Neoconservatives Going Down--Taking Iran with them

Neoconservatives Going Down--Taking Iran with them

John Bolton, former UN Ambassador has written another screed on Iran for the Jerusalem Post, calling for Iran's destruction because it is a danger to Israel.

I must say that I am absolutely flabbergasted at the persistent obsession in the
neoconservative camp with Iran. Other neoconservatives such as American Enterprise Institute denizen Meyrav Wurmser and others reflect this. What is astonishing to me is that the predictions that Iran is the principal danger for Israel absolutely
overlook the far more important and logical challenges to Israel on its
own borders.

There is some fantasy abroad that if only Iran would disappear or cease
some political operations (financial support, supplies of military
equipment, etc.), Hamas, Hezbollah and other groups challenging Israeli
operations vis-a-vis the Palestinians would simply dry up and blow away.
Witness the focus on the $22 million allegedly supplied to Hamas by Iran,
when in the same breath, more than twice that amount was acknowledged to
have been supplied by other Middle Eastern parties.

There is still no hard evidence that Iran even has a nuclear weapons
program, and yet we have Bolton and others fulminating over something
that, even if it existed as a threat, is far in the future, compared to
the immediate dangers Israel faces today from local actors who have been
so politicized and demoralized that they engage in the extreme violent
actions that all sensible people decry. These local actors are not going
to go away, or suddenly become docile as a result of attacking Iran. The
irony is that if the United States and Israel were to nuke Iran into
oblivion, Israel would be no safer at all--indeed, it would be in greater
danger than ever.

My guess is that the neoconservatives have realized that the Bush
administration has now destroyed their chances for political dominance in
the future, and if they don't act now to force the administration into
taking military action against Iran, it will never happen. They are going
down, and by golly, they are going to take Iran with them.

Dawlfin Web Directory

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Perry: U.S. eyed Iran attack after bombing, but Al-Qaida was the likely perpetrator--United Press International - Security & Terrorism - Briefing

United Press International - Security & Terrorism - Briefing


Perry: U.S. eyed Iran attack after bombing

Published: June 6, 2007 at 4:25 PM
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WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) -- A former U.S. defense secretary says he now believes al-Qaida rather than Iran was behind a 1996 truck bombing at an American military base.
Former Defense Secretary William Perry said he had a contingency plan to attack Iran if the link had been proven, but evidence was not to either his nor President Bill Clinton's satisfaction.
The attack would have struck "at a number of their military facilities that would have weakened -- substantially weakened ... the Iranian navy and air force," he said in New York Tuesday during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Khobar Towers bombing at a U.S. air base in Saudi Arabia is often referred to by the Bush administration as one of the first salvos in the war with terrorism. It killed 19 service members. The Sept. 11 commission suggested a connection between al-Qaida and the attack, the first time the group has been linked to the bombing.
"I believe that the Khobar Tower bombing was probably masterminded by Osama bin Laden," Perry said. "I can't be sure of that, but in retrospect, that's what I believe. At the time, he was not a suspect. At the time ... all of the evidence was pointing to Iran."
He said al-Qaida did not emerge as a major threat until Clinton's second term.
"We probably should have been more concerned about it at the time than we were but in the first term we did not see Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida as a major factor, or one that we were concerned with," he said.
In 2001, the U.S. Justice Department announced a 46-count indictment against 13 Saudis and one Lebanese man in the bombing. All were allegedly connected to Hezbollah, a terrorist group the United States believes is linked to Iran.
Perry said the FBI strongly believed at the time the bombing was ordered by Iran, but Saudi officials tried to discourage that theory.
"They feared what action we would take. They rightly feared it. In fact, I had a contingency plan for a strike on Iran, if it had been if it had been clearly established. But it was never clearly established, and so we never did that," Perry said.
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The Great Satan spars with the Islamic Republic - Deccan Herald - Internet Edition

The Great Satan spars with the Islamic Republic - Deccan Herald - Internet Edition


ANALYSIS
The Great Satan spars with the Islamic Republic
From Michael Jansen
Washington’s backing for the Shah, the presence of US forces and firms, the granting by the shah of extra-territorial status to US citizens, soldiers has transformed Iran into a US client state.

The confrontation between Washington and Teheran over Iran’s nuclear programme can be expected to continue because neither side can afford to back down without losing face. However, this confrontation is unlikely to escalate into a full blown crisis. The parties themselves, the countries trying to mediate between them, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) striving to defuse tensions seek to avoid this possibility. The US, beleaguered by the insurgency in Iraq, cannot court a fresh disaster in neighbouring Iran by taking military action. Teheran would like to end its international isolation and attract foreign investment. Germany, France and Britain are trying to secure Iran's agreement to halt its efforts to enrich uranium in order to avert further US adventurism. India, which, apparently, has also attempted to calm the situation, has close ties with Iran and is improving relations with the US and does not want to be forced to choose between them. Teheran’s refusal to suspend the conversion of raw uranium into gas, the first step in developing an independent fuel cycle, means that Iran is unlikely to resume negotiations with the three European states before the meeting of the IAEA's 35-member board in November. During this gathering the US, the Islamic Republic’s inveterate antagonist, plans to press for Iran to be brought before the UN Security Council. However, China and Russia, which is building Iran’s Bushehr reactor, do not favour referral to the Council and could use their vetoes if the US tables a resolution calling for the imposition of sanctions on Tehran.
Washington argues that Tehran must not be permitted to develop the nuclear fuel cycle which could transform Iran into an independent nuclear power capable of manufacturing atomic weapons. Therefore, Iran must abandon its programme and accept that any nuclear power plants it builds will acquire fuel from established nuclear powers and undergo close IAEA monitoring. This view has been accepted by Britain, Washington’s closest ally, and the rest of the Europeans and, to a certain extent, by the Agency, which is, after all, governed by a board where the US is the most powerful and influential member. Iran argues that the US is trying to deprive it of its rights under the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and is not prepared to capitulate. Its view was spelt out by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, who now heads the powerful Expediency Council. “Iran is ready to negotiate but not when preconditions are attached.” Iranians call Washington's attempts to dictate to others “power-mongering.” The more the US attempts to tell Teheran what to do, the more determined it is to resist bullying. The more Iran resists, the greater becomes the US desire to tame Teheran. The deep antagonism between these two countries developed in 1979 when the mullahs overthrew Washington’s loyal ally the shah. US scholar William O Beeman writing in his book The ‘‘Great Satan’’ vs the "Mad Mullahs:" How the United States and Iran Demonise Each Other, says the defining event was the seizure by radical students of the US embassy in Teheran and the holding of 50 diplomats based there for 444 days. Iranians saw the saga of the “hostages” as payback for years of US domination but Americans were humiliated and infuriated by their government’s inability to secure the release of the diplomats. Since the two countries did not pose a direct political and military threat to one another until the US occupied Iraq in 2003, Beeman says that the conflict was more contrived than real. Thus, he writes, “...both nations construct the 'other' to fit an idealised picture of an enemy.” The constructs they produced – the “Great Satan” and the "Mad Mullahs" – were for home consumption rather than used for name-calling. The “Great Satan” is a religious and cultural symbol for Iranians. The term was applied to Britain at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century when it was intervening in Iranian politics. Beeman says that after the revolution this image was adopted to show Iranians that the "United States and all it supported (in Iran), principally Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, was a force alien to Iran and its civilisation – a force that was attempting to corrupt the Iranian people." Washington’s backing for the shah, the presence of US forces and firms in the country, and the granting by the shah of extraterritorial status to US citizens, soldiers and companies transformed proud Iran into a US client state. The clerical regime adopted a confrontational stance in order to curry to popular sentiment. Angered by the ouster of one of its major political and economic assets in West Asia and stung by Teheran's rejection, Washington, which refuses to accept that Iranians could object to its pre-revolutionary policies, argued that Iran's clerical rulers were irrational and mentally unstable, that is "Mad Mullahs." Washington was doubly insulted when Teheran conditioned a resumption of relations on a demand for dialogue on the basis of "equality." The US expects other countries to bow to its demands and accept inferiority and subservience. Now that US troops are in Iraq, the two countries do pose a threat to each other. The US can use its military assets against Iran while Iran can exploit for political gain its close ties with Islamic Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the dominant parties in the government which are determined to transform that country into an Islamic state. This means that "Great Satan," which has, so far, rejected dialogue with Iran, will have to come to terms with the "Mad Mullahs" to avoid payback in Iraq if, as seems likely, their Shia allies secure control of the full-term parliament in the December poll. An authoritative source in Dubai told The Deccan Herald that Teheran is not worried about Washington's threat of sanctions because the Iran is cooperating with the US in Afghanistan and Iraq. US bluster and bullying and Iran's defiance are meant to camouflage the cooperation between the Great Satan and the Mad Mullahs. This hoax is essential if the two governments are to maintain the current climate of tension and sustain the campaigns of demonisation which both regimes find useful.

