Iranian Alert -- October 12, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.”

But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

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

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations.

The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts.

Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough.

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

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

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

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

PS I have a daily ping list and a breaking news ping list. If you would like to receive alerts to these stories please let me know which list you would like to join.

ANGRY RULING CLERICS IGNORED EBADI’S PEACE PRIZE

By Safa Haeri

PARIS-TEHRAN 11 Oct. (IPS)

“No single event, short of Iran's total liberation from the bloody tentacles of the Mollahs could have brought so much joy and happiness to the Iranian people”, commented Dr Shaheen Fatemi, a veteran analyst of Iranian affairs and a respected Professor of Economics at the American University of Paris.

“This joy is not limited just to the Iranians; decent and humane people everywhere should feel vindicated and proud today. Pope John Paul and former Czech President Vaclav Havel who themselves were among those named as possible recipients of this year's Nobel Peace Prize have enthusiastically welcomed the selection of Mrs. Shirin Ebad”, he added.

“It is indeed significant that the very first Nobel Prize ever given to any Iranian is a Peace Prize awarded to an Iranian lawyer for her courageous defence of human rights victims of the Islamic Republic”, Dr Fatemi, who is also the Editor of the Paris-based internet newspaper “Iran va Jahan” (Iran and the World) went on as the ruling Iranian ayatollahs on both sides of the clerical leadership not only continued their angry silence, but went as far as accusing the Norwegian judges of a deliberate decision.

“Why not attributing the prize to Pope John Paul or other nominees, or to (the Iranian President) Mohammad Khatami who initiated the dialogue among civilisation instead of an unknown person sought by the (Iranian) justice?”, asked one hard line Iranian newspaper, reflecting the wrath of the conservative minority that rules over Iran.

The prize is a support for secular movements and against the ideals of the 1979 Islamic revolution", said Hamid Reza Taraqi, a former lawmaker and member of the hard-line Islamic Coalition Society, adding that the Norwegian Nobel Committee, “against its original objectives of promoting peace, has turned into a political tool in the hand of foreigners to interfere in the internal affairs of our country”.

Another conservative-controlled paper went as far as mistaking Mrs. Ebadi with another human rights activist and also lawyer in Mrs. Mehrangiz Kaar, who is now living in the US for cancer treatment, saying that the woman who was awarded the Peace Prize is “plotting against the Islamic Republic from the United States”.

But as messages of congratulations pour from all over the world, mostly from Iranian personalities and groups of all political walk, in her first press conference, Mrs. Ebadi, who is 56, had stated that since Islam was not against freedom and justice, therefore even the ruling clerics must feel happy about the prize she won.

For its part the Nobel committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes said the decision was a message to the world.

"This is a message to the Iranian people, to the Muslim world, to the whole world, that human value, the fight for freedom, the fight for rights of women and children should be at the center," he said. "I hope the award of the peace to Ebadi can help strengthen and lend support to the cause of human rights in Iran."

The committee said Ebadi represents reformed Islam, and lauded her for arguing for a new interpretation of Islamic law which is in harmony with vital human rights such as democracy, equality before the law.

Imprisoned briefly along a colleague two years ago, Mrs. Ebadi, who is a university professor and lawyer as well as a known human rights campaigner and defending the rights of children, lost her former position as judge after the victory of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Asked by Radio Farda if she was not afraid of being detained once back in Tehran, the first Iranian and Muslim woman to win the Peace Nobel Prize said there was nothing to be afraid since “all the statements made in interviews in the past two days are repetition of what I have always stood for in Iran itself”.

“I would continue my struggle for human rights, for more freedom and democracy and a reform in the present laws and Judiciary system in Iran”, she told the Persian service of the Prague-based Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty from Paris, where she is on a private visit.

Assuring that she would continue looking after the cases she is already defending, Mrs. Ebadi, a lawyer for the families of the victims of the murder of several veteran political and intellectual dissidents at the hands of high-ranking officials from the Information Ministry, including Dariush Foroohar and his wife Parvaneh hoped that political prisoners in Iran would have a better treatment than before.

According to human rights organisations, there are already about a dozen of influential journalists, intellectuals and politicians in Iran prisons waiting trial that is not coming.

On orders from Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, “awarded” by the Paris-based press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres as “one of the world´s most dangerous predators of press freedom”, the Judiciar has closed more than 100 newspapers and publications.

