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Sunday
Sep272009

Iran's Nuclear Program: Gary Sick on the US Approach after the "Secret Plant"

NEW Iran’s Nukes: Did Gates Just Complicate the Obama Position?
Iran’s “Secret” Nuclear Plant: Israel Jumps In
The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?

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US IRAN FLAGSGary Sick, a former official in the Carter and Reagan Administration and one of the sharpest analysts of US-Iranian relations, works through the possibilities for American strategy and tactics after Iran's revelation of its second enrichment facility. Playing devil's advocate, I would argue that the Obama Administration already had "calculations" --- since it knew of the facility --- before Tehran's declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency. What changed was Washington's decision to go high-profile, with President Obama's public statements, on the claims of the threat posed by the second plant.

That, to me, bears out Sick's caution: "The risk for the P5+1 [US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China] negotiators is that they will be so filled with righteous indignation that they will overplay their hand" at the talks with Iran in Geneva on 1 October. And it points to an absence in Sick's evaluation: there is still no sign that Russia and China are on-board with a US-led pressure campaign against Tehran; their position is better characterised as wait-and-see.

Iran's Nuke-Talks Game-Changer

The discovery and announcement of a second Iranian uranium enrichment facility – apparently on a Revolutionary Guards base near the holy city of Qom – has changed everybody’s calculations.

For the Obama administration, it provides them the kind of leverage against Iran that previously seemed to be lacking in the run up to the October 1 start of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany (the P5+1). The revelation of the new site brings closer than ever before the possibility that Russia, certainly, and perhaps even China, might lend their support (or at least tacitly acquiesce) to a new round of sanctions. That will make the threat of real consequences for Iran’s defiance of the United Nations Security Council much more credible and strengthen the hand of the western negotiators.

Iran, in turn, will arrive at the meeting red-faced but almost certainly not apologetic. Iran will claim that it had no obligation to announce the site until 180 days before introducing nuclear material. They notified the IAEA of that position in 2007 on the grounds that the original agreement was not ratified by the Iranian majles (parliament). Members of the IAEA will dispute this, since changes to the Safeguards Agreement are technical and do not normally require ratification.

The legal technicalities, however, are less important than the politics, and Iran will clearly be on the defensive in a way that has not been true for a long time.

Iran lied about this site. Very probably it was never intended to become public. Building a small enrichment facility in an underground chamber on a Revolutionary Guards base with no notification to any international authority, at a time when Iran was under intense pressure to respond to Security Council requests for more inspections, was clearly intended to avoid scrutiny.

Does that mean that Iran was prepared to proceed covertly with a nuclear weapon? Yes and no. If you start with the conviction, as I do, that Iran was and is determined to develop a nuclear capability that would permit it to “break out” and build a nuclear weapon if and when a decision was taken by Iran’s highest authorities, probably in response to a direct military threat to Iran by another nuclear power, then the creation of this site would serve two logical purposes.

First, it would disperse Iran’s enrichment capabilities, making it much more difficult for an enemy to destroy its nuclear program with a single strike. If the facility was unknown to the enemy, it would provide an immediate fall back capability in the event the enrichment site at Natanz was destroyed or severely damaged. It was very likely a component of Iran’s post-strike Plan B and assumed that any internal opposition to a nuclear weapon would have been removed by the military attack. As such, this facility would very likely be intended to produce a nuclear weapon.

The ambiguities of Iran’s position, which have always been present, would be amplified enormously by the existence of such a facility. The mere existence of such an undeclared site would be a constant worry for the non-proliferation community and a constant temptation to some in Iran to jump-start a weapons program. At a minimum, the availability of a covert enrichment site could shorten considerably the expected time from Iran’s moment of decision until the actual production of a weapon, since it could be launched without the knowledge of the IAEA inspectors.

