Iranian Alert -- February 5, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Feb_04/iran_disqualifications_khamenehi_4204.htm

"ELECTIONS WILL TAKE PLACE ON TIME": KHAMENEH’I

TEHRAN, 4 Feb. (IPS) As expected, Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’I stressed on Wednesday that elections "will be held on due time" and backed the Council of the Guardians in its present dispute with the reformists-controlled Executive and Legislative.

"Holding elections is a duty to the responsible organs. It is not a personal matter that one would say it likes it or not. (Therefore) Majles elections will be held on February 20, without being delayed by even one day", he told a gathering of people he met in his residence in Tehran, broadcast by the Radio and Television.

He ruled as "haram" (religiously forbidden) and "illegal" any delay of the elections, a demand by some ministers, provincial governors and the reformist lawmakers rejected by the CG.

As his speech was broadcast, deputies who had stage a protest sit-in to protest the mass disqualifications of the reformist candidates said they would end the sit-in by Thursday.

"There is no knot that can not be untied ... as shown by the revolution which has overcome every obstacle placed in its path", Mr. Khameneh’i said, quoted by the official news agency IRNA, but stopped short of indicating a way out of the crisis, except by confirming indirectly the Guardian’s decision in barring hundreds of candidates, among them 87 leading reformist lawmakers who had urged the government to delay the date of the elections.

"The enemies, by exaggerating the present dispute between the Executive and (election) supervising boards are persuading some officials and others to impede in the elections. The Majles might have been infiltrated by their agents, as there are some who wants more and play in the hands of the enemies", the leader went on, repeating almost word by word threats formulated against protesting lawmakers last Friday by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the regime’s number two man.

In his Friday sermon, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani had for the first time tagged the reformists as "anti-revolutionaries", a description reserved until now to the monarchists and other leftists opposed to the Islamic republic.

"I’m sorry that some ignorants (government officials and deputies) repeat what the enemies of our people say. They try to influence our officials to impede with the elections, to not accomplish their legal duties. There are also people who want more, who are greedy. They put pressures on our responsible organs that, thanks God, have remained steady, resisting pressures from pressure groups and I pray for them", he said, referring to the Guardians.

After advising the 12-members CG, six of them appointed by him, to "revise" the case of the disqualified deputies, among them the younger brother of the embattled President Mohammad Khatami, Ayatollah Khameneh’i had remained silent, thus strengthening the position of the Guardians in face of the Majles and the Government.

Immediately after the position of Mr. Khameneh’i became public, all senior hard line clerics came out strongly against the reformists and the Majles, described by Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, a former Head of the Judiciary and an influent member of the CG as "a shame" for the Islamic Republic.

The Revolutionary Guards, the ruling ayatollahs Praetorian Guard, also warned the 127 deputies who had tendered their resignations three days ago that they would be "tried shortly" for what it said is "a treachery against the Islamic Revolution and its magnanimous leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i".

"As Ayatollah Khameneh’i has said, elections would be held on time, but without the participation of the voters. The conservatives say they have between 15 to 20 per cent of the public’s vote and that’s enough for them. I would say they have much less, but they don’t care, for if they care for the voice of the people, they must leave", commented Dr. Qasem Sh’oleh Sa’di, a former Member of the Majles and a political dissident.

"As Ayatollah Khameneh’i has said several times, the leader of the Islamic Republic gets its legitimacy from the Almighty, leaving no place for the vote of the people", he commented for the Persian service of the Radio France International.

According to the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Interior, some 46,351,032 individuals of the entire population, excluding the population of the earthquake-stricken city of Bam, are eligible to vote at the seventh parliamentary elections.

The statistics also shows that Tehran province with 8,261,061 voters accounts for 17.82 percent of the total nationwide balloters has the highest rank, IRNA reported.

"As Ayatollah Khameneh’i has said, elections would be held on time, but without the participation of the voters. The conservatives say they have between 15 to 20 per cent of the public’s vote and that’s enough for them. I would say they have much less, but they don’t care, for if they care for the voice of the people, they must leave", commented Dr. Qasem Sh’oleh Sa’di, a former Member of the Majles and a political dissident.

"As Ayatollah Khameneh’i has said several times, the leader of the Islamic Republic gets its legitimacy from the Almighty, leaving no place for the vote of the people", he commented for the Persian service of the Radio France International.

There has to be a problem with the translation to English. Did he just say that the vote of the people is irrelevant? Why even hold an election, then? I KNOW this is obvious, but... did he just tell the people of Iran that their elections are futile? He can be that blatant in his pronouncements?

