Iranian Alert - September 22, 2004 [EST]- IRAN LIVE THREAD - "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

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.

Iran's bloggers in censorship protest

The reformist Emrooz website was blocked - but has now re-appeared

Hundreds of Iranian online journals have been protesting against media censorship by renaming their websites after pro-reformist newspapers and websites that have been banned or shut down by the authorities.

Many of the websites, known as blogs or weblogs, have also posted news items from the banned publications on their websites.

The protest was started by blogger Hossein Derakhshan, a student at Toronto university in Canada.

He told the BBC that although he felt the action was symbolic, he wanted to show Iranian authorities "that they would not be able to censor the internet in the same way as they have managed to control other media".

He said he was delighted with the response.

The hardline Iranian press has published a personal attack on him, he said, "which is proof that the authorities must be worried by the bloggers' protest".

Iranian web

Earlier this month, three reformist websites - Emrooz, Rooydad and Baamdad - re-appeared in a stripped-down form after having been blocked by the authorities.

One of them moved the content of its site onto a blog as a means of getting around the block.

It is thought that the number of Iranians keeping blogs is now between 10,000 and 15,000.

However, some recent reports have now suggested that Iranian authorities are considering the creation of a national intranet - an internet service just for Iran - which would be separate from the world wide web.

This would potentially mean that users would not be able to access anything the authorities do not want them to see.

But Mr Derakhshan said he and his fellow bloggers are working on a strategy to get around the intranet, using email subscription services.

Europe Warns Iran Against Nuclear Arms

Tue Sep 21, 7:23 PM ET

Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Europe warned on Tuesday that it would not tolerate an Iran with nuclear weapons after the Islamic republic defied the United Nations (news - web sites) by announcing it had begun converting a large amount of raw uranium to prepare it for enrichment, a process that can be used to develop atomic bombs.

Reuters Photo

European Union (news - web sites) foreign policy chief Javier Solana said, however, the EU remained committed to offering energy and other cooperation if Tehran abandoned its nuclear ambitions.

Solana spoke to Reuters after a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi on the fringes of the U.N. General Assembly that was "frank ... tough and friendly."

Solana sidestepped a question about whether he felt the Iranian nuclear controversy was still open to negotiation.

"I think we have to keep on doing the utmost in talking and dialogue ... If we fail in that direction, we may have to resort to other mechanisms (such as taking the issue to the U.N. Security Council but) we prefer not to have to," he said.

Iran's announcement on Tuesday came just three days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, adopted a resolution calling on Iran to suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment.

Iran had promised Britain, France and Germany last October it would freeze all activities related to uranium enrichment.

But Tehran angered the EU's "big three" by reneging on that commitment.

The United States and some other nations believe Tehran intends to use fissile material for weapons. Iran denies that and says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.

The IAEA, which has been probing Iran's nuclear program for two years, has found many previously concealed activities that could be used in weapons production, but no "smoking gun."

Washington believes the resolution passed by the IAEA on Saturday opened the door to tough action by the IAEA board when it meets again in November -- namely, a referral of Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council and possibly economic sanctions.

Solana, in a telephone interview, said he told Kharrazi "in a very clear manner that they had to comply with the (IAEA) report ... and that we will not tolerate that Iran will have nuclear weapons, potentially nuclear weapons."

He described the meeting as "tough and friendly at the same time because we want to maintain a friendly attitude" with Iran.

The IAEA set a fixed period -- the November meeting -- "to clarify the position of Iran (and) we have to use this period to get everybody convinced .. They have to convince us and generate trust that what they are saying is the truth," Solana said.

He said he told Kharrazi "if you don't want to go in the direction of having the capability of nuclear weapons, we can start talking about so many things. The possibilities of dialogue and cooperation between the EU and other countries with Iran are very many," he said.

He declined to say if he thought the United States, which has not had diplomatic relations with Tehran since the 1979 Iranian revolution, should engage in dialogue.

President Bush (news - web sites) has refused to negotiate with Iran on the nuclear issue, but Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) has said he would be willing to talk with Tehran about some kind of a deal.

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SEP. 22, 2004: THE WORDS UNSAID

Lovely speech by the president to the UN – but a question. What happened to the Iran paragraph? Just three days ago, the Iranian government formally defied the International Atomic Energy Authority. Breaking promises made as recently as October 2003, Iran will continue to move to enrich uranium – a process that can only be intended for weapons.

By its own rules, the IAEA is now bound to lay the problem before the Security Council. It is perfectly possible of course that the IAEA may shrug the matter off. But to give the agency its due, current director Muhammad el Baradei seems made of tougher stuff than his Swedish predecessor, Hans Blix. But whether el Baradei does his duty or not, this problem will be arriving at the Security Council very shortly.

