emailWaterboard.com

2009-10-30T10:04:00.003Z

This is a priceless example of the blinkered approach of the West to Iran. The West's darling, the man they hoped would topple the Iranian theocracy, and Pres Ahmadinejad's main opponent in the last Iranian elections, Mr Mir Hossein Mousavi, has come out more to the right than Ahmadinejad on the Iranian nuclear programme.

According to the WaPo: "Domestic opponents, including the parliament speaker, lawmakers and the leader of the political opposition, have spoken out against the proposed deal, arguing that the other partners in the arrangement might not return Iran's uranium after it has been sent abroad.

The strongest criticism has come from Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading opposition presidential candidate in Iran's June 12 election. Even though the two-term government of his political partner, former president Mohammad Khatami, tried several times to reach a compromise with the West over Iran's nuclear program, Mousavi charged that the current proposal would lead to disaster.

"The discussions in Geneva were really surprising, and if the promises given [to the West] are realized, then the hard work of thousands of scientists would be ruined," the Kaleme Web site quoted Mousavi as saying in reference to the nuclear fuel plan. "

2009-10-27T16:37:00.005Z

Iran's views on Israeli nukes are regularly ignored by the fawning mainstream press. I've looked to the BBC, AP, Reuters, etc, to cover these statements made today by the Iranian President with no luck. Read for yourself and see if you can guess why they might have be so comprehensibly ignored in the western press..

Ahmadinejad: Israel 'threat' to all nations ;"The Iranian president says nations cannot be deprived of their right to peaceful nuclear energy while Israel possesses nuclear weapons.

“When an illegal regime [Israel] has atomic weapons, one can not deny the right of other nations to acquire peaceful nuclear energy,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a Tuesday meeting with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran." PressTV

And you don't have to believe that Israel is an "illegal regime" to believe that you cannot put pressure on the Iranian nuclear programme whilst ignoring the hundreds of nuclear warheads Israel possesses outside of the NPT.

UPDATE: The Russian news agency RIA Novosti is carrying the story, (Ahmadinejad links Iran's nuclear program to Israel), now. No western news agencies as yet.
UPDATE: Israel's Haaretz has the story (Iran: World can't block our atomic program while Israel has nukes)

2009-10-26T09:52:00.002Z

The evil twins of global "diplomacy" are at it again. France and Israel are once again threatening to attack Iran if it doesn't do exactly as its told. The messenger with this ridiculous threat is the usual bigmouth French FM Bernard Kouchner, talking to the right-wing British daily Telegraph. The man has an ego bigger than the balloon boy's balloon. How can threatening Iran with Israeli attack if it fails to comply do anything but lead to more Iranian intransigence?
But that's not the point with Monsieur Kouchner, the point is to get himself in the news, publicity, like the balloon boy's father, with the fawning press in lockstep to jot down scribbles. He actually confirms that the West is working to an Israeli schedule, in his words working to time that has been "offered" by Israel!!

France FM: Israel will strike Iran without nuke deal : ""They [the Israelis] will not tolerate an Iranian bomb," Bernard Kouchner told the British paper The Daily Telegraph, in an interview published Monday.

"We know that, all of us. So that is an additional risk and that is why we must decrease the tension and solve the problem. Hopefully we are going to stop this race to a confrontation."

"There is the time that Israel will offer us before reacting, because Israel will react as soon as they know clearly that there is a threat," he was quoted as saying." Haaretz

2009-10-25T18:27:00.004Z

UN inspectors visit uranium enrichment facility in Iran
"UN inspectors got their first look today inside a once-secret uranium enrichment facility that has raised western suspicions about the extent of Iran's nuclear programme.

The semi-official Mehr news agency reported that the four-member team visited the heavily protected facility, carved into a mountainside south of Tehran. The tour marked the first independent examination of the site, but no results were expected until after the inspectors leave Iran later this week." Observer

Meanwhile...Costs for U.S. project in Afghanistan balloon, benefit hyped

"Flipping a switch on one of Afghanistan's long-awaited electrical power plants in August, U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry urged Afghans to think of U.S. taxpayers' support when they turn their lights on at night.