ENDS EBADI NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 111003

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2003/Oct-2003/ebadi_wins_nobel_peace_111003.html

IRAN MUST HAVE A SECULAR REGIME, MRS EBADI SAYS

PARIS 11 Oct. (IPS)

The time for revolutions is over. We are for a reform, both for civil and political rights as well as social and economics. The Iranian people are deceived by the Islamic revolution that alongside with the War against Iraq, thousands of families have lost children and parents. The people are also deceived by (President Mohammad) because when he was elected, he was talking about introducing reforms, thinking the idea as possible”, Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, the winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize told the French influential daily “Le Monde”.

The decision of the Norwegian judges angered the ruling Iranian ayatollahs, but elated Iranians all over the world, who saw the prize, given to one of their compatriots, as a victory for all Iranians fighting for freedom and democracy.

“Thanks, Shirin, thanks for all you have done for human rights, for restoration of democracy and freedom in Iran, for the children and women of Iran”, Mohsen Sazegara, a dissident journalist and politician who has just come out of prison wrote to the laureate, according to the French daily.

In Mrs. Ebadi’s view, Mr. Khatami has lost “many of occasions”, however, she hoped that the fight for reforms and changes would not stop once Mr. Khatami´s term ends in about two years time from now.

Rejecting the idea that this prize has a political message, Mrs. Ebadi said the prize she won on Friday would “encourage all those who in Iran struggles for the instauration of a civil society and respect of human rights, adding more to the troops”.

I hope that the people would continue pushing with its demands, the most important of all being the government’s bills for changing the present electoral system (which allows the leader-controlled Council of the Guardians to reject any candidate to any election) in order to allow the people to elect their representatives for the Majles”, she said, warning that in case the bill is definitely rejected (as it seems to be the case), the people would boycott the coming legislative elections due next February, “as they did for the last city and rural councils”.

Stating that she stands for a secular system and explaining that her position is not against Islam, Mrs. Ebadi said in case the present rulers do not come out with the idea of change, it would be imposed on them.

In her opinion, it is not Islam that is against democracy and freedom, “but the systems in Muslim nations ».

«There are always pretexts for not respecting human rights and freedom of the people. In the former Communist regimes, the ideology was put forward. I have struggles for years demonstrating that Islam is against discrimination and social injustice, but there are corrupt regimes in Muslim countries that profit from religion for justifying the illegitimate governments”, she explained in the interview that was published on Saturday.

She said one of the first reforms she would like to be adopted in her home country is to replace the present Islamic Canons by modern laws that prevent amputation, stoning, forced marriage of girls under the age of 13. “This is essential as it concerns freedom, life and the security of the nation”.

ENDS EBADI LE MONDE INTERVIEW 111003

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2003/Oct-2003/ebadi_wins_nobel_peace2_111003.html

Shirin Ebadi to Represent Family of Late Photojournalist

October 11, 2003
AFP
Yahoo News

MONTREAL -- Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has agreed to represent the family of the late Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi at trial this week in Tehran, citing the photographer's son.

Stephan Hachemi told the Toronto daily the Globe and Mail that his grandmother Ezat Kazemi, who lives in Iran, gave Ebadi the authority to represent their family in the trial of an intelligence agent implicated in Kazemi's death.

Born in Iran and residing in Montreal, Kazemi had returned to her homeland on assignment. She was arrested on June 23 outside Tehran's Evin prison for taking unauthorized photographs and died from a brain hemorrhage on July 10.

An official report into her death, ordered by President Mohammad Khatami, concluded that she died after a blow to the head received in custody.

An Iranian magistrate ruled out premeditated murder in Kazemi's death but upheld charges of "quasi-intentional murder" against an intelligence agent.

Ebadi, 56, a lawyer who campaigned for women's and children's rights and stood up for dissidents and freedom of speech in the Islamic republic, has earned the wrath of many hard-liners for her views.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=737&e=10&u=/afp/20031011/wl_canada_afp/iran_canada_justice&sid=95959802

'I Want to Die in my Country'

NEWSWEEK
12 October, 2003

By Marie Valla, Newsweek Web Exclusive

Iranian human-rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, 56, was on her way to the Paris airport to catch a plane back to Tehran when she heard on the radio she'd won the Nobel Peace Prize. Ebadi, who'd been in France for a speaking engagement, was as shocked by the news as anyone. Little known outside her home country and human-rights circles, she was picked from a field that included ailing Pope John Paul II. The next morning, she sat down with NEWSWEEK to talk about the situation in Iran and how the prize might help to change it.

