisation that its occupation is too costly to maintain.
Neumann proposes that, once cornered by regional forces it can no longer intimidate or bully, Israel will have to concede what he terms the “real” two-state solution.
He does not set out what such a solution would entail, but he is adamant that it – and only it – must take place. So let me help with an outline of the apparent minimal requirements for a real two-state solution:
* Israel agrees to pull out its half a million settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, presumably assisted by lavish compensation from the international community;
* Israel hands over all of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians, while the city’s holy places, including the Western Wall, pass to a caretaker body representing the international community;
* The Palestinians get a state on 22 per cent of historic Palestine, with their capital in East Jerusalem;
* The Palestinians are free to establish an army – with Iran and Saudi Arabia presumably competing over who gets to sponsor it;
* The Palestinians have control over their airspace and the electro-magnetic spectrum. If they have any sense, they quickly turn to Hizbullah for advice on how to neutralise Israel’s extensive spying operations, its overhead drones and listening posts currently sited all over the West Bank;
* The Palestinians get unfettered access to their new border with Jordan and beyond to other Arab states;
* The Palestinians are entitled to an equitable division of water resources from the main West Bank acquifers, currently supplying Israel with most of its water;
* And the Palestinians have, as promised under the Oslo accords, a passageway through Israel to connect the West Bank and Gaza.
Let us leave aside the social problems for Israel caused by this arrangement: the huge disruption created by an angry and newly homeless half a million settlers returning to Israel, as well as the dramatic aggravation of the already severe housing crisis in Israel and the rapid deterioration in relations with the large Palestinian minority living there.
Let us also not dwell on the problems faced by the Palestinians, including the potentially hundreds of thousands of refugees who will have to be absorbed into the limited space of the resource-poor West Bank and Gaza, or their likely anger at what they will see as betrayal, or the inevitable economic troubles of this micro-state.
Doubtless, all these issues can be addressed in a peace agreement.
In his essays, Neumann only factors in what Israelis are prepared to accept from a solution. So let us ignore too the “idealism” of those critics who are concerned about whether a “real two-state solution” can actually be made to work for ordinary Palestinians.
The assumption by Neumann is that, faced with a rapid escalation in the political and financial costs of holding on to the Palestinian territories, Israel will one day understand that it has no choice but to jettison the occupation.
He offers nine reasons for why the one-state solution is “blatantly nonsensical”. Though numerically impressive, most of his arguments – such as his discussion of the right of return, or the representativeness of a Palestinian government, or the nature of legal and moral rights – appear to have little or no bearing on the practical case either for or against one state. The same can be said of his ascription of the sin of idealism to those he lumps together as one-staters, and his allusion, yet again, to the vague formula of a “real two-state solution”.
His other three arguments – the first he lists – are no more revelatory. In fact, they are variations of the same idea, one that can best be summarised by an analogy he offers in one: “If I’m making 50,000 dollars, I might demand 70,000, but not 70 million. It is not clever to demand the whole of Israel when Israel won’t yield even the half that almost the whole world says it must surrender – the occupied territories.”
I am no professor of logic but something about this analogy rings hollow. Let us try another that seems closer to the reality of our case.
One day you arrive at my home and take over most of the building using force. A short time later you drive me out of the house completely, and, in what you consider a generous concession, allow me to live in the shed at the end of the garden. Over the years we become bitter enemies. The neighbours, my former friends, can no longer turn a blind eye to my miserable condition and decide to side with me against you. One day they come to your door and threaten to use violence against you if you do not let me back into the house.
What happens next?
Well, as Neumann implies, it may all end happily with you agreeing to let me live in the box room. But then again, it might not.
Sensing that the shoe is finally on the other foot, I might decide to make your life unbearable in the main part of the house in order to win more space or to drive you out. Or you might decide that, given your precarious new situation in the neighbourhood, you would be better off abandoning your ill-gotten gains and looking for somewhere else to live.
I am not a fan of such analogies. I resort to it simply to highlight that, if one wants to make use of these kinds of devices, then it is at least preferable to use an apposite one.
(Interestingly, if we pursue this analogy, it also questions Neumann’s preferred comparison of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories with France’s occupation of Algeria. In this case, Algeria appears to be the garden rather than the main house.)
The larger point is that there is no reason to assume that, just because the occupation gets too costly, Israel can simply amputate it like a rotting limb.
Part of the weakness in Neumann’s argument can be seen in his repeated references to the settlers as a group of troublesome misfits rather than a substantial chunk both of the Israeli cabinet, including the foreign minister, and of the high command of the Israeli army and security services, including the current head of the National Security Council.
Likewise, he caricatures Western support for Israel as “Zionist hysteria” in the US Congress, backed by “ridiculous” fellow travellers such as the Canadian government. If only the support for Israel among Western governments were this trivial.
Such misrepresentations make his argument that the occupation is vulnerable appear far stronger than it really is. In fact, the occupation is much more than the settlements.
It is the Messianism industry, run by the settlers, that took over Israel decades ago. Its hold extends far beyond the West Bank to the now-dominant religious education stream feeding poison to young minds, as well as to the seminaries where young religious men training to become army officers are tutored daily in their Chosenness and their divine right to exterminate Palestinians.
