from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 19th, 2010:

Commentary: J.E. Dyer writes on the Contentions blog that Sunni Arabs are convinced Iran is taking over Iraq. He notes that Iraqi Sunnis in the Awakening movement are moving back into the insurgent camp because of this view, bolstered by fear of ending U.S. combat operations in Iraq. “In the absence of clear, assertive U.S. policy, we will find ourselves increasingly boxed in by the plans of opponents who want to make our policy for us. In many cases, the opponents will be terrorists,” he concludes.

National Review: Joel Rosenberg offers his theory behind Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon. Ahmadinejad’s aim, he writes, is “to rally the terrorist forces of Hezbollah for an apocalyptic war with the Jewish state that will set the stage for the coming of the Shia Islamic messiah known as the ‘Mahdi’ or the ‘Twelfth Imam.’” He says Iran and Hezbollah want to annihilate Israel and the United States. Rosenberg warns congressional Democrats and the president “don’t get it,” and that “Democrats have neither the wisdom nor the will to protect the American people or allies like Israel from the threat of Radical Islam,” and this may cost votes at the polls. He backs his views with findings from a poll commissioned by the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel and a historical overview.

Pajamas Media: Former AEI fellow and current Foundation for Defense of Democracies scholar Michael Ledeen writes about internal opposition to the Islamic Republic. “The regime would surely fall in short order if its opponents received a modicum of real support from the West, but no such support seems to be forthcoming from the feckless men and women who mistakenly fancy themselves to be real leaders,” he opines. His launching point to discuss discontent is the string of recent bombings against Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities. He quotes an unnamed source that the most recently attacked facility is used to train terrorists: “According to a reliable Iranian source, the foreigners were being trained in the use of roadside bombs, the so-called IEDs that account for most American and other NATO casualties in Afghanistan.”

The Michigan Campaign for Liberty and the University of Michigan College Libertarians will host Antiwar.com Editorial Director Justin Raimondo in Ann Arbor on October 25, 2010 at 7pm. The free event, “War Without End: The Shame of the American Left,” will be held in the Michigan League Ballroom at 911 N. University at the Central Campus in Ann Arbor. You can also join the hosts and Raimondo at the sponsors dinner by purchasing tickets here. For additional information, please contact Adam de Angeli a@mic4l.com. To book an event with Raimondo, please contact Wendy Honett wendy@antiwar.com.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 18th, 2010:

New York Post: Disgraced Iranian journalist Amir Taheri writes that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki “seems set to strike a Faustian bargain to cling to power: He is ready to dine with the devil.” Judging from the headline, “Iraq: Letting Iran Call the Shots,” the “devil” here is clearly Iran. Taheri, known to have fabricated stories in the past, makes errors in his Post article as well. He writes, “Tehran helped the deal by ordering its oldest Shiite clients, the so-called Supreme Islamic Assembly of Iraq [ISCI] (and its armed wing, the Badr Brigades), to back Maliki.” Historian Juan Cole noted that Badr “peeled away from it’s parent,” and that ISCI stayed out of Maliki’s coalition.

The Guardian: Michael Knights, a fellow at Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes that “Tehran [has] become the most influential outside power in Iraq.” He says, however, that the issue is not closed: “Iran, like the United States, will have to continue to vie for influence in Iraq.” He assesses Iranian interests in Iraq and concludes, “Tehran seeks to prevent Iraq from recovering as a military threat or as a launchpad for an American attack.” He sees the Islamic Republic accomplishing this through trade, particularly energy, and influencing Iraq’s “ fragmented and unregulated” politics.

The Washington Post: A neoconservative editorial writer at the Post make a thinly-veiled call for regime change in Iran, writing that the Islamic Republic has “no interest in a ‘grand bargain’ with the United States or an accommodation with the Security Council… [A]s long as these rulers are in power, Iran will not give up its ambition to exercise hegemony over the Middle East.” Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Southern Lebanon is seen to demonstrate that “Tehran can use its client to trigger a new war in the Middle East at any time; it’s a lesser form of the intimidation that it hopes to exercise around the region with an arsenal of nuclear weapons.” This show of force is viewed as a deterrence against an Israeli or U.S. strike on Iran.