The second key point, which is no less important, is that the site was apparently discovered by intelligence long before Iran made its announcement. That has to be an alarming and hugely unwelcome fact from Iran’s perspective. At a minimum, it pulls the rug out from under any Plan B, and Iran has to wonder about what western intelligence may know about any other covert activities that may exist or that might be undertaken in the future.

Both of these considerations serve to strengthen the hand of the P5+1 and to weaken Iran’s position.

The risk for the P5+1 negotiators is that they will be so filled with righteous indignation that they will overplay their hand. The purpose of the negotiations, after all, is not simply to posture, to issue impossible demands, and thereby justify moving to sanctions. Iran is plagued by political divisions at home, and this latest revelation undercuts their international arguments. But that is no guarantee that they will simply roll over and comply with whatever is demanded of them.

All of the factors that were well known before this latest discovery remain true. Sanctions have not worked after fifteen years of trying, and sanctions alone are almost certainly not going to get Iran to abandon its basic nuclear program. Sanctions are and always have been more useful as a threat or a trading card than as an effective tool in practice. Iran clearly dislikes the sanctions that are in place now, and they are anxious to avoid more in the future. So there is room for discussion. But there is no evidence whatsoever that if increased sanctions are actually applied Iran will dismantle its enrichment program. Instead, they will escalate. The reality today is the same as before: the end game of sharply increased sanctions is war.

In my view, the objective of these negotiations has also not changed. We want Iran to stop its nuclear growth and agree to much more intrusive inspections. The west should be willing to pay a price for such concessions, perhaps in the form of conditional removal of sanctions, freezing United Nations Security Council action on Iran in the interim, and inviting greater inclusion by Iran in regional affairs as Iran implements concrete steps of confidence-building. That is not easy, but neither is it an unreachable goal.

The negotiators going into the October 1 meetings are starting with a much better hand than most of them anticipated. Will they play their hand as cleverly as they have managed the pre-negotiation period?
Sunday
Sep272009

Iran's "Secret" Nuclear Plant: Israel Jumps In

NEW Iran’s Nukes: Did Gates Just Complicate the Obama Position?
The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?

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adsızPerhaps the least surprising dimension of the story of the second Iranian enrichment plant has been the speed and intensity of Israeli official reactions came flat out.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio on Saturday:
This removes the dispute whether Iran is developing military nuclear power or not and therefore the world powers need to draw conclusions... Without a doubt it is a reactor for military purposes not peaceful purposes.

Referring to representatives of Arab countries at the UN meetings last week, Lieberman claimed:
Nobody is worried about the Palestinian problem, everybody in the Muslim and Arab world, and first and foremost in the Gulf states, are worried about the Iranian problem.


Haaretz reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Senators and Congress members in Saturday telephone conversations that it was the time to act to halt the Iranian nuclear program. "If not now, then when," Netanyahu reportedly said. "Action must be taken in all areas to increase pressure on Iran and impose crippling sanctions on it."

As for President Obama's engagement strategy, the Jerusalem Post quoted a senior Israeli official on "the last chance" given to Tehran by the United States, France, Britain and Germany,  "The free world has reached the last opportunity for engagement with Iran. We believe many Western countries now see that the Iranian mask is slipping." He added, however, "But we don't yet know if Russia and China understand this."
Saturday
Sep262009

Iran: The "Die Zeit" Article on Opposition and Change

The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?
The Latest from Iran (26 September): The False Flag of the Nuke Issue

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IRAN GREENFor days, there has been a buzz about an article in the German newspaper Die Zeit. Most of it is a summary profile of the opposition in Iran, but deep in the article, there is the claim of "preparations for a new government", including "a group of five to eight clerics" on fixed terms to replace the Supreme Leader and President Ahmadinejad's resignation in favour of Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf. The translation is by Paleene on the Anonymous Iran site:


The Green is not fading out

Protest of the mothers and planning for the Day X: How the Iranian opposition organizes and continues to fight.

