WarSclerotic

Ahmadinejad warns Medvedev of joining ‘US plot’ against Iran | Earth Times News.

Berlin – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday warned his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev of joining a “plot” by the United States against Iran, ISNA news agency reported.

“Our enemies have started a new propaganda war against Iran, which is written and directed by the US and staged by the Russian president,” Ahmadinejad said during the closing ceremony of a youth festival in Tehran.”The two nations of Iran and Russia are friends and we hope that this friendship continues but the question is why the Russian president gets involved in this American play and jeopardizes his (country’s) interests,” Ahmadinejad said.He was referring to Medvedev’s meeting with ambassadors on July 12 in Moscow during which the Russian leader said Iran was moving closer to possessing a capability that could in principle be used to build nuclear weapons.”The remarks by the Russian president in that meeting with ambassadors have no legal value,” Ahmadinejad said.Russia joined the US and its Western allies last month in imposing a fourth UN Security Council resolution and additional sanctions against Iran after the Islamic state once again defied to stop its controversial nuclear enrichment programmes.Iran had expected that as a strategic political ally and trade partner, Moscow would have vetoed the UN resolution.Ahmadinejad further said that in “the new plot,” two Middle East countries, “which are Iran’s friends,” should be militarily attacked with the help of Israel.He gave no further details but said that the aim of the plot was to weaken the will of the Iranian nation, adding that elements inside Iran were involved the plot, apparently a reference to the local opposition that accuse him of fraud in last year’s presidential election.”But all their efforts will fail as the Iranian nation will crash hundreds of such plots,” Ahmadinejad said.”The world powers think that the plot was top secret but its scenario is already in our hands and more details of this latest propaganda plot will be disclosed to the public in due time,” he added.In addition to the UN measures, the US also imposed separate sanctions against Iran and the European Union plans to hit Iran with the “toughest ever” sanctions when its foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Monday.Russia has traditionally been less alarmist about the state of Tehran’s disputed nuclear ambitions than countries such the US, Israel and Britain.Ahmadinejad made his first verbal attack against Medvedev last May, warning him not to side with the US in imposing new sanctions against Iran, which Moscow eventually did.Iran has so far tolerated Moscow’ political closeness to the Iran- policies by the US in order not to jeopardize its strategic relations with Russia.Another reason for Iran’s concessions is the joint Bushehr nuclear power plant project in southern Iran whose completion Russia delayed numerous times for various reasons.Iran believes that besides technical issues there are also political reasons behind the delays. But it had to tolerate them, mainly because it has no other potential nuclear partner.

Middle East News | Iran says scientist provided information on CIA.

Iran TV to produce movie about Amiri’s case

Iran says scientist provided information on CIA

Movie about Amiri’s case

Shahram Amiri holds his weeping son’s hand as he flashes the victory sign upon arrival in Tehran

TEHRAN (AP)

An Iranian nuclear scientist who returned home last week from the United States provided valuable information about the CIA, a semiofficial news agency reported Wednesday, adding that his spy’s tale would be made into a TV movie.

American authorities have claimed Shahram Amiri willingly defected to the U.S. but changed his mind and decided to return home without the $5 million he had been paid for what a U.S. official described as “significant” information about his country’s disputed nuclear program.

Report: Arab states would support Israeli strike on Iran.

Arab officials from the Persian Gulf region have again been making comments to international media suggesting that they would support an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Speaking at a media panel in Aspen, Colorado earlier this month, Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ambassador to the US, explained that “a military attack on Iran by whomever would be a disaster, but Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a bigger disaster.”

Otaiba said that an Israeli attack on Iran would spark street protests by Muslims throughout the region, but that leaders like himself would be willing to deal with that in exchange for eliminating the Iranian threat.

Iran, which is Persian, has been in conflict with its Arab neighbors for over 1,000 years, and has never ceased to seek hegemony over them. Iran is also a predominantly Shiite Muslim nation, whereas most Arab states are Sunni Muslim. The conflict between the two sects is often bloody, as evidenced by regular sectarian violence in Iraq.

While few believe Iran would actually fire a nuclear warhead at a fellow Muslim state, be it Shiite or Sunni, by simply possessing such weapons, Tehran would be able to exert enormous influence over regional religious, economic and diplomatic policies.

Jeffrey Goldberg, the Middle East expert for The Atlantic Monthly who moderated the Aspen event, told Der Spiegel that what most Western leaders fail to realize is that Otaiba’s views are shared by most Arab leaders. In other words, an Israeli strike on Iran should be seen as a viable military option to the nuclear crisis, as it will not result in war between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors.

Even in Saudi Arabia, a long-standing enemy of the “Zionist entity,” a prominent cleric told the German magazine that he and others recognize that “Israel’s agenda has its limits…it is mainly concerned with securing its national existence. But Iran’s agenda is global.”