So shouldn’t President Bush have said something about it? Given some public indication of the stance the US will take – and of its expectations of the world community? The president touched on many subjects of interest to the United States, but the looming threat of nuclearization in Iran and the very horrible likelihood that North Korea has already nuclearized surely top the list?

About North Korea there may have been very little the Bush administration could ever have done. Thanks to years of cheating on earlier agreements with the United States, North Korea had almost certainly reached the nuclear threshold by the time Bush camem to office. His main policy choice at that point was whether to sign another phoney deal – this time one that paid North Korea to pretend not to be a nuclear state – or else to isolate North Korea and exact consequences from North Korea and its Chinese patrons.

If North Korea did indeed test a nuclear bomb this weekend, as the IAEA has said North Korea may have done, then the consequences have to begin now: including potentially the acceptance of a South Korean nuclear bomb and further rearmament by Japan and Taiwan. China may not have wished North Korea to go nuclear, but only China could have prevented it – and China chose not to. If Northeast Asia is to become a more dangerous place, China should face some of those new dangers itself.

But there is still time to stop Iran. And the world community is at least theoretically pledged to try. As usual, many countries – including unfortunately some of the European allies – are disposed to shrug the threat off and hope for the best. Some of those allies, even the UN Secretary General, have complained that the US did not give enough heed to UN procedures on Iraq. OK then: Let’s see how they follow UN procedures on Iran. The UN speech presented an opportunity to remind those allies of their danger – and their obligations. Why didn’t the president make use of it?

POLICYWATCH

Number 899

September 16, 2004

THE IAEA AND IRAN: THE PERILS OF INACTION

By Michael Eisenstadt

Deep divisions among the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), currently meeting in Vienna, continue to hamper U.S. efforts on two key fronts: pressing Iran to suspend work on its nuclear program, and referring allegations of Iranian violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to the UN Security Council. With the current meeting unlikely to produce tangible steps to halt Iran's nuclear program, it is important to understand the potential consequences of Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability.

Political Dynamics -- Iran and Beyond

Iranian possession of nuclear weapons could have significant political consequences. It might dim prospects for political change in Iran by discouraging supporters of reform and bolstering outspoken hardline supporters of the nuclear program. It might cause some of Iran's neighbors to accommodate the Islamic Republic on various issues, while influencing others to seek an independent deterrent capability or to deepen security cooperation with the United States -- though Iranian nuclear weapons could constrain U.S. military freedom of action in the Persian Gulf as well. Such a development would also likely embolden forces opposed to Arab-Israeli peace (such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hizballah), further complicating efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. And, as Iran eventually extends the range of its missile force to enable it to strike targets outside the Middle East, the states of the European Union will have to factor the country's nuclear potential into their policymaking toward Tehran.

Stoking Proliferation?

North Korea's unchecked development of a small nuclear stockpile has long prompted fears that South Korea and Japan might develop nuclear weapons themselves; recent revelations regarding South Korean enrichment experiments carried our four years ago have vindicated these concerns. Iran's nuclear program -- whether or not it results in a declared nuclear weapons capability -- has likewise raised concerns that it could spur a new round of proliferation in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia might try to purchase a nuclear weapon from North Korea or Pakistan, while some of the smaller Gulf states might leverage their petrochemical industries to produce modest chemical weapon stockpiles for deterrence. Israel would probably continue its successful policy of nuclear ambiguity, though it may find ways to bolster its deterrent posture by further reducing the thin veneer of ambiguity regarding its nuclear status. This could cause Egypt and Syria to explore their nuclear options (although there is reason for concern that Syria is already doing so). Finally, Iran's activities could eventually cause post-Saddam Iraq to consider its nuclear options, if and when a degree of stability returns to that country.

Fostering Stability or Instability?

There are two schools of thought regarding how nuclear weapons affect the behavior of states. One argues that the acquisition of nuclear weapons induces greater prudence and caution among possessor states, and adduces U.S. and Soviet behavior during the Cold War as proof (though post-Cold War revelations regarding the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and false warnings of nuclear attacks during the Cold War have diminished the appeal of this model). The other argues that the acquisition of nuclear weapons (or, more generally, weapons of mass destruction) can lead to an increased propensity for risk-taking. Thus, Iraq's maturing chemical and biological weapons programs may have emboldened Saddam Hussein to pursue a more aggressive regional policy in 1989-1990 and to invade Kuwait. Similarly, the confidence that Pakistan's leadership drew from its May 1998 nuclear weapons test may have emboldened it to attempt to seize a portion of Kashmir from India, due to its mistaken belief that India would be deterred from responding militarily. This attempt resulted in the Kargil Crisis of May-July 1999.

