Iranian Alert -- April 20, 2004 [EST]-- 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.” 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. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Today in Iran, most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy.

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.

Iran's New International Airport Unusable

April 19, 2004
Radio Free Europe
Bill Samii

Supreme Leader Khamenei declared this Iran's year of accountability. He could start by determining why Tehran's newest and grandest international airport remains unusable, almost three months after being inaugurated amid much fanfare.

The Imam Khomeini International Airport near Tehran cost a total of 2.6 trillion rials plus $60 [million], IRNA reported on 31 January. It is intended to handle about 6 million passengers its first phase, 15 million in the second phase, and 40 million a year when the third phase is complete; IRNA did not specify when this would be.

President Khatami inaugurated the airport on 1 February at a ceremony attended by the Roads and Transport Minister Ahmad Khoram; Housing and Urban Development Minister Ali Abdol-Alizadeh; Post, Telegraph, and Telephone Minister Ahmad Motamedi; and foreign dignitaries, IRNA reported at the time.

Yet the airport still cannot be used, according to Radio Farda on 14 April, because construction on the project is below par and does not conform to international standards. The original project engineers quit after the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and the government at that time allowed the Oppressed and Disabled Foundation (Bonyad-i Mostazafan va Janbazan) to take over the airport project. The foundation changed many of the original specifications. As a result, the runways were made with asphalt instead of cement and must be repaved; neither the electrical power nor the runway lighting function properly; and the aircraft refueling equipment is inadequate. Until these problems are resolved, Radio Farda reported, the airport cannot be used.

Meanwhile, a new airport was inaugurated in the West Azerbaijan Province city of Khoi on 8 April, state radio reported. Built at a cost of 40 billion rials, its runway is big enough to handle medium-sized aircraft. Roads and Transport Minister Khoram said at the inauguration that plans are under way to build airports at Ahvaz, Bandar Abbas, Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz, and Tabriz.

http://www.rferl.org/reports/iran-report/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEWS RELEASE

Contact Brian Hart/Aaron Groote

April 16, 2004

BROWNBACK CRITICIZES UNITED NATIONS’ FAILURE TO CENSURE CHINA, IRAN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS RECORDS

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today criticized the United Nations for failing to censure China and Iran for their grave human rights records.

“I am extremely disappointed in the lack of action by the United Nations,” Brownback said. “Despite clear evidence of serious violations, the U.N. failed to pass resolutions that would have called these countries to account for their egregious behavior on human rights issues.”

China brought a “no action motion” to block consideration of a U.S.-backed resolution, despite compelling evidence presented at the Commission by human rights activists and survivors of abuse.

Brownback has previously met with leaders of China’s underground churches representing millions of Christians in China. He continued, “Christians are being persecuted in China simply for following and sharing their faith. In the last ten years, an estimated 8,900 believers have been arrested and detained and at least three have been tortured to death.”

Brownback also spoke about women who had been tortured and sexually abused to force them to give evidence against Pastor Gong Shengliang of the South China Church, as well as video footage he had seen of the destruction of churches in China.

“There are many Christians suffering appalling brutality for their faith and it is vital the international community respond to the call of the persecuted church of China and to speak out and take up the cause of those who are paying such a high price for their faith,” said Brownback.

Brownback also deplored the decision by the Western block of nations led by the European Union not to table a resolution censuring flagrant human rights violations by Iran’s ruling theocracy.

After visiting Iran late last year, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression Ambeyi Ligabo painted an alarming picture of the rights situation in Iran. “[There was a] climate of fear induced by the systematic repression of people expressing critical views against the authorized political and religious doctrine and the functioning of institutions,” wrote the human rights investigator in a report to the Human Rights Commission.

The State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for year 2003 was even stronger: “The [Iran] Government's poor human rights record worsened, and it continued to commit numerous, serious abuses… Continuing serious abuses included: summary executions; disappearances; torture and other degrading treatment, reportedly including severe punishments such as beheading and flogging; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention...”

Iran's Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi denounced the EU’s “silence and complicity” describing it as “an insult for democrats and human rights defenders in Iran who struggle for basic rights in spite of risks to their freedom.”

“Safeguarding the human rights of Iranians is a critical element of any policy to support Iran’s democracy movement. We must not let the tyrannical mullahs of Iran get off the hook so easily,” said Brownback.

Senator Brownback will chair a hearing on the status of reforms in China in the Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs, Committee on Foreign Relations, on April 22, 2004, at 2:30 p.m. Eastern.

-30-

Sam Brownback
United States Senator - Kansas
303 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-6521
http://brownback.senate.gov

Iran: Iraq’s Duplicitous Puppeteer

Men's Daily News
April 20, 2004
Tom Marzullo

‘The situation in Iraq worsens every day!’ chirp the assorted media pundits whose smartly crafted doom and gloom sells more advertising, increasing the revenues of an industry that seems more intent upon creating more fresh carrion to feed upon than objectively investigating and reporting the facts.
In this work they have ample company…

Take for instance the reporting of the Iranian news agency, Mehr News, whose recent story claims the US has a policy of "committing systematic sexual abuse against Iraqi civilians" and even celebrates its atrocities on the internet.

