Iranian Alert -- February 29, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

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Going Soft on Iran

February 28, 2004
The Weekly Standard
Reuel Marc Gerecht

According to the newspapers and the CIA, Iranian "hard-liners" dealt their country's reform movement and fledgling democracy a heavy, perhaps lethal, blow on February 20.

With over 2,000 candidates "disqualified" before the parliamentary elections even took place, the ruling clerical elite ensured that the reformers, who've won office and national attention since the presidential election of Mohammad Khatami in May 1997, would no longer dominate the parliament, or Majles, which has become a forum for public discontent and frustration with the ruling mullahs. With a majority of seats in the next parliament, and already firmly in control of the country's internal security organizations and courts, the "hard-liners" will be able to fracture and silence, so the reporting goes, the political parties, newspapers, and organizations that left-wing clerics, like Khatami, had used to create a national movement for change.

According to many American "realists"--the school of foreign policy most often associated with such men as former national security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former diplomats James Baker, Richard Murphy, Thomas Pickering, and Richard Haass, and institutions like the Nixon Center and the Council on Foreign Relations--there may be a silver lining in the bad news. Iran's "hard-liners" may in fact be "pragmatic conservatives," to borrow a phrase often heard now in the colloquies of Washington's think tanks where the intellectual laborers of American realism are trying to devise a new strategy for Iran and the Greater Middle East. In the post-9/11 world, the fear of weapons of mass destruction in the wrong hands dominates public policy debates, and a growing number of American realists believe that Iran's "pragmatic mullahs"--in Persian translation, this means former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the major-domo of the clerical establishment, and Ali Khamenei, the "spiritual leader" of the country--are the men to cut a deal to halt Iran's WMD programs.

There is even a sense in certain quarters that we might actually be lucky that Khatami and the parliamentary reformers have been whipped. Rafsanjani and Khamenei may play a very rough game domestically--Hezbollah thugs beat dissidents, "rogue" intelligence agents knife and run down liberal intellectuals, the judiciary jails any dangerous political opposition figure too prominent to off, and the Council of Guardians preemptively disqualifies troublemakers from office--but externally they are, so the theory goes, responsible, rational actors who are principally motivated by geopolitics and economics (and, in the case of Rafsanjani, lucre). They are, in other words, real men, not distracted by all the leftist intellectual debates that consumed so many on the Khatami side of the political house.

It's worthwhile to remember that not that long ago prominent American realists made a different argument. In May 2001, just before President Khatami won his second term, Brent Scowcroft wrote in the Washington Post that we should unilaterally engage the Islamic Republic by lifting sanctions--specifically those targeted against the energy sector--even before talking about the clerical regime's fondness for terrorism, its development of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction, or its unrelenting hostility to a peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians. According to Scowcroft, such a unilateral move was not to be viewed as "a sign of weakness in light of continued predations by an obnoxious and repressive regime." Such a charge would "miss the central point, which is that an active struggle is underway to determine the future course of Iran. The key is to speak to the people of Iran, not to their oppressors." Thus, for the Bush administration to give "a signal from the United States showing the desire for a better bilateral relationship might provide encouragement and impetus to reformers and the people who so eagerly seek change."

Of course, Scowcroft didn't explain how exactly an oil deal with Conoco or ExxonMobil would empower Iran's democratic forces. (One wonders whether Scowcroft, who has been a paid consultant to U.S. energy companies, would have made this argument to the shah of Iran, or whether American oil executives have ever made this case to the energy-rich princes and dictators of the Middle East, post-Soviet Central Asia, or the Caucasus.) Neither he nor the other heavy hitters who cochaired a major review of U.S.-Iran policy in 2001 (former secretary of defense James Schlesinger and Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton) explained why Rafsanjani and Khamenei, two clerics who have excelled at machtpolitik, would not view unilateral American concessions as unilateral American concessions.

Needless to say, the realist case has evolved with events, and now it is time for the United States to engage "an obnoxious and repressive regime" since Iran's nuclear program, which is much more advanced than we'd guessed, gives us no choice. Thomas Pickering, the perennial ambassador and former undersecretary of state for political affairs, has also underscored Iran's "capacity for making life uncomfortable and messy for the United States and its allies in Iraq" as a reason to seek a modus vivendi with Tehran's clerical overlords.

From the realists' perspective, the reformers had their day, they lost, and now America must deal with the facts on the ground. And, fortunately, Iran's rulers are corrupt divines who no longer believe in their hearts they have a mandate from heaven. First and foremost, they want to stay in power, within secure borders, unthreatened by the United States, Israel, or its neighbors, recognized as a legitimate regional power with accepted interests in Iraq and the Persian Gulf. If we let them be a member of the club, if we make Rafsanjani and Khamenei feel safe, in their own country and in others', then they might give up the bomb.

This realist American diplomacy would be complemented by the efforts of the British, French, and Germans--the "E.U. three" who are responsible for the European Union's Iranian relations. Simultaneously, the Europeans would suggest to Tehran that they might bring the Islamic Republic before the United Nations Security Council for censure for its nuclear prevarications. And if the Iranians continue to misbehave, the Europeans would hint with increasing frankness the possibility of economic sanctions against Tehran--the type of sanctions that American realists want first to lift as a carrot to induce better clerical behavior.

Though not known for using economic sanctions as political tools--Paris just announced a $2 billion oil exploration deal with the Islamic Republic even though its diplomats and spooks have long known that the clerical regime has been blatantly lying to the International Atomic Energy Agency about its nuclear "research" program--the Europeans will, this time, so the theory goes, get serious. After all, they, too, dread the spread of nuclear weapons. They, too, view the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a cornerstone of the liberal internationalist order. Perhaps most of all, they wouldn't want George Bush untethered from adult European supervision, possibly inclined to bomb Iran to keep Rafsanjani and Khamenei from getting a nuclear weapon.