It is impossible to know how nuclear weapons might affect Iranian policy, though several of the regime's past actions give reason for pause: witness Tehran's employment of gunboat diplomacy in 2001 vis-a-vis Azerbaijan (to halt its exploration for oil in contested portions of the Caspian Sea); its abandonment of an October 2003 agreement with Britain, France, and Germany that temporarily froze key elements of its nuclear program; its humiliating treatment of British servicemen recently detained in the Shatt al-Arab waterway; its threats to annihilate Israel should the latter bomb sites associated with the Iranian nuclear program; and its rebuff of an IAEA request to visit a suspected nuclear site at a military industrial facility at Parchin. Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons might further embolden its increasingly self-confident hardline leadership to bully its neighbors, stiff-arm Europe, threaten Israel, and more aggressively work to undermine U.S. interests in the region.

Military Risk-Taking?

Iranian decisionmakers may believe that the possession of nuclear weapons could provide Tehran with greater latitude to pursue more aggressive policies against its neighbors, the United States, or Israel. Although Iran is unlikely to conduct conventional military operations against any of its neighbors (its conventional military forces are weak, and there are few scenarios in which a conventional military move would make sense), it might increase support for terrorist groups that target U.S. or Israeli interests, or resume efforts to export the revolution to places where there are large Shiite communities.

Implications of Instability in Iran?

Instability and unrest in a nuclear Iran could have dire consequences. Were antiregime violence to escalate to the point that it threatened the survival of the Islamic Republic (unlikely in the near term, but a possibility in the future should popular demands for political change continue to be ignored by conservative hardliners), diehard supporters of the old order might lash out at perceived external enemies of the doomed regime with all means at their disposal, including nuclear weapons. The apocalyptic possibility of nuclear terrorism by an Islamic Republic in its death throes, though unlikely in the near term, cannot be dismissed as a source of concern.

Potential for Nuclear Terrorism?

The fact that Iran or its agents have not yet used chemical or biological agents in terrorist attacks may indicate the existence of a normative threshold, or it may indicate that, having achieved important successes by conventional terrorism (e.g., the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing, which led to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Lebanon), Tehran perceives no need to incur the risk that the use of weapons of mass destruction would entail. Nevertheless, Iran is likely to seek, when acting against more powerful adversaries, the ability to covertly deliver such weapons by nontraditional means (i.e., terrorists, boats, or remotely piloted aircraft). Because such methods offer the possibility of deniability, they are likely to become important adjuncts to more traditional delivery means such as missiles. In situations in which deniability is a critical consideration, they are likely to be the delivery means of choice. The possibility of deniable, covert delivery of nuclear weapons by Iran could pose a major challenge for deterrence -- particularly if the country's leadership believed that the nation's vital interests or the regime's survival was at stake.

Conclusion

Any assessment of the implications of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is necessarily speculative, and it is unlikely that all of the aforementioned possible outcomes will come to pass. But there can be no doubt that the acquisition of nuclear weapons by an Iran that supports terrorism, seeks hegemony in the Gulf, works to undermine American efforts to achieve Arab-Israeli peace and other critical U.S. interests in the region, and continues to call for the destruction of another UN member-state (Israel), will be a source of instability in a region of strategic importance to the international community.

Michael Eisenstadt is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute.

Reuters Admits Appeasing Terrorists

Reuters' global managing editor acknowledges that Arab intimidation influences his agency's news coverage.

HonestReporting has repeatedly denounced media outlets' categorical refusal to call terrorists 'terrorists' in news reports (see our special report on this topic).

As Islamic terror continues to spread worldwide, one major news outlet decided that enough is enough - it's time to call terrorism by its name. CanWest, owners of Canada's largest newspaper chain, recently implemented a new editorial policy to use the 'T-word' in reports on brutal terrorist acts and groups.

So when CanWest's National Post published a Reuters report on Sept. 14, they exercised their right to change this Reuters line that whitewashes Palestinian terror:

... the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in a four-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. (Jeffrey Heller, 9/13 'Sharon Faces Netanyahu Challenge')

to this, more accurate line:

... the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that has been involved in a four-year-old campaign of violence against Israel.

