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WASHINGTON — A report published by the U.S. Army War College ruled out a U.S. military or diplomatic option to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program. Instead, the report, entitled "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran," said the dismantling of Israel's purported nuclear weapons program could be the only way to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The report, entitled "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran," was edited by Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, and Patrick Clawson, deputy director at the Washington Institute. "You have a whole neighborhood of folks posed, at any...

Dear Freeper Friends: As many of you are aware, Doctor Zin has dedicated thousands of hours to provide information on his web site "Regime Change in Iran".  When the students were protesting in Iran, Doctor Zin had the latest up to date information.  He always does when it comes to Iran.  He has done a very nice job over the years and is now poised to have his site recognized for it's top notch quality.  That is of course, if he can get enough votes. Free Republic encourages each of us to become involved.  Doctor Zin has taken that...

Former justice department prosecutor and intelligence expert John Loftus says that Israel is unable to thwart Iran's nuclear projects through military action – but that there is an alternative. "Israel only has a few option and striking back is not one of 'em," Loftus told Israel National Radio's Tovia Singer. "The F-16-IL version that Israel possesses only has a combat radius of about 2,200 kilometers and you would need about 3,000 to hit the hard targets in Iran. Iran saw what [Israel] did to the Osarik reactor in Iraq and have spread their nuclear development stuff all over the country...

ISRAEL urged the world to "open its eyes" to the Iranian regime and its nuclear programme after its outspoken president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described the Holocaust as a "myth". Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman pledged that Israel had the means to defend itself and would not allow for a second genocide of Jews. "Thank God, Israel has the means at its disposal to bring about the downfall of this extremist regime in Iran. There will be no second 'final solution'," Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin said. "We hope that these extremist declarations will make the world wake up to the nature of...

Weblog Awards Update: [http://weblogawards.org/2005/12/best_middle_east_or_africa_blo.php] We have gone from 300 votes behind the leader to 125 (as of this writing). A first place finish will expose our work to a much larger audience. Vote now and vote every 24 hours. Voting Ends December 15th. It takes just a few seconds. Click the link below: Click here!

CAIRO, Egypt -- In the aftermath of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ascendancy to the presidency of Iran, the country's opposition is beginning to show signs of unifying as the clerical regime wages a war against internal dissent. Yesterday, the regime closed all schools in Tehran, citing poor air quality, after word leaked of the first major demonstrations since the summer. Nonetheless, a rally at Tehran University attracted 300 demonstrators amid a heavy police presence on campus. Of note is that before the rally against the new president, a coalition of Kurdish students also signed on to the call. In Brussels on Monday,...

A conversation with Amir Abbas Fakhravar. Iranian Amir Abbas Fakhravar is a hunted man. A former medical student and journalist for the now-banned reform newspapers Moshareka and Khordad, Fakhravar came to prominence with the publication of his book This Place Is Not a Ditch, in which he criticized Iran’s rulers and called on the Iranian people to reject the mullahs’ regime. For doing so, he was sentenced in 2002 to eight years in prison. His status as a political prisoner and his mistreatment while incarcerated — he was reportedly denied medical care, and suffered frequent physical attacks — brought international...

The following is an an unofficial and abridged translation Of a statement dated November 2005 signed by 674 personalities including former Members of the Iranian Majles (parliament); well know academics, political and cultural personalities as well as student activists. In the Name of God The eight year struggle for the promotion of political reforms initiated internally at the behest of the regime has finally come to a halt having been directed towards fundamentalism by way of an organized election, leaving the aged Iranian nation in the grip of a serious socio-political crisis with its ensuing worries for Iranian society and...

<p>When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called last month for Israel to be wiped off the map of the world, he displayed a disregard for the international community that proved he is a genuine disciple of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. But his proposal also showed that he hasn't learned any lessons from recent Iranian history. In a country where public opinion takes shape in direct opposition to the regime, the objects of hostile statements like Ahmadinejad's almost always win friends among young Iranians.</p>

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20040623.htm "The [Bush] Administration did not hesitate to heighten and distort public fear of terrorism after September 11th, to create a political case for attacking Iraq." -- Former Vice President Al Gore, February 5, 2004The Clinton Administration's Public Case Against Saddam Hussein In June of 1997, Iraq officials had ratcheted up their obstruction of UNSCOM inspection efforts. They interfered with UNSCOM air operations and denied and delayed access of inspectors to sites. In September, they burned documents at sites while inspectors watched outside the front entrance. By mid-November, Saddam Hussein had demanded an end to U-2 surveillance flights over Iraq...