OF COURSE, none of the above makes much sense. Not the understanding of what happened in Iran on February 20. Not the realist position on the ruling clerical elite. Not the likelihood of effective joint action between the Americans and the Europeans. What does make sense, however, is the coming realist assault on President Bush's post-9/11 foreign policy. The realist temptation in the American foreign-policy establishment is always powerful, principally because it is the path of least resistance and least action, and it dovetails nicely with the status-quo reflexes of the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the military brass at the Pentagon. Senator John Kerry appears to have embraced the realist cause.

But if the Bush administration opts for a variation of the realist approach to Iran--and fatigue from rebuilding Iraq certainly reinforces the administration's hitherto pronounced preference to avoid gaming out worst-case contingency plans for dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons programs or the clerical regime's "detention" of senior members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda--it will gut what is left of its post-9/11 "axis of evil" doctrine. It will effectively deny the primary transcendent lesson that President Bush has drawn from 9/11: that the Middle East is politically dysfunctional, that U.S.-backed tyranny in Muslim lands was an essential element in the development of the holy-warriorism of al Qaeda, and that the spread of democracy in the Muslim Middle East remains the only cure for the sacred terror of 9/11.

American realists want none of this. Even after 9/11, they don't really want to be involved in other people's "internal affairs." By nature, they hate Promethean missions. They don't like for America's transatlantic relations--and most realists are pretty devout transatlanticists--to be roiled by a terrorist threat so defined that it mandates a doctrine of preemption. Ideological combat is always an ugly, unmanageable affair, which is why many realists tried so hard to read ideology out of the Cold War. If the Bush administration is serious about transforming the Muslim Middle East--and the jury is still out on whether it is--it will inevitably unsettle, if not alienate, every single "pro-American" king, emir, and dictator in the region.

The issue of weapons of mass destruction is thus an ideal wedge for the realist camp. If Libya can become, as the British Foreign Office is obviously hoping, the template for approaching the rulers of the Middle East--that is, if stopping WMD trumps spreading democracy--then the realists have an excellent chance of stifling the Bush administration's post-9/11 rhetoric. President Bush's pro-democracy speeches have been driving U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. They have been driving the efforts, feeble though they may be, by the rulers of the Middle East to open their political systems. The national dialogues of Saudi Arabia's Prince Abdullah are a direct result of President Bush's words and actions (the invasion of Iraq and the inevitable empowerment of Iraq's Shiites certainly encouraged Prince Abdullah to have his first dialogue about Saudi Arabia's oppressed Shiites, who happen to live on top of Saudi Arabia's oil in the Eastern Province). Silence those Reaganite speeches, and the foreign affairs bureaucracies will take over.

Then Bush II could start looking like Bush I a lot faster than Brent Scowcroft or Zbigniew Brzezinski has ever dreamed. Because Iran's nuclear weapons program is so damnably hard to delay without preemptive American or Israeli airstrikes, and the Bush administration remains understandably loath to contemplate military action against another Middle Eastern state, the realists within the administration and without could lock the White House into exploring some kind of dialogue with Rafsanjani and Khamenei, who would, of course, approve of any American effort to lift unilaterally economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic. (They know, even if the realists do not, that these sanctions have seriously cramped Iran.)

There is a big hurdle coming up for those who want to believe (or to pretend to believe) that diplomacy offers a solution to Iran's WMD aspirations. The International Atomic Energy Agency must issue another report on Iran's compliance in June--the same time the Bush administration is supposed to release its Greater Middle East Initiative, which will show how serious the administration is about pushing democracy in a region where the leaders hate it. It has become obvious to all concerned that the Iranians have been willfully trying to deceive IAEA officials and the European diplomats who are responsible for maintaining the WMD dialogue with the clerical regime. European officials, including the French, don't bother even in private to deny Iran's nuclear weapons objectives, its continuing deceit, and the difficulty they are going to have in verifying Iranian compliance.

The clerical regime has yet to sign the more intrusive protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, despite its promise to do so. (The Europeans, of course, have not yet seriously threatened the clerics with any penalty for their failure to sign.) Hassan Rohani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council--a long-time bastion of power for Rafsanjani--recently declared, in one of those delightful and not infrequent moments when Iranian hubris betrays the revolutionary clergy's bent for mendacity and deception, that the Iranian use of polonium, an element applicable in both power-generation and weapons, and P2 centrifuges, which are designed for enriching uranium, "is not the only research we are doing. . . . We have other projects which we have not declared to the IAEA and we see no need to do so." It is very likely that the Europeans, including the British, will be able to walk round Rohani's prevarications.

Anyone who has dealt with the Europeans involved in this process, particularly the French, knows that the odds of Paris agreeing to threaten Tehran with sanctions that would truly hurt--for example, an oil embargo--are virtually nil. In all probability, nuclear proliferation in Iran, or elsewhere, will not prove to be an issue where Western Europeans can collectively agree to use force. Ethically they are simply operating, as Robert Kagan has very politely pointed out, in a different realm. And as the Nixon Center's Geoffrey Kemp has remarked, "the Europeans have to play their part" for a realist foreign policy to be credible. However, the Bush administration is hoping to punt this problem down the road, at least until after the November elections. The Europeans will have at least one more chance to devise "imaginative diplomacy" to dismantle Iran's nuclear weapons program without threatening the use of force.

But the Europeans won't be the only ones working against the Americans who desperately want to find a "credible" diplomatic process for dealing with Iran's quest for nuclear arms. The Iranians are very unlikely to play the roles realists envision for them. Rafsanjani and Khamenei may well be "pragmatic" mullahs--I have certainly long argued that they are. But they have also been among the godfathers of Iranian terrorism. From Beirut to Buenos Aires to Paris to Berlin and to the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia, Rafsanjani and Khamenei put terrorism into the foreign policy lexicon of the Iranian clergy. When Iranian intelligence officials or their surrogates surveilled American diplomatic facilities and personnel around the world in the 1990s, it was on their orders. (Whatever these exercises were for, it is unlikely they were innocent in intent.)

