North Korea should follow Iran and release American Journalists

IPI: North Korea Should Take the Lead from Iran and Free American Journalists
14 May 2009

North Korea’s leader should take the lead from Iran, which released an Iranian-American reporter this week, and immediately drop their case against two American journalists who are set to go to trial on 4 June for allegedly entering the country illegally, the International Press Institute said today.

North Korea’s state-run news agency reported that two American journalists who were seized in March would be tried on 4 June for illegal entry and "hostile acts". Euna Lee and Laura Ling of US-based Current TV could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

"Iran’s trial of Roxana Saberi was a farce, but at least the appellate court did the right thing in setting her free", IPI Director David Dadge said. "North Korea should avoid more political theatre and do the same with Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who are innocent victims of North Korea's desire to gain political leverage in its ongoing negotiations with the United States".

The 14 May announcement that the women would be tried came three days after an appeals court in Iran freed Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist who was arrested in January and later charged with espionage. Her case attracted concerted pressure from IPI and other press freedom groups, and in an apparent concession to international outcry over the case, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to the appeals court urging it to be fair in its review.

Both Iran and North Korea have been locked in running disputes with the United States over their long-range missile systems and efforts to develop nuclear capabilities. Washington has been at the forefront of international efforts to isolate both nations, although the Obama administration has opened the door to negotiations.

Lee and Ling were arrested on 17 March. At the time of their capture, they were preparing a report on the growing number of North Koreans who are fleeing their repressive and economically devastated homeland.

One of the world’s most isolated nations, North Korea is intolerant of both domestic and foreign reporting. According to IPI’s World Press Freedom Review 2008, the country has the worst press freedom record in the world, with the repressive dictatorship of Kim Jong-il retaining complete control of the media while maintaining a blanket ban on foreign journalists.
Click to read the article

UPDATE: Roxana Saberi Out of Iranian Prison & Preparing To Return Home

I've posted two articles here. One is a commentary from Pajamas Media and the other is the news article of Roxana's release from Yahoo.
Rees

Iran: odd timing of Saberi’s release

from Pajamas Media
by Roger L. Simon
May 11th, 2009

No one can but rejoice at the release of Japanese-American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi from Tehran’s Evin Prison today. I have met personally with students once incarcerated in Evin and let me assure you a stay in Iran’s most famous jail makes Gitmo or Abu Ghraib, however you conceive them, seem like the Four Seasons. The former prisoners I interviewed had faces that looked like early cubist Picasso’s from their beatings. One had had his brother murdered in a nearby cell.

Nevertheless, it’s worth speculating on the timing of the release of Ms. Saberi, who originally had a one-day (closed) trial and then suddenly had a five-hour (closed, of course) appeal that turned an eight-year sentence into a two-year suspended sentence. I’m no expert on the internal workings of the mullocracy, but it strikes me they are not in as great a position as it would seem at this moment. The Arab states are getting fed up with them and are more than a little bit concerned about Iranian nuclear ambitions. Israeli PM Netanyahu is about to arrive in Washington. Conventional wisdom goes that the Israeli PM is on the hot seat with an increasingly unfriendly US administration. That is certainly true to a serious extent. But oddly enough, the Iranians, paranoiacs par excellence, may not be perceiving it that way. They may see themselves as suddenly boxed in by a burgeoning alliance between (largely Sunni) Arabs and Israel with US backing. Hence - they have sent a signal. You see, we’re not such crazies. Of course, as we all know, the subtext is - leave us alone to build our bomb. Let’s hope the Obama Administration pays close attention to this behavior. [Are you optimistic?-ed. Are you?]

UPDATE: For those of you who thought Maoism was dead, it may be finished in China but it’s alive and well on Salon with Glenn Greenwald, who writes of reactions to Saberi’s release: “It simply would not be possible for his brain [Eli Lake in the New Republic] to process the fact that what he’s describing as the hallmark of an uncivilized country is that which the U.S. does repeatedly and in far more oppressive ways than what Iran did in the Saberi case. In that regard, he is a typical American journalist.”
[How do you think Greenwald would react if he were incarcerated in Evin Prison?-ed. I hope it's not is Section 209.]
Click to go to the article and read the comments



Roxana Saberi: Out of Iranian Prison, Into a Soap Opera
from Yahoo News.com
By Nahid Siamdoust / Tehran
Time.com Magazine Writer
May 11, 2009

In an unexpectedly swift move, a Tehran court reduced the sentence of Iranian-American reporter Roxana Saberi and released her from prison on Monday, only a day after she appealed her case in court.