Just how big a threat was Saddam Hussein? Let’s reprise what our leaders had to say on the subject. First, here’s the president: “If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences. ... Now, let’s imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction...? “Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its...

Hindsight usually follows failure. As I write, things looked bad in Iraq. At regular intervals over the last two years I have asked the same question of former colleagues in the British and American governments: in Iraq, is the glass half-empty or is it half-full? With one exception the answer has been "half-full". The exception was a trusted American friend and government official, who, after paying a recent visit to Iraq, returned to tell the White House: "We're fucked." Even if the most optimistic predictions are finally realised for Iraq, the question will still be asked: why did the Americans...

US 'aiming at Syria regime change' By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 05/10/2005) Israel predicted yesterday that America would impose fresh sanctions on Syria in an attempt to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Shaul Mofaz, the defence minister, said he believed sanctions would follow publication of a United Nations report expected to implicate senior Syrian officials in the murder of Rafik al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister. President Assad could face US military action "I won't be surprised if Syria gets a red card," Mr Mofaz told Israel radio. "[The United States] will take actions against Syria, beginning with economic...

An Iranian daily commented on the US long-term efforts to overthrow Iran's Islamic Republic, stressing that Tehran was and still is the only winner on all accounts. Referring to the Sacred Defense Week (started since September 22, 2005) which marks the 25th anniversary of the Iraqi imposed war against Iran (1980-1988), the 'Kayhan International' said the war took place with the full support of the US and its allies. "Saddam was on an unholy mission to wipe out the Islamic Revolution and to serve the interests of his masters in the Capitol Hill," said the English-language paper. It stressed "The...

...describing the intellectuals who oppose democracy and the factors obstructing its implementation. At the end of his study, he concludes that Arab societies are facing a dilemma: they must either sever their ties with their medieval legacy and adopt a philosophy of life and freedom rather than one of death and hatred, or else must sever their ties with Western civilization and reject democracy and modernity. The Arabs Don't Understand that the World Has Changed Al-Houni begins his treatise by explaining that he intends to present a different viewpoint from the nationalist, conspiracy-based viewpoint currently prevalent in the Arab world,...

But in a stunning display of the regime's vulnerability, the Syrian President has aborted the visit. Assad was terrified that he might be indicted while in New York off the back of the inquiry into the Hariri killing conducted by the chief UN investigator, Detlev Mehlis. The dour but dogged German had already fingered four pro-Syrian Lebanese security officials and is now — with the help of the French and other secret services — following the powder trail all the way back to Damascus. This is likely to bring him very close to Assad himself. There was a second, connected...

U.S. Policy Options for Iran: Sham Elections, Disinformation Campaign, Human Rights Abuses, and Regime Change Excerpt from Executive Summary While the Bush administration has been reluctant to adopt an unambiguous policy of regime change for Iran, the outcome of the Iranian electoral process, disinformation campaign, and violations of human rights require adoption of an explicit regime change policy for Iran.  An ambiguous American policy was somewhat effective prior to the June 2005 Iranian elections. That policy allowed Washington to support the European diplomatic initiative toward Iran without fear of being blamed for sabotaging negotiations by threatening the regime’s existence....

The Iraq Liberation Act October 31, 1998 STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT (excerpts) Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998." This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers. Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are: The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving...

"The most radical portion of the population with the most dangerous Islamic fundamentalist ideas are now in charge. Bad days to come." Those words come from Mr. Behi, an Iranian online diarist or Web logger, or blogger. The Bush administration has been talking about regime change in Iran for some time but the mullahs in Tehran beat him to it. Granted, it was not the change Mr. Bush, or many Iranians, expected. Last Friday's presidential election in Iran brought Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a staunch conservative and a supporter and enforcer of strict Islamic traditions, to power. He won with...

Libyan Opposition Seeks to Topple GadhafiBy MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 26, 6:57 PM ET LONDON - Divisions over tactics and vision split Libyan opposition groups in exile, but participants at a two-day conference agreed Sunday to unite under a "national accord" aimed at ousting Moammar Gadhafi. In a final declaration, the groups addressed the United Nations, saying the global body was responsible for restoring Libya's constitution. The charter was drafted in 1951 as part of a U.N. resolution — but Gadhafi froze it after assuming power in a military coup and replaced it with martial law. "Bringing...

