Iranian Alert -- September 8, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

Americans for Regime Change in Iran ^ | 9.8.2004 | DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

The US media still largely 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.” As a result, 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. In fact they were one of the first countries to have spontaneous candlelight vigils after the 911 tragedy (see photo).

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Today in Iran, most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy.

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.

DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin”

[DoctorZIn]

Mideast

US Wants Security Council to Take Up Issue of Iran's Nuclear Program

David Gollust
State Department
07 Sep 2004, 22:34 UTC

 
Secretary of State Colin Powell Tuesday reaffirmed the United States' intention to try to get the issue of Iran's nuclear program referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency begins a critical meeting on the matter next week in Vienna.

Iran has floated the idea this week that it might suspend production and testing of centrifuges for enriching uranium as a gesture to the international community.

But at an impromptu news conference here, Mr. Powell made clear the Bush administration is unimpressed and will seek a referral to the Security Council when the 35-member IAEA board of governors convenes September 13.

Mr. Powell said the United States was prepared to recommend a referral a year ago, and only accepted a delay to give the IAEA and the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany another chance to persuade Iran to come clean with its nuclear activities.

"They have been working on that for the last, almost a year," he said. "And unfortunately I don't think the response from Iran has been very positive or constructive, either to what the EU-Three commitments were, or to the IAEA. We believe that we have seen enough, that action is warranted, and the IAEA should refer the matter to the Security Council at its upcoming meeting next week."

Mr. Powell said it remains to be seen whether the IAEA board, which normally operates by consensus, will follow the U.S. lead and recommend a referral. He noted that the board also plans a follow-on meeting in November.

Iran has in the past threatened to break off cooperation with the IAEA if the governors sought a referral. While Iran insists that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, the United States has long held that it has a covert weapons component.

[DoctorZIn]

Iran - Europe Nuclear Deal Not Within Reach: European Diplomat

AFP: 9/7/2004

LONDON, Sept 7 (AFP) - An agreement aimed at getting Iran to renounce its efforts to enrich uranium is still some way off, a European diplomat told AFP on Tuesday, contradicting earlier reports of an imminent deal.

"The Iranians have in their normal way just before the pressure really gets too much.. come with another offer," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

Western diplomats in Vienna earlier said Iran was ready to renounce its efforts to assemble centrifuges to enrich uranium and that an agreement with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany appeared imminent.

The report came less than a week before a key meeting of the board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on September 13 to review Iran's nuclear program.

But the diplomat in London said that Tehran had skirted around the most sensitive issues.

"We are not close to a deal," he warned.

"They have told the IAEA board... that they were re-suspending some of their activities (but) they did not choose to suspend the key thing, which is uranium enrichment," he said.

"They didn't look at the uranium conversion facility. They are explicitly continuing with that and they just offered one or two other things which were pretty minor.

"It just looks like they are offering something so that when it comes to the board next week they are able to tell us that they have done something to try to meet us half-way," he added.

He also stressed that Tehran's proposal had been made to the IAEA, not to Britain, Germany and France, which have reportedly been negotiating for three days to persuade Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities.

A Foreign Office spokesman declined to comment, saying: "We will have to wait and see what this means in the IAEA board, which is meeting on Monday."

[DoctorZIn]

Split Decision for Iranians in U.S.

[Excerpt]

September 07, 2004

Contradictions abound among expatriates -- some for, some against Bush. For many, it's a matter of who will be best for their homeland.

The crowd gathered for a political fundraiser in Republican John Farahi's Beverly Hills backyard one Sunday early this summer looked like it was there to play politics the American way — talking policy and writing checks.

Most of the 250 guests squinting from the afternoon sun around Farahi's rented poolside tent were accustomed to a different brand of politics in their native Iran, the politics of authoritarian shahs or mullahs who have historically greeted open debate with a lack of enthusiasm.

But even by traditional standards of American partisan politics, the fundraiser was freewheeling and potentially controversial.

The guest of honor in a pink pantsuit was hardly a darling of the Republican Party of which the host and his wife were committed supporters, especially given that the woman in pink once famously declared that her husband's critics were part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

Yet, there stood former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton collecting ,000 for her 2006 reelection bid to the Senate, a Democrat quite literally in a Republican's backyard.

"I can vote for [President Bush] but support [Hillary Clinton] from the other party, and no one can come and arrest me," said Farahi, 46, owner of a financial services firm. Federal election records show that he gave ,000 to the Republican National Committee earlier this year.

Such apparent contradictions may not be all that unusual among Iranian Americans this year. The 2004 presidential campaign is shaping up as a season of unprecedented interest and activism among half a million expatriate Iranians who have made Southern California their largest community outside Iran.

Many, even some long-naturalized citizens, say they are planning to vote for the first time. To Bush goes much of the credit — and the blame.

It turns out that the polarized American electorate is mirrored among voters with Iranian roots.

Some of the strongest feelings on all sides of the Iranian American community can be traced to the 2002 State of the Union speech in which Bush declared Iran — as well as Iraq and North Korea — part of "an axis of evil" that threatens world peace.

For some Iranian expatriates, the president's provocative rhetoric unleashed visions of regime change for Tehran.

"Iranians would never accept an invasion, but they would be willing to accept help to free themselves from the Islamic republic," said Siavash Azari, host of a Farsi radio talk show broadcast from KRSI studios on Wilshire Boulevard.

Azari said he will make his first trip to an American voting booth in November "because Mr. Bush has promised to defend the Iranian people."

Tuned in to Bush

At KRSI, in fact, the writing is all over the walls. A Bush-Cheney 2004 placard hangs in the reception room, and there's another in the hallway. Bush-Cheney stickers are dispensed at the reception desk, next to voter registration forms. In the mornings, KRSI broadcasts Farsi news from Radio Israel, and talk show chatter echoes with familiar neo-conservative themes.

In some instances, hawkish pro-Bush sentiment among Iranian Americans has brought together traditional foes, including monarchists supporting a return of the Pahlavi royal family and sympathizers of their archenemies, the one-time Marxist Islamist group People's Mojahedin.

Alireza Morovati, chief executive of KRSI, acknowledged the contradictions but shrugged and said: "We must speak in one voice."

In other cases, strong anti-Bush sentiment has rearranged the political deck chairs. A Republican and founding member of the Iranian American Political Action Committee has jumped ship and joined the campaign of Democratic challenger Sen. John F. Kerry.

Akbar Ghahary, a New Jersey manufacturing executive, said he was alarmed by Bush's approach to Iraq and didn't trust him to protect Iranian families if a military confrontation developed.

"Who do you think will get killed when [the U.S.] starts dropping bombs?" Ghahary asked.

Ghahary said he also was backing Kerry out of concern for parts of the Patriot Act pushed into law by the Bush administration after Sept. 11.

But he was most critical of talk about invading Iran. Any changes to the Tehran government must come from Iranian people, not American force, Ghahary said. He chided fellow expatriates who think a benevolent U.S. president will help exiled Iranians return home.