Only about 6 percent of Afghans are estimated to have electricity..the project is the latest example of exaggerated political expectations and wasted American taxpayers' dollars in the effort to rebuild Afghanistan.

Plagued by delays and rising costs, the project reveals how the U.S. government continues to ignore the hard lessons of Iraq, critics say, where contractors received billions of dollars with little oversight and inspectors have found rampant waste, fraud and abuse.

Among Afghans, the power plant became known as "Karzai's winter coat" -- designed to keep him comfortably in power through the winter of 2009 -- and also a project that the Bush administration could hold up as a success before George W. Bush left office -- an achievement needed to counter reports of cost overruns and delays." McClatchy

2009-10-08T15:00:00.003+01:00

Peace an illusion, says Israel Foreign Minister
"In a radio interview, Mr Lieberman said people who think Israel and the Palestinians can reach a deal "do not understand reality and are sowing illusions".

"We have to be realistic - we will not be able to reach agreement on core and emotional subjects like Jerusalem and the right of return (of Palestinian refugees," he said.

"I am going to say very clearly - there are conflicts that have not been completely solved and people have learned to live with it, like Cyprus." "-BBC

2009-10-07T19:09:00.002+01:00

Ahmadinejad: Iran Ready to Buy N. Fuel from US:
""We have announced before that we are ready to hold talks with experts from other countries to buy nuclear fuel with the enrichment level of 20 percent for Tehran reactor from any country willing to supply us with such fuel, and this proposal was welcomed by different countries," Ahmadinejad noted.

He added that Iranian experts will start talks with potential sellers within the next two weeks.

Asked about an offer by the US and France to supply fuel to Iran, he said, "No problem, if Americans announce that they want to supply us with nuclear fuel, that would be a good point to us for we want to buy fuel and the source would make no difference to us. The United States can be a seller.""- Fars News Agency

2009-10-07T18:08:00.002+01:00

Bahrain: Iran a stabilizing element in Mideast: ""Contrary to Western contentions, we do not see Iran as a destabilizing element in the region," said Bahraini Prime Minister, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman al-Khalifa Hossein Amir, on Wednesday.

He added that the Islamic Republic's stability guarantees peace and security in the region.

"The 'Iranophobia' policy [currently pursued by the US and European countries] will get us no where," he added. "- PressTV

So much for the "Arabs view Iran and not Israel as the real threat" rubbish.

2009-09-30T09:11:00.003+01:00

Last Friday I wrote,"Iran has the patience to wait out the West, it knows that it's just a matter of time before the global economy shifts its centre of gravity to the East completely."

Now on cue comes this story from the NYT. It covers the essay by Sun Bigan who was China's special envoy on the Middle East, and was China's ambassador to Iran, as well as in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Sun Bigan writes that, "The U.S. has always sought to control the faucet of global oil supplies. There is cooperation between China and the U.S., but there is also struggle, and the U.S. has always seen us as a potential foe"

He also says this, "Both now and in the future, the Middle East should be our first choice in importing oil and developing oil cooperation," Sun wrote. China should focus on strengthening trade with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Oman, he added."

The NYT article ends with Bigan warning, "Obama's new Middle East policy is merely a tactical adjustment, and the United States will not and cannot alter its global goals and dominance,"

I couldn't have said it better myself. The old imperial power Britain and France, and the new one America, are clawing to get their hands on the world's most precious resource. It's the same story replayed over and over again, with different actors and different scripts. Iran and the public should be vigilant to the neo-imperialist impulses at work here.

2009-09-29T12:17:00.009+01:00

More Change we can dis- believe in, AKA Change George Bush can believe in.
Obama continuing Bush sanctions policies on Iran and retains hard-line Bush-era staff.
"The Obama administration is laying plans to cut Iran's economic links to the rest of the world if talks this week over the country's nuclear ambitions founder, according to officials and outside experts familiar with the plans.

Officials are also looking at ways to keep goods from reaching Iran by targeting companies that get around trading restrictions by sending shipments there through third parties in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Hong Kong; and other trading hubs.

