Posted on 06/15/2003 3:09:04 PM PDT by sfwarrior
Shaken, not stirred, is perhaps an apt metaphor of the state of the world right now. The CIA is busily at work getting its moles into what now remains of the Axis of Evil. Iraq is no longer an evil empire, and only North Korea and Iran remain as the major destabilizing nations that lie in the path of world peace.
Recently, much of the CIA's classified work became declassified in its annual report to Congress, so you can now read formerly secretive James Bond-like cables, written by spooks to their spymasters at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., like, "Chinese entities are continuing work on a zirconium production facility at Esfahan [Iran] that will enable Iran to produce cladding for reactor fuel." The report is exotic, reading like something from a John le Carré spy thriller, and frightening. It clearly shows Iran is the next rogue nation about to show up in the crosshairs of America's diplomatic and military sights.
Concerns about Iran are legion:
Iran is illegally pursuing a nuclear program. That's scary.
Iran is the principal paymaster to a variety of terrorist groups, including the notorious, bloody Hezbollah. Iran has funded terrorist groups that have been killing massive numbers of Americans and even more Israeli civilians. Nations that openly sponsor international terror are targets our president seeks to neutralize.
Iran is busily spreading the reign of fundamentalist, Islamic mullah-controlled regimes throughout the Middle East while destabilizing civilian governments. It is inciting Shiites to riot in Iraq. These are the same Shiites who had literally no religious freedom under Saddam, but now that they're liberated, and at the urging of the Persian mullahs, they are making demands against our American troops.
Hezbollah, under the funding and direction of Iran, has refused to participate in the "road map" to peace in the Middle East and continues to destabilize the talks through bombings. Peace is simply not in its interest. And, conversely, Hezbollah does not serve the interest of freedom-loving nations that desire world peace. Secret Message From FBI
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh recently disclosed that his boss, President Clinton, knew that the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia was directly linked to Tehran. Nineteen U.S. airmen died and more than 400 American servicemen and servicewomen were seriously injured in that brutal attack. But Clinton didn't want to strike back militarily or forcefully engage Iran in anyway, because he had hoped a dialogue with then-reformist President Mohammad Khatami would be more fruitful. It wasn't. And, still, America has had no meaningful response to the Americans who died at the Khobar Towers.
Freeh, comparing Clinton's lackadaisical attitude to the stance of the current president, said, "Responding to [the recent] terrorist attacks in Riyadh, President Bush declared that 'the United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice.' This is a president who is serious about fighting and winning the war on terrorism."
Clinton's failed strategy of appeasement and negotiations with Iran had little effect. Freeh continued, "While the horrific bombing scenes were still smoldering and littered with their victims in Riyadh, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami received a rousing welcome in Beirut, where he vowed to support resistance against Israel and called the U.S. occupation of Iraq a 'great mistake' and a 'dangerous game.'"
Meanwhile, Iran's atomic-energy chief, Gholamreza Aqazadeh, denied that his nation had a nuclear-weapons program but told the United Nations that his country was not willing to submit to tougher inspections. This is clearly a new provocation, if only we had both the awareness to understand that and the guts to act on it.
But the Khobar Towers bombing was not the first vicious, murderous attack on Americans by Iran or its proxy, the Hezbollah terrorist group, which operates freely out of Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. In 1982, the Iranian-funded Hezbollah also carried out one of the most horrific suicide bombings in history in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. Marines.
Hezbollah is fearless, and its paymaster is clearly Iran, according to CIA documents. What more provocation does a nation need before it can act? We have shown an amazing amount of restraint already, particularly considering our awesome might as the world's only remaining superpower. Which rogue nation, had it our power, would show nearly as much restraint?
After winning the war in Afghanistan, President Bush told the American people that the Taliban and al Qaeda were finding refuge in Iran. And why not? The leadership of the terror organizations and Iran's mullahs think alike, and they have the same enemy -- the "Great Satan," the United States. These regimes have a justice system and a government straight out of the Dark Ages. They all use terrorism as a fundamental tool in their foreign-policy arsenal and are ruled by a extremist religious interpretation of Islam that treats the mullahs as gods and not as the despots they really are.
Hoping for a peaceful transformation or a peaceful revolution may be hoping against reality. The newspaper in Iran that serves as a mouthpiece for the Muslim government has come out swinging against those in that nation who are calling for democracy and human rights, saying that such people are fighting against Islam itself.
Mullahs, People At Odds
More than 74 percent of Iranians in Tehran support the reestablishment of relations with the Great Satan, according to a recent survey by Iran's state-controlled National Institute of Opinion Polls, notes Fereydoun Hoveyda, who served as Iranian ambassador to the United Nations for eight years prior to the Islamic revolution of 1979. However, that movement isn't in the cards. Soon after that polling data was released, the National Institute was closed down.
Iran's Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper is controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (beware of any nation with a Supreme Leader). A recent article was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Its excellent Web site translates Middle Eastern newspapers into many European languages. In this way, the West can see the duplicity of what Iran and other Arabic leaders are saying to their own people compared to what they say to CNN and the West. Truth is stranger than fiction.
The article called the moderate reformers "politically backward remnants of the last century" who have "begun to implement the concept of separating religion from state. Their hypocrisy...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
And the Carter one too!
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President Bush is definitely a Warrior!
I am, of course, keeping a running list of links to the Iran stories at the "last" of these:
DUBOB 11-- even *more* tales from the Dark Underbelly of the Beast.....
Imagine that.
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