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http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107248

Israel Shields Public from Risks of War with Iran
By Gareth Porter*

TEL AVIV, Mar 29, 2012 (IPS) - The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling Israelis that Israel can attack Iran with minimal civilian Israeli casualties as a result of retaliation, and that reassuring message appears to have headed off any widespread Israeli fear of war with Iran and other adversaries.

But the message that Iran is too weak to threaten an effective counterattack is contradicted by one of Israel's leading experts on Iranian missiles and the head of its missile defence programme for nearly a decade, who says Iranian missiles are capable of doing significant damage to Israeli targets.

The Israeli population has shown little serious anxiety about the possibility of war with Iran, in large part because they have not been told that it involves a risk of Iranian missiles destroying Israeli neighbourhoods and key economic and administrative targets.

"People are not losing sleep over this," Yossi Alpher, a consultant and writer on strategic issues and former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, told IPS in an interview. "This is not a preoccupation of the public the way the suicide bombers were a decade ago."

Alpher says one reason for the widespread lack of urgency about a possible war with Iran is that the scenarios involving such a war are "so nebulous in the eyes of the public that it's difficult for them to focus on it".

Aluf Benn, the editor in chief of Haaretz, told IPS in an interview, "There is no war mentality," although he added, "that could change overnight." One reason for the relative public calm about the issue, he suggested, is the official view that Iran's ability to retaliate is "very limited".

Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in Bloomberg Mar. 20 that "Some Israel officials believe Iran's leaders might choose to play down the insult of a raid and launch a handful of rockets at Tel Aviv as an angry gesture rather than declare all-out war."

But Uzi Rubin, who was in charge of Israel's missile defence from 1991 to 1999 and presided over the development of the Arrow anti- missile system, has a much more sombre view of Iran's capabilities.

The "bad news" for Israel, Rubin told IPS in an interview, is that the primary factor affecting Iran's capability to retaliate is the rapidly declining cost of increased precision in ballistic missiles. Within a very short time, Iran has already improved the accuracy of its missiles from a few kilometres from the target to just a few metres, according to Rubin.

That improvement would give Iran the ability to hit key Israeli economic infrastructure and administrative targets, he said. "I'm asking my military friends how they feel about waging war without electricity," said Rubin.

The consequences of Iranian missile strikes on administrative targets could be even more serious, Rubin believes. "If the civilian government collapses," he said, "the military will find it difficult to wage a war."

Rubin is even worried that, if the accuracy of Iranian missiles improves further, which he believes is "bound to happen", Iran will be able to carry out pinpoint attacks on Israel's air bases, which are concentrated in just a few places.

Some Israeli analysts have suggested that Israel could hit Iranian missiles in a preemptive strike, but Rubin said Israel can no longer count on being able to hit Iranian missiles before they are launched.

Iran's longer-range missiles have always been displayed on mobile transporter erector launchers (TELs), as Rubin pointed out in an article in Arms Control Today earlier this year. "The message was clear," Rubin wrote. "Iran's missile force is fully mobile, hence, not pre-emptable."

Rubin, who has argued for more resources to be devoted to the Arrow anti-missile system, acknowledged that it can only limit the number of missiles that get through. In an e-mail to IPS, he cited the Arrow system's record of more than 80 percent success in various tests over the years, but also noted that such a record "does not assure an identical success rate in real combat".

The United States and Israel began in 2009 developing a new version of the Arrow missile defence system called "Reshef" - "Flash" - or "Arrow 3", aimed at intercepting Iranian missiles above the atmosphere and farther away from Israeli territory than the earlier version of the Arrow. The new anti-missile system can alter the trajectory of the defensive missile and distinguish decoys from real missile reentry vehicles.

Until last November, the Arrow 3 system was not expected to become operational until 2015. And that plan was regarded by U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) as probably too ambitious, because such a system would normally take a decade from conception to deployment.

But Xinhua news agency reported in November that Israeli Air Force officials said they expected Arrow 3 to become operational by mid- 2013, cutting even that abbreviated timeline for development of the system in half.

Nevertheless, the ability of the Arrow 3 system to shoot down an incoming missile still has not been announced, although an Israeli official said Mar. 1 that such a test would take place after the meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

In December 2008, Western intelligence sources were reported by Israel's Ynet News as saying the improved version of the Shahab 3 missile had gone into production earlier that year and that Iran was believed to be able to produce 75 of the improved missiles annually.

Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, then IDF chief of staff, told a visiting Congressional delegation in November 2009 that Iran already had 300 missiles capable of hitting Israeli targets, according to a U.S. State Department cable released by WikiLeaks.

Those reports suggest that Iran now has roughly 450 missiles that can reach Israel, half of which are improved models with much greater precision. Even if only one-fifth of those missiles get through Israel's missile defences, Israeli cities could be hit by at least 100, most of which are able to hit targets with relative accuracy.

The Netanyahu government has sought to minimise the threat of Iranian retaliation for an Israeli strike against Iran in part by likening war with Iran to those fought against Hezbollah and Palestinian rockets in recent years, which have resulted in relatively few Israeli civilian casualties.

That was the message that Israeli military officials conveyed to the Israeli news media after an escalation of violence between the IDF and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza earlier this month.

Columnist Zvi Barel of Haaretz speculated on Mar. 11 that the purpose of the escalation, provoked by the IDF assassination of Zuhair al- Qaisi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committee in Gaza, was to show the Israeli public that Israeli missile defence system could protect the population against rockets that the IDF linked to Iran.

Barel went even further. "After Iron Dome demonstrated its 95 percent effectiveness," he wrote, "there is no better proof to Israel's citizens that they will not suffer serious damage following an assault on Iran."

The success of the Iron Dome against short-range rockets from Gaza is irrelevant, however, to what could be expected from a relatively untested Arrow system against Iranian ballistic missiles aimed at Israeli targets.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

--

William O. Beeman

Professor and Chair

Department of Anthropology

University of Minnesota

395 HHH Center

301 19th Avenue S.

Minneapolis, MN 55455

(612) 625-3400

wbeeman@umn.edu

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/lessons-from-another-war.html?_r=1&ref=opinion#commentsContainer
March 10, 2012: Lessons From Another War

By ARTHUR S. BRISBANE

“WE talk about generals fighting the last war,” said Tim McNulty, who served as foreign editor for The Chicago Tribune during the Iraq war. “I think journalists also do.”

