Iran & The Middle East

Important commentary by Bruce Riedel, former official in the National Security Council, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He has advised four U.S. presidents on the Middle East and South Asia. Commentary by Bruce Riedel: A nuclear Iran is no existential threat

Farideh Farhi has an excellent essay on the dehumanizing manner in which the media and pundits have talked about the assassination of the Iranian scientist. A highly recommended reading. Farhi is an Iran expert, and an Independent Scholar and Affiliate Graduate Faculty at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Murder in Tehran Farideh Farhi Jan 16, 2012 MUFTAH I do not know who killed Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, the procurement director at Iran’s Natanz Enrichment facility. Washington has categorically denied involvement and while Tel Aviv has, as usual, been coy about its role, Israeli President Shimon Peres shed doubt on his country’s culpability in a CNN interview. Adding further confusion, “Western intelligence sources” have told Time Magazine that Israeli Mossad was responsible for the assassination. In reality, it really does not matter who killed the young man and his driver as they sat in Tehran traffic. For all we know, given the mileage the Iranian government has gotte...

Jim Lobe is The Washington Bureau Chief of the international news agency Inter Press Service (IPS). This piece was published on his Lobelog. The False Flag Story and Provocations January 14th, 2012 By now, I’m sure most readers of this blog are informed about Mark Perry’s blockbuster story Friday on Foreign Policy that describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as U.S. spies to recruit and use members of the Jundallah group to carry out what the State Department and others have called a campaign of terror against Iran focused in particular on the largely Sunni province of Sistan va Balochistan. If you haven’t read it, you must, and you can find it here. This story naturally raises a host of questions, among them, why Jundallah was not put on the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list before November 20, 2010; how much control the Mossad has exercised over Jundallah and its operations; whether Mossad may be operating another “false-flag” operation with P...

In this US Embassy Cable dated August 17, 2010, Undersecretary of State Nick Burns meets with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and discusses the Israeli perspective on a range of Middle East issues including Iran's nuclear ambition. According to the cable, Dagan mentions five pillars to Israel's Iran strategy: “Political Approach,” “Covert Measure,” “Counter-proliferation,” “Sanctions,” and “Force Regime Change.” Immediately following the conversation on this issue, there is line that states “Dagan and the Under Secretary agreed not to discuss this approach in the larger group setting.” In light of what has been happening in Iran, it is useful to re-visit this Cable to see how thestrategy outlined in this document has been implemented. US embassy cables: Israel grateful for US support Friday, 31 August 2007, 12:45 S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 05 TEL AVIV 002652 SIPDIS SIPDIS EO 12958 DECL: 08/24/2017 TAGS PREL, PTER, MARR, MASS, KNNP, UNSC, PK, IR, IZ, ZP">ZP, JO, ...

The Origin Of The Term "Arab Spring"

When the founder of the Islamic Republic and its spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini finally had to accept a UN arranged cease-fire between Iran and Iraq in July 1988, he compared the decision and the acceptance of the cease-fire terms as being equivalent to drinking “a poisoned chalice.” After eight years of insisting on Saddam Hussein's removal as a condition for ending the Iran- Iraq war, Ayatollah Khomeini had to accept the terms that not only kept Saddam Hussein in power, but also came at an enormous cost to Iranian economy and its international status. Now tensions over Iran's nuclear ambition are taking the country toward a major crisis point. Iranian Revolutionary Guards have threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz. In response, the United States sent a blunt warning to the Supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei that such an action will result in serious consequences for Iran. This comes on the heal of the assassination of an Iranian nuclear sc...

Jan 14th 2012 | from the print edition WITH the glaring exception of Ron Paul, most of the Republicans who want to be president agree on one thing. Barack Obama has been soft on Iran. Mitt Romney calls Iran “the greatest threat we face” and accuses Mr Obama of a woeful failure to understand the danger. Newt Gingrich, who spends a lot of time reminding voters of his hitherto overlooked role (along with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II) in the downfall of the Soviet empire, says that as president he would put together a similar plan to topple the regime in Tehran. Rick Santorum, on the stump in the old mill towns of New Hampshire, takes time out from the economy to alert voters to the perils of Shia theology. He and Mr Gingrich agree with Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, that under its present leadership Iran is to be understood not as a rational actor but as an apocalyptic suicide cult which, if it built a nuclear bomb, would not be constrained by the...

Professor Paul Pillar is Director of Graduate Studies at Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies. He retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. In this post, he talks about the consequences of covert operations in Iran. January 11, 2012 National Interest Paul R. Pillar The killing of an individual foreigner overseas, if carried out for a political or policy purpose by either a non-state actor or clandestine agents of a state, is an act of international terrorism. At least that is how U.S. law defines it , for purposes such as the State Department's annual reports on terrorism. This form of terrorism is part of what put Iran on the list of ...