Imagine a Nuclear Iran – Clifford D. May – National Review Online.

It’s been said that a diplomat is a gentleman paid to go abroad and lie for his country. Sometimes, however, diplomats slip up and tell the truth. In response to a question at the hopefully named Aspen Ideas Festival this month, Yousef al-Otaiba, the ambassador from the United Arab Emirates, said bluntly: “We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.”

Al-Otaiba went on to add that, if sanctions fail to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons, military force will be the only option left and it should not be ruled out. “A military attack on Iran by whomever would be a disaster,” he said. “But Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a bigger disaster.”
Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed, director-general of Al-Arabiya TV, followed with an article for the English-language edition of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, in which he not only agreed with the ambassador, he declared the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran “the most dangerous threat that is facing our region in a hundred years.” He called upon readers to “imagine what Tehran will do when it has nuclear capabilities!”

Al-Rashed then did a little imagining himself: Iran, he said, would soon “dominate . . . and perhaps take over” the Gulf states, the small, wealthy Arab countries so tantalizingly close to its borders.

Such an anschluss would not require tanks or troop deployments. As Ambassador al-Otaiba said at Aspen, the region’s leaders will “start running for cover towards Iran” once it becomes clear that Washington, having said under both the Bush and Obama administrations that it would be “unacceptable” for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, has accepted that after all.

One can only imagine that other nations will draw the conclusion that being America’s enemy is less risky than being America’s friend. The implications for Iraq — where the U.S. has invested so much blood and treasure — are obvious. Imagine you are an Iraqi leader. American troops have departed and the mullahs next door are stockpiling nukes and commanding death squads. What would you do?

In Pakistan, Islamists will advance, while democrats will retreat. That will further complicate matters in Afghanistan, where Iranian interventions (e.g. the supplying of roadside bombs to insurgents) will escalate in an effort to frustrate an already challenging American mission. If America does not respond, Iran wins the battle of Afghanistan. If America does respond — well, since neither the Bush nor the Obama administration responded to Iran’s interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past, there is no basis to imagine a policy change once Iran’s rulers have their fingers on nuclear triggers.

Turkey’s Islamist government already has moved closer to Iran. Syria has long been an Iranian client. Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy, will be strengthened within Lebanon, within Latin America (where it has been making substantial inroads in recent years), and, of course, along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

In that regard: Four years ago this month, Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war. It ended with U.N. Resolution 1701, which called for Hezbollah’s disarmament, prohibited Hezbollah from acquiring new missiles, and banned the group from operating near the Israeli border. International troops were dispatched to make sure all this happened. It didn’t. Hezbollah has not been disarmed, thousands of new missiles have been imported, and Hezbollah forces go where they like. One has to imagine this is instructive to those who lead vulnerable nations.

Leon T. Hadar: Is Obama Set on an Iran Strike?.

One of Israel’s leading political “insiders” is insisting that there has been a dramatic transformation of President Barack Obama’s strategy in the Middle East. Israel is now back “In” as the White House occupant who had called for engagement with Iran not so long ago, is now placing the threat of a nuclear Iran on the top of his diplomatic agenda at the same time that his administration is also expressing concerns over the expected leadership changes in Cairo and Riyadh.

“When Obama came into office he assessed that the United States had been weakened in the Middle East and hoped to reach an agreement on sharing influence with the regional power, Iran,” according to Aluf Benn, the respected senior diplomatic analyst for Ha’aretz, Israel’s liberal – not left-wing – daily newspaper. “So he cooled toward Israel and pulled out of the closet the well-worn club called settlements,” writes Benn. But that apparently didn’t work. “The Iranians waved off Obama’s goodwill gesture, and the Arab states ignored the Palestinian issue and made it clear that blocking Iran was more important,” explains the journalist who tends to reflect the political state of mind of Israel’s leaders.

So “instead of “beat on Israel and gain the applause of the Muslims,” the stance on Iran is toughening. Sanctions on Tehran have become tougher, and the rhetoric has become more blunt,” Benn writes in an analysis published in the aftermath of the recent meetings between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu in Washington. “Israel has moved from being a burden to a welcome partner, perhaps because there is no choice in view of the expected instability in Cairo and Riyadh with the changes at the top,” he concludes.

It is quite possible that Benn may be echoing the spin promoted by Bibi and his aides which in turn, reflects the Israeli PM’s wishful thinking or for that matter, a misleading narrative which portrays what is nothing more than a Barack-Bibi political cease-fire as a major step towards the restoration of the strategic relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

Hence while Benn is suggesting that wooing pro-Israeli Democratic voters is nothing more than a political byproduct of Obama’s reassertion of his commitment to the Jewish State – “And if this belated love also helps Obama and his party in the upcoming congressional elections, the deal will be worthwhile in his view” – the cynic observer would propose that that has been the main purpose of the entire public diplomatic exercise.