Nine years after the start of the Iraq war, the scene has shifted to Iran, and Mr. McNulty has a more detached view of events, as co-director of the National Security Journalism Initiative at Northwestern University. Now he cautions journalists against falling again for a kind of siren song: “the narrative of war.”

“The narrative of war, or anticipating war, is a much stronger narrative than the doubters have,” he said. “It is an easier story to write than the question of, well, is it really necessary?”

In recent months I have heard from many readers concerned that The New York Times is falling for this siren song, the narrative of war, in its coverage of Iran’s nuclear program. Not infrequently, readers and critics invoke Judith Miller’s now-discredited coverage in The Times of Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, as if to say it is all happening again.

Among the criticisms are that The Times has given too much space to Israeli proponents of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities; has failed to mention often enough that Israel itself has nuclear arms; has sometimes overstated the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency; has repeated the questionable assertion that Iran’s leaders seek the eradication of Israel; has failed to analyze the Iranian supreme leader’s statement that nuclear weapons are a “sin”; and has published misleading headlines.

William O. Beeman, author of “The ‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other,” told me he believes The Times’s coverage has contributed to a dangerous public misunderstanding of the situation.

“The conventional wisdom with regard to Iran is that Iran has a nuclear weapons program and that they are going to attack Israel and going to attack the United States,” said Mr. Beeman, who is chairman of the anthropology department at the University of Minnesota. “But all these things are tendentious and highly questionable.”

Mr. Beeman faulted The Times for mischaracterizing I.A.E.A. reports and for a “disconnect between headline and the actual material in the stories that really affects public opinion,” saying these problems raised a question about the “civic responsibility of The Times.”

This bill of particulars against The Times’s coverage weighs heavily, but it is clear to me that this is not a replay of the Judith Miller episode. I do find examples that support the complaints mentioned above, but also see a pattern of coverage that gives due credence to the counternarrative — not of war but of uncertainty and caution.

Jill Abramson, executive editor of The Times, told me the paper is “certainly mindful that some readers may see an echo of the paper’s flawed coverage of Iraq,” but she also noted distinct differences. This time, she said, the United States government is expressing doubts about weapons of mass destruction, not leading the drumbeat for war. And there is no question that Iran has a nuclear program; it’s just unclear whether it is for civilian or military use.

Times journalists “are mindful of our responsibility to be vigilant, skeptical and fair,” she said. “Last month, when the calls for striking Iran began to grow louder, we brought together the foreign and Washington desks and came up with a run of stories designed to examine closely the statements made by those on both sides of the argument, especially the rising calls for a military strike.”

“A central argument on that side,” she added, “is that sanctions were not working and never would; that an Israeli strike would be easy and effective and might not draw the U.S. into war; and that Iran was weak, and unlikely to retaliate in the event of a strike.”

She pointed to articles The Times has done on all those issues, plus one saying that American intelligence analysts continued to believe there was no hard evidence that Iran had decided to build a nuclear bomb.

These were all good articles, and all were played on Page 1. Getting the Iranian point of view, though, has proved far more elusive and is complicated by The Times’s difficulty gaining access to the country, which carefully controls foreign news media. Although The Times’s Robert F. Worth captured some Iranian voices in his Feb. 6 article on the impact of sanctions, The Times has not been able to report from within the country on a consistent basis.

The result is an asymmetry of perspective, something I heard frequently in conversations with others about the coverage. The Times, for example, ran a 7,627-word Sunday magazine article by the Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman about Israel’s calculations for a possible attack. No such word count can be tied to the Iranian point of view.

“There needs to be far more effort to get into the heads of Iranians, the policy makers and their people, to understand how this chess game is being played from their perspective,” said Tony Burman, former head of Al Jazeera English and Canada’s CBC News, and now a lecturer at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism in Toronto.

Kevin Klose, dean of journalism at the University of Maryland and former president of NPR, called for an effort to “carefully parse” the public statements of Iran’s leaders and publish analyses that capture the nuances.

Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American journalist who spent much of 2011 in Iran, observed that news coverage has left Americans with a caricatured understanding not only of Iran’s leaders but of its people “as being completely oppressed or completely lunatic.”

“Neither is accurate,” said Mr. Majd, author of “The Ayatollah Begs to Differ” and “The Ayatollahs’ Democracy.”

What is needed from The Times, he added, is more effort not only to get ordinary Iranian voices into the coverage but also to reach across the cultural divide to fully understand significant statements from the Iranian leadership, like the fatwa against nuclear weapons by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader.

I share this view and believe the West’s inability to understand the other side’s leadership may have a parallel with the run-up to the Iraq war. Once again, the stakes are high for all involved, including The Times, which has an opportunity to get it right this time.

Follow the public editor on Twitter at twitter.com/thepubliceditor. The public editor can also be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com.

William O. Beeman / Professor and Chair

Department of Anthropology /University of Minnesota

395 HHH Center / 301 19th Avenue S. / Minneapolis, MN 55455

(612) 625-3400 /wbeeman@umn.edu

http://www.ajwnews.com/archives/12749
The American Jewish World
Thursday, March 1st, 2012...12:24 pm

Ramping up for the next war?

U of M professor William Beeman sees the U.S. press, AIPAC and right-wing think tanks agitating for an attack on Iran

By DAVID RUBENSTEIN

The U.S. media is setting up the public for a military attack on Iran in a way that recalls the months leading up the Iraq war in 2003, according to Middle East expert William Beeman, chair of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Anthropology.

Beeman spoke and answered questions for more than two hours on Feb. 11, at the Lutheran Church of Christ the Redeemer in Minneapolis. Middle East Peace Now sponsored the talk.

Speaking before a sympathetic audience, he declared at the outset that an attack on Iran would be “madness,” and he cited a number of Israeli authorities who more or less agree with him. They include the former head of Mossad, Israel’s CIA, Meir Dagan, who last year called an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

But right now, says Beeman, a wide swath of the U.S. press is promoting the idea through continual repetition of the claim that Iran’s nuclear industry is a potential stepping-stone to a weapons program — even though there is no evidence that a weapons program has been initiated.

“They have done very well,” he says, regarding the mainstream news media’s campaign to vilify Tehran. “Sit down next to someone on a plane, and ask what they think about Iran, and it’s likely to be ‘Iran has nuclear weapons and they are going to bomb Israel.’”