SOCIAL DRAMA / There's nothing funny in black and white

SOCIAL DRAMA / There's nothing funny in black and white

In the past year, more and more famous white men have gone berserk, spewing venom at the rest of American society. First, there was Mel Gibson mouthing off in a drunken anti-Semitic rage. Then there was Michael Richards' meltdown, in which he screamed a racial epithet at his comedy audience. Now Don Imus' comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team have resulted in his being pulled off the air. Before these incidents, we had the Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant cases, but the most recent ones have been of white men gone wild.
Why?
Cultural anthropologist Victor Turner, who died in 1984, coined the term "social drama," which describes what's going on here. Turner defined a social drama as a process that has four stages: breach, crisis, redressive action and reintegration.
Let's walk through the stages.
First, there's the breach: a rupture between society and one of its participants. In each case -- Richards, Gibson and Imus -- the breach was triggered by an ethnic slur or ethnic joke, and decent people in the larger society became aware of the incident.
Next, the crisis. According to Turner's theories, the crisis cannot be ignored, lest society threaten to come undone. As Americans watched the coverage of the Imus incident, they had the feeling that something must be done.
The third stage is redressive action, "the culturally defined process that resolves the crisis," according to Brown University anthropologist William O. Beeman. Although he had already been fired, society didn't begin its collective sigh of relief until after Imus' apology to the Rutgers women was accepted.
Finally, there is reintegration, which, Beeman writes, "eliminates the original breach that precipitated the crisis. This can be done in two ways -- by creating a permanent split in society, or by healing."
The emotional gain for both the joke teller and those to whom he offers forbidden humor is the thrill of "getting away with it," a staple of white male humor, from plantation owners to Quentin Tarantino to Imus.
For generations, it has been known by the name of the location where men gathered: "locker room humor," "club house humor" or "frat house humor." Invariably, the vicious put-down of black men at the mercy of the "superior" white man is called the "n -- joke," whether it's at a golf course, a country club or in movies like "The Jerk'' or "Pulp Fiction.''
Next up, of course, is "the black woman joke," in which the woman is stripped naked and put into sexual situations with licentious white men, as seen in minstrelsy, literature and films.
Imus' calling the basketball team "nappy-headed hos" should be blamed, not on hip-hop, but on blackface white performers and the culture of white male humor.
In the first half of the 19th century, white men put on cork and acted out black behavior onstage. This became blackface minstrelsy.
In 1822, a white English actor visiting America observed an audience asking a black performer to sing "Pussum up a tree." When the black man didn't comply, the actor put on black cork and sang the song himself. The white public grew up around this form, which was intended to show blacks as small, inferior, despicable and comic.
"Minstrelsy was the first example of the way American popular culture would exploit and manipulate African Americans and their culture in order to please and benefit white Americans," observes Robert Toll, author of "Blackening Up: The Minstrel Show in 19th Century America.''
"Minstrel blacks did not have hair, they had 'wool'; their hair [had] to be filed, not cut," according to Toll.
African American hairstyles have been a subject of discussion since white slave owners took away slaves' African combs. Whore was what many black women were under slavery: If a white man desired her, she became a whore who didn't get paid.
Minstrelsy was a way of allowing whites to live with themselves by venting the pressures of being racist. After the emancipation of blacks, minstrels lost their power.
Minstrelsy served as a release, what the late UC Berkeley folklore Professor Alan Dundes called "the safety-valve function of oral humor."
Imus' show shared a similarity to minstrelsy in form and content. In minstrelsy, the interlocutor acted as the master of ceremony. "With a pompous command of the language, an extensive vocabulary, and a resonant voice, the interlocutor personified dignity, which made the raucous comedy of the endmen even funnier," Toll writes.
Imus' end man was Bernard McGuirk, who, Imus told a "60 Minutes" producer, was hired to tell racial jokes.
Just like Imus' format, minstrelsy mixed racist and obscene humor with commentary on the social issues of that day.
The most appalling result of the Imus' affair is how the literary establishment wilted under his redneck charm. New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus was a frequent visitor to the show, where Imus helped market his book on Whittaker Chambers.
"Of course, I was hearing the slurs against black athletes ... and Clarence Thomas ... and the almost continual soundtrack of leering sexual comments," Tanenhaus writes retrospectively. "But I also had been summoned into the exotic presence of mass, or mob, culture, with its populism and prejudices."
This concept of popular culture is what minstrelsy depended upon, a culture of white male humor that is not popular because most people like it but because it is about white men versus the rest of us.
Novelist and author Cecil Brown's most recent work, "Dude, Where's My Black Studies Department: The Disappearance of Black Americans From Our Universities'' (North Atlantic Books), will be available in May.
This article appeared on page F - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Inter Press--Iran: Lessons in Capture, Release of Britons

POLITICS-IRAN:Lessons in Capture, Release of Britons
Inter Press News Service Agency

Analysis by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Apr 5 (IPS) - The drama surrounding the release of 15 British sailors and marines after 12 days in Iranian captivity was designed to convey two key messages that the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush would do well to heed, say experts here.First, the Britons' original capture by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard near the entry to the disputed Shatt-al-Arab waterway was meant to demonstrate that, despite its conventional military weakness and diplomatic isolation, Iran retains the ability to strike at western interests when it feels sufficiently provoked. Second, when western powers engage Iran with respect and as an equal, they are more likely to get what they want than when they take a confrontational path designed to bully or humiliate the regime. While neither message is likely to be well received either at the White House or among the neo-conservative and other right-wing pundits who have tried hard to depict the incident as the latest sign of Islamic or Persian barbarism, properly understood, they could form the basis of a new approach capable of yielding results, according to Juan Cole, a regional expert at the University of Michigan. ''The British have now opened a channel,'' he told IPS. ''Although this incident really did constitute a crisis -- one that might have escalated to very dangerous levels -- the resolution was diplomatic, and that diplomatic resolution could contain the seeds for future diplomacy, if the British and the Americans are so inclined.'' The announcement on Wednesday, that the sailors and marines were being released in honour of the Prophet Mohammed's forthcoming birthday and the Christian Easter holiday, was made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who then met with the captives personally. ''Our government has pardoned them; it is a gift from our people,'' he said, adding that the gesture had ''nothing to do'' with Tuesday's release in Iraq of a senior Iranian diplomat who was abducted two months ago reportedly by a special Iraqi intelligence agency that works closely with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ''We approached the subject on a humanitarian basis. It was a unilateral decision on our end,'' he insisted. Nonetheless, the diplomat's release, as well as reports that Tehran also just received assurances that it would be given consular access to five alleged Revolutionary Guard officers seized by U.S. forces at an Iranian liaison office in Arbil nearly three months ago, suggested that Wednesday's events were more than just coincidence, although both London and Washington, like Ahmadinejad, insisted there were no quid pro quos. ''I personally believe that the U.S. action (in Arbil) .accounts for why Iran chose to stage its capture of the British sailors,'' noted Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University who served in White House under former President Jimmy Carter. ''Iran appears to have gained something from its pressure tactics.'' That assessment was shared by Trita Parsi, president of the U.S. National Iranian American Council (NIAC). ''By taking the (British) soft targets, the Iranians put pressure on the U.S..'' In addition to collecting bargaining chips, the original capture had other purposes, as well, including rallying nationalist sentiment behind the regime just as it faced the imposition by the UN Security Council of a new round of sanctions for rejecting demands to suspend its uranium enrichment programme. As important, however, was the message Tehran wished to convey to the West that it could indeed respond to what it saw as U.S. provocations in ways that could harm or embarrass its allies. ''In seizing the Iranians, who after all, had been invited by the Iraqi authorities, the Americans were seen as behaving aggressively,'' according to Cole. ''Now, the Iranians have demonstrated that the Anglo-American forces are not in a strong enough position to afford to do these things. They can play tit for tat.'' ''It is a reminder that Iran has quite an array of asymmetrical options available to it to counter indirectly the actions of the U.S. forces in Iraq and elsewhere,'' Sick agreed. At the same time, according to Sick, Tehran's behaviour during much of the crisis -- including both the seizure itself, the precise location of which remains a matter of dispute, and its use of ''confessions'' by the British captives and threats to put them on trial -- will probably have cost it much-needed international support. ''I suspect that recognition of this fact accounts for Iran's desire to end this dispute as promptly as possible,'' said Sick. ''For the same reason, I suspect that this ploy will not be repeated any time soon.'' ''I think the Iranians thought it was better to declare victory and put an end to the crisis before there was any further escalation,'' noted Parsi. At the same time, however, Parsi and other analysts said that the point at which victory could be declared was reached because of important changes in the British approach to the crisis. While London officials have said the turning point came Monday, when Iran's national security chief, Ali Larijani, gave a conciliatory interview to Britain's Channel Four television -- an interview that was followed by a critical conversation between Larijani and Blair's top foreign-policy adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, according to 'The Independent' -- Cole points to a shift in the British stance from one of threats and demands to a more diplomatic approach over the weekend, including confirmation by British Defence Secretary Des Browne that London was ''in direct bilateral communication with the Iranians.'' ''These sorts of incidents are always to some extent about face, and apparently the Iranians felt that when Britain agreed to enter into direct bilateral negotiations, Iran had gained enough face to be magnanimous,'' he said. ''On Sunday, they were admitted as equals, not scolded as little children. That created the opening for (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to climb down and save face.'' ''Iranians have been signalling repeatedly, and not just during this crisis, that they will engage diplomatically, but without preconditions and on the basis of equality,'' said William Beeman, an Iran expert at the University of Minnesota. ''So now they say, 'You see, when we have the upper hand, you see how magnanimous we are; we are a charitable, civilized people. We are reasonable. You can talk with us'.'' ''The Iranian message is that if you deal with us respectfully, through incentives, then things can get resolved rather quickly,'' said Parsi. ''If you only resort to force or impose sanctions at the UN Security Council, then you'll only get stuck, and Iran will respond in kind. They're hoping that the West gets the impression that that is the incentive structure through which it can make progress with Iran. Whether that will be understood in the West is obviously a complete different question.'' The Bush administration's relative silence during the crisis may also have conveyed, inadvertently perhaps, another message -- that, despite widespread speculation that its recent military build-up in the Gulf was intended to prepare the grounds for an attack on Iran, it had no wish to do so, at least for the moment. ''The Iranian capture of 15 (British) military personnel could certainly have been used as .a pretext (for a military strike), since it could easily have escalated to a full-fledged military crisis,'' according to Sick. ''I regard the absence of unbridled escalation in this case as a significant indicator that the U.S. desire for a strike may be more muted than it has been portrayed.'' (END/2007)