NEWSWEEK: Is your prize a watershed for democracy in Iran?
SHIRIN EBADI: I hope it is. I always acted within the law; I never did anything that was illegal. I support peaceful protests. But when things go wrong I'm there to defend the victims, for free. In 1999, when the student dormitories were attacked, I defended one of the victim's family in court and this is what led me to be jailed. So I hope that this prize will give supporters of human rights in Iran the courage and the energy to continue. As a matter of fact, the biggest benefit of this prize is to show that it still is possible to stay in Iran and work for the advancement of human rights there.

Do you think that the regime can reform itself or is it stuck in a deadlock between the reformers and the old guard?

I believe that it still is possible to bring reform to the regime, but it is now high time for action as well as pragmatic thinking. Even in Iran where there hasn't been any significant reform, the number of people who support reform has increased. It gives me hope that it will eventually happen.

Can human-rights exist in an Islamic republic?

There is no contradiction between an Islamic republic, Islam and human rights. If in many Islamic countries human rights are flouted, this is because of a wrong interpretation of Islam. All I've tried to do in the last 20 years was to prove that with another interpretation of Islam, it would be possible to introduce democracy to Muslim countries. We need an interpretation of Islam that leaves much more space for women to take action. We need an Islam that is compatible with democracy and one that's respectful of individual rights.

You didn't cover your head with the hijab, or veil, at the press conference. Did you want to make a statement?

Inside Iran, a woman is required by law to wear the hijab so I wear it. But as I mentioned, I believe that with a more progressive interpretation of Islam we can change this. I believe that it is up to individual women to decide whether they want to wear the hijab or not.

What do you think will happen when you return to Iran? Are you scared?

Everything happened so quickly that I haven't even had time to really think about it. I am not scared at all and I don't care so much about what happens to me. I will go back to Iran because I am Iranian and I want to die in my country. Imagine you're home and your mother is a sick old woman whereas your neighbor next door is a younger and more dynamic mother. Still, you'll stay with your sick old mother because she is your mother. When I'm in Paris, where thanks to the French Revolution people have all rights, of course I enjoy it and I'm happy. But it is not my home.

What is your hope for the future of Iran?

I hope that young Iranians can go further than me. My generation had very little means to keep itself informed. When I was young we had neither computers nor the Internet. Our only source of information was a small library at the University. So I hope that today's young people can do much more and do better for our country than I did.

http://www.msnbc.com/m/pt/printthis.asp?storyID=979116

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
Israel to attack Iran?

German magazine reports plan to target nukes

Posted: October 12, 2003
5:12 p.m. Eastern

Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years.

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

The Israeli government is drawing up plans to attack Iran's nuclear program, according to a report in the German Magazine Der Spiegel.

The reports says a special purpose force of the secret service Mossad received the order two months ago to prepare appropriate plans of attack.

The plan calls for the destruction of a half dozen targets by F-16 combat bombers "simultaneously as well as completely" – an action, described as delicate, but "technically possible."

In 1981 Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear power station near Baghdad, smashing former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's nuclear program. But a similar air attack against Iran would be far riskier. Its nuclear sites are dotted across vast expanses and Iran's eastern border is 800 miles from Israeli air bases, making bombing sorties vulnerable.

Israel has come to regard Iran as its chief unconventional military threat since the downfall of Saddam Hussein in April.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied having nuclear arms, but Washington has accepted it as a nuclear power since 1969 and analysts say it has up to 200 sophisticated nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has imposed an Oct. 31 deadline on Iran to prove it is not secretly developing nuclear weapons and also urged it to suspend enriching uranium, which the United States claims could be used to make nuclear bombs.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35046

A Nobel for Change

October 12, 2003
The Baltimore Sun
SunSpot.net

IRANIAN LAWYER Shirin Ebadi, this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has spent the last two decades fighting for the rights of women and children in her country, fearlessly challenging the autocratic Islamic regime that controls Iran. Upon learning that she had won the prestigious award, Ms. Ebadi embraced the honor on behalf of all those working for human rights and democracy in Iran. How gracious, but more to the point, how right.

Ms. Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to be honored in the 102-year history of the prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to honor the 56-year-old human rights activist will have repercussions beyond her work at the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, the nonprofit advocacy group she established in 1995. The reason is that Ms. Ebadi's fight to protect and improve the rights of women and children has been waged within the rule of law in Iran.