Last month, Saberi had been sentenced to eight years imprisonment on charges of spying for the United States, causing tension between the two countries at a time when President Barack Obama had declared his Administration's intention to improve relations with Iran.

Just before the official announcement came, Saberi's parents and lawyers, as well as dozens of reporters, had gathered in front of Tehran's Evin prison in anticipation of her release. Reza Saberi, the reporter's father, was visibly expectant, and said that finally "things were moving on a rational track." The reporter's mother paced in front of the entrance impatiently, at times stopping to stand with her arms akimbo and dropping her head, at others squatting down to sob into a napkin. When the journalist was finally released, she was taken through a back door, out of reporters' view. Later, in front of her home in the north of Tehran, her father said she was in good health and had been taken to a relative's house to rest. He had come to collect a few things for her, he said, and the next days would be spent "preparing her departure from Iran." (See pictures of the contemporary face of Iran.)

Saberi is free to leave Iran, even though her two-year prison term for spying has only been suspended. The only stipulation was that she not commit a criminal act within the next five years. If that requirement is met, the sentence will expire and she will be cleared.
Iranian intelligence officials had been particularly suspicious of a trip Saberi had made to Israel, as well as her relationship with U.S. government officials. "From an intelligence perspective, there were issues that were sensitive, but Saberi was able to convince the judges that there was no intention of espionage whatsoever," said one of her lawyers, Saleh Nikbakht. (See pictures of daily life in Iran.)

Nikbakht and her other lawyer Abdolsamad Khoramshahi told TIME that the turning point in the five-hour appeals court session on Sunday was their argument that Iran and the United States were not at war. Saberi had initially been charged with spying for an enemy country. Nikbakht explained that in 2003, when another journalist and political analyst, Abbas Abdi, was charged with the same crime for publishing a poll that showed 74% of Iranians favored dialogue with the United States, he proved in court that this charge was legally unsound because Iran was not at war with the U.S., a point emphasized by citing a ruling by the Iranian parliament's National Security Commission, which was, most importantly, approved by the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This same argument, Nikbakht said, persuaded the judges that, "from a purely legal point of view, Saberi's actions were free of that crime. There is no basis at all for espionage in her file."

In the end, the court found Saberi guilty based on Article 505 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code, which states, in loose terms, that any person who collects classified information and puts it at the service of "others" with the goal of destabilizing national security is committing a crime. Previously, Saberi had been charged with putting that information at the service of an "enemy country that Iran is at war with," according to Nikbakht. That wording was dropped, reducing her crime.

Due to the national security nature of the case, no one except Saberi herself and her two lawyers were allowed in the closed court on Sunday. One reporter who caught a glimpse of her as she left the court building said Saberi was wearing a black chador, "pale and emaciated." (Saberi had been on a hunger strike last week.) Both her lawyers told TIME the court session was extremely fair, and Nikbakht said, "What has happened is a victory for justice in Iran." (See pictures of the fashion styles of Muslim women from iran to Oman.)

The U.S.-born reporter of Iranian and Japanese descent had become a cause celebre back home in America because of her incarceration and sentencing. A former Miss North Dakota, she studied journalism at Northwestern University before moving to Iran six years ago. Before her press credentials were withdrawn in 2006, Saberi had been a freelance reporter for various media outlets, including the BBC World Service, NPR, and Fox News.

Abdi, the analyst whose case was cited in winning Saberi's release, was surprised by the ruling. (He spent two years in prison before being acquitted.)

Said he: "These are all just political games." Without the international pressure, as well as appeals by both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, many suspect, Saberi could still be sitting in prison, like others charged with similar crimes, whose cases have not received similar international attention. Among them is Silva Harotonian, an Iranian-Armenian humanitarian aide worker charged with "plotting a soft revolution."

Even as Saberi's parents rejoiced at her release there was additional drama in front of the prison. Also waiting there was internationally acclaimed filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, who had published an open letter last month declaring that Saberi was his fiancee. He told TIME that he believed it was in great part because of his endeavors that Saberi was being released so quickly. He said he had a meeting with government and judiciary officials a few days ago, in which he explained to them the importance of Saberi appearing at the opening of his new film on Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival, "because she was going to talk about the Persian Gulf. I told them it would be good for Iran." Ghobadi has cited Saberi as a co-writer on his latest film.