"We would be foolish to think that the American government would act in any interest but its own," he said.

Such differences have made the community here an unlikely battlefield of local Iranian politics. Passions run high.

Hassan Nemazee, a New York investment banker and major donor to the Kerry campaign, has been labeled "a well-known agent of the Islamic Republic" in letters to public officials and in Web postings by a Texas-based Iranian group.

In response, Nemazee filed a $10-million defamation lawsuit against the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran.

As further evidence that issues concerning Iran may influence votes in the presidential race, Mohammad Reza Parsi expressed fond memories of the Clinton White House years but declared he will vote for Bush.

"Iran is our No. 1 concern," said Parsi, 40, an immigration consultant. "And Bush so far, it appears, is the person who can make a difference in Iran."

The president's "axis of evil" State of the Union is a rallying cry for Firoozeh Mohtashemi, a 54-year-old Blue Cross employee who will cast her first vote in November. She said she sees Bush as the best hope for regime change in Tehran and supports that, even if it means a U.S. military invasion of her native country.

"If the blood of one innocent spills, I will grieve," she said, but not for "the deaths of mullahs and those loyal to them. I just want them out."

Potential influence

Unlike the influence of Cuban voters in Florida, Southern California's Iranian American vote is unlikely to affect the outcome of polling in the country's most populous state. Still, new voter interest runs high.

The backlash against immigrants after Sept. 11 has prompted the formation of national and local organizations determined to register Iranian American voters and get the community involved in the political process.

The Washington, D.C.-based National Iranian American Council was born in 2002 to lobby political leaders.

This year the nonpartisan agency launched a nationwide voter registration campaign. And the potential power and influence of campaign money is being channeled for the first time through the Iranian-American Political Action Committee established by Ghahary and others after Sept. 11.

In Los Angeles, the Iranian American Committee for Election 2004 was formed two months ago and uses Iranian bookstores to distribute about 5,000 voter registration forms around Southern California.

[DoctorZIn]

U.S. Official Skeptical of Reported Iran Deal

Tue Sep 7, 2004 12:20 PM ET By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. official reacted skeptically Tuesday to reports of another Iranian agreement to halt sensitive nuclear activities, saying "they didn't adhere to the last one."

Diplomats in Vienna reported Tehran had agreed in principle to freeze production, testing and assembly of centrifuges in an apparent move to ease pressure ahead of a U.N. watchdog meeting next week.

"It's hard to give that a lot of credibility other than they want to get past next week's (International Atomic Energy Agency) meeting. ... Iran promised this several times before. They didn't adhere to the last one," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

This official, and another more senior official who is also involved in non-proliferation issues, both said they were unaware of any deal with Tehran.

"It's very unclear what they (news reports) are talking about," the senior official said through an aide.

Details of the reported deal were not immediately clear and have yet to be finalized.

However, diplomats told Reuters in Vienna that IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei negotiated with Tehran over the weekend and the agreement would include halting production, testing and assembly of centrifuges.

Iran pledged last year to suspend all enrichment-related activities but has since resumed building centrifuges and last week said it intended to process 37 tons of raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride, the feed material for centrifuges.

INTENTIONS DEBATED

Washington says Iran's uranium enrichment program is aimed at making material for nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying it is only interested in generating electricity. The IAEA board of governors is due to meet Monday with the Iranian nuclear issue high on the agenda.

Some Bush administration officials fear an "Iran fatigue" is setting in among other IAEA members who are growing tired of having the issue of Tehran's nuclear ambitions come up every meeting with no final resolution.

The latest IAEA report on Iran's activities, made public last week, provided no conclusive evidence of an arms program, although it said many troubling questions remain unanswered.

The U.S. priority continues to be trying to get the IAEA board to formally find Iran in non-compliance with its Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty obligations and send the issue to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions, U.S. officials said.

But that is a long shot because of opposition from key European nations and Russia.

If they persist in that position, the administration may propose a resolution that would commit the IAEA board to automatically send the Iranian nuclear issue to the security council at its next meeting in November, U.S. officials said. This would give Tehran more time to comply while setting a deadline for stronger IAEA action.

[DoctorZIn]

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John Kerry is worried about his record of support for gay unions, abortion-on-demand, and other hot-button liberal causes that rile moderate swing voters outside of New England. One way to counteract the image of an out-of-touch Boston liberal is to sound hawkish on foreign policy: If Vietnam was once something to be tapped for proof of a young Kerry's opposition to the corporate military-industrial complex, it is now even more richly re-mined in his gray years for evidence of military valor, toughness, and hyper-patriotism.

The slogans "Just as tough, but smarter," and "Respected, not just feared" now summarize the Kerry-Edwards party line on foreign policy. With those flippant phrases, a Jamie Rubin, Sandy Berger, Rand Beers, Joe Biden, or Joe Wilson can promise new style, same substance. In light of an amazing military victory in Iraq, followed by a difficult occupation, Kerry's most recent statements suggest that he would not necessarily have done anything different from what President Bush did in invading Afghanistan and Iraq, but instead would have "reached out to" and "sat down with" allies; such an embrace of multilateralism, we are assured, would have avoided a "unilateral," "preemptive," and costly American enterprise. Kerry's Iraq — it is presupposed that someone else mysteriously would have first removed Saddam — would purportedly now have involved a multinational effort, aimed more cautiously at order and stability rather than at unworkably radical democratic transformation.

MAN OF INDECISION
To the degree that there is any consistency in Kerry's evolving positions about the use of force, there seem at least two constants: partisanship and expediency. Thus Republican administrations' efforts to remove Saddam in 1991, and rebuild Iraq in 2003, prompted Kerry's initial opposition and subsequent support, depending on the pulse of the battlefield — yes to war, if victory looks assured and cheap; no, if it is in doubt or its consequences turn messy. Thus Bill Clinton's five air campaigns against Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo, and Sudan — often without congressional or United Nations sanction — earned not Kerry's principled opposition to unilateralism, but his partisan approval, especially since Americans were bombing without being much shot at. That almost a decade later U.S. soldiers still patrol the Balkans or that neither the Taliban nor Saddam was much bothered by cruise missiles is not a problem.

Perhaps a better barometer of Kerry's views about American power is his past opposition to strategic military expenditures that emphasized deterrence — the B-1 and B-2 bombers, the deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe, and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Not the use of force, but U.N. resolutions, sanctions, and protocols — coupled with multipolar, American-led diplomacy — should solve critical problems. This theme was emphasized by Kerry's own father in his book, The Star-Spangled Mirror. "Americans," Richard Kerry warned presciently of George W. Bush, "are inclined to see the world and foreign affairs in black and white." We are guilty as a people of "ethnocentric accommodation — everyone ought to be like us." The elder Kerry went on to counsel about the "fatal error" of "propagating democracy" — an idealism that made us stupidly captivated by "the siren's song of promoting human rights."