These same gentlemen have, of course, always wanted to buy American. Conoco, ExxonMobil, Boeing, GE--it would be hard to find an American firm that Rafsanjani wouldn't welcome. It also beggars the imagination to believe that these two gentlemen don't control the fate of al Qaeda inside Iran. The Bush administration has chosen to play down the issue of al Qaeda in the Islamic Republic. The Pentagon and State Department remonstrated with the Iranians when they first realized that al Qaeda forces had fled into Iran after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. News leaks about worrisome intercepts surfaced. And then the subject disappeared until official leaks again surfaced in 2003 suggesting that al Qaeda was in Iran and had possibly plotted from there attacks into Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Republic again returned to the back burner.

This was a serious mistake. Regardless of whether al Qaeda members in Iran were operationally involved in terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere, these individuals are among the most wanted men in American history. We have never had worse enemies, yet we did nothing when Iran prevaricated about whether they were in the country when we clearly knew they were. Remember, Rafsanjani and Khamenei are master chess players of power politics. If Americans don't rise in righteous indignation over the "detention" of possibly active al Qaeda members--and the key component of President Bush's Axis of Evil doctrine is that countries that harbor terrorists will be treated as terrorists--why shouldn't Rafsanjani and Khamenei, with their nuclear weapons, tempt America's wrath?

KHAMENEI and especially Rafsanjani have nurtured Iran's nuclear program from its infancy. More than anyone else, they are the will and mind behind this program. It is not unreasonable to conjecture that their very identity--who they are as leaders, clerics, and Muslims--is wrapped up in Iran's bomb program. And they are supposed to give it away to Americans, who don't threaten them over al Qaeda, and to Europeans, who keep offering the Iranians more time after the clergy has blatantly lied to them? If you were a "pragmatic" mullah who had beaten the shah, survived the American-aided legions of Saddam Hussein, and eaten alive your revolutionary colleagues-turned-enemies, would you be intimidated by such folks?

And the realists shouldn't count out the fallen clerical left in Iran. Neither the clerical left nor the vastly greater number of ordinary Iranians who are disgusted by the ruling clergy are likely to remain quiescent. They may not go into violent counterrevolution--the Iranians still remember the violence of the first revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, and many obviously hope that they can find some peaceful way to real democracy. But patience is not a well-known Iranian virtue. Sooner not later, the discontent will boil forth. Rafsanjani and Khamenei know that many Iranians have more backbone than Khatami. Iranian prisons are full of such men. The Special Clerical Court, where the regime discreetly intimidates dissident mullahs, remains a busy place. The left-wing clergy were right to believe that they were riding an unstoppable democratic wave in Iranian history. They were wrong to think that their erstwhile brethren, who cling more tightly to the notion that the nation will go to hell without an indomitable clerical vanguard, would simply roll over when confronted with devastating election results.

But the die is now cast. The anti-climactic nonelection on February 20 at least confirmed that. The clerical opposition that has more fire in its belly--and the numerous disciples of Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri, Iran's premier dissident cleric, certainly appear to be made of sterner stuff than Khatami--won't make the same mistake twice. Neither will the students and other young Iranian men of the streets who've grown disgusted with the regime.

The ideas of constitutional government and democracy have been driving Iranian political thought for a hundred years. Rafsanjani, if not Khamenei, is sufficiently educated to know that he is a product of this movement. More protests are inevitable. They will undoubtedly be enough to make it politically unacceptable, if not morally distasteful, for even the most true-blue American realist to deal with such "an obnoxious and repressive regime."

The realist vision of Iranian politics and U.S.-Iranian relations has zero chance of providing a solution to the WMD conundrum. The Bush administration needs to hang tough and be guided by the golden rule of Iranian clerical politics: Do unto them before they have a chance to do unto you. Give the Europeans a chance--several chances--to prove themselves serious. Let the French ruin the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And then decide whether you want Rafsanjani and Khamenei to have the bomb. In the end, only democracy in Iran will finally solve the nuclear and terrorist problems. Ditto for the rest of the Middle East. Whether the Bush administration understands this come June is, of course, a different matter.

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/798sghdy.asp

A Life in Exile

February 29, 2004
The New York Times
Deborah Solomon

Your new memoirs, "An Enduring Love: My Life With the Shah," offer a reverential look at your late husband, Reza Pahlavi, who ruled Iran from 1941 until he was toppled in 1979.

He was above all a patriot who wanted progress and modernity in our country. I tell my life as I lived it.

In the 25 years since he was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution and you fled to the United States for safety, have you ever been back to Iran?

No. The Islamic Republic put me on their death list. The people of Iran were promised a paradise by the fundamentalists, who opened the door to hell.

Why do the clerics demonize the United States as the Great Satan?

It's just so they can find enemies and outsiders to blame for their mismanagement, but the majority of the people in Iran are friendly to Americans, and they admire the freedom and democracy in America.

Is it because Persians view America differently than Arabs do?

For the majority of Iranians, there has never been anti-American or anti-Western sentiment, because we have never been a colony of Europe. The Iranian people understand that progress and modernity come from the West. And now we have an Iranian actress nominated for the Oscars for her role in ''House of Sand and Fog.''

Is that progress?

Yes. Your country stands for the best of everything, the best of power and possibility.

Did you ever meet Saddam Hussein during your two decades as the first lady of Iran?

I met him during the Iranian Revolution. I think it was November 1978, and I had gone to Najaf, the holy city in Iraq, to meet with a respected ayatollah. Saddam was vice president then, and he came to receive me.

What was he like?

I was a little bit astonished, because he had a long black cape coming down to his ankles, which was very strange.

You mean he was trying to make a fashion statement?

Yes. He thought the cape gave him a little style, or at least a different style.

How do you feel about the American invasion of Iraq?

When Iran was stable, we had good relations with the rest of the world, and after the Iranian Revolution happened, look what happened in that area -- the Iran-Iraq war, the Taliban, the gulf war and now the war in Iraq.

Are you saying your husband stabilized the entire Middle East? His critics describe him as a puppet installed by the C.I.A. to protect American oil interests in the region.

My husband was very close to President Nixon, and he met eight American presidents, from Roosevelt to Carter. It is true that America and the C.I.A. did not want Iran to fall in the hands of Communists.

Tell me about your day-to-day life in the United States.

At my office in the palace in Tehran I had 60 people helping me. Here I have two people. I have a lady who cooks for me and cleans up and also a driver. It is difficult for me. Sometimes I have asked friends for money.