Hooman Majd is the author of recently published book entitled The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge . As he points out in this Foreign Affairs piece , "The government is less powerful than it was, but the regime itself is firmly in control. The nuclear program continues; Iranians go about their business, grumbling as they do. But a nation that weathered a revolution, an eight-year war with Iraq, and more than 30 years of sanctions and the enmity of the West is not about to crumble, nor to change direction."

The "Shadow War" against Iran Another nuclear scientist has been assassinated in Tehran. This is the 3rd scientist killed in the past year by assassins who use sophisticated bombs attached to their cars in the middle of traffic. This press round up summarizes the tensions in Tehran, and the uniform consensus that Israel and the United States are engaged in a "shadow war" covert operation inside Iran. An article in the Christian Science Monitor provides a good picture of this shadow war. Heightened tensions "have driven oil prices higher, with Brent crude up more than 5 percent since the start of the year to above $113 a barrel."

Anouar Majid, the author of Islam and America: Building a Future Without Prejudice , and a professor at University of New England ( Maine) has a very good piece on why America matters to Muslims. Why America Matters to Muslims http://www.juancole.com/ One thing that is striking about the recent revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain is the absence of any anti-American slogans or denunciations of the Great Satan, as the Iranian regime refers to Uncle Sam. On the contrary: signs of pro-American sensibilities abound. Democracy protesters carried homemade placards displaying slogans and statements (sometimes translated into French) of fundamental American rights. The United States’ republican culture, founded in the late eighteenth century, and given a brief burst of energy during the early days of the Obama administration, walked side by side with the protesters. President Obama expressed support for the demonstrators, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ...

Monday 9 January 2012 This would be a good time for the US and Europe to decline the ayatollah's kind invitation to be his faction's re-election agent The following three propositions are all true: in March, Iran is facing one of the most crucial elections in the history of the regime; it is doing so in an atmosphere which has become militarised, not just externally, but internally too – the Revolutionary Guards control Iran's oil industry, key business interests, the nuclear programme and the oil and gas infrastructure; and the more militarised the election gets, the more it will benefit the hardliners around the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He himself has called the vote a potential security challenge. Given this, why are the US and EU about to impose oil sanctions, which even if they do not go as far as Ron Paul's "act of war" will squeeze the source of 60% of the regime's revenue? Ayatollah Khamenei's reaction to the forthcoming ...

What values drive the Arab movements of revolt?

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has remained surprisingly silent and out of sight during the rising tensions between Iran and the United States. The only statement I have seen from UNSG is a statement issued last week in which he "asked the parties to resolve their differences through peaceful means, but stressed that it is Tehran's responsibility to prove their nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only." It is clear that the UNSG is not interested in utilizing the UN Secretary General's office to mediate between Iran and the Western powers. It is useful to compare his approach to his predecessor Javier Pérez de Cuéllar who served as UNSG during the eight year war between Iran and Iraq. He was an active UNSG who mediated between Britain and Argentina in the aftermath of the Falklands War, helped with a peace process in Central America, assisted in the negotiation with the independence of Namibia, and even tried to resolve the intractable conflict in Cyp...

HILLARY MANN LEVERETT DEBATES IRAN ON CNN’S GPS with Fareed Zakaria

In this perceptive piece, Afshin Molvai draws our attention to Iran's capabilities and vulernabilities, questioning whether the Iranian leadership is irrational enough to cut off its only source of revenue (oil sales) by closing the Strait of Hormuz. As he states, "an Iranian attempt to shut down the Strait of Hormuz would be akin to a man purposely blocking a coronary artery, preventing blood and oxygen from reaching his heart. Such a man would immediately experience myocardial infarction – a heart attack – and die." Afshin Molavi is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington DC, and senior adviser at Oxford Analytica. Afshin Molavi The National Jan 9, 2012 Chest-thumping threats by senior Iranian officials in recent days to close down the Strait of Hormuz sound like the proverbial cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Iran’s economy is overwhelmingly dependent on oil sales, most of which moves through the Strait to markets in Asia and...

According to this report in the Financial Times, the government of Bahrain has decided to host an inter-faith conference between Jewish and Islamic scholars. Bahrain has always showed an interest in organizing conferences on Islamic finance and banking, but now the embattled country is trying to do what Qatari government has been doing in the hope of building its reputation. But holding a conference on tolerance while the regime represses a pro-democracy movement in the country will not help the regime's image. Financial Times January 6, 2012 Bahrain to host meeting of Jewish and Islamic scholars By Simeon Kerr in Dubai Bahrain has pledged to host a meeting of Jewish and Islamic scholars later this year as the embattled Gulf state reinforces its image of tolerance amid a continuing crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Rabbi Marc Schneier, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, said the first bilateral Jewish-Muslim dialogue in the Gulf aims to build trust ...