BY CHARLOTTE WIEDEMANN

In a live broadcast on Iranian state television a mullah gives spiritual advice. An in-caller is talking about her marital problems, then she suddenly says: "Coincidentally, my husband has the same name as our newly elected president, Mir Hussein Mousavi," The moderator silences, the program is interrupted.

On money you will nowadays often find a green victory sign or the words "Down with the dictatorship”. Or a thumbnail portrait of Neda, the best known dead from the unrest in the days after the election in June. The print works give a professional impression, instructions circulate on the internet.

A football match in Isfahan, many spectators wearing green. The television cameras are trying to avoid these images. However, Green is the colour of the football club in Isfahan; now the club is requested to find a different colour.

The movement for democracy is visible in Iran, despite of all repression, torture and show trials. It is not strong enough to stop the Ahmadinejad government. But it is strong enough to keep the country in tension. Because meetings are banned, official occasions are subverted, eg. last Friday: During the anti‐Israel Quds rallies tens of thousands held their fingers up forming the V‐sign, demanded the release of imprisoned reformers. On this day, an experience from June repeated and changed the psychology of society: It is possible to take to the streets and defy prohibitions. It is dangerous but possible.
Another hidden source of energy is feeding the green movement; it has conciliated generations in families, bridging the gap between the old, who revolted 30 years ago, and the young, suffering from the outcomes today. Thus, sons started talking with their fathers again.

Every Saturday afternoon, the mothers of the killed protestors gather silently in Tehran's Laleh Park, all dressed in black . Other women surround them in silent solidarity. On a list of 72 dead, who are known by name, there are also workers, shoe salesmen, small employees. How the battle lines harden can be observed by the violation of previously existing taboos. Mohammad Khatami, the ex‐president, was pushed to the ground last Friday, his black turban torn down. In the first place, the usually moderate Khatami had accused the regime of "fascist" methods.

There is almost no way back after such actions and words. The events in Iran roll forward with a tenacious implacability. But where to? And can anyone control this process?

The young look forward to the great turning point, the elders are afraid of the chaos

The young, the students whose creativity influenced the aesthetics of the movement, still burn for the hope of something great to happen, a radical change ‐ in the system as in their lives. More prudent Iranians fear the power vacuum of a regime falling apart rapidly.

The 68‐year‐old Mir Hussein Mousavi, a candidate in June, remains the figurehead for all sides; but it is the width of the movement which makes him virtually incapable of acting. Coming from the system himself, the former prime minister wants to win as many of Ahmadinejad's conservative opponents as possible. For the moderates within the nomenklatura, Mousavi offers a great advantage, an insider explaine: "You know, he might take away their power, but not their lives.” But at the same time Mousavi has to appear unyielding, if he doesn’t want to lose the support of the young, and of the modern middle classes.

On the street outside his home, the regime has installed surveillance cameras. When Mousavi leaves home, a double cordon accompanies him: his own people and a troop of the Revolutionary Guard. The danger of being arrested is become greater for the leading group, so earlier plans for founding a party or a mass organization were discarded. The movement for democracy is to expand as a "network" which can’t be banned.

“Everyone appreciating the Iranian and Islamic identity of the country as a value and the constitution as the fundament for action is welcome "said Alireza Beheshti, a close adviser Mousavi. “The framework of the Islamic Republic should remain, but with corrections”, can be heard in Mousavi’s vicinity. Especially the civil rights under the constitution should show to advantage, including freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

In his statements "to the people of Iran”, which Mousavi only can send out on the internet, he calls for: a reform of the electoral law, press freedom, the licensing of private radio and television stations, a law prohibiting the military to intervene in economics and politics, the release of political prisoners and the penalisation of atrocities in the prisons. In Tehran, it is said that along with this minimum catalogue subject-specific sections have begun "with the preparations for a new government". Members of the current administration as well as Iranians living abroad are said to be involved in these groups.