More than Don Quixote

February 05, 2004
Intellectual Conservatives
Nooredin Abedian

Iran's Defense Minister, Ali Shamkhani, is seen by certain experts as the Islamic Republic's true Don Quixote. Brandishing his armada of short and medium ranged missiles, he never misses a chance for saber rattling against Israel, the United States, and the "world arrogant powers," poised, in his thoughts, to attack Iran from all sides to tear it to parts. The 49 year old Revolutionary Guards' commander-turned-Rear-Admiral is, however, a bit more than a mere big-mouthed version of Cervantes' lovely hero.

He was the ruthless Revolutionary Guards' commander of his native province, Khouzestan. Quickly, he became the second in command of the Guards' Corps, commanding the infamous counter intelligence and security apparatus of the feared army. At one time, he served as the minister of Revolutionary Guards, and then as the commander in chief of the mullahs' navy, before ending as the Minister of Defense. During his years in office, he has turned the Defense and Armed Forces Logistics into a veritable producer of deadly weapons.

Only three days ago, his visit to an electronics center in the southern city of Shiraz was broadcast on National Television, boasting a dozen new weapons-related guidance and avionics systems ranging from sophisticated night vision apparatus to state of the art radars. A few days back, he presented the "Raad" missile, a short ranged guided missile capable of being launched from fixed or floating launch pads with a 70 percent hit-probability for the first and 100 percent probability for the second missile, at a range of well over 350 kms. But he does not always stick to short ranged stuff. The 1300 to 1500 km Shahab3 missile, an Iranian version of the North Korean No-dong1, already distributed to combat units of the Revolutionary Guards and capable of carrying an 800 kg conventional or NBC warhead, and the long range Shahab4, a version of the North Korean SS4, whose existence is denied by the regime but is confirmed to be under secret development, are just two examples to cite. This latest version is designed to a range of more than 2000 kms and is capable of carrying a warhead weighing 1.5 tons. In the beginning of January, he even boasted that the Islamic Republic would put its own satellite into orbit with an Iranian-made launch system within 18 months.

Shamkhani is as able and cruel a politician as he is a weapons' guru. In an interview on January 14 with the Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh, he warned Israel not to think about carrying out its "menace" towards the Iranian nuclear centers, the same way it acted on the Iraqi Ozirak in 1981. He even threatened to use "new forms of military operations" against Israel if it dared move against those centers.

"If Israel attacks Iran, we will respond in a way no Israeli politician has ever dreamed about," he warned in another interview by the Qatari al-Jazeera television. When he was asked if he was referring to nuclear weapons, Shamkhani gave a negative reply, but added that "time would tell" the nature of Iran's response.

He very cleverly chose a Saudi paper, and a Qatari Television, to menace Israel. If Israel is too far an enemy to reckon with, there are always closer ones at hand. In fact, his flawless Arabic would have been much more clearly heard and understood in the Gulf capitals than in Tel Aviv. Those Gulf States, in the fundamentalist vision of the mullahs, are "ripe" fruits to fall one after the other, to the mercy of their version of Islam, were it not for the US presence in the Gulf.

As far as regional ambitions are concerned, Shamkhani seems more a man of deeds than one of words. In fact, many countries have their stockpiles of surface to surface missiles, but few have had as much field experience as has Iran, and against live targets too. During their 1980-1988 war against Saddam, the mullahs let the Kuwaitis have a taste of their then-primitive Chinese-built Silkworm missiles. They have not stopped their field practice in missile technology ever since. Exploiting the Iraqi isolation since 1991, they have launched every now and then a few missiles into their western neighbor's territory, citing the presence of opposition elements near their borders. In April 2001, they launched not less than 70 short and medium range missiles in a matter of hours against more than 7 targets along the 1200 km long Iran-Iraq border, aiming to eliminate the bases of the opposition Mujaheedin Khalq in Iraq. Although they were keen enough to tell the UN that they had acted in "self defense," they were however reluctant to hide the true message of those 70 Scud missiles: a few days later, Ali Larijani, Shamkhani's look-a-like who is in charge of the mullahs' Radio and Television, told a crowd gathered for Friday prayers in Tehran: "Those missiles were a warning to these small countries around the Gulf not to play around with the Lion's tail."

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3112.html

U.S. Urges Iran to Follow Libya's Nuclear Example
February 5, 2004

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency praised Libya on Thursday for owning up to running atomic weapons programs and urged Iran to do the same by fully cooperating with the agency's inspectors.

Libya admitted in December it had been seeking nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and invited U.S., British and U.N. experts to help it destroy its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) facilities.

