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Should the US Go to War for Israel?

By James M. Wall | March 10, 2012

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the annual AIPAC conference earlier this week. He also held a private meeting with US President Barack Obama.

In his AIPAC speech, Netanyahu evoked the Holocaust as the source of Israel’s special privileged status that permits Netanyahu to do whatever he decides to do to “control Israel’s fate”.

That, of course, includes bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu drew a parallel between the exchange of letters between the US War department and the World Jewish Congress in 1944.

The Wall Street Journal described the scene at the AIPAC conference:

Netanyahu got out copies of two letters he said he keeps in his desk, between the World Jewish Congress and the War Department in 1944, when the WJC called on the United States to bomb the extermination camp at Auschwitz, and the War Department refused.

The refusal included the argument that attacking the camp might unleash even more “vindictive” behavior.

“Think about that,” Netanyahu said. “Even more vindictive than the Holocaust!”

During his meeting with Obama, Netanyahu elaborated further:

“Israel must reserve the right to defend itself. After all, that’s the very purpose of the Jewish state, to restore to the Jewish people control over our destiny.

That’s why my supreme responsibility as prime minister of Israel is to ensure that Israel remains master of its fate.”

In an editorial comment, the British Economist responded:

News flash: Israel is not master of its fate. It’s not terribly surprising that a country with less than 8 million inhabitants is not master of its fate. Switzerland, Sweden, Serbia and Portugal are not masters of their fates.

These days, many countries with populations of 100 million or more can hardly be said to be masters of their fates. Britain and China aren’t masters of their fates, and even the world’s overwhelmingly largest economy, the United States, isn’t really master of its fate.

What gives this leader of a foreign nation the license to speak in Washington with such confidence that he expects the US to join him in an attack on Iran, a nation that poses absolutely no threat to the US or its citizens?

Indeed, US intelligence agencies report that they have found no reason to believe that Iran poses an immediate threat to Israel.

So why should the US go to war for Israel over an issue that poses no more immediate danger to Israel than Iraq’s non-existent WMDs threatened its neighbors? That non-existent threat led to a disastrous and costly war for the US, a war that was strongly encouraged by Israel and its US allies in Congress.

Why is there even any serious discussion with a foreign nation over what the US should do regarding an attack against yet another Muslim nation that has made no threats against us?

There are two reasons why;  first, there is the US Congress, and second, there is AIPAC.

After Obama delivered his required obescient speech to AIPAC, the Wall Street Journal reported:

Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, said the speech was “a step in the right direction,” but  ”we need to make sure that this president is also going to stand by Israel and not allow his administration to somehow speak contrary to what our ally thinks is in its best interest.”

No one in the US administration shall speak contrary to what our ally thinks is its best interest?  Where would Rep. Cantor hear such a thing? Surely not in a Tea Party rally where loyalty to God and country are paramount.

We must look to AIPAC as the source of Rep. Cantor’s courage to denigrate the President of the United States.

President George Washington warned the new American nation in his 1796  farewell address that a “passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils”. He explained why:

“Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.”

The US has usually managed to adhere to Washington’s advice, until, that is, AIPAC was established.

On the Anti-War website,  Grant Smith described how, in 1948, AIPAC began to seize control of US foreign policy.

Recently declassified FBI files reveal how Israeli government officials first orchestrated public relations and policies through the US lobby. Counter-espionage investigations of proto-AIPAC’s first coordinating meetings with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the head of Mossad provide a timely and useful framework for understanding how AIPAC continues to localize and market Israeli government policies in America.

Although AIPAC claims it rose “from a small pro-Israel public affairs boutique in the 1950s,” its true origin can be traced to Oct. 16, 1948. This is the date AIPAC’s founder Isaiah L. Kenen and four others established the Israel Office of Information under Israel’s UN mission. It was later moved under the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

AIPAC controls the US Congress through its network of Political Action Committees that follow AIPAC’s instructions on which candidates to politically and financially support, and which candidates to jettison.

The incumbent Israeli Prime Minister travels to Washington to personally lobby members of Congress. He also hosts visiting congressional delegations on their regular trips to Israel.  An annual address to AIPAC is an essential part of that lobbying campaign.

This year, Prime Minister Netanyahu had Iran at the top of his agenda. He wants, and he fully expects, President Obama and the Congress to support Israel in its military assault against Iran’s nuclear installations.

There is no guarantee that Iran is even close to developing a nuclear capability, but in Netanyahu’s mind, even the possibility that Iran might one day develop an operational nuclear arms capability is sufficient cause for Israel, backed by the US, to destroy Iranian nuclear sites.

In short, the prime minister is ready for war against Iran, and he expects the US to fall in line behind him.

The irony of this arrogance is that Israel may well be at its lowest point of support from the world community.

David Remnick describes the extent to which Israel has become isolated from the world community. He writes in a Talk of the Town essay in the February issue of the New Yorker:

Israel has reached an impasse. An intensifying conflict of values has put its democratic nature under tremendous stress. When the government speaks daily about the existential threat from Iran, and urges an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, it ignores the existential threat that looms within. . . .

The political corrosion begins, of course, with the occupation of the Palestinian territories–the subjugation of Palestinian men, women and children–tht has lasted for forty years.

Peter Beinart, in a forthcoming and passionately urged polemic, The Crisis of Zionism, is just the latest critic to point out that a profoundly anti-democratic, even racist, political culture has become endemic among much of the Jewish population in the West Bank, and threatens Israel proper. . . .

In 1980, twelve thousand Jews lived in the West Bank, “east of democracy,” Beinart writes; now they number more than three hundred thouand, and include Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s wildly xenophobic Foreign Minister. .  .  .

To [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, the proper kind of ally is exemplified by AIPAC and Sheldon Adelson–the long-time casino tycoon and recent bankroller of Newt Gingrich–who owns a newspaper in Israel devoted to supporting him.

Remnick correctly takes note of the degree to which support for Israel affects the current US presidential campaign.