Attack on Iran is the next step in divide and conquer of Middle East--Daan de Wit

Attack on Iran is the next step in divide and conquer of Middle East

Monday, 02 April 2007
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by Daan de Wit

The Dutch in this article was translated into English by Ben Kearney.

The march towards war with Iran continues unabated. As time goes by, the possibility that Iran will be attacked is not lessening, but growing. It will increase the level of chaos in the Middle East, but the question is whether this is an unfortunate consequence or a means to an end.While expansive war games are being conducted off the Iranian coast and new sanctions are being imposed on Iran, the heat is being turned up in other ways as well. Under the headline US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran, The Sunday Telegraph writes: 'In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials. [...] Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, [...] said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime." [...] Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.' The current situation involving Iran and the 15 British Marines is reminiscent of the situation prior to the Vietnam War, when the U.S. was provoking Vietnam by way of Operation 34A. It was then that the American government seized upon an alleged incident in the Gulf of Tonkin in order to demonstrate Vietnamese agression, after which Congress gave President Johnson its approval to attack the country. For more details see this article by DeepJournal. Also see: Fake Maritime Boundaries, written by Craig Murray, former Head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
U.S. troop build-up in Persian GulfOn Tuesday of last week 'a high-ranking security source' told the Russian RIA Novosti that 'U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future.' Professor A. Richard Norton, advisor to the Iraq Study Group, made a good point back in mid-February in reference to the American show of power in the Persian Gulf: 'Remember that in 1990-91 and then again in 2003 the very fact that the United States assembled a formidable array of forces in the Gulf region became an argument for using those forces and launching wars. The United States will soon have two carrier task forces on station, and perhaps a third carrier task force will soon be deployed. It will be difficult for the United States to step down from its combative perch without Iran accepting some fairly significant concessions. While many leading Iranian officials fully understand the gravity of the situation, it is nonetheless possible to imagine a series of real or contrived clashes that lead, perhaps unintentionally, to a serious aerial and naval campaign against Iran. Or - to put it simply - to yet another U.S. war of choice.' Tony Blair in a speech to the U.S. Congress: 'September 11th was not an isolated event, but a tragic prologue. Iraq; another Act; and many further struggles will be set upon this stage before it's over.'Religious strife Middle East: unintended fire to the flames or means to an end?From the moment he first gained any significance, right up until his death, the life of Saddam Hussein was intertwined with the West, as I wrote previously. Saddam provided his country with the order that the West desired, and together they saw how the country descended into chaos following the overthrow of the Baath regime. There are different viewpoints circulating as to how the Bush administration might be able to create order in Iraq. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh sees what he calls 'the redirection' of the Bush Administration: Out of fear for Shiite Iran, the U.S. would actively support the Sunnis in the region. Previously it were the Iraqi Shiites who received their support, to the detriment of the Sunni minority, which in general is seen as the core of the Iraqi resistance. The question though is whether or not there is any discussion of an adjustment to American plans. On the one hand, the fact that American plans have been frustrated by the resistance could indeed be an explanation for a reevaluation, but it could also be an explanation for the fact that, contrary to all predictions, Iran hasn't been attacked yet (the newest predictions are talking about this month). On the other hand, there are indications that the discord that exists between the two Muslim groups is the result of a preconceived plan: divide and conquer, culminating in an evenly divided future Middle East. And while two dogs are fighting for a bone... If there really is a 'Redirection', then the U.S. will end up profiting from the divisions that it itself brought about which resulted from the decision, often described as a blunder, to dismiss the constituent Sunni elements of the police and army en masse. In response to the Sunni insurgency, the Shiites were supported by the U.S. from the beginning. They received military support via Task Force 121, a team of specialists from Special Operations and the CIA. Additional American support came in the form of the coordination and cultivation of a large Iraqi militia. It may be this group that called itself 'Black Flag' in 2004 and took the fight to the insurgents. The resulting internecine conflict between the two Muslim groups not only divided Iraq, but it also put pressure on the situation in the region. Questions surrounding attack on Golden MosqueA relatively important moment in the fighting between the Sunnis and the Shiites was the attack on the Golden Mosque in February of 2006. Directly following the destruction of the Shiite mosque, 27 Sunni mosques were attacked and three Sunni imams were killed. Hundreds, if not thousands of people have died as a result of the attack. The strike seemed to be a clearcut case, but further examination raises questions as to who the actual perpetrators of the attack were. The suggestion is now being made that Western specialists were involved. Jassem Mohammed Jaafar, at that time Construction minister, said on Iraqi television: '"According to initial reports, the bombing was technically well conceived and could only have been carried out by specialists"', to which he added that the placement of the explosives had to have taken at least twelve hours. Jafaar: '[...] "holes were dug into the mausoleum's four main pillars and packed with explosives." "Then the charges were connected together and linked to another charge placed just under the dome. The wires were then linked to a detonator which was triggered at a distance'. These statements were borne out by the account of the caretaker of the mosque, as noted by The New York Times: 'The night before the explosion, he said, just before the 8 p.m. curfew on Feb. 21, 2006, on the Western calendar, men dressed in commando uniforms like those issued by the Interior Ministry entered the shrine. The caretaker said he had been beaten, tied up and locked in a room. Throughout the night, he said, he could hear the sound of drilling as the attackers positioned the explosives, apparently in such a way as to inflict maximum damage on the dome. [...] I can describe what was done as exactly like what happened to the World Trade Center," he said. "Bad people used this incident to divide Iraq on a detestable sectarian basis."' Journalist Mike Whitney writes: 'Eyewitness accounts verify that American troops and Iraqi National Guard were active in the area throughout the night and that their cars could be heard running "the whole night until next morning". People living around the mosque were told "to stay in your shop and don't leave the area". At 6:30 AM the American troops left, just 10 minutes before the bombs went off.' '"There are forces seeking to prevent democracy and obstruct the peaceful political and economic development of Iraq. They seek to achieve their goals in a number of ways. But, as I said before, promoting sectarian violence is one of them. There's nothing new here"', according to American spokesperson Adam Ereli. Pro-Sunni clandestine operations in and around IranAccording to Seymour Hersh, American foreign policy as it relates to Iran - based as it is on the mutual strife between Sunnis and Shiites - has been completely overturned. In his latest article The Redirection, he writes: 'The new strategy "is a major shift in American policy-it's a sea change," a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said.' He makes the argument that the rise of the Shiites in Iraq, combined with a powerful Shiite Iran no longer held in check by the threat of Saddam's Sunni-controlled army, has sent chills through Sunni countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia: 'The Sunni states "were petrified of a Shiite resurgence, and there was growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shiites in Iraq," he said. "We cannot reverse the Shiite gain in Iraq, but we can contain it."' According to Hersh this fear explains the readiness of the Saudis to contribute financially to the clandestine pro-Sunni support operations: 'The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.' The money comes in part from the Saudis, and the execution of the operations takes place under the guidance of Vice-President Dick Cheney: '[...] former and current officials said that the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney. [...] American military and special-operations teams have escalated their activities in Iran to gather intelligence [...]'. Read more about clandestine operations in Iran in part 4 (October 2005) of this DeepJournal series.A new Cold War in the Middle EastThe divisions between Sunni and Shiite groups could be the beginning of a new Cold War in the Middle East. Following the Cold War against communism and during the subsequent War on Terror, a new war could now arise between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. 