Iranian Alert - December 2, 2005 - State Department rethinking Iran?

Regime Change Iran ^ | 12.2.2005 | DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

Top News Story

State Department rethinking Iran?

By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: November 30 2005 23:01 | Last updated: November 30 2005 23:01
Iran’s new president, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, is an irresponsible radical who is digging a hole for himself, a senior US official declared on Wednesday.

Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s number three official, launched a particularly personal attack in a speech that focused on Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, its support for “terrorist” groups, including Hamas and al-Qaeda, and its poor human rights record.

“Through his statements and actions, President Ahmadi-Nejad is digging a hole for himself and he appears determined to keep on digging,” Mr Burns told the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University.

Mr Burns, who liaises with the European Union in its nuclear talks with Iran, said the Bush administration would spend more dollars on supporting the pro-democracy efforts of the Iranian people in the hope they would change their own government.

But Iranians and others in the audience said that behind the tough rhetoric, the Bush administration was adopting a more pragmatic approach towards Iran that has upset neoconservatives and pro-Israel groups in Washington.

Analysts say recent shifts in policy have been driven by a realization that neoconservative promises of an implosion within the Iranian regime were premature at best, and that the US could ill afford another serious confrontation abroad, especially on the edge of Iraq where Iran exercises considerable influence.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), one of the most influential lobby groups in the US, on Wednesday expressed its displeasure with the Bush administration, issuing a statement criticising what it called a disturbing shift in US policy towards Iran on the nuclear issue.

It said Iran had won a “critical round in its game of cat and mouse with the international community” last week, when the US decided not to refer Iran to the UN Security Council at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Aipac also condemned the recent decision by the US to back a Russian-European proposal that would allow Iran to master the initial stages of the nuclear fuel cycle by converting uranium into gas at its Isfahan facility.

Iran-watchers in Washington also see further evidence of a more pragmatic policy in the recent decision to get Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Baghdad, to engage his Iranian counterpart there.

Mr Burns said that despite the absence of diplomatic relations since 1979, the US had not sought to impose a “complete diplomatic silence” in its dealings with Iran and would act in its national interests.

The policy statement delivered by Mr Burns differed little from his testimony to Congress in May – except for the tough attack on Mr Ahmadi-Nejad who took office in August after a surprise election victory.

Mr Burns attacked what he called “a highly ideological and confrontational foreign policy” pursued by the president since then, including Iran’s decision to end its voluntary suspension of nuclear fuel cycle development, a “combative” speech to the UN, his sacking of some 40 “experienced” ambassadors, and his latest call for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Mr Burns’ speech appeared designed to highlight what the US hopes are the new battle-lines being drawn in Iran – between people and government, rather than within the regime between reformists under the former president, Mohammad Khatami, and hardliners.

“There is a clear struggle underway between the reactionary Iranian government and the moderate majority,” Mr Burns said.

Although he promised more funding for pro-democracy activities, observers in Washington said the Bush administration was faced with a paucity of worthy recipients in the US, and considerable hurdles in overtly funding such groups inside Iran.

On the nuclear issue, Mr Burns said the US was “working closely with the Europeans, Russia, India, China and other countries with the hope of forming one increasingly united and purposeful coalition to deter Iran’s efforts.”

He again threatened that if Iran did not cooperate then it would face a UN Security Council debate “at a time of our choosing”. But he made no mention of sanctions, which China, Russia and India oppose.

Mr Burns said it was time for the world to react “to this radical shift in Iran’s behavior’ and consider an alternative to the past policy of engagement.

He suggested the international community had constructive “leverage” through diplomatic contacts, trade and investment. But he made no specific recommendations.

A Daily Briefing of Major News Stories on Iran:

• Gooya news reported that the wife of Akbar Ganji said: I think something might have happened that they have cancelled our visiting with Ganji !
• Iran Focus reported that with the parliamentary elections in Iraq less than three weeks away, several Shiite groups have started to claim that the revered twelfth Imam in Shiite Islam has guided Iraqis to vote for their candidate.
• Iran Focus reported that the former Supreme Commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai, has recently switched his allegiance from Rafsanjani to the new hard-line Iran president.
• The Financial Times reported that Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s number three official appears to see the new battle-lines being drawn in Iran as between the people and government, rather than rather than the regime and the reformists.
  