If the polls and pundits can be believed, Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani will move a step closer to regaining the presidency of Iran in tomorrow's national elections. And while the Iranian people will view the results with a mixture of resignation and boredom... Mr. Rafsanjani's rehabilitation will be welcomed in Paris, London, Berlin and, most unfortunately, Washington. The Western powers are betting that Mr. Rafsanjani, a billionaire businessman who was Iran's president from 1989 to 1997, will either win an outright majority tomorrow or be elected in a two-candidate runoff on July 1. They feel that he - unlike the...

PARIS 10 June (IPS) "In Iran, real power is not in the hands of the president, but in those of the religious guide, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i. Therefore it is all the system of the Islamic Republic that must be changed”, veteran Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji stated in an interview with the centrist French daily Le Figaro. The interview with Ms. Daphne Minoui the paper’s correspondent in Iran was carried one day after the Iranian Judiciary launched a warrant against him, on grounds that the prisoner did not show up at prison at the end of a week-long permission to leave...

"The HAKHA Movement" is a freedom coalition of pro-democracy Iranians and champions the vision of a free Iran reclaiming its rightful position in the international community. The HAKHA Movement is a global initiative to advance, in common cause on behalf of all Iranians, the purposes of national self- determination, the principles of secular democracy, the capacity for responsible self-government, the respect for individual and universal human rights and the provision of institutions of ordered liberty essential for a free Iran. Currently, at the core of "The HAKHA Movement" is Dr. A.F.K. Yazdi. Dr. A.F.K. Yazdi, on behalf of the People...

Former President Clinton said Wednesday the political changes in Iraq, including parliamentary elections in January, will help bring stability to the region. Clinton met with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and a number of Danish lawmakers during his visit. The former president spoke with reporters before flying to Jordan for a poverty conference. "The Sunnis and the Shiites, the Kurds and all the various tribes can work out accommodations that will allow them to build a stable society, I think that will be good for Iraq and good for the Middle East," Clinton said at the end of a...

NEW YORK For much of the week, much of the U.S. press paid little attention to the highly classified British memo, leaked to a British newspaper, which seems to reveal that President Bush decided by summer 2002 to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy. That changed on Friday, when Knight Ridder circulated a lengthy report on the memo by Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott. The memo was first disclosed earlier this week by the Sunday Times of London. It has not been disavowed by the British government. A...

'Here it is. The smoking gun. The memo that has "IMPEACH HIM" written all over it. 'The top-level government memo marked "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL," dated eight months before Bush sent us into Iraq, following a closed meeting with the President, reads, "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." 'Read that again: "The intelligence and facts were being fixed . . . ."

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain discussed supporting the United States to bring about a change of government in Iraq eight months before the March 2003 invasion, Tony Blair said on Sunday. But the prime minister, facing an election on Thursday in which the divisive war could cost him votes, denied suggestions his government took an early decision to topple Saddam Hussein. His comments came in response to a leaked memo in a newspaper that said Blair and President Bush were determined to oust Iraq's former leader as early as July 2002. "I actually talked about regime change if it wasn't possible...

PETER ACKERMAN'S QUEST TO TOPPLE TYRANNY Regime Change, Inc. by Franklin Foer   Post date 04.14.05 | Issue date 04.25.05 When the Rose Revolution began in the fall of 2003, there was little reason to hope for a happy ending. Twelve years earlier, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia had stepped from communism into civil war. The old Communist eminence Eduard Shevardnadze may have brought greater stability when he took over the government in 1992, but his corrupt rule also generated huge new pools of ill will among the populace. Some of this disgust manifested itself in small, peaceful street protests. But...

Dr. Jerry Corsi will appear on Hannity & Colmes this evening to talk about his new book, Atomic Iran, and about the Iran Freedom Foundation. He will also discuss his plan to walk from the Liberty Bell to Washington DC to demonstrate support for the Iranian people, and to focus attention on the need for peaceful change in Iran. Jerry will be on during the second half of the show, so that's any time after 9:30 Eastern.

The Pentagon is now convinced that air strikes on Syria have become necessary to overthrow the Assad regime, liberate Lebanon and stop support of insurgents waging a guerrilla war against American forces in Iraq as well as Palestinian militants against Israel, the U.S.-sponsored Al Hurra TV network says. "Political action to deal with the problem of Syria's presence in Lebanon and its support of terrorism against Israel and Iraq is no longer deemed effective," Al Hurra quoted American intelligence sources as saying, according to slain ex-Premier Hariri's Al Mustaqbal newspaper on Friday. "Diplomacy as a means to deal with...