William Beeman: AIPAC has a completely unrealistic view of the interests of Israel. (Photo: David Rubenstein)

It’s important to realize that Iran’s nuclear industry goes back 40 years, Beeman points out. “We sold it to them.” It took some arm-twisting, he adds. “We went to the Shah and said if you want to be modern nation, you must have nuclear power.”

Today there are compelling economic reasons for Iran to continue its nuclear program, according to Beeman. He cites 800,000 as the number of cancer patients currently getting radiation treatment in Iran. He notes, too, that Iran is the largest auto manufacturer in the Middle East and a producer of steel, as well as aluminum, which is particularly demanding of electrical power. At the same time, according to Beeman, in the current market it’s making more economic sense for Iran to sell natural gas to China than to use it for domestic energy needs.

The major push for the attack-Iran campaign, Beeman asserts, is coming from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the defense minister, and their interest is, in part, political.

The Israeli coalition government, fragile from the beginning, is now threatened by economic unrest, including street protests, “and nothing works like an outside enemy.”

But Netanyahu’s interest goes much deeper than electoral politics, according to Beeman. He sees in Netanyahu something of a Churchill complex, in reference to the British wartime leader standing up to a world of Chamberlains, or appeasers. Beeman argues that Netanyahu’s thinking vis-à-vis Iran can be traced back to 1996, when he sought and received advice from American neoconservatives, in the form of a document called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” It promoted regime change, starting with Iraq, then Syria and then Iran

A similar strategy, with many of the same authors, was resurrected a year or two later by way of the Project for a New American Century.

According to Beeman, the idea of promoting regime change in Iran, whether by bombing or creating intolerable economic conditions, is a naïve fantasy. The early leaders of the Iranian revolution understood well that shakeups occur when dictators are toppled. As a result, he says, they set up a government that is “a miracle of baroque complexity,” with roughly 150 important decision-makers, staggered elections and interlocking offices.

Ahmadinejad, Beeman says, is a cog in that system; he should be regarded as something like a city manager, in a town that is run by a mayor and city council. In any case, according to Beeman, his threats have been overblown. Beeman maintains that the Jewish community in Iran, the largest in the Middle East outside of Israel, is relatively well off and free to travel, including to and from Israel.

Today in the United States, Beeman sees the push for an attack on Iran coming primarily from three groups: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American Enterprise Institute and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. AIPAC has extraordinary power, he says, making it clear to lawmakers that if they cross it they risk a frontal assault at election time, in part by having campaign donations diverted to their opponents.

It’s not easy to say that, Beeman acknowledges, without opening yourself up to a charge of being anti-Semitic, or anti-Israel.

“My personal opinion,” he says, “is that AIPAC has a completely unrealistic view of the interests of Israel. They reflect only the views of its most rabid right-wing politicians.”

Beeman suggested that those in the audience support a better alternative to AIPAC: “It’s called J Street.” He’s a member himself of the group that bills itself as “pro-Israel and pro-peace,” he says, even though he is not Jewish; “because I believe in J Street’s mission. I want the Israeli people to be happy and safe.”

(American Jewish World, 3.2.12)

Here is William O. Beeman's commentary on Bill Keller's New York Times column "Bomb-bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran?" (New York Times, Monday, January 23). This comment is a "pick" of the NY Times editorial board.

Keller's article is below Professor Beeman's commentary:

How many times do we have to remind ourselves that no one--no one has any proof that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Not the IAEA not our own National Intelligence Estimate, not the Israeli military. Moreover the U.S and its allies have been saying that Iran is one or two years away from making a bomb every year since 1990. Iran has none of the facilities needed to turn its current low enriched uranium into anything weaponizable, nor does it have a delivery system. Even if it had such facilities it would need to test its imaginary weapon, depleting its stockpile of low enriched uranium.

Let's consider that 19 other nations--all signatories like Iran to the NPT--are enriching uranium exactly as Iran is doing. Some, like Japan, have already declared that they intend to make nuclear weapons in the future if they need to. So why aren't we going after these nations with threats, sanctions and plans for carpet bombing? The answer is clear: we are targeting Iran, and using this non-existent issue as an excuse. The reason: a nuclear threat is a plausible excuse for regime change--what the hawks and neocons are really after!

Americans need to wake up and understand that they are being flim-flammed in a huge way. We will wake up in the middle of a massive conflagration and realize that the ideologues did it again--got us into a gigantic foreign conflict that will tie us and the world up for decades over a non-existent threat. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