'Martin Indyk, a senior State Department official in the Clinton Administration who also served as Ambassador to Israel, said that "the Middle East is heading into a serious Sunni-Shiite Cold War." Indyk, who is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, added that, in his opinion, it was not clear whether the White House was fully aware of the strategic implications of its new policy', writes Hersh. But just as with the Cold War, the War on Terror and the new religious divisions, the question is whether the U.S. is the victim or the perpetrator. Whichever the case may be, both Muslim groups are battling each other while Iran as a target is getting more and more in the picture, just as a relatively safe Israel, surrounded by a patchwork quilt of small and fragmented statelets in an oil-rich region. Influence of the Democratic majority on Bush AdministrationSome are pinning their hopes on the Democrats - who now hold a majority in Congress - to avert a military conflict with Iran. But their recent history doesn't offer much in the way of hope. In the years following the 9/11 attacks, they remained silent while the new media amassed fact upon fact, chipping away at the official conspiracy theory of what happened on and around September 11th. The Democratic party didn't exactly stand in the way of the radical legislation which came in the wake of 9/11 either, and what's more, they used the first hundred hours of their majority in Congress to adopt into law the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, whose findings were taken apart piece by piece by Professor David Ray Griffin in his book The New Pearl Harbor. And as to the question of what the most relevant Democrats are saying about Iran - the answer is disappointing. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama have all made clear that they are not opposed to military action against Iran. DNC Chairman Howard Dean was quite clear at the beginning of last year: '[...] under no circumstances will a Democratic Administration ever allow Iran to become a nuclear power.' One year later he called the Iran of now a greater danger than the Iraq of then. Meanwhile Clinton is making similar statements, but feels that if Bush wants to declare war on Iran he should definitely ask Congress for approval. According to Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, this isn't necessary; under pressure from the Israeli lobby she has introduced legislation ensuring that Bush doesn't have to do this. The Democrats are echoing the rhetoric of the Republican administration. Under the motto 'Don't Let the People Who Brought Us Iraq Define the Questions' Paul Pillar, 'a former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, [who] teaches security studies at Georgetown University' is advising first and foremost to ask the right questions, such as: 'If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, how would that change its behavior and affect U.S. interests? In particular, why would deterrence, which has kept nuclear peace with other adversaries, not work with Iran?'In spite of democracy, small group dictatesWith the appropriate questions not being posed, and with the Democrats having begged off and the build-up to the coming war with Iran only now in this late stage getting the full attention of the Western media, it remains as clear as ever that a small group of extremists - an elite of the elite - are once again prepared to take the world one step further on a path above which most people see only dark clouds gathering. Speaking of this small group of people who have no fear of the gathering storm and who see a shiny pot of gold at the end of it, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: 'I am perplexed by the fact that major strategic decisions seem to be made within a very narrow circle of individuals - just a few, probably a handful, perhaps not more than the fingers on my hand. And these are the individuals, all of whom but one, who made the original decision to go to war [with Iraq], and used the original justifications to go to war.' One thing that comes to mind while listening to Brzezinski is a quote taken down by New York Times reporter Ron Suskind that came from the mouth of a White House aide: Suskind writes: 'The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''' Vanity Fair sums up this idea as it translates into the situation with Iran in a long article with a short headline: From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq.Fundamentalist leadership in both U.S. and IranIn his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Brzezinski underscores a view held on the role that the U.S. has played in the rise of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's star: 'Our policy has unintentionally - I hope unintentionally, maybe it was develishly clever, but I think unintentionally - helped Ahmadinejad consolidate himself in power and excercised a degree of influence which actually his position doesn't justify. Most Americans when they say president Ahmadinejad, they think he is the equivalent of president Bush, he is not, he is roughly a third level official, who doesn't even control the military resources of the country.' In comparing Bush and Ahmadinejad, investigative journalist Jim Lobe was compelled to make a side-by-side product comparison which brought him to the conclusion: Bush and Ahmadinejad: separated at birth?One of the similarities between the two leaders lies in their fundamental character. Bush's image, which along with that of the U.S. has taken a beating, is that of the democratic, Christian leader of the free world. That's why he is supported by the Moral Majority in the U.S. The same moral theme can also be seen in Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende. Upon further inspection there are a few things to take note of regarding the exacting image of both gentlemen. Balkenende preaches norms and values, but then does the opposite by refusing to publicly state the reason that The Netherlands sent soldiers to Iraq. Balkenende reconfirms the hypocritical image of fundamentalist Christians. This image is also shaped - alongside the sex abuse scandals in the Church - by George W. Bush, a man who while governor of Texas held the record for death sentences handed out, who now feels that torture is necessary, and who could be held responsible for thousands of American deaths and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi victims. And that's just to name a few. Bush is facilitated by the conservative Christian Erik Prince, director of Blackwater, the most important supplier of mercenaries for Iraq. These leaders of the Moral Majority would nevertheless be nowhere without the Silent Majority, the much more moderate sectors of the population of the U.S. and The Netherlands, for example. While the silence of the Silent Majority and the actions of the Moral Majority keep the wars coming, the conservative Christians, through their active support for Bush and Israel, seem to be eager to bring on exactly that which their guidebook - The Bible - warns against: a great battle in the Middle East which would usher in the End Times. President Ahmadinejad echoes this vision of the so-called 'End Times' held by the millions of Christians who support Bush; just like them, his view of the future is none too gloomy because he also foresees a final battle and above all redemption for mankind: 'French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy has quoted Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad as saying that one should really hope for "chaos" because "there will be God" afterward. [...] Ahmadinejad has also called for the return of al-Mahdi, a messiah-like figure in Shi'ite Islam, whose reappearance is supposed to restore justice before the end of the world', writes AFP. In this way he's on the same wavelength as the millions of readers of the Left Behind series, which foresees a miraculous catching up of all true Christian believers prior to the apocalypse. Influential Christians such as Joel Rosenberg, whose books are recommended on the Left Behind website, interpret what they read in the newspaper the same way they interpret the Bible, and see in the news the fulfillment of age-old prophecies: '[...] what is particularly curious about the emergence of an even stronger Iran-Sudan alliance this week is that it was foretold 2,500 years ago by the Hebrew Prophet Ezekiel in chapters 38 and 39'. To this statement he adds an article from Haaretz, in which it talks about how 'several Orthodox Jewish groups in Israel are currently making preparations to build and outfit the Third Temple', after which he refers to the title of chapter 13 from his book Epicenter: Future Headline: Jews build third temple in Jerusalem. In a recent contribution, Rosenberg writes: 'I've written before that 2007 is the Year of Decision. But is April about to become the "month of decision"?' How dangerous is Iran?The Iranian economy is weak, and as opposed to the U.S. and Israel, Iran has no history of initiating wars (the war with Iraq was the result of an attack by Saddam that was spurred on by the U.S.). Ahmadinejad says that he doesn't want war, and in part 14 of this series it was also shown how he was incorrectly quoted and doesn't want to wipe Israel off the map. While the U.S. is refusing offers of negotiations (1, 2) with Iran, Iran is allowing UN-inspectors to investigate their nuclear program, though they restricted their cooperation recently, and as opposed to the U.S. and Israel, Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the other hand Ahmadinejad did organize a conference to promote research into the Holocaust, and he might be lying about his belief that his faith forbids the production of a nuclear weapon. Depending on which cleric you ask, a nuclear weapon would actually be permitted, so long as it is not used offensively (in contrary to the U.S. view). And then there is Iran's support for Hezbollah. When it comes to the facts, there are different ways of looking at it: 'Iran's control over Hezbollah has been steadily declining since approximately 1996, during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami. Money does continue to come "from Iran" to support Hezbollah, but not the Iranian government. Instead, it's private religious foundations that direct the bulk of support, primarily to Hezbollah's charitable activities. [...] the most important reason for not targeting Iran for the continued fighting in Lebanon is that this conflict is antithetical to Iran's interests. [...] If a state is needed to explain the continued existence of groups like Hezbollah, then Iran is an ideal candidate. Ergo, the connection must exist. Such claims serve to bolster the central, but fallacious, political doctrine for the Bush administration that the Global War on Terrorism really exists', writes Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Brown University, William O. Beeman, author of the book The "Great Satan" vs. the "Mad Mullahs": How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other.