I assume you took money with you when you fled from Iran.

Yes, and I took some jewels. Thank God, because I sold them, and it helped me live. Americans say that money doesn't bring happiness. But it helps you to live with misery in comfort.

Did you get a large advance for your book?

No! They gave me $200,000, and it was $150,000 after taxes. I keep a picture of the check because it is the first money I ever earned.

I think most writers would say that $200,000 is a nice chunk of change.

I was never interested in money. I always looked down on it. But now that I have less money, I see that without money you cannot do much. Everything in the end is about money.

Was your book at all inspired by the recent memoirs by Queen Noor of Jordan?

No. I know her book has become a best seller in America. But I didn't read all of it. I looked at it. I think mine is more personal and emotional.
Actually, neither book offers much in the way of intimate revelation.

What was the shah like as a husband? Did he remember your birthday?

He was like most husbands that way. My birthday is Oct. 14, and like every woman, I'd remind him five days before not to forget.

Do you find Americans to be knowledgeable about your country and the life you left behind?

Iran is a big country -- it is three times the size of France -- and many Americans know nothing about it. Once a stranger who had heard I was the shah's wife came running up to me and asked if she could have her picture taken with me. Afterward, she turned to me and said, ''What country is your husband the shah of?''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/magazine/29QUESTIONS.html

Iran Warns Israel Against Attacking its Facilities

February 28, 2004
The Associated Press
The Billings Gazette

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Iran's defense minister said Israel does not dare attack Iran but warned Saturday that any such military offensive would be met with a harsh response.

"I completely rule out that Israel would dare direct any military strike at any Iranian facilities," Ali Shamkhani said.

"But if Israel one day commits such military folly against Iran, I can promise you that (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon, assuming he stays alive, will appear on television screens and announce that he regrets this folly. ... He will suffer and scream out in pain," Shamkhani said.

Shamkhani was speaking to reporters at the end of his two-day official visit to Lebanon.

Shamkhani has said in the past that his country would strike back with long-range missiles if Israel attacks its nuclear facilities, as the Jewish state did against a nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981.

He said Iran's long-range Shahab-3 missile, which has a range of about 1,300 kilometers (810 miles), would be one of the weapons used. Israel is about 965 kilometers (600 miles) west of Iran.

In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi reactor under construction at Osirak, which Israel suspected would be used to produce nuclear weapons.

Both Israel and the United States believe that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but Tehran says its nuclear program is to produce energy as its oil resources decline.

In December, Iran signed an accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency, opening its nuclear facilities to inspections. The signing came after months of pressure from European nations and a U.S. push for Iran to be slapped with sanctions.

Shamkhani said Iran was not worried about having American troops next door in Iraq.

"Despite the (rosy) picture that the U.S. and others are trying to paint ... the United States is in fact inside a whirlpool (in Iraq) and consequently, it is a hostage of its military presence there," he said.

He accused the United States of trying to impose its control over the Middle East region under the pretext of spreading democracy and fighting terrorism.

Shamkhani met with Lebanon's president, prime minister and house speaker during his visit. He also held talks with the leader of Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. He arrived in Beirut Friday from neighboring Syria, where he met with President Bashar Assad.

http://www.billingsgazette.com/testdex.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/02/28/build/world/42-israel-iran.inc

Criminal Editing of the Enemy

February 28, 2004
The New York Times
Adam Liptak

Treasury Department Is Warning Publishers of the Perils of Criminal Editing of the Enemy

Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do to their prose. The federal government has recently weighed in on the same issue — literally.

It has warned publishers they may face grave legal consequences for editing manuscripts from Iran and other disfavored nations, on the ground that such tinkering amounts to trading with the enemy.

Anyone who publishes material from a country under a trade embargo is forbidden to reorder paragraphs or sentences, correct syntax or grammar, or replace "inappropriate words," according to several advisory letters from the Treasury Department in recent months.

Adding illustrations is prohibited, too. To the baffled dismay of publishers, editors and translators who have been briefed about the policy, only publication of "camera-ready copies of manuscripts" is allowed.

The Treasury letters concerned Iran. But the logic, experts said, would seem to extend to Cuba, Libya, North Korea and other nations with which most trade is banned without a government license.

Laws and regulations prohibiting trade with various nations have been enforced for decades, generally applied to items like oil, wheat, nuclear reactors and, sometimes, tourism. Applying them to grammar, spelling and punctuation is an infuriating interpretation, several people in the publishing industry said.

"It is against the principles of scholarship and freedom of expression, as well as the interests of science, to require publishers to get U.S. government permission to publish the works of scholars and researchers who happen to live in countries with oppressive regimes," said Eric A. Swanson, a senior vice president at John Wiley & Sons, which publishes scientific, technical and medical books and journals.

Nahid Mozaffari, a scholar and editor specializing in literature from Iran, called the implications staggering. "A story, a poem, an article on history, archaeology, linguistics, engineering, physics, mathematics, or any other area of knowledge cannot be translated, and even if submitted in English, cannot be edited in the U.S.," she said.

"This means that the publication of the PEN Anthology of Contemporary Persian Literature that I have been editing for the last three years," she said, "would constitute aiding and abetting the enemy."

Allan Adler, a lawyer with the Association of American Publishers, said the trade group was unaware of any prosecutions for criminal editing. But he said the mere fact of the rules had scared some publishers into rejecting works from Iran.

Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, questioned the logic of making editors a target of broad regulations that require a government license.

"There is no obvious reason why a license is required to edit where no license is required to publish," he said. "They can print anything as is. But they can't correct typos?"

In theory — almost certainly only in theory — correcting typographical errors and performing other routine editing could subject publishers to fines of $500,000 and 10 years in jail.

"Such activity," according to a September letter from the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, "would constitute the provision of prohibited services to Iran."

Tara Bradshaw, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, confirmed the restrictions on manuscripts from Iran in a statement. Banned activities include, she wrote, "collaboration on and editing of the manuscripts, the selection of reviewers, and facilitation of a review resulting in substantive enhancements or alterations to the manuscripts."