Previews of John Kerry's proposed foreign policy also seem reactive, if not parasitic upon George Bush's prior initiatives: His carrot of softer talk seems reasonable now only because someone else wielded the stick first. Kerry talks, for example, of a lack of renewed American engagement in the Middle East, but he cannot specify whether Clinton's Oslo initiatives were wiser than Bush's support for Ariel Sharon's unilateral efforts to leave Gaza, dismantle Hamas, and erect a fence. Was it cowboyish, as the Europeans allege, to isolate Arafat? If so, should we jump-start the peace process by bringing him back on board? Yes, no, maybe?

Kerry's overall approach to contemporary Iraq, Israel, our other allies, and the world at large is best summarized as something like, "I would not have done it; but since Bush did it, I wouldn't overturn it now." Thus Kerry welcomes Libya's bid to rejoin civilization. He acknowledges that Pakistan is now more friendly than hostile, with its nuclear dispensary shut down. It is salutary that Saudi Arabia at last is confronting its homegrown terrorists. Yet would Kerry have initiated any of the much-slurred efforts that helped to effect these changes — the removal of the Taliban and Saddam, tough talk with Pakistan's Musharraf, renewed vigilance over Iran's and North Korea's nuclear arsenals, and withdrawal of troops from Saudi Arabia? Would reliance, instead, on U.N. resolutions have made an impression on Mullah Omar, the Hussein dynasty, Muammar Qaddafi, or the Saudi royal family? Kerry seems to think so: During his senatorial career, he was always a strong advocate for dialoguing with the Vietnamese, North Koreans, Cubans, and Iranian mullahs.

Kerry flinches at the post-Cold War dichotomy of Old Europe vs. New Europe; so will he restore all those troops now being unilaterally withdrawn from Germany? France, we are told, has been unnecessarily alienated by President Bush; so will Kerry apologize — or will he learn that for the first time in decades the French are truly worried about American fury, giving the next president more, not less, leverage with French leaders?

Kerry's positions on North Korea and Iran also depend on antecedent Bush strengths. Kerry dispenses a lot of Richard Holbrooke-Sandy Berger tough talk, but offers nothing concrete about what he would do differently — or any appreciation that both messes inherited from the Clinton administration are being addressed by a tougher Bush determination to end appeasement. By the same token, Kerry talks about modernizing and reorganizing the U.S. military — even as he is relentless in his castigation of Donald Rumsfeld as a failed secretary of defense. Does he have any appreciation that Rumsfeld earned criticism precisely because three years ago he began implementing the very reforms that Kerry is now pirating and adopting as his own?

There is a déjà vu about the entire Kerry talk of ushering in supposed calm after the raging storm. Jimmy Carter, in reaction to the Nixon-Ford Vietnam era, assured the world of a new multilateralism without an inordinate fear of Communism — and thus helped to prompt Communist aggression in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and Central America, as well as the Iranian embassy takeover. We talk of the Kerry half-measure and flip-flop, but such hesitation is simply updated Carterism — redolent of the occasions on which Carter sold F-15s to Saudi Arabia but ensured that they were not capable of bearing arms; wrecked the Olympics in lieu of confronting the Soviets in Afghanistan; and shuttled a dying Shah of Iran from one embarrassed foreign host to another.

NO SUBSTITUTE FOR STRENGTH
Many who now praise Ronald Reagan forget that 1980s Hollywood was convinced he would deliver us a nuclear winter; he was a proto-George W. Bush who was willing to go it alone, if need be, to stop Soviet aggrandizement. Thanks to Reagan and the senior Bush, however, Bill Clinton was freed from having to deal with things like an aggressive Soviet empire, tactical nuclear missiles threatening Europe, Grenada, Panama, and Gulf War I. In contrast, Clinton's commitment to "engagement," coupled with launches of cruise missiles, did not deter terrorists from bombing the World Trade Center or attacking Americans in Saudi Arabia, Africa, and Yemen. The thugs in Somalia were not appeased by Clinton's decision to withhold tanks from our troops, lest such armor "escalate" the situation. Haitians were singularly unimpressed when our troops seemed, and then sort of seemed not, to land on their shores. Bill Clinton's only foreign-policy success was a repudiation of U.N. and EU nonchalance about genocide in the Balkans, when at last he unleashed the U.S. Air Force to put an end to the killing.

So what would John Kerry's foreign policy look like? In the first few months, things would be little different from what we see now, as the Democrats could triangulate on prior Bush resoluteness in the same way Clinton profited from Reagan-Bush strength on the Cold War, Kuwait, and Panama. During this honeymoon, Kerry would reassure the Europeans with comfortable platitudes, and Kofi Annan might bask in overt American praise for the U.N. The War on Terror would be recast as not really a war at all: The proper tactic would be better police work to indict and jail miscreants, while providing more material aid to deal with the "root causes" of despair in the Arab world — pathologies that are best addressed not by radical and painful efforts to embrace democracy, but by sending money and diplomats abroad to appease status-quo autocracies.

But within a year or two, the terrorists, the vacillating Europeans, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and the Chinese would all take their measure of John Kerry. When Clinton, in his second inaugural address, characterized America as "the world's indispensable nation," Kerry asked: "Why are we adopting such an arrogant, obnoxious tone?" And he once remarked that his father had taught him "the benefit of learning how to look at other countries and their problems and their hopes and challenges through their eyes, to a certain degree, at least in trying to understand them." China, Iran, Cuba, Syria, and North Korea would all agree.

Kerry is thus both a European realist, who believes force has little utility in a complex postmodern world, and a multicultural diplomat who would not prejudge other nations as "bad" when they are merely "different"; or, as Jamie Rubin put it recently, a Kerry foreign policy would mean "an appreciation for other cultures and values. The bullying of the Bush administration will come to an end." No more tough "Axis of Evil" talk to Kim Jong Il or Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, but rather greater understanding of the problématique of totalitarian culture or the paradoxical role of theocracy in the modern world.

Once friends and enemies alike understood this return of Carter-Clintonism to American foreign policy, they would learn to ignore the do-gooder nagging and whining and do pretty much what they wished. They could rightly expect another Warren Christopher cooling his heels for hours on the Syrian tarmac, promises of resumption of food and oil for Korean Stalinists, or more cash and weapons sent to a rehabilitated Arafat's Palestinian Authority — all dressed up as "collective solutions," "U.N.-sponsored initiatives" within a "multilateral framework." Once more, Jamie Rubin assures us that we can provide Iran with properly sanitized nuclear fuel, which might just do the trick of shutting down their plutonium factories in the fashion that once worked in North Korea. After all, we all know that one of the world's greatest oil exporters that burns off its natural gas at the wellhead is spending billions of dollars for reactors simply to ensure sufficient supplies of domestic electricity.