Replacing the powerful revolutionary leader, a group of five to eight clerics should directly be elected by the people for a limited period of time. They should represent a religious pluralism equivalent to the freedom of choice in Shiite everyday life, where believers are free to choose the teachings of a scholar they want to follow. In future, nobody should be allowed to rely on divine authority. Mousavi: "Nobody has the right to say: How I look at the Islam is the one and only valid way."

This will be no quick go. Sustained pressure and a progressive wearing down of Ahmadinejad’s regime could force him to resign over the medium term, that is the hope. Mousavi does not insist in replacing him. To gain time for the elucidation of the population, an intermediate solution might be necessary. This could look like this: Ahmadinejad resigns in favour of the Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. The moderate, popular conservative had recognized the width of the People's Movement in June, when he estimated the demonstrators to be in the three millions.

Mousavi seems to be aware of being severly influenced by three decades of Islamic Republic, so not to be able to represent Iran's future. As a strict Muslim, he constantly would struggle inwardly to meet the youth’s demand of a liberalized lifestyle. Iranians drinking alcohol should have a place in the movement ‐ but Mousavi does not want to sit down at a table where the wine is drunk.

Mehdi Karroubi, the second reform candidate, is acting much more aggressive. In recent weeks, the fine-boned clergyman was the real challenger of the regime. He published that men and women were raped in detention ‐ which has deeply shaken many Iranians, even the more simple, religious people in Ahmadinejad's clientele. Karroubi wouldn’t make a leader who is appealing the masses, but he has made the cracks in the system visible.

Mousavi is resembling the figure of the king in chess: small moves, in case of danger retreat, always covered by his men. It is not cowardice. His fellow campaigners assume the movement to slide into the underground, to radicalize and to narrow dangerously, if Mussawi is detained. He sees himself as someone who can open an unbloody way to change. But then the people have to decide which system they want to live in.

For the first time since the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Iranian opposition abroad has found a common language with the forces of change within the country. This opens up options that were unthinkable only recently. In the case Mousavi and Karroubi are arrested, the leadership of the Green movement would automatically be taken over abroad. Soon a statement will be released in Tehran, saying a five‐member committee in the diaspora ‐ the names are not disclosed ‐ is authorized to replace the leadership in case needed. The symbolic gesture says a lot in a country where the fear of foreign agents is almost obsessive. And Mousavi signals the regime: Look out! If you arrested me, you obstruct the peaceful path to change.

In the diaspora, former bitter enemies have reconciled. The monarchists are relegated to irrelevance, while the advocates of a secular republic criticize Mousavi only mutedly as for the time being. Several prominent heads of the reformers are currently in the West, among them the former Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani in London, the film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf in Paris, and reform theologian Mohsen Kadivar in the US.

Kadivar, currently teaching at Duke University, appealed to "the Iranian bourgeoisie" to provide funds for a new, independent national television. "The cost of a green medium have to be borne by Iranian investors." The Iranian women are requested to donate their jewels as a patriotic gesture. Free, uncensored and genuine Iranian Radio and satellite television: That's what currently is worked for in four countries. In Amsterdam, Mehdi Jami as a former head of the Farsi-speaking Radio Zamaneh has a lot of experience with bloggers in Iran. Now he wants to establish citizen journalism as a new generation of broadcasting, giving the young Iranians, who constantly provide their clandestine videos on YouTube, a national platform.

Thus, networking, making various voices audible and being virtual, is the strength of the green movement ‐ and its weakness. It lacks a clearly audible voice, which eg comments on the resuming nuclear negotiations between Iran and the international community, beginning 1 Oct. Suspicion about Ahmadinejad buying legitimacy abroad which he is denied at home is rampant even among those who want the dialogue, basically. In Mousavi’s vicinity they say that "what ever is agreed now has no validity until it has been reviewed by a legitimate, new government of Iran." Mousavi does not want to seek confrontation in this highly sensitive issue.
Saturday
Sep262009