She did not respond to a request seeking an explanation of the department's reasoning.

Congress has tried to exempt "information or informational materials" from the nation's trade embargoes. Since 1988, it has prohibited the executive branch from interfering "directly or indirectly" with such trade. That exception is known as the Berman Amendment, after its sponsor, Representative Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat.

Critics said the Treasury Department had long interpreted the amendment narrowly and grudgingly. Even so, Mr. Berman said, the recent letters were "a very bizarre interpretation."

"It is directly contrary to the amendment and to the intent of the amendment," he said. "I also don't understand why it's not in our interest to get information into Iran."

Kenneth R. Foster, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, said the government had grown insistent on the editing ban. "Since 9/11 and since the Bush administration took office," he said, "the Treasury Department has been ramping up enforcement."

Publishers may still seek licenses from the government that would allow editing, but many First Amendment specialists said that was an unacceptable alternative.

"That's censorship," said Leon Friedman, a Hofstra law professor who sometimes represents PEN. "That's a prior restraint."

Esther Allen, chairwoman of the PEN American Center's translation committee, said the rules would also appear to ban translations. "During the cold war, the idea was to let voices from behind the Iron Curtain be heard," she said. "Now that's called trading with the enemy?"

In an internal legal analysis last month, the publishers' association found that the regulations "constitute a serious threat to the U.S. publishing community in general and to scholarly and scientific publishers in particular." Mr. Adler, the association's lawyer, said it was trying to persuade officials to alter the regulations and might file a legal challenge.

These days, journals published by the engineering institute reject manuscripts from Iran that need extensive editing and run a disclaimer with those they accept, said Michael R. Lightner, the institute vice president responsible for publications. "It tells readers," he said, "that the article did not get the final polish we would like."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/national/28PUBL.html?th

Uranium Traveled to Iran Via Russia, Inspectors Find

February 28, 2004
The New York Times
William J. Board

Inspectors have found evidence that some of the highly enriched uranium found on nuclear machinery in Iran came from Russia, European diplomats and American experts said Friday. The nuclear fuel appears to have come through the global black market, the experts added, and not with the blessings of Moscow.

With the findings, Russia emerges as a new and unexpected foreign source of supply to Iran's nuclear efforts. Recent revelations had shown that the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan had provided Iran with some sophisticated centrifuge technology that could be used to refine weapons-grade uranium through his hidden nuclear trading network, according to international nuclear officials and Dr. Khan's own testimony.

The Bush administration has long accused Iran of harboring a secret bomb project, which Tehran denies, saying its nuclear program is only for peacetime purposes.

In that light, last year's discovery in Iran of highly enriched uranium —a potential bomb fuel — set off an international crisis about the country's nuclear intentions and raised questions about where it had originated. Iran claimed it was contamination that came in on imported equipment, which Iranian officials said they acquired to concentrate uranium for reactors to generate electricity. The centrifuges spin rapidly to enrich uranium for both nuclear reactors and nuclear arms. High concentrations of uranium's rare 235 isotope can fuel warheads.

In a report on Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that its inspections had found that centrifuge equipment made indigenously in Iran — but not imported gear — showed many traces of the concentrated fuel, leading experts to doubt the Iranian explanation and suggest that Iran had enriched the uranium itself. Its purity was 36 percent U-235 — short of the 90 percent needed for most nuclear bomb designs but greater than that needed for most nuclear reactors.

On Friday, however, European diplomats said the agency's laboratory at Seibersdorf, Austria, had discovered a likely match between the atomic signatures of Russian uranium and samples agency inspectors had gathered from Iranian centrifuges.

In its sleuthing, the lab studies such things as a sample's isotopes — atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. A distinctive mix of such isotopes can amount to a fingerprint that experts check against atomic databanks.

The agency, a diplomat cautioned, was being extremely careful in its interpretation of the Seibersdorf data and other evidence and was still actively looking at alternative explanations.

Michael A. Levi, a science fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington who has studied the recent I.A.E.A. report, said yesterday that he had independently deduced that the Iranian uranium originated in Russia. The strong clue, he said, was its 36 percent enrichment, a level that matches a kind of fuel used in certain Russian submarines and research reactors. Globally, he added, he knew of no other nuclear technology that used 36 percent enrichment.

"There's no reason for Iran to enrich to 36 percent," he said. `The only place that does that is Russia."

He added that it was highly unlikely that the Russian government sold Iran the uranium because its scientists could have easily concealed the telltale signature.

Rather, he argued, thieves probably stole the material either from Russia proper or elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and sold it on the black market.

Nations that use Russian reactors fueled with 36 percent enriched uranium, Mr. Levi said, include not only Russia but also the Czech Republic, Germany (in the former East sector), Hungary, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Poland, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. None of the similarly enriched Russian submarine fuel is exported through legal channels.

Poor security over such materials has been the rule rather than the exception since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Levi said. For instance, in 1993, two Russian naval servicemen stole nearly four pounds of 36 percent enriched uranium from a naval base at Andreyeva Guba, Russia. They were caught and the material recovered.

Mr. Levi said Iran might have wanted a supply of 36 percent uranium because it could ease the production of bomb-grade uranium, making the process much faster and easier.

He estimated, for instance, that enriching one bomb's worth of material would take one year of running 66 pounds of 36 percent enriched uranium through just 25 centrifuges. A set of such centrifuges, known as a cascade, incrementally concentrates the U-235 isotope.

In contrast, if Iran started with natural, unenriched uranium, Mr. Levi said, the same production run would require 13,200 pounds of raw material running through 750 centrifuges. Such a cascade, he noted, "would be far harder to hide than the 15 centrifuge arrangement."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/international/middleeast/28NUKE.html

Iran Approves Spending $1.56M To Thwart US 'Plots'

February 28, 2004
Dow Jones Newswires
The Associated Press

TEHRAN -- Iran's legislature Saturday approved $1.56 million in spending to thwart "plots and act of interference" by the U.S. in Iran's internal affairs, state-run media reported.

This year's annual expenditure marked a slight increase over last year's $1.5 million.