Could it be true that democracy -- having been given a good push by the Bush administration -- is breaking out in the Middle East? The administration has said that with Afghanistan and Iraq's elections as examples, we would see a benevolent domino effect throughout the region. With the fall of Lebanon's Syrian-backed government on Monday, after massive public protests in reaction to the assassination of popular former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, a new window on the future has been opened for the Lebanese. But those who follow public opinion in the Arab world also know that a note of...

<p>Just watching CNN. They Pro-Syrian government has just resigned. Huge celebrations in Beirut.</p>

It was hardly the speech we had been hoping for. George W Bush, as any fule kno, is a conservative hard-man, a scourge of international lawyers, a unilateralist. If he has one guiding principle in foreign affairs, it is a preference for national democracy over supra-national bureaucracy. On Kyoto, or the International Criminal Court, or the UN, he takes the robust view that elected politicians are preferable to unaccountable fonctionnaires. Yet here he was in Brussels lauding perhaps the most backward and anti-democratic project in the Western world. European integration, he says, is a force for peace and freedom on...

BEIRUT - the head of the Lebanese government Omar Karamé, whose departure is claimed by the opposition, said himself "ready to resign provided that we fall from agreement on a new cabinet", in a public statement Wednesday by daily newspaper Al-Nahar. "I am ready to resign provided that we fall from agreement on a new government in order to avoid a constitutional vacuum", Mr. Karamé with the daily newspaper affirmed. "I am ready (to be done it) when I am certain that this decision will not be a jump in the unknown", it declared. Mr. Karamé in addition indicated...

WASHINGTON: US President George W. Bush has been actively behind “regime change” for Iran, but the route to that end has yet to be defined and the perils are great, US experts said. Bush and his top aides have turned up the volume in their verbal attacks on the Islamic republic, calling it an “outpost of tyranny” and one of the principal backers of international terror, on its way to developing a nuclear weapon. It was three years ago that Bush plotted Iran on an “axis of evil,” alongside North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. US officials shy away from...

WASHINGTON — Though the Bush administration denies it has any designs on changing Iran's theocracy, members of Congress are planning ways to assist in a possible "regime change." Movements are afoot in both the House and Senate to pass legislation that would enable the U.S. government to support foreign and domestic pro-democracy groups opposed to the current Islamic republic of Iran. Aides for Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said the senator is drafting legislation that would resemble a bill he introduced in the last congressional session, the "Iran Freedom and Support Act." (search) Though the language in the new bill is...

Washington, DC, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. State Department said Thursday it was not pursuing a policy of regime change in Iran. "The United States has been very clear, its officials have been very clear that we do not have a policy of regime change towards Iran," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. Fears the United States might try to topple the Iranian regime were stoked last month after New Yorker magazine said U.S. military personnel were operating inside Iran and gathering information about possible nuclear facilities and weapons sites. In his State of the Union address Wednesday, President Bush...

China's worsening North Korean headache By Kosuke Takahashi TOKYO - The problem of China's intractable neighbor North Korea developing nuclear weapons could grow even worse for Beijing if the United States seeks United Nations Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang. Then what will China do? How will it vote? Will its problem with its old Korean ally become a Sino-US problem - or even crisis? A Chinese diplomat close to the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity, showed this correspondent four four-character Chinese idioms commonly used in North Asia and specifically used these days to describe North Korea's duplicity, especially with...

/begin my translation Horowitz: N. Korea To Implode In a Year( gone by next Xmas?) "The Passage of N. Korean Human Right Act signals the demise of N. Korean regime" (Washington/Yonhap) Kim Dae-young - Speaking of N. Korea, Michael Horowitz, a leading American conservative figure and a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute, predicted on (Dec) 23rd that N. Korea will "implode" within a year. In a lecture given at Hudson Institute in Washington D.C. under the title of "It Ain’t Christmas in Pyongyang: Will the Kim Jong-Il Regime Last?", he told the audience, "N. Korea will implode before the next...

"What if revolution broke out in Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden wasn’t invited? This is the question the terrorist mastermind is pondering, as he makes clear in his latest audiotape, which appeared December 16 on the al Qaeda-affiliated al Qalah (the Fortress) website www.qal3ah.net . Osama is afraid that the cause he has been championing for over a decade, namely the fall of the House of Saud, might be achieved while he is still in exile. And after all that hard work he did. You can imagine him grumbling in his beard. There ain’t no justice. The lengthy audiotape...