The Wall Street Journal: Senior Claremont Institute Fellow Mark Halperin writes that Israel’s unique experience as a country “repeatedly subjected to calls for its extinction” and “the steadily improving professionalism of the Arab air forces, their first rate American and European equipment, their surface-to-air-missile shield, and most importantly their mass,” pose a “mortal threat” to Israel’s existence. Halperin observes that “the military strategy of Israel’s enemies is now to alter the conventional balance while either equipping themselves with nuclear weapons or denying them to Israel, or both.” Saving a discussion of Israel’s own nuclear capabilities until the last sentence, Halperin concludes that the only source of security for a Jewish state under “a continual state of siege is the nuclear arsenal devoted solely to preserving its existence.”

Obama’s total capitulation to the military industrial complex and the War Party

there is not better evidence than his offer to fund with more billions of American dollars the useless missile shield to “protect” Europe against Iranian “attack” – idiotic presumptions that Iran mullahs are suicidal and crazy. America is Iran’s enemy, not Europe.

When we wonder why Obama has done nothing to cut even one of the 800 odd bases with American soldiers abroad, this is an example of even more crazy spending, never mind that he won his election because of Americans who oppose empire building and want peace.

see the Washington Post report

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 15th, 2010:

Foreign Policy: David Rothkopf charges that Roger Cohen’s recent New York Times op-ed totally disregards the threat posed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Instead, Rothkopf endorses Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren’s New York Times op-ed demanding Palestinian recognition of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. “As unproductive as the Israeli stance on settlements has been, the Palestinian stance on the nature of the Israeli state, and its ability to continue operations as conceived and sanctioned by the United Nations nearly six and a half decades into its modern existence is just as unconstructive and indefensible,” writes Rothkopf. He concludes with a variation of the debunked reverse-linkage argument, arguing that “[Ahmadinejad’s] grandstanding and inflaming crowds on Israel’s borders with the language of obliteration is not just rhetoric. It is part of a systematic and thus far effective effort to exacerbate dangers and, not secondarily, to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people whose right to a free, independent state created in their own image is, of course, every bit as great as that of the Israelis.”

The Washington Times: Eli Lake writes that Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon adds pressure to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to withdraw his support of a UN investigation to determine who killed his father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. “I think it’s clear that Ahmadinejad’s visit is intended to show support for Hezbollah at a time when it’s facing the prospect of indictments in the murder of Hariri and is engaged in a campaign to undermine and derail the tribunal,” said Ash Jain, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Lake’s article went to print before it was known whether Ahmadinejad would travel to the Israeli border—he did not—but he writes that such a visit “would signal Iran’s proxies were on Israel’s border.”

FrumForum: Brad Schaeffer, an energy derivatives broker writing for the blog of neoconservative pundit David Frum, lines up three scenarios (best, mid, and worst case) on what could happen to oil prices should Israel attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Best-case results in only a small, temporary spike in prices and the Iranian leadership uses the strike to turn the “military lemon into PR lemonade” by playing “victim” without retaliation. A mid-level escalation would result in small to medium spikes, for a more sustained period, and attacks against Western forces. Worst case would mean an all out war (and closing the Strait of Hormuz) and the doubling of oil prices from their current levels.

Time: Tony Karon describes Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Lebanon as emblematic of a U.S. policy failure in the region. The visit makes clear three difficult realities the U.S. is facing: “First, Iran is not nearly as isolated as Washington would like; secondly, the Bush Administration efforts to vanquish Tehran and its allies have failed; and, finally, the balance of forces in the region today prompts even U.S.-allied Arab regimes to engage pragmatically with a greatly expanded Iranian regional role.” Ahmadinejad met with Lebanon’s Christian president and Saudi-backed Sunni prime minister, notes Karon, and “he also appears to be placing a heavy stress on Lebanese unity and the need to avoid division” — rather than focus solely on Iran’s Hezbollah beneficiaries.

No Info About Who or Where, or What He’s Doing

Adding to the rapidly growing list of official “warnings” that bear all the trappings of wild guesses, senior US officials informed Fox News that there are indications that a member of the Pakistani Taliban is inside the United States.

Somewhere in the nearly 4 million square miles of the territorial United States, one of the 300+ million people in the nation is affiliated with the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP). “We know the guy’s here, but don’t know anything about him,” one official noted.