	Persian Perspectives... http://www.theportlandalliance.org/persian The PDX Alliance Portal to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
The following is an interesting article by Robert Parry that appeared on-line at ComsortiumNews.Com. http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/18/lieberman-edges-us-to-war-with-iran/#comment-41739 Lieberman Edges US to War with Iran February 18, 2012 Exclusive: American neocons have moved the United States closer to war with Iran via a subtle change in the “red line” phrasing, inserting the word “capability” after the usual threats to take out an Iranian “nuclear weapon.” Now, Sen. Joe Lieberman is making the shift official, reports Robert Parry. By Robert Parry Sen. Joe Lieberman is leading a group of nearly one-third of the U.S. Senate urging that the red line on war with Iran be shifted from building a nuclear weapon to the vague notion of Iran having the “capability” to build one. The neoconservative senator from Connecticut has introduced a “Sense of the Senate” resolution that would put the body on record as rejecting a situation that arguably already exists, in which Iran has the know-how to build a bomb even if it has no intention to do so. The resolution tracks with the positions of hardline Israeli leaders, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and undercuts the position of President Barack Obama, whose administration has been exploring ways to negotiate an agreement with Iran, which insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut (Drawing by Robbie Conal at robbieconal.com) U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies also agree that Iran has NOT decided to build a bomb. [See Consortiumnews.com’s ““US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes.”] However, in recent weeks, the goal posts have been subtly moved not only by American neocons and Israeli hardliners but by the major U.S. news media, which has inserted the new weasel word “capability” in mentions about of Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons ambitions. Of course, many consumers of U.S. news haven’t noticed this slight change in wording from Iran’s alleged “pursuit of a nuclear weapon” to its alleged “pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.” But the distinction is important because a “capability” can mean almost anything, since peaceful nuclear research also can be applicable to bomb building. To deny Iran the “capability” would almost surely require a war between the United States and Iran, a course that some neocons have been quietly desiring for at least the past decade when the Iraq invasion was seen as a first step to bringing “regime change” to Iran – or as some neocons joked at the time, “real men go to Tehran.” Indeed, the massive U.S. Embassy in Baghdad – which now sits increasingly idle – c an be best understood as the intended imperial command center for a new American dominance of the region. But those neocon plans were spoiled by the disastrous turn of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and ultimately America’s forced military withdrawal from the country at the end of 2011. A Neocon Comeback Since the grim writing was on the wall about the Iraq outcome, American neocons have been looking for new ways to get their imperial agenda back on track, with Iran’s nuclear program just the latest opportunity. So, Iranian efforts to negotiate confidence-building initiatives regarding its nuclear program, such as agreeing to a Turkish-Brazilian plan in 2010 to trade about half of Iran’s low-enriched uranium for radioactive isotopes needed for medical research, have been blocked by neocons in Congress and their allies in the Obama administration, with the support of key U.S. media outlets, like the Washington Post and New York Times. The latest shift toward forcing a new war has centered on the insertion of the word “capability” after the words “nuclear weapons.” The Obama administration has indicated that it would consider an Iranian decision to build a nuclear bomb a “red line,” suggesting the possibility of a military strike at that point. However, that threat isn’t making the neocons happy because the U.S. intelligence community is standing by its 2007 conclusion that Iran halted work on a nuclear bomb in 2003 and hasn’t resumed that effort. Israeli intelligence apparently has reached the same judgment. Both U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak have referenced this state-of-play in the intelligence assessments in recent public remarks, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern has reported. So, what are the hawks in Israel and the United States to do? Their new sleight-of-hand has been to quietly shift the terms of reference, arguing that it doesn’t matter whether Iran is actually working on a bomb but that it must be denied even the “capability” to work on a bomb. That is the point of Lieberman’s resolution. Lieberman’s Allies In a statement at his Web site, the senator announced that 32 senators – both Republicans and Democrats – have banded together to introduce a resolution urging action to prevent Iran from pushing “forward in its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability. … By rejecting any policy that would rely on containment of a nuclear-weapons capable Iran, this bi-partisan resolution sends a clear message to Iran’s rulers that the United States will stop them from acquiring nuclear weapons capability.” In other words, the next preemptive war could be launched not against Iran for actually building a bomb or even trying to build a bomb but rather for simply having the skills that theoretically could be used sometime in the future to build a bomb. The “red line” has been moved from some possible future development to arguably what already exists. Lieberman is co-sponsoring the resolution with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania), with support from Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), John McCain (R-Arizona), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas), Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Chuck Schumer (D-New York), Bill Nelson (D-Florida), Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas), Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey), Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), Mark Udall (D-Colorado), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts), Chris Coons (D-Delaware), Dan Coats (R-Indiana), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), John Boozman (R-Arizona), Jo hn Hoeven (R-North Dakota), Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire), Dean Heller (R-Nevada). That group amounts to nearly one-third of the 100-member U.S. Senate. Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there. ********************************************* On-Line Comments by Akbar Montaser on February 19, 2012 at 10:04 am The “famous Senator” Joe Lieberman (CT) is at his game again, not a second worried about America and its interests. His lies about weapon of mass destruction in Iraq are patent. For his information (and his 31 sidekicks), Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell during and after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq) has stated, “This resolution reads like the same sheet of music that got us into the Iraq war, and could be the precursor for a war with Iran.” He added, this resolution is “effectively, a thinly-disguised effort to bless war.” Congressman Dennis Kucinich courageously told Congress: “We’re Being Lied Into Another Ir aq in Iran.” Importantly, several national security and arms proliferation experts alert us that this resolution would virtually Prevent President Obama from diplomacy and dialogue with Iran to avert war. With this resolution, more American sons and daughters will be slayed or maimed while wasting our tax dollars. Further, American bombs would again murder at least 100 thousand innocent people, this time in Iran, just akin to Iraq. We are tired of wars after wars; wasting precious resources we need in America to shelter, heal, feed, and educate our people for a better America. War is the work of evil doers. The promoters of wars are hired agents for immoral. Yet, media “rates” keep broadcasting shameful lies and messages of hate by wicked agents of our so-called “staunch friends”, Israeli Rulers. American citizens are peace lovers. The vast majority of Americans believe direct diplomacy with Iran is the single most effective way to prevent war and nuclear proliferation. War is against our national soul. Our government must quit acting like a wolf, and feel the shepherd's love that is filling us. Respectfully, Professor Akbar Montaser The George Washington University Washington, DC Homepage: http://home.gwu.edu/~montaser/ From The noble 13th Century Persian Sufi Poet Rumi: "I go to a synagogue, church, and mosque, and I see the same spirit and the same altar". Thanks Amestp@aol.com or Montaser@gwu.edu - William O. Beeman Professor and Chair Department of Anthropology University of Minnesota 395 HHH Center 301 19th Avenue S. Minneapolis, MN 55455 (612) 625-3400 wbeeman@umn.edu	Friends, do not fail to read Juan Cole's brilliant analysis of current politics in Iran--this will NOT appear in the U.S. press, and the reason it will not is because it defies the current conventional wisdom on Iran. But Juan is 100% correct in this analysis. Please forward widely. Everyone needs to read this piece. Bill Beeman Link: http://www.juancole.com/2012/03/khamenei-takes-control-forbids-nuclear-bomb.html Khamenei Takes Control, Forbids Nuclear Bomb Posted on 03/04/2012 by Juan Early returns in Iran’s 9th parliamentary election since the 1979 revolution show that Ahmadinejad’s lay populists have taken a drubbing, and that hard line supporters of clerical Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are ascendant. Ahmadinejad’s sister, Parvin, who stood for election from their own hometown of Garmsar, was defeated, a major blow to the president. Western reporters keep saying that the parliamentary results have no implication for Iran’s nuclear program. But they only say this because they either don’t pay attention to what Iranian leaders actually say, or discount their statements as lies (treating them much less respectfully than they treated notorious fraud Andrew Breitbart in their fluffy obituaries last week). A week and a half ago, Khamenei gave a major foreign policy speech in which he said, ““The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.” Now, you could maintain that Khamenei is lying when he says he holds that possessing nuclear weapons is a grave sin. (You could also maintain that the Popes are lying when they say using birth control is a grave matter, but you’d have to explain why they put their papal authority on the line for a lie they weren’t forced to utter). But even if you think it is a lie, you have at least to report what he says. I guarantee you that Khamenei’s