Reuters didn't like the adjustment, and took the unusual step of officially informing CanWest that if it intended to continue this practice, CanWest should remove Reuters' name from the byline. Why? The New York Times reported (emphasis added):

"Our editorial policy is that we don't use emotive words when labeling someone," said David A. Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor. "Any paper can change copy and do whatever they want. But if a paper wants to change our copy that way, we would be more comfortable if they remove the byline."
Mr. Schlesinger said he was concerned that changes like those made at CanWest could lead to "confusion" about what Reuters is reporting and possibly endanger its reporters in volatile areas or situations.
"My goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity," he said.

Schlesinger (right) with Reuters' news exec Stephen Jukes, who instructed editors not to call 9/11 'terror,' since 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.'

[Schlesinger repeated this statement in a recent radio interview with CBC, when he described the 'serious consequences' if certain 'people in the Mideast' were to believe Reuters called such men 'terrorists.']

This is a stunning admission ― Reuters' top international editor openly acknowledges that one of the main reasons his agency refuses to call terrorists 'terrorists' has nothing to do with editorial pursuit of objectivity, but rather is a response to intimidation from thugs and their supporters.

In every other news arena, western journalists pride themselves on bravely 'telling it as is,' regardless of their subjects' (potentially hostile) reactions. So why do editors at Reuters ― and, presumably, other news outlets; bend over backwards to appease Islamic terrorists, using 'safe' language that deliberately minimizes their inhuman acts?

Scott Anderson, editor-in-chief of CanWest Publications, said that Reuters' policy 'undermine[s] journalistic principles,' and raised the key question: 'If you're couching language to protect people, are you telling the truth?'

An editorial in the Ottawa Citizen, one of CanWest's newspapers, spells out the issue in black and white:

Terrorism is a technical term. It describes a modus operandi, a tactic. We side with security professionals who define terrorism as the deliberate targeting of civilians in pursuit of a political goal. Those who bombed the nightclub in Bali were terrorists. Suicide bombers who strap explosives to their bodies and blow up people eating in a pizza parlour are terrorists. The men and women who took a school full of hostages in Beslan, Russia, and shot some of the children in the back as they tried to flee to safety were terrorists. We as journalists do not violate our impartiality by describing them as such.
Ironically, it is supposedly neutral terms like 'militant' that betray a bias, insofar as they have a sanitizing effect. Activists for various political causes can be 'militant,' but they don't take children hostage.

* * *

The CanWest/Reuters affair is remarkably similar to CNN's Iraqi cover-up from last year, when CNN's top news executive admitted that CNN's knowledge of murder, torture, and planned assassinations in Saddam's Iraq was suppressed in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau. We asked back then:

Now that this senior CNN executive has come clean, it leaves us wondering: In what other regions ruled by terrorist dictators do the media toe the party line so as to remain in good stead?

We now have our answer in the Palestinian region. Reuters admits to regulating their language to appease the terrorists; and that's an open admission of pro-Palestinian bias.

ACTION ITEMS:

(1) Send comments to Reuters: editor@reuters.com

(2) If your local paper uses Reuters wire stories for coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, bring Reuters' admission of non-objectivity to the attention of your local editor. (3) Write a short letter to your local newspaper, citing Reuters' declaration that the goal of their soft language is to protect reporters, and recognizing the implication: Reuters is not providing unadulterated, independent coverage of stories like the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.

Iran: Curbs on foreign investment

Wednesday 22 September 2004, 15:08 Makka Time, 12:08 GMT

Iran's conservative-held parliament has approved the first reading of a bill that will place tough controls on foreign investment.

Embattled reformist President Muhammad Khatami has said the move will deal a major blow to the economy.

"This law is without precedent in the history of the Islamic republic," a visibly angry Khatami told reporters after a cabinet meeting. "It will paralyse the work of the government."

A majority of deputies gave preliminary approval to the bill, which obliges the government to seek the approval of MPs for major deals signed with foreign companies.

"This will discourage foreigners from investing in Iran. This will cost the country billions of dollars," Khatami complained.

"This law signifies that the voice of a government led by a president representing the people has no value and that the government cannot deal with the international community," the president fumed.

Another blow

The vote is yet another setback for Khatami and his reformist-dominated cabinet, already politically isolated after the ouster of reformists from parliament in February's elections.

Hardliners and conservatives took control of the Iranian parliament, or Majlis, after most reformists and moderates loyal to the government were barred from standing in the polls.

Parliament is now scheduled to examine the bill article by article and Khatami said he hoped it would "change the nature of the text" in the process.

In its current form the bill is retroactive and would apply to any contracts signed from the beginning of the current Iranian year on 20 March, and in which a foreign company has more than a 49% stake.

Contracts

It also singles out contracts related to airport services and telecommunications.