Nicholas Burns on Charlie Rose 2-23-07 (William O. Beeman)

Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns, appeared on the Charlie Rose show on PBS on February 23, 2007. His appearance was a very revealing insight into what anthropologists call “magical thinking” on his part, and perhaps that of the State Department. The view Burns presented was that U.S. pressure on Iran was creating “cracks” in the Iranian political establishment. The “magical thinking” part of his formulation is to attribute causality to a series of irrelevant actions that have no causal force at all.

The story going around Washington, promulgated by the Bush administration, is that the December U.N. sanctions were more effective than anyone believed they would be, that they have created dissention among the leadership ranks in Iran, and that U.S. efforts to bring financial pressure on Iran has caused the power establishment in Iran to estrange itself from President Ahmadinejad.

In fact, the factional disagreement that Burns wants to take credit for far pre-dates the U.S. actions in December, or even the Presidential elections of 2005. It is as if Burns and company never heard of the reform movement, or listened to original Revolutionary Ibrahim Yazdi. Moreover, the estrangement of the Iranian leadership from President Ahmadinejad began almost instantaneously after his election.

These splits in the Iranian political scene have been growing continually. The real cause for their growth is the change in the Iranian electorate as the voting population gets younger and is more estranged from the original revolution. Certainly U.S. gunboats in the Gulf and the annoyances of silly and ineffective sanctions are going to be a topic of discussion in Iran, but there has been absolutely no sea change in Iranian political life, only a steady growth in divergence of opinion over a much longer period.

These long-term divisions in Iranian political life may seem to have appeared suddenly, but not because they didn’t exist before, but rather because the United States has so long presented Iran as a monolithic dictatorship where no political dissent is possible, and where elections are not “real.” When the truth about the growing diversity of Iranian political thought becomes undeniable, the impression is created that something the U.S. did brought it about.

Mr. Burns and his boss, Condoleezza Rice can delude themselves, and perhaps the American public into thinking that they are creating some kind of cataclysm in Iran through their ineffective diplomacy, but their posturing is simply laughable to anyone who follows Iranian politics with any care.

The real breakthrough will come when the United States decides to pursue mature diplomatic efforts with Iran, and stop demanding preconditions for talking to Tehran that they know Iran will always refuse. The canard that it is the Iranians are refusing to talk to the U.S, which Mr. Burns put forward once again in his appearance, is an absurdity given the numerous overtures made by Iran over the years that have been systematically ignored by the Bush administration.

The Forward--Iranian Jews Reject Outside Calls To Leave Push From Israel, U.S. Groups Falls Flat Despite Ahmadinejad--Marc Perelman

Iranian Jews Reject Outside Calls To Leave Push From Israel, U.S. Groups Falls Flat Despite Ahmadinejad

Marc Perelman Fri. Jan 12, 2007

A campaign to convince Iran’s 25,000 Jews to flee the country has stalled, with most opting to stay in their native homeland despite President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial and anti-Israeli speeches.

In recent months, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Israeli officials and some American Jewish communal leaders have urged Iranian Jews to leave. But so far, despite generally being allowed to travel to Israel and emigrate abroad, Iranian Jews have stayed put.

According to the statistics compiled by HIAS, 152 out of 25,000 Jews left Iran between October 2005 and September 2006 — down from 297 during the same period the previous year, and 183 the year before. Sources said that the majority of those who have left in recent years cited economic and family reasons as their main incentive for leaving, rather than political concerns.
At the same time, HIAS workers in Vienna have detected a substantial increase in the number of Iranian refugees from other minority faiths, including Bahais.

Since the August 2005 election of Ahmadinejad, a conservative firebrand, the fate of Iranian Jewry has become part of a broader diplomatic game between Teheran, Washington and Jerusalem.

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly used rabid anti-Israeli rhetoric, threatening to wipe Israel off the map, and has questioned over and over again the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Tehran recently hosted a conference to “assess” the Holocaust, and last year a leading daily newspaper held a contest soliciting Holocaust cartoons as a response to the uproar caused by a Danish caricature contest of Prophet Muhammad.

At times, as international tensions mounted over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, staunch opponents of the mullah regime have launched accusations of religious and ethnic discrimination against Iran in an effort to depict the country as a pariah state.

HIAS declined to comment on its efforts to promote emigration, but some observers claim that the main reason Iranian Jews have chosen to stay is that they are, for the most part, free to practice their faith. “Iranian Jews have a comfortable Jewish life,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born Middle East analyst now living in Israel.

At a time when Tehran and Jerusalem trade barbs and threats, the 25,000 Jews of Tehran, Shiraz and Yazd attend packed synagogues, send their children to Jewish schools, buy their meat in kosher butchers and are even exempt from prohibitions on alcohol. This modus vivendi is the result of a compact between the leadership of the Jewish community and the Iranian authorities, whereby Jews are permitted to practice their faith as a community on the condition that they remain out of politics and do not speak out in favor of Israel.

Some Iranian expatriates dispute the assertion that Jews are staying because conditions are good. Sam Kermanian, secretary general of the Los Angeles-based Iranian American Jewish Federation, asserted that the majority of Jews remaining in Iran are elderly and only speak Persian, and are naturally less inclined to emigrate.

In the early days after the Islamic revolution in 1979, several Jews were executed on charges of Zionism and relations with Israel. About 80% of the community left the country in which Jews had lived for nearly 3,000 years as descendants of slaves from Babylon saved by Cyrus the Great and enjoyed a “golden age” during the 1960s and ’70s under the Shah.

The situation for Jews improved in the years after the revolution, and Judaism is one of the recognized minority religions in Iran. Jews, Zoroastrians and Christians have rights enshrined in the Islamic constitution, and they each elect their own member of parliament and are entitled to worship freely but not to proselytize.

The State Department’s religious freedom reports have noted that the Jewish community in Iran is closely monitored by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. In other words, Jews, like other minorities, face discrimination because of the inherently Islamic nature of the regime, which prevents them, for instance, from securing government jobs or becoming army officers.

Seven years ago, a group of 13 Orthodox Jews in the southern city of Shiraz were accused of spying for Israel. The case prompted an international outcry that led to the eventual release of the Jewish prisoners after years of quiet diplomacy.

Some criticism of the regime has proved to be unfounded. A few months ago, several conservative media outlets in Canada and the United States published reports claiming that the Iranian government had approved legislation requiring religious minorities to wear a distinctive sign, invoking charged memories from World War II. The reports turned out to be wrong.

“Some people are trying to use the climate created by Ahmadinejad and the nuke issue,” said William Beeman, an Iran expert and professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota. “But Iranian Jews have a fairly vibrant communal life, and they can even criticize the regime within the constraints of the Islamic regime.”

Both Maurice Motamed, the Jewish member of the Iranian parliament, and Haroun Yeshaya, longtime chairman of the Jewish Central Committee of Tehran, who have regularly criticized Israel, nevertheless publicly condemned the president’s views, the latter in an unusual letter to Ahmadinejad, sent in February 2006.

Kermanian, of the L.A.-based Iranian Jewish federation, said that “given the situation and the current climate, some Jews there will say things are not too bad, but the totality of the picture is negative.” He said that the recent uptick in antisemitic propaganda in books and the media had stoked fears within the Jewish community in Iran.

The regime’s anti-Zionist propaganda has at times provoked antisemitic incidents. Last summer, a hard-line weekly newspaper, Yalesarat, published photographs of people waving Israeli flags in synagogues to celebrate Israeli Independence Day. The paper falsely asserted that the synagogues were in Iran, prompting an assault on two synagogues. Motamed, the Jewish parliamentarian, described the vandals as “opportunists” in comments to the BBC, and said that the incident was defused by the Iranian security forces.

Several times in recent years, Jewish burial areas were overtaken by local authorities for urban development purposes. A Western diplomat said that while antisemitic intentions played a part in the incidents, another factor was that, in general, burial places are less sacred for Shia Muslims than they are for Jews.

For all his inflammatory rhetoric, Ahmadinejad has been careful not to single out Iran’s Jews, and his office even donated money to Tehran’s Jewish hospital.

“The government goes to extra lengths to differentiate between the government of Israel, with whom they have fundamental issues, and the Jewish people, especially Iranian Jews,” said Amir Cyrus Razzaghi, a Tehran-based commentator who is not Jewish. “There is a genuine interest to keep the Jewish community in Iran to demonstrate to the world that the government is anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish. This is especially important to a government that strives to be not only the leader in the Islamic world, but also a key regional and global player.”

The result is the only Jewish community living under an avowedly Islamic regime. In Tehran, where the majority of the community lives, there are six kosher butchers and about 30 synagogues. In addition, there is the Jewish hospital, which has a Jewish director and is funded by donations from the Diaspora, though the vast majority of its staff and patients are Muslim.

Children attend Jewish schools where they are taught Hebrew and receive religious training. All principals are Muslim, the schools do not close on the Sabbath and the curriculum is supervised by the government.

