Posted on 09/19/2004 9:27:58 PM PDT by 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.
/312_G.jpg)
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
 Iran's angry reaction to calls for a sweeping halt to all its enrichment activities may be born partially of a sense of injustice.
Iran argues it has abided by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and allowed spot inspections sometimes at two hours' notice in order to show the intention behind its nuclear programme is peaceful. Iranian officials repeatedly stress their country has a legal right to nuclear power - and in particular to securing their own source of fuel for power stations rather than being dependent on outsiders. The international community is mistrustful though - fearing Iran plans to convert fuel into highly enriched uranium for weapons. Under pressure By taking a tough stance against the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution, Iran hopes to show the world it will not give in to what it calls international bullying by making concessions outside the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The government is also under pressure from hardliners who dominate the parliament. More than 200 deputies urged the government to defy the international community and go ahead and enrich uranium.
For the meantime Iran has said it will continue and even extend its co-operation with IAEA inspectors in the hope that it can resolve all outstanding issues by the next meeting in November. Spot inspections will continue under an agreement known as the Additional Protocol signed last year though parliamentarians have issued a statement saying they will not ratify it. Disturbing progress The door was, however, left ajar for compromise when Iran said any further suspension of enrichment activities was a matter for negotiations and could not be achieved by passing resolutions. What is disturbing for the international community is quite how advanced Iran's nuclear programme already is. Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani, said Iran was already producing uranium hexafluoride gas out of yellow cake in Isfahan and had reached the last stage of uranium enrichment at a site in Natanz. The latest IAEA resolution called on Iran to reconsider its decision to start building a heavy-water research reactor in Arak - but Mr Rohani told journalists it was almost finished. He said Iran already had enrichment capability and could complete the fuel cycle any day it wanted. |
"The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating," an unnamed Air Force source told the magazine in its latest issue.
The Central Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency played out the possible results US strikes, the magazine reported.
Hawks within President George W. Bush's administration haev advocated for regime change in Tehran -- through covert operations or force if needed, Newsweek said.
But with US-led forces facing almost daily attacks in Iraq, no one in Bush's cabinet has taken up the cause, the report said.
The United States believes Iran is using a civlian nuclear program to mask a weapons development effort.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is strictly aimed at generating electricity, despite suspicions it is seeking to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons.
Uranium is enriched through centrifuges to make what can be fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but also the explosive material for atomic bombs.
Iran Refuses UN Uranium Demand, Is Rebuked by U.S.(Update3)Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Iran refused a demand by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog to halt all uranium-enrichment activities, prompting a U.S. rebuke as the Islamic Republic faces possible economic sanctions. The U.S. reproached Iran today for refusing an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution urging an immediate halt to Iranian enrichment-related activities. The agency, which acknowledged Iran's right to enrich uranium, asked Iran to further open its atomic program to UN inspectors. ``Iran will drag out negotiations with the IAEA and the Europeans, who are unlikely to agree to sanctions because of their oil interests in Iran,'' Youssef Ibrahim, managing director of the Dubai, United Arab Emirated-based Strategic Energy Investment Group, said in a telephone interview. The U.S. says Iran, which holds the world's second-biggest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, is hiding a nuclear- weapons program and is seeking imposition of UN sanctions on the country. New sanctions may force European oil companies such Royal Dutch/Shell Group to stop working in Iran. Iran won't accept any UN demand to halt the enrichment of uranium, Hassan Rowhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in Tehran, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Iran's nuclear program is peaceful and is only intended to generate energy, he said. Inspections Iran has had more than 800 IAEA inspections in the last year, Hossein Mousavian, head of Iran's delegation to the IAEA, said this week. Total SA, Europe's third-largest oil company, OAO Lukoil, Russia's top oil producer, and Norway's Norsk Hydro ASA are among other international oil companies working in Iran. The country is the second-largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia. The ``clock is ticking'' for Iran to stop its activities and cooperate with the IAEA, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said today in Vienna. ``We should all expect that Iran should follow the obligations and cooperate with the IAEA,'' Abraham said at a conference of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, a movement backed by the U.S., Russia and International Atomic Energy Agency seeking to secure radioactive materials around the world. `Dialogue' Iran's suspension of its uranium-enrichment program since October 2003 was voluntary and could be