And when they say “don’t know anything about him,” they mean it. Officials say they have absolutely no idea who this person is, where he is, or what sort of plot he might be involved in. Officials added that it did not appear to be an “imminent” threat, though it seems difficult they could know that for sure, given the paucity of information.

Faisal Shahzad, who failed in an attempt to bomb Times Square, was link to the TTP. The group has vowed to launch attacks against US soil in retaliation for years of US drone strikes against their territory.

When Professor Brian Williams said he went into his study of Pakistani tribesmen’s attitudes toward US drone strikes with an “open mind,” it seems like it may have been a little too open to sloganeering and a little too closed to existing data.

Starting with claims that al-Qaeda “took over” the region, Williams concludes that the tribesmen “see the drones as their liberators” despite the massive civilian death toll from the strikes.

Which seems incredible on the surface of it, but is even more so when compared to a US-funded poll from just two weeks ago which showed not only a dramatic majority opposed to the attacks but a solid majority believing the drone strikes justified attacks against the US military.

The fact that the two studies show such starkly different things is perhaps an interesting study in the unreliability of data from such remote areas in and of itself, but there are certain basic understandings about human nature that must underpin such studies, and if data points to a patently absurd conclusion it might warrant a second glance.

Is your student group featuring an antiwar speaker? Does your place of worship host a weekly peace vigil? Does your anti-empire group have a mailing list or a schedule of upcoming events?

We want to let others know about your work for peace. Please email Angela Keaton at akeaton@antiwar.com with the latest on your local activism.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 14th, 2010:

The Wall Street Journal: Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, opines that the European Union should do more to sanction Iran’s worst human-rights abusers. Such sanctions, he argues, will help lead to “regime change.” “If the opposition were to topple the revolutionary Islamist leaders, Iran’s nuclear project would be instantly less threatening.” Those governments that still have embassies in Tehran, says the op-ed, should downgrade diplomatic relations with Iran by withdrawing ambassadors “if their demands are not met” and visiting Iranian officials should “no longer deserve the red-carpet treatment” when they visit the West. Ottolenghi concludes that a strengthened public diplomacy campaign to speak directly to the people of Iran is necessary to explain the West’s “…policies and condemn the regime’s atrocities.”

The Atlantic: Century Foundation fellow Michael Hanna writes that, despite the howling of some on the left and right, anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s support for a new Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki does not mean that Iranian influence in Iraq has reached a high point. “Not only does this misunderstand the fundamental nature of Iran-Iraq relations, it repeats a mistake we have made repeatedly since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,” he writes. Hanna demonstrates how even in the most recent election, which gave rise to the current political impasse, Iran has been unable to exert its will on Iraqi politics. The roots of exaggeration of Iran’s influence stem from partisan U.S. domestic politics, he says: “For years, both parties have exaggerated Iran’s role to score political points.”

Fox News: Writing on the Fox News website, Judith Miller does an analysis about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Lebanon. She writes that the trip is “shaping up as a potential powder keg and a huge political embarrassment for Lebanon whose reverberations are being felt in many capitals, not just in the Middle East.” She cites a number of right-leaning sources such as MEMRI, an expert from the AIPAC-formed Washington Institute, and neoconservative journalist Lee Smith. Though Miller acknowledges that Hezbollah officials have not yet been indicted for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (charges are reportedly in the works), she states that Ahmadinejad and Iran, as Hezbollah’s patron, are “indirectly responsible for having killed” him.

Haaretz: Jack Khoury writes that renewed opposition to U.S. military aid to Lebanon appears to be gaining momentum in Congress in the midst of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s high-profile visit to Lebanon. In August, Representatives Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Howard Berman (D-CA) held up $100 million in military aid to Lebanon after a deadly border clash between Lebanon and Israel. The two Democrats are now opposing the transfer of military aid to Lebanon, scheduled for next month, in response to Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon.