In the Islamist world in the Middle-East, where grinding illiteracy is the norm and serves to tighten the grip of the ruling zealots on the people, these stories heighten and focus the anger created by the hopeless misery that helps to imprison them. That focus must be the eternal scapegoat so that, even with their diminished understanding of the world around them, they do not look within their own borders… for that path can lead to rebellion. But a bit more on that issue a little later on…

On the ground in Iraq there are really different two wars being fought… one with the Sunni Baathists and the other with Iran via proxies.

Here is the Baathist situation in a nutshell: In Fallujah and indeed along the entire Euphrates river valley, the hard core of opposition is based on the Baathist army remnants. This is due to the fact that the Euphrates river valley was never cleared by US or Coalition forces a year ago and this created the relatively unmolested sanctuary where the Baathist Sunni regrouped and gathered munitions and arms from the stockpiles where they had cached them earlier. They have apparently designed their insurgency along the lines of strong points (such as Fallujah)... But the force they are using is comprised of former army veterans already in country. So, being insufficiently ruthless has once again come back to haunt us and now we have to do that job all over again. There is something to be said for doings things right the first time around.

The second front would seem to be from the rebellious Shiia in southern Iraq if you believe what you are routinely fed by much of the press. But, the Muqtada Al-Sadr's forces have appeared within a suspiciously short time and from a segment of the Iraqi population that was routinely denied much in the way of military training by the Baathists out of fear of creating a working core for a Shiia rebellion.

So, just where did al-Sadr’s disciplined and well-equipped little army come from then?

According to the London-based newspaper, Al-Sharq al-Awsat they came from Iran. Iran has created three new training camps along the Iraqi border specifically to train a few thousand Islamist Shiia volunteers. Out of a population of millions, this is not properly indicative of what has been termed a ‘popular uprising.’

The al-Hayat newspaper describes the ongoing Iranian efforts to support and supply any and all anti-coalition groups in Iraq.

When you consider that Iran was the safe-haven for Shiia exiles from Baathist Iraq for decades, that these were given military training and formed into units against the time that they could be sent back to fight in Iraq, it begins to clarify the Iranian end-game. As Saddam and the U.S. were considered as equal enemies by the Mullahs, so his being deposed has in no way changed the operational plans. These previously built forces, along with the Iranian Pasdaran have already been infiltrated into Iraq along the northern border with Iran and have conducted successful assassinations against the Iraqi Governing Council.

The typical guiding principle in the Middle East is to speak of one course of action while actually working another (and frequently opposing) course of action. The Iranian offer to mediate in Iraq should be viewed through this lens and it shows that they are getting much better at learning how to manipulate the western media as well. This due both their persistence in climbing the learning curve and to the agendas that a large portion of the western media is both consistent and persistent in the pursuit of… that is in fact an anti-US bias. There are numerous reasons for this, but suffice it to say that they are really a moot point for our enemies as they will use whatever advantages are placed within their reach. So, the western media fulfills their typical role in what Lenin described as ‘useful fools.’

This is why the media has swallowed the story of Iran-as-mediator whole without any qualms. To do otherwise would spoil their projections as the US/UK as closet imperialists and that is a far too dearly-held prejudice to give up without blatant serial aggression on the part of the Iranians.

About the only thing the pundits have unknowingly gotten right in their comparisons of Iraq with Vietnam, is that Iran is attempting to reprise the role of the North Vietnamese as an inviolable base of operations from which to conquer its neighbor.

But here the simile falls apart, because unlike the unified and ethnically homogeneous North Vietnamese, Iran is a seething cauldron of discontent brought upon by the mismanagement and repression of the Islamist Mullahs. Personal accounts from Iran describe weekly protests in the major cities that are put down with much bloodshed by police. Within Iran, the Revolutionary Guards (what passes for the Mullah’s pit-bulls) have been checkmated so far by the Iranian military. The segments within the young that brought the Mullahs to power in 1979 have been targeted for repression and special attention by the secret police and meetings of more than five have been banned.

Now add in the resentment of educated Iranian women who were raised in relative freedom and now find themselves barred from their professions, while their daughters are given in marriage like trinkets to elderly, well-connected religious zealots.

The Mullahs in Iran know that they must contain rebellion at home while exporting it to Iraq… This is their not-so-secret Achilles’ heel.

Now that a broader view of Iraq and Iran has been laid before you, imagine the changes on the geo-political stage should Iran’s Mullahs be cast out…

It would boggle the Islamist world and so is worthy of pursuing with vigor.