extended, Rowhani said. ``Only dialogue can stop us from resuming (uranium- enrichment) activities,'' Rowhani said. Doubts about Iran's nuclear program are gone now that the country revealed the goals for the activities, he said. The International Atomic Energy Agency's resolution proved that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful, Rowhani said. The U.S. has failed to achieve its goal of seeking a UN Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Iran, he said. The Iranian official didn't rule out the possibility of resuming nuclear talks with the U.S. The U.S. is pleased the IAEA has set Nov. 25 as a deadline for Iran to cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Jackie Sanders, the head of the U.S. delegation, said yesterday. Trade Sanctions U.S. companies are prohibited from investing in Iran by government trade sanctions. The U.S. law, known as the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, hasn't kept European and Asian companies from operating there. Shell and Spain's Repsol YPF SA signed an accord on Sept. 16 to build a liquefied natural-gas plant in Iran, which may take years to develop. Shell, an Anglo-Dutch oil company, produces oil from two fields in Iran and is bidding to develop more in the country. ``The U.S. sanctions haven't hurt Iran and if the UN sanctions are imposed I doubt they would be respected,'' Youssef said. Russia, which is helping Iran develop its nuclear program, has also refused to back out of an $800 million project to build a nuclear unit at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, Youssef said. Iran recently retested its Shahab-3 missile in the presence of observers to prove it isn't afraid to use force to defend itself from a potential attack, Youssef said. Israel, a U.S. ally in the Middle East, destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in neighboring Iraq in 1981. Iran and North Korea are two counties that the U.S. warns are working on nuclear weapons. Earlier this month, an explosion in North Korea prompted speculation, dismissed by U.S. and South Korean officials, that the country may have carried out a nuclear test. North Korea denied making such a test. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said the explosion in North Korea didn't appear to be nuclear, based on what he was told by an IAEA sister organization responsible for monitoring explosive devices. ElBaradei said North Korea has the plutonium necessary for a nuclear weapon, and wouldn't rule out the possibility that the country has tested or may be ready to test a nuclear device. ``I do not exclude at all that they have assembled a nuclear weapon or more than one nuclear weapon,'' he said on Cable News Network's ``Late Edition'' program. ``They have the fissile material. They have the industrial infrastructure.'' |
|
|
Iran threatens to halt access for UN nuclear inspectors
Kasra Naji in Tehran and Ian Traynor
Monday September 20, 2004
The Guardian
Iran rejected UN demands that it freeze all aspects of its uranium enrichment programme yesterday, threatening to cancel access for nuclear inspectors and abandon its international nuclear commitments if the issue is taken to the security council.
A day after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a resolution demanding an immediate and comprehensive halt to the enrichment programme, Tehran declared the call was illegal and signalled it would press ahead.
Hassan Rohani, a senior Iranian official, said no decision had been taken to "expand" Iran's freeze on the enrichment of uranium, the process which is central to building a nuclear bomb but which is allowed under international treaties to run a civilian nuclear programme.
After a week of behind-the-scenes squabbling between the US, the big European countries and non-aligned countries, the IAEA delivered a warning to Iran, ordering a prompt freeze of "all uranium enrichment-related activities" and threatening implicitly to report Iran to the UN security council in November should Tehran remain recalcitrant.
Iran interprets the freeze narrowly, while the Europeans and the US are calling for a suspension of all uranium enrichment processes.
Under Iran's international treaty obligations, it is allowed to enrich uranium, so any suspension has to be voluntary and cannot be compelled by outsiders.
Halting the programme, however, is the fundamental policy aim since that is the best way to ensure that Tehran does not create a nuclear bomb.
Mr Rohani indicated that Tehran remained open to negotiations on the issue and that Iran would not enrich uranium for the moment, but would carry on with ancillary operations which come under the IAEA freeze demand.
The reaction in Tehran to the IAEA calls prefigured several weeks of brinkmanship and playing for time ahead of the next meeting of the IAEA board in November.
The Americans have had enough of arguing over the Iranian programme after almost two years of inspections and reports and want to take the issue to the security council unless Iran makes major concessions.
Mr Rohani declared yesterday that Iran already had the technology to produce nuclear bombs, a view that is shared by many experts and diplomats closely following the saga.
He said production of yellow cake, a treated uranium ore, was continuing, as was the production of feed material for hundreds of sophisticated centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium.
These are some of the processes that the IAEA has demanded should be halted.
Posted Sunday, September 19, 2004
TEHRAN-VIENNA, 19 Sept. (IPS) Hojjatoleslam Hasan Rohani, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) announced on Sunday 19 September 2004 that Iran refuses any resolution which binds it to suspend its uranium enrichment process
"No organisation, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), enjoys the authority to deprive a country of its right to use nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes”, he told journalists in Tehran.