Since then, Tripoli has provided the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with a wealth of detail about its nuclear weapons program, including designs for nuclear warheads, which are now in the United States under an IAEA seal.

"It's very clear that in the case of Libya you're dealing with a country that has made a decision (to disarm) and is acting on that decision, and that has not been said about Iran," U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Brill told reporters after a briefing by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Libya.

He added that he looked forward to the day Tehran would begin demonstrating "the same voluntary providing of information" as Tripoli.

Western diplomats on the IAEA board have said that Iran does not volunteer information and is often slow in answering the questions the IAEA inspectors ask it.

Later this month the IAEA will give the IAEA's 35 governing board member states its latest report on inspections of Iran's nuclear program.

Tehran insists its nuclear ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity. Washington says its nuclear activities are a front for the development of weapons.

Western diplomats told Reuters that there were parallels between Libya and Iran's nuclear programs.

Several said they believed Libya obtained Chinese designs for nuclear warheads from Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who this week admitted supplying Libya, Iran and North Korea with nuclear secrets.

One diplomat said any discovery that such weapons designs had been given to Iran would be the "silver bullet" that would completely undermine Iran's portrayal of its nuclear program as peaceful.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=U3SMBB3CN2R2UCRBAEZSFFA?type=worldNews&storyID=4294286

THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC THE BIGGEST LOOSER ON THE BTC PROJECT

By Safa Haeri

PARIS 5 Feb. (IPS)

The Islamic republic was confirmed as the biggest looser after a syndicate of international lenders signed on Wednesday an important undertaking for securing 2.6 billion dollars (two billion euros) in loans to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, removing the last major obstacle to completion of the controversial project.

A syndicate of 15 commercial banks, led by ABN AMRO, Citibank and BNP Paribas agreed this month to lend the project at total of 936 million dollars. The rest of the credit is coming from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and from national export credit guarantee agencies.

"This is a big victory for Turkey and a bigger defeat for Iranian diplomacy that, because of its irrational opposition to the United States, lost all opportunities for the pipe line passing by Iran, a route that all experts and financers were unanimous in declaring it the cheapest and the fastest to achieve", Dr. Fereydoon Khavand, an international economist based in Paris told Iran press Service.

In fact, not only Iran has a network of pipelines in use, but also its oil loading facilities at the Persian Gulf makes it the best route for delivering oil to thirsty Asian and European markets.

Four of the BTC shareholders, BP, Statoil, Total and ConocoPhillips, are to provide the rest of the credit themselves. BP -- which is also the biggest shareholder in the BTC consortium -- is putting up the lion's share, with a contribution of 560 million dollars.

The 1,100-mile (1.700 kilometres) pipeline that would carry from 2005 one million barrels per day of oil from the Caspian Sea links the Azeri capital of Baku to the Turkish port of Ceyhan at the Mediterranean across neighbouring Georgia.

Representatives from the three countries and a group of creditors signed the final agreement to a project that is expected to reduce United States and Europe’s dependence on the Persian Gulf, mostly from Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter and greatest known energy resources ahead of Iraq and Iran.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Turkish Energy Minister Mehmet Hilmi Guler, the Chairman of Georgia international Oil Company’s Georgi Chanturia and representatives of the BTC shareholders and creditors attended the ceremony.

The young Aliev hailed the pipeline, 15 per cent of the works already finished, as having a "stabilizing" effect on the region.

"With the Wednesday agreement bringing the necessary funds to the project that some oil experts had contested its economic viability, the Islamic Republic has lost all hopes even for future pipe lines, as the Consortium envisages a second network for transporting the Caspian region’s natural gas to the European markets", Mr. Khavand pointed out.

Asked if in the oil giants and financiers would look to the Iranian routes for future projects, Mr. Nasir Shirkhani, an Iranian oil journalist covering for the London-based "Upstream" newsletter responded by the negative, "only if a country like the United States support the idea". "Economically and reasonably, the BTC project should have passed by Iran. But being a political issue, the Americans had decided from the outset to back it, rejecting Iran", he told the Farsi language Radio Farda.

Not willing to accept the profound changes that happened in the Caucasus and the Caspian regions after the collapse of the Soviet Union and persisting on illusions, the Iranians lost billions of revenues just in the name of engaging the so-called "Great Satan", forgetting that Washington has become a major player in the area", he said, adding that without the firm backing of the United States, the project could not materialise.

At a signing ceremony in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, the project's backers said finalising the loan package proved the critics wrong and underlined that the pipeline was now a reality.