There was clear friction between Ghobadi and Saberi's parents, who kept themselves several feet apart from the director. At one point, Ghobadi approached Saberi's visibly shaken mother, but she pushed him away, motioning him away with her hands. After Ghobadi's letter, Reza Saberi announced that he could not confirm Ghobadi as his daughter's fiancee. One source close to the family said they perceive him as taking advantage of her recent newsworthiness to publicize his film, and wonder why he was not speaking out for her before her case attracted such international attention. Ghobadi said he had been ordered to keep silent by sources he could not reveal, and finally broke his silence when he "could no longer hold it."

The most plausible explanation for Saberi's immediate release came from a source close to the case, who asked for anonymity. "The government simply did not want to have this hugely sensationalized and publicized case hovering over it right before the elections. [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad asked [Judiciary Chief Mahmoud Hashemi] Shahroudi to put an end to this," the source said. (Read why Ahmadinejad was intervening in the Saberi case.)

With only about a month left until Iran's presidential elections, as well as a generally positive mood among Iranians for better relations with the administration of President Obama, it appears that Saberi's case had become too much of a liability for Iran. Certainly, her release is an immense relief for her family and friends, but ironically, it also appears to be a relief for the Islamic Republic.
View this article on Time.com
Click to read this Yahoo News article

Roxana Saberi to be freed today!!!

from Yahoo News
May 11, 2009
By Fredrik Dahl and Hashem Kalantari

TEHRAN (Reuters) – U.S.-born journalist Roxana Saberi is to be freed soon after an Iranian appeals court cut her eight-year jail sentence for spying to a suspended two-year term.
A judiciary source said Saberi, whose jailing on April 18 on charges of spying for the United States became a new source of tension between Tehran and Washington, had already been released and would be allowed to leave Iran.

But her father Reza said she had not yet walked free after more than three months in detention, saying he was waiting in front of Evin prison in northern Tehran.

"She will be freed today, hopefully. The papers are ready ... it is just a matter of time, a couple of hours," he told Reuters by telephone. "We are very happy."

Reza Saberi said he and his Japanese wife Akiko would "bring our daughter back home," apparently referring to the United States, where he moved in the early 1970s. "We will go back as soon as possible," he said.

The development came a day after an appeals court held a hearing on the case of Saberi, a 32-year-old journalist who has worked for the BBC and U.S. National Public Radio.

"The appeals court ... has reduced her jail sentence from eight years to two years of suspended sentence ... and she will soon be free," her defense lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi said.

"In consideration of this ruling, naturally she will be freed," judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told the official IRNA news agency, without giving a date.

The lawyer said Saberi would be banned from doing any reporting work in Iran for five years.

"There are no obstacles for her leaving the country and she can leave Iran freely," said her other lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht.

Saberi looked thin and tired at Sunday's court session. Last week, her father said she had ended a two-week hunger strike and was "very weak." The judiciary denied she had refused food and said she was in good health.

MISS NORTH DAKOTA

Saberi, a citizen of both the United States and Iran, was arrested in late January for working in the Islamic Republic after her press credentials had expired. She was later charged with espionage, a charge that can carry the death sentence.

Her case created a new problem for Tehran and Washington at a time when the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking to reach out to the Islamic state after three decades of mutual mistrust.

The United States said the espionage charges against Saberi, a former Miss Dakota who moved to Iran six years ago, were baseless and demanded her immediate release.

Tehran, which does not recognize dual nationality, said Washington should respect the independence of Iran's judiciary.

The two countries are locked in a dispute over nuclear work that the West fears is aimed at making weapons, an allegation that Iran denies.

Obama has offered a new beginning of engagement with Tehran if it "unclenches his fist." Iran says the United States must show real change in police toward it.

Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders last month said Saberi's conviction was a warning to foreign journalists working in Iran ahead of its presidential election in June.

It said seven journalists were imprisoned in Iran, which it said was ranked 166th out of 173 countries in its latest press freedom index.

Iran denies Western allegations it is seeking to stifle dissenting voices. The government says it welcomes constructive criticism and upholds the principle of free speech.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Hossein Jaseb; Editing by Peter Millership)
Click to read the article and the comments

The Obama World Apology Tour Continues...I Guess He Missed A Few

Obama to address Muslim world again – from Egypt

from the Debkafile.com
May 9, 2009

The exact location within Egypt from which US president Barack Obama will deliver another speech to the Muslim world on June 4 has yet to be determined, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday, May 8.