Earlier on the week, former Iranian president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had menaced the IAEA to take it to the International Court of Justice in case the Vienna-based United Nation’s nuclear watchdog decides on preventing the nation of acquiring nuclear energy for civilian uses.
Former Iranian president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had menaced the IAEA to take it to the International Court of Justice
"Any resolution which seek to bind us to suspension of uranium enrichment is unacceptable and we will not accept such an obligation", Mr. Rohani, a close aid to Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, observed, adding that Iran’s suspension of uranium enrichment had been “voluntary, aimed to show the country’s good faith”.
"The aim of the suspension which was announced last year ... was to build trust, but the situation today is different from last year since there is no ambiguity regarding our peaceful nuclear activities now," he added, commenting the latest resolution the Agency’s Board of Directors had approved on 18 September unanimously, but without vote taking.
The resolution urged Iran to suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment and reconsider its decision to start construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water.
Mr Rohani repeated that Iran voluntarily suspended uranium enrichment for confidence building and to thwart the propaganda campaign against Iranian nuclear program.
"We will go ahead with confidence-building and will endeavour to build up our technical capability to restore our national rights in the context of the international conventions. This is our diplomacy to proceed with on both directions simultaneously," he said.
The 35 directors also decided that “at its November session, it will decided whether or not further steps are appropriate in relation to Iran’s obligations under its NPT Safeguards Agreement and to the requests made of Iran by the Board in this and previous resolutions”.
The document, a compromise between several draft proposals presented by Britain, France and Germany in the one hand, the United States, Australia and Canada on the other, notes “with serious concern’ that “as detailed in the Director General’s report, Iran has not heeded repeated calls from the Board to suspend, as confidence building measure, all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities”.
The United States had pressed its European allies to adopt a stronger line on Iran, including a so-called “trigger mechanism” and a 31 October deadline for the “automatic” transfer of the case to the United Nations Security Council for economic sanctions in case Tehran do not stand up to its obligations.
Washington had pushed to drop mention of countries' right to peaceful nuclear technology.
But under pressures from the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) members plus China, the Board decided to drop both US demands, a move that Mr. Mohammad Hoseyn Mousavian, the spokesman of Iran’s delegation described as a “defeat” for the United States.
However, he expressed his dissatisfaction with both the resolution, which he described as “illogical and political” and the European Union’s “big 3”, that he accused of breaching their part of the Tehran 21 October 2003 Agreement.
But IAEA's General Director Dr Mohammad ElBrade'i said the document was "balanced" and called on Iran to comply, saying that going ahead with the resolution was to "Iran's and the world's interests".
Any resolution which seek to bind us to suspension of uranium enrichment is unacceptable and we will not accept such an obligation
According to the Iranians, foreign affairs ministers of Britain, France and Germany had agreed to close Iran’s case at the IAEA and make sure that Tehran would get advanced nuclear technologies for civilian purposes against promise by Iran to sign the Additional Protocol to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and suspend enriching uranium.
But both the trio and the IAEA accuses the Islamic Republic that not only it had not suspended the activities, but has introduced more modern centrifuges and is planning to introduce 37 tonnes of yellow cake at its Uranium Conversion Facility.
"The suspension is not obligatory and is fully voluntary and the Islamic Republic of Iran has not undertaken any commitment for this suspension", the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted the official, criticising the IAEA for combining the voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment with making it a binding for Iran.
Nevertheless, the resolution recognises the right of Iran to the development and practical application of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, including the production of electric power.
Iran says it plans to generate 7.000 megawatts of electricity from nuclear energy and to this aim; it has under construction a one-megawatt nuclear reactor in the Persian Gulf port of Booshehr with the help of Russia.
But both the Bush Administration and Israel allege that under the cover of producing electricity, Iran is after nuclear weapons.
Both the trio and the IAEA accuses the Islamic Republic that it had not suspended enriching uranium.
Concerning the US and Israel’s claims that Iran is going to test nuclear bomb in six months, he said that if they have any evidence to prove it they should show it to the board of governors.
"Iran has repeatedly announced that its nuclear program is merely peaceful and not military. We have never been interested in nuclear weapons”, insisted Mr Rohani, European’s trio and the IAEA’s main interlocutor.
For his part, Mr. Mousavian told Iran Press Service that Iran’s “main objective” was to prove to the world that the US allegations about Iran’s nuclear program were false.
“We have been successful to the effect up to the present day", he noted.