Tom Marzullo

Tom Marzullo is a columnist/physicist/educator who is a former US Army Special Forces combat soldier and US Navy Submariner with special operations experience in both services. He was the leader of the Internet-based effort by Special Forces veterans that debunked the false CNN/TIME magazine nerve gas story, 'Tailwind' and has provided testimony before the US Senate on military and intelligence matters. He resides in Colorado.

http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/marzullo/2004/marzullo042004.htm

Shadows of Tehran over Iraq

The Christian Science Monitor
April 19th 2004
By Scott Peterson

Iran's five-day effort in Najaf raises concerns for US over how much pull Iran possesses.

BAGHDAD – The Iranian diplomats left Iraq empty handed. But even the failure of a five-day Iranian effort to defuse a standoff between a firebrand Shiite cleric and US forces lets Washington know that Tehran isn't just a spectator. Iran's controversial intervention is raising anew questions about Iranian influence among the Shiite majority in Iraq, and how long the shadow of the Islamic republic extends over US plans for Iraq's future.

In recent days, senior US military and civilian officials have repeatedly cast Iran - which President Bush calls part of an "axis of evil" - as a secret backer of the anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army. While Tehran has kept its distance, some Iranian hard-liners support Mr. Sadr's strident anti-US message. A CPA adviser and other experts say that Iran is setting up its own networks of sympathizers in Iraq, but that it has not played a direct role in the attacks on the US-led coalition forces.

Iran's ties with Sadr - a fiery nationalist, whose desire to confront the American occupation is at odds with the more established, moderate Shiite forces that Tehran has backed for years - are also less than smooth.

"I am sure the Iranians are not behind the current unrest. No one has produced any evidence Iran is behind that," says a Western CPA adviser in southern Iraq, who asked not to be identified. "Of the people we arrested in the south, none are Iranian agents."

"Iran would try to be quite cautious about any support [for Sadr]. They don't want the Americans to attack or invade Iran, which they know could happen if they are seen to be behind attacks on US forces," says the CPA adviser. "It would not make sense to target coalition forces. That is a high-risk strategy."

Some leading Iraqis agree. "Who is the genius who created the mess in the south so that Iran, our biggest security threat, was invited to come in and help?" asks Ghazi al-Yawar, a ranking Sunni tribal leader, and member of the US-appointed Iraq Governing Council. He answers by blaming the US and Council alike for "mishandling" the Sadr situation.

Iraq's Shiite Arab majority share religious kinship with ethnic Persian Iran, and hundreds of thousands of Iranian pilgrims have swept into Karbala and Najaf to visit sacred shrines in the past year.

The Iranian government under reform-minded President Mohammad Khatami has kept a careful distance from Sadr, and has helped ensure calm in Shiite areas of Iraq. But some key hardliners in Iran openly side with Sadr - and his mentor is a hard-line Iranian ayatollah. Iran's former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, chair of the powerful Expediency Council, declared the Mahdi army to be "heroic." America is a "wounded monster" in Iraq, whose defeat would provide a "valuable lesson," Mr. Rafsanjani said at Friday prayers 10 days ago. "We have small accounts with the Americans which we must settle one day and bring the issue to a close."

Experts say Iran has been actively setting up "networks" in Iraq to be made ready to destabilize things in case of any US action against Iran. "The Iranians want to be in a position to meddle. They will gather intelligence, maybe collect weapons, to exploit a situation if America were to attack them," says the CPA adviser. "If you are Iranian, it would be sensible to create networks."

The US standoff with Sadr stems from an arrest warrant issued for the cleric over the murder of a moderate rival in Najaf a year ago, the arrest of his top aide, and closure of his newspaper. As violent clashes erupted across southern Iraq, the US vowed to "capture or kill" the cleric.

A 2,500-strong US force last week encircled Najaf and Sadr's base at nearby Kufa. Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who commands a broad following, has warned Sadr not to bring his fight into the holy cities. Still, on Thursday, Mr. Sistani issued a fatwa that US troops entering Karbala or Najaf would be crossing a "red line."

Sadr speaking at Friday prayers in Kufa, flatly refused to disband the Mahdi army under any circumstance - a key US demand.

Into this maelstrom stepped the Iran mediation effort last week, led by Foreign Ministry envoy Hossein Sadegi. The visit was overshadowed by the death of an Iranian diplomat, who was gunned down in his car on Thursday, as the delegation arrived.

The Iran team met a US diplomat, in a rare face-to-face session, and numerous Iraqi officials and clerics. A planned meeting with Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf never took place; Sadr was not on the schedule.

"We had a firm message for the Iranians across the board ... to be constructive, not destructive," said CPA spokesman Dan Senor. "There is no role for the Iranians, from our perspective, in the Sadr situation [which] should be resolved by Iraqis."