We know pretty much all we need to know about Netanyahu’s feelings toward Obama. The Prime Minister orders the President about like he might order a lowly member of his Israeli cabinet.  He would be very happy to see the White House back in Republican hands.

No doubt, he is following the Republican presidential nomination fight as it unfolds state by state. He cannot be unhappy over the strong link between the Republican candidates and the Christian evangelical conservatives, a segment of the American population already safely ensconced within the Republican base.

The latest victory for the pro-Israel/Christian evangelical base came this weekend when Republican Candidate Rick Santorum won, as reported by The Wichita Eagle, an impressive caucus victory, two to one, over Mitt Romney.

Santorum won with the strong support of that state’s governor, Sam Brownback, a former two-two term member of the US Senate. Governor Brownback is both a conservative evangelical Christian, and a strong supporter of Israel.

Salon describes Kansas as “ground zero for the takeover of the GOP by Christian-infused movement conservatism and the extinction of middle-of-the-road Republicanism.”

Southern primaries Tuesday in Alabama and Mississippi should go to either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum, a political development that will force Romney to veer even deeper into the ”Christian-infused movement conservatism”/pro-Israel zealotry of his Republican base.

Israel’s media campaign about Iran as a threat was examined by Sheera Frenkel of McClatchy Newspapers. Among her conclusions:

Israeli officials acknowledge that the widespread acceptance in the West that Iran is on the verge of building a nuclear weapon isn’t based just on the findings of Israeli intelligence operatives, but relies in no small part on a steady media campaign that the Israelis have undertaken to persuade the world that Iran is bent on building a nuclear warhead.

“The intelligence was half the battle in convincing the world,” an Israeli Foreign Ministry official told McClatchy, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the inner workings of Israel’s outreach on the topic. “The other half was Israel’s persistent approach and attitude that this was not something the world could continue to ignore.”

The official had recently returned from a trip to Washington and marveled at how the topic has become a major one in the United States. “U.S. politicians were falling over each other to talk about Iran,” he said. “In some ways, that is a huge success for Israel.”

If the US is led by Israel to participate in another war in the Middle East, these McClatchy findings suggest that this war could be one of the biggest sales promotion successes in modern political history.

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March 11, 2012 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran oil ban to hit 10 main crude importers hardest

Press TV – March 10, 2012

The Business Insider news website says in an article that if the flow of Iran’s oil exports is disrupted, the main importers of the country’s crude will be hit hardest.

According to the article, main importers of Iran’s crude including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Greece, South Africa and France will be adversely affected by any disruption in Tehran’s oil exports.

The article says when European Union (EU) sanctions are put into place on July 1, nearly 600,000 barrels of oil per day will come off the market as a result of which the price of Brent Crude would rise to about USD 138 per barrel.

If Iran’s crude exports are halted entirely as a result of an attack against the country, 2.5 million barrels per day of supply will be lost and Brent Crude prices will reach USD 205, the report adds.

Global oil prices have continually climbed this year following Iran’s move to cut oil sales to British and French firms in reaction to the EU’s anti-Iran embargos. Tehran has also announced it may halt oil exports to more European countries.

EU foreign ministers approved sanctions against Iran on January 23, including a ban on Iranian oil imports, a freeze on the assets of the country’s Central Bank within EU states and a ban on selling diamonds, gold, and other precious metals to Tehran.

The move is aimed at putting pressure on Iran to force the country into abandoning its nuclear energy program based on allegations that Tehran is seeking to weaponize its nuclear technology.

Iran has refuted the allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

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March 10, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Democratic Senator Carl Levin urges naval blockade of Iranian oil

Press TV – March 10, 2012

The chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee has put forward a proposal to impose an international naval blockade of Iran’s oil exports prior to any military strike against the country.

In a Friday interview with Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, Democratic Senator Carl Levin said naval blockade of Iran is “one option that needs to be considered” in order to escalate pressure against the Islamic Republic.

He went on to say that alternative crude supplies should be ensured prior to any such naval siege, in an attempt to avert potential price hikes in the global crude market.

Iran is OPEC’s second oil producer and the world’s third major crude exporter.

Levin insisted that similar measures aimed at mounting pressure on Iran without engaging in a combat, including imposition of a “no-fly-zone,” could prove to be “very effective” and urged Tehran’s adversaries to explore such options.

The White House, however, has downplayed Levin’s remarks. A senior official at President Barack Obama’s administration says, “Our focus remains on a diplomatic solution, as we believe diplomacy coupled with strong pressure can achieve the long-term solution we seek.”

The United States, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program.

The US and the EU have used the pretext to impose international and unilateral sanctions against Iran, while Washington and Tel Aviv have issued threats of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations.

Iran has repeatedly refuted the Western allegations regarding its nuclear energy program, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is entitled to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Tehran has promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country, warning that any such measure could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East.

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March 10, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran: Israel’s Concocted World Threat

By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | March 10, 2012

Scott Peterson recently published a comprehensive timeline for Iran’s nuclear program that charted not so much the actual progress of Iran’s supposed quest for a weapon, but the west’s, and in particular Israel’s shifting and endless series of revelations and predictions regarding it.  Israel’s movable dates for Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon take on the character of the predictions of Nostradamus or those of Christian millennials who announce the date of the Second Coming.  Another aspect of the millennialist world view that Israel’s shreying about Iran shares is a profound, almost religious faith in the certainty, not only of the prediction, but that the cause for which these predictions are offered is something close to sacred.