"We want to prove to the international community that our nuclear program is for civilian purpose. We have done a lot to do so, and will go on taking such actions in future too, because we are willing to develop better relationship with the international community. We don’t like confrontation and crisis", Rohani said.
Offering an olive branch, he referred to Iran’s nuclear case as a conflict and said that every conflict may either end up in victory or failure. “So far Iran has been successful”, he said, announcing at the same time that Iran has not shut the door yet to nuclear talks with the United States.
"We have already held negotiations with the Americans on various issues such as Afghanistan and Iraq in the presence of the United Nations and such negotiations on (Iran’s) nuclear file is not totally out of question" Rohani said, according to IRNA.
"If America drops its position of threats and asks for negotiations there will be room for consideration, but when they use their bullying approach, they spoil their own work”, he went on, adding, "Perhaps, when the three European countries announced their readiness for negotiations concerning Iran’s nuclear file, if the Americans had made similar announcement, we would have entered into negotiations with them".
Meanwhile, Iran's conservative-controlled Majles, or parliament again warned that it would not ratify the Additional protocol that allows tougher UN nuclear inspections after the International Atomic Energy Agency passed a tough resolution against the Islamic republic.
"The continued defiance of principles by the IAEA's board of governors leaves no room for us to ratify the additional protocol, and will lead us to question what is the point for the nation to leave its doors open for IAEA inspectors," said the statement read out in parliament. ENDS IRAN NUCLEAR 19904
Jerusalem, Israel, Sep. 19 (UPI) -- Azerbaijani police have arrested an Iranian who allegedly was spying on the Israeli embassy in that country's capital, Baku.
An Israel security team guarding the embassy Sept. 1 saw the Iranian stop his car outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel that houses the Israeli and Japanese embassies, and video-tape the site.
The guards alerted local policemen who arrested the man and found pictures of Dubai's airport, all the hotel's entrances, and footage of an unoccupied police post in the area.
The detainee reportedly said he filmed the buildings for their beauty. However, the Israeli prime minister's office, which speaks for the Mossad and Shabak intelligence services, said Sunday it believes the Iranian was gathering intelligence on potential targets for attacks.
Argentina's government found Iranian diplomats had been involved in preparations for the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the Jewish community building there in 1994, the prime minister's office noted.
ASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have raised sharp complaints in recent days that Iran is providing support for the insurgency in Iraq, expressing concerns over what they say are Iran's attempt to shape Iraq's future.
Pentagon, State Department and military officials, describing intelligence reports that are fueling those concerns, say money, weapons and even a small number of fighters are flowing over the border from Iran to assist Shiite insurgents commanded by Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel cleric. But there is no consensus on the exact scale of Iranian activities.
Mr. Powell, in an interview with the editors of The Washington Times released by the State Department on Friday, said that Iran was "providing support" for the insurgency but that the extent of its influence was not clear. Most of the insurgency, he added, was "self-generating" and drawing support from indigenous sources.
Mr. Rumsfeld, speaking Tuesday during a visit to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., said, "We have no doubt that the money comes in from Syria and Iran and undoubtedly other countries as well." He also cited reports that a shoulder-launched, antiaircraft missile had been smuggled into Iraq from Iran.
Bush administration officials, in addition to their charge that Iran is supporting the insurgency, described new concerns that Iran is financing medical clinics, hospitals and social welfare centers in Iraq, especially in areas where the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and American forces are not in control.
"Now that these folks are starting to provide services that should be provided by the Iraqi government, their purpose is to provide a political base to extend Iran's influence in Iraq," one administration official said.
Such support is seen in Washington as akin to Iran's support for Hezbollah, the organization in Lebanon that runs social welfare centers and carries out attacks on Israel.
The extent of Iranian support for Iraqi insurgents has been debated within the administration since last spring, American officials said. While blaming outside support could be viewed as a convenient explanation for a tenacious insurgency, officials who spoke of the intelligence from Iraq made clear that the most serious threats to security there remained home-grown: Iraqis still loyal to Saddam Hussein, Iraqi Shiite militants and criminals, although the effects of foreign influence and foreign terrorists remain significant.
Administration and military officials say financial support from Iran is especially vital in allowing Mr. Sadr to challenge the new Iraqi leadership and the American military.
Mr. Sadr still can attract fighters from among the tens of thousands of disenfranchised, poor Shiite youths. But Pentagon and military officials say he has alienated the business class of Shiite moderates in southern Iraq, where the economy was disrupted by the fighting to dislodge his forces.
"He is not popular in Karbala and Najaf," said one senior military officer. So the money from Iran is critical in keeping Mr. Sadr's movement alive, officials say.