As a practical matter, the effort would build on efforts during the Bush administration that targeted leading Iranian banks and the key Iranian shipping line. In many cases, officials said that rather than impose new sanctions, they would need only to tighten enforcement of existing rules and regulations. Indeed, the key architect of President George W. Bush's effort, Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey, was retained by President Obama to ensure continuity in a possible squeeze on Iran."-WaPo

UPDATE: Change Pat Buchanan can believe in,
: " So where is Buchanan today? Not only on Morning Joe, at MSNBC. But also, as he said today, on air, in President Barack Obama's corner: The president is making all the right moves on Iran and has had a pretty good week, he said..
"I'm an Obama man," Buchanan said with a laugh."-swamppolitics

2009-09-29T12:04:00.002+01:00

Israel's Nuclear Bomb factory at Dimona. A Tour.

hattip IC

2009-09-28T09:54:00.008+01:00

Change Israel can believe in.
Obama seeking crippling sanctions against Iran.
"Even Israel, which has long warned that a military strike might be the only effective response to Iran’s ambitions, now seems satisfied to let President Obama play out his strategy of offering to talk while threatening to impose painful measures if those talks go nowhere.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel telephoned the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and five other influential lawmakers on Thursday and Friday to urge the United States to pursue “crippling sanctions” against Iran, according to Israeli officials and people close to the lawmakers.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on the CBS program “Face the Nation” that the administration was exploring how to “broaden and deepen sanctions.”"-NYT.

Obama came into government with a pledge to engage Iran "without preconditions". All that is out the window now, now the goal is to make even the the most hardline Israeli government in decades "happy". Israel has always threatened to attack Iran, but there's no such thing as a unilateral Israeli attack. For Israeli to succeed in such an endevour would require significant American assistance. In this case sanctions are not an alternative to an Israeli attack, the US and Israel are shoulder-to-shoulder in this, all the way. So much for Change.

UPDATE: In an earlier post i asked..."Russia, opportunistic as ever, caves in to pressure. But why hasn't Putin said anything yet?"
Now comes this "analysis" from the NYT,: "Already, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, appears to be positioning Russia to back away from the supportive stance suggested by Mr. Medvedev’s comments.

Asked about the announcement on Friday by the United States, Britain and France that Iran had failed to disclose a secret uranium enrichment plant, Mr. Lavrov said it was not evident that Iran had done anything wrong. He said it was premature to assert that new sanctions were necessary.

“As I understand it, there is no clarity regarding the legal issues,” Mr. Lavrov said.

He also chided the Western powers for not telling Russia earlier that their intelligence agencies had discovered the Iranian enrichment plant.

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s paramount leader, who tends to be more hawkish than Mr. Medvedev toward the United States, in recent days has not echoed Mr. Medvedev’s views on sanctions"-NYT

2009-09-26T19:48:00.004+01:00

Ahmadinejad the "moderate".
Ahmadinejad under fire by fellow conservatives A suggestion by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that his American counterpart should see Iran as a potential 'friend' has prompted criticism from his fellow conservatives.

During an interview with Associated Press on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said should President Barack Obama decide to change US policy toward Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Mideast, he will find a friend in Iran.

A prominent member of Iran's Parliament, Ahmad Tavakoli, on Saturday branded the president's comments as "harmful."

"This particular sentence is exceptionally soft… and this softness is useless and harmful, as Obama is yet to show a change of heart towards Iran," Tavakoli told Mehr news agency.-PressTV

haha, Ahmadinejad is a moderate like Netanyahu is a moderate.

2009-09-26T12:21:00.004+01:00

Weapons proliferation. No one does it better than the USA. U.S. Eyes Bigger Slice Of Indian Defense Pie "India plans to spend an estimated $100 billion on defense over the next decade to modernize its Soviet-era arsenal. With its growing military footprint, India is steering away from traditional ally Russia, its main weapons supplier, and looking toward the United States to help upgrade its weapons systems and troop gear."-WaPo

And there's the spin. When you buy your weapons from Us companies that means you are "modernizing" your arsenal. US companies are helping to "modernize" India. The Lockheed and Boeing lobbyists must be so happy when they see this nonsense appear in the spoon fed media (SFM). And who is a major weapons supplier to India's arch-enemy and predominant Asian rival Pakistan? Well, step forward good old Uncle Sam. Divide, Conquer, and sell to both sides. Audacious.