"There is no doubt, bad or good, Iran has some influence in Iraq," counters Davoud Hermidas Bavand, a professor with Iran's official Center for Political and International Studies in Tehran. He says Iran has been "accommodating" of US interests. "If [America] is faced with ever increasing difficulties, they will look for a scapegoat."

US officials have long suggested that Sadr receives direct support from Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Lebanon's Hizbullah. One London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted what it called a Revolutionary Guard source who described three military camps on the Iran-Iraq border for up to 1,200Mahdi army recruits.

Sadr's theological link to Iran is clear: he follows hard-line Iranian Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, who was appointed successor to his popular father, killed by Baathists in 1999.

But experts say the al-Haeri-Sadr link is overblown. "I don't think Moqtada Sadr is taking directions from [Iran's religious center] Qom or Tehran. I think he is independent from Iran," writes David Patel, a political scientist at Stanford University, who has been conducting research in southern Iraq. "If the Iranian hardliners wanted to back a player in Iraq, it would be one of the large SCIRI/Badr [Shiite exile groups once based in Iran] offices, not Moqtada Sadr."

Even Sadr's mentor in Iran called for Iraqis to "observe patience."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0419/p01s02-woiq.html

Iran's Spoiling Attack

April 20, 2004
Winds of Change.NET
Trent Telenko

It is the nature of men that when faced with an impending doom, they will do something, anything, to avert it, even if that brings doom down upon themselves sooner and more surely then if they had done nothing. Such was the case in ancient Greek tragedies. So it was with the World War Two Nazis and Imperial Japanese. So it is now with Iran's Mullahocracy in their "spoiling attack" on America in Iraq.

Dan Darling, Michael Ledeen, and Wretchard of Belmont Club (here and here) have all recently gone on documenting at length the size and scope of the Iranian and Iranian hired Syrian attacks in Iraq, and in Ledeen's case what needs to be done about it. What they haven't done is explain the wider pattern in terms of the Iranian objectives for their spoiling attack.

Spoiling Attacks

A spoiling attack in military terms is when one side attacks the other while it is preparing to launch an offensive in hopes that its attack will disrupt and or permanently delay the inevitable. Spoiling attacks are normally aimed at major boundaries between units or forces as this causes the most confusion due to separate chains of command stepping all over each other trying to coordinate their superior forces to deal with the attack.

Napoleon was famous for winning this way over over. A modern and less successful example was World War Two's Battle of the Bulge, wherein Hitler intended to separate the British from their American allies and take back the major seaport of Antwerp. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor exploited the "unit boundary" split in America's Pacific chain of command between the Army and the Navy over the defense of Hawaii, and let them run wild for six months in the Pacific.

In Iraq we are seeing multiple "unit boundaries" struck by the Iranian inspired attacks at once. America's Spanish, Ukrainian, Polish, Bulgarian, and Italian allies have all been struck by either the Ba'athist remnants or the Sadr militia with the result being that the Spanish Socialist government is cutting and running. Many private military corporations have been hit with K.B.R., for example, suffering 30 dead, missing, or captured for future 'snuff video' production.

The ultimate "unit boundary" that the Iranians are striking isn't tactical, operational or even in Iraq. It is strategic - the "unit boundary" between American Presidential Administrations.

The Mullahs' Goal

Iran's Mullahocracy has been America's enemy since 1979. They have learned that America alternates between weak/malleable and strong/bold executive leadership, having faced both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. The former President it held hostage for over a year while the latter President traded arms for hostages, then turned around and broke the Mullah's will to fight against Iraq with a "secret" naval war, the downing of an Iranian Airbus by an Aegis cruiser and intelligence assistance for Saddam's reconquest of the Iranian Al Faw peninsula with chemical weapons.

The one thing the Mullahs have leaned in all of this is that American Presidential Administrations have an extremely difficult time doing new foreign policy or national security policy an election year or during the first six months of a new Administration. They are now taking advantage of this to strike, and hopefully cripple, the Bush Administration's reelection chances or failing that make America abandon its plan to democratize Iraq and destabilize their theocracy.

As Amir Taheri notes in the New York Post:

"The Iranian analysis is simple: The Americans do not have the political stamina to stay the course in Iraq. Negative polls could force President Bush to withdraw his troops into bases in the Iraqi desert, allowing the cities to fall under the control of Iraqi armed groups.

In such a scenario, pro Saddam groups would seize control of the so called Sunni Triangle while Shiite groups beholden to Iran would dominate central and southern Iraq, leaving the Kurds cantoned in their two mountainous enclaves.

The Tehran leadership is also certain that John Kerry, if elected, will abandon Bush's plans for a "democratic" Middle East. "The United States has become vulnerable," Rafsanjani told his cheering audience in Tehran. "The Americans do not know which way to turn."

Behind the scenes of revolt in parts of Iraq lies the broader picture of the war that various brands of Islamism have waged against the United States for almost a quarter of a century.