Weapons smuggled into Iraq from Iran are also a concern, but officials note that Iraq remains awash anyway in Baathist-era automatic rifles and domestic military ordnance.
In a new assessment of the changing face of the Iraqi insurgency, Pentagon and military officials now speak of what appears to be a small but worrisome alliance with Iraq's Sunni insurgents - mostly loyalists to Mr. Hussein's ousted government and Hussein-era military officers - who may be offering tactical combat training to the Sadr militia.
Senior military officers cite reports that a small number of Sunni insurgents have assisted Mr. Sadr's militia with explosives and sniper training.
Although the Sunni minority fears Shiite majority control of a unified Iraq, the new reports of cooperation indicate that the Sunni insurgency in a triangle of central and north-central Iraq is aided by Shiite fighters tying down thousands of American soldiers in the Najaf region.
"There are alliances of convenience," a partment official said.
Iraqi leaders, including Dr. Allawi and Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan, have contended in past public statements that Iran is providing weapons and material support to Mr. Sadr. Shiite clerics run Iran, and Shiites make up most of Iraq's population. But Dr. Allawi, asked in an interview with ABC News whether Iranians were causing trouble in Iraq, responded in a more tepid fashion.
"Well, we don't know," Dr. Allawi said, according to a transcript of the full interview provided by the ABC News program "This Week." "There are some people, some elements, who are coming and still are coming from Iran into Iraq." Dr. Allawi, who will travel to the United States this week in his first visit as acting prime minister, said the issue was of sufficient concern that he sent a deputy to meet with Iran's president and foreign minister.
For its part, Iran has denied accusations of interference in Iraq's affairs, repeatedly called for the withdrawal of all American-led forces from Iraq and officially invited Dr. Allawi to visit. Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency, reporting Saturday on the arrival of Iraq's first ambassador to Iran since 1980, when the two countries began an eight-year war, said Dr. Allawi's visit would be a "positive step."
Some Bush administration officials remain skeptical of the extent of Iranian actions. Even Mr. Powell has noted that, while some limited support for Mr. Sadr is likely, Iran would not necessarily want to support a group like Mr. Sadr's, which also sees itself as a rival to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq. Mr. Sistani was born in Iran and has strong links to its clerical leaders.
"There are reasons for them to cooperate with one another and there are strong reasons why there is a limit to that cooperation," Mr. Powell said in the Washington Times interview.
Mr. Powell also said the administration was concerned about support for Iraqi insurgents from Syria. That concern was raised with Syrian leaders on a recent trip to Damascus by two administration officials, William J. Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and Peter W. Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs.
The chroniclers tell us that the Ottoman sultan Abdul-Hamid II (ruled 1876-1909) made a habit of keeping a small child on his knee in his weekly appearances in public. The 34th sultan of the House of Osman assumed that no decent assassin would willingly gun down a child. From the discotheques of Tel Aviv to the nightclubs in Bali and the schools in Beslan, the assassins are now of a different breed. The moral limits of our world have been stretched to the breaking point. The political ideologies of terror, armed with a religious warrant, have been defining our limits of tolerance, our morality itself, downward. "We love death," said that quintessential merchant of death Osama bin Laden, "as much as the infidels love life." Alas, this is not an idle boast, and terrors in the name of a radicalized, aggrieved Islamism have become a rebuke to claims of progress in our contemporary world.
The Russians now claim a 9/11 of their own; Spain had been given a signal day of mourning six months earlier, when commuter trains were blown apart by bombs assembled by Arab drifters and jihadists. In truth, Israel had been the first battleground in this ongoing war between civilized life and terror: It was there that pizzerias and buses and discotheques became targets of terror. It was there that the cultists of death cut their teeth and developed their rituals of mass murder--the videotapes, the boys (and then the young women) with headbands proclaiming their zeal for "martyrdom," the posters lionizing mass killers. And it was there, too, that religious preachers bent the faith to their will. In distant lands, it was said that the ferocity of these attacks derived from Palestinian "grievances," that this conflict was sui generis. But the ruin soon spread to other lands.
