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Trying to Scuttle Iran Nuke Talks, Again

By Gareth Porter | IPS | May 15, 2014

As diplomats began drafting a comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear program and Western sanctions in Vienna on Tuesday, U.S. officials were poised to demand a drastic cut in Iran’s enrichment capabilities that is widely expected to deadlock the negotiations.

Iran is almost certain to reject the basic concept that it should reduce the number of its centrifuges to a fraction of its present total, and the resulting collapse of the talks could lead to a much higher level of tensions between the United States and Iran.

The Obama administration’s highly risky diplomatic gambit rests on the concept of “breakout time,” defined as the number of months it would take Iran to accumulate enough weapons grade uranium for a single nuclear weapon.

Both Secretary of State John Kerry and former U.S. proliferation official Robert Einhorn have explained the demand that Iran give up the vast majority of its centrifuges as necessary to increase Iran’s “breakout time” to at least six months, and perhaps even much longer.

Einhorn, who was the State Department’s special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control until June 2013, wrote in a report for the Brookings Institution that the number and type of centrifuges “will be limited to ensure that breakout times are … a minimum of 6 to 12 months at all times.”

In a separate article in The National Interest, Einhorn wrote that such a “breakout time” would entail a reduction from Iran’s present total of 19,000 centrifuges to “a few thousand first-generation centrifuges.”

Kerry suggested in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 8 that the administration would try to get a breakout time of more than one year but might settle for six to 12 months. He compared that with the two months he said was the current estimate of Iran’s breakout capabilities.

“Breakout” has been touted by hardline think tanks as a non-political technical measure of the threat to obtain the high-enriched uranium necessary for a bomb, but it is actually arbitrary and highly political.

Even proliferation specialists who support the demand to limit Iranian enrichment capabilities severely, however, including both Einhorn and Gary Samore, President Barack Obama’s former special assistant on weapons of mass destruction, believe that “breakout” is more about the politics surrounding the issue than the reality of the Iranian nuclear program.

In an interview with IPS, Samore said the breakout concept can only measure the capability to obtain the necessary amount of high-enriched uranium from acknowledged facilities – those that are under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

It does not deal with a scenario involving secret facilities, he said, because it is only possible to estimate rates of enrichment in facilities with known quantities and types of centrifuges.

The use of the breakout concept is based on the premise that Iran would make a political decision to begin enriching uranium to weapons grade levels in its Natanz and Fordow plants as rapidly as possible. That would mean that Iran would have to expel the IAEA inspectors and announce to the world, in effect, its intention to obtain a nuclear weapon.

Samore, who left the Obama administration in January 2013 and is now the executive director for research at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Security, told IPS, “It’s extremely unlikely that Iran would actually take the risk for single bomb,” calling it “an implausible scenario.”

Samore is no dove on Iran’s nuclear issue. He is also president of United Against Nuclear Iran, an organization that puts out hardline propaganda aimed at convincing the world that Iran is a threat trying to get nuclear weapons.

Another problem with the specter of “breakout” is that, even if it took the risk of enriching the necessary weapons-grade uranium, Iran would still have to go through a series of steps to actually have a bomb that it could threaten to use.

A report released last week by the International Crisis Group (ICG) noted that calculations of breakout capability “are rough and purely theoretical estimates” and that they “omit inevitable technical hitches” and “an unpredictable and time-consuming weaponization process.”

According to the testimony by director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess before the Senate Armed Services Committee in April 2010, that process, including integrating the weapon into a ballistic missile, would take three or four years.

The ICG report quoted a senior Iranian official as saying, “Serious people know that, even if Iran sought nuclear weapons, it will take years to manufacture one. What’s more, no state has ever invited opprobrium or a military strike just to produce a few kilograms of highly enriched uranium.”

In an interview, Jim Walsh of MIT’s Security Studies Program was scathing about the “breakout” scenario the administration is using to justify its diplomatic stance. “The idea of Iran kicking out inspectors to rush to get one bomb is silly,” he told IPS.

Samore believed that Iran would be far more likely to try what he calls a “sneakout” – the use of secret facilities to enrich uranium to weapons grade — than a “breakout.”

But as is generally acknowledged by proliferation specialists, such a covert route to a nuclear weapons capability would take much longer than trying to do so openly. Furthermore, it is almost certain to be detected, as Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified in April 2013.

Despite his conviction that the breakout concept makes no sense as the basis for negotiations with Iran, Samore believes it will be “the test for any deal,” because it is the only way to measure it. “It’s a political fact of life,” Samore said. “It all gets boiled down to breakout time.”

The dominance that the breakout advocates have achieved in the lopsided political discourse about Iran has given opponents of an agreement a new form of pressure on the Obama administration to make unrealistic demands in the negotiations.

Einhorn admitted at a panel at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington D.C. on Tuesday that the decision on the length of breakout time and the level of centrifuges to be demanded “will come down to a political judgment.”

He clearly suggested, however, that the decision is primarily a response to political pressures from various unnamed parties and not a matter of finding a political compromise with Iran.

“Some say six months or less,” he said. “Others say you need a year. Some say a year and a half or two years.”

The former senior State Department official on proliferation issues insisted, moreover, that there was no possibility of accepting Iran’s explicit demand to be permitted to increase its enrichment capacity to as many as 30,000 centrifuges in order to support a nuclear power program.

“That amount would bring breakout time down to weeks or days,” he said. “That’s breakout.”

He did not discuss the possibility of agreement on gradually phasing in additional centrifuges as the practical need for them is demonstrated by progress on a new nuclear reactor.