The money will be used to "unveil and nullify U.S. plots and its acts of interference in Iran's internal affairs," state-run radio said. It will also be utilized to file lawsuits against the U.S. at the International Court of Justice at The Hague and to "enlighten domestic and world public opinion on U.S cultural invasion."

Iran approves such a budget every year. The official Islamic Republic News Agency said this year's bill was in response to the Iran Democracy Act, passed last year by the U.S. Congress. That act was designed to release government money to help expand pro-democracy broadcasting into Iran and make it U.S. policy to work for an internationally monitored referendum in Iran to bring about peaceful change in government.

Last summer, Iran experienced four days of unrest by students in major cities. Iranian officials said the protests were orchestrated by the U.S. and denounced what they said was Washington's interference in Tehran's internal affairs. Iran's has accused U.S.-based satellite stations of stoking unrest by providing unfiltered information into the country.

The U.S. hasn't had diplomatic relations with Iran since fundamentalists triumphed in a revolution in 1979 and took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. In 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush named Iran together with Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil."

http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2004022821510000&Take=1

Iran Approves Spending $1.56M To Thwart US 'Plots'

February 28, 2004
Dow Jones Newswires
The Associated Press

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1087718/posts?page=8#8

Iran Poised for Terror Campaign Against Gaddafi

February 29, 2004
Telegraph Uk
Con Coughlin

Iran is trying to prevent Libya from disclosing incriminating details of Teheran's top-secret nuclear weapons programme, by threatening to unleash Islamic fundamentalist groups opposed to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Western intelligence specialists have learned from interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects, captured close to Afghanistan's border with Iran, that a militant group of Libyan extremists is being protected and trained by terrorism experts from Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

The Libyan Combat Islamic Group (GICL) was expelled from Libya by Gaddafi in 1997 after it was implicated in attacks against government targets. At first the group relocated to Afghanistan, where it became closely involved in Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation.

After the war in Afghanistan in 2001 the Libyan group was given a safe haven in Iran, together with other North African terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda. Now the Iranians have agreed to provide the Libyan dissidents with expert training to enable them to attack Libyan targets and intensify their campaign to overthrow Gaddafi.

The Iranians have told Libya of the group's presence in Iran, but promised to restrict its activities to al-Qaeda operations elsewhere so long as Gaddafi does not reveal details of Iran's secret nuclear activity.

One of the reasons that Gaddafi sought to improve relations with British intelligence following September 11 was his concern about the growing effectiveness of Libya's Islamic terrorist groups. The improved relations culminated in Gaddafi's decision, announced at the end of last year, to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction.

"This is a serious initiative by the Iranians," said a Western intelligence official with access to the interrogation transcripts of al-Qaeda detainees in Afghanistan. "They are desperate to prevent Gaddafi from spilling the beans about either Iran's involvement in international terrorism or in developing nuclear weapons."

Teheran is known to have enjoyed an unofficial co-operation pact with Libya on nuclear weapons development since the mid-1990s. Iran's nuclear programme has come under intense scrutiny since Gaddafi finally acknowledged the existence of the Libyan nuclear bomb project at the end of last year.

In the past, Libyan military officials regularly attended test-firing sessions of Iran's Shahab ballistic missile, which many weapons experts believe is being developed as a delivery system for nuclear weapons.

New evidence, collated by officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna since Gaddafi agreed to dismantle his nuclear programme, has revealed how Pakistan provided both Tripoli and Teheran with the expertise and materials to construct a nuclear device.

Now that Libyan scientists are co-operating fully with IAEA officials and are revealing the extent of Gaddafi's nuclear weapons project, Teheran is becoming increasingly concerned that the Libyans will also reveal details of Iran's nuclear weapons project.

Officially, the Iranians deny any attempt to develop a nuclear weapon, claiming that their research programme is designed solely for civilian uses, such as developing a nuclear power industry.

Last week, however, Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA's director-general, reported that Iran had undertaken nuclear experiments that it failed to declare, raising fears that Teheran is still trying to build an atom bomb. Inspectors discovered undeclared nuclear material, including polonium, a radioactive element used to trigger a nuclear bomb, and traces of uranium enriched to a far greater degree than the Iranians had previously admitted.

Iran's government fears that it may become the next target in the war on terrorism if it cannot convince the IAEA that its nuclear development project is harmless.

For now, the Libyan dissidents are being trained at a camp in southern Iran. If Tripoli makes any unauthorised disclosures about the Iranian programme, however, they will be encouraged by Teheran to resume their violent campaign to overthrow Gaddafi.

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/29/wiran29.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/02/29/ixworld.html

Iran and Lebanon 'strategic allies'

2004/02/29
IRIB

Beirut, Feb 29 - President Emile Lahoud described Tehran and Beirut as 'strategic allies' as he decorated Iranian Defense Minister rear-admiral Ali Shamkhani with Lebanon's highest military honor.

Lahoud said the honor, the first to be accorded to an Iranian official by Lebanon, was a token of appreciation for Shamkhani's prominent role in boosting the two countries' defense ties and strengthening the spirit of 'resistance' between them.

The Lebanese President hailed 'remarkable achievements' of Iran's defense delegation to Beirut and described strong relations between the two Muslim nations as 'unbreakable'.

He said the 'Tehran, Damascus and Beirut axis' have an important role in promoting peace and security in the Middle East.

Shamkhani conveyed Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's oral message to Lahoud and highlighted defense cooperation between the two countries.

The minister outlined the sensitive situation of the Middle East region and described coordination among Iran, Syria and Lebanon as essential in order to confront US and Israeli threats and pressures.

He also expressed satisfaction with recent victories, achieved by Lebanon, following the release of Lebanese freedom fighters from Israeli jails.

Shamkhani also described ties between Tehran and Beirut as friendly and strategic, based on the political will of the two countries' top officials.

The Iranian Defense Minister described US' plan for a 'greater Middle East' as a 'serious threat to the security, independence and stability of the Islamic countries'.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=199464&n=34

The following is a interesting bit of correspondence between Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi (daughter of film maker in prison in Iran) and Gary Sick (Formerly of the Jimmy Carter Administration).