Earlier this month, a thoughtful and brave Saudi columnist, Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, in the London-based Arabic daily al-Sharq al-Awsat, ignited a storm with a piece of writing of extraordinary daring entitled "The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists Are Muslims!" It was time, he said, to acknowledge that the terrorist attacks of the past decade, in "buses and schools and houses" the world over, were carried out by Muslims. There is a "malady" in Islamic lands, he wrote, and a cure for this malady begins with "self-knowledge" and the end of denial. "Our sons, the terrorists," he wrote, "are loose in the world, the natural products of a deformed culture." In his autopsy, al-Rashed took on the preachers and the muftis, the religious judges, who have found in the Scripture warrant for this deadly radicalism. He singled out Sunni Islam's most influential preacher, the Egyptian-born cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. That cleric rules the airwaves with his access to television and the Web. He had issued a fatwa authorizing attacks on American civilians in Iraq, and al-Rashed saw in this ruling the ruinous ways of the radical preachers: "Imagine a man of religion encouraging the murder of civilians, a man in the fullness of old age inciting young boys to murder when two of his daughters are studying in the United Kingdom under the protection of a presumably 'infidel' power. We can't redeem our youth unless we take on the men of religion who have turned into revolutionaries who send other people's kids to war while they send their own to European and American schools."
Roots of rage. We don't know when this new terribleness was ushered into the world of Islam. But we know that at its roots lie the forces of envy and resentment, an attraction to the emancipated ways of an encircling global culture that Muslims can neither master nor reject. The young homicide bomber walking into a Tel Aviv discotheque has come to serve a warrant of death on people his age whose ways he yearns for yet cannot have. Cunning in their reading of the bewildered and the vulnerable, the preachers and the entrepreneurs of death have given this terrible rage sanctity. In the safety of England, a Syrian-born preacher, Omar Bakri Mohammad, recently opined to the Sunday Telegraph that he would support hostage-taking at British schools if carried out by terrorists with a "just cause." With the heartbreak of Beslan in the background, this man said that "if an Iraqi Muslim carried out an attack like that in Britain, it would be justified because Britain has carried out acts of terrorism in Iraq."
In our innocence, we think that a battle ought to be waged for Muslim hearts and minds, that perhaps if we refined or amplified our message, this hate would be driven away. It is in this spirit that the 9/11 commission recently recommended the launching of a campaign of public diplomacy in the Muslim world. But this is illusion. For at heart, this war for Islam is one for Muslims to fight. It is for them to recover their faith from the purveyors of terror.
WE ARE THE NEXT TARGET (Amazing special report on real forces behind the global terrorist network)
Inside Story: World Report ^
Posted on 09/19/2004 1:50:57 PM PDT by GIJoel
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1220747/posts
http://www.noahide.com/israel/nexttarget.htm
The Iranian government spends over $158 million on propaganda in the US and has over 5,000 journalists, agents, etc. in the US.
What is your source for these stats?
I've heard the hundred million dollar figure on various discussion boards and a couple of articles. As far as the agents at 5,000, that's not surprising considering 15% of the Iranian populace support the current government and there are over 1.4M Iranians in the US.
The Alavi Foundation:
http://www.alavifoundation.org/
http://www.daneshjoo.org/article/publish/article_1860.shtml
Among the properties Iran held in America that Berger's office declared was fair game was a 36-story office complex at 52nd St. and Fifth Ave. in Manhattan, worth an estimated $135 million. Built in the 1970s with Iranian government money, today it is owned by the non-profit Alavi Foundation of New York, the successor of the Iranian government-controlled Pahlavi Foundation.
In addition to the skyscraper, the Alavi Foundation owns four "Islamic Education Centers" in Potomac, Md.; Queens, N.Y.; Houston, Texas; and Carmichael, Calif. The Maryland property alone is valued at more than $5.7 million, according to real estate records. The Houston property is worth an estimated $3.2 million.
In Queens, N.Y., the foundation has pumped more than $10.4 million into its Imam Ali Islamic Education Center since March 1991. The foundation has an assortment of other real estate holdings around the country, including 20 acres of prime development land in Catharpin, Va., assessed at $1.9 million but potentially worth several times that amount to developers.
Several Iranian-Americans have attempted to gain control of the Alavi Foundation in the U.S. courts over the past decade. Who controls the foundation, established by the shah's government in 1975 to provide scholarships to young Iranians studying in the United States, has become a cause celebre among Iranian-Americans.
"These properties belong to the people of Iran," said Aryo Pirouznia, an Iranian-American activist who has spearheaded an Internet-based support group for the pro-democracy student movement that has rocked the ruling clerics with demonstrations over the past year. "These assets do not belong to the regime."
Attempts by the Flatow lawyers to attach the Alavi Foundation properties and other assets have been blocked by the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., at every step of the way, despite President Clinton's repeated claims that he is helping the families. Separate lawsuits filed in Houston, Texas, and San Diego, Calif., to attach Iranian government properties and state-owned banks were also rejected, after Justice Department lawyers objected.