The tough talk by Einhorn, who has clearly been given the green light to describe administration thinking publicly, makes it much less likely that the administration will back away from a breakout demand in the face of firm Iranian resistance.

May 15, 2014 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Israel main reason behind NPT failure: Iran

Press TV – May 10, 2014

An Iranian official says Israel’s policies are the key reason behind the failure of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to fulfill its objectives.

“Non-Aligned Movement countries backed by many other states firmly believe that the Zionist regime [of Israel]’s policies and its opposition to the establishment of a region free from nuclear weapons in the Middle East is the most important contributor to the NPT’s failure to achieve its goals in [the field of] non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Director General for Political Affairs Hamid Ba’eedinejad said on Saturday.

Signatories to the NPT are sharply divided over putting Israel under pressure in order to force the regime to sign the treaty and agree to the establishment of a Middle East region free from nuclear arms as well as weapons of mass destruction, he said.

The official underlined that certain Israeli allies oppose the NPT signatories’ unanimous stance on the necessity of Tel Aviv signing the treaty.

The Iranian official noted that the third session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in New York failed to yield any tangible results over the implementation of the treaty. Ba’eedinejad had headed the Iranian delegation to the event.

Israel is widely believed to be the only possessor of nuclear arms in the Middle East, with an estimated stockpile of 200-400 nuclear warheads. In its Yearbook 2012, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said that Israel possesses at least 80 “highly operational” nuclear warheads.

Israel, which rejects all regulatory international nuclear agreements, maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity over its nuclear activities and refuses to allow its nuclear facilities to come under international regulatory inspections.

May 10, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Bill Clinton and the Bogus Iran Threat

By Sheldon Richman | FFF | May 8, 2014

Tragically, President George H.W. Bush passed up a chance for a rapprochement with Iran because, after the Soviet Union imploded, the national-security apparatus needed a new threat to stave off budget cutters in Congress. Iran became the “manufactured crisis,” according to author Gareth Porter’s new book by that title.

Doubly tragic, Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton, compounded the dangerous folly by hyping the bogus threat. Why? That might be a good question for progressives to ask possible presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who enjoys basking in her husband’s supposed presidential successes.

Porter writes,

That ramping up of pressure on Iran by the Clinton administration was still driven by the same bureaucratic incentives that had appeared at the end of the Cold War, but it shifted into overdrive because it was linked to support of the Israeli government’s drive to portray Iran as the great threat to peace in the world.

Clinton’s advisers saw the threat of nuclear proliferation as the path to beefing up the national-security apparatus. It was perfect for justifying new weapons systems and a continuing role as world policeman.

Moreover, the military focus on Iran, Porter adds, “dovetailed with the Clinton administration’s move to align its Iran policy with that of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.” Before assuming power, Clinton signaled his intention to be “more explicitly pro-Israel than the Bush administration had been.” To that end, he selected Martin Indyk as his campaign’s Middle East adviser. Indyk had been an adviser to former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir; a researcher at the chief pro-Israel lobbying organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; and cofounder of AIPAC’s spinoff think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (Today, Indyk is President Obama’s chief envoy to the failed U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian talks.)

The Clinton administration implemented the “dual containment” policy against Iraq and Iran. But Porter reports that Robert Pelletreau, the Middle East policymaker in the State Department, acknowledges “that it was ‘pretty much accepted in Washington’ that the policy had originated in Israel.”

Was there a case against Iran to justify the policy? The administration charged Iran with abetting international terrorism, beefing up its armed forces, and seeking nuclear weapons. But was there evidence?

Porter’s book is a heavily documented brief showing that Iran never had a policy or took steps to acquire nuclear weapons. It sought a uranium-enrichment capability in order to produce fuel for its civilian nuclear program, but it did not seek weapons. Moreover, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had issued a fatwa condemning nuclear weapons as a sin against Islam.

As for Iran’s military, the government sought to acquire medium-range missiles, but this was entirely consistent with its defense needs: Saddam Hussein of Iraq was a standing threat (he had launched an eight-year war complete with chemical attacks and missile strikes on Iran’s cities, including Tehran), and Israeli leaders often spoke of the need for a preemptive strike against the Islamic Republic, like the one staged in 1981 against Iraq’s nuclear-power reactor at Osirak.

And terrorism? “Reflecting both the hostility toward Iran within the national security bureaucracy and the influence of the Israeli line on its Iran policy, the Clinton administration also adopted the same a priori assumption that Iran was a threat to the issue of terrorism,” Porter writes. In other words, Clinton didn’t need evidence. Porter provides several examples of Iran being falsely blamed for terrorism committed by someone else. The pattern of blame without evidence persists.

Finally, why were Israel’s leadership and American supporters so determined to put Iran at the center of U.S. foreign policy, especially when Israel’s government had previously, if covertly, cooperated with the Shiite Islamic Republic on the grounds that both countries had a common enemy in Sunni extremism? Porter’s detailed and documented chapter on this aspect of the manufactured crisis concludes,

“The history of the origins and early development of Israel’s Iran nuclear scare and threat to attack Iran over its nuclear and missile programs highlights a pattern in which both the [Yitzhak] Rabin and [Benjamin] Netanyahu governments deliberately exaggerated the threat from Iran, in sharp contradiction with the Israeli intelligence assessment. The ruse served a variety of policy interests, most of which were related to the manipulation of US policy in the region.”