If Kerry's foreign policy could well be disastrous for the United States in the long run, it still might well get him elected. George W. Bush was the Great Corrector: When he arrived in office, it was unquestioned that Europe would forever be allowed to harp and ankle-bite under the aegis of an assured American-led NATO. Support for old anti-Communist thugs and oil-pumpers was standard American policy in the Middle East. Afghanistan was a sewer best avoided. Three hundred and fifty thousand sorties over two-thirds of Saddam's air space; an unenforceable, corrupt, and counterproductive U.N. embargo of Iraq; and occasional indiscriminate bombing of the Iraqi homeland corralled Saddam while thousands of Iraqis perished each year.

Perhaps, without the impetus of 9/11, Bush would have let things be. But he did not — and embarked on radical and much-needed changes in U.S. foreign policy, which are already starting to bear fruit. Yet the hysteria that these corrections have prompted in Europe, the Arab world, and the U.N. wears at the American people. Many are tired of the pandemonium stirred up by the shrill Michael Moore, Howard Dean, and MoveOn.org — and, in some vague way, accept that the departure of George Bush might make things less stressful and hurtful. Like patients who finally rebel at the side-effects of their life-saving medicines, too many Americans know in their heads that what we are doing will save us — even as our hearts moan that in the here and now it is all so unpleasant and depressing to read the things they say abroad about George Bush's America.

Kerry, then, is the mellifluous Siren that appeals to beleaguered sailors. In lieu of the "neoconservatives" provoking rogue nations and terrorist sponsors, Kerry's subtlety, erudition, and nuance would charm others to address the "more important" (but less confrontational) problems of the environment, globalization, and drug smuggling. To win these "wars" we need not isolate an Arafat, ram democracies down the throats of Afghans and Iraqis, embarrass the Europeans, or talk of embedded pathologies within the Arab world. In short, Kerry has no foreign policy other than the Siren song that if George W. Bush would just go away, things would be so much quieter, people would be so much nicer, and we would be so much better liked. And all this might just work, until we hit the shoals.

Mr. Hanson, a columnist for National Review Online, is a military historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is currently writing a military history of the Peloponnesian war.

[DoctorZIn]

3 More Executed in Iran

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Sep 7, 2004

The Islamic regime executed, today, three individuals qualified officially as Drug Smugglers. The executions were made in the notorious prison of Reja-i-Shahr located at west of the Iranian capital.

The names of these new victims of the Islamic republic's repressive machine have been declared as Keyvan Razzaghi, Kamran Razzaghi and Amin Jannati-Tabar.

It's to note that Reja-i-Shahr and other districts of Karaj were scenes of violent riots, which happened at several occasions in the last three years, and many arrested young demonstrators had raised arms against the brutal militiamen. In addition, the Islamic regime uses various false labels, such as, Drug Smuggler, Spy, Rapist, Bandit or Hooligan in order to qualify its armed opponents in an effort to help its European and Japanese Collaborators in their effort to justify the continuation of their Economic relations with the Mullahcracy.

[DoctorZIn]

London — After the peaceful end to the military standoff in Najaf last month, many Iraqis and Americans hoped that the conflict between the Iraqi interim government and the young cleric Moktada al-Sadr had been resolved, and that Mr. Sadr's men would go back to their normal lives. The heavy fighting that erupted in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City yesterday showed that nothing could have been further from the truth. News reports suggest that rather than dispersing, Mr. Sadr's followers have simply returned home to carry on the fight. Thus the fundamental weakness of the Najaf peace deal - allowing Mr. Sadr's army to keep its weapons - has finally been exposed, raising the question of what role the militia will play in a future Iraq.

While some now argue that the group will embark on a brutal campaign of guerrilla warfare, posing a permanent threat to the stability of whatever government emerges in Baghdad, others believe that Mr. Sadr's latest insurgency is part of a strategy to secure a prominent place at the negotiating table, paving the way for the militia's eventual conversion into a normal political party. Surprisingly little attention has yet been given to a third, more worrisome, possibility: the transformation of Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army into an Iraqi version of the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah occupies a prominent position in the terrorist universe because it found a unique way of combining political restraint with militancy. It emerged in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. While formally committed to creating an Islamic republic, the group quickly realized that a religiously motivated campaign of terrorism would fail to achieve any political ends in multiethnic Lebanon.

So Hezbollah embraced the grievances of Lebanon's Shiites, who although representing nearly half of the population had long been systematically discriminated against by their Sunni and Christian countrymen. It pushed for the recognition of Shiite interests, and started providing vital social services like soup kitchens, health clinics and schools for the poor.

At the same time, however, it continued to wage a carefully calculated campaign of terrorism against Israel, ranging from guerrilla-type warfare in southern Lebanon to attacks on Jewish institutions in places as far-flung as Argentina. By the early 1990's, Hezbollah's rise in popularity spurred it to try politics. It waged a populist campaign against governmental corruption that culminated in its winning the largest bloc of seats in the fragmented Lebanese Parliament in 1992. Indeed, the group is now considered the most successful party in the Lebanese political system.

What does this have to do with Iraq? Reflecting on the "Hezbollah model" becomes more than just an academic exercise when we consider that both organizations - Hezbollah and the Mahdi Army - are linked through the same foreign sponsor: Iran. It was Iran that in 1982 dispatched 2,000 Revolutionary Guards to win the hearts and minds of the Lebanese Shiites. And the decision that Hezbollah should take part in elections was made not in Beirut, but at a meeting between the group's leadership and Iranian clergymen in Tehran. In the case of Mr. Sadr, Iran has sent weapons to support his group, and Iranian agents are widely believed to be coordinating and training the militants in Sadr City.

It requires little imagination to understand that persuading Mr. Sadr to adopt the Hezbollah model of combining the bullet and the ballot box would be in Iran's interest. After decades of conflict, Iran now hopes to establish good neighborly relations with the new Iraq. It also wants to ensure that their Shiite brethren, who had been marginalized and abused under Saddam Hussein, have a significant say in the future government. At the same time, Iran has neither the resources nor the political stamina to fight an expensive proxy war against the coalition forces and the Sunni and Kurd factions in Iraq. And, as with Lebanon, the multiethnic nature of Iraq makes the prospect of a decisive military victory for Mr. Sadr unlikely.

But turning the Mahdi Army into an Iraqi Hezbollah would address all these concerns. Mr. Sadr's inclusion in an Iraqi government would guarantee the participation of the radical and downtrodden sections of the Shiite community. The continued existence of an armed wing, on the other hand, would give Iran a tool with which to bring about a crisis whenever it believed that a little disorder and instability were necessary to keep Iraq in check (or to deflect Western attention from Tehran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapons program).

So what should the Iraqi government, and its American sponsors, do? There is no way to refuse Mr. Sadr a place at the negotiating table. Whether one likes his tactics or not, he has managed to attract a considerable following. What Prime Minister Ayad Allawi should be wary of, however, is the prospect of a Hezbollah-style militia as part of his government. This would not only expose a future government to threats of blackmail and coercion from within, it would also weaken the moderate Shiites around Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who have seemed willing to play by the rules of a democracy.