It is not clear if the US president was actually invited to visit Egypt. But Gibb stressed: "The scope of the speech, the desire for the president to speak, is bigger than where the speech was going to be given or who's the leadership of the country where the speech is going to be given."

From Egypt, Obama travels June 5 to the German city of Dresden and the former Nazi death camp at Buchenwald, in whose liberation Obama's great-uncle Charlie Payne took part in 1945 as a soldier in the US army. DEBKAfile's Washington sources commented that this visit is intended to highlight the Holocaust, which some Muslim leaders like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad make a point of denying, as a factor in his commitment to Israel's security.

Those sources were unable to explain why the president felt impelled to address the Muslim people again, or why Egypt was chosen, when US relations with President Hosni Mubarak are strained over the latter's resentment of Washington's rapprochement with Tehran and its criticism of Egypt's human rights conduct.

The White House spokesman said: "I think in many ways, this is the heart of the Arab world." The address is intended for the entire Muslim world, not simply Arab Muslims. It is part of Mr. Obama's continuing effort to reach out to Muslims, as he did in a speech he gave in Turkey last month.

Two high-ranking US delegations which visited Cairo in the last ten days failed to convince Mubarak that the US president's plans to engage Iran in diplomacy was not at the expense of Arab interests.

After Germany, Obama will then join commemorations marking the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy as guest of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Click to read the rest of the article

Iran canceled air show upon Russian warning of Israeli plan to destroy all 140 warplanes

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
April 24, 2009

Iranian warplanes did not take off

DEBKAfile's Iranian and intelligence sources disclose that Moscow warned Tehran Friday April 17 that Israel was planning to destroy all 140 fighter-bombers concentrated at the Mehr-Abad Air Force base for an air show over Tehran on Iran's Army Day the following day. The entire fleet was accordingly removed to remote bases and the display cancelled.

In the first week of April, Tehran announced it would stage its biggest air show ever to dramatize a ceremonial military parade in the capital on April 18. Iran would show the world that it is capable of fighting off an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities. Instead only four aircraft flew over the saluting stand.

Iranian media explained that the big show was cancelled due to "bad weather and poor visibility," when in fact Tehran basked in warm and sunny weather.

Moscow had informed the Iranians that its spy satellites and intelligence sources had picked up preparations at Israeli Air Force bases to destroy the 140 warplanes, the bulk of the Iranian air force, on the ground the night before the display, leaving its nuclear sites without aerial defense. A similar operation wiped out the entire Egyptian air fleet in the early hours of the 1967 war.
Click to read the article

Iran can produce first nuke in 60 days!

Iran could produce first nuke in 60 days with 7,000 centrifuges working 24/7

from theDEBKAfile
April 21, 2009

DEBKAfile's military sources cite some Western intelligence and nuclear weapons experts as predicting that Iran could turn out nuclear weapons some time in the next 12 months.

This estimate is based on Tehran's announcement that 7,000 centrifuges are in operation to enrich uranium. If all those machines were to work at top speed day and night, seven days a week, they could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to build a bomb in 60 days, say some intelligence sources. According to American experts, given the current rate of the program's development, Iran will be in a position to manufacture as many as 60 nuclear bombs and warheads in 12 to 18 months.

This judgment was confirmed by Israel's military intelligence (AMAN) chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin in his latest briefing to the cabinet Monday, April 20. He reported that Iran is going all-out for enriched uranium from overseas to shorten the process.

Japanese sources recently reported that a North Korean boat shipped a large quantity to Iran earlier this year. According to the big-circulation The Nikkei, the North Korean vessel's hold carried a secret cargo of uranium highly-enriched to 50-60 percent. The ship set out for Iran in December, moving at a leisurely pace so as not to call attention from Western spy satellites, surveillance vessels and warships. Earlier this year, the illegal consignment was dropped at an Iranian port for transport to a facility near Tehran, according to the Japanese paper.

Yadlin noted that extreme economic crisis has not delayed Tehran's headlong nuclear progress or curtailed its designs on other Middle East countries – Hizballah's subversive activities in Egypt are not a lone instance. Inflation is officially put at 30 percent but is probably closer to 50 percent, while unemployment is deepening, yet Tehran upped the 2009 appropriation for its nuclear program by 15 percent.