May 9, 2014 Posted by | Book Review, Corruption, Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby

By Mark Weber

For many years Israel has violated well established standards of international law and has defied numerous United Nations resolutions in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial killings, and in its repeated acts of military aggression.

Most of the world regards Israel’s policies, and especially its oppression of Pal­estinians, as illegal and outrageous. This international consen­sus is reflected, for example, in numerous UN resolutions condemning Israel, which have been approved with overwhelming majorities.

“The whole world,“ said United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, “is demanding that Israel withdraw [from occupied Palestinian territories]. I don’t think the whole world… can be wrong.” [1]

Only in the United States do politicians and the media still fervently support Israel and defend its policies. For many years the US has provided Israel with crucial military, diplo­matic and financial backing, including more than $3 billion each year in aid.

Why is the US such a staunch bastion of support for Israel?

Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, has candidly identified the reason. Speaking to an audience in Boston, he said:

“But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic … People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful.” [2]

Bishop Tutu spoke the truth. Although Jews make up only two or three percent of the US population, they wield immense power and influ­ence – much more than any other ethnic or religious group.

As Jewish author and political science professor Benjamin Ginsberg has pointed out: [3]

“Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade’s corporate mergers and reorganizations. Today, though barely two percent of the nation’s population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation’s larg­est newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, the New York Times… The role and influence of Jews in Ameri­can politics is equally marked…

“Jews are only three percent of the nation’s population and com­prise eleven percent of what this study defines as the nation’s elite. However, Jews constitute more than 25 percent of the elite journalists and publishers, more than 17 percent of the leaders of important voluntary and public interest organiza­tions, and more than 15 percent of the top ranking civil ser­vants.”

Stephen Steinlight, former Director of National Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, similarly notes the “disproportionate political power” of Jews, which is “pound for pound the greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America.” He goes on to explain that “Jewish economic influence and power are disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood, television, and in the news industry.“ [4]

Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, point­ed out in their 1995 book, Jews and the New American Scene: [5]

“During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectu­als… 20 percent of professors at the leading universities … 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington … 59 percent of the directors, writ­ers, and producers of the 50 top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent of directors, writers, and producers in two or more primetime television series.”

Vanity Fair magazine in October 2007 published a list of what it calls “the world’s most powerful people” – a lineup of the one hundred most influential media bosses, bankers, publishers, image makers, and so forth, who determine how we view ourselves and the world, and who – directly and indirectly — shape our lives and our futures. Jews made up more than half of the powerful men and women on the Vanity Fair list, reported a leading Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post. [6]

The influence of American Jewry in Washington, The Jerusalem Post has also noted, is “far disproportionate to the size of the community, Jewish leaders and US officials acknowledge. But so is the amount of money they contribute to [election] campaigns.” One member of the influential Conference of Presidents of Major Amer­ican Jewish Organizations “estimated Jews alone had contributed 50 percent of the funds for [President Bill] Clinton’s 1996 re-elec­tion campaign.” [7]

Mother Jones magazine compiled a listing of the 400 leading contributors to the 2000 US national elections. Seven of the first ten were Jewish, as were twelve of the top 20, and 125 of the top 250. [8]

The single biggest donor to American politicians is Israeli billionaire and media mogul Haim Saban. In January 2007 it was revealed that he had donated approximately $13 million to various US political candidates. [9] The New York Times has noted Saban’s ardent devotion to the Jewish state: “He has since emerged as perhaps the most politically connected mogul in Hollywood, throwing his weight and money around Washington, and increasingly, the world, trying to influence all things Israeli. ‘I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,’ he said.” [10]

A Grip on Hollywood

“It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture,” acknowledges Michael Medved, a well-known Jewish author and film critic. “Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie stu­dios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names.” [11]

One person who has carefully studied this subject is Jonathan J. Goldberg, editor of the influential Jewish community weekly Forward. In his 1996 book, Jewish Power, he wrote: [12]

“In a few key sectors of the media, notably among Hollywood stu­dio executives, Jews are so numerically dominant that calling these businesses Jewish-controlled is little more than a sta­tistical observation …

“Hollywood at the end of the twentieth century is still an industry with a pronounced ethnic tinge. Virtually all the senior executives at the major studios are Jews. Writers, pro­ducers, and to a lesser degree directors are disproportionately Jewish — one recent study showed the figure as high as 59 per­cent among top-grossing films.

“The combined weight of so many Jews in one of America’s most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews of Hollywood a great deal of political power. They are a major source of money for Democratic candidates.”

“As a proud Jew,” writes Joel Stein, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, “I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood … I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.” [13]

Reflecting their role in the American media, Jews are routinely portrayed as high-minded, trustworthy, compassionate, and deserving of sympathy and support. While millions of Ameri­cans readily accept such imagery, not everyone is impressed. “I am very angry with some of the Jews,” complained actor Marlon Brando during a 1996 interview. “They know perfectly well what their responsibilities are… Hollywood is run by Jews. It’s owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of people who are suffering.” [14]

A Well-Entrenched Factor

This intimidating power is not a new phenom­enon, but has long been an important factor in American life. In 1972, during a private White House meeting, President Richard Nixon and the Rev. Billy Graham spoke frankly about the Jewish grip on the media. “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain,” said Graham, the nation’s best-known Christian evangelist. “You believe that?,” Nixon responded. “Yes, sir,” said Graham. “Oh, boy,” replied Nixon. “So do I. I can’t ever say that, but I believe it.” [15]

In 1978, Jewish American scholar Alfred M. Lilienthal wrote in his detailed study, The Zionist Connection: [16]

“How has the Zionist will been imposed on the American people?… It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power … The Jewish connection covers all areas and reaches every level. Most Americans may not even sense this gigantic effort, but there is scarcely a Jew who is not touched by its tentacles…

“The extent and depth to which organized Jewry reached – and reaches – in the U.S. is indeed awesome … The most effective component of the Jewish connection is probably that of media control … Jews, toughened by centuries of persecution, have risen to places of prime importance in the business and financial world… Jewish wealth and acumen wields unprecedented power in the area of finance and investment banking, playing an important role in influencing U.S. policy toward the Middle East … In the larger metropolitan areas, the Jewish-Zionist connection thoroughly pervades affluent financial, commercial, social, entertainment, and art circles.”