For the past several years, some would go back much farther and even say decades, Israel has orchestrated an ambitious, multi-layered campaign that included diplomatic and intelligence operations along with exploitation of American Jewish pro-Israel “agents of influence” (more on that below) designed to gin up an atmosphere conducive to war.  This was the subject of the secret documents I read, provided to me by Shamai Leibowitz, which showed Israeli diplomats ghostwriting anti-Iran op-eds for U.S. newspapers (see below), then Sen. Sam Brownback reporting to Israeli diplomats on an anti-Iran conference he was organizing (here is further evidence of Brownback’s continuing shilling against Iran), a Texas Congressman meeting with a local Jewish donor and Israeli diplomat, to whom the politician reported on Congressional developments that would further isolate Iran, and a senior Senate foreign relations committee staffer being briefed by senior Israel military-intelligence figures eager to warn him about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

Sheera Frenkel provided further background to this campaign in a piece she wrote (along with two other parts in a series) for McClatchy, in which Israeli leaders admit to the existence of this coordinated effort:

[During a press briefing, Israel’s] Agent 83 fingered with care his model of what a potential Iranian nuclear bomb might look like.

The agent…was showing off the model to a group of foreign reporters…the third such time he had been asked to showcase his expertise in the second half of 2009.

“…I hope it is clear that Iran is working toward building a nuclear bomb,” he told the departing reporters.

Within days, accounts of Agent 83′s story appeared in articles across the U.S. and Europe — Iran had advanced technological understanding of the workings of a nuclear weapon. It was one of dozens of “exclusives” on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, the majority of which had originated with Israeli sources.

Such access to Israeli experts for international journalists has been critical to spreading Israel’s view that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. In recent months, talk of Iran’s nuclear ambitions has fueled the Republican presidential campaign, served as the backdrop for this week’s meeting between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and earned a pledge from Obama on Sunday that the United States would resort to military means if necessary to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.

Israeli officials acknowledge that the widespread acceptance in the West that Iran is on the verge of building a nuclear weapon isn’t based just on the findings of Israeli intelligence operatives, but relies in no small part on a steady media campaign that the Israelis have undertaken to persuade the world that Iran is bent on building a nuclear warhead.

“The intelligence was half the battle in convincing the world,” an Israeli Foreign Ministry official told McClatchy…”The other half was Israel’s persistent approach and attitude that this was not something the world could continue to ignore.”

The official had recently returned from a trip to Washington and marveled at how the topic has become a major one in the United States. “U.S. politicians were falling over each other to talk about Iran,” he said. “In some ways, that is a huge success for Israel.”

…Shimon Stein, a former Israeli ambassador to Germany and former head of arms control at the Foreign Ministry, said that Israel slowly developed its outreach and media efforts on Iran over more than two decades.

“We were diplomatically actively pursuing the Iranian issue for decades,” he said. But the Israeli campaign moved into the public sphere five years ago when the Israelis decided they needed public opinion to also drive Iran policy. “Now it is a new ballgame,” Stein said. “Now we added extra resources to mobilize our government and also world opinion.”

…Coordinating media coverage, such as the Agent 83 briefing on the workings of the hypothetical bomb, was critical to that effort. Often such access was timed to take place before critical events.

In the year after U.S. intelligence agencies published a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that downplayed the Iranian nuclear threat, an unprecedented number of leaks over Iran’s alleged progress on nuclear weapons was released to the press. They culminated in reports published in Israeli newspapers that Iran had secret uranium enrichment facilities. In 2009…Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy revealed a yet-undisclosed facility at Qom.

Israeli officials also said it was no coincidence that a flurry of reports on Israel’s imminent strike on Iran filled the press last fall just ahead of a report from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Guzansky said the possible Israeli strike leaks to the media were “an important tool” for the government.

“It is psychological warfare. You leak to get the enemy or your friend to think X or Y,” he said.

Frenkel finds Israeli officials who, though they acknowledge this Israeli perception management campaign, deny that its end goal was to attack Iran.  Here’s a perfect example of such disingenuousness:

Yoel Guzansky, who headed a department that studies Iran’s nuclear weapons program in the Israeli prime minister’s office from 2005-2009 and is currently a fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies said…

“Israel doesn’t want it to look like it is pushing the West toward a war with Iran. There are those that said Israel pushed the U.S. towards a war with Iraq, which is untrue,” said Guzansky. “Today regarding Iran, Israel is not telling the U.S. to attack. They are saying something more nuanced…

Any Israeli with half a brain in their head (and Guzansky is a undoubtedly a very smart man) who can say this after hearing Bibi Netanyahu’s Aipac speech, is either deluding himself or deeply cynical (or both).

Frenkel points out the invaluable assistance in this campaign played by what I called above, Israeli agents of influence, American Jewish groups like The Israel Project (TIP), which have an interlocking network with the Israeli diplomatic community here, and together pump out the same coordinated message:

As Israeli diplomats were working to convince governments of the Iranian nuclear threat, other organizations, such as the Washington-based Israel Project, were pressing the Israeli position with journalists and others.

Founded in 2002, one of the Israel Project’s earliest goals was to raise awareness on Iran.

“Our work — since the beginning — has been to encourage Iran to make a choice between their nuclear program and the things they want in the world,” said Jennifer Laszlo Mirzrahi, the founder and president of the Israel Project.

The campaign has been successful, she said. “In a year like this year, nobody can get elected without having a strong Iran policy,” she said.

TIP’s Iran “specialist” is Barbara Ledeen, wife of neocon uber-hawk, Michael Ledeen.  A further example of that interlocking directorate mentioned above.

When he was privy to secret FBI wiretaps of Israeli diplomats, Leibowitz even told me that the then Israeli deputy chief of mission in Washington, Jeremy Issacharoff, arranged for the Boston Herald to publish an op-ed ghostwritten by embassy staff and published under the name of Jeff Robbins, a partner in the Boston law firm, Mintz Levin.  Issacharoff is married to TIP’s global affairs director, Laura Kam.  Mintz Levin is the firm of which Cameron Kerry, an Aipac supporter and John Kerry’s brother, has been a managing partner.  Robbins in his newspaper and law firm bio touts his human rights credentials.  It’s always best to couch attacks on Iran not in terms of promoting Israeli interests, but rather promoting non-partisan values that we all can agree on, like human rights.  To be fair, a reporter who wrote about the Leibowitz leaks questioned Robbins about the newspaper op-ed and he denied that it had been ghostwritten.  All I can say is that Israeli diplomats quoted on the wiretaps saw it otherwise.