2009-09-26T10:32:00.002+01:00

Why does the West want a compliant Iran? Here's one reason of many: Schroeder says Nabucco needs Iran gas
"Germany's ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has called on the European countries to rely on Iran as a source of natural gas for the Nabucco pipeline.

After years of stalling, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria finally sealed the Nabucco contract on July 13, as the first step toward building the pipeline that is to break Russia's near-monopoly on Europe's gas supply by transferring Caspian gas to the heart of the continent in Austria.

As they inked the agreement in the absence of Iran, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Iran should be brought into the project “when conditions allow.”

After the European partners signed the deal, the US lobbied against Iran joining as a supplier."-PressTV

2009-09-26T01:22:00.004+01:00

emailWaterboard prediction: "The US, UK and France have gone in too hard, too soon in dealing with Iran. Over excited at the start of the game they have laid all their cards on the table too early, and have convinced themselves and the world media that the Russians are ready to impose new tough sanctions on Iran. Watch for this "coalition" to disintegrate before December. Sanctions may be imposed on Iran but they will be much weaker than anything being envisaged right now. The refined oil embargo is a non-starter, neither an Israeli nor a US attack on Iran will materialise this, or next year. Obama is smarter than that and realises that the economic, and strategic effects of such a strike will be disastrous with no assurance of neutralising Iran's nuclear programme. How many other centrifuge sites do the Iranians have? who knows, but as Ahmedinejad recently said, Iran is a BIG COUNTRY."

2009-09-26T01:10:00.003+01:00

At last!! A sensible article on Iran's nuclear programme. And from the UK Independent too, phew..I was afraid it had gone the way of the Guardian and Juan Cole.

Adrian Hamilton: Rhetoric against Iran must be cooled for sake of the Middle East

Some choice bits; "Well, even taking into account our Prime Minister's desire to push himself to the forefront of international events to impress voters, this is verging on hyperbole, and will do little to improve the tenor of talks between Iran and the members of the Security Council, plus Germany on 1 October."

"The admission by Tehran of its covert enrichment facility – incidentally known to Western intelligence for some time and produced at this point presumably with the purpose of loading the pressure on the talks – is certainly an embarrassment to the regime but doesn't prove the case either way.

Given the way that the US under President Bush and Israel have openly threatened to bomb its facilities, it is not surprising that it should choose to back up its programme with secondary facilities. Nor is it that easy to dismiss the protestations of its leaders that nuclear weapons would be against the religious principles of the Islamic Republic.

Just as Israel has based its security on perceived threats from its Arab neighbours, so Iran's attitude has been forged by the constant assaults of its neighbours and the West."-Independent online

Enjoy people. It's not often you get this amount of sense written about Iran in the press these days.

2009-09-25T22:04:00.002+01:00

Quote of the day:
"We are not concerned (about an Israeli attack). Iran is a very big country. Much larger and bigger than what some people think and imagine," Ahmadinejad told a news conference.

2009-09-25T14:07:00.002+01:00

What about Israel's Nuclear Weapons?

Experts and anti-nuclear activists argue that the way in which the West deals with Israel's programme sets a dangerous double standard that makes it impossible to stem the tide of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East or anywhere else._Aljazeera.

At least one media organisation is willing to tackle the elephant in the room. Don't expect any Western media to touch this subject with a 100 foot long barge pole.

2009-09-25T12:57:00.002+01:00

Iran has the patience to wait out the West, it knows that it's just a matter of time before the global economy shifts its centre of gravity to the East completely. This story from the Telegraph illustrates that point:
HSBC bids farewell to dollar supremacy, "What is occurring is an epochal loss in the relative wealth and economic power of the old G10 bloc of rich countries compared to rising regions of the world. The euro, yen, sterling, Swiss franc and other mature currencies will be relegated along with the dollar in this great process of rebalancing, but the Greenback will bear the brunt."