Foreign Policy Role

Jews in Israel feel free to act brutally against Arabs, writes Is­raeli journalist Ari Shavit, “believing with absolute certitude that now, with the White House, the Senate and much of the American media in our hands, the lives of others do not count as much as our own.” [17]

In Britain, a veteran member of the House of Commons candidly declared in May 2003 that pro-Israel Jews had taken control of America’s foreign policy, and had succeeded in pushing the US and Britain into war in Iraq. Tam Dalyell, a Labour party deputy known as “Father of the House” because he is the longest-serving Member of Parliament, said: “A Jewish cabal have taken over the government in the United States and formed an unholy alliance with fundamentalist Christians … There is far too much Jewish influence in the United States.” [18]

Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has spoken with blunt exasperation about the Jewish-Israeli hold on the United States: [19]

“I’ve never seen a President — I don’t care who he is — stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn’t writing any­thing down. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes on.”

Today the danger has never been greater. Israel and Jewish organiza­tions are prodding the United States into new wars against Israel’s en­emies.

To sum up: Jews wield immense power and influence in the United States. The “Jewish lobby” is a decisive factor in US support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American in­terests. In fact, they often conflict.

As long as the “very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the Jewish-Zionist domination of the US polit­ical system and the American media, the Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the Israeli threat to peace, and the bloody con­flict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East.

Notes

1. On April 8, 2002, in Madrid. J. Brinkley, “Israel Starts Leaving… ,” The New York Times, April 9, 2002.
( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/08/international/08CND-MIDE.html )

2.  D. Tutu, “Apartheid in the Holy Land,” The Guardian (Britain), April 29, 2002.
( http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,706911,00.html )

3. Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (University of Chicago, 1993), pp. 1, 103.

4. S. Steinlight, “The Jewish Stake in America’s Changing Demography: Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy,” Center for Immigration Studies, Nov. 2001.
( http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back1301.html )

5.  Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, Jews and the New American Scene (Harvard Univ. Press, 1995), pp. 26-27.

6. N. Burstein, “Jewish power dominates at ‘Vanity Fair’,” The Jerusalem Post (Israel), Oct.12, 2007.
( http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1191257286817&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull )

7. Janine Zacharia, “The Unofficial Ambassadors of the Jewish State,” The Jerusalem Post (Israel), April 2, 2000. Reprinted in “Other Voices,” June 2000, p. OV-4, a supplement to The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

8. A. Cockburn, “The Uproar Over the Israel Lobby,” May 5 (or 8), 2006.
( http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/2/2006/1368 )
( http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05082006.html )

9. “Israeli Billionaire Saban is Biggest Donor to US Politicians,” Ynet News (Israel), Jan. 23, 2007.
( http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3355786,00.html )

10. A. R. Sorkin, “Schlepping to Moguldom,” The New York Times, Sept. 5, 2004.
( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/business/yourmoney/05sab.html )

11. M. Medved, “Is Hollywood Too Jewish?,” Moment, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1996), p. 37.

12. Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (Addison-Wesley, 1996), pp. 280, 287-288. See also pp. 39-40, 290-291.

13. J. Stein, “How Jewish Is Hollywood?,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 19, 2008.
( http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column )

14. Interview with Larry King, CNN network, April 5, 1996. “Brando Remarks,” Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1996, p. F4 (OC). A short time later, Brando was obliged to apologize for his remarks.

15. “Nixon, Billy Graham Make Derogatory Comments About Jews on Tapes,” Chicago Tribune, March 1, 2002 (or Feb. 28, 2002)
( http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/02/Graham_Nixon.html );
“Billy Graham Apologizes for ’72 Remarks,” Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2002. “Graham Regrets Jewish Slur,” BBC News, March 2, 2002.
( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1850077.stm ) The conversation apparently took place on Feb. 1, 1972.

16. A. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978), pp. 206, 209, 212, 218, 228, 229.

17. The New York Times, May 27, 1996. Shavit is identified as a columnist for Ha’aretz, a Hebrew-language Israeli daily newspaper, “from which this article is adapted.”

18. F. Nelson, “Anger Over Dalyell’s ‘Jewish Cabal’ Slur,” The Scotsman (Edinburgh), May 5, 2003; M. White, “Dalyell Steps Up Attack On Levy,” The Guardian (London), May 6, 2003.
See also: M. Weber, ” Iraq: A War for Israel” ( http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/iraqwar.shtml )

19. Interview with Moorer, Aug. 24, 1983. Quoted in: Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby (Lawrence Hill, 1984 and 1985), p. 161.

May 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | April 27, 2014

Now that the demonization of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is in full swing, one has to wonder when the neocons will unveil their plan for “regime change” in Moscow, despite the risks that overthrowing Putin and turning Russia into a super-sized version of Ukraine might entail for the survival of the planet.