Thus Mr. Allawi must insist on the complete and verifiable dismantling of Mr. Sadr's militia before any formal participation in government is contemplated. Any deals that merely provide him with additional breathing room to regroup and rearm his militia, like the one that ended the crisis in Najaf, must be avoided. Mr. Allawi was widely criticized last week for rejecting a plan that would have eased the government crackdown on militants in Sadr City in exchange for a vague promise by Mr. Sadr to disarm. But he was absolutely right to do so.

In the long term, of course, the best recipe to prevent the emergence of demagogues is to deal with the grievances of Iraq's young urban Shiites. Their participation in the Mahdi Army is motivated less by Mr. Sadr's political vision than by frustration about what they see as a bleak future with few jobs, little political clout and continued discrimination. The key is to convince them that their life can be better, if only they will drop their guns.

Peter R. Neumann is a research fellow at the department of war studies at King's College London. Joshua Kilberg is a political analyst at the Atlantic Council of Canada.

[DoctorZIn]

Sep. 7, 2004 22:44

Sharon: Iran must be pressured

By HERB KEINON

Current international efforts to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons are not enough, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in a Jerusalem Post interview Tuesday.

"Actions are being taken, but I don' t think the pressure is enough," Sharon said.

Sharon said there needs to be increased supervision of Iran, and that the issue should be brought to the United Nations Security Council.

Israel, Sharon said, is not leading the campaign against Iran, but "is taking its own measures to defend itself..." He did not elaborate.

Sharon said that if the international community wants to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and it is still possible to stop them, "they [Iran] will need to be taken to the Security Council" for sanctions.

Sharon said "there is no doubt" that Iran is trying to obtain nuclear weapons. "That is their intention, and they are doing it by deception and subterfuge, using this cover or that. This is completely clear."

"I don't see that the [international] activity against them is enough to stop them from obtaining nuclear weapons," Sharon said. "And that is a very big danger, especially since they succeeded in developing a rocket, the Shihab-3, that has a range of 1,300 km. and puts Israel in its range. They are working on a missile with a range of 2,500 km. This is a country that calls for the destruction of Israel – the moderates call for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people – and they are doing everything to get weapons of mass destruction."

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom warned Tuesday that Iran would exploit the period before the next US president takes office to forge ahead with the development of its nuclear capabilities. Shalom, who was speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Iran is "not afraid" of US moves against it because it does not believe any steps will be taken during the election campaign.

Amotz Asa-El, Gil Hoffman and Nina Gilbert contributed to this report.

[DoctorZIn]

American Jews and the Iranian Threat

By P. David Hornik
September 8, 2004

As Edward Alexander recently put it, most American Jews “would vote Democratic even if Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden were at the top of the ticket.” He could have added that most of them would vote Democratic even if it meant ignoring a nuclear threat to
Israel’s survival.

Though Bush won only 19% of the Jewish vote in 2000, for a while there were predictions that he would do much better this time because of his support for Israel. But polls have shown only an incremental increase, and the most recent one in July, conducted for the National Jewish Democratic Council, found only 22% of U.S. Jews saying they’ll vote Bush in November—a paltry gain indeed.

Of course, American Jews need not base their vote on Israel (actually, the same poll found that they don’t—only 15% said Israel was the crucial factor in their vote). They have as much reason as other Americans to care about jobs figures, gay marriage, or America’s own war on terror. Defining “what’s good for Israel” isn’t easy, and Israelis themselves disagree intensely about it.

This year, though, there’s a difference. The stakes for Israel are rather high, and involve not just its security or its borders, its diplomatic standing or its economy, but its physical existence. As the Iranian threat looms, the debates concern only when—not whether—it will go nuclear. Some say next year, some say 2006, some say it already has a few bombs. As for Iran’s intentions toward Israel, one need only consult (among many other statements) the placards in last year’s military parade for the Shahab-3 missile declaring that “Israel must be wiped off the map.”

That being so, it takes no brilliant leap of logic to say that for people concerned with Israel’s survival, it’s much preferable to have a U.S. president who’s hawkish and has proved he’s serious about the terror threat than one who doesn’t fit that description. No doubt, we’re not soothsayers and can’t say for sure what Bush or Kerry would do in the future. We can say for sure, though—whatever the wisdom of the specific steps he’s taken—that Bush has solidly established his hawkishness at least since September 11, 2001; and we can say for sure that in twenty years in the Senate Kerry racked up an extreme-dovish voting record and has been equivocal and inconsistent about how he’d handle the world’s current terror problem.

Yet most American Jewish voters are set to follow the same blind path as always. The same path they followed when they voted Carter in 1980, despite Carter’s having created the Iranian problem in the first place with his weakness and waffling toward the ayatollahs; the same path they followed in 2000 when they voted Gore despite Clinton’s having helped plunge Israel into a terror war with his constant coddling of Arafat—and so on. Clearly, the typical American Jewish Democratic voter is not preoccupied with Israel and has a predominantly American agenda. Fair enough. One might think, though, that a danger of Israel’s actual obliteration and the deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of its citizens would perk their interest in the Israeli dimension of this vote. Well, don’t think it.

So as an American Jew who moved to Israel twenty years ago, now living in a reality-oriented society where a recent Tel Aviv University poll found a 49%-18% majority saying they favor Bush over Kerry, I want to say to my American Jewish “brethren”: thanks a lot. I wish I could say, “When the chips were down, they sensed the threat of a second Shoah and rallied to Israel’s side.” I should add that Israel isn’t totally dependent on the U.S. regarding the Iran problem, and probably can take care of it militarily if no one else will. But like the large majority of Israelis, I expect we’re on much firmer ground if the realist-hawk Bush wins in November, and the kneejerk-liberal American Jews get trounced along with the other delusionals and appeasers.

P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Jerusalem whose work has appeared in many Israeli, Jewish, and political publications. Reach him at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.

[DoctorZIn]

Rumsfeld: Iran aids rebels

By Rowan Scarborough

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld charged yesterday that Iran is fueling the deadly insurgency in Iraq with money and fighters.

But, in an interview with editors and reporters of The Washington Times, Mr. Rumsfeld acknowledged that the United States has limited options because other nations are "not willing" to join in pressuring Iran, which has shown behavior that Mr. Rumsfeld said is "not part of the civilized world."

The defense secretary, a main architect of President Bush's strategy of attacking Islamic terrorists worldwide, declared of the insurgency in Iraq, "They're losing."
Daschle

His assessment came on a day when the military death toll in Iraq reached 1,000 Americans since the invasion in May 2003.

"I feel generally quite good about how things are going there," he said. "Needless to say, you can't feel good about it when you've lost over a thousand people."

He gave the administration and the coalition a "B-plus" for managing Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in terms of interaction between the new government and U.S. forces.

"If I had to grade it so far, I'd probably give it a B-plus, pretty good, and maybe an A in interaction and maybe a B in outcome," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "But it's a tough business."