Rather than translating the crisis into leverage for persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear objectives, the Israeli intelligence chief noted that the Obama administration has opened the door to dialogue with all the extremists of the Middle East, including Iran, albeit "with open eyes."

Iran, for its part, is accelerating its nuclear program, taking full advantage of the undercover communications with Washington which are aimed at gaining Tehran's cooperation for the US war effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Click to read the article

Ahmadinejad thanks ElBaradei - for holding off UN while Iran finished Nuclear Program

Well, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad didn't actually thank ElBaradei directly, at least as far as I know. However, he probably should thank Mohamed ElBaradei and the IAEA, because without their help and incompetence, Iran may not have gotten this far.
Rees

"No one will dare attack Iranian nation"

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his nation on Saturday that "no country in the region threatens Iran," just hours after The London Times published a report claiming that Israel was preparing to attack targets in Iran within hours of receiving a green light from the government in Jerusalem.

Speaking during a ceremony in Iran's Army Day, Ahmadinejad said Iran was one of the strongest countries in the region and that "the gall to threaten the Iranian nation was quashed forever."

"The Iranian nation is ready to become more involved in maintaining order and security based on justice in many regions of the world," Ahmadinejad said.

His speech on Saturday was much more toned down than Army Day speeches from previous years; in 2006 Ahmadinejad warned that Iran's army will "cut off the hand of whoever dares attack it." In 2007 he said "the resistance of the Iranian people will bring down world powers."

The parade of military equipment on Saturday was also more modest than in previous years. While announcements prior to the parade said 140 jets will fly in formation, only several dozen helicopters dotted the skies of Iran on Saturday. An official explained that weather conditions prevented the jet air maneuvers from taking place.

Shihab and Khader missiles, which are usually driven atop their launching vehicles in the streets of Teheran, were also missing.

But Zilzal missiles, armored personnel carriers, unmanned aircraft and even small submarines surrounded by marching soldiers in diving masks. The forces passed before a stage where Ahmadinejad and top brass were sitting.
Click to read the article and comments

Roxana Saberi sentenced to 8 years in Iranian Prison

Hey Obama,

Did that hurt when Iran stuck their thumb in your eye? Also, how's that "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood Diplomacy" working out for you? Just curious!
Rees

from The Wall Street Journal
an AP news article
April 18, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran -- An American journalist jailed in Iran has been convicted of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison, her lawyer said Saturday, dashing any hopes for her quick release.

The verdict was the first time Iran has found an American journalist guilty of spying, and it was unclear how the conviction would affect recent overtures by the Obama administration for better relations and engagement with Washington's longtime adversary.

Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But earlier this month, an Iranian judge leveled a far more serious allegation, charging her with spying for the U.S.

She appeared before an Iranian court behind closed doors on Monday in an unusually swift one-day trial. The Fargo, N.D., native had been living in Iran for six years and had worked as a free-lance reporter for several news organizations including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.

"Saberi has been sentenced to eight years in jail. I'll definitely appeal the verdict," lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi said. It wasn't immediately known when she was convicted.

The U.S. has called the charges against Ms. Saberi baseless and has demanded her release, and the conviction and prison sentence could put strains on efforts to improve ties.

President Barack Obama has said it wants to engage Iran in talks on its nuclear program and other issues -- a departure from the tough talk of the Bush administration. Iran has been mostly lukewarm to the idea, but on Thursday Iran's hard-line president gave the clearest signal yet that the Islamic Republic was also willing to start a new relationship with Washington.

In a speech Wednesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran was preparing new proposals aimed at breaking an impasse with the West over its nuclear program.

But it is uncertain how Washington will react to Ms. Saberi's conviction. On Thursday, the State Department said Ms. Saberi's jailing was not helpful and that Iran would gain U.S. goodwill if it "responded in a positive way" to the case.

The U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Iran after its 1979 Islamic revolution and takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Human-rights groups have repeatedly criticized Iran for arresting journalists and suppressing freedom of speech. The government has arrested several Iranian-Americans in the past few years, citing alleged attempts to overthrow its Islamic government through what it calls a "soft revolution." But they were never put on trial and were eventually released from prison.

Iran has released few details about the charges against Ms. Saberi. Iranian officials initially said she had been arrested for working in the Islamic Republic without press credentials and she had told her father in a phone conversation that she was arrested after buying a bottle of wine.