There is a “little-old-lady-who-swallowed-the-fly” quality to neocon thinking. When one of their schemes goes bad, they simply move to a bigger, more dangerous scheme.

If the Palestinians and Lebanon’s Hezbollah persist in annoying you and troubling Israel, you target their sponsors with “regime change” – in Iraq, Syria and Iran. If your “regime change” in Iraq goes badly, you escalate the subversion of Syria and the bankrupting of Iran. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mysterious Why of the Iraq War.”]

Just when you think you’ve cornered President Barack Obama into a massive bombing campaign against Syria – with a possible follow-on war against Iran – Putin steps in to give Obama a peaceful path out, getting Syria to surrender its chemical weapons and Iran to agree to constraints on its nuclear program.

So, this Obama-Putin collaboration has become your new threat. That means you take aim at Ukraine, knowing its sensitivity to Russia. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis.”]

You support an uprising against elected President Viktor Yanukovych, even though neo-Nazi militias are needed to accomplish the actual coup. You get the U.S. State Department to immediately recognize the coup regime although it disenfranchises many people of eastern and southern Ukraine, where Yanukovych had his political base.

When Putin steps in to protect the interests of those ethnic Russian populations and supports the secession of Crimea (endorsed by 96 percent of voters in a hastily called referendum), your target shifts again. Though you’ve succeeded in your plan to drive a wedge between Obama and Putin, Putin’s resistance to your Ukraine plans makes him the next focus of “regime change.”

Your many friends in the mainstream U.S. news media begin to relentlessly demonize Putin with a propaganda barrage that would do a totalitarian state proud. The anti-Putin “group think” is near total and any accusation – regardless of the absence of facts – is fine.

In just the past week, the New York Times has run two such lead stories. The first, last Monday, trumpeted supposed photographic evidence proving that Russian special forces had invaded Ukraine and were provoking the popular resistance to the coup regime in Kiev. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Another NYT-Michael Gordon Special?”]

Two days later, the Times buried deep inside the paper a grudging retraction, admitting that one key photo that the Times said was taken in Russia (showing the supposed troops before they were dispatched to Ukraine) was actually taken in Ukraine, destroying the whole premise of the earlier story. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Retracts Russian-Photo Scoop.”]

vladimir-putin-russia-300x224Then, on Sunday, the Times led the paper with a lengthy report on the “Search for Secret Putin Fortune” with the subhead: “U.S. Suggests Russian Leader Has Amassed Wealth, and That It Knows Where.” Except the story, which spills over to two-thirds of an inside page, presents not a single hard fact about Putin’s alleged “fortune,” other than that he wears what looks like an expensive watch.

The story is reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s propaganda campaign against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega for wearing “designer glasses,” a theme that was picked up by the major U.S. news outlets back then without noting the hypocrisy of Nancy Reagan wearing designer gowns and Reagan’s beloved Nicaraguan Contra leaders profiting off arms sales and cocaine smuggling.

Spreading suspicions about a target’s personal wealth is right out of Propaganda 101. The thinking is that you can turn people against a leader if they think he’s ripping off the public, whether he is or isn’t. The notion that Ortega’s glasses or Putin’s watch represents serious corruption – or that they are proof of some hidden fortune – is ludicrous, but it can serve a propaganda goal of creating divisions.

But what would it mean to destabilize Russia? Does anyone think that shattering the Russian political structure through a combination of economic sanctions and information warfare will result in a smooth transition to some better future? The Russians already have tried the West’s “shock therapy” under drunken President Boris Yeltsin – and they saw the cruel ugliness of “free market” capitalism.

Putin’s autocratic nationalism was a response to the near-starvation levels of poverty that many Russians were forced into as they watched well-connected capitalists plunder the nation’s wealth and emerge as oligarchic billionaires. For all Putin’s faults, it was his push-back against some of those oligarchs and his defense of Russian interests internationally that secured him a solid political base.

In other words, even if the neocons get the Obama administration – and maybe its successor – to ratchet up tensions with Russia enough to generate sufficient political friction to drive Putin from office, the likely result would be a dangerously unstable Russia possessing a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons. Putin loyalists are not likely to readily accept a replay of the Yeltsin years.

But the neocons apparently think the risks are well worth it. After all, the end result might finally let them kill off that pesky fly, Israel’s near-in threat from the Palestinians and Hezbollah. But we might remember what happened to the little old lady in the ditty, when she swallowed the horse, she was dead, of course.

~

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

April 27, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Karen Kwiatkowski: Inside the Pentagon’s “Office of Special Plans”

National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship”

Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship” on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club.

Karen U. Kwiatkowski retired from the U.S. Air Force with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel following service at the top echelons of the Pentagon, including the Office of Special Plans during the run-up to the war in Iraq. She served as Political-military affairs officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Under Secretary for Policy, in the Sub-Saharan Africa and Near East South Asia (NESA) Policy directorates; worked on the North Africa desk; served on the Air Force Staff, Operations Directorate at the Pentagon; served on the staff of the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade, as well as tours of duty in Alaska, Massachusetts, Spain and Italy. Kwiatkowski is the author of two books about U.S. foreign policy towards Africa: African Crisis Response Initiative: Past Present and Future (US Army Peacekeeping Institute, 2000) and Expeditionary Air Operations in Africa: Challenges and Solutions (Air University Press, 2001). Kwiatkowski has an MA in Government from Harvard University, MS in Science Management from the University of Alaska, and completed both Air Command and Staff College and the Naval War College seminar programs. She earned her Ph.D. in World Politics from Catholic University of America in 2005. Kwiatkowski’s analysis of the U.S. invasion of Iraq has been featured in a number of documentaries, including Why We Fight in 2005. She has written for The American Conservative and for LewRockwell.com since 2003.