Tehran leaders believe that the U.S. defeat in Vietnam enabled China to establish itself as the rising power in Asia. They hope that a U.S. defeat in Iraq will give the Islamic Republic a similar opportunity to become what Rafsanjani calls "the regional superpower."

The Khomeinist mullahs believe that an American defeat in Iraq will destabilize all Arab regimes, leaving the Islamic Republic as the only power around which a new status quo could be built in the region. "Here is our opportunity to teach the Americans a lesson," Rafsanjani said."

In short, the Iranians mean to defeat America, "Lebanonize" Iraq and dominate its various factions. Al Sadr was only the first Iranian sock puppet. There will be many others. Iraq cannot be pacified as long as terrorists attack us from secure bases in Iran, and the mullahs are both providing those and funding terrorists against us, including Al Qaeda as well as Al Sadr.

4th Generation Warfare

As Joe's piece on "Iran's Great Game" noted, the mullahs correctly believe they have to do this to retain power in Iran. America's goal of creating a successful democracy in mostly Shiite Iraq means the end of the mullahs' rule in Iran - they can't keep their own people from making religious pilgrimages to Shiite holy sites in Iraq, which means they can't stop the effects on their own unsettled population. Democracy next door is an immediate threat to tyranny. Russia's former Communist regime created the Iron Curtain to block freedom in Western Europe from menacing their Communist tyranny in Eastern Europe.

Joe Katzman and a number of others have made much of "4th Generation Warfare" and "asymmetric attack" as a way for the weak to defeat the strong. The key thing about the concept is that the stronger party has to submit to the ground rules of the weaker party in order to be defeated.

America does not have to play by those rules if it doesn't want to, so why are we?

First, Kerry and the Democrats want to believe that 9/11/2001 didn't happen and that everything wrong in the world is Bush's fault. They are worse than useless in facing up to the Iranians.

Bush on the other hand is playing the part of the Wizard of Oz, telling us not to see the Iranian Mullah behind the Iraqi curtain until after the election. When it comes to political choices about the war and the Presidential election, a friend of mine put it this way:

"Given a choice between a f*** up whose heart is in the right place and a Hamlet who hasn't got a program, Americans are gonna go with the f*** up."

So where does that leave the rest of us? Demanding "Faster, Please" will not cut it.

The Stakes

More than Iraq is at stake here there are other players, notably Israel.

Iran's mullahs are developing nuclear weapons, which they view as a magic shield against America and a sword to destroy the Jewish state. They have made overt threats to nuke Israel as soon as they have nuclear weapons, and said they believe Iran would survive any exchange of nukes with Israel. The mullahs do not at all understand that their inflammatory rhetoric intended for domestic political effect has a whole new meaning for other countries when backed up with nuclear weapons.

This brings up the following question:

Does anyone doubt for a moment that Israel will, absolutely, positively WILL preemptively destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, with nukes if necessary, to prevent another holocaust?

Since Iran has taken steps to see that an Israeli conventional air attack, such as that against Osirak, Iraq can't work, Israel must use nuclear ground bursts, producing highly radioactive short term fallout, against Iran's hardened nuclear facilities.

But it won't be just against those. The remorseless logic of nuclear conflict with an irrational opponent will force Israel to eliminate Iran as a strategic threat for the long term. That entails hitting more targets than just those currently known to be working on Iranian nuclear weapons.

A Democratic President would create this worst of all possible worlds, where pre-emptive nuclear attack is used as a tool of state policy. It is not a world we want to live in.

Iranian casualties (@10 - 20% will be dead) would range from several hundred thousand to several million, depending on the target set, weapons selection and local weather patterns. In short, welcome to the world of Wretchard's "Three Conjectures." The EMP from this attack (high altitude bursts to disrupt Iranian C3I) will affect American forces in the area, including in Iraq, and devastate Persian Gulf oil production.

It is therefore unlikely that the USA will let this happen by doing nothing. A friend I spoke to thinks that Iran will have domestic nuclear weapon production capability by spring 2006. I agree. He is also in print that nuclear weapons will be used in anger by 1 Jan 2006 unless we invade Iran first. The only way I can see to prevent this future from coming to pass is with the near term conquest of Iran.

Bush will do this in time, if reelected. Kerry won't. Even Thomas Friedman of the New York Times recognizes the willingness of Bush foreign policy to destroy unacceptable status quos.

Given the certainty of Israel's nuclear preemptive attack on Iran, I don't see America waiting for an Iranian revolution. We will do it ourselves no later than my friend's fall/winter 2005 prediction. We both feel that the deal between Sharon and Bush on this has already been made. If a successful Iranian revolution makes the invasion unnecessary, fine, but we won't take the risk of delay.

Iran is at war with us whether or not we want to be at war with them. Nukes are on the table now, and they are not our nukes. We are on a count down to invasion to keep the nuclear genie from escaping.