And it is quite possible that the media images of the American-Israeli love fest in Washington are aimed at exerting diplomatic pressure on Iran by trying to convince the Ayatollahs in Tehran that contrary to what Obama’s conservative critics are alleging (that Obama is a wimp and an appeaser), the Democratic President is “dead serious” on Iran and unless the Iranians agree on a deal on freezing Iran’s nuclear program sooner than later, the Americans could end-up giving a “yellow light” to strike Iran’s nuclear installations.

Interestingly enough, the New York Times’s Roger Cohen who points to the language of statement issued after the recent Obama-Netanyahu meeting — “The president told the prime minister he recognizes that Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats, and that only Israel can determine its security needs” — wonders whether it seems to provide the Israelis with that kind of yellow light. “Is that plain language or a hall of mirrors?” Cohen asks.

Since I am not a members of Top Secret America and hence do not have a direct access to the secret deliberations taking place in Washington and elsewhere over the Iran policy, I find it difficult to determine whether the show-off of tough line vis-à-vis Iran that has been emanating from the White House is more than just a pseudo or media event aimed the changing the political calculations in Tehran, or whether are now at a point where diplomacy is being applied as a way of buying time as Washington mobilizes resources in preparation for an Israeli action, not unlike the make-believe diplomacy employed by President George W. Bush after the decision to do “regime change” in Baghdad had already been taken.

Or perhaps the Obama Administration is once again “muddling through” studying various options on Iran while testing the domestic and international political waters before making a final decision?

Based on my own reading between the lines of news reports and analyses and the deconstructing of the body language of American and Israeli officials, my guess- and it is good as yours! – is that a combination of anticipated changes in Israeli and American politics coupled with regional and international developments that have weakened Iran, may be creating the conditions for a decision in support for military action sometime this year. That could help answer the questions raised by Mark Lynch in foreignpolicy.com (“Why Put an Attack on Iraq Back on the Table?”) and by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal (“Why Israel Hasn’t Bomb Iran Yet?”)

Lynch concludes that Obama’s diplomacy has been successful in changing the strategic balance of power in the Middle East — that had resulted from Bush’s disastrous policy — by weakening Iran and its partners, Lebanon’s Hizbollah and Hamas. “Iran today is considerably weaker than it was when he took office,” he writes, concluding that “while Iran may continue to doggedly pursue its nuclear program (as far as we know), this has not translated into steadily increasing popular appeal or regional power.” Stephens explains that one of the main reasons that the Israeli leaders have been hesitant about striking Iran is the concern over a repeat of the 1956 scenario when then US President Dwight Eisenhower blasted the attack by Israel (in collusion with Britain and France) against Egypt and forced Israel to withdraw from Sinai, the result being a diplomatic victory for then Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

While Lynch is basically correct about the positive effects of Obama’s diplomacy, the other part of his argument “that Iran may continue to doggedly pursue its nuclear program” suggests that the Americans have not been able to achieve their most important strategic goal here and that they may have concluded that notwithstanding all of Obama’s popularity in the Middle East, a nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran could alter and balance of power once again and turn it into a indisputable regional power. I think that Obama and his aides are calculating that the costs of “doing something” about Iran’s nuclear program would not be so high as to outweigh the costs of allowing Iran to go nuclear which could undermine whatever is left of American credibility as a global power in the Middle East.

But I also think that Obama wants to get Bibi to do something substantial — if not dramatic — on the Israel-Palestine front before a decision is made to attack Iran. In theory, the growing likelihood that the more moderate Kadima Party would join the Israeli coalition could allow Netanyahu to move in that direction and could bring about an accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the West Bank in a way that responds to the concerns of Saudi Arabia and other Arab moderate states who have implied that under such conditions – progress on Israel-Palestine — they could live with a strike against Iran.

At the same time, the anticipated Republican victories in the coming midterm elections – increasing the number of pro-Israeli and anti-“Islamofascist” lawmakers — could actually help strengthen Obama’s ability of effectively manage the diplomatic and military (and economic) consequences of a strike against Iran. In a way, notwithstanding all the talk about the rise of anti-war Republicans, the “triangulation” of Obama after the November election could encourage him to take up the mantle of a War President, which based on his predecessor’s experience, could help him another term in office (even if his own party continues to lose power). In any case, as the evolution of his Afghanistan policies has demonstrated, Obama seems to lack the power and the will to resist the pressure from the War Party in Washington and has probably concluded that if you cannot beat them, joining them is the next best option.