The Latest from Iran (26 September): The False Flag of the Nuke Issue

NEW Iran: The "Die Zeit" Article on Opposition and Change
NEW Iran Video: Ahmadinejad Interview on CNN’s Larry King
Iran's Nuclear Programme: The US State Department Line
Video: Ahmadinejad Interview with Time Magazine
Transcript: Obama and Sarkozy Statements on Iran Nuclear Programme
Iran: Obama’s “Get-Tough” Move for Engagement
Iran: Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad, and the Multi-Sided Chess Match
The Latest from Iran (25 September): The Nuclear Distraction

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IRAN NUKES2140 GMT: We've now posted an English translation of the Die Zeit article, with its explosive rumours of significant change in the Iranian system.

2005 GMT: Rouydad carries an explosive story, from an inside source, that the Ministry of Guidance and Culture has created a five-person committee to create and spread disinformation, including the claim of a meeting between billionaire George Soros and former President Mohammad Khatami as part of the "velvet revolution". The committee allegedly includes the head of a news agency, an expert on the Internet, a television presenter, and an intelligence official. Millions of dollars are being devoted to the effort.

1955 GMT: President Ahmadinejad has returned from New York with an upbeat political assessment of his "satisfactory" and "successful" stay in the US. He has emphasised the need for change in the management of the United Nations, including the Security Council. No mention, however, of the nuclear issue.

1925 GMT: Report that activist and Mehdi Karroubi supporter Housein Mahdavi has been arrested in Khoramabad.

1730 GMT: Today's "Velvet Revolution" Showcase. It comes courtesy of the Supreme Leader's Advisor For Military Affairs, Major General Seyed Yahiya Rahim Safavi, who said on Saturday, "The (enemies') soft war is aimed at changing the (Iranian nation's) culture, views, values, national beliefs and belief in values. Soft warfare is a complicated type of political, cultural, information operations launched by the world powers to create favorable changes in the target countries."

1715 GMT: The Wall Street Journal, snarling for a confrontation with Iran, inadvertently exposes the weakness in the dramatic presentation of the second enrichment facility:

"Let's also not forget the boost Iran got in late 2007, when a U.S. national intelligence estimate concluded that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and kept it frozen. The U.S. spy agencies reached this dubious conclusion while apparently knowing about the site near Qom."

Probably for the chest-thumpers at the WSJ is that the conclusion is not dubious at all (see the State Department's defense of it in a separate entry). Even if the second facility had taken in shipments of uranium, which is not alleged even by the US Government, even if high-grade centrifuges had been installed, which is not established, even if those centrifuges had begun enriching uranium, which is not claimed anywhere, that would not establish a direct link with a resumed nuclear weapons program. It would merely establish that Iran now had some quantity of enriched uranium which might or might not be for military rather than civilian purposes.

However, the WSJ's railing do not have to be logical to show the problems for the Obama Administration's strategy. Opponents will now claim that the 2nd enrichment facility shows that all intelligence assessments from 2007 must be thrown out and will put by default the faith-based assertion that Iran is hell-bent on the Bomb and beyond diplomacy.

1650 GMT: The Institute for Science and International Security has posted images "of two possible locations of the gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility under construction near Qom, Iran. Both are tunnel facilities located within military compounds approximately 30-40 kilometers away."

1620 GMT: Just to follow up on the biggest of rumours (see 1400 GMT) for change in the Iranian system, with the five-person committee to replace the Supreme Leader and the replacement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Tehran Mayor Qalibaf. I've read the Die Zeit piece, and it reads like rumour, Chinese whispers, and wishful thinking rather than hard information on any plan from Hashemi Rafsanjani or another source.