An Iranian investigative judge involved in the case charged that Ms. Saberi was passing classified information to U.S. intelligence services.

Her parents, who traveled to Iran from their home in Fargo in a bid to help win their daughter's release, could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday.
Click to read the rest of the article and comments

Obama to Punish Israel if it Attacks Iran?

from Jihad Watch
April 17, 2009

Obama Administration drawing up contingency plans to punish Israel if it attacks Iran?

Unconscionable, but plausible in light of the steps Obama has already taken. "US Weighing Punishing Israel if it Attacks Iran," from China Confidential, April 17 (thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi):

Having taken military action against Iran off the table, the Obama administration is considering ways of punishing Israel if it attacks Iran to end its nuclear arms program (and prevent a second Holocaust).

In other words, having failed to contain Iran, the United States is concentrating on restraining Israel.

Administration contingency plans include condemnation of Israel, support for a United Nations Security Council resolution that could include sanctions on Israel, and suspending or seriously cutting military aid to the Jewish State.

One of President Obama's closest foreign policy advisers, National Security Council member Samantha Power, is a proponent of ending military aid to Israel in order to force it to negotiate with Iran's Palestinian Islamist proxy, Hamas, and withdraw from all lands taken during the Six-Day War of June 1967. Power also advocates shifting aid to a Palestinian state. Overall, she views Israel as a liability and a historic mistake, in line with the European left position (and that of old-line, right-of-center, American isolationists and anti-Semites). Her antidemocratic admirers in the Democratic Party's (Hillary-hating) left wing agree and are eager for an opportunity to paint Israel as a Jewish North Korea (although they actually have more sympathy for North Korea than for Israel).

The big question is how the Obama administration would react if Iran retaliated against Israel indirectly as well as directly--by making good on its repeated threats to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East and shut down the strategic, 29 mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, through which an estimated 20% of the world's crude oil is transported by tanker ships. Would the U.S. fight back with real ferocity or respond in a limited way while blaming Israel for preemptively attacking Iran and appealing to "the Muslim world" for "understanding?"

One wonders how the Apologizer-in-Chief would react.

Indeed. Read it all.
Click to read the article and comments

Iran complains to UN about Israeli "threats"

Would this be the same Iran whose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel of the map? Yes, it would be.
Rees

from Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau
14 Apr 2009

* Iran demands U.N. respond to Israeli "threats"
* Israeli officials hint Israel could attack nuclear sites
* Mexico says no plans now for U.N. council response (Adds Mexican spokesman, paragraph 10, details)

UNITED NATIONS, April 14 (Reuters) - Iran demanded on Tuesday that the U.N. Security Council respond firmly to what it described as Israel's "unlawful and insolent threats" to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, have suggested the Jewish state could use military force to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, as the West suspects it is doing.

Iran insists it is only interested in building reactors that peacefully generate electricity. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has said Israel should be "wiped off the map," has vowed to continue his country's nuclear program.

Iran's U.N. ambassador, in a letter to Mexican U.N. Ambassador Claude Heller, said Israel was violating the U.N. charter and urged the international body to respond clearly and resolutely. Mexico holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council.

"These outrageous threats of resorting to criminal and terrorist acts against a sovereign country and a member of the United Nations not only display the aggressive and warmongering nature of the Zionist regime, but also constitute blatant violations of international law," Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee wrote.

The letter came two days after Peres told Israel's Kol Hai radio that Israel would respond with force if U.S. offers of dialogue failed to persuade Ahmadinejad to halt Tehran's uranium enrichment program.

"We'll strike him," Peres said in the interview.

Netanyahu and several of his military aides made clear in an interview with Atlantic magazine last month that the government was weighing the military option in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Khazaee said the remarks were "unlawful and insolent threats" based on "fabricated pretexts."

U.S. officials, diplomats and analysts say Obama opposes the use of military force against Iran's nuclear sites but is worried that Israel, which bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osiraq in 1981, might bomb Iranian sites if engagement fails.

If Tehran continues to enrich uranium, analysts say, Obama will have no choice but to support a push for a new round of U.N. sanctions against the Islamic Republic later this year. (Editing by Peter Cooney)
Click to read the rest of the article

So who did bomb the Iranian arms trucks in Sudan?

from DEBKAfile Special Report
March 29, 2009

The only solid fact emerging from the fanciful "reports" traded between Western and Middle East media over the bombing of an Iranian arms convoy bound for Hamas in January is that Tehran's arms shipments to Hamas via Sinai and the Gaza tunnels continue at full spate.