So, too, the fight by democracy movement supporters who demonstrated by the thousands last spring. Ms. Ebadi talks about human rights in the context of Islam, and that's the rub for Iran's leading clerics, who rule with a closed fist. As she has in the past, Ms. Ebadi reminded the religious hierarchy last week that in her view there is no difference between Islam and human rights. Supporters of the democracy movement in Iran also talk about reform in the context of their religious and cultural heritage. Many point out that a free and democratic Iran won't necessarily resemble the democracies of the West.

Theirs is a struggle not about freedom from religion, but about freedom from a government that uses religion to control and curtail citizen rights.

That's why the Nobel Committee's decision to bestow the peace prize on Ms. Ebadi will be problematic for Iran's ruling mullahs. "It's not about politics; it's about how you treat your own citizens," said Sam Zia-Zarifi, of Human Rights Watch in New York.

The political reality in Iran, however, is this: Hard-liners control the country under a theocracy that centralizes power in the hands of a supreme religious leader, currently the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a council of clerics. Dissidents and journalists are routinely jailed for speaking out. Student activists reportedly are facing university disciplinary panels for protesting earlier this year.

Shirin Ebadi acknowledged her fellow Iranians in receiving the Nobel Prize. They, in turn, should rejoice with her and press on with their struggle.

http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/bal-ed.iran12oct12,0,2319062.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines

A Prize, Laureate Says, 'Good for Democracy'

October 10, 2003
The New York Times
Elaine Sciolino

PARIS -- As a judge in Iran before the revolution of 1979, Shirin Ebadi stayed away from politics.

But when the Islamic revolution came, she embraced the cause, joining the Ministry of Justice's strike committee and musing about creating an Iran that would rival the most open Western democracy.

The embrace was not returned. The ruling clerics who created the Islamic Republic decreed that women were too "emotional" to be judges. Ms. Ebadi, one of the first Iranian women to be made a judge, was demoted to legal assistant.

The experience, she said afterward, was like turning "the president of a university into a janitor."

On Friday, Ms. Ebadi, 56, went before 200 journalists in Paris as this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, honored for her human rights activities and the promotion of democracy.

"It's very good for me, it's very good for human rights in Iran, it's very good for democracy in Iran," Ms. Ebadi said in a news conference at the headquarters of the International Federation of Human Rights. "This prize," she added, "gives me energy to pursue my combat for a better future."

Ms. Ebadi was a pioneer but an unlikely troublemaker.

A mother of two daughters, she earned her law degree from the University of Tehran, where she teaches today.

When many professional women left the country after the revolution, Ms. Ebadi stayed. She worked as a legal assistant for five years, started her own law practice, became a consultant to a number of companies and began writing books.

She refused to call herself a feminist, saying the problems of women could not be separated from those of society as a whole.

Over the years, she transformed herself into one of Iran's most outspoken human rights advocates, pressing for the rights of women and children, particularly after the election in 1997 of President Muhammad Khatami, a cleric who ran on a platform promoting tolerance and the rule of law.

As a woman facing a conservative judicial structure, Ms. Ebadi survived by following a two-fold strategy: pressing the case that Islam is compatible with democracy and human rights, while staying within the confines of the religion and the Islamic Republic.

"Khatami is talking about the rule of law; everyone is talking about the rule of law," she said in an interview in her office in Tehran in 1999. "We will only have the rule of law in Iran on the day that women are treated the same as men under the law."

Ms. Ebadi also began representing some of the country's most high-profile political dissidents and their families.

She represented the children of Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar, for example, dissidents who openly opposed Iran's Islamic government and were slain in their home in 1998, in an attempt to find and prosecute the couple's murderers.

The year before, she pressed for justice in the case of Arian Golshani, a 9-year-old girl murdered by her father and stepbrother. Representing the girl's mother, Ms. Ebadi turned the trial into a fight for the rights of women and children in a country where a law prevents a father from being convicted for murdering his own child. The stepbrother was convicted, and although the law has not been changed, Ms. Ebadi was able to draw attention to it.

"We asked people who objected to the law to take white flower petals and throw them into the street," she said in an interview. "In a few minutes, the whole street was white with petals."

For years, Ms. Ebadi and two other women, Mehrangiz Kar, a more secular human rights and family lawyer, and Shahla Lahidji, an outspoken publisher specializing in books about women, were labeled the "Three Musketeers" because they were considered the country's most active proponents of women's rights. Ms. Lahidji has been pressured into silence; Ms. Kar now lives in the United States.