1600 GMT: The Grand Rafsanjani Plan? While the details of Hashemi Rafsanjani's purported political compromise are in the category of rumour, its existence is verified by the number of politicians and clerics asking for its consideration. Reformist MP Darius Ghanbari has called for "more efforts...to achieve...consensus and a calm atmosphere" and said, "Hashemi has all these features to bring the sides together", although "this will be achieved only when conditions that allow the rebuilding of trust to eliminate extremism and hatred." Another MP has called on Parliament's National Security Commission to act on the lines set out by Rafsanjani's 14 July Friday Prayer speech as the "best solution for an exit from the current situation".

1445 GMT: Not-So-Dramatic Breaking News. Iran's chief official for the nuclear programme, Ali Akbar Salehi, says Tehran will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the second uranium enrichment facility.

Look for the media to play this up as an important development. It's not. The logical strategy for Iran is to draw out the process of negotiation over access, appearing to be receptive to international demands for inspection while defending sovereignty and political position. That's why Salehi "didn't specify when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency could visit the site" and said "the timing will be worked out with the U.N. watchdog".

1410 GMT: The Battle Among the Experts. Ayande News Agency has revealed the bitter division in the Assembly of Experts. Hussein Ka'abi criticised Ayatollah Ali Mohammad Dastgheib, who has been prominent in his condemnation of the "illegitimate" Ahmadinejad Government and the brutal suppression of post-election dissent, and started a petition amongst the members of the Assembly for Dastgheib's dismissal. It is claimed that the Supreme Leader rejected the petition.

1405 GMT: Political activist Maysam Roudak was detained on Tuesday. She was previously arrested in September 2007, charged with acting against national security, and then bailed for $50,000.

1400 GMT: Noting the Even More Intriguing Rumour. This morning (0455 GMT) we wrote about the unconfirmed story that Hashemi Rafsanjani is trying to bring a political resolution through the intervention of the Expediency Council, which he chairs.

Even that pales, however, before the stunning claims in the German Die Zeit. The scenario is that a new system of "Supreme Leaders" with set terms would replace the current overall Supreme Leader with office for life and, more specifically, that the current Mayor of Tehran, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, would replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President.

We're looking for the original German article, but a Farsi summary is available via Deutsche Welle.

0930 GMT: Nonsense and War Talk. The "analysis" of the Iran in many of today's newspapers is simply awful. The Guardian of London's "Q and A Guide" bluntly informs, "[This] shows Iran has not been telling the truth about its nuclear activities," omitting little points such as Tehran's declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday and the differing interpretations of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The journalist, Ian Black, blithely assures, "It seems unlikely that a revelation of such importance would have been made without rigorous checking of sources." Which sounds good unless you realise that Black's next paragraph, "It is known that two years ago the US managed to penetrate Iranian computer systems," refers to the highly suspect American claim of a magic Iranian laptop, supposedly obtained from a defector, which has yet to be seen by the IAEA.

All of this might be harmless if ludicrous, were it not for the inconvenience that it aids and abets talk of War, War, War. In The Wall Street Journal, Anthony Cordesman, exalted by the US media as a top military expert, explains, "Israel must consider not just whether to proceed with a strike against Iran—but how", and kindly offers his "Iran Attack Plan". And the BBC's flagship radio programme, Today, having just heard from the British Foreign Minister, David Miliband, that diplomacy must be pursued, immediately turned to Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who declared, well, no, the military option should be prepared.

0505 GMT: The Iranian (State) Line. Press TV frames President Ahmadinejad's political strategy, which is to downplay any dispute and offer on the surface an accommodation over the second enrichment facility: "Ahmadinejad: 2nd nuclear site open for inspection". It summarises the President's New York press conference, which was delayed yesterday, and features his stance that Iran is within the law (which we picked up in Friday updates): "According to the IAEA rules, countries must inform the Agency 6 months ahead of the gas injection in their uranium enrichment plants. We have done it 18 months ahead and this should be appreciated not condemned."

