Posted on 10/10/2005 1:39:49 PM PDT by DoctorZIn
Top News Story
Now we know the truth about Iran, we must act
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 09/10/2005)It was not the outcome the Foreign Office had been planning. When it was announced early last week that a senior British diplomat in Baghdad was flying back to London to give a briefing on Iraq's constitutional referendum, the general expectation in Whitehall was that the following day's headlines would focus exclusively on whether sufficient numbers of Iraqis would turn out to validate the exercise.
Imagine the surprise, then, of Jack Straw and his officials the following morning when they opened their newspapers to discover that the future constitutional arrangements for Iraq had been completely superseded by official British confirmation that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were behind the deadly attacks that have recently claimed the lives of eight British soldiers.
For the past two years it has been a Foreign Office mantra that not a word should be uttered that could in any way be construed as criticising the Iranian government. Having voiced his last-minute opposition to the invasion of Iraq, Mr Straw had taken it upon himself to find a "negotiated solution" to the West's stand-off with Teheran over its clandestine nuclear programme as an alternative to military confrontation.
Indeed, when The Sunday Telegraph two weeks ago revealed that agents working for the Revolutionary Guards had linked up with the Iraqi groups responsible for the attacks on British troops, the Foreign Office continued to insist that there was no firm evidence.
But now the cat is out of the bag. Not realising the sensitivity that Mr Straw attaches to Britain's dealings with Teheran, the unfortunate diplomat unwittingly strayed from his referendum brief and started laying into the Iranians with a gusto not seen in the British diplomatic service for decades. The Iranians, said the diplomat, were colluding with Sunni Muslim insurgent groups in southern Iraq. They were providing them with deadly terrorist technology that has been perfected by the Iranian-funded Hizbollah militia in southern Lebanon against the Israeli army. And their motivation was to deter Britain from insisting that Teheran abandon its controversial nuclear programme. "It would be entirely natural that they would want to send a message 'don't mess with us'. It would not be outside the policy parameters of Teheran."
This is diplomat-speak for, if Britain wants to confront Iran over its nuclear weapons programme, then Iran feels entitled to blow up young British soldiers.
The off-message tone of the unnamed diplomat's comments sent shock-waves through the oak-panelled walls of the Foreign Office. "It was all very amusing," said one official. "For years diplomats have been under strict instructions not to say anything in public that might upset the Iranians. And then someone gives it to them straight between the eyes."
Perversely, this undiplomatic bout of straight-talking may turn out to have done Mr Straw and the Foreign Office an enormous favour. By baldly stating what the Iranians are really up to in southern Iraq, the diplomat has freed his employers from the obligation of persisting with the charade of constructive engagement with a regime whose only interest in construction appears to be directed at building an atom bomb.
The policy of kowtowing to the Iranians goes back a long way. It started in the late 1980s when Sir Geoffrey Howe, the then foreign secretary, attempted to establish a constructive dialogue with the mullahs in what proved a futile attempt to persuade Teheran to free British hostages in Lebanon. As part of this policy, the British government took the shameful decision to drop its claim that the Iranians had masterminded the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people in December 1988, even though British intelligence uncovered significant evidence of Iranian involvement.
Fast forward to 2005, and the British Government continues to play the supplicant while Iran continues to do as it pleases. For the past two years, Mr Straw and his French and German colleagues have argued that the best way to persuade the Iranians to give up their nuclear programme is to pursue a "negotiated solution". As the Foreign Secretary insisted earlier this year, it was "inconceivable" that the US and Britain would take military action against Teheran.
Mr Straw's pacifist tendencies were music to the mullahs' ears, so much so that they expressed their gratitude by breaking the seals at the Isfahan nuclear processing plant and resumed their uranium enrichment programme. This action alone should have convinced the European negotiators to activate their long-standing threat to report Iran to the Security Council for its persistent failure to cooperate with the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog body.
But that was far too confrontational for Foreign Office sensitivities and, at the request of Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, the Europeans gave Iran one last chance to comply. That was in July. Since then, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new Iranian president, has gone out of his way to humiliate both the Europeans and the IAEA.
When Ahmadinejad addressed the UN general assembly last month, far from offering a compromise on the nuclear issue, he laid into the US and its allies, including Britain, accusing them of sponsoring terrorism. Mr Straw's response? To reassure the Iranians that the crisis between Iran and the West would "not be resolved by military means, let's be clear about that". And even when the IAEA finally agreed to refer Iran to the security council, the timing and manner of reporting Iran was deliberately left open "to allow room for more negotiation", as one IAEA official explained.