American and Israeli media outlets have been willing participants in Israel’s campaign.  They’ve published op-eds and news reports that breathlessly predicted global annihilation at the hands of Iran and advocated a scorched earth military campaign to subdue it. Even so-called liberal media like the New York Times and Haaretz have been victimized though willingly.  Remember the Benny Morris op-ed that argued Israel might have to pre-emptively launch a nuclear strike against Iran?  Morris, I remind you, is neither an expert in Iranian affairs or Israeli nuclear strategy.  Yet that was published thanks to the considered judgement of the New York Times op ed editor.  Such collaboration is really shameful and reminds us of the black mark that paper earned for its prominently splashing the “findings” by Judy Miller of Iraqi WMD.

In this sense, American Jewish communal leaders allow themselves to become willing collaborators with Israel in advancing its goals.  These Americans don’t see anything wrong with what they’re doing, because they’ve deluded themselves into believing that Israel’s interests are the same as America’s.  M.J. Rosenberg and other Israel critics call such people “Israel Firsters.”  While I’m sympathetic to the critical impulse behind such a term, it’s slightly off-target.  As I’ve just said, these people believe they’re advancing America’s AND Israel’s best interests.  But in reality they’re advancing neither’s, since eternal enmity between Iran and the west is in no one’s interest.

The $64,000 question is: has the Israeli campaign worked?  Has it achieved whatever Israel’s objectives were and are.  To hear this Israeli journalist tell it, they have:

Sever Plocker, a columnist for…Yediot Ahronot, wrote…that the Israeli media campaign had been a success.

“It seems clearly that the Israeli campaign of last fall, through which rumors were spread of an impending Israeli attack on Iran, has achieved its goals,” he wrote. “The Western statesmen grasped at it and used it to impose the ‘crippling’ sanctions on Iran that Prime Minister Netanyahu had already demanded two years ago.”

The judgement as to the success of this campaign depends on its goal.  If the goal is neutralizing Iran as a competitive regional threat or nuclear rival to Israel, it clearly has not succeeded (at least not yet).  If the goal was, as I’ve written previously, to distract world attention from other festering aspects of the Israeli-Arab conflict, then it has had much more success.  Many observers noted that in the speeches at the recent AIPAC conclave there was hardly a mention of the Palestinians, a two-state solution or any related matter.  As a sort of pressure valve to release tensions around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iran threat is highly useful.  The Palestinian demand for justice and an independent state pales in the face of the so-called existential threat posed by Iran not just to Israel, but (at least in the Israeli narrative) the entire world.

In the end, Israel’s campaign against Iran is largely manufactured.  Yes, Iran is a coercive society whose leaders are hostile to Israel.  But no, it does not pose an existential threat to Israel or anyone else.  The west has every right to demand safeguards regarding its nuclear program.  That’s one of the reasons it’s in the NPT.  It has a right to pressure Iran into providing them.  But Iran poses no more, and likely much less of a threat to world peace than India, Pakistan or North Korea, each of whom has passed the nuclear threshold in the past two decades.  Any talk about Iran as the world’s greatest terrorist state or the mad mullahs’ intent on incinerating half the human race, themes dear to the heart of Bibi Netanyahu and the Israel war hawks, is built on sand and illusion.

Finally, Juan Cole wrote a long blog post outlining the reasons western sanctions against Iran are morally wrong and will not work.  In his piece he wrote this about Israel’s propaganda campaign:

We saw…with Iraq and now…with Iran: a weak, ramshackle, ineffectual bogeyman is set up, like Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Americans are kept talking about the “threat” emanating from that country. It isn’t a real threat. It is manufactured by the Israeli intelligence agencies and promoted by their cells in the US.

…Israeli agents of influence attempt to keep Americans talking about anything but Israel’s own ongoing crimes against humanity with regard to the Palestinians. They have special success if the US goes into full-sanction, soft war mode against another country on Israel’s behalf. Now, instead of talking about Israeli predations against the Palestinians, we are being led by the nose by AIPAC and its many media allies to obsess about Iran.

Granted this is strong stuff.  Israel’s supporters have a right to wince at a few of the terms used.  But there can be little doubt that much of the criticism rendered above is warranted by precisely the sort of campaign Frenkel and I documented in this post and her article.

What isn’t warranted is this disgusting smear by Israel’s DC journalist capo di tutti, Eli Lake, who tweeted this memorable bit of vituperation and character assassination:

To progressives who still read @jricole you are being conned by a paranoid lunatic. This is spit flecked delusion…

Lake is the prototypical example of the journalistic Israel-Firster.  If you read him, it’s sometimes hard to see any division between Israeli and U.S. interests.  When he reports on Israel, his sources are invariably Israeli intelligence officials and those peddling a similar line.  Which wouldn’t be so bad if much of the information included in his reports weren’t so far-fetched and tendentious as to beggar belief.  He’s happy to quote the conclusions of his sources and never demands any facts or proof that underlie the claims (nor does he offer any to his readers).  I’ve written before about his flagrantly bogus report on the Eilat terror attack which is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.  When it comes to Israeli intelligence sources, if you trust religiously you will be burned consistently (though admittedly not as badly as Joan of Arc).  Lake, apparently, doesn’t mind being burned since the cause of advancing Israeli (read, Likud) interests is so dear to his heart.

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March 10, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Demanding Intrusive Inspections While Threatening

By Nader Bagherzadeh | CASMII | March 9, 2012

Contrary to inaccurate and biased US media reports, Iran is in fact in full compliance of its obligations under the IAEA’s Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Even the latest IAEA report cannot deny this fact, but the US media, in a misleading effort, insists on reporting only those areas that the IAEA has put on its wish list for Iran to fulfill which is commonly referred to as Possible Military Dimensions or PMD. The wish-list is not a requirement under Iran’s current Comprehensive Safeguard Agreement (CSA). Iran’s existing CSA protects her inalienable right to carry out any and all research related to nuclear technology, as long as bomb grade nuclear material is not involved, and there is not a single evidence of this violation.