Much more is at stake in November's presidential election than President Bush is willing to admit.

http://windsofchange.net/archives/004885.php

EU enlargement will broaden EU-Iran cooperation
Brussels, April 20, IRNA -- The entry of ten new states to the EU on May the first will have a positive effect on the EU-Iran relations, according to Iran's ambassador to Brussels, Abolghasem Delfi.

"We have very good relations with the ten countries that will join the EU and we think that their membership would lead to wider cooperation between us and the EU," Delfi told IRNA in an interview.

He underlined that the biggest enlargement in the history of the EU will enhance and boost the role of the European bloc on regional and international levels.

Iranian defense minister Ali Shamkhani last week paid a 3-day official visit to Poland which is the largest of the ten countries that are to join the EU on 1 May.

Delfi noted that relations between the EU and the Islamic Republic of Iran with regard to their special geographical situation are of great importance.

Iran's role in maintaining security and stability in the Persian Gulf region and in the Middle East are factors which the EU considers as of great significance.

"Hence the EU gives top priority to its relations with the Islamic Republic. On the other hand, EU's economic and political weight and its role in international developments are factors to which the Islamic Republic attaches great attention," said Delfi.

Iran's top diplomat to the EU said that June is a month of significant developments when three major meetings will be held, the EU-US summit, the NATO summit and the G-8 summit.

He said the three gatherings of western leaders will focus on developments in Iraq and the Middle East .

Referring to the situation in Iraq, Delfi said stability and peace in the neighbouring country is of vital importance for Iran.

"Iran supports all regional and international efforts to restore security and stability in Iraq," he told IRNA.

Delfi noted that the EU member states were divided over Iraq and hence "we have not seen any effective EU role there as yet."

Delfi said some EU foreign ministers, including Belgium's Louis Michel, have called for a more influential role of the EU in Iraq and in the Middle East.

"Iran would welcome a more active and effective EU role in Iraq," stressed Delfi.

On Afghanistan, the Iranian ambassador regretted that promises made by the international community for the reconstruction of Afghanistan have not been fulfilled with the result that drug cultivation has increased a lot in recent years.

Iran is in constant cooperation with the European Commission and EU member states to combat drug trafficking from Afghanistan, he said.

Commenting on the fact that the EU this year did not table a resolution on human rights in Iran in the UN Human Rights Commission, Delfi said the EU and Iran have launched a dialogue on human rights.

Three rounds of this dialogue have already taken place and the fourth round is under preparation.

"Dialogue is the best way to resolve any differences, particularly in human rights issues on which there are divergence of views and opinion," he said.

The EU has realized that continuing dialogue is better than tabling resolutions, commented Delfi.

http://www.payvand.com/news/04/apr/1136.html

Who is behind the Iraq insurgency?
Sunday, April 18, 2004

Much more is happening in Iraq right now than most of us realize. The peril is greater than most of us imagine. Things are likely to get very much better -- or very much worse -- very soon.

ack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).

Iran and Syria have committed acts of war against the United States, even if their aggression isn't acknowledged by the Bush administration, or noticed by news media.

Ralph Peters, a retired military intelligence officer, reported from northern Iraq that on April 10, Iranian agents ambushed an American convoy on the road between Mosul and Akre. "The attack did not go as planned," Peters noted in his April 12 New York Post column. "Our troops responded sharply, killing two Iranians, wounding a third and capturing two more. They were carrying their identity documents."

The revolt by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr was largely financed by Iran. An Iranian defector told the London-based Arabic daily al Sharq al-Awsat that Iran has been spending $70 million a month on activities in Iraq, and has set up three training camps just across the border from Iraq for members of al Sadr's militia, the "Mehdi Army."

"Haj Saidi [allegedly the Iranian intelligence officer in charge of activities in Iraq] told al Sharq al Awsat that the Iranian presence in Iraq is not limited to the cities," the newspaper said. "Rather, it is spread throughout Iraq, from Zakho in the north to Um Qasr in the south. And the infiltration of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the al Quds Army began long before the war, through hundreds of Iranian intelligence agents, amongst them Iraqi refugees who were expelled by Saddam Hussein in the 1970s and 1980s to Iran, allegedly because of their Iranian origin, and who infiltrated back into Iraq through the Kurdish areas that were out of Baath government control. After the war, Iranian intelligence sent its agents through the Iraq-Iran border; some of them as students and clerics, and others as belonging to the Shi'ite militias," the newspaper said in a story April 3.

"Haj Saidi also mentioned that more than 300 reporters and technicians who are working now in Iraq for television and radio networks, newspapers and other media agencies are in fact members of the al Quds Army and Revolutionary Guards intelligence units," al Sharq al Awsat said.