Somehow, as the "reporting" unfolded, the US attacker morphed into the Israeli Air Force.
Western imagination outdid itself Sunday, March 28, when the London Sunday Times claimed that Israeli intelligence used drones to bomb the convoy in Sudan, possibly even Eitan UAVs, whose wing span is like that of a Boeing airliner, and that missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv were the target.

If this claim and reports in other Western media - asserting glibly that Israeli drones or warplanes had sunk an Iranian ship in the Red Sea - are correct, they would signify:

1. That Israel and Iran are at war;

2. That Tehran has decided to take Israeli attacks on the chin and not respond. Does this sound like the Iranian leaders we know?

3. Israel has declared war on Sudan with two attacks.

4. And, most importantly, Israel's armed forces have failed to stem the flow of Iranian arms to Gaza.

In the original disclosure which started the hare, an Egyptian newspaper Al-Shurooq Tuesday March 24, reported that in January, a US Air Force AC 130H taking off from Djibouti destroyed an Iranian arms convoy of 17 trucks in North Sudan on its way to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, killing 39 passengers.

The Egyptian paper ran the story the day before Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir arrived in Cairo. It stressed that the Sudanese authorities had conducted "a full blown dossier'" on the attack, consisting of "images, forensics as well as remains of weapons and satellite phones."
Click to go to read the rest of the article

Obama to allow Iran to keep its nuclear program?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
March 28, 2009, 11:32 AM (GMT+02:00)

Designated prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu simply pushes away any suggestion of pressure on Israel from the Obama administration in Washington, while Ehud Olmert has said a few days before bowing out that he has left the Iranian nuclear threat to the next government.

Olmert forgot to mention that his government's policy of letting Israel be sidelined on the existential Iranian issue and knuckling under to the US lead and its failed sanctions policy allowed Iran to build up momentum in its race for a nuclear bomb.

Olmert "forgot" to mention that Israel is no longer in a position to stop Iran's nuclear program.
He and foreign minister Tzipi Livni bow out therefore leaving Israel vulnerable as never before to international pressure in all its external policies. Before he takes office, the incoming prime minister is already having his arm twisted by Washington and the European Union on Palestinian statehood – and that is just the beginning because of another development which Olmert "forgot" to mention.

DEBKAfile's Washington sources report that the Obama administration is on the threshold of a major rapprochement with Tehran, a reversal of US policy dramatic enough to block out international sanctions. Iran will be allowed to keep its nuclear program, including military elements and enriched uranium stocks, up to the point of actually assembling a weapon.

Washington will continue the Bush practice of publishing "reports" that Iran is still years away from a weaponizing capability. Tehran will hold the upper hand by retaining the option to go forward and build a bomb within one month of a decision to do so and mount warheads on ballistic missiles already standing ready, as revealed last Sunday, March 25, by Israel's military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin.

Because of the Olmert-Livni policy position in the last two years, Israel no longer as any say in Washington and international forums on the nuclear-arming of Iran.

The outgoing prime minister mentioned that Israel has a long-range operational arm able to strike anywhere. But he forgot that, on his watch, Israel lost the ability to employ it. DEBKA file's Washington sources report that the Obama administration, like its predecessor, will throw everything they have against an Israeli prime minister who ventures to employ its long-range arm. This will not be news to Netanyahu, any more than Olmert.

Just as Ariel Sharon dumped the Iranian problem in Olmert's lap, he too is handing it down to his successor. He not only avoided solving it but left Israel with less leverage than every before for heading off the fast-approaching peril.

Netanyahu is whistling in the dark when he pretends to see no American squeeze on the horizon of his government-in-waiting. One of the hardest long-term tasks ahead of him will be to rebuild Israel's position as America's needed and respected strategic ally, in the face of Barack Obama's ardent courtship of Iran and the Muslim world.

The US president is willing to ditch Israel as a friend. This will be brought home to Jerusalem when he makes his big speech on April 7 appealing for a grand US-Muslim global reconciliation. The US president is preparing to tie a Palestinian-Israeli settlement - on Washington's terms - to such unrelated issues as Afghanistan and Pakistan as the currency for purchasing Muslim and Arab backing for accommodations of these outstanding terrorist fronts.