Ms. Ebadi was herself arrested and imprisoned in June 2000 with another reformist lawyer, accused of distributing a taped confession of a member of a vigilante militia involved in violence against reformists. After being jailed for three weeks, she was sentenced by a closed-door court to 15 months in prison and barred from practicing law for five years. Eventually, the sentence was suspended, and she was required only to pay a fine of about $200.

Among her 11 books is one on the rights of the child in Iran and another on the history of human rights in Iran, which have been translated into English.

When some clerics and even feminists proposed that the institution of temporary marriage, legal under Islam, should be used more widely as a way to empower women, she took a hard line against it, calling it a form of prostitution. "Prostitution is humiliation," she said. "It crushes character and breaks one's dignity."

In Iran, she abides by the law that requires women to wear loose clothing and hide their hair under scarves, saying the rules on dress give women the right to take part in the public spheres still dominated by men.

But that stricture does not apply in Paris. On Friday, she was rebellious in victory at the headquarters of the International Federation of Human Rights where she met with journalists. Dressed in an open-necked black suit, she wore red lipstick and was bareheaded, her short brown hair neatly coifed.

She said she would return to Iran, although she added that she did not know when. "We'll see," she said, "how I'll be received when I get back."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/11/international/europe/11EBAD.html

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat: "Yes, We Fear Iran's Uranium"

October 10, 2003
Middle East Media Research Institute
MEMRI

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Editor: Iran's Nuclear Weapons a Threat to Arab and Islamic Countries.

An editorial titled "Yes, We Fear Iran's Uranium," authored by Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, appeared in the newspaper's October 8, 2003 issue. [1]The following are excerpts from the editorial:

The Primary Target: Pakistan

"If you want to be foolish, you have to believe that Iran is producing its nuclear bomb in order to attack Israel; you'll turn into a complete idiot if you believe it's producing it in order to confront the U.S. The Iranians are enriching uranium to produce nuclear weapons aimed, essentially, at its neighbors, mainly Pakistan. However, the danger encompasses the other neighboring countries as well, such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan, which share with Iran a land border of 5,400 km and a sea border of 2,400 km.

"I don't need anyone to remind me that nuclear bombs are not artillery fired from across a border, and that with [suitable] launching facilities they are capable of reaching the end of the world. What I mean is that it is hard to believe the claim that Iran's purpose in producing nuclear weapons is to attain balance with Israel due to the enormity of the Israeli arsenal and [Israel's] technological superiority. Likewise, it is inconceivable that we believe Iran will do what the Russians – with the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world – were incapable of doing, and will enter into nuclear confrontation with Washington."

'More than Enough Insane Leaders' in the Region

"We fear Iran's intentions in producing nuclear weapons because we understand very well, given the history of conflicts in the region, that Iran will push us toward one of two tragedies: The simpler tragedy is that Iran will ignite the spark of the nuclear arms race in our poverty-stricken region, whose governments will begin to purchase these ecologically dangerous toys at an unbelievably high price. The second tragedy is that the arms race will result in putting these insane weapons to use. Allah be praised, I do not need to persuade many that our region has more than enough insane leaders. Saddam sprayed thousands of his citizens with chemicals, wiping them out like vermin.

"Yes, it is our duty to fight for Israel's nuclear disarmament, but we must not delude ourselves that Iran, or any other country, is arming itself with nuclear weapons in response to Israel. Nuclear armament will lead us to the same place we were led [to] by conventional armament. Iranian fighter planes engaged in air battles with Saudi fighter planes on a day in the past, and Scud missiles crushed Tehran and Qom and reached Riyadh and Doha. You can imagine what it would have been like had their warheads been nuclear."

'We Have Used Conventional Weapons More Against Each Other Than Against Israel'

"We have used conventional weapons more against each other than against Israel, and this situation will not change tomorrow if we add nuclear bombs to our arsenals. I understand Iran's motivation for producing nuclear bombs. Iran saw the world's indifference over neighboring Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear weapons. And Pakistan itself produced them after India revealed its own nuclear arsenal. [These were considered by Iran as] sufficient reason to achieve regional balance. However, Iran, unlike the two countries of the Indian subcontinent, realized… that it is sitting on one of the most important and sensitive international centers of conflict.

"It would be a mistake to come to the defense of our neighbor Iran out of ignorance and on the pretext of deterring Israel. The Iranian nuclear danger threatens us, first and foremost, more than it threatens the Israelis and the Americans."

[1] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), October 8, 2003.

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD58603

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