"The direct Iranian presence in the Shiite areas of Iraq in the political, security and economic affairs cannot be ignored any more," said another British based Arabic language daily, al-Hayat, in a story April 6. "This presence is accompanied by a vigorous Iranian effort to create bridges with different forces in Iraq." (Translations courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute.)

"For months, Iran has been building a secret underground network of military and intelligence cells that has put it in a position not only to challenge the United States and others, but also gradually to gain control over the reins of power after the June 30 handover," said Alireza Jafazadeh, an Iranian exile who is president of Strategic Policy Consulting, Inc.

Many of the tens of thousands of pilgrims who traveled from Iran to the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq for Arbaeen last weekend were in fact Iranian intelligence operatives, Jafazadeh said.

Meanwhile, the Marines report that many of the "insurgents" they have killed in Fallujah are in fact Syrian. Though Iran's mullahs are militant Shiites, and Syria's Baathist regime is secular in a predominantly Sunni country, there has long been strategic cooperation between them. They jointly sponsor and succor the terrorist group Hezbollah, which operates primarily out of (Syrian-controlled) southern Lebanon.

The recent rash of kidnappings in Iraq are eerily similar to the kidnappings orchestrated by Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Iran is working as fast as it can to build a nuclear bomb, and the world community, in the form of the International Atomic Energy Agency, isn't doing much to restrain it.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04109/302026.stm

US Senator Blasts UN For Ignoring Iran's Human Rights Violations

•Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) criticized the UN Human Rights Commission for avoiding to chastise Iran on human rights violations. He said despite clear evidence of violations of Iran and China, the UNHRC failed to condemn them. It was regrettable that the European countries, led by the EU, decided not to introduce a resolution on Iran in the Geneva session of the UNHRC, he added in a statement.

•The day-long human rights conference to be held on April 25 in Tehran should be called a ”human rights theater,” considering that no positive change has taken place in the human rights conditions of the Iranians, US-based human rights activist Mandana Zand-Karimi tells Radio Farda. The number of prisoners have increased and today we see that even 70 year old men are being held in jails and tortured, she adds. Iran's holding a conference on human rights with the participation of human rights lawyers and activists from around the world reads more as a script for comedy than a tragedy, she adds. In such a conference, those who live in Iran would not say anything out of fear, and the European countries would be silent for economic reasons, she says. We should call the April 25 conference in Tehran “The Theater of Human Rights Trampling,” she adds. (Parichehr Farzam)

Foreign Minister Meets Italian Prime Minister

•Judging by the short and cold statement issued by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's office, Italian reporters said the one-hour meeting Sunday night between Berlusconi and foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi failed to advance Italy's goal of obtaining the release of three Italian nationals who were taken hostage by Iraqi insurgents. Italy had pinned great hopes on Iran's intervention in the crisis, during which at least one Italian hostage has been killed by his captors. Italian sources say in his meeting with the Italian prime minister, Kharrazi did not offer anything positive on the standoff in Najaf between followers of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr and the US forces. Rome and Tehran also disagree on the recent killing in Gaza of the head of radical Islamic Palestinian group Hamas by the Israeli forces. Iran's nuclear program, another issue dividing Iran and Italy, was not discussed in the meeting. Foreign minister Franco Frattini will discuss that issue with Kharrazi in their meeting planned for Monday morning. (Ahmad Ra'fat, Rome)

•Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has accepted an invitation to visit Iran this year, according to an official statement issued Sunday following his meeting here with Kharrazi. Berlusconi would like “Iran to be able to play a positive role -- even in the current situation -- in the stabilization process in Iraq and, more generally, in the whole of the Middle Eastern region,” the statement said.

•Foreign minister Kharrazi told the Italian prime minister on Sunday that Tehran was ready to use its influence on the Iraqi Shiites in exchange for Rome's mediation between Tehran and Washington, Italian daily Il Corrierre della Sera reported today. (Ahmad Ra'fat, Rome)

•Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi on Monday dismissed press reports that Tehran had sought Rome's mediation with Washington. Asefi rejected Italian daily Courriere Della Sera's claim and said, “there has been no call on Italy for mediation and principally, ties between Iran and the US depend on change in Washington's approach and there is no need for mediation.”

•Iran's mediation in Iraq would bring Iran and the US closer together, Paris daily Liberation writes.