It is the ultra-Orthodox with their ambivalence to Zionism but their now-savage sense of entitlement to handouts from the state. They have several large urban communities in the West Bank tailor-made for their separatist religious way of life. The people who riot over a parking lot opening on Shabbat will not easily walk away from their homes, schools and synagogues.
It is a large and profitable Israeli real estate industry that has plundered and pillaged Palestinian land for decades, and which seems to implicate every new Israeli prime minister in a fresh corruption scandal.
It is Israel’s farming industries that depend for their survival on the theft of both Palestinian land and water sources.
It is ordinary Israelis, already spoiling for a fight after an unprecedented summer of social unrest over the exorbitant cost of living in Israel, who have yet to find out the true price of fruit and vegetables – and running water – should they lose these water “subsidies”.
It is Israel’s extensive and lucrative military hi-tech industries that rely on the occupied territories as a laboratory for developing and testing new weapons systems and surveillance techniques for export both to the global homeland security industries and to tech-hungry modern armies.
It is Israel’s security and intelligence services, abundantly staffed with the same Ashkenazis who will go on to become the country’s political leaders, pursuing careers surveilling and controlling Palestinians under occupation.
And it is the profligate military – Israel’s version of the West’s prodigal bankers – whose jobs and lethal toys depend on endless US taxpayers’ munificence.
None of this will be given up lightly, or at a cost that won’t make America’s current $3 billion annual handouts to Israel look like peanuts. And that is before we factor in the huge payouts needed to compensate the Palestinian refugees and to build a Palestinian state.
But these problems only hint at the argument for a one-state solution. The reality is that the elites that run Israel have everything to lose should the occupation fall. That is why they have invested every effort in integrating the occupied territories into Israel and making a “real” peace deal impossible. The occupation and its related industries are the source of their moral legitimacy, their political survival and their daily enrichment.
That is also why they are twisting in agony at the prospect of Iran acquiring a nuclear arsenal to rival their own. At that point, the occupation begins to expire and their rule is finished.
Were the regional conditions to come about that Neumann believes necessary to evict Israel from the occupied territories, these elites and their Ashkenazi hangers-on will face a stark choice: bring down the house or scatter to whatever countries their second passports entitle them to.
They may go for the doomsday scenario, as some currently predict. But my guess is that, once the money-laundering opportunities enjoyed by the politicians and generals are over, it will simply be easier – and safer – for them to export their skills elsewhere.
Left behind will be ordinary Israelis – the Russians, the Palestinian minority, the ultra-Orthodox, the Mizrahim – who never tasted the real fruits of the occupation and whose commitment to Zionism has no real depth.
These groups – isolated, largely antagonistic and without a diaspora occupying the US Congress to assist them – have not the experience, desire or legitimacy to run the military fortress that Israel has become. With the glue gone that holds the Zionist project together, both the Palestinians and the Israelis who remain will have every interest to come up with real solutions to the problem of living as neighbours.
The strangest aspect to Neumann’s claims against the one-staters – repeated in all his essays on this subject – is the argument that they are not only deluded but propagating an idea that is somehow dangerous, though quite how is never explained.
If as Neumann argues, correctly in my view, Israel will only change course when faced with significant pressure from its neighbours, then the worst crime the one-staters can be accused of committing is an abiding attachment to an irrelevant idealism.
Iran will not discard its supposed nuclear ambitions simply because the one-state crowd start to make a compelling moral case for their cause, any more than Hizbullah will stop amassing its rockets. So why should Neumann get so exercised by the one-state argument? By his reckoning, it should have zero impact on progress towards a resolution of the conflict.
Nonetheless, even on Neumann’s limited terms, one can also make a serious case that advocacy of a single state might produce benefits for the Palestinians.
If nothing else, were a growing number of Palestinians and international supporters persuaded that demanding an absolutely just solution (one state) was the best path, would this not add an additional pressure to the other, material ones facing Israel to concede a real two-state solution – if only to avoid the worse fate of a single state being imposed by its neighbours?
But I think we can go further in making the practical case for a one-state solution.
Although the main cause of Israel changing tack will be the alignment of regional forces against it, an additional but important factor will be the emergence of a political climate in which western states and their publics are increasingly disillusioned with Israel’s bad faith. Congress’ support is not paid in the currency of hysteria but in hard cash. And that support won’t dry up until Israel and its “mad dog” policies are widely seen as illegitimate or a liability.
One of the key ways Israel will discredit itself, following it and Washington’s recent decision to block any Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations, is by cracking down – probably violently – on any political aspirations expressed by ordinary Palestinians under occupation.
History, including Palestinian history, suggests that populations denied their rights rarely remain passive indefinitely. Palestinians who see no hope that their leaders can secure for them a state will be increasingly motivated to claim back their cause.
Ordinary Palestinians have no power, as Neumann notes, to force Israel to establish a state for them. But they do have the power to demand from Israel a say in their future, and press for it through civil disobedience, campaigns for voting rights, and the establishment of an anti-apartheid movement. Such a struggle will take place within – and implicitly accept – the one-state reality already created by Israel. If Palestinians march for the vote, it will be for a vote in Knesset elections.