While Jews are allowed to obtain passports and visas to leave Iran, they have to submit their requests to a special section of the passport office and there are restrictions on families leaving en masse. Iranian Jews travel to and from Israel via a third country with the full knowledge of the authorities. Both sides had kept quiet about such journeys, but recently acknowledged them.

“It might seem strange,” said Javedanfar, the Israel-based expert, “but they can travel to Israel and other places, come back [to Iran] and have a comfortable Jewish life, as long as they keep quiet about Israel.”

Fri. Jan 12, 2007

Youth Movement: Iran's New Generation will be more Moderate--William O. Beeman

Article published Jan 14, 2007

Youth movement Iran's new generation will be more moderate


By William O. Beeman

The Providence Journal


The recent election in Iran signals change in the Islamic Republic. The rising generation of Iranian youth, along with the increasingly important population of politically active women, is making itself felt in a dramatic way. It is this combination -- youth and women -- that will lead Iran in the near future.

The new political landscape is not yet at full strength -- that will occur in about five years as the post-revolutionary population matures. If left to its own devices without foreign interference, Iran would undoubtedly be more democratic, more liberal, more secular and more positively disposed toward the West than ever before.

The elections that chose the members of local municipal councils as well as the Assembly of Experts, which monitors the actions of Iran's Spiritual Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, resulted in losses for the extreme conservative elements in Iran's political spectrum and a resurgence of moderate and reformist candidates.

Many commentators have had difficulty interpreting the election results. It becomes easier, however, once the Iranian political landscape has been properly laid out.

The dominant group in Iranian political life is what I call the post-revolutionary hard-line conservatives. This is the group who came to power under the aegis of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The current Iranian spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, and his supporters make up the bulk of this group, which currently dominate the government. Often identified in derogatory fashion as the "mullocracy,'' it is no longer dominated by clerics.

Challenging this establishment for power are three groups. First are a number of moderate conservatives -- individuals and factions who have posts within the conservative establishment who are vying for power. Chief among them is Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a former president who ran for a second nonconsecutive term against current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2006 elections. Hashemi-Rafsanjani currently heads the Expediency Council, which mediates between the spiritual leader and the parliament. Another contender for power is the current mayor of Tehran, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, who also ran for president.

The second group consists of the Reformers, who, under President Mohammad Khatami, the last president, made strong gains in modifying the hard revolutionary line of the Khomeini conservatives. They were voted out of office by a public disgruntled because they could not take their reforms far enough. They were also prevented from seeking election by the conservatives who, under the constitution, have the right through a body called the Council of Guardians to remove "unsuitable'' candidates from elections. Former parliament Speaker Mehdi Karrubi, who came close to being in the presidential runoff last year, is part of this group.

The third challenger group might be called the revolutionary reactionaries, headed by current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This group is disgruntled for many reasons. Many are veterans of the Iran-Iraq War. They have never achieved real power in government, though they maintain a certain control in local politics. They reject the idea of clerical rule and want Iran to return to the ideals of the original revolution -- particularly in economic reform. They view the current conservative rulers as corrupt and venal. President Ahmadinejad's fiery rhetoric is aimed at energizing this group and attracting new followers to its philosophy. He is too weak to effect the religious conservative rollback in laws involving public behavior, or in redistribution of the nation's wealth -- one of the hallmark goals of the original revolution.

Unfortunately for both the reformers and the revolutionary reactionaries, they have very little power. President Khatami and those who represent his political stance are regularly vilified in the press and in public rhetoric. Though President Ahmadinejad has the bully pulpit at his disposal to launch whatever attacks he wishes on Israel, the United States or those who oppose Iran's nuclear-energy program, in fact he has very little actual power. Under Iran's governmental system the president has no control over the military, foreign policy or Iran 's nuclear program. Therefore, his words are empty.

Iran, however, does have a real, functioning electoral system, despite denigrating remarks made by the Bush administration. President Ahmadinejad hoped to increase his power by forming a political party and running candidates who would represent his philosophy. The reformers also ran candidates to challenge the conservatives.

Now that election returns are in, it seems clear that the voters have favored the reformers, and the moderate conservatives in both the local elections and for the Assembly of Experts. Mr. Ahmadinejad's supporters came in a distant fourth in all aspects of the election. This is certainly a setback for his political ambitions, and it should help Westerners to put his extreme remarks in perspective: Clearly Iranians don't buy them any more than forces in the West.

The trend among Iranian voters is thus in the direction of change away from the conservatism of the past. This has been the general direction of Iranian politics, and it will undoubtedly continue.

The one issue in which all Iranians are united, however, is the right for Iran to develop its nuclear-energy capabilities. This is a matter of national pride in Iran, where it is seen as an aspect of modernization. There is no strong evidence that Iran is pursuing a weapons program. The United States is foolish to continue to antagonize the Iranian people by threatening attacks, sanctions and other hostile actions based on this one-note foreign policy.

A policy of talking to Iran, engaging in diplomacy and working toward reasonable mutual solutions to regional issues of mutual concern will pay off in the long run when Iran's new generation comes to power.

William O. Beeman is a professor of anthropology and Middle East Studies at Brown University and the author of "The Great Satan vs. The Mad Mullahs: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other."

Youth movement Iran's new generation will be more moderate | TimesDaily.com | Times Daily | Florence, AL

Youth movement Iran's new generation will be more moderate TimesDaily.com Times Daily Florence, AL

Democracy Gets Traction in Iran--William O. Beeman

Democracy Gets Traction in Iran
-->
New America Media, Opinion/Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Dec 23, 2006

Editor's Note: The results of recent Iranian elections were a setback for conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a success for reformers. If Iran is left to itself, the writer says, a rising generation of young people and women will make the country more democratic and liberal than ever. William O. Beeman is professor of anthropology and Middle East studies at Brown University. He is president of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association, and author of "The 'Great Satan' vs. the 'Mad Mullahs': How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other" (Praeger Publishers, 2005).

Recent elections in Iran are harbingers of change in the Islamic Republic. The rising generation of Iranian youth, along with the increasingly important population of politically active women is making itself felt in a dramatic way. It is this combination -- youth and women -- who will lead Iran in the near future.

The new political landscape is not yet at full strength -- that will occur in about five years as the post-Revolutionary population matures. However, the presence of this new political coalition in last week's election has already shown the future of Iranian political life. If left to its own devices without foreign interference, Iran undoubtedly be more democratic, more liberal, more secular and more positively disposed toward the West than ever before in the Islamic Republic.

The elections chose the members of local municipal councils as well as the Assembly of Experts, which monitors the actions of Iran's Spiritual Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i. The results were a loss for the extreme conservative elements in Iran's political spectrum, and a resurgence of moderate and reformist candidates.

Many commentators have had difficulty interpreting the election results. However, it becomes easier once the Iranian political landscape has been properly laid out.

The dominant group in Iranian political life are the post-Revolutionary Hard-line Conservatives. This is the group who came to power under the aegis of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The current spiritual leader, Ali Khamene'i and his supporters make up the bulk of this group. They currently dominate the government. However, in the three decades following the Revolution they have become increasingly more pragmatic in their dealings with the United States and other Western nations. Often identified in derogatory fashion as the "mullocracy," they are no longer dominated by clerics.

Challenging this establishment for power are three groups. First are a number of Moderate Conservatives -- individuals and factions who have posts within the conservative establishment who are vying for power. Chief among them is Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, former president who ran for a second non-consecutive term against current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in last year's elections. Hashemi-Rafsanjani currently heads the Expediency Council, which mediates between the Spiritual Leader and the Parliament. Another contender for power is Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, current mayor of Tehran, who also ran for president.

The second group consists of the Reformers, who, under President Mohammad Khatami, the last president, made strong gains in modifying the hard revolutionary line of the Khomeini conservatives. They were voted out of office by a public disgruntled because they could not take their reforms far enough. They were also prevented from seeking election by the conservatives who, under the constitution, have the right through a body called the Council of Guardians to remove "unsuitable" candidates from elections. The former Parliament Speaker, Mehdi Karrubi, who came close to being in the presidential runoff last year, is part of this group.

The third challenger group might be called the Revolutionary Reactionaries, headed by current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This group is disgruntled for many reasons. Many are veterans of the Iran-Iraq war. They have never achieved real power in government, though they maintain a certain control in local politics. They reject the idea of clerical rule and want Iran to return to the ideals of the original Revolution -- particularly in the area of economic reform. They view the current conservative rulers as corrupt and venal. President Ahmadinejad's fiery rhetoric is aimed at energizing this group and attracting new followers to their philosophy. President Ahmadinejad is too weak to effect the religious conservative rollback in laws involving public behavior, or in redistribution of the nation's wealth -- one of the hallmark goals of the original Revolution.