This is a direct reference to an airport building and operating contract signed with Tepe-Akfen-Vie (TAV) - an Austrian-Turkish consortium - and a deal with Turkey's Turkcell to provide Iran with more mobile phone lines.

In May, Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards shut down Tehran's new airport arguing that the contract with TAV endangered the Islamic republic's security because the operators also had business dealings with Israel.

You Gave Your Words, Senators. Now, Stand By It!

By Mohammad Parvin (09/21/04)

Last week, while several of the prisoners of conscience in Iran were in hunger strike and close to death, and when a 16 year old girl, Atefeh Sahaleh, was hanged publicly because of bad behavior and her “sharp tongue,” vice-presidential running mate, Senator John Edwards, made an offer of friendship to the murderous regime of Iran.

He said in an interview that, if elected U.S. president, Senator John Kerry would offer Iran a deal allowing it to keep its nuclear power plants if it gave up the right to retain bomb-making nuclear fuel.

Senators Kerry and Edwards both chose to ignore the fact that the Islamic Regime of Iran (IRI) is a terrorist regime and turned a blind eye to 25 years of atrocities against the Iranian people who are struggling for a secular democracy in Iran .

Sen. John Edwards told “The Washington Post” that if Iran did not accept this "great bargain," this would confirm that the Islamic state was building nuclear weapons under cover of a nuclear power initiative.

If Iran rejected this proposal, Edwards stated that Kerry would ensure that European allies were prepared to join the United States in imposing strict sanctions against Iran .

"If we are engaging with Iranians in an effort to reach this great bargain and if in fact this is a bluff that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons capability, then we know that our European friends will stand with us," said Senator Edwards.

"A nuclear Iran is unacceptable for so many reasons, including the possibility that it creates a gateway and the need for other countries in the region to develop nuclear capabilities-- Saudi Arabia , Egypt , potentially others," Senator Edwards alleged.

Well, the Islamic Regime did not take this “great bargain” and their nuclear disarmament plan has been bluntly rejected by the Islamic Regime’s foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.

Senators Kerry and Edward must now stand by their words and declare that they will impose a strict sanction against the Islamic Regime.

Even if the Islamic Regime of Iran had accepted this offer, it would still have been a murderous regime responsible for the imprisonment, torture, and the execution of thousands of freedom-loving Iranians and not worthy of any sort of recognition. Even if it complies with all the demands of the west regarding the control of its nuclear program, it is still a terrorist regime that has terrorized the Iranians for 25 years and must not be legitimized by any state or state leader that has the slightest respect for human rights and liberties.

Senators Kerry and Edwards ignored the barbaric acts of the terrorist regime that have been systematically exercised for a long time. We did not hear any objections from the world. Now, it is time that the whole world and especially the American people hold them responsible for their words. They offered friendship to one of the most brutal regimes of all time and it was rejected. They promised that if Iran rejected this proposal, they would ensure that European allies were prepared to join the United States in imposing strict sanctions against Iran . They must deliver now on this promise.
Maybe it is time to see the reality of the Islamic Regime and come to the conclusion that the existence of this monster is not only a daily danger to the lives of millions of Iranians, but to the world. Maybe it is time to ignore the interest factor and the short term financial interests of the oil companies and start to pay a little attention to humanity.

We do not expect much from the international community in general - the US in particular. We just expect them not to legitimize or help this terrorist regime. We expect a rigid sanction against the IRI, not of the type that we have been witnessing during the years that a “sanction” was supposed to be enforced, and not of the type that would exclude Halliburton, GE and more than two-hundred American companies. A genuine and real sanction.

We expect the U.S. to reduce its diplomatic relations with the Islamic Regime to the lowest possible level. This regime is not the representative of the Iranian people, and we challenge those who think otherwise by an internationally monitored referendum. If the US government and politicians want to be on the side of the brave Iranians who have not given up hopes in spite of confronting a brutal regime and all its western supporters, they should just give them moral support by declaring that they do not recognize the Islamic Regime as their representatives, and that they would refrain from establishing friendly relations with their abusers.

That is all we believe most Iranians expect from the U.S. and other countries. Just do not help this terrorist regime, and the Iranians themselves will topple the Islamic Regime through disobedience and non-violent action.

Those who listen will earn the love and votes of the Iranians.

Mohammad Parvin is an adjunct professor at the California State University and director of the Mission for Establishment of Human Rights in Iran (MEHR) - http://mehr.org

New Iranian Academic Year starts under increased repressive measures

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Sep 22, 2004

The new Iranian Academic Year started, today, and millions of school and university students commenced a year placed under increased repressive measures. Militiamen and Bassij paramilitary members were seen posted in front of many schools and universities by questionning, often very brutaly, whom ever seemed "suspect" or not observing the "Islamic moral code".