None of this will win them either a state or the vote, of course. But the repression needed from Israel to contain these forces will serve to rapidly erode whatever international sympathy remains and to further galvanise the regional forces lining up against Israel into action.
In short, however one assesses it, the promotion of a one-state solution can serve only to hasten the demise of the Israeli elites who oppress the Palestinians. So why waste so much breath opposing it?
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
Related articles
- In Palestine, Peace is Not Just Absence of Violence, But Presence of Justice (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Collective Punishment: Israel may cut off electricity supply to West Bank (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
On “Nuclear Iran” Allegations: Nanodiamonds Ain’t Nuclear Bombs
Moon of Alabama | November 7, 2011
The Washington Posts alleges that the IAEA says foreign expertise has brought Iran to threshold of nuclear capability. This is of course a lie. The IAEA says nothing like that. This is simply an assertion made by the reporter and some “nuclear Iran” scare propagandists.
And what would “to threshold of nuclear capability” actually mean? That Iran would be capable, like Japan, Brazil, the Netherlands or some 40 other countries, to build a nuclear bomb if it would choose to do so? What would be new, wrong or dangerous with that?
The piece goes into some details, provided mostly by chief nuclear scare monger David Albright, about allegedly “new” stuff some secret services handed to the IAEA. To see how misleading these allegations are lets look at just one detail. A Ukrainian expert for creating nanodiamands is described as “weapon scientist” and “nuclear scientist” even when all his published work is about the synthesizing of very small diamonds:
Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, the officials and experts said.
…
According to the intelligence provided to the IAEA, key assistance in both areas was provided by Vyacheslav Danilenko, a former Soviet nuclear scientist who was contracted in the mid-1990s by Iran’s Physics Research Center, a facility linked to the country’s nuclear program. Documents provided to the U.N. officials showed that Danilenko offered assistance to the Iranians over at least five years, giving lectures and sharing research papers on developing and testing an explosives package that the Iranians apparently incorporated into their warhead design, according to two officials with access to the IAEA’s confidential files.
Dr. Vyacheslav Danilenko is a well known Ukrainian (“former Soviet”) scientist. But his specialties are not “weapon” or “nuclear” science, indeed there seems to be nothing to support that claim, but the production of nanodiamonds via detonations (ppt). According to the history of detonation nanodiamonds he describes in chapter 10 of Ultrananocrystalline Diamond – Synthesis, Properties, and Applications (pdf) he has worked in that field since 1962, invented new methods used in the process and is related with Alit, an Ukrainian company that produces nanodiamonds.
This is a detonation tank to create nanodiamonds, not a nuclear device.
Very small diamonds are useful for many purposes, like polishing optics or PC hard disks. That is why, for example, Drexel University in Philadelphia invited Danilenko for a talk at its Nanotechnology Institute:
On January 29, the AJ Drexel Nanotechnology Institute sponsored a Nanodiamond Lecture, “Nanodiamonds: Reactor Design and Synthesis,” by noted Ukrainian scientist Dr. Vyacheslav Danilenko. Dr. Danilenko was among the first to demonstrate detonation synthesis of diamonds and has more than 30 years experience in the design of reactors for the synthesis of nanodiamonds.
Some years ago Iran launched a big Nano Technology Initiative which includes Iranian research on detonation nanodiamonds (pdf). Iran is planing to produce them on industrial scale. It holds regular international conferences and invites experts on nanotechnology from all over the world. It is quite likely that famous international scientists in that field, like Dr. Danilenko, have been invited, gave talks in Iran and cooperate with its scientists.
Producing nanodiamonds via detonations uses large confined containers with water cooling, for which Danilenko seems to have a patent. The Ukrainian company he works with, Alit, shows such a detonation chamber on its webpage as does the picture above. The detonation nanodiamond explanation thereby also fits with another allegation from the IAEA report:
The Associated Press reported that U.N. officials have acquired satellite photos of a bus-size steel container used by Iran for some of the explosives testing.
See the picture above and the one on the Alit web page. Iran having a “bus-size steel container” for explosive testing and research cooperation with Danilenko both fit very well with Iran’s plans for nanodiamond production. They do not fit well with anything nuclear.
In his power-point presentation on detonation nanodiamonds on a bigger scale Danilenko recommends:
Use for industrial production of DND:
• charges ≥ 20 kg, explosion under water in close pool (in heavy metal cover), laser initiation;• utilization of old ammunition under water in close pool;
Use of old ammunition in a closed water pool? Does that sound sound like something that “the Iranians apparently incorporated into their warhead design” as WaPo alleges? On what facts is that “apparently” innuendo based on?
But how or why should the production of detonation nanodiamonds relate to nuclear bombs at all? Why would someone even think they are related?
It may be because both use precise detonations. But they do so on a very different scales and in very different conditions. A sphere explosion for a nuclear device doesn’t use a confined container and water cooling. But a lot of other physics fields, for example seismological research, also use precise detonations. There is nothing especially “nuclear” about them.