Unfortunately for both the Reformers and the Revolutionary Reactionaries, they have very little power. President Khatami and those who represent his political stance are regularly vilified in the press and in public rhetoric. Though President Ahmadinejad has the bully pulpit at his disposal to launch whatever attacks he wishes on Israel, the United States or those who oppose Iran's nuclear energy program, in fact he has very little actual power. Under Iran's governmental system the president has no control over the military, foreign policy or Iran's nuclear program. Therefore his words are empty.

However, Iran does have a real, functioning electoral system, despite denigrating remarks made by the Bush administration. President Ahmadinejad hoped to increase his power by forming a political party and running candidates that would represent his philosophy. The Reformers also ran candidates to challenge the conservatives. Since the election, it seems clear that the voters have favored the Reformers and the Moderate Conservatives in both the local elections and for the Assembly of Experts. Mr. Ahmadinejad's supporters came in a distant fourth in all aspects of the election. This is certainly a setback for his political ambitions, and it should help Westerners to put his extreme remarks in perspective: clearly Iranians don't buy them any more than forces in the West.

The trend among Iranian voters is thus in the direction of change away from the conservatism of the past. This has been the general direction of Iranian politics, and it will undoubtedly continue. The one issue that all Iranians are united on, however, is the right for Iran to develop its nuclear energy capabilities. This is a matter of national pride in Iran where it is seen as an aspect of modernization. There is no evidence whatever that Iran is pursuing a weapons program. The United States is foolish to continue to antagonize the Iranian people by threatening attacks, sanctions and other hostile actions based on this one-note foreign policy.

A policy of talking to Iran, engaging in diplomacy and working toward reasonable mutual solutions to regional issues of mutual concern will pay off in the long run, when Iran's new generation comes to power.

Iranian Elections Signal Change--William O. Beeman

Iranian Elections Signal Change

William O. Beeman

Elections in Iran last week are harbingers of change in the Islamic Republic. The rising generation of Iranian youth, along with the increasingly important population of politically active women is making itself felt in a dramatic way. It is this combination—youth and women—who will lead Iran in the near future.

The new political landscape is not yet at full strength—that will occur in about five years as the post-Revolutionary population matures. However, the presence of this new political coalition in last week’s election has already shown the future of Iranian political life. If left to its own devices without foreign interference, Iran undoubtedly be more democratic, more liberal, more secular and more positively disposed toward the West than ever before in the Islamic Republic.

The elections which chose the members of local municipal councils as well as the Assembly of Experts, which monitors the actions of Iran’s Spiritual Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, resulted in losses for the extreme conservative elements in Iran’s political spectrum, and a resurgence of moderate and reformist candidates.

Many commentators have had difficulty interpreting the election results. However, it becomes easier once the Iranian political landscape has been properly laid out.

The dominant group in Iranian political life are the post-Revolutionary Hard-line Conservatives. This is the group who came to power under the aegis of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The current spiritual leader, Ali Khamene’i and his supporters make up the bulk of this group. They currently dominate the government. However, in the three decades following the Revolution they have become increasingly more pragmatic in their dealings with the United States and other Western nations. Often identified in derogatory fashion as the “mullocracy,” they are no longer dominated by clerics.

Challenging this establishment for power are three groups. First are a number of Moderate Conservatives--individuals and factions who have posts within the conservative establishment who are vying for power. Chief among them is Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, former President who ran for a second non-consecutive term against current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in last year’s elections. Hashemi-Rafsanjani currently heads the Expediency Council, which mediates between the Spiritual Leader and the Parliament. Another contender for power is Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, current mayor of Tehran, who also ran for President.

The second group consists of the Reformers, who, under President Mohammad Khatami, the last President, made strong gains in modifying the hard revolutionary line of the Khomeini conservatives. They were voted out of office by a public disgruntled because they could not take their reforms far enough. They were also prevented from seeking election by the conservatives who, under the constitution have the right through a body called the Council of Guardians to remove “unsuitable” candidates from elections. The former Parliament Speaker, Mehdi Karrubi, who came close to being in the Presidential runoff last year, is part of this group.

The third challenger group might be called the Revolutionary Reactionaries, headed by current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This group is disgruntled for many reasons. Many are veterans of the Iran-Iraq war. They have never achieved real power in government, though they maintain a certain control in local politics. They reject the idea of clerical rule and want Iran to return to the ideals of the original Revolution—particularly in the area of economic reform. They view the current conservative rulers as corrupt and venal. President Ahmadinejad’s fiery rhetoric is aimed at energizing this group and attracting new followers to their philosophy. President Ahmadinejad is too weak to effect the religious conservative rollback in laws involving public behavior, or in redistribution of the nation’s wealth—one of the hallmark goals of the original Revolution.

Unfortunately for both the Reformers and the Revolutionary Reactionaries they have very little power. President Khatami and those who represent his political stance are regularly vilified in the press and in public rhetoric. Though President Ahmadinejad has the bully pulpit at his disposal to launch whatever attacks he wishes on Israel, the United States or those who oppose Iran’s nuclear energy program; in fact he has very little actual power. Under Iran’s governmental system the President has no control over the military, foreign policy or Iran’s nuclear program. Therefore his words are empty.

However, Iran does have a real, functioning electoral system, despite denigrating remarks made by the Bush administration. President Ahmadinejad hoped to increase his power by forming a political party and running candidates that would represent his philosophy. The Reformers also ran candidates to challenge the conservatives.

Now that election returns are in, it seems clear that the voters have favored the Reformers, and the Moderate Conservatives in both the local elections and for the Assembly of Experts. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters came in a distant fourth in all aspects of the election. This is certainly a setback for his political ambitions, and it should help Westerners to put his extreme remarks in perspective: clearly Iranians don’t buy them any more than forces in the West.

The trend among Iranian voters is thus in the direction of change away from the conservatism of the past. This has been the general direction of Iranian politics, and it will undoubtedly continue.

The one issue that all Iranians are united on, however, is the right for Iran to develop its nuclear energy capabilities. This is a matter of national pride in Iran where it is seen as an aspect of modernization. There is no evidence whatever that Iran is pursuing a weapons program. The United States is foolish to continue to antagonize the Iranian people by threatening attacks, sanctions and other hostile actions based on this one-note foreign policy.

A policy of talking to Iran, engaging in diplomacy and working toward reasonable mutual solutions to regional issues of mutual concern will pay off in the long run when Iran’s new generation comes to power.


William O. Beeman is Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Brown University. He is President of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association, and author of The “Great Satan” vs. The “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other.

US: The Secret World of Stephen Cambone: Rumsfeld's Enforcer

US: The Secret World of Stephen Cambone: Rumsfeld's Enforcer
by Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch
February 7th, 2006

(Note from William Beeman--Americans should rejoice at the just announced departure on December 31 from the Department of Defense of Stephen Cambone, on whose head much of the misery that is the Iraq quagmire must fall. )

The grave fellow in the business suit sitting between two uniformed generals at the witness table during the senate hearings about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war at Abu Ghraib was Dr. Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, known throughout the Pentagon as Donald Rumsfeld's "chief henchman". In his testimony before the committee, Cambone was unapologetic and almost as dismissive as the ridiculous Sen. James Inhofe about the global disgust which erupted over the abuse and murder of Iraqi prisoners of war. Cambone, an apex neo-con and veteran of the Project for the New American Century, evinced disdain not only for the senatorial inquiry but also at a squeamish Lieutenant General Antonio Taguba, who sat next him, looking as if he suspected that he might well be the next one leashed to Cambone's bureaucratic pillory.

A Republican staffer on the Senate foreign relations Committee tells CounterPunch the little-known Cambone, who like so many others on the Bush war team skillfully avoided military service, has quietly become one of the most powerful men in the Pentagon, rivaling even Paul Wolfowitz. "Cambone is a truly dangerous player", the staffer said. "He is Rumsfeld's guard dog, implacably loyal. While Wolfowitz positions himself to step into the top spot should Rumsfeld get axed, Cambone has dug in and gone to war against the insurgents in the Pentagon. Cambone's fingerprints are all over the occupation and the interrogation scandal. For him, there's no turning back".

Cambone has stealthily positioned himself as the most powerful intelligence operator in the Bush administration. On May 8, 2003, Rumsfeld named him Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a new position which Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz described thus: "The new office is in charge of all intelligence and intelligence-related oversight and policy guidance functions". In practice, this means that Cambone controls the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the National Reconnaissance Organization, the National Security Agency, the Defense Security Service and Pentagon's Counter-Intelligence Field Activity. Cambone meets with the heads of these agencies, as well as top officials at the CIA and National Security Council twice a week to give them their marching orders.