• Aljazeera reported that Nicholas Burns said: It might be time to consider a different approach towards the new, more radical, more intolerant Iranian regime.
• Iran Focus reported that there were more than 420 recorded political protests in Iran over the past month.
• Expatica reported that Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Iran not to back away from cooperation with the U.N. nuclear supervisory body, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
• Dow Jones Newswires reported that Ahmadinejad reiterated Wednesday that Iran would never give up its nuclear program, adding: Our enemies have to know that the Iranian people will develop their nuclear technology to the limit.
• Reuters reported that Germany, France and Britain will resume nuclear talks with Iran only if Tehran signals it truly wants to dispel international fears about its atomic program.
• Arutz Sheva, IsraelNN.com reported that Gen. Ze’evi Farkash, the head of Israeli intelligence said: The Iranian nuclear arms race has reached a point of no return.
• DefenceNews.com reported that the deputy chief of Iran’s hardline Revolutionary Guards has been appointed as deputy interior minister for security and police.
• Michael Ledeen, The National Review warned the Bush administration that its current approach towards Iran threatens to dismantle the accomplishments of the past 4 years and leave the US more vulnerable.
• Michael Rubin, Rivista di Intelligence published a report on: how to deal with kidnappings in Iraq.
• The Jerusalem Post asked whether Israel can continue to sit silently on the sidelines, pretending that the international community is successfully blocking the Iranian bomb.
• Iran Focus reported that the Commandant of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) declared that Iran was exporting its Islamic revolution which would inevitably bring about the downfall of the United States in the Middle East.
• Spacewar reported that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Tuesday it was an "incontrovertible" fact that Iran was developing long-range missiles.
• Rooz Online published reported that the Iranian press has been instructed not to publish news about the country nuclear dossier. They did so anyway.
• Meysam Tavab, Rooz Online reported that President Ahmadinejad has ordered a review of all the appointments in government agencies that took place during the last 8 years. The president’s directive calls for more rigorous ideological screening of applicants to government positions.
• Rooz Online reported that the cleric Zahedi, recently appointed as Chancellor of Tehran University, quickly resigned after massive student demonstrations.
• And finally, Slate published a cartoon: The Perils of Withdrawal.

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[Brilliant]

Tuesday, 29 November 2005
Iran: President Says Light Surrounded Him During UN Speech

By Golnaz Esfandiari

President Ahmadinejad during his September address to the UN General Assembly

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad says that when he delivered his speech at the UN General Assembly in September, he felt there was a light around him and that the attention of the world leaders in the audience was unblinkingly focused upon him. The claim has caused a stir in Iran, as a transcript and video recording of Ahmadinejad's comments have been published on an Iranian website, baztab.com. There are also reports that a CD showing Ahmadinejad making the comments also has been widely distributed in Iran. Is the Iranian president claiming to be divinely inspired?



Prague, 29 November 2005 (RFE/RL) -- According the report by baztab.com, President Ahmadinejad made the comments in a meeting with one of Iran's leading clerics, Ayatollah Javadi Amoli.
 
Ahmadinejad said that someone present at the UN told him that a light surrounded him while he was delivering his speech to the General Assembly. The Iranian president added that he also sensed it.
 
"He said when you began with the words 'in the name of God,' I saw that you became surrounded by a light until the end [of the speech]," Ahmadinejad appears to say in the video. "I felt it myself, too. I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there, and for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink."
 
Ahmadinejad adds that he is not exaggerating.
 
"I am not exaggerating when I say they did not blink; it's not an exaggeration, because I was looking," he says. "They were astonished as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."
 
Baztab.com reported that during the meeting, Ayatollah Amoli said that "carrying out promises and restraining from fooling people" is the most important duty, presumably of officials . However, it is unclear whether that comment is made in reaction to the claim made by Ahmadinejad.
 
Critics And Skeptics
 
Iranian legislator Akbar Alami has questioned Ahmadinejad's apparent claims, saying that even Islam's holiest figures have never made such claims.
 