Just because a certain method like precise detonations is used in Iran, does not imply that it is used for what Mr. Albright and some “western agencies” claim. Nanodiamonds ain’t nuclear weapons.
Danilenko’s lifelong expertise is with nanodiamonds, not with nuclear weapons. It is much more plausible, and fitting the evidence, that Iran is working with him in his original capacity than in a field outside his main expertise.
If this is the general quality of the “new evidence” on Iran then it is quite worthless. This seems to be just more innuendo and dirt thrown towards Iran with the hope that something, anything might stick.
‘WaPo’ columnist embraces Condi Rice’s peace process fiction
By Alex Kane | Mondoweiss | November 7, 2011
David Ignatius adds another chapter to the endless corporate media narrative of Palestinian rejectionism in a recent Washington Post column.
The column relies on former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s description in her memoir of a proposed Israeli peace offer to Mahmoud Abbas that was presented in the summer of 2008, an offer Ignatius calls “the Mideast deal that could have been.” But Ignatius’ sole reliance on Rice’s telling of the deal ignores evidence that Olmert’s offer was highly problematic for a potential state of Palestine. A closer look at the column is needed, especially because the narrative Ignatius advances has been getting a lot of play lately; the excerpts of the memoir that Ignatius relies on were published with the laughable title “Best. Deal. Ever” in Newsweek magazine last month.
Ignatius, an associate editor at the Post, writes:
As Rice tells the story, Olmert developed a comprehensive plan, which he presented secretly to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, in the summer of 2008. By September, the details of Olmert’s offer included:
● Israeli transfer of sovereignty of 94.2 percent of the West Bank to the new Palestinian state. He offered additional swaps of land, and a corridor linking the West Bank and Gaza, that would bring the total Palestinian land area to 100 percent of the pre-1967 borders of the West Bank.
● A formula for dividing Jerusalem that would give Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians and Jewish neighborhoods to Israel, with negotiators working out the status of mixed neighborhoods. Each country would have Jerusalem as its capital; there would be a joint city council with an Israeli mayor and a Palestinian deputy mayor.
● The Old City would be administered by an international committee with representatives from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the European Union and the United States. Questions of sovereignty in Jerusalem would be fudged, with each side rejecting the other’s claims.
● The “right of return” for Palestinians would be limited to about 5,000. To compensate other Palestinian refugees, a fund of several billion dollars would be created, under Norwegian administration.
● The United States would protect Israel’s security not just with U.S. power but by training a reliable Palestinian security force
He concludes the column by writing: “Olmert’s map, now dust in the wind, may be the best formula we’ll ever get for the peaceful creation of the Palestinian state that will cement Israel’s own security.” But the devil is in the details–and a close look at Olmert and his team’s offer shows that it was far from being a credible offer that the Palestinian leadership could bring back to its people. […]
The Institute for Middle East Understanding has a useful list of big problems with Olmert’s deal:
-According to Ha’aretz, much of the land Olmert reportedly offered Abbas in exchange for crucial areas of Jerusalem and the West Bank was carved out of the barren Judean Desert, south of the West Bank.
-Olmert reportedly offered to allow the return of only 5,000 Palestinian refugees, a tiny fraction of the 4.3 million who are registered with the UN. This issue alone would have made it nearly impossible for Abbas to gain support for the plan among the Palestinian people.
-According to Rice’s account, Olmert demanded that Abbas sign his map without consulting his own advisors and legal experts, and refused to allow Abbas to take a copy of the map to the Palestinian negotiators. It would have been unusual and irresponsible for Abbas to unilaterally sign an agreement in secret and without first consulting his team.
-The negotiations brokered by Rice, which began at the 2007 Annapolis conference, were not designed to produce a final peace agreement. Rather, these talks had the less ambitious goal of a “shelf agreement,” to be implemented at a later date.
-By the time Olmert made his offer, he had been under investigation for corruption for months and was fending off calls for his resignation. Olmert’s political weakness at the time casts into doubt his ability to conclude a peace agreement.
Clearly, this was not “the Mideast deal that could have been.” The narrative that Ignatius and Rice are pushing is just peace process fiction. – Full article w/map at Mondoweiss
Was ‘Arab Spring’ Coined by a Guardian of Zion?
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | November 6, 2011
Writing in Foreign Policy, Joshua Keating asks, “Who first used the term Arab Spring?” As Keating points out:
It’s not well remembered at this point, but the term “Arab Spring” was originally used, primarily by U.S. conservative commentators, to refer to a short-lived flowering of Middle Eastern democracy movements in 2005.
The reference to “conservative commentators” is supported by a link to an article entitled “The Arab Spring of 2005″ by none other than Charles Krauthammer — a recipient in 2002 of the prestigious Guardian of Zion award, “an annual award given since 1997 to Jews who have been supportive of the State of Israel.” In that 2005 piece, the Guardian of Zion opined:
The democracy project is, of course, just beginning. We do not yet know whether the Middle East today is Europe 1989 or Europe 1848. 1989 saw the swift collapse of the Soviet empire. 1848 saw a flowering of liberal revolutions throughout Europe that, within a short time, were all suppressed.