His remarks came after American troops suffered some of their highest casualty rates in recent weeks in Iraq, including the loss of seven Marines in a car bombing on Monday.

On the critical question of whether the far-flung insurgency is weaker or stronger today than when it began in earnest one year ago, Mr. Rumsfeld was noncommittal.

Asked whether the enemy is weaker, he said, "It's hard to say that when you've just gone through a week or two where you've peaked in terms of the number of incidents. And my guess is they see they're losing. Does that mean that the pain is going to go down? Not necessarily. It may mean that it'll go up. It may mean between now and an Iraqi election and Iraqi constitution that they will be even more desperate."

He added, "There are people opposing the coalition, and they're getting pounded. And they have been getting pounded. The solution to that of course, if they don't want to get killed, is to stop terrorizing the Iraqi people."
Mr. Rumsfeld repeatedly has accused Iran of "meddling" in Iraqi affairs, but has offered few details.

Military sources have told The Times that Iran's Revolutionary Guard helped fund Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr. The radical cleric's ragtag Mahdi's Army has staged a series of deadly insurrections in southern Iraq and in the Shi'ite slums of Baghdad.

A U.S. military intelligence report obtained last week by The Times states that most of his foot soldiers are criminals who were freed by Saddam weeks before the allied invasion.

Asked for details yesterday on Iranian meddling, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "They have put people in there. They have put money in there.

"By 'they,' I'm not going to say which element of the government or whether it's even known to the government. But money has come in from Iran. People have come in from Iran. And it's a very difficult thing to stop," he said. "Iran is a country that is not part of the civilized world in terms of its behavior."

Asked whether Iran is funding Sheik al-Sadr, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "There's a lot of speculation to that effect."

Run by radical clerics who imposed their rule through the Revolutionary Guard, Iran is one of the world's top sponsors of international terrorism, according to the U.S. State Department, and, along with Saddam-run Iraq and North Korea, it was dubbed part of an "axis of evil" by Mr. Bush.

Some military intelligence sources say Iran is working to impose the same type of Shi'ite rule in Iraq, as it also seeks nuclear weapons.

Mr. Rumsfeld said to date, countries are not willing to band together to force Tehran to change.

"The problem of proliferation and the problem of terror and the problem of dealing with a country that's separated itself from the civilized community is that those are the kind of things that require the cooperation of a lot of countries," he said.

"And when you have countries of the world that are not willing to participate in an organized effort to try to persuade a country to behave in a civilized way, it encourages them simply to continue on its merry way. And that's a problem," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

On Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld said he cannot say whether the war has reached a "tipping point" in favor of the coalition, which includes about 140,000 U.S. troops.

Still, he contended, "I think the country is vastly better off than it was a year ago."

He cited statistics on reopened schools and hospitals, the transition to Iraqi sovereignty and the creation of about 100,000 Iraqi security forces toward a total force of 200,000.

After the September 11 attacks, Mr. Rumsfeld transformed the military to better position it to conduct manhunts to kill or capture terrorists. Three years after the attacks, the defense secretary still thinks conducting manhunts is a key to winning the global war.

"We're going to have to wear them down," he said. "We're going to go after them where they are. If anything, the world should understand that going on the defense won't do it. It simply won't do. The only way you can deal with this problem is to be on the offense, is to find them where they are."

[DoctorZIn]

Kerry's Iranian Connection Fights Democracy

By Robert Spencer
September 8, 2004

Frivolous lawsuits have long been used as weapons of the powerful against the weak; a particularly egregious example is now playing out in Texas, courtesy of one of John Kerry’s most controversial supporters: the Iranian Hassan Nemazee. Nemazee is pursuing a ten-million-dollar damage claim against the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) and its coordinator, Aryo B. Pirouznia. A Nemazee victory in this suit would almost certainly muzzle or destroy altogether the SMCCDI, one of the most energetic and courageous opponents of Iran’s entrenched but uneasy mullahocracy. But now that Nemazee’s lawsuit has been filed, it has become increasingly clear that it could embarrass the entire Democratic Party — and severely damage the already flagging candidacy of John Kerry.

Nemazee is an influential figure with many friends in high places in groups such as the American-Iranian Council (AIC), the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), and the Iranian-American Bar Association (IABA). Nemazee’s name is also well known in Democratic Party circles. He was a prominent contributor to Bob Torricelli’s New Jersey Senate campaign. The multimillionaire entrepreneur also contributed $50,000 to his friend Al Gore’s Recount Fund (and $250,000 to the Gore campaign), $60,000 to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund, and over $150,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Clinton attempted to reward him by naming him U.S. Ambassador to Argentina — but the Senate declined to confirm him after Forbes magazine published, in May 1999, an extremely damaging expose of his shady financial dealings.

Undaunted, Nemazee continued efforts to establish fruitful contacts between Iranian groups advocating normalization of relations with Iran and high-level members of the Democratic Party. He joined the Board of Directors of the AIC, an organization whose president, Hooshang Amirahmadi, is identified on the SMCCDI website as a “well known lobbyist for the Iranian Mullahocracy.” Nemazee was involved in a March 2002 fundraiser for Senate Foreign Affairs Committee heavyweight Joe Biden (D-DE). This event was hosted by Sadegh Namazikhah, another AIC member whom Aryo Pirouznia charges with trying to improve public perception of “one of the most despotic regimes in the world.”

Three months later it was Kerry’s turn: Nemazee invited the future Democratic standard bearer to speak at an AIC dinner. Nemazee himself also spoke, declaring that the AIC “does not attempt to explain or rationalize the position of the government of Iran, nor does it attempt to do so for the government of the United States. Its mission is to educate both sides and to attempt to establish the basis and the vehicle for a dialogue which will ultimately lead to a resumption of relations.” If Kerry registered any protest against this assertion that the United States should normalize relations with one of the world’s bloodiest dictatorships, it was not recorded. Nemazee, according to Iran experts Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi and Elio Bonazzi, now seems to be denying that he ever made this speech at all — although it is still posted on the AIC’s website.

Outside San Francisco’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where this grand event was held, the SMCCDI organized a large protest rally. Nemazee, evidently, would not forget this and other affronts. In his lawsuit, he charges that the SMCCDI knowingly and repeatedly made “false and defamatory statements” about his support for the Iranian regime. His complaint states categorically that “Nemazee does not ‘support … the Islamic Republic and the Revolution.’”

But his friend Kerry, meanwhile, seems to have absorbed the very lessons that Nemazee now denies having tried to teach. Before the Council on Foreign Relations in December 2003, Kerry announced that he would be willing as President to pursue rapprochement with Iran: “As president, I will be prepared early on to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran, just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam a decade ago.” And most notoriously, his staff sent out an email that somehow made its way to the government-controlled Mehr News Agency in Tehran, where it was trumpeted as evidence of his resolve to patch things up with the mullahs. “It is in the urgent interests of the people of the United States,” the message read, “to restore our country’s credibility in the eyes of the world. America needs the kind of leadership that will repair alliances with countries on every continent that have been so damaged in the past few years, as well as build new friendships and overcome tensions with others.”