Notwithstanding Iran’s full compliance, the IAEA now wants more intrusive inspections beyond Iran’s CSA. These intrusive inspections are commonly referred to as the Additional Protocols (AP) On the surface of it, the request for AP seems reasonable as it will allow inspectors to go anywhere they wish, to talk to anyone they deem appropriate, and have all the information about future plans for nuclear facilities even before construction has begun. But the request is highly suspect as this demand is not extended to all NPT member countries, once again, demonstrating double-standards.

If in fact, the goal was confidence building and applicable to all NPT nations as opposed to making such a demand with threats, it would have been worthy of consideration by the Iranian government, as well as all other NPT member states. Regrettably, this is not the case: cyber-attacks, assassination of nuclear scientists, and draconian sanctions that directly impact millions of Iranians have been the norm for dealing with Iran’s nuclear debacle.

It is not prudent for the leadership in Iran to accept AP while President Obama continues with his belligerent accusation of Iran being a nuclear threat for the world when in fact the intelligence community in the US reaffirmed last week the 2007 assessment that Iran is not working on nuclear weapons. Mr. Obama’s suggestion while addressing AIPAC that Iran is planning to “wipe out Israel off the map,” is another canard that is not supported by facts. In reality, Iran should be complaining against the daily threats of attack by Israel and US. If peaceful enrichment of uranium under the watchful eyes of the IAEA cameras and inspectors is considered a threat to world peace, then Iran’s agreement with the IAEA and her inalienable rights is completely ignored by nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT.

Accepting AP is tantamount to providing information about non-nuclear military sensitive sites that will be added to the target list of those countries that are threatening Iran with military strikes. Also, this will jeopardize the lives of tens of scientists and engineers that the IAEA wants to talk to as part of their new demands. Iran’s relaxed and naïve approach to protecting the scientists has cost the lives of 5 nuclear experts so far, and the AP may exasperate this situation.

To be clear, no American administration, current or future, will have the courage to accept Iran’s peaceful enrichment activity, even if the work is done under the watchful eyes of the IAEA cameras and inspector’s regular visits. The reason is that the government of Israel and their cronies in US Congress, the main stream media, and numerous pro-Israel think tanks around DC will vehemently oppose such a bold, but justified decision. Judging from the Israeli leaders’ recent statements, their main reason to go to war with Iran is not that Iran has a nuclear bomb, but the fear that Iran’s advances in technology may embolden Iran and her allies in resisting Israeli aggression.

This fear mongering has served Israel very well. Not only has it resulted in US and her allies putting in place the toughest sanctions ever on any country, impacting millions of Iranians, but it has covered up the disastrous Palestinian settlement issue. The Prime Minister of Israel should be commended for his skills in steering global concern and discussions away from the plight of the Palestinians to the saber rattling against her arch enemy, Iran. Unfortunately, the Palestinian issue is a time bomb that will surface regardless of Israel’s intentions to strike Iran. One of the side effects of this immoral and illegal preemptive war is that the Middle East problems will get worse before getting better, with many unintended consequences.

The only way forward for Iran and the US is for these two countries to find ways of dialing down the rhetorical statements by both sides. In order to reach this goal, the advice of Ambassador Dobbins and others is the key. That is, there should be many bilateral meetings without the participation of any of the other P5 members, in order to identify common grounds where further negotiations can be initiated.

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March 9, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stop Congress’ New Pro-War Resolution

NIAC – March 7, 2012

This was a major week in the debate over war with Iran versus diplomacy.

The hawkish AIPAC lobby organized its annual conference in Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Obama at the White House, and the pro-war crowd had one goal in mind: to pressure the President to draw a new “red line” for military action to try to block diplomacy with Iran and make Iran war inevitable.

But with your help, thirty-seven Members of Congress called on the President to support diplomacy.

Top former military and intelligence officials urged the President to stand firm against pressure for war in a full-page ad sponsored by NIAC.  New diplomacy with Iran is now in the process of being scheduled.

And the momentum has shifted.  The President refused to give in to pressure.  He refused to draw a new “red line,” stood firm against “loose talk of war,” and said that there is time for diplomacy to work.

Diplomacy is the only way to prevent war, prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon, and put mechanisms in place to effectively address human rights abuses in Iran and create space for Iran’s pro-democracy movement.

But, having failed to pressure the President, AIPAC is now lobbying your elected officials in Congress to support a resolution drawing a new “red line” aimed at blocking diplomacy and making war with Iran inevitable.

The movement against war and in support of diplomacy is growing, and we can stop the war push if we stand strong.  Please send a letter to your elected officials in the House and Senate and then call them TODAY using a special toll free number, 1-855-68 NO WAR (1-855-686-6927), to urge them to oppose this resolution. 

Here is a quick script you can use:

•   My name is _______ and I’m calling from [your city].

•   I am very concerned about the prospect of another war in the Middle East with Iran.  I’m asking that you oppose a dangerous pro-Iran war resolution [Senate Resolution 380 / House Resolution 568], because it aims to block diplomacy and make war with Iran inevitable.  Please have the courage to speak out publicly against the push for war with Iran and in support of a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear standoff.

•   Thank you.

You can find more information on this pro-war resolution here.

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March 8, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Two Choices for Obama: War or More War

By Philip Giraldi | The Passionate Attachment | March 8, 2012

The United States is committing itself to a war on behalf of another nation and it is as if nothing is happening. Commentary on President Obama’s speech at AIPAC and his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been limited, apparently in the belief that if no one talks about it the war can begin on schedule. There has been plenty of coverage on Iran, however, all of it playing up the threat that the country allegedly poses. Some “thoughtful” commentary has been paying attention to Obama’s drawing a red line that is different from that of Israel, i.e. that military intervention should be dependent on preventing Iran’s actual acquisition of a nuclear weapon rather than its only having the capability to eventually develop one. Israel and its US lobby are seeking to make Iran’s technical ability to enrich uranium a casus belli rather than any proof of actual belligerent intent. That capability or “breakthrough” line has already been crossed which would suggest that the US should be at war with Iran already, precisely what Senators Graham, Lieberman, and McCain as well as their AIPAC sponsors would like to see. Obama is instead trying to delay the reckoning, until after elections in November if he can possibly manage it.

