Posted on 02/09/2009 4:22:32 PM PST by SunkenCiv
A proposal by the United States to begin dialogue with Iran has been cautiously welcomed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former Iranian president. Iran is also prepared to help Washington in its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rafsanjani told Al Jazeera on Monday... Rafsanjani's comments came after Joe Biden, the US vice-president, said that Washington is open to negotiations with Tehran if it abandons its nuclear programme... The US and other Western powers say that Tehran's uranium enrichment programme is focused towards the manufacture of a nuclear weapon. Iran, for its part, says that it is not trying to build such a weapon and that its nuclear work is aimed at generating electricity... Also speaking on Monday, Ali Larijani, Iran's parliamentary speaker, said that the US's apparent policy shift towards his country's government is positive... Larijani, a former nuclear negotiator, told Zapatero that Biden's comments in Munich marked "an important change in US foreign policy," the spokeswoman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at english.aljazeera.net ...
Names of those caught in the Ibril raid
verumserum.com/ | March 26th, 2007 | Posted by John
Posted on 04/02/2007 6:09:45 PM PDT by Dog
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1810914/posts
[snip] ...Mohammad Jaafari, an aid to National Security advisor Ali Larijani... [end]
Iran at ‘gateway’ of industrial scale nuclear enrichment
FT | October 1, 2007 | Roula Khalaf and Najmeh Bozorgmehr
Posted on 10/01/2007 6:16:05 AM PDT by Schnucki
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904820/posts
[snip] Although he refused to be drawn on Iran’s progress and whether it was facing technical difficulties in spinning centrifuges - the process that enriches uranium - Mr Larijani said Iran was at the “gateway” to enriching on an industrial scale. [end]
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator resigns
Yahoo News/AP | Oct 20, 2007 | Ali Akbar Dareini
Posted on 10/20/2007 5:04:21 AM PDT by nuconvert
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1913860/posts
Why Did Larijani Resign?
National Review Online | October 22, 2007 | Michael Ledeen
Posted on 10/22/2007 7:36:07 PM PDT by nuconvert
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1914918/posts
[snip] He was minister of culture, then head of state broadcasting, then secretary of the Supreme National Security Council... an intimate of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and a critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad... Larijani will remain as the Supreme Leader’s representative on the Supreme National Security Council, and participate in the meetings of Khamenei’s inner circle. [end]
Iran’s hard-line nuclear reshuffle
al-BBC | October 20, 2007 | Jon Leyne
Posted on 10/23/2007 12:20:25 AM PDT by Schnucki
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1914977/posts
[snip] It is an open secret in Tehran that Mr Larijani has had big differences with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over how to proceed over the nuclear programme... He stood for president at the last election, a candidate supported by the Revolutionary Guards, as was Mr Ahmadinejad. He is often labelled a “conservative”. But Mr Larijani has been much more strongly in favour of negotiations over the nuclear issue than the president... While he has said he is willing to talk, he is not willing to give ground on the crucial issue of the programme to enrich uranium, which the West says it fears could eventually be used to make a nuclear bomb. [end]
Iran blasts Obama’s nuclear criticism
CNN | 11/08/08
Posted on 11/08/2008 10:50:27 PM PST by advance_copy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2128587/posts
Mash’al In Iran: ‘Our Battle Is Your Battle’; ‘Together We Will Liberate Jerusalem’...
(”Sources: Fars, Kayhan, Iran, February 3, 2009”) via THE MEMRI BLOG.org | February 3, 2009 | n/a
Posted on 02/04/2009 2:58:58 AM PST by Cindy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2178004/posts
[snip] Majlis speaker Ali Larijani said that Hamas was bringing honor to Islam with its struggle against Zionism. [end]
Meetings between Larijani and Sarkozy in Egypt
Free Thoughts
Posted on 12/31/2007 11:42:50 AM PST by parisa
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1946425/posts
Iran - Larijani elected provisional Majlis speaker
Islamic Republic News Agency | May 28, 2008
Posted on 05/27/2008 11:57:14 PM PDT by HAL9000
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2022331/posts
Iran speaker warns nuclear agency
BBC | Wednesday, 28 May 2008 10:44 UK 09:44 GMT, | BBC Staff
Posted on 05/28/2008 2:31:01 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2022644/posts
[snip] He served as Iran’s top nuclear negotiator between 2005-2007 and he sits on the supreme national security council as representative of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr Larijani belongs to a group of Iranian MPs who have been critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s handling of the Iranian economy. [end]
Rise of Ahmadinejad rival hints at a shift in Iran
IHT via Drudge Report | May 29, 2008 | Nazila Fathi and Graham Bowley
Posted on 05/29/2008 8:30:47 PM PDT by RDTF
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2023360/posts
[snip] Larijani, who won by a vote of 232-31, said one of Parliament’s top priorities would be to strengthen the economy. His lopsided victory appeared to be a rebuke of Ahmadinejad [end]
Iran Mocks Obama’s ‘Carrot/Stick’ Diplomacy
A Semi-News/Semi-Satire from AzConservative | 13 Dec 2008 | John Semmens
Posted on 12/15/2008 8:36:10 AM PST by John Semmens
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2149050/posts
Iran is playing “Good Mullah”, “Bad Mullah” on Obama.
/bingo
Rafsanjani has little to say about policy in Iran.
*snort*
That, and this is also true:
"With these clowns, there'll be no "sticks", so we'd hafta be crazy not to take the "carrots".
“I know! Did I say *help*? When my fellow mullahs told me that, I couldn’t believe it.”
If I were the POTUS, NO dialogue with a nuclear rogue state like Iran will ever be conducted.
None whatsoever.
Just shut up and stay silent. Talk to the hand, Ahmadinejad.
Definitely. They want to talk, they’ll have to shut down the nuclear program. It’s clear that the nuke thing is part of their strategy to be taken seriously and negotiated with, in a way that is acceptable to their politics and idealogy (IOW, not with their hand out, but their head held high). However, there’s no way they’re developing enrichment merely to generate electrical power.
Of course, in hindsight (and in foresight back at the time) I think I’d have leveled Iraq and moved the entire population into purpose-built new (and mosque-free) towns with no access to outside media (no al-Jazeera for example), then redrawn the map, carving Kurdistan out of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and (I think) Syria, then unleashed on Iran and Turkey (and Syria) using a new Kurdish armed forces trained by the US, along with Iraqi Arabs (the old armed forces, for example) wanting to settle scores (although Saddam’s Iraq started it) over the Iran-Iraq war.
Having sealed the border of the former Iraq with Syria and Jordan, it would be expected that all of al-Qaeda would have drained out of all other theaters to fight us in Iran. Hell, using dirty tricks, we could have set up covertly funded recruitment centers to literally drain the Moslem countries of all possible volunteers, and churned them into little bitty smoking piles of cannon fodder.
But I’m funny that way.
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