AN IRANIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND ITS PROSPECTS

Jan 7, 2012 AS IRAN’S ten days of muscle-flexing naval exercises in the Gulf drew to a close on January 2nd, the price of Brent crude rose by 4% to $112.13, the highest since mid-November. The increase reflected nerves over the bellicose tone of Iran’s pronouncements that accompanied its show of strength, amid fears that tension with America was becoming dangerous. On December 28th Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, the commander of Iran’s navy, boasted that closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which tankers carry a fifth of all oil traded worldwide (nearly 17m barrels a day), would “be easier than drinking a glass of water”. This was swiftly followed by a warning from Washington that any attempt to close the 35-mile-wide strait would “not be tolerated”. In this section A few days later, Iran’s army chief, General Ataollah Salehi, raised the temperature another notch. After an American aircraft-carrier, the USS John C Stennis from the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, passed through the s...

Suzanne Maloney: How Washington is Sliding Toward Regime Change Foreign Affairs January 5, 2012 Tensions between the United States and Iran have spiked once again. Last week, responding to planned U.S. sanctions against Iran's central bank, Tehran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping gateway for one-fifth of the world's oil. U.S. President Barack Obama, pressed by Congress' near-universal support for tough new measures to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, decided to go ahead with the sanctions and signed them into law on Saturday. Fully enforced, they would slash one of Iran's foremost state revenue streams and virtually excise one of the world's leading oil exporters from the marketplace. Read the full article here

China is one of the largest buyers of Iranian oil. If EU imposes an embargo, this means that China or other Asian countries like South Korea have to pick up the 20 percent shortfall. But as reported by Peter Ford, Iranians cannot count on China to help them offset the impact of EU oil boycott. EU's Iran oil ban: Will China help Tehran? By Peter Ford The Christian Science Monitor January 5, 2012 Beijing While China may not like the EU move toward an Iran oil ban, it may not rush to help Iran by buying more of its oil, say analysts. If Iran is hoping that China will buy more of its oil to make up the exports it is slated to lose because of a European embargo on Tehran’s crude it will be disappointed, Chinese analysts here predict. Beijing “will not take the risk for Iran’s benefit” of angering the United States and becoming too dependent on one source of oil, says Ma Xiaolin, a commentator on Middle East affairs and head of the Beijing-based BLSHE economic consulta...

The Iranian government has launched another assault on internet users in Iran. A new law requires all internet cafe to register their customers with full name, address and contact information. As tensions build up with the West, internal repression will only increase. By demanding cyber cafes take people's details, government is free to focus on other methods of internet censorship. Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk January 5, 2012 The registering of customers' details at cybercafes is just one of the Iranian government's moves against internet freedom. The dream of dictatorships – to control communications within their borders – has got harder and harder as the internet has become more and more pervasive. Fifteen years ago, cutting off the internet was easy: internet providers used modems and you could simply seize them. Now it's more complex: smartphones may even be able to connect to telephone data services across borders. A determined person can get a mess...

This thoughtful piece by Iran expert Dr. Gary Sick puts the whole picture of Iranian nuclear threat in perspective, questioning the logic of those who continue to emphasize the urgency of dealing with Iran now regardless of whether Iran is capable of threatening the U.S. January 4, 2012 Who’s Afraid of the Ayatollahs? http://garysick.tumblr.com/ Politicians and pundits are curiously schizophrenic when discussing Iran. On one hand, they are prepared to declare, as Mitt Romney did, that the “greatest threat that Israel faces, and frankly the greatest threat the world faces, is a nuclear Iran.” To deal with this threat, he says as president he will “restore the regular presence of aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf region simultaneously… .increase military assistance to Israel and coordination with all of our allies in the region.” Further, he is willing to consider “blockade, bombardment, and surgical military strikes.” At the same time, when Iran a...

James Abourezk, is a former U.S. Senator from South Dakota and author of Advise and Dissent, tells us how the hawks are once again pounding the war drums on Iran. There They Go Again by JAMES ABOUREZK Counterpunch Jan. 4, 2012 I watched another news program today—this one on MSNBC—with Dylan Ratigan shouting into the camera that if Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz through which 40 per cent of the world’s oil flows, it is an act of war. That’s true. However, like most everything we watch on news programs, history does not begin with the latest reaction of someone who feels aggrieved. Much like a football referee seeing only the last fist flying, blind to the first punch, the retaliating party is the one who gets the penalty. With many other Americans, I’ve been watching the buildup to another war in the Middle East—this one with Iran. And it scares me to death. The President lays more and more sanctions on Iran because of fears of its nuclear program—fears that it...