Nonetheless, 1848 did presage the coming of the liberal idea throughout Europe. (By 1871, it had been restored to France, for example.) It marked a turning point from which there was no going back. The Arab Spring of 2005 will be noted by history as a similar turning point for the Arab world.
That year was indeed a “turning point” for Arab democracy, as AP reported on March 12:
The American democracy promotion campaign dates back to the 1980s, when Poland’s Solidarity movement was one beneficiary. But for Egypt, 2005 was the watershed year, when Campbell’s NDI opened a Cairo office and through Egyptian groups trained 5,500 election observers to monitor a referendum giving Mubarak another six-year term, his fifth.
From Egypt’s polling places that September, NDI-paid teams reported election violations via innovative cell-phone texting in code, deciphered by headquarters computers.
The report was immediate: Widespread manipulation of the polls, and a turnout of a mere 23 percent, shattering the myth of 90-percent landslides for the “popular” Mubarak.
“It had the effect of showing the emperor had no clothes,” Campbell said. “Egyptians could make a difference. They could change things.”
The government reacted, restricting NDI and IRI operations in Cairo, ordering host hotels to cancel training sessions, putting security men in institute offices.
But Mubarak couldn’t be too tough on the Americans, donors of $1.5 billion in annual military and economic aid. And the democracy promoters carried on, often sending Egyptian proteges abroad for sessions.
Haaretz Lies About IAEA Inspections In Parchin
Moon of Alabama | November 6, 2011
Repeating the last piece of U.S. propaganda about a “nuclear Iran”, Haaretz lies about the history of IAEA inspections in Iran:
Iran is pursuing its nuclear weapons program at the Parchin military base about 30 kilometers from Tehran, diplomatic sources in Vienna say.
…
According to recent leaks, Iran has carried out experiments in the final, critical stage for developing nuclear weapons – weaponization. This includes explosions and computer simulations of explosions. The Associated Press and other media outlets have reported that satellite photos of the site reveal a bus-sized container for conducting experiments. Parchin serves as a base for research and development of missile weaponry and explosive material.
…
As far back as eight years ago, U.S. intelligence sources received information indicating that the bunkers would also be suitable to develop nuclear weapons.
…
The Iranians rejected an IAEA request to visit Parchin, saying that IAEA rules permitted the organization’s member states to deny such visits to military bases.
The last sentence is false and pure propaganda. Iran allowed two IAEA visit to Parchin in January 2005 and again in November 2005. The IAEA took environment samples there but found nothing that pointed to nuclear weapon research. Globalsecurity.org kept the records:
On 17 September 2004 IAEA head Muhammad El Baradei said his organization had found no sign of nuclear-related activity at the Parchin site in Iran, which several US officials had said might be tied to secret nuclear weapons research. “We are aware of this new site that has been referred to,” he said. “We do not have any indication that this site has any nuclear-related activities. However, we will continue to investigate this and other sites, we’ll continue to have a dialogue with Iran.” El Baradei also dismissed allegations that he had supressed information about Parchin in his latest report on inspections in Iran.On 5 January 2005 Mohamed El Baradei said “we expect to visit Parchin within the next days or a few weeks.” Iran allowed IAEA inspectors to visit the Parchin military site in January 2005 in the interests of transparency following the allegations of secret nuclear weapons related activity, but the visit was limited to only one of four areas identified as being of potential interest and to only five buildings in that area.
On 1 March 2005 Iran turned down a request by the IAEA to make a second visit to the Parchin military site, which has been linked in allegations to nuclear weapons testing. The IAEA was finally allowed access to the Parchin facility in November 2005. The IAEA reported in 2006 that they did not observe any unusual activities in the buildings visited at Parchin, and the results of the analysis of environmental samples did not indicate the presence of nuclear material at those locations. No further mention of Parchin as a suspected nuclear site had been made by the IAEA as of July 2008.
We can expect more such obvious lies in the coming weeks as the White House builds up its propaganda campaign for more sanctions on Iran.
‘Adbusters’ seeks right of reply to ‘NYT”s smear of anti-Semitism and fails to get it
© Adbusters
By Kalle Lasn | Mondoweiss | November 5, 2011
Kalle Lasn here with a story about how the New York Times refused to give Adbusters [which Lasn edits] the right of reply. Here is the chronology of what happened:
1. October 3 letter from Adbusters Kalle Lasn to the editor of the New York Times:
In the wake of the #OCCUPYWALLSTREET movement, the New York Times has twice taken a swipe at Adbusters magazine, originators of the event. David Brooks led the charge in his October 10 column, The Milquetoast Radicals, falsely accusing us of being anti-Jewish.
In an earlier column, Mr. Brooks said: “Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up about 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates … 37 percent of Academy Award-winning directors … 51 percent of Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction” and so on. And yet, in his October 10 column he found something insidious about an article Adbusters ran seven years ago pointing out that 50 percent of the prominent neocons surrounding the Bush administration were Jewish. Why the double standard, Mr. Brooks? How is this different?