Japanese Official Warns of Fissures in North Korea(130 generals defected?) Japanese Official Warns of Fissures in North Korea By JAMES BROOKE Published: November 22, 2004 OKYO, Nov. 21 - After weeks of reports from North Korea of defecting generals, antigovernment posters and the disappearance of portraits of the country's ruler, the leader of Japan's governing party warned Sunday of the prospects of "regime change" in North Korea. "As long as Chairman Kim Jong Il controls the government, we have to negotiate with him, but it is becoming more doubtful whether we will be able to achieve anything with this government,"...

Public portraits of N Korea's Kim disappear 48 minutes ago MOSCOW (Reuters) - Portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il have been taken down from public places where they have been hanging, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass has reported from China. Tass reported the highly unusual move on Tuesday in a dispatch from Beijing quoting an unidentified foreign diplomat reached by telephone in North Korea (news - web sites). The diplomat said guests invited to official receptions in the North Korean capital Pyongyang had seen only portraits of state founder Kim Il-sung. "Only a light rectangular spot on the yellow...

While the U.S. is "aggressively" pressuring the government of Iran to curtail its nuclear program, the Bush administration does not seek "regime change" in Tehran, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday. "We are not getting ready to invade Iran," Powell told CNBC "Wall Street Journal Report" host Maria Bartiromo. "We have no intention of regime change. That is our policy: no regime change." Powell added, however, that "we don't approve of this regime. This regime takes actions that we don't find acceptable in a 21st century world. ... [But] it's up to the Iranian people" to decide their future....

Iran Wants Guarantee of No 'Regime Change' Reuters - World News Oct 15, 2004 VIENNA - Iran might be willing to give up its uranium enrichment capabilities but it wants many things in return -- above all a guarantee that no one will try to topple the Islamic regime, diplomats and analysts say. North Korea has demanded similar security assurances from Washington, which listed both Tehran and Pyongyang as members of an "axis of evil," in exchange for relinquishing its atom bomb program. Iran's nuclear ambitions will be discussed at a meeting of senior officials from the Group of Eight...

People took to the streets of the capital, Tehran, and other cities on Sunday after Ahura Pirouz Khaleghi Yazdi urged protests across Iran. The exile has predicted Iran's Islamic government will fall on 1 October.

Amidst rising suspicions regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons development, a news report was released suggesting that U.S. military training is underway with the aim of toppling the Iranian government. On September 14, UPI quoted a source saying, “Under the premise of not entering an all-out war with Iran, U.S. special forces are training to topple the regime by penetrating the nation and cooperating with Iranian dissidents.” UPI reported that the training was taking place in Tampa, Florida, where the central command’s military base that is responsible for the Middle East region is located. UPI forecasted, “The regime change is a top...

TEHRAN (MNA) -- President Mohammad Khatami asserted on Saturday that Iran is very powerful and that no country would dare to entertain the idea of engaging in military adventurism in Iran. Khatami warned that any U.S. attack on Iran would be "suicidal". "The Americans have to deal with their problems in Iraq first," the president told a news conference. "I believe the Americans are still rational enough not to repeat their mistakes," he added, referring to the occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces. Commenting on Israel's threat to attack Iran's nuclear installations, he said he believes that the Zionist regime...

The junta's PM Khin Nyunt said Tuesday it was unlikely pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi would not be released at present. He usually vows to hold a free and fair election as one of his seven-steps roadmap. However, at the very first step of his roadmap, the international community denounced the SPDC (the junta's offical name)and called the national convention a sham show. Soon the junta had to adjourn the convention. The military authority of Burma has been buying time in one way or another to avoid transfering the power to the NLD which has had a landslide victory...

During a speech "flogging" his book Wilson took shots at Bush: "Former Ambassador and Bush Administration critic Joe Wilson was seemingly preaching to the choir Saturday in City Hall. Not one dissenting voice was heard." Snip "The Bush administration sent Wilson to Niger to investigate the accusation that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy nuclear materials to construct weapons of mass destruction. Wilson said he determined it was untrue and reported that in February 2002 to Vice President Dick Cheney." Wilson said: "This was not a simple mistake...It was cleverly calculated to deceive the Congress of the United States, the...

Ahhh ... Wednesday's warmup sessions. A day to test out timing over a 45-foot gap on a dirtbike. A day to test out timing over a 45-foot gap on a skateboard. A morning spent throwing backflips on a dirtbike. An afternoon spent throwing double backflips on a BMX bike. The live telecasts starts Thursday, but we bring you exclusive, behind-the-scenes video of the day-before hucking and chucking. And, just because we like you ... we set it all to music. Click here to watch video of yesterday's practice sessions.