And the different red lines are really little more than a red herring. Obama has been drawn into supporting Netanyahu’s war whether he likes it or not. The American president did not bother to explain why Iran is a threat to the United States because it is clear that to attempt to make that argument would be to magnify the actual threat from Tehran far beyond reality. Iran does not threaten the United States and, given its puny economy and military budget, cannot do so. It would easily be contained even if it were to waste its limited resources on developing a crude nuclear device that it would be unable to deliver on target.

This pledge from Obama means that the US will actually be going to war on behalf of what the Israeli leadership considers to be a threat against itself, rightly or wrongly. Israel can defend itself if it feels threatened. It has a vast nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver the weapons on target to include ballistic missiles and submarines. It also has an extensive anti-missile defense system funded by the US taxpayer. Obama calls US support of Israel right or wrong as “having Israel’s back.” Why should the US have anyone’s back apart from those nations with which Washington has a defense treaty that clearly spells out the conditions for support? Who “has the back” of the American people against what Israel and Netanyahu might do?

Obama knows perfectly well that Congress and the media as well as his own financial backers from Chicago — the Pritzker and Crown families — would force the White House to join in any war on Israel’s behalf. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that too. Netanyahu can therefore have his war whenever he wants or he might opt to have his lackeys in the media and Congress crank up the pressure on Obama to produce regime change in the White House to bring in a pro-Israel nut case like Gingrich or Santorum, a guarantee that the United States will be at war with much of the rest of the world for the foreseeable future.

Philip Giraldi is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

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March 8, 2012 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Marching Toward Syria with Eyes Cast Towards Iran

By Ben Schreiner | Dissident Voice |  March 7th, 2012

While all the incessant warmongering directed toward Iran at the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington was grabbing the headlines, the momentum for Western intervention into Syria continued to steadily build.  All those neo-con “real men,” it appears, just might prefer to go to Tehran via Damascus.

Taking to the Senate floor on Monday, Arizona Senator John McCain, one of the first supporters of arming the Free Syrian Army, upped the ante by calling for a U.S.-led air campaign against Syrian military targets.  McCain deemed such an escalation necessary to establish “humanitarian corridors.”

“The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes on Assad’s forces,” the intervention-hungry McCain declared.

And as the Washington Post reported in late February, Obama administration officials have made it clear that “additional measures” might still be considered in order to oust Assad.  That favored refrain of all options being on the table appears to be in effect in regards to Syria.

Indeed, for according to CNN, the Pentagon has already composed “detailed plans” for military action inside Syria.  As the network reported, the Pentagon has especially focused on securing Syrian chemical weapons sites, with one scenario in particular calling “for tens of thousands of troops to potentially be used for guarding the installations.”

Although, according to a December email recently published by Wikileaks from the U.S. global intelligence firm Stratfor (known as a private C.I.A.), special operations forces from the U.S., U.K., France, Jordan, and Turkey are already on the ground in Syria.  And as the email states, these forces are actively “training the Free Syrian Army.”  Additional measures indeed!

Not wanting to be left behind in any march on Syria, the U.S. corporate media has largely begun to join the ranks of the recently ascendant intervention hawks.

In an editorial on Friday, the New York Times, although ruling out military force, called for providing greater tactical assistance to the Free Syrian Army.  As the paper wrote: “The United States and its allies should consider providing the rebels with communications equipment, intelligence and nonlethal training.”  Of course, a mission providing such tactical support would ultimately transform into more explicit military involvement.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post also editorialized on Friday for a more credible threat of force against Assad.  As the paper wrote:

The Obama administration’s public arguments against the use of force in Syria are simply encouraging a rogue regime to believe it can act with impunity.  Until he is faced with a credible threat of force, from the opposition or outsider powers, Mr. Assad’s slaughter will go on.

The Christian Science Monitor has likewise called for the U.S. to help “forcefully” end Assad’s rule.

Of course, the driving force behind such intense Western interest in Syria is Iran.  Let there be no doubt, the ouster of Assad is not driven by some great humanitarian impulse, or “responsibility to protect.”  Nor does the bloodletting and slaughter inside the country disturb U.S. elites.  After all, the U.S. had no qualms with laying siege to Fallujah.  Rather, all the contrived moralizing is being utilized in an attempt to garner support for imposing Syrian “regime change,” which would deal a strategic defeat to Tehran.  It’s all nothing more than realpolitik.  The Syrian people and their revolution are being cynically recruited as means to imperial ends, and thus would be wise to resist all foreign intervention.

For instance, when the Atlantic’s Jeffery Goldberg stated in a recent interview with President Obama, “But it would seem to me that one way to weaken and further isolate Iran is to remove or help remove Iran’s only Arab ally,” the president responded, “Absolutely.”

Similarly, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy has argued, “The current standoff in Syria presents a rare chance to rid the world of the Iranian menace to international security and well-being.”

It’s target Iran, albeit on a Syrian battlefield.  Therefore, that anti-Iran propaganda machine that is the U.S. media revs up.

Writing in the Washington Post, stenographers Joby Warrick and Liz Sly reported over the weekend that:

U.S. officials say they see Iran’s hand in the increasingly brutal crackdown on opposition strongholds in Syria, including evidence of Iranian military and intelligence support for government troops accused of mass executions and other atrocities in the past week.

The Post’s report was, of course, based solely on three anonymous U.S. officials.  And as Warrick and Sly even admit in their piece, “such accounts are generally difficult to verify independently.”  Thus they don’t.