In addition to his 10/26 talk at California Lutheran University with Brian Doherty, Justin Raimondo will be speaking in Danbury, CT on November 10th at 6:30pm. The free event is being hosted by the Ridgefield Liberty Coop and will be held at Western Connecticut State University (Westside Campus Center, Room 218). A $1,000 prize is being offered by the Coop to the student who submits the most thoughtful essay after the talk. For additional event details, please go here. And on November 18 at 7pm, Raimondo will be speaking at UC Berkeley in 20 Barrows Hall. The free event is being hosted by the Students for Liberty

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 13th, 2010:

The Hill: Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies writes on The Hill’s Congress Blog that Iran owns 15 percent of a uranium mine in Namibia, the third largest uranium mine in the world. Iran has owned a stake since the early 1970s and, according to Schanzer, does so using a loophole that needs to be fixed. He warns that “as the Iranian nuclear endgame plays out, oversights like these could give Tehran a dangerous advantage.” The Iranian stake in the mine is owned by the Iran Foreign Investment Company (IFIC), which, according the U.S. Treasury restrictions, cant’ do business with U.S. companies. Schanzer says Congress should ban business with Rossing, which manages the mine, and the U.S. should confront the company as well as the Namibian government about Iran’s involvement.

Reuters: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon brought harsh words from White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs. In response to a question about Ahmadinejad’s plan to travel to Lebanon’s border with Israel, Gibbs told reporters, “[Ahmadinejad] continues his provocative ways…even as he leaves his country further in economic distress and turmoil as a result of his actions that have led to international sanctions that are having great impact.” The visit to Lebanon is the first official state visit by an Iranian president. Gibbs said that the visit “suggests that Hezbollah values its allegiance to Iran over its allegiance to Lebanon.”

Washington Times: Reza Kahlili, a former CIA spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who writes in hawkish publications under a pseudonym, takes to the Times opinion page to declare President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon a “victory over Israel and the West in gaining control” over the tiny Mediterranean country. He says that U.S. withdrawal from Lebanon in the 1980s was “the beginning of the Islamic [Republic] regime’s dominance in the Middle East.” Even after Iranian ascent, he writes, “the West continues to provide legitimacy to terrorism and the terrorists’ criminal activity by maintaining its policy of appeasement and negotiation.” In June, Kahlili made a thinly-veiled call for war to unseat the Islamic regime in Iran.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 12th, 2010:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency: An American Jewish Committee poll found that “Jewish approval of President Obama is dropping,” according to JTA. On Iran, the poll found “American Jewish confidence in Obama’s approach to Iran also has fallen” to 43 percent approval. Nearly 60 percent of those American Jews polled approved of military action to prevent an Iranian bomb, and a third disapproved. Seventy percent approved of Israeli military action, which just over a quarter of respondents opposed.

Commentary: Since Obama seems unlikely to strike Iran, Jennifer Rubin, writing at the Contentions blog, cited the responses to questions about Iran in the AJC poll reported by JTA as the central reason for the overall dip in approval. “In answer to the question of whether anything can wean Jews of their ‘sick addiction‘ to the Democratic Party” — referencing Rachel Abrams — “the answer seems to be ‘Obama,’” she writes.

Reuters: Lesley Wroughton reports that on Friday Iran’s Economy Minister Shamseddin Hosseini accused the World Bank of “discriminatory behavior” in its decision not to authorize new development assistance in Iran. Hosseini said that development and humanitarian assistance were not part of UN sanctions and that the Bank’s refusal to consider a new lending strategy to Iran went against the Bank’s articles of agreement. “The shocking point is that, based on inquiry made from the legal department of the World Bank, the developmental and humanitarian projects are excluded from the imposed sanctions on Iran,” Hosseini said, “in no section of the legal opinion reasons can be found to reduce relations and not financing such new projects.” U.S. lawmakers have pressured the Bank to cut its lending to Iran.

Foreign Policy: Iranian analysts tend to use Red China, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to contextualize and predict Iran’s behavior. Carnegie Endowment Associate Karim Sadjadpour looks at those examples, rejects two and chooses one. Using former U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan’s 1947 essay on the Soviet Union, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” as a template, Sadjadpour substitutes references to the former USSR with words related to the Islamic Republic and offers a guide to how the U.S. should manage its Iran policy. Sadjadpour rejects the China comparison, and the ensuing strategy of rapprochement. He concludes anti-Americanism is too deeply ingrained in the identity of the Islamic Republic. Instead, the U.S. should put aside fears that Iran is expansionist or genocidal—there is little evidence to support these fears—and accept that U.S. policies might not bring immediate change in Iran. Instead, the parallels to the Soviet Union’s “siege mentality” should help form a new U.S. policy based on Iran’s longterm strategic weaknesses and, ultimately, unsustainable security policies and revolutionary ideology.