0455 GMT: And, if you're not caught up with the "secret nuclear plant", what are the internal developments in Iran? To be honest, in the last 48 hours, all parties have caught breath and assessed their positions. The most intriguing possibility is that Hashemi Rafsanjani is trying to seize the initiative by setting up the Expediency Council as the proposer and arbiter of a political settlement. The Council is a different body from the clerical Assembly of Experts, which Rafsanjani also heads: its official function in the Iranian system is to rule in disputes between the Parliament and the Guardian Council, but it works primarily as an advisory body to the Supreme Leader.

At this point, the story is still rumour, but it is prominent in Internet chatter. Our readers offer a useful introduction in their comments on yesterday's updates.

0420 GMT: A "false flag" ship is one that disguises its true origin by sailing under the colours of another country. The parallel for Iran today is a near-hysterical situation in which an issue far removed from the critical questions of the post-election conflict suddenly becomes the primary, and even the sole, criterion by which Tehran is judged.

The "Western" media run headlong, escorted and often led by a Government agency, towards a finish line of the most dramatic and damning tale. The Times of London turns itself into Boys' Own Intelligence Journal, "How secrecy over Iran's Qom nuclear facility was finally blown away".

The New York Times gets closer to the immediate politics in its opening paragraph, "On Tuesday evening in New York, top officials of the world nuclear watchdog agency approached two of President Obama’s senior advisers to deliver the news: Iran had just sent a cryptic letter describing a small “pilot” nuclear facility that the country had never before declared." Then, however, it takes the US Government's bait, substituting supposed anguish and hurt for Washington's balancing of "engagement" and pressure on Tehran (see Chris Emery's analysis, which is far beyond anything in mainstream media this morning), "The Americans were surprised by the letter, but they were angry about what it did not say. American intelligence had come across the hidden tunnel complex years earlier, and the advisers believed the situation was far more ominous than the Iranians were letting on."

CNN, meanwhile, hits a new low in its spiralling coverage of Iran, falling into the Iranian President's own public-relations campaign by putting him on The Larry King Show, which usually devotes itself to interviewing Hollywood celebrities, participants in headline crime stories, or anyone loosely connected with Michael Jackson. Ahmadinejad's far-from-stunning revelation? ""We simply didn't expect President Obama to say something that was baseless."

None of this hyperbole and alarm, fuelled by the US Government's need to put pressure on Tehran before talks begin in Geneva on 1 October, comes close to the complexity of the politics on the uranium enrichment facility near Qom. None of it appreciates what an EA correspondent points out:
Let's hold our horses on this one. The International Atomic Energy Agency has to certify that the plant is not new and that Iran has been working in it for years. Right now there is complete discordance between the Iranian and Western versions of events on this, but both curiously point out to one key factor: no enrichment is happening right now in the Qom installation, and construction is still in progress.

But all of the hyperbole and alarm replaces any consideration of and even attention to the internal developments in Iran.
Saturday
Sep262009

Latest Iran Video: Ahmadinejad Interviews on CNN's Larry King (September 2009 and September 2008)

The Latest from Iran (26 September): The False Flag of the Nuke Issue
Video: Ahmadinejad Interview with Time Magazine

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Many apologies that, in a bit of editorial haste this morning, an old Ahmadinejad interview was posted. An extract from yesterday's interview is now posted, along with the September 2008 full interview. The person responsible for the blunder was thrashed and sacked. Unfortunately, as that person is me, he has been rehired.

September 2009: Part 1 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmrszPpeP08&feature=channel[/youtube]

Part 2 of 4

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqI6GR_eHDU&feature=channel[/youtube]

Part 3 of 4

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkjI1bxBsvs&feature=channel[/youtube]

Part 4 of 4

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ekh5ofRMYE&feature=channel[/youtube]

Part 5 of 6



September 2008: Part 1 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjuCXuESyyA&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 2 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQezkb5MRsM&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 3 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxYT0PBPniY&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 4 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V415rE4WZ1M&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 5 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Qxoqq8ECo&feature=related[/youtube]

Part 6 of 6

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2YtiQOwdug&feature=related[/youtube]
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