On Monday, though, a similar piece of propaganda appeared at CNN.  Penned by CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, it also reports of Iranian infiltration into Syria, although Starr only relies on two anonymous U.S. officials.  What hay a seasoned propagandist can make with such limited sources!

Yet amidst this mounting drive for Western intervention into Syria, President Obama spoke on Tuesday in an apparent attempt to tamp down all such notions, going so far as to call military intervention a “mistake.”  As the president went on to state, “the notion that the way to solve every one of these problems is to deploy our military, that hasn’t been true in the past and it won’t be true now.”

Such reassurances aside, actions do, as the president himself implored in his AIPAC speech over the weekend, speak louder than words.  And so while the president publicly posits that military intervention would be a mistake, his military readies for intervention into Syria, while continuing its larger ongoing build-up in the region.

The march towards Syria with eyes cast towards Iran continues on.  For as Albeit Einstein once remarked, “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”

Ben Schreiner is a freelance writer living in Salem, Oregon. He may be reached at: bnschreiner@gmail.com.

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March 7, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Calls the Shots

By Philip Giraldi | The American Conservative | March 6th, 2012

There are several things missing from the march to war that we are seeing playing out at AIPAC this week. First is the complete absence of any casus belli. Media and political rhetoric aside, Iran has threatened neither Israel nor the United States and the intelligence agencies of both countries agree that Tehran has not made the decision to construct a nuclear weapon (if it indeed has the ability and resources to do so). Second is the “security threat” to the United States coming from Iran, cited by President Obama. What exactly is it and how does Iran, a backward country with an ailing economy and a military unable to project its power beyond its own borders threaten the US? How can it possibly endanger the United States to such an extent that a war which can have catastrophic economic and political consequences might be justified?

Obama, to give him his due, is holding out against immense pressure on many fronts from Israel and its friends to draw a “nuclear capability” red line that will mean war in fairly short order. He is supported by the Pentagon and the intelligence community in his resistance. But he has nevertheless turned over US foreign policy in a key part of the world to Israel, saying unconditionally that he has “Israel’s back” and that he guarantees its security. That means that no matter what Israel does, justified or not, the US will get involved, something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands very well. It would be war with no concern for what the consequences might be for the American people because, after all, Netanyahu could care less about the US except insofar as it is a source of material and political support.

Obama has also opened the door to a replay of Iraq. He has pledged to use military force against Iran to “prevent” Tehran’s development of a nuclear weapon. Prevent is the key word as it means preemption. Preemption will be based on evidence that Iran is building a weapon. As with Iraq, evidence can be fabricated or planted to suit. There have already been instances of fabricated intelligence being generated to create the impression that Iran is not only seeking a weapon but is also advancing a project to be able to mount it on a ballistic missile. It is not hard for a sophisticated intelligence agency like Mossad to fake the necessary evidence, that will then be picked up by the usual suspects in the US media and in congress, to make the case for war.

We are seeing something awful unfolding before our very eyes – an essentially phony case for going to war being driven by a foreign country and its domestic lobby with the political class too terrified to say no and a complicit media beating the drum.

March 6, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

BBC loses its “impartiality” yet again over the west-Iran standoff

By Abbas Khani – CASMII – March 5, 2012

Is the BBC really aligned with warmongers? Will it continue to play the same role it played in months leading to the invasion of Iraq? Many of the BBC’s reports and programmes containing a reference to Iran alarmingly support this assumption.

While the BBC claims impartiality since the end of World War II, it is trotting a very delicate line of deliberate bias in many different and usually complex ways. This bias becomes more visible in matters of international affairs compared to domestic politics.

Many believe that the difference between the BBC and other corporate media is that the BBC’s manipulation of the public’s mind is more sophisticated in that it is more subtle and implicit and therefore more effective.

While there are countless examples of biased reporting and analyses in the history of the BBC, probably the most bitter and lasting for Iranians is its key role in bringing down the popular democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in the joint coup d’etat by the British and American intelligence services which reinstated the US client Monarchy for another 25 years in Iran.

The role of corporate media in illegal war against Iraq is unquestionable and has been verified by many investigators including Paul Long and Tim Wall. The false statements used to justify the invasion of Iraq not only were not questioned but also were reinforced by the media. The documentary, The War You Don’t See, directed by the veteran investigative journalist, John Pilger, shows shocking evidence of how corporate media including the BBC paved the way for military intervention in Iraq. In the current western manufactured hype over Iran’s nuclear program, which has led to the imposition of draconian sanctions and the threat of military strikes, the BBC plays its role very well, as an instrument of war, by its biased programs and reporting.

One such report written by Jonathan Markus, the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent was broadcast on 27 February. Without explicitly saying, in his article “How Israel might strike at Iran”, Jonathan Markus assumes and tries to inculcate also into the reader’s subconscious the idea that there is no question about the legitimacy of such a war; the war is justified and the only question to be discussed is how and what it might look like.

Although the programme starts with the “potential nuclear-armed Iran threat” but gives the impression that this potential threat is very likely to become a reality, and then moves on to address Israel’s worries. This and similar programmes by the BBC by discussing procedural details of possible military operations without questioning the legitimacy and the legality of such operations, serve to normalise the idea of war and prepare the public’s mind for a military confrontation with Iran. Now there is still time for all peace loving people, for all those concerned with emancipation and justice, to oppose another catastrophic illegal war before it becomes too late. Given the crucial role that corporate media played in manipulating the public opinion in preparation for the invasion of Iraq, the campaign against war should start with a relentless opposition against biased pro-war media programs and reports.

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March 6, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

US will ensure Israel’s “military superiority”: Panetta

Al Akhbar | March 6, 2012

The United States will ensure Israel retains “military superiority” over its adversaries as the country faces the potential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday.

“This is an ironclad pledge which says that the United States will provide whatever support is necessary for Israel to maintain military superiority over any state or coalition of states, as well as non-state actors,” Panetta told the top pro-Israel lobby in Washington, AIPAC.