speech opposing nukes was not so much as mentioned on any of the major American news broadcasts. Khamenei has also repeatedly said that Iran has a ‘no first strike’ policy, that it will not fire the first shot in any conflict. And if you hold that Khamenei, as a leading clerical authority, is being dishonest on this issue, then surely you should offer some proof. Perhaps he has flip-flopped over time? But no. Here is Khamenei in 2010: ““We have said repeatedly that our religious beliefs and principles prohibit such weapons as they are the symbol of destruction of generations. And for this reason we do not believe in weapons and atomic bombs and do not seek them.” Or 2009, when Khamenei said, “They (Western countries) falsely accuse the Islamic republic’s establishment of producing nuclear weapons. We fundamentally reject nuclear weapons and prohibit the use and production of nuclear weapons. This is because of our ideology, not because of politics or fear of arrogant powers or an onslaught of international propaganda. We stand firm for our ideology.” I could go on providing the same sort of quotes going back years. It seems to me that one implication of pro-Khamenei hard liners dominating parliament is that the Supreme Leader’s authority has been enhanced. And he is deploying his authority to forbid the acquisition of a nuclear warhead. Warmongers attempting to drag the United States into yet another ruinous (or, rather, infinitely more ruinous) war in the Middle East have typically focused their propaganda on the person of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The president, now nearing the end of his second and last term, is easy to ridicule and easy to demonize, because of his quirky personality and colorful gaffes. He has been called a “Hitler” by Rick Santorum, and the Neoconservatives depict him as a madman bent on bringing the world to an end. (Ahmadinejad, unlike most establishment Shiite clerics, thinks that the Muslim promised one or Mahdi will come soon, and this millenarian belief has been taken advantage of by Neocons, who inaccurately allege that the belief could push the president to support apocalyptic policies.) It has been alleged that Ahmadinejad is a mass-murdering hard liner, seeking nuclear weapons with which to destroy Israel. This puzzling emphasis on Ahmadinejad comes despite the president’s relative lack of power in the Iranian system. The commander in chief of the armed forces is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Who sets nuclear policy? Ali Khamenei. In Iran, the “president” is more like a vice president (think Joe Biden) than a real executive. Ahmadinejad could not even fire an intelligence minister (Haidar Moslehi) he disliked last spring. Khamenei reinstated him. Ahmadinejad sulked and wouldn’t attend cabinet meetings for a while, but eventually got over himself. Hitler indeed. Just last month, even the old parliament voted to make Ahmadinejad appear before the legislature to explain his economic policies, the first time a president has been interpellated by parliament in the Islamic Republic. Some in parliament have even spoken of impeaching Ahmadinejad, which they’d be in a position to do after these elections. So, to conclude: Ahmadinejad is not very much like Hitler. He can’t give an order to the Iranian military independently of Khamenei, who can over-rule him at will. He can’t make his own pick of cabinet ministers, and so can’t build up an independent power base. He has been threatened by parliament. His party lost the 2012 elections big time. His own sister couldn’t win a seat in their home town. He is a lame duck. So there is no point in demonizing him, or pretending he has an atomic bomb, or that he would be the one to deploy a bomb if Iran possessed one, which it does not. For the Neoconservatives, the jig is up. Khamenei’s hand has been significantly strengthened. And he has signalled to the Iranian people yet again that he won’t use that strength for belligerent purposes or to pursue a nuclear warhead, which the Iranian ayatollahs consider a tool of the devil– since you can’t deploy it without killing large numbers of civilian non-combatants. That these developments can be commented on in Western media without Khamenei’s speech being mentioned or it being noted that he strongly opposes nukes is baffling. On February 24, 2012, the following interview with Ahmed Tharwat on his cable television show "Belahdan," deals with U.S.-Iranian relations as well as U.S.-Israeli relations and the role of Israel in U.S. Middle East affairs. .   <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5oY0IAjlB4&feature=colike>   There are about two minutes of intro and commercials at the start of the video. The interview is 29 minutes in length   One can contact William O. Beeman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota at 395 HHH Center, on 301 19th Avenue S. in Minneapolis, MN 55455 or by calling (612) 625-3400 or emailing: wbeeman@umn.edu
This is a very long report. Below are some excerpts. Richard Engel is a prize-winning reporter who is fluent in Arabic. http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10354553-israel-teams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officials-tell-nbc-news Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News Thu Feb 9, 2012 6:16 AM EST By Richard Engel and Robert Windrem NBC News Richard Engel is NBC News' chief foreign correspondent; Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer. Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders. The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980. The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement. The Iranians have no doubt who is responsible – Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, known by various acronyms, including MEK, MKO and PMI. . . . . . Israel has long used assassination against its enemies, "hoping that by taking out individuals, they can alter, change the course of history," says Ronen Bergman, an Israeli commentator and author of "Israel's Secret War with Iran" and an upcoming book tentatively titled "Mossad and the Art of Assassination." Bergman said the attacks have three purposes, the most obvious being the removal of high-ranking scientists and their knowledge. The others: forcing Iran to increase security for its scientists and facilities and to spur “white defections.” He explained the latter this way: “Scientists leaving the project, afraid that they are going to be next on the assassination list, and say, ‘We don't want this. Indeed, we get good money, we are promoted, we are honored by everybody, but we might get killed. It isn't worth it. Maybe we should go back to teach … in a university.’” . . . . For the United States, the alleged role of the MEK is particularly troublesome. In 1997, the State Department designated it a terrorist group, justifying it with an unclassified 40-page summary of the organization’s activities going back more than 25 years. The paper, sent to Congress in 1998, was written by Wendy Sherman, now undersecretary of state for political affairs and then an aide to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. The report, which was obtained by NBC News, was unsparing in its assessment. “The Mujahedin (MEK) collaborated with Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the former shah of Iran,” it said. “As part of that struggle, they assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of the American hostages.” In each case, the paper noted, “Bombs were the Mujahedin's weapon of choice, which they frequently employed against American targets.” . . . . . The MEK and its sister organizations have since the beginning been run by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, a husband-wife team who have maintained tight control despite assassination threats and internal dissent. Massoud Rajavi, 63, founded the MEK, but since the U.S. invasion of Iraq has taken a backseat to his wife. The State Department report describes the Rajavis as “fundamentally undemocratic” and “not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran.” . . . . . “Internally, the Mujahedin run their organization autocratically, suppressing dissent and eschewing tolerance of differing viewpoints,” it said. “Rajavi, who heads the Mojahedin’s political and military wings, has fostered a cult of personality around himself.” The U.S. suspicion of the MEK doesn’t end there. Law enforcement officials have told NBC News that in 1994, the MEK made a pact with terrorist Ramzi Yousef a year after he masterminded the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Yousef built an 11-pound bomb that MEK agents placed inside one of Shia Islam’s greatest shrines in Mashad, Iran, on June 20, 1994. At least 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 200 wounded in the attack. That connection between Yousef, nephew of 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, and the MEK was first reported in a book, “The New Jackals,” by Simon Reeve. NBC News confirmed that Yousef told U.S. law enforcement that he had worked with the MEK on the bombing. In recent years, the MEK has said it has renounced violence, but Iranian officials say that is not true, that killings of Iranians continue. Still, through some deft lobbying, the group has been able to get the United Kingdom and the European Union to remove it from their lists of terrorist groups. The alleged involvement of the MEK in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists provides the U.S. with a cloak of deniability regarding the clandestine killings. Because the U.S. has designated the MEK as a terrorist organization, neither military nor intelligence units of the U.S. government, can work with them. “We cannot deal with them, “ said one senior U.S. official. “We would not deal with them because of the designation.” . . . . . Daniel Byman, a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and also a senior fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said that if the accounts of the Israeli-MEK assassinations are accurate, the operation borders on terrorism. “In theory, states cannot be terrorist, but if they hire locals to do assassinations, that would be state sponsorship,” said Byman, author of the recent book, “A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.” “You could argue that they took action not to terrorize the public, the purpose of terrorism, but only the nuclear community. An argument could also be made that degrading the program means that you don’t have to take military action and thus, this is a lower level of violence and that really these are military targets, where normally terrorist targets are civilians.” But ultimately, Byman said, there is a “spectrum of responsibility” and that Israel is ultimately responsible.
William O. Beeman Professor and Chair Department of Anthropology University of Minnesota	395 HHH Center 301 19th Avenue S. Minneapolis, MN 55455 (612) 625-3400 wbeeman@umn.edu

