Ways and means.(IRAN)

Publication: Kurdish Life

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2005 Kurdish Library

Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror-pursuing



nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing and end its support for terror. President George W. Bush, State of the Union, 2.5.05

The president speaks with forked memory. Much as the Pentagon touted convicted felon Ahmad Chalabi as a reliable source for intelligence on Iraq, the Pentagon has a new darling in the person of Iranian exile Alireza Jafarzadeh, former spokesman for the National Coalition of Resistance in Iran (NCRI)--a group listed as a "terrorist" organization by the State Department--for intelligence on Iran. "Iran has completed an underground tunnel-like facility in Parchin, which is now engaged in laser enrichment," he declared. When NCRI's Washington office was closed, Jafarzadeh opened up his own. (Reuters 3.24.05) Like Chalabi, his words on weapons of mass destruction are precisely what the White House wants to hear. And as the old Yiddish saying goes, "When you need the thief, you take him down from the gallows."

At the end of March former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter warned that the American public is "sleepwalking to disaster in Iran." When a source "close" to the Bush administration told him the White House was "keen on achieving a semblance of stability in Iraq before June 2005," Ritter asked why. And the source replied: "Because that was when the Pentagon was told to be prepared to launch a massive aerial attack against Iran.... The Israelis are concerned that if the Iranians get their nuclear enrichment program up and running, then there will be no way to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. June 2005 is seen as the decisive date." But the President had not approved the plan to bomb Iran--for the time being. (Aljazeera 3.30.05)

In the first week of April, Secretary of State Rice gave this response to rumors: "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table." (AP 4.6.05) Veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern was listening. "The notion that the Bush administration would mount a 'preemptive' air attack on Iran seems insane. And still more insane if the objective includes overthrowing Iran's government again, as in 1953--this time under the rubric of 'regime change,' "he wrote: "But Bush administration policy toward the Middle East is being run by men--yes, only men--who were routinely referred to in high circles in Washington during the 1980s as the 'crazies'.... And we do well not to let their ultimate folly obscure their current ambition, and the further trouble that ambition is bound to bring in the four years ahead. In an immediate sense, with U.S. military power unrivaled, they can be seen as 'crazy like a fox,' with a value system in which 'might makes right' ... The very same men who, acting out of that paradigm, brought us the war in Iraq, are now focusing on Iran, which they view as the only remaining obstacle to American domination of the entire oil-rich Middle East ...

"But why now?... One reason the Israelis are pressing hard for early action may simply be out of a desire to ensure that Bush will have few more years as president after an attack on Iran, so that they will have him to stand with Israel when bedlam breaks out in the Middle East. What about post-attack 'day two?' Not to worry. Well-briefed pundits are telling us about a wellspring of Western-oriented moderates in Iran who, with a little help from the US, could seize power in Tehran ... Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has for some time appeared eager to enlist Washington's support for an early 'pre-emptive' strike on Iran ... As for Bush, over the past four years he has amply demonstrated his preference for the counsel of Sharon ... As was the case with Iraq two years ago, there is no imminent Iranian strategic threat to Americans--or, in reality, to anyone." (Asta Times 3.3.05)

McGovern didn't have to wait long for Israel to inadvertently support his contentions Israel's Army Radio reported that Sharon was under pressure from his military brass "to raise a military option against Iran's nuclear program with President Bush in talks in Texas." (Reuters 4.11.05)

Now Associated Press reported that the U.S. was making $3 million available for groups in Iran "willing to work toward democracy." Whereupon Teheran reminded the Bush administration of the Algiers Agreement (signed between Teheran and Washington after the Iran hostage crisis) wherein the U.S. pledged "not to intervene directly or indirectly politically or militarily in Iran's internal affairs." (AP 4.11.05)

In the second week of April, Prime Minister Sharon was in Crawford, Texas for meetings with President Bush. Armed with "satellite photographs of Iranian nuclear sites that document their development and expansion since 2002 ... Sharon asked the U.S. to pressure the Europeans to hand the Iranian nuclear issue over to the United Nations Security Council." (4.12.05) Which brings to mind the satellite images former Secretary of State Powell showed the UN to "prove" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

"Among American experts familiar with the latest Israeli imagery, no one thinks this was earth-shattering stuff," David Sanger noted. "Israeli officials declined to describe the evidence they presented, or say whether the photographs were from Israeli or American sources, commercial satellites, or from agents on the ground in Iran." But the Israelis were not about to back off. "'This can't be delayed much longer,' a senior Israeli official traveling in Mr. Sharon's party said ... There is very little time until the point of no return is reached.'" (NYT 4.13.05)

But it was the Europeans who reached a point of no return. England and Germany curtsied to the President's demand that Iran must have no nuclear program, none whatsoever, not even to meet its own energy needs. Initially France's President Jacques Chirac tried to push the EU "to drop its refusal to consider letting Iran enrich uranium." One diplomat termed his proposal "diplomatic politeness." (Reuters 4.13.05) Yet on the same day Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters that North Korea is "a more immediate problem for nuclear arms control officials than Iran." (AP 4.13.05)

Praising Europe's efforts to "wean Tehran" off any nuclear arms programs as "the right course," Secretary of State Rice issued this thinly veiled threat: "Obviously at some point in time the UN Security Council is an option." (4.14.05) Sharon must have slept well that night.

During a visit to Israel, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued his own warning. "Iran should not be made to feel frustrated with regard to using the latest scientific and technological advances," he told Israeli TV. "Iran is our neighbor. It is a big country and to frustrate a country like Iran would be counter-productive and can lead to fairly difficult and serious consequences. You cannot humiliate a country and a people like the Iranian people." (Reuters 4.22.05)

Meanwhile an Israeli student group calling itself the Student Solidarity Movement organized a "worldwide day of protest hoping to 'break the silence' on the violation of human rights in...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.