Then on October 17, Joseph Berger’s Cries of Anti-Semitism, but Not at Zuccotti Park, quoted an article in a conservative magazine founded by the American Jewish Committee which alleged that “the main organizer behind the movement — Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn — has a history of anti-Jewish writing.” Mr. Berger, why are you uncritically passing on other people’s allegations? Why didn’t you do your own research and come up with your own conclusions?
Adbusters is best known for its deconstruction of advertising, discontent with neoclassical economics and provocative takes on hot button geopolitical issues like the Israeli apartheid in Palestine. I invite readers to visit our web site, leaf through our magazine, look up what we’ve said over the past twenty years and decide for themselves if we are motivated by anti-Semitism or a sense of justice.
It seems the real story here is that I have somehow upset the pro-Israel and anti-Palestine stance that the New York Times has taken over many years in some of its editorials, columns and especially with the reporting by Isabel Kershner and Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner. Mr. Bronner is married to an Israeli citizen and has a son who served in the Israeli army. Ms. Kershner also has deep ties to Israel. Their often ahistorical, context-free reporting is partly to blame for what Adbusters has called “the United States of Amnesia.”
I think a cultural shift, a more nuanced and balanced perspective on Israel/Palestine, is in order at one of the great newspapers of the world.
Kalle Lasn Editor in Chief, Adbusters Magazine
2. November 2, New York Times letters department replies:
Mr. Lasn: Your letter as submitted is much too long for our letters column and refers to columns/articles that are now 2 and 3 weeks old. We do acknowledge that you deserve a right of reply, and we’d be willing to consider a much shorter letter that is focused on these two paragraphs:
“Then on October 17, Joseph Berger’s Cries of Anti-Semitism, but Not at Zuccotti Park, quoted an article in a conservative magazine founded by the American Jewish Committee which alleged that “the main organizer behind the movement – Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn – has a history of anti-Jewish writing.” Mr. Berger, why are you uncritically passing on other people’s allegations? Why didn’t you do your own research and come up with your own conclusions?
Adbusters is best known for its deconstruction of advertising, discontent with neoclassical economics and provocative takes on hot button geopolitical issues like the Israeli apartheid in Palestine. I invite readers to visit our web site, leaf through our magazine, look up what we’ve said over the past twenty years and decide for themselves if we are motivated by anti-Semitism or a sense of justice.”
If you’re agreeable, we can edit your letter along those lines and send it to you for review and approval, as we do with all our letters.
Best,
Sue Mermelstein, Letters Dept.
3. November 2, Kalle Lasn letter:
Ms. Mermelstein,
David Brooks’ and Joe Bergers references to Adbusters’ and Kalle Lasn’s anti Jewishness and anti Semitism have caused considerable harm to both our reputations in one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world and therefore I do not think your usual strict rules about length and time delay should apply in this case.
I am not prepared to cut references to David Brooks nor the paragraph that points to a pro-Israel and anti-Palestine culture of bias at the Times without which the basic argument in my letter does not make sense.
I am prepared to work with you to crisp up my letter without losing its basic thrust and argument.
I request that you pass this matter by David Brooks, Joseph Berger and your executive editor and explain to them why it is necessary for us to have a full right of reply in order to salvage the reputation of Adbusters and Kalle Lasn which you have damaged and defamed in a journalistically sloppy way.
I request that, not you in the letters department, but your executive editor make a final decision on whether to run our letter.
Please let me know.
Sincerely,
Kalle Lasn,
Editor in Chief, Adbusters magazine
4. November 2, New York Times’ letters editor responds:
Dear Mr. Lasn:
Thank you for your note to Ms. Mermelstein.
We respect your request for a reply, but we also reserve the right to edit letters in accordance with our standards. We believe that only part of your letter meets those standards.
It is not up to Mr. Brooks, Mr. Berger or the executive editor to decide whether to run a letter.
Sincerely,
Thomas Feyer, Letters Editor
5. November 2, Lasn letter:
Mr. Feyer,
I agree that it is not up to Mr. Brooks or Mr. Berger to decide whether to run the letter — I just thought they should know that a letter has been submitted.
However, given the considerable damage done to the reputations of Adbusters and myself in this matter and the larger political implications this has about the culture of bias at the Times, I think it is appropriate for us to ask for this decision to be made, not by you in the Letters Department, but by your executive editor . . . and I again respectfully ask you to pass this matter by her.
Tell her that we think it would be grossly unfair and against all journalistic standards for the Times not to give Adbusters adequate right of reply in this particular case.
Sincerely,
Kalle Lasn, Editor in Chief, Adbusters magazine
6. November 2, Feyer response:
Dear Mr. Lasn:
There is a wall separating news and opinion at The Times, so the executive editor has no say in what the opinion pages run.
We are willing to give you a chance to respond, but you have to be willing to be edited according to our standards. Everything that appears in The Times is subject to editing.
Sincerely,
Thomas Feyer
7. November 2, Kalle Lasn’s final email, to which there has been no reply:
Mr. Feyer,
I suspect you are refusing to run our letter because it it would once again open up a debate about the anti-Palestine culture at the Times that you do not wish to have.
Seems you have no problem taking swipes at the reputation of Adbusters, but are now unwilling to give Adbusters our legitimate right of reply.