Persian Perspectives...
http://www.theportlandalliance.org/persian
The PDX Alliance Portal to the
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

The following is an interesting article by Robert Parry that appeared
on-line at ComsortiumNews.Com.
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/18/lieberman-edges-us-to-war-with-iran/#comment-41739

Lieberman Edges US to War with Iran
February 18, 2012
Exclusive: American neocons have moved the United States closer to war with Iran via a subtle change in the “red line” phrasing, inserting the word “capability” after the usual threats to take out an Iranian “nuclear weapon.” Now, Sen. Joe Lieberman is making the shift official, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Sen. Joe Lieberman is leading a group of nearly one-third of the U.S. Senate urging that the red line on war with Iran be shifted from building a nuclear weapon to the vague notion of Iran having the “capability” to build one. The neoconservative senator from Connecticut has introduced a “Sense of the Senate” resolution that would put the body on record as rejecting a situation that arguably already exists, in which Iran has the know-how to build a bomb even if it has no intention to do so.
The resolution tracks

with the positions of hardline Israeli leaders, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and undercuts the position of President Barack Obama, whose administration has been exploring ways to negotiate an agreement with Iran, which insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut
(Drawing by Robbie Conal at robbieconal.com)
U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies also agree that Iran has NOT decided to build a bomb. [See Consortiumnews.com’s ““US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes.”] However, in recent weeks, the goal posts have been subtly moved not only by American neocons and Israeli hardliners but by the major U.S. news media, which has inserted the new weasel word “capability” in mentions about of Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons ambitions.
Of course, many consumers of U.S. news haven’t noticed this slight change in wording from Iran’s alleged “pursuit of a nuclear weapon” to its alleged “pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.” But the distinction is important because a “capability” can mean almost anything, since peaceful nuclear research also can be applicable to bomb building.
To deny Iran the “capability” would almost surely require a war between the United States and Iran, a course that some neocons have been quietly desiring for at least the past decade when the Iraq invasion was seen as a first step to bringing “regime change” to Iran – or as some neocons joked at the time, “real men go to Tehran.”
Indeed, the massive U.S. Embassy in Baghdad – which now sits increasingly idle – c

an be best understood as the intended imperial command center for a new American dominance of the region. But those neocon plans were spoiled by the disastrous turn of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and ultimately America’s forced military withdrawal from the country at the end of 2011.
A Neocon Comeback
Since the grim writing was on the wall about the Iraq outcome, American neocons have been looking for new ways to get their imperial agenda back on track, with Iran’s nuclear program just the latest opportunity.
So, Iranian efforts to negotiate confidence-building initiatives regarding its nuclear program, such as agreeing to a Turkish-Brazilian plan in 2010 to trade about half of Iran’s low-enriched uranium for radioactive isotopes needed for medical research, have been blocked by neocons in Congress and their allies in the Obama administration, with the support of key U.S. media outlets, like the Washington Post and New York Times.
The latest shift toward forcing a new war has centered on the insertion of the word “capability” after the words “nuclear weapons.” The Obama administration has indicated that it would consider an Iranian decision to build a nuclear bomb a “red line,” suggesting the possibility of a military strike at that point.
However, that threat isn’t making the neocons happy because the U.S. intelligence community is standing by its 2007 conclusion that Iran halted work on a nuclear bomb in 2003 and hasn’t resumed that effort. Israeli intelligence apparently has reached the same judgment. Both U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak have referenced this

state-of-play in the intelligence assessments in recent public remarks, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern has reported.
So, what are the hawks in Israel and the United States to do? Their new sleight-of-hand has been to quietly shift the terms of reference, arguing that it doesn’t matter whether Iran is actually working on a bomb but that it must be denied even the “capability” to work on a bomb. That is the point of Lieberman’s resolution.
Lieberman’s Allies
In a statement at his Web site, the senator announced that 32 senators – both Republicans and Democrats – have banded together to introduce a resolution urging action to prevent Iran from pushing “forward in its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability. … By rejecting any policy that would rely on containment of a nuclear-weapons capable Iran, this bi-partisan resolution sends a clear message to Iran’s rulers that the United States will stop them from acquiring nuclear weapons capability.”
In other words, the next preemptive war could be launched not against Iran for actually building a bomb or even trying to build a bomb but rather for simply having the skills that theoretically could be used sometime in the future to build a bomb. The “red line” has been moved from some possible future development to arguably what already exists.
Lieberman is co-sponsoring the resolution with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania), with support from Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), John McCain (R-Arizona), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas), Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Chuck Schumer (D-New York), Bill Nelson (D-Florida), Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas), Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey), Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), Mark Udall (D-Colorado), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts), Chris Coons (D-Delaware), Dan Coats (R-Indiana), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), John Boozman (R-Arizona), Jo

hn Hoeven (R-North Dakota), Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire), Dean Heller (R-Nevada).
That group amounts to nearly one-third of the 100-member U.S. Senate.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.