Several students have been reported as having been beaten up or arrested for their first day of Academic year.

Bust despite all the official desperate tries to intimidate, reports from many academy districts in the Capital and cities, such as Esfahan or Hamadan, are stating about the astonishing refusal of especially school students to chant the regime's anthem and instead to chant the banned Iranian National Anthem "Oh, Iran...!"

Scenes, such as, students turning their backs during the official opening ceremonies of several schools have been reported as well as sporadic slogans against the regime and its leaders.

Fresh political graffitis, such as "Sal e Azadi" (the Year of Freedom), were already noticeable on the first day of classes and hand written and typed tracts calling for solidarity of all students against the regime were seen circulating.

Most first day's discussions were political despite the massive monitoring of the students by members of Herrasat (Intelligence) and Bassij mercenaries deployed in what is supposed to be a place of exchange of thoughts and learning.

Most universities won't become fully operationnal till end of the month and it's doubteful that in the current situation this Academic Year will go till its end.

The Mullahs' Europe

By Robert Spencer
September 22, 2004

How quickly is Europe being Islamized? So quickly that even historian Bernard Lewis, who has continued throughout his honor-laden career to be strangely disingenuous about certain realities of Islamic radicalism and terrorism, told the German newspaper Die Welt forthrightly that “Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.”

Or maybe sooner. Consider some indicators from Scandinavia this past week:

• Sweden’s third-largest city, Malmø, according to the Swedish Aftonbladet, has become an outpost of the Middle East in Scandinavia: “The police now publicly admit what many Scandinavians have known for a long time: They no longer control the situation in the nations’s third largest city. It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants. Some of the Muslims have lived in the area of Rosengård, Malmø, for twenty years, and still don’t know how to read or write Swedish. Ambulance personnel are attacked by stones or weapons, and refuse to help anybody in the area without police escort. The immigrants also spit at them when they come to help. Recently, an Albanian youth was stabbed by an Arab, and was left bleeding to death on the ground while the ambulance waited for the police to arrive. The police themselves hesitate to enter parts of their own city unless they have several patrols, and need to have guards to watch their cars, otherwise they will be vandalized.”

• The Nordgårdsskolen in Aarhus, Denmark, has become the first Dane-free Danish school. The students now come entirely from Denmark’s fastest-growing constituency: Muslim immigrants.

• Also in Denmark, the Qur’an is now required reading for all upper-secondary school students. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but it is unlikely, given the current ascendancy of political correctness on the Continent, that critical perspectives will be included.

• Pakistani Muslim leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed gave an address at the Islamic Cultural Center in Oslo. He was readily allowed into the country despite that fact that, according to Norway’s Aftenposten, he “has earlier make flattering comments about Osama bin Laden, and his party, Jamaat-e-Islami, also has hailed al-Qaeda members as heroes.” In Norway, he declined to answer questions about whether or not he thought homosexuals should be killed.

Elsewhere in Europe the jihad is taking a more violent form. Dutch officials have uncovered at least fifteen separate terrorist plots, all aimed at punishing the Netherlands for its 1,300 peacekeeping troops in Iraq. And in Spain, Moroccan Muslims, including several suspected participants in the March 11 bombings in Madrid, have taken control of a wing of a Spanish prison. From there they broadcast Muslim prayers at high volume, physically intimidated non-Muslim prisoners, hung portraits of Osama bin Laden, and boasted, “We are going to win the holy war.” The guards’ response? They asked the ringleaders please to lower the volume on the prayers.

What are European governments doing about all this? France is pressing forward with an appeasement campaign to free two French journalists held hostage by jihadists in Iraq. The Swedish state agency for foreign aid is sponsoring a “Palestinian Solidarity Conference,” which aims, among other things, to pressure the European Union to remove the terrorist group Hamas from the EU’s list of terrorist groups – despite Hamas’s long history of encouraging and glorifying the murder of civilians by suicide bombers.

What Europe has long sown it is now reaping. Bat Ye’or, the pioneering historian of dhimmitude, the institutionalized oppression of non-Muslims in Muslim societies, chronicles in her forthcoming book Eurabia how it has come to this. Europe, she explains, began thirty years ago to travel down a path of appeasement, accommodation, and cultural abdication before Islam in pursuit of short-sighted political and economic benefits. She observes that today “Europe has evolved from a Judeo-Christian civilization, with important post-Enlightenment/secular elements, to a ‘civilization of dhimmitude,’ i.e., Eurabia: a secular-Muslim transitional society with its traditional Judeo-Christian mores rapidly disappearing.”