Different forms of coercion, including the discrediting of the Netanyahu government if it fails to toe the Obama line, will follow. The incoming prime minister's pretense that "all is well" between him and the US administration is pie in the sky, instead of the resolute, firm hand which Israel needs at the helm these days to recoup command over its basic policies and the international community's faded respect.

Click to read the rest of the article

Obama's Mistaken Persian Gambit

This is an excellent article.
Rees

from Joshua Pundit
by Rob Miller
Monday, March 23, 2009



As you all know by now, President Obama broadcast an extraordinarily video to the government and the people of Iran, ostensibly in honor of Nahruz, the Persian New year, which is celebrated annually at the spring equinox:

I avoided writing about this thus far because I wanted to see the reaction...both from the Mullahs and from several other players in the region.

The extraordinary spectacle of the president of the United States, a nation Iran has considered itself in a state of war with for thirty years grovelling in this fashion shows that President Obama has absolutely no clue as to how to deal with these people.

In particular, it's noteworthy that this was addressed not only to the Iranian people, but to the regime.He specifically referred to Iran as an Islamic Republic and called for it to 'take it's rightful place among th4e nations of the world.'

The mullahcracy of Iran is a brutal, totalitarian regime that cheerfully hangs homosexuals, beats women on the streets who the basij , the regime's brown shirts, feel are immodestly dressed and `uppity', and leads the world in juvenile executions. Torture and beatings in secret prisons are the norm.

They train, support and finance terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, who like Iran are officially committed to annihilating Israel, teaching children the glories of 'martyrdom' and in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, committing genocide against Jews world wide.

And they've been in a declared war for thirty years against the 'Great Satan' - that would be America - that has included targeting America servicemen and civilians over the years, including the bombing of a marine barracks in Beirut that cost 240 lives, the torture murder of Colonel William Buckley, the abduction and execution style killings of four American officers and arming and training our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not only is Obama prepared to ignore all that, but he's also apparently prepared to allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, and expressly took any forceful response off the table stating that the US was 'fully committed to a diplomatic solution'.

Obama in his video talked a great deal about our “common humanity,” and made a point of discounting dismissed “those who insist we be defined by our differences..”

There are striking resemblances to a speech made a long time ago by another world leader attempting to placate a militant dictatorship : “We are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace… “ That was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, when he returned from Munich in 1938 — in the statement Chamberlain made that promised “peace for our time.”

The Iranian response was swift and fairly predictable, as Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran responded:

Khamenei set the bar impossibly high, demanding an overhaul of U.S. foreign policy, including giving up "unconditional support" for Israel and halting claims that Iran is seeking nuclear arms. Iran insists its nuclear program is only for peaceful energy purposes.

"Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials?" Khamenei said in a speech in the northeastern city of Mashhad. The crowd chanted "Death to America."

"He (Obama) insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day. If you are right that change has come, where is that change? What is the sign of that change? Make it clear for us what has changed..

"Still, Khamenei left the door open to better ties with America, saying "should you change, our behavior will change, too."

This is far from a kiss off, by the way. There would be absolutely no value in that for Iran. Khamenei is using a classic Persian bazaari gambit of tossing the first offer to do business back at Obama and in essence asking him how far Obama is prepared to go to make a deal.

What the Mullahs want at the very least is to eat up additional time in 'negotiations' to allow them to finish nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Once that's done, the regime is going to be solidly in place, with the ability to black mail the west by threatening to shut off Persian Gulf oil at any time.
Click to read the rest of the article and comments

Iran sets terms for U.S. ties - This is what Obama gets for appearing weak. Wait until Russia, China, North Korea and Venequela get done with him

Sun Mar 22, 2009
By Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has responded to U.S. President Barack Obama's offer of better relations by demanding policy changes from Washington, but the Islamic state is not closing the door to a possible thaw in ties with its old foe.

Iran wants the United States to show concrete change in its behavior toward it, for example by handing back frozen assets, but Tehran is not pursuing "eternal hostility," said Professor Mohammad Marandi at Tehran University.

But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all matters of state, also added in his speech at Iran's most prominent religious shrine in the northeastern city of Mashhad: "You change, our behavior will change."

But Khamenei made clear more than a change in U.S. rhetoric was needed, saying the United States was "hated in the world" and should stop interfering in other countries.

He also spoke of "oppressive sanctions" imposed on the Islamic Republic, Iranian assets frozen in the United States and Washington's backing of Israel, which Tehran does not recognize.
Click to read the rest of the article