The “chance to respond” you are giving us is grossly fair . . . it forces us to run a substantially watered down version which leaves out the crux of our argument against Mr. Brooks And Mr. Berger and would thus merely perpetuate the myth that there is something anti Semitic about Adbusters and Kalle Lasn.
I request a legitimate right to respond along the lines of our original letter. You have a right to edit our letter but not to neuter it.
I hereby demand that you pass this matter by your executive editor.
sincerely, Kalle Lasn
U.S. “Scholar” Propaganda About Syria
Moon of Alabama | November 3, 2011
A piece in Foreign Policy by Randa Slim, “a scholar at the Middle East Institute”, on the Syrian opposition claims:
a critical mass of Syrians has clearly opted for regime change
It does not provide one fact to support that conclusion. Scanning the news from Syria my impression is that the opposition to Bashar Assad, which obviously never achieved critical mass over the last months, is now shrinking.
Indeed just two days ago the Wall Street Journal prominently headlined: Syrian Activists Say Assad Gains Advantage:
Last week, massive crowds gathered in several cities, including Damascus, to pledge their loyalty to Mr. Assad. Syria’s state television, broadcasting scenes of crowds chanting “The people want Bashar al-Assad,” said some two million people gathered at the capital’s Ummayad Square last Wednesday. It broadcast fresh scenes of a loyalist demonstration in the southern city of Suweida on Sunday.”At one point, what we call the silent majority came to be aligned with the street protests at least from a humanitarian and moral point of view. But now they’ve stepped back again,” Mr. Hussein said.
One can assess the quality of the propaganda messaged by that “scholar at the Middle East Institute” from this passage further down in the FP piece:
Most of the Syrian opposition agrees on a few basic principles: toppling the Assad regime, maintaining the national unity of Syria, and remaining committed to the peaceful nature of the Syrian revolution. But there are sharp disagreements over dialogue with the regime, foreign intervention, and the militarization of the opposition.
So they are committed to a “peaceful” revolution but can not decide whether they want NATO to bomb their country or continue the militant guerrilla war against the regime.
And the discussion about that shows their principle commitments to stay “peaceful”?
If such incoherent writing expresses the “scholar-“ship of Randa Slim and the “Middle East Institute”, readers are advised to dismiss everything coming from that source.
Territory of Lies
The Israeli-Occupied Hearing on Alleged Iranian Terror
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | November 4, 2011
In the wake of the much-heralded FBI sting that supposedly foiled a dastardly plot by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard elite Qods Force – involving a bumbling, failed used-car salesman’s botched attempt to hire a reportedly Mossad-trained Mexican drug cartel – to blow up the Saudi ambassador in a crowded but fictitious Washington D.C. restaurant, a duly alarmed U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security convened an urgent hearing on “Iranian Terror Operations on American Soil.” As evidence of Tehran’s supposed threat to the Homeland, the Committee heard testimony from “expert witnesses” who could best be described as propagandists for Israel. Commenting on the partisan line-up, an expert on U.S.-Israeli relations remarked, “If it wasn’t so serious, it would be satire.”
Among the five witnesses, two were from “conservative” think tanks closely aligned with the Israel lobby, while a third represented a supposedly more “progressive” pro-Israeli position. The first think-tanker to speak was Reuel Marc Gerecht, who cited his authority on the subject to explain away the Hollywood B-movie nature of the ludicrous murder-for-hire plot. “I might make a slight digression and just say all intelligence services aren’t as good as you think they are. And the Iranians are no exception. They make a lot of mistakes,” claimed the former Middle East specialist in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. “So do not, for a moment, buy the argument from those who said it cannot be because this is too sloppy. This is the nature of the game. This is how it is done.” Gerecht, currently a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, went on to advocate an escalation of “the war and terror” [sic] against a supposedly emboldened Iran. “If they think they can get away with it, they will push forward, and they did get away with it,” he asserted. “Now, the only way that I would argue that you are going to stop that type of mentality and attitude is that you have to convince them that you will escalate. You don’t want to run away from that word, you want to run towards it.” In a July 19 report on the funding of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Eli Clifton observed that “its hawkish stance against Iran … is consistent with its donors’ interests in ‘pro-Israel’ advocacy.”
Next up was Dr. Matthew Levitt. “It is too early to tell what the consequences of Iran’s assassination plot may be,” he told the hearing, “but there should be no doubt the plot lays bare the myth that sufficient carrots – from offers of dialogue to requests for an emergency hotline to reduce naval tensions in the Gulf – can induce the regime in Tehran to abandon its support for terrorism, part with its nuclear weapons program, or respect human rights.” Instead, Dr. Levitt recommended applying the sticks of diplomatic pressure, pressing regional bodies to expel Iranian diplomats, building an international consensus against Tehran, military pressure, customs controls, financial pressure, and coordination with European and other allies “to allay their fears over the possible unintended consequences” of the latter. Levitt is the director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism & Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank created by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to “do AIPAC’s work but appear independent.”