In February 1999, Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey set up another meeting for Flatow with the president on the sidelines of a National Prayer Breakfast. Despite having personally blocked Flatow's efforts to attach Iran's assets, Clinton oozed sympathy and continued to ask what he could do to help.
"We told him he could help by unfreezing the Nations Bank account where the rent from Iran's diplomatic properties is being held," Flatow said. "Clinton turned to Berger, and told him to get on it."
Once again, Flatow says, he was tricked into believing he had the president's support. When his lawyers filed a motion to attach the Nations Bank account, the Justice Department once again opposed them, filing a motion to quash. By November 1999, the Justice Department had assigned 14 government lawyers to the case.
"That's more than they assigned to the Microsoft anti-trust suit," said Flatow family attorney Thomas Fortune Fay.
The Alavi Foundation
The Pahlavi Foundation in New York and its parent, the Pahlavi Foundation in Tehran, were seized by the revolutionary government of Ayatollah Khomeini in a decree dated Feb. 28, 1979.
The Shah's assets and those of his supporters were placed under the direct legal control of the supreme leader, in theory to be managed "in favor of the needy." Today, the foundation is controlled by law by his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, who appoints a chairman to manage its day-to-day affairs.
In Iran, the foundation controlled vast real estate holdings, factories and luxury resorts. It had share-holdings in major joint-venture corporations set up in Iran with foreign partners, including General Motors and Jeep.
In the United States, its main asset was the 36-story mid-town Manhattan office building. Back in 1979, it was valued at approximately $50 million. The revolutionaries forced the resignation of the foundation's pro-Shah Board of Directors in 1979, replacing them with persons loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini. Top among them was Mohammad Hadi Nejad Hosseinian, who assumed control of the Foundation on Aug. 27, 1979.
Nejad-Hosseinian today serves as the Islamic Republic's ambassador to the United Nations, after 20 years in various government positions in Tehran. Under his leadership, the foundation proceeded to establish "Islamic Education" centers around the U.S., with the aim of spreading pro-regime propaganda.
In recent years, the centers have become a magnet for the Iranian community by offering Farsi-language primary school classes that are fully accredited with the Iranian national educational system. But they continue to spread virulent anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda, including videotaped speeches of neo-Nazis such as Ahmed Huber, who praises Ayatollah Khomeini as the living embodiment of Adolf Hitler.
Over the past five years, the foundation has financed a Farsi-language satellite TV network in the United States known as Aftab television, which rebroadcasts state-run television programs from Tehran. Aftab is controlled through a New York agency, Cina Productions.
Despite the foundation's clear ties to Tehran, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control failed to include it in lists of Iranian government assets it published following President Clinton's trade embargo in May 1995.
Officials at the Office of Foreign Assets Control said in interviews that they had not been able to establish Tehran's "day-to-day control" over the foundation in a manner that would hold up in a U.S. court. A U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York agreed, and in late 1995 rejected an effort by an Iranian-American to attach assets of the Alavi Foundation to satisfy a claim against the government of Iran.
These rulings came despite a May 18, 1988, investigation by the New York district office of the Internal Revenue Service. An IRS memo documenting the probe, obtained by this reporter, concluded that the Alavi Foundation was controlled by Tehran. (It was then called the Mostazafan Foundation, after its parent foundation in Tehran).
On page 1, the IRS notes that the entire capital of the original foundation, $42,000,000, was provided in 1975 by the Central Bank of Iran "on instructions from the Shah." The money was used to construct the building at 650 Fifth Ave. The Central Bank "used another bank in Iran, Bank Melli, as its agent for transfer of funds to the United States."
The report goes on: "The entire $42,000,000 was given interest-free to the Mostazafan Foundation and is secured by a mortgage on the property at 650 Fifth Avenue." It was to be repaid in "15 annual installments of $2,800,000 each, commencing in December 1978 ..."
After repeated defaults by the foundation following the revolution, they re-negotiated the repayment schedule with Bank Melli.
"The debtor-creditor relationship in this case is cloudy and does not appear to be an arms length relationship," the IRS concluded. "Trustees of Mostazafan Foundation historically have been appointed by the government of Iran and it has been demonstrated that the Bank Melli is an instrument of the government of Iran. Therefore, Mostazafan Foundation and Bank Melli both may be controlled by the government of Iran."
Despite this and numerous other documents presented to U.S. District Court in New York, the administration continues to allow the Alavi Foundation to finance propaganda activities in the United States with impunity.