He touted President Barack Obama’s record of security assistance to Israel, saying the administration has “dramatically” increased military aid since Obama entered the White House in 2009, despite the superpower’s ongoing economic woes.

“This year, the president’s budget requests US$3.1 billion in security assistance to Israel, compared to US$2.5 billion in 2009,” said Panetta, according to a prepared text of the speech delivered to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Panetta cited advanced missile and rocket defenses and plans to deliver the new F-35 fighter jet to Israel, which he said would provide the country with “unquestioned” air superiority.

But amid growing speculation that Israel may conduct a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, Panetta made no mention of more powerful “bunker buster” bombs that Israel would need to reach some deeply buried targets.

It remains unclear if the Pentagon has provided Israel with the most powerful conventional bomb in the US arsenal, the massive ordnance penetrator (MOP), which the Air Force says could strike facilities 200 feet underground.

The Pentagon chief echoed comments by Obama on Sunday, saying the United States would not tolerate Iran obtaining nuclear weapons and was ready to take military action if necessary.

“Let me be clear: We do not have a policy of containment – we have a policy of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” he said to applause from members of AIPAC.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

March 6, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Questions IAEA’s Resolve and Impartiality

By Kaveh L. Afrasiabi | Middle East Online | March 3, 2012

PALO ALTO (California) – In their recent visit to Iran, the high-level officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) missed a golden opportunity to resolve one of the lingering questions about Iran’s nuclear program, due to the personal intervention of the IAEA Director-General, Yukiya Amano, whose reports have raised suspicion of a “possible nuclear dimension.”

According to a source close to the Iranian nuclear negotiation team in Iran, during the two-day visit on February 20-21, the IAEA team headed by Herman Nackaerts, the Deputy Director-General for Safeguards, was informed that even though the purpose of the visit was for discussion of a framework to resolve the “ambiguities,” they were invited to visit the site at Marivan, cited in the November 2011 IAEA report for suspected “high explosive” tests pertaining to nuclear weapons — a charge denied by Tehran. Instead of accepting this invitation, and thus putting to rest one of IAEA’s stated concerns, the IAEA team declined the offer after consulting with Mr. Amano in Vienna. Amano ordered the team to return to Vienna immediately.

According to sources in Tehran, if Amano had permitted his team to inspect the Marivan site, then he would have had to mention the agency’s finding in his report due next week. “By personally intervening to torpedo a chance to lay to rest a key IAEA suspicion about Iran, unfortunately once again Mr. Amano proved his bias,” maintains the Tehran source.

Mr. Amano has been criticized in the past as being supportive of U.S. interests regarding Iran’s nuclear activities. On his appointment as head of the IAEA, Mr. Amano was referred to by U.S. diplomats as being “a friend” to U.S. interests, according to secret diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2010.

In addition to failing to mention Iran’s offer to the IAEA inspection team to visit facilities at Marivan, Mr. Amano disingenuously complained of Iran’s failure to allow the IAEA team to inspect the military base at Parchin, despite the fact that in his own November 2011 report on Iran, he admits that the purpose of a visit would be “to discuss the issues identified.” This has led to Western media coverage describing Nackaerts’ trip as a “failure,” and blaming it on Iran’s “intransigence.”

Iranian witnesses suggest otherwise, indicating that the two sides made substantial progress on a six-step “draft modality” that would address the agency’s lingering concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Although no final agreement was reached at the February meeting, Tehran insists that an agreement is still on the table and Iran is willing to implement it. The agreement includes a framework calling for “practical steps” to further Iran-IAEA cooperation, covering a future inspection of Parchin, which incidentally has been previously visited by the IAEA without ever finding anything “unusual.”

“We have had three rounds of negotiations with Mr. Nackaerts, twice in Tehran and once in Vienna, and we are getting very close to finalizing an agreement, barring any negative intervention by certain powers that manipulate the IAEA to perpetuate a crisis environment surrounding Iran’s peaceful nuclear program,” says a Tehran source on condition of anonymity.

Tehran has expressed its readiness to engage in a new round of nuclear talk with the representatives of the “5+1” nations (i.e., the UN Security Council’s Permanent Five plus Germany). From Iran’s perspective, for the coming talks to be successful the other side needs to be more attuned to Iran’s “confidence-building initiatives” such as the offer to IAEA to inspect a suspected site. Clearly, Mr. Amano must explain why he refused the offer and failed to make public Iran’s invitation.

According to recent admissions by various top US officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Paneta, the United States has no evidence that Iran is attempting to produce nuclear weapons. This means the Iran nuclear crisis is a “crisis of choice” rather than “necessity,” and its resolution requires dexterous diplomacy on the part of both sides.

This is not a time for military threat and intimidation. Given the admission by the IAEA, and reflected in its various reports, there is no evidence of military diversion in the development of nuclear material in Iran. All of Iran’s uranium enrichment activities — allowed under the articles of the Non-Proliferation Treaty — are covered by the IAEA’s routine inspections, as well as surveillance cameras. And Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has offered to suspend the 20 percent enrichment in return for an external supply of nuclear fuel for Iran’s medical reactor.

A prudent Western nuclear strategy toward Iran, one that would respect Iran’s nuclear rights, would continue to insist on Iran’s nuclear transparency, but refrain from threatening Iran with military strikes and or coercive “crippling sanctions.” Iran, like all other nations, has “inalienable rights” that are expressly recognized under the articles of the NPT.

~

Kaveh Afrasiabi was an advisor to Iran’s Nuclear Negotiation Team (2004-2006), a former political science professor at Tehran University, and author of several books on Iran’s foreign and nuclear policies, including After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran’s Foreign Policy, Iran’s Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction, Iran’s Foreign Policy After September 11, and Iran Phobia and US Terror Plot, A Legal Deconstruction.

Copyright © 2012 Kaveh L. Afrasiabi

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March 5, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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