From Banafsheh:

ALL OF A SUDDEN, this guy who was instrumental in installing my father's jailors in place CARES about my father's fate...YEAH RIGHT...Looks like this pushy old man has either been a teacher OR a student of the Stalinist fairy tale writing school. The sad part is that he doesn't even know that EVERYONE is reading the e-mails being sent around by his silly little oil-grubbing group.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary G Sick"
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 2:34 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Gary Sick on Iran

It is a mystery to me why, if you are so anguished by what some members write in G2K, that you go to such lengths to sneak a peek.

Your father deserves all the sympathy and support that the outside world can muster. Not only has he been cruelly imprisoned and persecuted, but he must also realize that, in the name of defending him, his daughter has adopted the very same methods of hatred, intolerance and conviction of
infallibility that motivated those who put him in prison.

Gary Sick

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi wrote:
Mr. Sick,

Seriously, who do you think these fabulous REFORMISTS you're apologizing for, really are? Wasn't Khatami the PR guy for Hezbollah? Give us a break with the rhetoric already...We're hip to this game. What makes you think you
can think or decide the fate of Iran? Who died and left you in charge of the destiny of my country? Your actions border on undignified, Sir. You were supposed to be a statesman...how have you now ended up as the architect of
doom for a nation who does not want you "gaming" on it? Doesn't the loathe that Iranians feel for you make you feel bad? Aren't you embarassed that you are thought of and described the world over by a great number of pretty smart people, as an arrogant pseudo-puppet master? Sorry to be so blunt and possibly even rude (I was brought up to be very polite to my elders but also to speak the painful truth as I see it) about this but you're getting up there in years now...why don't you relax and let younger folks who are less burdoned by deep seated and calcified dogma run the show? Today's world requires flexible and horizontal thinking and insight; your generation has for the most part, proven itself to be a vertical-minded stick-in-the-mud.

In the words of the great Winston Churchill: "if you're not a communist when you're in your twenties, you have no heart; if you're not a capitalist when you're in your forties, you have no brain!" Now THOSE are words to live by!

Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary G Sick" <ggs2@columbia.edu
To: "gulf2000 list" <
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 1:14 PM
Subject: Details Matter
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:55:41 +0000

Forgetting the details in any realm of life is the task of philosophical totalitarianism and epistemological totalitarianism that are the political totalitarianism's family members. We are no Gods and cannot look at history and life like him, although Gods, as presented in theology, has general and detailed knowledge of the world at the same time- he is supposed to be omniscient. For totalitarians the suffering of "a" human being does not matter, because they look at history as God looks at it in a long shot; this is the most dangerous perspective for politicians and political analysts. We are supposed to have close-up and long shots at the same time, though difficult.

Saying that there is no difference between the folks who are leaving the Majlis and the folks who are arriving, or calling the ex-military appointed MPs of the Seventh parliament as reformist is totally based on a totalitarian epistemology. Supposedly the both groups have been similar in the 1980's, but reformists did not kill Zahra Kazemi, authoritarians did; reformists did not attack university dorms, authoritarians did; reformists did not stabbed Frouhars' bodies 15 and 9 times, authoritarians did; reformists are pro-life (love + happiness + choice) and authoritarians are pro death. Some of the reformists jumped over the U.S. embassy walls but they did not kill 250 Iranians political activists and intellectuals in a few years; most of the reformists were revolutionaries in their 20's but they are now involved in a non-violent civil rights movement.

Reformists have very awful records in fighting against authoritarians but this does not mean that Mafia goons are efficient in feeding the people, creating jobs, attracting foreign investment, defending the realm and dealing with neighbors. Authoritarians have been the main obstacles for these tasks. The authoritarian policies and actions have never been able to do the sorts of things any country has to do. In Khomeini's term, "they cannot run a bakery." When Rafsanjani left the office, the country had more than 30 billion dollars debt, and now the reformist administration has 10 billion dollars in his deposit box. Iranian authoritarians are heroes of deficit.

For people who care about human rights and suffering of the Iranian people, any gain of the foot-boys of Iranian mafia is " sort of as if the end of the world is arriving." I invite people who are sitting in the position of God in the U.S. to go to Iran - with an eternal regime that is not in danger of imminent fall - and live under the auspices of Iranian mafia for a while to experience nightly curfews, to be attacked by the police for having satellite dishes and receivers at home, to be tried for writing an article or saying something, and to be beaten by the vice police for wearing short-sleeve shirts in Summer. I don't know when
this regime will collapse - no one can predict in an unpredictable situation created by this regime- but we are not be shameful of the hope that we have for Iranian people who deserve more than this.

The authoritarian regime in Iran cannot be an effective regime; Mohammad Reza Shah, and Rafsanjani are two good examples of this failure. In Iran, political development and democratization comes first. Rafsanjani had the same slogans for economic development when he revised the constitution and got the power in 1989: bread and not democracy. The dream for bread did not come true. Rafsanjani talked about making Kouhgilouyeh another Switzerland, and now Haddad-e `Adel talks about "Islamic Japan." For Iranians, left or right, these are jokes (ideology), not utopia.

"The reform process will probably accelerate now that the so-called "hardliners" are in charge of the Majlis," if we define "reform" as more violation of human, civil and constitutional rights of Iranian people.

They closed two newspapers and the headquarter of Participation Front Party before the end of counting ballots; We have seen these kinds of reforms for a quarter of a century by Iranian authoritarians.

The "new reforms" will include:

-more filtering of websites,

-more pressures on NGOs,

-more torture and solitary confinements for activists,

-more censorship of books and movies,

-more killings of non-conformists by people who want to enforce the shari`ah law and clean the society,

-more selling the public companies to authoritarians with almost free prices that was called privatization in Rafsanjani's administration,

-more luxury (Khamenei bought a private airplane from Brunei with a price of 130 million dollars and the seller is disappeared; the government has arrested the Iranian dealer who has got 6 million dollars as his percentage),

-more embezzlement and corruption,

-more dams with leakage,

-more openings of buildings that were opened several times by the officials and so on.