April 26, 2014 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

US to resume military aid to Egypt

Press TV – April 23, 2014

The Obama administration plans to resume some military assistance to Egypt and deliver 10 Apache helicopters after the military-backed government in Cairo upheld its peace treaty with Israel.

The decision to lift the hold on the US aid was made because the Egyptian government is sustaining its strategic relationship with the United States and fulfilling its obligations to Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry told Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy in a telephone call, according to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also informed his Egyptian counterpart, Colonel General Sedki Sobhi, of the decision in a telephone call, saying the Apache helicopters “will help the Egyptian government counter extremists who threaten US, Egyptian and Israeli security,” according to Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby.

The decision comes despite concerns about failure of Egypt’s government to embrace democratic reforms following the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi back in July. Since then, Egypt has been the scene of the government’s deadly crackdown on Morsi’s supporters, who have been holding street protests.

According to US law, when a military coup occurs in a country, economic and military aid should be cut off. But the administration’s decision means the controversial aid will be flowing to the Egyptian military again.

Before last year’s coup in Egypt, the US provided Cairo with $1.5 billion a year in aid, $1.3 billion of which was military assistance.

April 23, 2014 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Army ‘to actively recruit’ Christian Palestinian citizens of Israel

Ma’an – 22/04/2014

BETHLEHEM – In a new policy, Palestinian Christian citizens of Israel will begin receiving army conscription papers, Israeli media said Tuesday.

Israeli news site The Times of Israel quoted Army Radio as saying that though joining the Israeli army would remain voluntary for Christians, they would now be receiving recruitment papers starting at the age of 16.

Previously, a decades-old policy required Palestinian Christian citizens of Israel to initiate contact with the army if they wanted to join, the Times of Israel report said.

In February, the Israeli Knesset passed a bill that created an identity marker for Christians, separating them from the “Arab” identifier previously used for all Palestinian citizens of Israel.

“It’s a historic and important step that could balance the State of Israel and connect us to the Christians, and I am careful not to refer to them as Arabs, because they are not Arabs,” bill sponsor Likud MK Yariv Levin said in January.

Christians are “our natural allies,” Levin said, adding that Muslims “want to destroy the state (of Israel) from within.”

PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi, herself a Christian, condemned the law as an effort to divide the Palestinian community.

April 22, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Iran won’t have West meddling in defense affairs: Minister

Press TV – April 16, 2014

The Iranian defense minister says the Islamic Republic will by no means negotiate on its defense prowess and missile program in nuclear talks.

Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan made the statement in reaction to comments by top US nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman who said that Iran’s ballistic capabilities should be addressed as part of a comprehensive agreement in nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 group.

“Iran’s missile might is our concern. We are the ones in charge and we will not brook interference from anyone [in this issue],” Dehqan said Wednesday.

The official stressed that the issue is not up for talks under any circumstances.

He said that the West claims that Iran may acquire nuclear warheads for missiles, thus insisting that the issue of the country’s missile program be part of the talks, but he reiterated that nukes have no place in the country’s defense doctrine.

Dehqan said that Iran by no means seeks nuclear arms, citing a fatwa by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on the prohibition of building and using such weapons.

Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the US, France, Britain, Russia, China – plus Germany wrapped up their latest round of the talks aimed at reaching a comprehensive deal on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program last week. Iran and the six countries agreed to meet again on May 13.

The two sides had reached an interim deal in the Swiss city of Geneva on November 24, 2013. The deal took effect on January 20

April 16, 2014 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Former Australian foreign minister exposes Zionist lobby power

By Brandon Martinez | April 15, 2014

A controversy is swirling in Australia involving a former foreign minister and the country’s influential Zionist lobby.

Bob Carr, who served as Australia’s foreign minister in the administration of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, recently published a memoir detailing his experiences on the job. In the book Carr hones in on the Israeli lobby, which he says has “extraordinary” and “unhealthy” influence in Australian politics and had a “direct line” into the decision-making processes of the Gillard administration. Not only is Organized Zionism’s grip on Australia unhealthy, it is dangerous and corrosive.

In recent media interviews Carr has said that Gillard overruled his suggestion that Australia not block the Palestinian bid to attain upgraded ‘non-member observer state’ status at the United Nations in 2012 and that this was a direct result of the Zionist lobby’s pull on the former prime minister. Carr also revealed that Gillard was so immovable in her pro-Israel partisanship that she impeded him from making routine statements of concern about the growth and expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank because it would upset the Zionist lobby.

When asked by ABC (Australia) reporter Sarah Ferguson how such a small group of people could wield so much power, Carr mentioned the significant amount of political campaign donations stemming from Zionist sources as well as the Zionist lobby’s courting of Australian politicians and journalists by sponsoring all-expenses-paid-for trips to Israel. Carr accused Gillard of “subcontracting” Australia’s foreign policy vis-à-vis the Middle East to her wealthy Jewish backers.

In 2013 Gillard received the Jerusalem Prize for her unwavering support of the Zionist apartheid state and its terroristic policies. Members of Australia’s main Zionist groups praised Gillard for her “ongoing support of the aspirations of Israel’s people” and noted that she “empathises with the Jewish people and our connection with the land of Israel.” “[T]he Zionist movement of Australia are honoured to be able to demonstrate our gratitude and respect for Ms Gillard’s many years as an unstinting supporter of the Jewish and Zionist cause,” said Sam Tatarka, president of the Zionist Council of Victoria.