Mr ElBaradei's disinclination to make Iran fulfil its international obligations is, of course, one of the reasons that he has been awarded the Nobel peace prize, a decision that will have the mullahs falling about with laughter in Teheran this weekend. This, after all, was the same ElBaradei who said he had no evidence that Libya was building an atom bomb until Colonel Gaddafi saw the light after the Iraq war and publicly renounced his nuclear weapons programme.
Certainly, the longer the West prevaricates over Iran, the more inclined the Iranians are to think they can get their way by resorting to the tactics of the bully. The Iranians clearly do not share Mr Straw's aversion to military action: the moment we try to call them to account, they kill and maim our soldiers in southern Iraq.
With the help of last week's unscripted remarks by that diplomat, Britain and its European allies should face up to the reality of dealing with modern Iran and accept that their policy of appeasement towards the mullahs now lies in shreds.
- Philip Sherwell, The Telegraph UK reported that Iran's new hardline president has placed his country's nuclear program under the control of militant commanders of the Revolutionary Guards.
- The Scotsman reported that a team of military specialists has been dispatched to Iraq to compile a comprehensive dossier of evidence that "Iranian elements" have been arming insurgents engaged in a brutal struggle with British forces around Basra.
- The Observer said that the UK's the 'softly-softly' approach to Iran is a model no more, adding that only threat of force will tame Tehran.
- Nazila Fathi, The NY Times reported that Iran's plummeting stock market, where prices have declined nearly 30 percent since Sept. 24.
- Safa Haeri, Iran Press Service reported that Iran denounced the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to El Baradei.
- IranMania reported that the Spanish translation of Imam Khomeini's biography was recently published in Venezuela.
- Forouzan Asef Nakhaie, Rooz Online reported that the government has announced there are 90 million ID for 70 million people and they have a theory why.
- Maryam Kashani, Rooz Online asked: Is Being Young, in Iran, a Crime?
- Kuwaiti News Agency reported that Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said: Why is the United States not destroying its nuclear weapons if these are bad? Why does it not start a global campaign to destroy nuclear weapons?
- Forbes reported that Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Washington is not in a position to go to war against Tehran.
- The Financial Times reported that Iran's top security official yesterday accused international bodies of treating Tehran worse than North Korea.
- Iran Press News reported that blogger, Omid Sheikhaan's trial began on Saturday. He was originally charged with blogging and internet related activities, the sentence is being passed on charges completely unrelated to those issues.
- Iran Press News reported that the commission responsible for fighting smuggled goods and currency has been dissolved.
- Iran Press News reported that hundreds of protesting workers of the FARNAKH and MEHNAKH thread factory once again gathered in protest for continued non-receipt of their wages and blocked the road between the towns of Qazveen and Shahreh San'ati.
- Iran Press News reported that the trial of Dr. Farzad Hamidi reopened Saturday. He is charged with "Action Against National Security."
- Iran Press News reported that the trial against student human rights activist Davoud Jafarpour will begin on December 14th, 2005. He has been charged with "Action Against National Security."
- Iran Press News reported that workers in a slaughterhouse received 91 days in prison for selling Pork.
- Iran Press News reported that a group of hospital employees from Mahdee'yeh Hospital, in the city of Kermanshah traveled to Tehran to protest non-receipt of 10 months worth of their wages.
- And finally, Winston, The Spirit of Man provided links to music by an Iranian Rapper who sings on Freedom, Democracy and Regime Change in Iran.
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Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!
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BTTT !!
"Imagine the surprise, then, of Jack Straw and his officials the following morning when they opened their newspapers to discover that the future constitutional arrangements for Iraq had been completely superseded by official British confirmation that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were behind the deadly attacks that have recently claimed the lives of eight British soldiers."
"For the past two years it has been a Foreign Office mantra that not a word should be uttered that could in any way be construed as criticising the Iranian government. Having voiced his last-minute opposition to the invasion of Iraq, Mr Straw had taken it upon himself to find a "negotiated solution" to the West's stand-off with Teheran over its clandestine nuclear programme as an alternative to military confrontation."
"Indeed, when The Sunday Telegraph two weeks ago revealed that agents working for the Revolutionary Guards had linked up with the Iraqi groups responsible for the attacks on British troops, the Foreign Office continued to insist that there was no firm evidence."