Kerry’s camp professed puzzlement over how this email made it to Tehran. Initially, a Kerry aide dismissed the story as “just a hoax.” But this pose proved impossible to maintain. Kerry’s senior foreign affairs advisor, Rand Beers, later admitted that the message was genuine, saying: “I have no idea how they got hold of that letter, which was prepared for Democrats Abroad. I scratched my head when I saw that. The only way they could have gotten it was if someone in Iran was with Democrats Abroad.” In light of the ties between the AIC and the Democratic Party, that possibility is at least open to question.

But Kerry’s olive branches to the regime that carries on the legacy of the Ayatollah Khomeini now embarrass him: his Council on Foreign Relations remarks seem to have been removed from the Kerry-Edwards website. Hence also the Nemazee lawsuit: to silence the SMCCDI and its inconvenient protests. One way to do that is indirect, by using the suit to put the SMCCDI out of action. According to documents that Pirouznia/SMCCDI defense attorney Bob Jenevein made available to me, the prosecution has been playing several such games. On August 20, 2004, Jenevein wrote a letter to Rob Wiley of Locke Lidell & Sapp, the elite Texas law firm representing Nemazee. He proposed five stipulations — points that both sides could agree to, so that they need not spend the court’s time trying to establish or disprove them. These included: “1. The Islamic regime in Iran is sympathetic to terrorists. 2. The Islamic regime in Iran poses a threat to the security of the United States and/or its citizens at home or abroad. 3. For the United States to normalize its diplomatic relations with Iran at this time would lend credibility to the Islamic regime in Iran. 4. For the United States to ease trade sanctions against Iran at this time would lend credibility to the Islamic regime in Iran. 5. Anything that would lend credibility to the Islamic regime in Iran at this time would have value to that regime.” Wiley answered on the same day that his team had taken the stipulations “under advisement”; but in the almost two weeks since then, gave no further answer. Thus Nemazee’s attorneys effectively agreed to none of the stipulations, raising the prospect that Jenevein would have to spend hours upon hours in court establishing these points, thereby endangering the SMCCDI by straining its financial resources.

Other documents furnished by Jenevein suggest that the prosecution is trying to run up the costs of the litigation in other ways also — attempting to find out who is paying Pirouznia’s legal bills and to drive SMCCDI into destitution. One example was a fax that Wiley sent to Jenevein last Monday afternoon, informing him of a draft motion that the prosecution was planning to file on certain matters regarding the case unless the prosecution and defense reached an agreement by 5PM Tuesday. Jenevein immediately faxed a response, suggesting ways to agree, but the prosecution ignored it and filed the motion the next morning anyway. This multiplication of motions, of course, is a classic tactic to drive up court costs.

Related to all this is the curious fact that, according to an inside source close to the case, Nemazee has never made himself available for a deposition. Pirouznia’s defense attorney contacted Nemazee’s lawyers in early August, immediately after taking the case (five months after it was filed), to request dates for this deposition; Nemazee’s team responded that he would only be available on two dates in November and two in December – all four after the election, and all over seven months after the case was filed. “He’s saying we want his deposition for political reasons,” the insider exclaimed incredulously, “but HE filed the lawsuit!” The Pirouznia/SMCCDI team has filed a motion ordering Nemazee to appear for a deposition on September 20; no ruling has been made on it yet.

Why file a lawsuit, and then play hide-and-seek with the defense? The lobbyist and his team seem to be trying to keep the case under wraps until after the presidential election. “Nemazee is worried that his candidate will be embarrassed if the facts of this litigation are made public,” observes Jenevein. “I’m afraid that this case would appear typical of the frivolous lawsuits about which Republicans complain so loudly. To the extent that Hassan Nemazee constitutes a link between a presidential campaign and the Iranian regime, that link would be considered a grave political liability for the campaign.

The lawsuit is designed to silence those who speak about this.”

The Nemazee camp appears to be growing increasingly anxious lest details of their suit leak out. That may be why, according to an informed source, the founder of a public relations firm and international speaker’s bureau that specializes in foreign policy and terrorism-related issues recently contacted Pirouznia and invited him to lunch — ultimately, two lunches on consecutive days, all to argue that he should drop the suit. Important figures of the Iranian democracy movement, the PR wizard intimated to Pirouznia, really wanted him to forget the whole thing. Dumbfounded, Pirouznia reminded the PR maven that it was he who was the target of the suit, and that he was only defending himself and his organization. Several other people who figures connected to the defense team wryly term “Nemazee’s messengers” also contacted Pirouznia to make the same appeal.

The SMCCDI and Aryo Pirouznia are evidently not the only ones in Nemazee’s sights. According to an informed source, Nemazee’s lawyer asked in official documents used by the plaintiff to build the case about the relationship between Pirouznia and another pair of stalwart Iran democracy activists: Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi and Elio Bonazzi. Said the source: “Aryo’s lawyer objected that this is not relevant, but basically this means that even if Nemazee didn’t sue the Bonazzis directly, they are among his targets.” This despite the fact that the Bonazzis have never advanced any political agenda for Iran beyond promoting the idea of a genuine (not UN- or Jimmy Carter-led) internationally monitored referendum to decide on Iran’s form of government after the complete ousting of any form of theocracy. Zand-Bonazzi’s father, Siamak Pourzand, is a well-known Iranian journalist, intellectual, freedom fighter – and political prisoner of the Islamic regime.

Thus the mullahs fight on for their survival in the courtrooms of Texas.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West (Regnery Publishing), and Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith (Encounter Books).

[DoctorZIn]

Unemployment rate to hit 50% for 15-29 age group in two years

Tehran Times - Economy Section
Sep 7, 2004

TEHRAN -- A report commissioned by the Management and Planning Organization (MPO) and Iran Youth Organization (IYO) released here Sunday predicted that if the annual unemployment rate of 13.2 percent holds up then the jobless rate among 15-29 age group will reach 52 percent within two years.

It added currently over 31 percent of the 15 to 29 years old are unemployed.

The current unemployment rate in the age brackets 15-19 and 20-24 years is 34 percent and for 25-29 years the figure stands at 16 percent.

In 1996-1997 the jobless rate stood at 14.8 percent among the 15 to 29 year group increasing to 27.5 percent in the Iranian year ending March 20, 2001.

"On the average the unemployment rate was 13.2 percent during the period," the report added.

The report further cautions on adverse implications for the country given the importance of youth employment in shaping trends in the domestic economy and the expected wave of new entries in the below 30-year age group in the job market in the next few years.

In August, Iran and the United Nations signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to resolve the problem of youth unemployment in the country, said the head of IYO.

Speaking on the occasion of the World Youth Day, Rahim Ebadi added that youth employment, voluntarily services, development programs and promoting culture and sport in the society are the major areas of the quadrilateral MoU signed between Iran and UN.