*********************************************
On-Line Comments by Akbar Montaser on February 19, 2012 at 10:04 am

The “famous Senator” Joe Lieberman (CT) is at his game again, not a second worried about America and its interests. His lies about weapon of mass destruction in Iraq are patent.

For his information (and his 31 sidekicks), Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell during and after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq) has stated, “This resolution reads like the same sheet of music that got us into the Iraq war, and could be the precursor for a war with Iran.” He added, this resolution is “effectively, a thinly-disguised effort to bless war.” Congressman Dennis Kucinich courageously told Congress: “We’re Being Lied Into Another Ir

aq in Iran.”

Importantly, several national security and arms proliferation experts alert us that this resolution would virtually Prevent President Obama from diplomacy and dialogue with Iran to avert war. With this resolution, more American sons and daughters will be slayed or maimed while wasting our tax dollars. Further, American bombs would again murder at least 100 thousand innocent people, this time in Iran, just akin to Iraq.

We are tired of wars after wars; wasting precious resources we need in America to shelter, heal, feed, and educate our people for a better America. War is the work of evil doers. The promoters of wars are hired agents for immoral.

Yet, media “rates” keep broadcasting shameful lies and messages of hate by wicked agents of our so-called “staunch friends”, Israeli Rulers. American citizens are peace lovers. The vast majority of Americans believe direct diplomacy with Iran is the single most effective way to prevent war and nuclear proliferation.

War is against our national soul. Our government must quit acting like a wolf, and feel the shepherd's love that is filling us.

Respectfully,

Professor Akbar Montaser
The George Washington University
Washington, DC
Homepage: http://home.gwu.edu/~montaser/
From The noble 13th Century Persian Sufi Poet Rumi:
"I go to a synagogue, church, and mosque, and I see the same spirit and the same altar".
Thanks Amestp@aol.com or Montaser@gwu.edu
-
William O. Beeman
Professor and Chair
Department of Anthropology

University of Minnesota
395 HHH Center
301 19th Avenue S.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 625-3400
wbeeman@umn.edu

Friends, do not fail to read Juan Cole's brilliant analysis of current politics in Iran--this will NOT appear in the U.S. press, and the reason it will not is because it defies the current conventional wisdom on Iran. But Juan is 100% correct in this analysis. Please forward widely. Everyone needs to read this piece.

Bill Beeman

Link: http://www.juancole.com/2012/03/khamenei-takes-control-forbids-nuclear-bomb.html

Khamenei Takes Control, Forbids Nuclear Bomb

Posted on 03/04/2012 by Juan

Early returns in Iran’s 9th parliamentary election since the 1979 revolution show that Ahmadinejad’s lay populists have taken a drubbing, and that hard line supporters of clerical Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are ascendant. Ahmadinejad’s sister, Parvin, who stood for election from their own hometown of Garmsar, was defeated, a major blow to the president.

Western reporters keep saying that the parliamentary results have no implication for Iran’s nuclear program. But they only say this because they either don’t pay attention to what Iranian leaders actually say, or discount their statements as lies (treating them much less respectfully than they treated notorious fraud Andrew Breitbart in their fluffy obituaries last week).

A week and a half ago, Khamenei gave a major foreign policy speech in which he said,

““The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.”

Now, you could maintain that Khamenei is lying when he says he holds that possessing nuclear weapons is a grave sin. (You could also maintain that the Popes are lying when they say using birth control is a grave matter, but you’d have to explain why they put their papal authority on the line for a lie they weren’t forced to utter). But even if you think it is a lie, you have at least to report what he says. I guarantee you that Khamenei’s speech opposing nukes was not so much as mentioned on any of the major American news broadcasts.

Khamenei has also repeatedly said that Iran has a ‘no first strike’ policy, that it will not fire the first shot in any conflict.

And if you hold that Khamenei, as a leading clerical authority, is being dishonest on this issue, then surely you should offer some proof. Perhaps he has flip-flopped over time? But no. Here is Khamenei in 2010:

““We have said repeatedly that our religious beliefs and principles prohibit such weapons as they are the symbol of destruction of generations. And for this reason we do not believe in weapons and atomic bombs and do not seek them.”

Or 2009, when Khamenei said,

“They (Western countries) falsely accuse the Islamic republic’s establishment of producing nuclear weapons. We fundamentally reject nuclear weapons and prohibit the use and production of nuclear weapons. This is because of our ideology, not because of politics or fear of arrogant powers or an onslaught of international propaganda. We stand firm for our ideology.”

I could go on providing the same sort of quotes going back years.

It seems to me that one implication of pro-Khamenei hard liners dominating parliament is that the Supreme Leader’s authority has been enhanced. And he is deploying his authority to forbid the acquisition of a nuclear warhead.

Warmongers attempting to drag the United States into yet another ruinous (or, rather, infinitely more ruinous) war in the Middle East have typically focused their propaganda on the person of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The president, now nearing the end of his second and last term, is easy to ridicule and easy to demonize, because of his quirky personality and colorful gaffes. He has been called a “Hitler” by Rick Santorum, and the Neoconservatives depict him as a madman bent on bringing the world to an end. (Ahmadinejad, unlike most establishment Shiite clerics, thinks that the Muslim promised one or Mahdi will come soon, and this millenarian belief has been taken advantage of by Neocons, who inaccurately allege that the belief could push the president to support apocalyptic policies.) It has been alleged that Ahmadinejad is a mass-murdering hard liner, seeking nuclear weapons with which to destroy Israel.