Couple that with another HSBC story from today and a clearer picture emerges: UK's biggest company moves boss to Hong Kong, "HSBC, Britain's biggest company, is relocating its chief executive from London to Hong Kong in response to the growing dominance of Asia in its strategic ambitions.

Michael Geoghegan will move to the territory on February 1, the bank reported today.

"The move further positions the group for the shift in the world's centre of economic gravity from West to East, while HSBC's continued strong presence in the major developed markets reflects the increasingly interconnected nature of the global economy and the profile of the group's customers," it said"-TimesOnline

This is why the indecent focus on Iran, the West has limited time to utilize, and ensure it's strategic advantages before it loses all it bargaining chips one by one.

2009-09-25T00:53:00.004+01:00

Sanctions against Iran possible as last resort - Russian president.
Russia, opportunistic as ever, caves in to pressure. But why hasn't Putin said anything yet?

However though China is still resisting Western pressure to threaten Iran's economy. Iran's PressTV reports that: China against further sanctions on Iran

In unrelated news, one European country with balls: Spain expels Israeli scientists from solar energy competitionSpain has expelled a group of Israeli scientists from a state-funded solar energy competition because they are based in occupied areas of the West Bank, it said today.

"All the ministry has done is apply the policy of the European Union," a housing ministry spokesman said. "The EU does not recognise the occupation of the West Bank, which is where this university is."-Guardian

Wow..expect to see terrible stories about China, and Spain in the media soon, the centres of Israel hatred.

2009-09-25T00:43:00.005+01:00

Iranian Leader Offers U.S. Access To the Country's Nuclear Scientists
Iran also will seek to buy from the United States enriched uranium needed for medical purposes, Ahmadinejad told reporters and editors from The Washington Post and Newsweek. Agreement by the Americans, he suggested, would demonstrate that the Obama administration is serious about engagement, while rejection might give Iran an excuse to further enrich its stock of uranium.

"These nuclear materials we are seeking to purchase are for medicinal purposes. . . . It is a humanitarian issue," Ahmadinejad said in the interview. "I think this is a very solid proposal which gives a good opportunity for a start" to build trust between the two countries and "engage in cooperation."-WaPo

Alot of hulabaloo is being generated by Irans admission of a second centrifuge plant. Why wouldn't it have a second, third or fourth hidden plant when the West and Israel are constantly threatening to bomb it's declared plant at Natanz? It's called a deterrence people! The West and Israel have nukes floating around the high seas in submarines and the Iranians have the ability to rapidly restart and reconfigure their nuclear industry in case of attack. Common sense.
Iran Reveals Existence of Second Uranium Enrichment Plant

Iran War Psy-Ops

2009-09-08T02:17:00.003+01:00

We are being told to prepare for war against Iran sometime this year, read here, and the propagandists are lining all their ducks in a row ready to deafen us with a cacophony of talking points as to why another war is necessary. I will deal with these in time, and in turn, but for now let's welcome the return of the Waterboard, we've got work to do.

2009-04-16T21:19:00.003+01:00

The CIA, and America, walks away free from the consequences of torture. Obama once again attempts to have his cake and eat it too.
"This is a time for reflection, not retribution," ... So says the 'leader of the free world'. What rubbish. This isn't change i can believe in!!And why this statement applies to American official action, and not the actions of another State, say Sudan, is anyones guess.
Obama fails a moral test, and slides further down the slippery slope. No doubt in his later memoirs he'll write about his greatest regret in not prosecuting, and resolving, Americas practice of torture.

2009-04-16T00:23:00.002+01:00

Just finished reading Robert Fisk destroy the BBC over at the Independent. The BBC is a joke. I despair that I regularly check the BBC News website, not to get updates on the news, but to see how many stories they are either ignoring or misreporting. It makes my blood boil that I pay to fund these charlatans.

2009-02-19T09:24:00.000Z

Kyrgyz MPs vote to shut US base