Green groups lobbied international lenders not to back it, arguing that it could endanger the fragile ecology of Georgia's Borjomi valley, which is the site of unique mineral water springs. But the Consortium said those fears were "unfounded".

The BTC consortium comprises BP, Azeri state oil firm SOCAR, Unocal, Statoil, TPAO, ENI, Total, Itochu, INPEX, ConocoPhillips and Amerada Hess. ENDS BTC SIGNED 5204

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Feb_04/btc_signed_5204.htm

ENDING THEIR SIT-IN, LAWMAKERS DENOUNCED A "PARLIAMENTARY COUP".

TEHRAN, 5 Feb. (IPS)

Iranian reformist lawmakers on Thursday reiterated they would not take part in elections that they denounced as "unjust, illegal and unfair" and accused the Council of the Guardians of a "parliamentary coup".

In a statement read to hundreds of Iranian and foreign journalists, the protesters reminded that not only the leader controlled CG had rejected all efforts to diffuse the electoral crisis amiably by accepting to review the situation of the reformist deputies it had barred from the 20 February elections, but it had even increased the number of disqualified candidates.

"In such a situation, the deputies who had stage a protest sit-in have no other choice than present their resignation and proclaim solemnly their decision not to take part in the elections, becoming part of a political offence", the statement added.

The unprecedented crisis which coincides with the 25th anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution started after the 12-members Council that, among other duties, looks into the backgrounds of all candidates to all elections in the Islamic republic rejected most of reformist deputies from running for the forthcoming Legislative elections.

In the statement, the disqualified deputies reminded that they had been barred on charges of "not believing in Islam, in the Islamic Republic and in the system of velayat faqih", or the leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i as well as "attachments to illegal groups".

The protesters also attacked both Ayatollah Khameneh’i, without naming him, for having denounced the lawmakers as "greedy and Mafiosi-type people" who "facilitate the plots of the enemies" and President Khatami for his "leniency and hesitations".

On Wednesday, Ayatollah Khameneh’i backed the decision of the Guardians and criticised the protesting lawmakers, describing them as a "bunch of greedy people who ask for more".

"Who are greedy and Mafiosi-type, the lawmakers who wants Constitution be applied or those who ignore it, make a sham of elections, who orders serial killings, who close down the universities, who insult representatives of the people", said Mr. Behzad Nabavi, the second deputy Speaker referring to article by Mr. Hoseyn Shari’atmadari, an intelligence officer specializing in interrogating dissidents appointed as the Editor of the evening daily Keyhan by Mr. Khameneh’i.

"With this sit-in we have forced those who oppose reforms to either hold the elections themselves or stage a military coup", he added.

Intervening at the press conference, Mr. Ali Qanbari described a meeting of the protesters with President Mohammad Khatami on Tuesday as "sad and chagrined" and asked "why a President who is in charge to apply the Constitution and speaks of détente is so fragile, doubting what is taking place?"

Reading the statement, Dr. Mohammad Reza Khatami, the first deputy-Speaker and leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front said by stating the sit-in, the disqualified deputies wanted to protest the CG’s "illegal" right to reject candidates.

"For years, we were trying to get rid of this right the CG had bestowed on itself and also reform the electoral laws, but all our efforts were dashed by the Council of the Guardians", he pointed out while denouncing what he described as a "parliamentary coup" by the Guardians.

"With our action, we have in fact unmasked those who acts against the legitimate rights of the people in electing freely their candidates and revealed to the people a parliamentary coup that was in the making for two years", he added, not saying why they did not revealed the "coup" earlier?

"Our sit-in was for the defence of democracy. We have effectively torn down the pillar of authoritarianism. We have taken from their (hard liners) hand the tools of repression. By announcing our resignation and staying away from the elections, we also end our sit-in, the first phase of our protest movement", the younger brother of the embattled President announced, adding that the action "would continue".

Analysts said the statement was tantamount of a "divorce" between the reformist lawmakers with the President who, by his contradictory declarations, had badly weakened the ranks of the protesters.

While his cabinet had threatened to resign and the Interior Minister, Hojjatoleslam Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari was engaging the powerful CG for delaying the polling, Mr. Khatami said elections would take place on due time.

"What also encouraged the conservatives in standing firm to the reformists was the tragic lack of support from the public, deceived by the reformists and the President’s failure to carry out their promised reforms", commented Mr. Qasem Sho’leh Sa’di, a former Member of the Majles and a political dissident.

ENDS DISUQALIFICATIONS 5204

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Feb_04/iran_disqualifications_5204.htm

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