After the Beslan child massacres, however, there are signs from Eastern Europe that this may be changing. Last Sunday Poland turned away one hundred Chechen Muslims who were trying to enter the country from Belarus. This is the sort of measure that the countries west of Poland have been so far unwilling to take. But since one cannot by any means screen out the jihadists from the moderate Muslims, and the moderates are not helping identify the jihadists either, what choice did the Poles have?

It might not be too long before they will have to turn away entrants from Scandinavia and France as well.

Iran on the Brink

Yale Global - By Henry Sokolski
Sep 22, 2004

Short of acquiescence or military action, how can the world community respond to Tehran's nuclear ambitions?



	Damage control: Workers try to finish a nuclear reactor in Bushehr, Iran. The US and UN must prevent similar scenarios elsewhere.

WASHINGTON: This weekend, the UN's nuclear watchdog agency called on Tehran to freeze its efforts to produce nuclear fuel, since this would enable Iran to come within days of having a nuclear arsenal. On one side, the US and its allies want Iran to restrain its declared nuclear activities. On the other, Iran and its supporters insist that they have the right to pursue them all. Although it's unclear who will win, what's not is that the dispute is forcing all sides back to square one. At stake is the future of international nuclear controls, as well as any hopes of keeping the Middle East from following Iran's nuclear example.

Unfortunately, these risks are not yet well appreciated. When it comes to Iran's nuclear ambition, everyone, both hawks and doves, Europeans and Americans, is in some form of denial. They all still believe that there is some way to keep Iran from coming within a few weeks of having a nuclear bomb. Iran, however, is no more than 12 to 36 months from acquiring nuclear arms, possesses technology and material to produce them, and seems dead set on securing an option to do so. US officials insist that Iran has begun testing non-nuclear weapons components. Preventing Iran from building the bomb, therefore, can no longer be assured.

Still, most experts don't perceive this urgency. President Bush's detractors believe Iran's nuclear misbehavior is little more than a misunderstanding. By simply dealing directly with Tehran, they insist, the US can resolve the troubling nuclear ambitions. Washington, they argue, should offer a reliable supply of fresh reactor fuel in exchange for Iran's pledge to refrain from making its own (and thereby coming within days of making a bomb). Never mind that the US has tried and failed over the last two decades to settle an array of matters with Tehran, or that Iran's defiance of a year-old nuclear enrichment freeze agreement has humiliated Britain, France, and Germany. A new US president, according to Bush's opposition, can reverse these trends.

White House officials, meanwhile, insist that Iran, having repeatedly violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), should be hauled before the United Nations Security Council to make sure it doesn't get the bomb. After two years of failed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) attempts to get Iran to come clean, UN action is long overdue. What are the chances that the UN can keep Iran from getting the bomb? Judging from the Security Council's inability to ensure Saddam's compliance with international weapons inspections, hardly as much as one would hope.

This, then, gives rise to the hawkish solution: bombing (with or without UN approval). Israeli or US attack of Iran's nuclear plants, this group insists, is the only hope. Striking Iran's known nuclear plants would at least delay its program a few years, but at what cost? Certainly, any lasting results would require a much larger follow-up "game plan" to overthrow the current regime - an endeavor still underway in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If there is no sure way to prevent Iran from getting within a screw driver's turn from having nuclear arms, what should the international community do? The answer: Tackle the most worrisome preventable problems. This would clearly exclude getting Iran to keep its nuclear materials and capabilities out of the hands of terrorists. This scenario is not only unlikely (Tehran's power-controlling Mullahs are unlikely to allow it), but clearly beyond the scope of international powers.

What, then, deserves greater attention? The one thing that's even worse than a nuclear-ready Iran and that can still be thwarted: an entire Middle East cast in Iran's nuclear mold. Earlier in 2004, senior Saudi officials announced their interest in acquiring or "leasing" nuclear weapons from China or Pakistan (a legal move under the NPT, so long as the weapons remain under Chinese or Pakistani "control"). Egypt, having revealed plans to develop a large nuclear desalinization plant, also recently received sensitive nuclear technology from Libya. Syria, meanwhile, is believed to be experimenting with uranium enrichment centrifuges. And Algeria is in the midst of upgrading its second large research reactor facility, which is still, curiously, ringed with air defense units.