"But now the cat is out of the bag. Not realising the sensitivity that Mr Straw attaches to Britain's dealings with Teheran, the unfortunate diplomat unwittingly strayed from his referendum brief and started laying into the Iranians with a gusto not seen in the British diplomatic service for decades. The Iranians, said the diplomat, were colluding with Sunni Muslim insurgent groups in southern Iraq. They were providing them with deadly terrorist technology that has been perfected by the Iranian-funded Hizbollah militia in southern Lebanon against the Israeli army. And their motivation was to deter Britain from insisting that Teheran abandon its controversial nuclear programme. "It would be entirely natural that they would want to send a message 'don't mess with us'. It would not be outside the policy parameters of Teheran."
"This is diplomat-speak for, if Britain wants to confront Iran over its nuclear weapons programme, then Iran feels entitled to blow up young British soldiers."
MI6 must have some really scary data on the intents of the mass murdering mullahs and jihadists in control of Iran.
fyi and comments
On the one hand, Iran's provocations and taunts toward us make me want to ignore them until they puff up and implode. But there comes a time you can't ignore them because we are already fighting them or at least they are fighting us.
Bombing tehran seems in order. The only thing we have to lose is France's,
Russia's and Ted Kennedy's approval and - wait a minute. We aleady lost all that so we have nothing to lose!
Go for it!
The mass murdering thugs of Iran have been fighting us and killing us since they took over our embassy under the great gutless one, Jimmy Carter.
The mass murdering thugs of Iran have been fighting us and killing us since they took over our embassy under the great gutless one, Jimmy Carter.
Thanks for posting this.
I want the mullahs' blood for what they've done.
Regards, Ivan
In the vintage Lethal Weapon Danny Glover reacted to the South African money launderer's protestation of diplomatic immunity by shooting him through his displayed credentials.
Just so much protection shall the West enjoy from the certain Iranian nuclear attack from any paper treaty of any somber body at any level.
Regime change in Teheran should begin at once with the assassination of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad and as many of the Revolutionary Guard as can be toasted with explosives.
We have a large nuclear stockpile which should be liquidated in serial attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Clue: UK, Germany, France respond to their respective muslim residents by appeasing Iran and betraying their historic savior the USA.
The UN exists to further the global jihad against Israel and the USA.
The building will make a fine USO when its current tenants are evicted and deported as personae non gratae.
Why do we maintain the pretense of friendship when our enemies bare their fangs?
IRAN'S MISSILE PLAN
Iran is fast approaching a major milestone in its ballistic missile development, a group of Israeli experts has warned. The planned launch of its first satellite, the "Masbeh," in coming weeks will mark the opening salvo in what has become an intensive effort by the Islamic Republic to develop a sustained space launch capability, write Uzi Rubin, Ephraim Bashan and Gad Mayer in an October 2nd analysis for the Middle East Missiles Monitor (www.me-monitor.com). The technology, know-how and infrastructure acquired through the development of this capability, the experts predict, could also be used for other purposes - most directly, for the creation of a "strategic, global range ballistic missile force."
But Jack Straw et al see no great peril in allowing Iran to continue to develop nuclear weapons.
I however feel mere passivity is not enough--we should see to it that they have more nuclear weapons than they can handle.
"I want the mullahs' blood for what they've done."
Add their bone marrow to the blood, and I'm with you.
Seems like Jack Straw's off shore accounts need to be investigated, seized and then given to Israel.
One day, all those Eurowinnies regret their relation with the Mullahs of Iran
If one were to leave out lying, it is not entirely clear Iranian officials exercise any other policy...
Wonder if Jack Straw has seen the light, or will continue to appease?
To read today’s thread click here.
Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!
"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin”
Perfect point. Time to eradicate that regime and let the young 'uns takeover.
There is NO NEED for 'Nukes!"
Tungsten Rods ~ 6' by 3-4"- DROPPED FROM GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT, will UTTERLY DESTROY ANYTHING. NO 'Nukes!
Iran has EARNED such a "Strike!!"
The "Mullah's" NEED a "Lesson in Humility!!"
One can ONLY HOPE that "W" has the GUTS to "Put these psychopaths Down!!"
It's Time that the People of Iran were "Given a SHOT AT" a Truly Representative Government.
A "Theocracy" is an aberration Comparable to the "NAZI's!!"
From ALL Accounts, the Iranian People are BETTER THAN THAT!!,p> It's TIME for the "Iranian Ruling Class" to be REMOVED.
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