Khatami's Sudden Cabinet Shuffle

•President Khatami ousted his finance and economic affairs minister Tahmasb Mazheri quite unceremoniously, and replaced him with labor minister Safdar Hosseini. The cabinet shuffle raised many questions among economic observers in Tehran. Some blamed Mazeheri's ouster on his disputes with head of the management and planning organization Mohammad Sattarifar, but disputes among the cabinet's economic team have been brewing for a long time, and, if vice president Abtahi is to be believed, Sattarifar too has been pushed out. It is interesting that head of the Tehran chamber of commerce Alineqi Khamoushi, close to the right wing party Jam'iat Mo'talefeh Eslami, has praised Mazaheri as the best finance minister in the past 25 years. It may not be clear why Mazaheri was sacked, but it is clear that sudden management changes like this do not add to investors' confidence. (Fereydoun Khavand)

•Khatami named Isfahan reformist MP Naser Khaleqi, a member of the Participation Front party, to the labor ministry, as Safdar Hosseini's replacement Hosseini was good for the labor community, head of the association of Islamic labor councils of the Tehran province Parviz Ahmadi tells Radio Farda. He established good relations between the labor ministry and labor organizations, including the national association of Islamic labor councils, which is the biggest one, he adds. His departure from the labor ministry was unexpected, he says. The new labor minister had good relations with the Islamic labor councils at their formation, when he was at the Sharif University, and later as an MP from Isfahan. (Fereydoun Zarnegar)

US Holds 50 Canadian MKO Members

•There are 50 Canadian passport holders among the 3400 members of the Iraq-based anti-regime group the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) held under the US Forces' surveillance in Ashraf, a camp near Iranian border, Canadian daily the National Post reports. (Maryam Aghvami)

Conservatives Suggest A New Beginning With A New Name

•In last February's Majles elections, the conservative faction of the Islamic Republic campaigned the name of Iran builders coalition (Abadgaran). The new name means that the conservatives want to distance themselves from their past unpopularity, Tehran University political science professor Sadeq Zibakalam tells Radio Farda. They will try to create a new climate in the country's political atmosphere, he adds. The conservatives want to take advantage of the people's disaffection with the reformists, he says. They are responding to the people's expectation for change by introducing new faces and a new name, he adds. (Shahran Tabari, London)

Albany Couple Report On 3 Years In Iran

•From the summer of 2001 until last February when they returned home, Wally and Evie Shellenberger had a unique view of the events involving the US and the Muslim world, Albany's Democrat-Herald reports in an article by Les Gehrett. They lived during this time in Qum, a center for the study of the Shiite branch of Islam. “Whenever people met us and realized we were from the US, they were very excited, eager to talk about the US,” said Wally Shellenberger, a 65-year old psychiatrist.

Qum Torn By Sadr's Conduct

•“Events in neighboring Iraq have shaken Qum, holy seminary city south of Tehran -- among the most important cities of the Shiite faith, columnist Borzou Daragahi writes for New Jersey's Star-Ledger. Among the Shi'a clergy here, home to the shrine of the sister of a Shi'a saint, the clergy were divided as to whether to support Sadr's stand against the Americans or to blame him for inciting violence, he adds.

Outgoing MP Highlights the Supreme Leader's Anti-Reform Role

•In his resignation speech yesterday at the Majles, deputy speaker Behrzad Nabavi highlighted the role he said he Supreme Leader played to block the reformist agenda of the Majles and Khatami's government. He said the Supreme Leader backed Khatami's rival in the 1996 presidential elections, and since the reformists won the Majles majority, they were not given any opportunity to discuss their views about the system's shortcomings with the Supreme Leader, and have received no response to their many letters to the Supreme Leader, Nabavi said. However, Nabavi said the resignations of 130 Majles reformists did not mean an exit from politics, and they would participate in any “free” elections. Nabavi and other reformists turned in their resignations before the February 20 elections to protest against the Guardians Council's ban on their reelection. The Majles voted yesterday to approve Nabavi's resignation. (Mehdi Khalaji)

Prison Guards Chain Veteran Journalist to Hospital Bed

•The guards in the Evin prison have chained veteran journalist Siamak Pourzand, 74, to a bed in the prison's hospital and deny him access to outside doctors and hospitals, his Paris-based brother Lohrasb Pourzand tells Radio Farda. Pourzand, who went into coma last week after suffering from a heart attack, was brought in by two guards yesterday to a visit in jail with his sister, but the visit was cut short, due to Pourzand's poor health, Lohrasb adds. Siamak told his sister that the visit could be their last, Pourzand's brother says, blaming the Islamic Republic for “whatever happens to him.” (Mir-Ali Hosseini, Paris)

Human Rights Groups In Berlin Invite Supporters To Unveiling Of Anti-Terrorism Plaque

•Twenty human rights groups in Germany invited their supporters to join in the ceremony on April 20 for unveiling of a commemorative plaque next to Berlin's Mykonos restaurant, where a German court said three leaders of the Iranian Kurdish Democratic Party were gunned down 12 years ago by orders from the Islamic Republic officials. The plaque will be a reminder of the human rights conditions in Iran, spokesman of the society to defend political prisoners in Iran Bahram Bigdali tells Radio Farda. The courageous ruling of the German judge in the Mykonos case was groundbreaking and a turning point in the fight against the terrorism sponsored by the Islamic Republic. (Shahram Mirian, Cologne)

http://www.radiofarda.com/transcripts/topstory/2004/04/20040419_1530_0535_0804_EN.asp

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