Alami told ILNA news agency that it is hard to imagine that someone who is delivering a speech can at the same time focus his attention on the eyelashes of all the people sitting at a distance from him and categorically tell a leading Qom cleric that they did not blink.
 
Alami said he hopes the film of Ahmadinejad’s comments has not been distributed by people close to the president to make criticizing him "taboo among ordinary people."
 
However, FardaNews.com, a conservative website, reported that the meeting between Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Javadi Amoli was private. [Editor's note: FardaNews.com has no relation to RFE/RL's Radio Farda.] The website accused unspecified Ahmadinejad opponents of distributing the CD of the meeting to insult him.
 
Hossein Bastani, an Iranian journalist based in France, told RFE/RL that Ahmadinejad's comments can be interpreted in two ways.
 
"One analysis is that this government believes that it came to power with the votes of the so-called lowest class of the Iranian society and these are classes that believe more in such supernatural tales," Bastani said. "Therefore, this government tries, by propagating such rumors, to gain a dogmatic, charismatic, and holy status among those whom they think support them. The second view is that despite the fact that they are trying to fool people, maybe they also believe in these things that are being repeatedly published about them and said by them. This is more dangerous.”
 
Growing Trend
 
Since the presidential elections in Iran, many bizarre stories and rumors have circulated about Ahmadinejad. Many of them are related to his devotion to the 12th Imam, also known as Imam Mahdi, who according to Muslims has disappeared and will return at the end of time to lead an era of Islamic justice.
 
During his September speech at the UN, Ahmadinejad called for the reappearance of the 12th Imam.
 
In mid-November, during a speech to Friday prayers leaders from across Iran, Ahmadinejad said that the main mission of the revolution is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam.
 
In recent weeks, the president's aides have denied a rumor that he ordered his cabinet to write a pact of loyalty with the 12th Imam and throw it down a well near the holy city of Qom, where some believe the Imam is hiding.
 
Ahmadinejad's supporters said such rumors are being circulated about the president by opponents in efforts to defame him.
 
Tacit Approval?
 
But journalist Bastani said that many of the reported stories are based on comments made by Ahmadinejad and his cabinet members.
 
"Inside Iran, no one in a news [organization] takes the risk of publishing incorrect information about the president, who also controls the Information Ministry, [so] spreading lies about him has serious consequences," Bastani said. "In recent weeks and months, there has been much news similar to the meeting between Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Amoli. These [reports] include the allocation in at least two cases of heavy budgets for the Jamkaran mosque [at the well where some believe that Imam Mahdi is hiding] or comments by the president that have been quoted by the Iranian media in which he had said in an official meeting that the Hidden Imam will appear in two years."
 
There has been no reaction from President Ahmadinejad to the distribution and publication of his claim that a light surrounded him while he was addressing world leaders at the UN.
 
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, an adviser to former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, has warned against the misuse of religious sanctities and written on his website that it is natural that, at a time when the world is expecting a plan to end the deadlock over Iran's nuclear issue, attention is paid to the comments by the country's president.
 
Ahmadinejad has been criticized inside the country for his seeming lack of tact and his confrontational style on the international stage. His comments about his mystical experience at the UN could well lead to further criticism.

[Boundless]

> State Department rethinking Iran?
> ... State Department’s number three official, launched
> a particularly personal attack in a speech that focused
> on Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, ...

Or is this the Bush reform of Foggy Bottom finally
causing middle management to wake up and smell the
coffee?

[sgtbono2002]

So here stand George Bush. His feet cut out from under him by Democrats. Rino's and Democrats wanting to back out of Iraq and the Israeli's begging him to start a new war with Iran. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesnt.

We hear reports of Nuclear weapons being built in Iran, but didnt we hear the same thing about weapons in Iraq? The Dems were 4 square behind Bush when we went to war , Now they lie about being lied to . They will be 4 square behind him in Iraq until something goes wrong and then they will want his head again.

What is a man supposed to do when nothing he does suits half of the country. The Democrats have just about destroyed any credibility this country ever had and still they attack. If they win the Presidency next time what have they won? A country who's military will be stripped ,a country weakened by the very people wanting to lead it. The Democrats have taken the worlds greatest country and practically destroyed it.