In his testimony, Dr. Lawrence J. Korb counselled against military action, recommending instead that “[t]he Obama administration should use the Iranian plot to convince our allies to recommit themselves to enforcing the current sanctions on Iran.” Concluding by saying that “Iranian aggression toward the United States cannot be tolerated,” the Center for American Progress senior fellow advised the hearing that “it is important that the U.S. response to the Iranian plot furthers our long-term goals: deterring Iranian aggression and protecting U.S. national security.” Dr. Korb’s stated concern for American national security, however, has to be weighed against the two decades the former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration has devoted to working for the release of Jonathan Pollard, the Israeli agent who “did more damage to the United States than any spy in history.”
Sandwiching the testimony by the three think tank fellows were two former U.S. military officers known to be supportive of the hawkish Israeli line on the Middle East. Hyping Iran as “our number one strategic enemy in the world,” retired U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane suggested “we put our hand around their throat right now.” In 2007, Keane co-authored with Frederick Kagan the American Enterprise Institute-sponsored policy paper entitled “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq” which proposed the so-called “surge” beloved of America’s Israel partisans. Retired Marine Corps Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, who has been echoing all the standard Israeli propaganda against Tehran ever since the 1983 attack on the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit in Beirut under his allegedly negligent command, didn’t hesitate to blame Iranian-backed Hezbollah for the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish centre in Buenos Aires. The U.S. ambassador to Argentina at the time, however, has said, “To my knowledge, there was never any real evidence [of Iranian responsibility]. They never came up with anything.”
During the hearing, the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Peter King, called for all Iranian diplomats at the UN to be “kicked out” of the United States for spying. That evening, his provocative statement was given traction through a live interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who apparently just wanted to know “what’s goin’ on here?” The sincerity of Blitzer’s seemingly ingenuous concern about Iranian espionage on American soil is undermined somewhat by the fact that he was once editor of Near East Report, AIPAC’s bi-weekly newsletter, before serving 17 years with the Jerusalem Post, during which time he authored a sympathetic book on Jonathan Pollard. The title of that “slick piece of damage control” – Territory of Lies – would be a fitting description for the Israeli-occupied hearing on alleged Iranian terror.
~
Maidhc Ó Cathail is a political analyst and editor of The Passionate Attachment.
Featured Video
Iran’s Next Strike May Not Explode. It Could Shut You Down
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Book Review
New paperback: Butchered by “Healthcare”
Lies are Unbekoming | October 20, 2026
Butchered by “Healthcare” is Robert Yoho’s plain-spoken account of how American medicine stopped being a profession and became an industry. 341 pages. Over a thousand references. Thirty-eight chapters.
“Screening Tests Are Useless”, on tests that find diseases that would never have hurt you. “The FDA Protects the Big Drug Companies”, on an agency funded by the companies it regulates. “The Journals’ Sins Are the Editors’ Sins”, on ghostwritten studies and captured peer review. “Opioids and ‘Pain Management’”, on how a generation was prescribed its way into addiction. “Prozac and Relatives” and “Antipsychotics Are Disastrous”, on what psychiatry does to adults and children. “Surgery: Money Before Patients”. “Failed Cancer Treatments”. “Futile CPR and Overprescribing”. “Billing Scams & Specialty Warfare”. “Hospitals Are Sharks”. Each with a Patient Tips section at the end on how to survive it.
If you have ever walked out of a doctor’s office with a prescription you didn’t ask for, or watched a parent put through a treatment that made them worse, this is the book you want on your shelf before the next appointment. … Full review
Butchered by “Healthcare” is available on Lulu now.
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Iran’s Next Strike May Not Explode. It Could Shut You Down /Col Doug Macgregor
- Iran: US political targets legitimate if assassinations return
- Iraq shuts key border crossing with Iran under US pressure: Report
- Undersea Internet cables could be targeted in retaliation for attacks on Iran: IRGC deputy chief
- EU sending ‘biased’ observers to interfere in Serbian election – president
- White House envoy declares kinetic action against Yemen ‘fruitless’
- Ukraine deployed thousands of microdrones in Iraqi Kurdistan: Tasnim
- Iran calls for emergency UNSC meeting over Trump’s ‘brazen’ bomb talk, Israeli threats
- Iranian sources reveal details of Russia-China Hormuz proposal
- Plan for more US-Israel integration puts our military tech at risk
- If Americans Knew
- Americans at National Conservatism Conference held in Israel this year criticize Israel
- Christiane Amanpour exits CNN with a legacy shaped by the debate over Israel
- Israel’s war on Iran is the final move in a decades-old strategy
- Israel Denies Entry to French Journalist, U.S. Researcher Amid Rise in Entry Denials
- Gaza’s hospitals are running out of life-saving fuel – Daily Update
- Mysterious bot accounts reportedly spread fake ‘man on the street’ videos for Michigan Senate candidate
- Israeli Defense Minister Katz Says Over 60 Lebanon Villages Have Been Destroyed
- Why Is Israel Running TV Ads in Iowa Ahead of the Midterms?
- Hind Rajab’s Alleged Killer Is in the United States. HRF Demands His Arrest.
- US Officials Face Fresh Pressure After Another American ‘Brutalized’ by Israeli Settlers in West Bank
- No Tricks Zone
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