Real estate
The Iranian government still owns a 6-story Manhattan townhouse that used to serve as the residence of the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations. Located at 34 East 69th St., it was appraised for tax purposes at $5 million in 1995.
The Treasury Department has managed the property on behalf of the Iranian government since the 1979-81 hostage crisis. At one point, the Office of Foreign Assets Control rented the house to a criminal lawyer named Ivan Fisher for $50,000 per month. That money went into an escrow account for the Iranian government, which the Clinton administration has prevented the Flatow lawyers from attaching.
On April 14, 1997, the Alavi Foundation purchased land in Queens from the Korean Presbyterian Church for $405,000. That transfer occurred despite U.S. regulations banning financial transactions by the government of Iran in the United States.
In Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., the Alavi Foundation purchased six separate lots located on Georgia Lane, in the Waldwoods subdivision. The foundation transferred ownership through an insiders deal to a private corporation, repurchased it, refinanced it, and flipped the properties in the early 1990s.
U.S. government investigators believe profits from this and numerous other real estate transactions were done as a means of financing undeclared activities by the Alavi Foundation and the Iranian government in the United States. Bank Melli and Bank Saderat -- both agencies of the Iranian government -- also engaged in a variety of real estate holdings across America. Bank Melli recently purchased property assessed at $694,000 at 135 Puritan Ave. in Flushing, N.Y. In Los Angeles, a 1995 court judgment against four rug and furniture companies gave it liens worth several million dollars.
Bank Saderat has won title to numerous properties in California over the past five years as a result of mortgage defaults. These include a $2 million villa located at 515 North Rodeo Drive in the center of Beverly Hills, condominiums, lots, a convenience store, and more.
In February 1995, just three months before President Clinton's executive order, Bank Saderat established a separate corporation, the California Land Holding Corporation, to manage its real estate portfolio.
Bank Saderat's New York agency director, Ibrahim Bahmaie, was listed as the company's president. Following the trade embargo, the company transferred its assets to a series of front companies, which have continued to shuffle them to throw investigators off the scent.
A preliminary review of corporate and real estate documents relating to these holdings shows that the California Land Holding Corporation may control as much as $10 million in property through various front companies. Because they are a direct subsidiary of Bank Saderat, their holdings are the property of the Government of Iran and could be seized under the anti-terrorism legislation -- if President Clinton had not taken steps to protect them.
But the mother lode has been hiding beneath the noses of the Flatow attorneys since day one. And it makes all these other holdings -- even the Fifth Ave. skyscraper -- look like small potatoes by comparison.
When the cat's away, the mice will play. In this case, the cat is America and the mice are two members of George W Bush's "axis of evil", Iran and North Korea.
While not exactly absent, the cat is distracted by the third member of the axis, Iraq, and its own presidential election on November 2. In the breathing-space before that poll, the mice are proving ever more defiant over their long-term ambitions to become nuclear-armed powers.
The lack of progress within the six-nation forum discussing North Korea and the heightened confrontation between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), indicate that the two proliferators are playing for time diplomatically while pushing ahead with weapons development.
Yesterday, Iran rejected an IAEA resolution calling on it to stop activities relating to the enrichment of uranium and threatened to ban random checks by the agency were its case to be referred to the UN Security Council. Teheran said that if the council decided on sanctions it might follow North Korea and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The clerically dominated regime has long deceived the IAEA over its nuclear activities.
Now it is daring the UN, and in particular, its most powerful member, the United States, to do its worst.
Nothing much is likely to happen until after the American election. The agency's board of governors next meets on November 25, when it may refer the matter to the Security Council, though Washington failed to get a "trigger" clause for such a move inserted into Saturday's resolution. At that stage, the way forward will obviously depend on whether Mr Bush or John Kerry has won the presidential election.
Whoever prevails, America will be faced with a would-be nuclear Iran which supports terrorism, denies Israel's right to exist and, in the words of its extremists, would like to destroy the liberal democracies.
Such a power has to be contained, by negotiation, military intervention or the fomenting of an internal uprising. Despite the rhetoric, there could be an opening for the first. The second, given the dispersal of Iran's nuclear activities, might only be partially successful. The third runs the risks of savage reprisals by the conservatives.
Whatever the result on November 2, Iran will be high on the next Administration's agenda. Both there and in North Korea, determined and wily mice have placed the cat in an unenviable dilemma.
IRAN PING....................
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
The door was however left ajar for compromise when Iran said any further suspension of enrichment activities was a matter for negotiations 