Al Quaeda may be our enemy, but our most dangerous enemy is the Democrat party, and the cowards in our own.

[Louis Foxwell]

The Holy Spirit is God. The Word is Christ. What you mean by the Word of God is apparently scripture. I do not believe that scripture is God.

[nuconvert]

I saw the Burns speech on CSPAN. He said the regime was behaving or operarting outside the realm of reality. (that may be a quote). Then he went on to talk about how we and the EU were trying to bring Iran "back to the table" for discussions on nukes.

Helloo?? And why waste time having discussions with people whom you believe aren't operating in the real world? And what does he think will be said at this "table" he's talking about? Maybe he'd like to hear some more about the 12th Imam? Or the apocalypse that Ahmadinejad is trying to bring about in the next 2 yrs?

Yes, let's sit down and talk to the religious fanatics and try to talk some sense into them.

[Billthedrill]

The State Department has always had an elitist, accommodationist, internationalist core, and it is doubtful if they have reconsidered anything except how to present their wolf's case in sheep's clothing. Barking at Ahmadinejad on the one hand and cozying up to his representatives in private is a perfect example.

We have a police state in Iran now - it will get worse. The Europeans will do nothing. The Iranian people will do nothing. The Israelis will build bombs. That's how it is.

[PerConPat]

"The Europeans will do nothing. The Iranian people will do nothing. The Israelis will build bombs. That's how it is."

Yes, and we will be in it up to our ears. I'm glad to see this article posted, again. I put it up yesterday ( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1531778/posts ) because I've shifted my primary focus to Iran. IMHO, the long and bloody road to the final stages of the GWOT leads directly to Tehran. Few want to think about it, but we are in engaged in the opening stages of a world war.

[Louis Foxwell]

Sorry about the post. I sent it to the wrong thread.

[Calpernia]

1 December 2005: Iran: Establishment of Virtual University on Martyrdom

I suppose nothing that comes out of Iran should surprise me anymore.

Now it seems they have established an on-line virtual university for martyrdom.

I don't suppose they give out student loans, do you? After all, they might have problems collecting once the person has crossed over and achieve Martyr status.

Iran: Establishment of Virtual University on Martyrdom
Siyasat-e Ruz

The secretary of the central headquarters of the Congress of the Martyrs of Universities in Muslim Countries gave news of the establishment of a virtual university on martyrdom.

Mohammad Aqarazi said: "With consideration to the idealism and progress of the students' movement and the fact that we strongly need this plan in our country, we decided to work on the ideological pillars and roots of jihad and martyrdom."

According to the report of ISNA he added: "In order to define the culture of martyrdom and martyrs this headquarters will establish the first virtual martyrdom university with the goal of the creation of scientific debates regarding the different dimensions of martyrdom and jihad in the form of different subjects in different sources, question and answer and eliminating the doubts of the students about jihad and martyrdom, training people's ideas, spreading the love and active life that one used to see in the lives of the martyrs, transferring the spirit of jihad and martyrdom to the university and educating the elites and students on the basic pillars of jihad and martyrdom and the production of science in framework of the chapters established."

In continuation Aqarazi added: "The enemies and the global arrogance are trying to imply that martyrdom is an emotional sense. But this matter is going to be studied in this university so that it becomes clear that martyrdom is only an ideological and deep matter. In this university we are going to study the psychological, sociological, theological and artistic dimensions of martyrdom."

Aqarazi also added: "We have talked with some university professors in order to establish the scientific board of this virtual university on martyrdom and we are continuing our activities." He said: "What is expected from a university composition is intellectual activity. This is the reason why we thought about the establishment of this university and hope that everyone reaches this conclusion that martyrdom is a blessing."

---

For more translations and news on terrorism, visit http://www.lauramansfield.com

[Edgerunner]

A science of murder and mayhem...Yeah, the world needs more junk science! BS

[sheik yerbouty]

Clearly, I can see that he is the Iman al Kalbi". He is a psychotic and dangerous nutter..

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