Gillard unveiled her brazen Jewish exceptionalist mentality during a visit to the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne in 2012, where she stated that the holocaust was “the greatest crime humanity has ever known.” It is unlikely that Gillard is unaware of the more than 60 million non-Jews who perished during the Second World War, or of the millions of Russian and Ukrainian Christians killed by Jewish Bolsheviks throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Revealing her callous and cold-blooded outlook, Gillard ignores those victims because recognizing their suffering would undermine the racist Talmudic myth that Jews are the world’s ultimate and perennial victims.

The reaction of Australia’s Zionist lobby to Bob Carr’s revelations has been predictably lame. The Zionist kingpin Mark Leibler of the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council dismissed Carr’s exposition about “The Lobby” as a “figment of his imagination.” When faced with truths about their undue influence, the Zionists merely sneer at and heap ridicule upon those like Carr who are brave enough to state the obvious.

Former American politicians have expressed similar sentiments to Carr’s. Cynthia McKinney, a former congresswoman from Georgia, said that she was ousted from congress by the Israeli lobby because of her outspoken support of the Palestinians. She once told an interviewer that 99 per cent of members of the US congress are veritable servants of Zionist interests. Former congressman Paul Findley wrote a book about the enormous power of Israel’s lobby in the US entitled They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby.

Another former congressman, James Traficant, told Greta van Susteren of Fox News that Israel and its supporters in the US have “a powerful stranglehold” over the American government. “We’re conducting the expansionist policy of Israel and everyone’s too afraid to say it,” remarked Traficant in reference to the disastrous Iraq war.

The Zionists, said Traficant, “control both members of the House… and the Senate. They have us involved in wars in which we have little or no interest.” These Zionist elements “control much of the media [and] control much of the commerce of the country,” Traficant stressed. The late Helen Thomas, a renowned American journalist and White House correspondent, echoed Traficant’s perspective, telling an audience in Detroit that “congress, the White House, Hollywood, and Wall Street are owned by Zionists. No question in my opinion.”

The credible assertions of these Washington insiders have been validated by a number of boastful Jewish writers themselves. One such braggart was Elad Nehorai who penned an op-ed for the Times of Israel wherein he implored his fellow Zionists to be more honest about their influence as a point of pride. “Let’s be honest with ourselves, here, fellow Jews. We do control the media. We’ve got so many dudes up in the executive offices in all the big movie production companies it’s almost obscene,” wrote Nehorai. The pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, observed Nehorai, “was essentially constructed just to drive agenda in Washington DC. And it succeeds admirably.” That organization is “practically the equivalent of the Elders of Zion” he added. “The truth is,” Nehorai conceded, “the anti-Semites got it right… We own a whole freaking country.”

Nehorai’s supremacist musings seem to have been inspired by a 2008 Los Angeles Times article authored by Joel Stein. In that piece, titled “Who Controls Hollywood? C’mon,” Stein bragged candidly about Jewish power in Hollywood, stating that “Jews totally run Hollywood” and calling Americans “dumb” for not recognizing that fact. “As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood,” Stein gloated. “But I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.”

The very fact that discussing Zionist influence is taboo in Western societies is in and of itself an indication of their pervasive power. “To find out where the power lies, ask whom you cannot criticize,” as the wise credo goes. The unusual dichotomy that Zionists like Stein and Nehorai are able to say the things quoted above without any repercussions, while non-Jews who have made comparable assertions are castigated as anti-Semites, haters and conspiracy theorists, underscores the Talmudic double standard that permeates much of public discourse on this important issue.

However, the tide is slowly but surely turning, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Zionists cannot keep a lid on their intrigues any longer.

Brandon Martinez can contacted at martinezperspective@hotmail.com.

April 15, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Iranian Nuclear Weapons Programme That Wasn’t

By Gareth Porter | IPS | April 12, 2014

When U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen M. Ortiz unsealed the indictment of a Chinese citizen in the UK for violating the embargo against Iran, she made what appeared to be a new U.S. accusation of an Iran nuclear weapons programme.

The press release on the indictment announced that between in November 2005 and 2012, Sihai Cheng had supplied parts that have nuclear applications, including U.S.-made goods, to an Iranian company, Eyvaz Technic Manufacturing, which it described as “involved in the development and procurement of parts for Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

The text of the indictment reveals that the reference to a “nuclear weapons program” was yet another iteration of a rhetorical device used often in the past to portray Iran’s gas centrifuge enrichment programme as equivalent to the development of nuclear weapons.

Reuters, Bloomberg, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, and The Independent all reported that claim as fact. But the U.S. intelligence community, since its well-known November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, has continued to be very clear on the pubic record about its conclusion that Iran has not had a nuclear weapons programme since 2003.

Something was clearly amiss with the Justice Department’s claim.

The indictment doesn’t actually refer to an Iranian nuclear weapons programme, as the Ortiz press release suggested. But it does say that the Iranian company in question, Eyvaz Tehnic Manufacturing, “has supplied parts for Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.”

The indictment claims that Eyvaz provided “vacuum equipment” to Iran’s two uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow and “pressure transducers” to Kalaye Electric Company, which has worked on centrifuge research and development.

But even those claims are not supported by anything except a reference to a December 2, 2011 decision by the Council of the European Union that did not offer any information supporting that claim.