Iran In Touch With Al-Qaeda Terror Network: US Envoy

Feb 129 2004
Indolink, US News

Islamabad, Feb. 29 (NNN): Iran is in contact with Al-Qaeda terror network, US State Department’s ambassador-at-large J Cofer Black has alleged.

He has demanded that Iran must expel or extradite all members of the network to the countries of their origin.

In an exclusive interview with Geo TV, Black said that US intelligence agencies are aware of the presence of some senior al-Qaeda leaders in Iran who are dangerous. He said that "these al-Qaeda operators are not only a threat to the US but they are also a threat to Pakistan".

Black appreciated the role of Pakistan in the war against terrorism and said that "two-thirds of al-Qaeda has been neutralised and more than 3,500 supporters have been arrested all over the world after 9/11".

He was not sure that Osama bin Laden would be captured alive but he said one thing with full confidence: "We will capture him very soon, if he does not surrender, then I don’t know what will happen?"

Black categorically denied the report of Radio Tehran that Osama was captured in South Waziristan. He said that the radio made the same claim last year, which was not true.

Black served for 28 years in the CIA but he was not ready to answer some questions related to intelligence. He neither confirmed nor contradicted the recent secret visit of CIA chief George Tenet to Pakistan. He was not ready to comment on a reported meeting between Tenet and Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan in Islamabad but he said that Dr Qadeer is definitely providing vital information about proliferation.

Responding to a question, Black confirmed that coalition troops in Afghanistan are preparing for a major "hunt Osama operation" but he refused to comment on the reports that Osama’s deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahri was spotted by US spy planes recently in the Waziristan region. Black also spoke on the threat of nuclear terrorism.

http://www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php?id=022804102334

Bump!

If Kerry is elected, you can bet that he'll "make peace" with the mullahs.

That is what I am afraid of too.

This ties in with another report I read, that Iran may be getting ready to turn over some big players in al-Qaeda network. Real soon.....
And wouldn't that make the regime look good? And maybe everyone would stop bugging them so much about their nukes? After all, they're just trying to make electricity..........

"-more luxury (Khamenei bought a private airplane from Brunei with a price of 130 million dollars and the seller is disappeared; the government has arrested the Iranian dealer who has got 6 million dollars as his percentage),"

Sounds like a "STEAL" of a deal.

Iran's Atomic Lies

February 28, 2004
The Globe and Mail
Globe Comment

IRVAJ: Pictures of Doshan Tappeh Air Base can be seen here.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/doshan-tappeh-imagery.htm

Time and again, Iran's ruling clerics have been caught cheating on their commitments under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Time and again, the international community has given them a pass. Each time, they swear up and down that they have no intention of producing nuclear weapons. Each time, they are caught doing things that suggest they are doing just that.

In the latest go-round, the International Atomic Energy Agency found that Iran had failed to reveal its possession of advanced centrifuge designs and components that are used to enrich uranium, a key step in the creation of a bomb. Within hours of the IAEA's finding, Iran pledged to take stronger steps to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities.

That's fine, except that Iran made similar promises last fall when a tough IAEA report found suspicious nuclear activities going back 18 years. Iran admitted that it had a secret program to enrich uranium, but claimed it was for peaceful purposes and pledged to cease and desist. It now seems that that promise was hollow. Why should other countries believe Iran's latest vows?

The United States, for one, is highly skeptical. Since last June it has been pressing the IAEA's board to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council for its transgressions, a move that could trigger sanctions against the Iranian regime. European powers want a softer approach and this week, after intense talks, they struck yet another deal with the clerics. In order to avoid the IAEA report and ensuing sanctions, Iran told the EU it would suspend all enrichment. That means that, once again, Iran is off the hook.

Now, everyone wants to avoid confrontation with Iran if possible. If the clerics can be persuaded to part with their nuclear ambitions without subjecting them to punishment, all to the good. It is always possible that sanctions might push them into quitting the NPT and pressing ahead openly to build nuclear weapons. That is why the Europeans want to avoid referring the matter to the Security Council.

But a face-off can't be put off indefinitely. If Iran keeps lying about its nuclear activities, the international community will have to assume it is building a bomb. A nuclear Iran is something frightful to contemplate. As the clerics themselves demonstrated when they fixed last week's election to crush the democratic opposition, this remains a ruthless, hardline regime, deeply hostile to the West and determined to be a regional power. It continues to support terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. It continues to call for the destruction of Israel.

Avoiding confrontation with Iran now could lead to a far worse confrontation later.

http://www.globeandmail.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040228/EIRAN28//?query=Iran

Iran's DM slams US-style democracy

2004/02/29
IRIB

Beirut, Feb 29 - Iran's Defense Minister Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani denounced here Saturday a US-style democracy for the Middle East, which was unveiled at a recent security conference in Munich under the title of transatlantic initiative for the Middl e East.

"The greater Middle East initiative, which is being implemented under the guise of democracy and the fight against terrorism is prejudicial and bullying," he said in a meeting with his Lebanese counterpart Mahmoud Hammoud.

Shamkhani said the aim of the plan was 'to directly challenge the security and stability of the sensitive Middle East region', which he said, had been 'designed by White House experts'.

"All the threats which have been brought up and are being made in different forms against Islam, the Islamic countries and the Middle East region are conducted under the cover of America's greater Middle East initiative," he added.

The Iranian Defense Minister called for 'vigilance' and urged the Middle East countries to bolster security in the region in order to confront the American plan.

Shamkhani and Hammoud also discussed the Middle East situation, including developments in the occupied Palestinian lands, as well as bilateral ties between Tehran and Beirut.

The Iranian Defense Minister said a joint committee had been formed to explore capacities for the two countries' defense cooperation and examine how to expand it.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Hammoud described talks with his Iranian counterpart as 'helpful and constructive', in which the two countries' relations at the defense ministerial level were reviewed.

"Regional developments and Israel's threats against Lebanon and Syria as well as the aggressive measures of this regime against our Palestinian brethren were among the key topics of discussion with Shamkhani," he said.

Iran and Lebanon believe that the fate of the Middle East has to be decided by the regional nations, Hammoud said, adding democracy is achievable only under the cooperation and provision of the plans arising from people's beliefs.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=199460&n=32