One senate staffer tells us he has more operational sway than George Tenet or Condi Rice. His rise to power has been quiet, almost unnoticed until the Abu Ghraib scandal forced him briefly into the spotlight. Indeed, prior to the events of May, Cambone completely evaded detection by Bob Woodward, who in two thick volumes on Bush's wars failed to mention the name Cambone once. Of course, this may reveal more about Woodward than Cambone's skill at bureaucratic camouflage.

Yes, Cambone has neo-con credentials. He got his masters and doctorate at Claremont College in southern California, an elite Straussian enclave. He went on to draft sections of the Project for a New American Century's 2001 Report, Rebuilding America's Defenses, a document notable for recommending that the US develop ethnic and race-based weapons. But more crucial for the speedy trajectory of his career is Cambone's resume as a devout Rumsfeldian. In 1998, Rumsfeld selected Cambone to serve as staff director of the Rumsfeld Commission on Ballistic Missile Defense, the Congressionally-appointed panel which justified implementation of the Strategic Defense Initiative on the grounds that the US was vulnerable to strikes from missiles freighting nuclear, chemical and biological weapons launched by rogue nations, such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

Cambone was no newcomer to the Star Wars scheme. From 1982 through 1986, he toiled at Los Alamos developing policy papers about the need for space-based weapons. In 1990, George Bush, Sr. picked Cambone to head up the Strategic Defense Initiative Office at the Pentagon. After Bush lost, Cambone migrated to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a DC holding pen for hawks, where he continued to hammer away in essays and speeches about the windows of vulnerability in the skies over America.Rumsfeld first brought Cambone into his inner circle not as an overlord for intelligence, but as the chief Pentagon strategist for pushing SDI through Congress. Recall that in the early days of the Bush administration, Star Wars and the obliteration of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty were the twin obsessions of the Rumsfeld gang at the Pentagon.After 9/11 Rumsfeld moved Cambone over to work on war planning and intelligence as Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy, where he labored under the neo-con luminary Douglas Feith. There's reason to believe that Cambone's real mission was to keep tabs on Feith, a notorious hothead and Cheney loyalist whom Rumsfeld distrusts. Rumsfeld wasn't the only one who loathed Feith. Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded the Afghan and Iraq wars, told Woodward that Feith was "the stupidest motherfucker on the face of the Earth".

Cambone and Feith reportedly soon developed an equally acrimonious relationship. But as Feith's star fell, Cambone's rose. In July 2002, Rumsfeld moved Cambone to the Office of Analysis and Evaluation, where his mission was to implement Rumsfeld's plan to reorganize the military and trim some of its most highly-prized weapons systems. "Cambone loomed as a huge threat to the generals", a senate staffer told us. "The message was pretty simple. Go along with our war plans or risk losing your big-ticket items and perhaps your command. Cambone was the enforcer". At the Pentagon, the most feared weapon isn't a dirty nuke, but a line item in the budget.

In April of 2003, Rumsfeld placed Cambone in charge of counter-terrorism teams operating under the code-name "Grey Fox". This covert operation is a kind of sabotage and assassination squad run out of the civil wing of the Pentagon. Rumsfeld had grown frustrated with the military's reluctance to assassinate suspected al-Qaeda and Iraqi resistance leaders, an understandable reluctance in light of US executive orders restricting the use of assassinations. So Rumsfeld seized control of the hit teams from the generals and assigned it to Cambone, a civilian appointee with no military experience. The Gray Fox project, so one Washington Post report concluded, is geared to perform "deep penetration" missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria and North Korea, setting up listening posts, conducting acts of sabotage and assassination. When questioned about Gray Fox, Cambone snapped, "We won't talk about those things".

However, military officers did talk about Gray Fox. "The people in these units are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, anywhere around the world. They are very highly trained, with specialized skills for dealing with close-quarters combat and unique situations posed by weapons of mass destruction", a military officer told Army Times. "If we find a high-value target somewhere, anywhere in the world, and if we have the forces to get there and get to them, we should get there and get to them", the official said. "Right now, there are 18 food chains, 20 levels of paperwork and 22 hoops we have to jump through before we can take action. Our enemy moves faster than that".Aside from guarding Rumsfeld from assaults from within the Pentagon, Cambone's main role seems to be cutting through red tape and bothersome codes of conduct, such as the Geneva Conventions, to institute legally questionable policies. Take the treatment of Iraqi prisoners. The orders to soften up Iraqi prisoners for intelligence interrogators (both military and private contractors) came directly from Cambone's office.

In August 2003, as the occupation of Iraq began to turn bloody, Cambone ordered Brigadier General Geoffrey Miller, former commander of the detention facility at Guantanamo, to go to Iraq along with a team of experienced military interrogators, who had honed their inquisitorial skills with the torture of al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees captured in Afghanistan. His instructions were to "Gitmoize" the interrogations at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, including the notorious Camp Cropper on the outskirts of the Baghdad Airport, where the Delta Force conducted abusive interrogations of top level members of Saddam's regime.

Cambone's top deputy inside the military is none other than Lt. General William Boykin, the Christian warrior, whom Cambone and Rumsfeld elevated to the position to the position of intelligence czar for the US Army last fall. Boykin rose to this lofty eminence after he went on a revival tour of evangelical churches in Oregon, where he disclosed the top secret intelligence that the US "had been attacked because we are a Christian nation". Boykin also leaked the news that Bush's war on terrorism was actually "a war against Satan".

Boykin calmed the congregations by saying there was little reason to fear because the Christian god is mightier than Allah. "I know that my god is bigger than his", Boykin preached. "I know that my god is a real God and his an idol". The general also revealed to the faithful that the supreme deity of the Christians had hand-picked Bush to be president during these fraught times. It was obvious, the general reasoned, that Bush didn't win the election. He became president through a kind of preemptive strike by the Almighty.When word of Boykin's sermons landed on the front page of the Los Angeles Times in October of 2003, there was outrage in the American Islamic community that this two-star zealot was now directing US military intelligence operations in the Middle East. There were calls for his ouster and the Inspector General of the Army launched an investigation of Boykin. But Rumsfeld and Cambone shrugged off the probe and stood by Boykin.It now turns out that Boykin, the Islamophobe, played a central role in the torture scandal now gripping the Bush administration. Last summer, Boykin briefed Cambone on a list of no-holds-barred interrogation methods that he thought should be used to extract more information from Iraqi detainees.

These included humiliation, sleep deprivation, restraint, water torture, religious taunting, light deprivation, and other techniques of torture that have since come to light. A few weeks after this crucial meeting in June, Cambone sent General Miller to Iraq with instructions to oversee the implementation of the Boykin interrogation plan in order to "rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence". According to Lt. General Antonio Taguba, who investigated the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Miller then instructed the Military Police to become "actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of internees". The grim trio of Cambone, Boykin and Miller also conspired to put the control of the detention facilities in Iraq under the tactical control of military intelligence. At Abu Ghraib, the job fell to Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, a move that Lt. General Taguba called contrary to established military doctrine.It now seems likely that Cambone was only the one to invite Israeli advice (and perhaps interrogators) on how to extract information from Iraqi detainees. Before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, Cambone freely admitted to the Washington Times that he was taking advice from the Israelis and sharing intelligence with them on the mechanics of occupation and interrogation. "Those who have to deal with like problems tend to share information as best they can".

These days advancement through the ranks of the Pentagon often goes hand-in-hand with opportunities to deliver sweetheart deals to corporate allies. Here too Cambone has not disappointed his backers. From 1986 to 1990, Cambone worked as a top lobbyist for SRS, a murky software company with deep roots in the Pentagon and CIA. Although Cambone left SRS for government work, he didn't forget his old employers. With Cambone's approval, the Pentagon awarded SRS a $6 million contract to provide management support for the Missile Defense Agency, the wing of the Defense Department charged with managing the SDI program and the development of space-base weapons.

In addition, SRS benefited from Cambone's transfer to the spying wing of the Pentagon. An SRS subsidiary called Torch Concepts was hired by the Pentagon to conduct a data mining foray into passenger records of JetBlue airlines. Bart Edsall, SRS's vice-president, described the work Torch did this way: "the company got a contract from the Pentagon to work with the Army to ferret information out of data streams [in an effort to detect] abnormal behavior of secretive people". Sound familiar? It should. The scheme was essentially a privatized version of the kind of work that John Poindexter wanted to conduct with his discredited Total Information Awareness operation. No surprise that the contracts for this outsourced form of snooping should fall to SRS. It is already the primary private contractor working with the Information Awareness Office of DARPA, the agency which Poindexter ruled and which continues the nefarious work of prying into the private lives, including travel, health and financial records, of American citizens.

As Rumsfeld's hatchetman, Cambone has become so hated and feared inside the Pentagon that one general told the Army Times: "If I had one round left in my revolver, I'd take out Stephen Cambone". This raises the concept of fragging to an entirely new level.

This essay is excerpted from Jeffrey St. Clair's new book, Grand Theft Pentagon.