The credibility of the EU claim was weakened, moreover, by the fact that the document describes Eyvaz as a “producer of vacuum equipment.” The company’s website shows that it produces equipment for the oil, gas and petrochemical industries, including level controls and switches, control valves and steam traps.

Further revealing its political nature of indictment’s nuclear weapons claim, it cites two documents “designating” entities for their ties to the nuclear programme: the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1737 and a U.S. Treasury Department decision two months later.

Neither of those documents suggested any connection between Eyvaz and nuclear weapons. The UNSC Resolution, passed December 23, 2006, referred to Iran’s enrichment as “proliferation sensitive nuclear activities” in 11 different places in the brief text and listed Eyvaz as one of the Iranian entities to be sanctioned for its involvement in those activities.

And in February 2007 the Treasury Department designated Kalaye Electric Company as a “proliferator of Weapons of Mass Destruction” merely because of its “research and development efforts in support of Iran’s nuclear centrifuge program.”

The designation by Treasury was carried out under an Executive Order 13382, issued by President George W. Bush, which is called “Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass destruction Proliferators and Their Supporters.” That title conveyed the impression to the casual observer that the people on the list had been caught in actual WMD proliferation activities.

But the order allowed the U.S. government to sanction any foreign person merely because that person was determined to have engaged in activities that it argued “pose a risk of materially contributing” to “the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or their means of delivery”.

The Obama administration’s brazen suggestion that it was indicting an individual for exporting U.S. products to a company that has been involved in Iran’s “nuclear weapons program” is simply a new version of the same linguistic trick used by the Bush administration.

The linguistic acrobatics began with the political position that Iran’s centrifuge programme posed a “risk” of WMD proliferation; that “risk” of proliferation was then conflated with nuclear proliferation activities, when than was transmuted into “development of nuclear weapons”.

The final linguistic shift was to convert “development of nuclear weapons” into a “nuclear weapons program”.

That kind of the deceptive rhetoric about the Iranian nuclear programme began with the Bill Clinton administration, which argued, in effect, that nuclear weapons development could be inferred from Iran’s enrichment programme.

Although Cheng and Jamili clearly violated U.S. statutes in purchasing and importing the pressure transducers from the United States and sending them to Eyvaz in Iran, a close reading of the indictment indicates that the evidence that Eyvaz provided the transducers to the Iranian nuclear programme is weak at best.

The indictment says Cheng began doing business with Jamili and his company Nicaro in November 2005, and that he sold thousands of Chinese parts “with nuclear applications” which had been requested by Eyvaz. But all the parts listed in the indictment are dual use items that Eyvaz could have ordered for production equipment for oil and gas industry customers.

The indictment insinuates that Eyvaz was ordering the parts to pass them on to Iran’s enrichment facility at Natanz, but provides no real evidence of that intent. It quotes Jamili as informing Cheng in 2007 that his unnamed customer needed the parts for “a very big project and a secret one”. In 2008, he told Cheng that the customer was “making a very dangerous system and gas leakage acts as a bomb!”

The authors do not connect either of those statements to Eyvaz, but they suggest that it was a reference to gas centrifuges and thus imply that it must have been Eyvaz. “During the enrichment of uranium using gas centrifuges,” the indictment explains, “extremely corrosive chemicals are produced that could cause fire and explosions.”

That statement is highly misleading, however. There is no real risk of gas leaks from centrifuges causing fires or explosions, as MIT nuclear expert Scott R. Kemp told IPS in an interview. “The only risk of a gas leak [in centrifuge enrichment] is to the centrifuge itself,” said Kemp, “because the gas could leak into the centrifuge and cause it to crash.”

On the other hand, substantial risk of explosion and fire from gas leaks exists in the natural gas industry. So even if the customer referred to in the quotes had been Eyvaz, they would have been consistent with that company’s sales to gas industry customers.

Pressure transducers are used to control risk in that industry, as Todd McPadden of Ashcroft Instruments in Stratford, Connecticut told IPS. The pressure transducer measures the gas pressure and responds to any indication of either loss of pressure from leaks or build up of excessive pressure, McPadden explained.

The indictment shows in detail that in 2009 Eyvaz ordered hundreds of pressure transducers, which came from the U.S. company MKS. But again the indictment cites no real evidence that Eyvaz was ordering them to supply Iran’s enrichment facilities.

It refers only to photographs showing that MKS parts ended up in the centrifuge cascades at Natanz, which does not constitute evidence that they came from Eyvaz.

April 12, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel lobby seeks to ruin Iran N-talks: Analyst

Press TV – April 11, 2014

A political analyst says the Israeli lobby is seeking to scuttle efforts aimed at reaching a final comprehensive deal between Iran and the P5+1 over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program, Press TV reports.

In an interview on Thursday, Fo’ad Izadi, a professor at the University of Tehran, pointed to the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 and said the Israeli lobby is hell bent on spoiling attempts at reaching a final agreement. “The Israeli lobby has been working very hard to sabotage this agreement and the people in the US Congress are under a lot of pressure to pass new sanctions laws and create difficulties for this process,” he said.

The analyst also rejected the idea that the ant-Iran sanctions have brought the country to the negotiating table over its nuclear work.

“It would be a mistake for the other side to think that Iran is negotiating because of sanctions. Iran has shown for the last thirty-some years that it has some objectives in terms of its foreign policy, in terms of its scientific advances and Iran will not give up its rights under pressure,” he said.

Full article: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/…

April 11, 2014 Posted by | Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

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