If these states continue to pursue their nuclear dreams (spurred by Iran's example), could Iraq, with its considerable number of nuclear scientists and engineers, be expected to stand idly by? And what of Turkey, whose private sector was recently revealed to have been part of Pakistani proliferator Dr. A. Q. Khan's network? Will nuclear agitation to its south and its repeated rejection from the European Union cause Turkey to reconsider its non-nuclear status? What would happen if, under the pressure of increasing anti-US sentiment in Turkey, the US withdrew its forces, along with the tactical nuclear weapons it has based there?

What can be done to stem these developments?

First, the international community must challenge Iran's claim that its nuclear activities are peaceful and protected under the NPT. No nation that sits on so much oil and gas as Iran does has a legitimate, "peaceful" need to generate nuclear electricity. Consider: Had Iran openly solicited proposals to provide electrical generating capacity, all of the non-nuclear bids would have come in at a fraction of the cost of building nuclear power reactors and fuel production plants. These points need to be hammered home in the lead-up to the NPT review conference next May. Certainly, if the NPT is to prevent nuclear proliferation, it cannot allow nations the right to pursue dangerous, uneconomical nuclear activities that bring them within days of having an arsenal.

Second, the US and its allies should build on France's recent proposals that the UN Security Council adopt country-neutral rules for dealing with NPT violators. These rules should stipulate that countries that reject inspections and withdraw from the NPT (something Iran has threatened to do) without first addressing their previous violations must surrender and dismantle their nuclear capabilities (especially large research and power reactors and bulk handling facilities) to come back into compliance. They also would stipulate that nations not found to be in full compliance should no longer receive nuclear assistance from any other country (e.g., Russia to Iran to complete the reactor at Bushehr, which has been the "peaceful" justification for Iran's most dangerous nuclear activities) until the IAEA Board of Governors unanimously issues a clean bill of health.

Surely, if France can support such rules, so can Europe, the US, and its allies. If these nations unite, Russia, moreover, will likely follow, particularly if it receives a reward. (Here, one might start with the cost-free nuclear cooperative agreement Moscow has been seeking for so many years from the US.)

Finally, the US and its allies need to pace themselves. In the end, the only sure path to nonproliferation is more moderate self-rule and increased arms restraint backed by US and allied military resolve and economic cooperation. Iran's current rulers, for sure, will have to go. Until then, though, bombing or bribing Tehran should be put aside in favor of tightening up and enforcing the rules to keep others from following Iran's example.

Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, DC, and is editor with Patrick Clawson of "Checking Iran's Nuclear Ambitions" (US Army War College, 2004).

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9/14/2004	Clip No. 267

Iranian Political Analyst Proposes Sinking a Ship in the Straits of Hormuz

The following are excerpts from an interview with Iranian political analyst Abo al-Fazl Zohreh-Vand: Abu Al-Fazl: Iran is in a position where a nuclear attack against it is impossible. If it were to be attacked, the whole international atmosphere would be distorted. Everyone always talks about the oil in the Caucasus and central Asia. These are negligible quantities. Today, more than 70% of the oil comes from the Persian Gulf. If something happens to the Hormuz Straits – if only one ship were to sink there – the oil [supply] would stop and then you'd see what happen's to the world economy. Why should a bomb fall? Suppose some ship falls… Suppose some tanker sinks in the Hormuz Straits… As you know, there are two narrow waterways in the Hormuz Straits. One lane is used coming and the other is used going. Outside these corridors no ship can move. The water's depth permits passage only through these two lanes. If some tanker were to sink in one of these lanes, it will be impossible to export oil. DoctorZin Note: To view this video click on the MemriTV logo above.

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Please join Iranian Freedom Fighters and the Activist Community to confront the Atomic Ayatollahs´ representatives at the U.N...

Iranian Political Analyst Proposes Sinking a Ship in the Straits of Hormuz

DoctorZin Note: To view this video click on the MemriTV logo above.

Iran's bloggers in censorship protest

Europe Warns Iran Against Nuclear Arms

Reuters Admits Appeasing Terrorists

Iran cuts back interference in Iraq

You Gave Your Words, Senators. Now, Stand By It!

New Iranian Academic Year starts under increased repressive measures

The Mullahs' Europe

Iran on the Brink

New York Freepers Please Take Note: Please join Iranian Freedom Fighters and the Activist Community to confront the Atomic Ayatollahs´ representatives at the U.N...

Iranian Political Analyst Proposes Sinking a Ship in the Straits of Hormuz

DoctorZin Note: To view this video click on the MemriTV logo above.

New York Freepers Please Take Note:

Please join Iranian Freedom Fighters and the Activist Community to confront the Atomic Ayatollahs´ representatives at the U.N...