This puzzling emphasis on Ahmadinejad comes despite the president’s relative lack of power in the Iranian system. The commander in chief of the armed forces is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Who sets nuclear policy? Ali Khamenei. In Iran, the “president” is more like a vice president (think Joe Biden) than a real executive.

Ahmadinejad could not even fire an intelligence minister (Haidar Moslehi) he disliked last spring. Khamenei reinstated him. Ahmadinejad sulked and wouldn’t attend cabinet meetings for a while, but eventually got over himself. Hitler indeed.

Just last month, even the old parliament voted to make Ahmadinejad appear before the legislature to explain his economic policies, the first time a president has been interpellated by parliament in the Islamic Republic. Some in parliament have even spoken of impeaching Ahmadinejad, which they’d be in a position to do after these elections.

So, to conclude: Ahmadinejad is not very much like Hitler. He can’t give an order to the Iranian military independently of Khamenei, who can over-rule him at will. He can’t make his own pick of cabinet ministers, and so can’t build up an independent power base. He has been threatened by parliament. His party lost the 2012 elections big time. His own sister couldn’t win a seat in their home town. He is a lame duck. So there is no point in demonizing him, or pretending he has an atomic bomb, or that he would be the one to deploy a bomb if Iran possessed one, which it does not.

For the Neoconservatives, the jig is up.

Khamenei’s hand has been significantly strengthened. And he has signalled to the Iranian people yet again that he won’t use that strength for belligerent purposes or to pursue a nuclear warhead, which the Iranian ayatollahs consider a tool of the devil– since you can’t deploy it without killing large numbers of civilian non-combatants.

That these developments can be commented on in Western media without Khamenei’s speech being mentioned or it being noted that he strongly opposes nukes is baffling.

On February 24, 2012, the following interview with Ahmed Tharwat on his cable television show "Belahdan," deals with U.S.-Iranian relations as well as U.S.-Israeli relations and the role of Israel in U.S. Middle East affairs. .   <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5oY0IAjlB4&feature=colike>
  There are about two minutes of intro and commercials at the start of the video. The interview is 29 minutes in length

  One can contact William O. Beeman, Professor and Chair
of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota
at 395 HHH Center, on 301 19th Avenue S. in Minneapolis, MN 55455
or by calling (612) 625-3400 or emailing: wbeeman@umn.edu

This is a very long report. Below are some excerpts. Richard Engel is a prize-winning reporter who is fluent in Arabic.

http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10354553-israel-teams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officials-tell-nbc-news

Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News

Thu Feb 9, 2012 6:16 AM EST

By Richard Engel and Robert Windrem

NBC News

**Richard Engel is NBC News' chief foreign correspondent; Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer.**

Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement.

The Iranians have no doubt who is responsible – Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, known by various acronyms, including MEK, MKO and PMI.

. . . . .

Israel has long used assassination against its enemies, "hoping that by taking out individuals, they can alter, change the course of history," says Ronen Bergman, an Israeli commentator and author of "Israel's Secret War with Iran" and an upcoming book tentatively titled "Mossad and the Art of Assassination."

Bergman said the attacks have three purposes, the most obvious being the removal of high-ranking scientists and their knowledge. The others: forcing Iran to increase security for its scientists and facilities and to spur “white defections.”

He explained the latter this way: “Scientists leaving the project, afraid that they are going to be next on the assassination list, and say, ‘We don't want this. Indeed, we get good money, we are promoted, we are honored by everybody, but we might get killed. It isn't worth it. Maybe we should go back to teach … in a university.’”

. . . .

For the United States, the alleged role of the MEK is particularly troublesome. In 1997, the State Department designated it a terrorist group, justifying it with an unclassified 40-page summary of the organization’s activities going back more than 25 years. The paper, sent to Congress in 1998, was written by Wendy Sherman, now undersecretary of state for political affairs and then an aide to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The report, which was obtained by NBC News, was unsparing in its assessment. “The Mujahedin (MEK) collaborated with Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the former shah of Iran,” it said. “As part of that struggle, they assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of the American hostages.” In each case, the paper noted, “Bombs were the Mujahedin's weapon of choice, which they frequently employed against American targets.”

. . . . .

The MEK and its sister organizations have since the beginning been run by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, a husband-wife team who have maintained tight control despite assassination threats and internal dissent. Massoud Rajavi, 63, founded the MEK, but since the U.S. invasion of Iraq has taken a backseat to his wife.

The State Department report describes the Rajavis as “fundamentally undemocratic” and “not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran.”

. . . . .

“Internally, the Mujahedin run their organization autocratically, suppressing dissent and eschewing tolerance of differing viewpoints,” it said. “Rajavi, who heads the Mojahedin’s political and military wings, has fostered a cult of personality around himself.”

The U.S. suspicion of the MEK doesn’t end there. Law enforcement officials have told NBC News that in 1994, the MEK made a pact with terrorist Ramzi Yousef a year after he masterminded the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Yousef built an 11-pound bomb that MEK agents placed inside one of Shia Islam’s greatest shrines in Mashad, Iran, on June 20, 1994. At least 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 200 wounded in the attack.

That connection between Yousef, nephew of 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, and the MEK was first reported in a book, “The New Jackals,” by Simon Reeve. NBC News confirmed that Yousef told U.S. law enforcement that he had worked with the MEK on the bombing.

In recent years, the MEK has said it has renounced violence, but Iranian officials say that is not true, that killings of Iranians continue. Still, through some deft lobbying, the group has been able to get the United Kingdom and the European Union to remove it from their lists of terrorist groups.

The alleged involvement of the MEK in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists provides the U.S. with a cloak of deniability regarding the clandestine killings. Because the U.S. has designated the MEK as a terrorist organization, neither military nor intelligence units of the U.S. government, can work with them. “We cannot deal with them, “ said one senior U.S. official. “We would not deal with them because of the designation.”

. . . . .

Daniel Byman, a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and also a senior fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said that if the accounts of the Israeli-MEK assassinations are accurate, the operation borders on terrorism.

“In theory, states cannot be terrorist, but if they hire locals to do assassinations, that would be state sponsorship,” said Byman, author of the recent book, “A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.” “You could argue that they took action not to terrorize the public, the purpose of terrorism, but only the nuclear community. An argument could also be made that degrading the program means that you don’t have to take military action and thus, this is a lower level of violence and that really these are military targets, where normally terrorist targets are civilians.”

But ultimately, Byman said, there is a “spectrum of responsibility” and that Israel is ultimately responsible.