Ebadi added that a symbolic approach to promoting festivities in the country is to hail those youth who do their best to reach to the best conditions of living on the international level.

Also, youth unemployment has skyrocketed over the past decade to some 88 million, according to a new study by the International Labor Organization (ILO) which said the figures have reached an all time high with young people aged 15 to 24 now representing nearly half the world's jobless.

'Global Employment Trends for Youth 2004', a new analysis prepared by the ILO's Employment Strategy Department, found that while youth represent 25 percent of the working age population between the ages of 15 and 64, they made up as much as 47 percent of the total 186 million people out of work worldwide in 2003.

[DoctorZIn]

SEPTEMBER 8, 2004

NEWSMAKER Q&A

Without U.S. Action, "Nobody Follows"

In Part 2 of a Q&A, Richard Armitage defends Washington's weakness in coalition building when executing its foreign policy

Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage is an experienced troubleshooter. A Vietnam veteran with previous stints at the State Dept. and the Pentagon under his belt, Armitage has been involved in everything from handling Philippines' efforts to boot U.S. troops out of the country to the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

He has had no end of troubles to shoot in the Bush Administration. An Asia hand, Armitage helped negotiate the extrication of pilots downed in China early in President Bush's term. He has played a role in everything from Iraq to Iran to North Korea.

Armitage sat down with BusinessWeek Chief Diplomatic Correspondent Stan Crock on Sept. 1 to discuss some of the issues at the top of his in-box, including the challenges in Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow in two parts, Part 1, "Iran: 'A Tougher Nut' than N. Korea", and Part 2 below:

Q: Are there things you think would be different in a second Bush term? A: I think the President will continue to be as decisive. If there's one thing that's quite clear thus far in the campaign, it's that there aren't wild differences of opinion between the two political parties on the direction of foreign policy. Mr. Kerry, as far as I've seen, doesn't seem to have major differences with Mr. Bush's foreign policy. What I've heard the Democrats say is, "We'll just do it better."

That's fine. They can say that. Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn't. But I can't find any major differences, which indicates to me a pretty strong consensus in the country for President Bush.

Q: The differences are portrayed as less about goals and direction than methods and how you create a coalition -- whether you go out there and hope people will follow or you work on getting them involved at the front end.
A: They're the same thing. If the U.S. doesn't go out, nobody follows. Name a situation in the world, and we will have started the resolution of the problem: Darfur, Liberia, Haiti, for heaven's sakes. Name one. Afghanistan, Iraq.

It's not sufficient just to try to get people on your side. You don't always have the luxury of time. You have to be leading while you're trying to gather people to you. You can't do one before the other -- or you can't do the other before the leadership.You can't.

Q: The Middle East peace process. Is there really much that can be done as long as Arafat is around?
A: Not unless Arafat were to empower the Palestinian Authority. Interestingly, in the last two weeks, I've seen some terrible articles in the Palestinian press about Palestinian Authority officials. Now, they don't criticize Mr. Arafat. That's not generally done. But a lot of the officials are really coming into some criticism, and I think Palestinians are tired of the constant internal squabbling and corruption. And that's a very good thing.

Q: That has been true for some time.
A: Yeah, but you haven't seen it in the press like this -- this sort of public airing of these grievances. I found it quite refreshing.

Q: Some of the hard-core Democratic People's Party in Taiwan folks think that President Chen, who can't run again, wants to leave a legacy. So he may try to move toward independence before the 2008 Olympics, when Beijing might be reluctant to retaliate and prompt an international reaction that could interfere with the event.
A: That's what the Chinese tell us. My sense is that the Taiwanese are entirely internally focused. It's domestic focus all the time -- they have an unrealistic view of the rest of the world. We're very forthright with Taiwan in making it clear that we oppose any unilateral actions which change the status quo.   Q: Is strategic ambiguity -- not being explicit about when you would or would not intervene in a China-Taiwan conflict -- a sound policy?
A: I think it is. You can't be unambiguous. Let me get theoretical: A declaration by the President that we're going for war doesn't carry much weight because it's Congress that declares war. The President can dispatch forces, but you can't keep them there unless Congress is on board. I think Congress would not support a Taiwan that unilaterally changes things. So it's good to keep the ambiguity both in the minds of the Taiwanese and the Chinese.

Here's an anecdote to show you how times have changed. Chiang Kai-shek's wife came to visit Capitol Hill. Every senator, every congressman came. Mrs. Chen came recently. There were two senators, I think, and nine congressman who showed up. Congress was in session. Now, to me, that would be a real warning bell, if I were Taiwanese.

Q: You're one of the signatories on a letter in 2000 that urged an end to ambiguity in favor of Taiwan. Have you changed your mind?
A: No, I haven't changed my mind. Taiwan had a very predictable President -- Lee Teng-hui. He was very predictable, and he was very steady. Chen Shui-bian, we find a difficult read. Hence, [the situation] makes a lot of people nervous. There was no nervousness with Lee Teng-hui because you were very clear where he was going, what he was doing.

Q: The State Dept. has been portrayed as a cautionary influence on the Administration. If the Secretary were to leave at the end of the first term, as a lot of people expect, what does that do to the interplay within the Administration in the second term of the various factions?
A: You know, the Secretary and I have long held the view that when you remove your fist from a pail of water, there's no hole. Having said that, as he would say if you were asking him the same question, he serves at the pleasure of the President. Those discussions could take place after the election. The President has to concentrate right now on winning reelection.

Q: Does the President have the same positive view of Russian President Putin that he had when they first met?
A: I was just this morning looking at the transcript of one of their phone calls recently, and they're personally very close. But there's no question that Russia is trying to assert herself in a different way now. She's having a gangbusters economy. We do have some questions about the Yukos-Khodorkovsky affairs that are differences that we've pointed out to the Russian Federation.

However, on major issues, we feel we still have a pretty reliable partner. For instance, the Counterterrorism Working Group, which I chair with my counterpart, the First Deputy to the Foreign Minister, is one that both Presidents have lauded. We've got some energy cooperation, notwithstanding our disappointment in the Yukos affair or questions surrounding the Yukos affair. The Russian Federation has made some statements, I think, that had a very calming effect on the market.... So it's a mixed picture, as you suggest, but personally they're still quite close.

Q: Russia has an interest in getting revenues from the completion of and supplying Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor -- and thus a resolution of the Iranian nuclear situation. Is there any tension over the resolution of that between the U.S. and Russia?
A: Not yet, but we're not up in the U.N. [Security Council action would follow action by the International Atomic Energy Agency]. Russia needs this thing to be resolved. They would like it to be resolved so they can work Bushehr in a more beneficial manner to them and to the international community. As long as the Iranians are engaged in subterfuge, there will be brakes thrown on that, and that's not in Russia's interest.

But we have pretty straightforward discussions with them on the question of Iran, and we're not in a situation yet where tensions have come to the fore.

[DoctorZIn]

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