The Latest from Iran (19 February): Finding the Real Stories

2100 GMT: Human Rights Front. The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center has issued a statement challenging Iran's presentation on Monday at the UN Human Rights Commission: "United Nations human rights experts must immediately investigate Iran’s prisons, including allegations of rape, torture, and the detention of people for peacefully exercising their rights to freedoms of expression and assembly."

NEW Iran & the “Non-Bomb”: The Real Story on Tehran’s Nuclear Programme
NEW Iran Book Update: No More Good Reads in Tehran
NEW Iran: Are The Banks Failing?
Iran Document: Today’s Mousavi-Karroubi Meeting (18 February)
Iran Analysis: The “Now What” Moment (Farhi)
Iran: Getting to the Point on Detentions & Human Rights (Sadr)
Iran: Another Rethink on Green Opposition (Ansari)
Latest on Iran (18 February): Watching on Many Fronts

1910 GMT: And A Prisoner Released. Javad Askarian, an aide to Mehdi Karroubi, was released yesterday after a week in detention.

According to Saham News The veteran of the Iran-Iraq war had been sent to Evin prison on 10 February after being summoned by the intelligence ministry for providing “some explanations.”


1905 GMT: Another Political Prisoner. Iranian authorities have sentenced student activist Morteza Samiari to six years in prison. Samiari, an executive member of Iran’s national student union, was arrested because he received an open and official invitation to meet with representatives of a European Parliamentary Committee in Tehran.

1900 GMT: Your Friday Prayer Summary. Hardman Ahmad Khatami taking charge in Tehran today, and he is ready to gloat. Apparently "rioters" did not even bother to show up on 22 Bahman, disappointing the international media (you know, the reporters who were bused directly from the press centre to Azadi Square and back, not stopping and not Passing Go on the way) who wanted to relay “disturbances and clashes” rather than reflect the “epic” support of people for the Islamic Republic.

1740 GMT: Moscow's Slapdown. It's news that Russia has demanded "clear explanations" from Tehran about its nuclear programme. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:

We are very alarmed and we cannot accept this, that Iran is refusing to cooperate with the IAEA. For about 20 years, the Iranian leadership carried out its clandestine nuclear program without reporting it to the IAEA. I I do not understand why there was such secrecy.

But it's even more news that Iranian state media is highlighting the apparent division between Tehran and Moscow.

1600 GMT: BloggingHeads. As it's a slowish afternoon, I've been listening to this discussion between Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation and former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum about Iran. These are two of the most prominent analytic voices in Washington.

Striking to hear, therefore, the issue of whether Iran should be treated with respect and dignity reduced to "this is a country whose top three exports are pistachios, carpets, and saffron...aside from oil and gas, so it doesn't have a lot of claim to respect". And troubling to ask, after all 36 minutes....

How much knowledge of events inside Iran emerges in this discussion?



1500 GMT: We Pause for Levity. OK, this may not be serious news coverage, but it's Friday afternoon and I am already smiling at the breathless declaration, "Iran's Navy on Friday took the delivery of the first indigenously designed and developed guided missile destroyer Jamaran in the presence of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei."

Then the photo comes in. I think only two words will suffice: Caption Competition:



1350 GMT: Political Prisoner Update. Radio Zamaneh summarises last night's releases: Omid Mehregan, author, translator, and journalist released after two weeks; Ardavan Tarakemeh, film student and cinema critic, on $30,000 bail, after more than three weeks; Orouj Ali-Mohammadi, former governor of Tabriz; Safoura Tofangchi (her two daughters and husband are still detained); Mohammad Dardkeshan, a political activist with ties to the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, after two months.

1315 GMT: The Supreme Leader Says "No Nukes". Ayatollah Khamenei on the draft IAEA report: "Iran will not get emotional in its response to these nonsensical statements, because we have often said that our religious tenets and beliefs consider these kinds of weapons of mass destruction to be symbols of genocide and are, therefore, forbidden and considered to be haram (religiously banned). This is why we do not believe in atomic bombs and weapons and do not seek them."

1245 GMT: Well, Here's a Nuclear Surprise. Not. Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, called the IAEA's draft report "baseless". He said the cited documents were "fabricated and thus do not have any validity".

1240 GMT: The Rise of Rahim-Mashai. Yet another role for President Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai (see 0815 GMT): he has been appointed the President's deputy with full authority for "Rahyan-e Nour", the caravan trips to the battlegrounds of Khuzestan in southwestern Iran.

1100 GMT: A new Green website, Mardomkhabar, has been launched.

1055 GMT: The authorities are still jittery about a show by the opposition. Tehran police chief Ahmad Reza Radan has warned that those arrested during the celebration of Chaharshanbe Souri ("Fire Festival") will not be freed until the end of Iran's New Year celebrations.

1045 GMT: Economy Watch. Khabar Online has recycled the attack of MP Mus al-Reza Servati on the President's budget --- the Parliament would question Ahmadinejad over "irregularities", but is prevented from doing so by political considerations --- by reprinting the interview in English.

Khabar is also featuring an article, "Experts are warning on a drop in the oil production of the country," even as Iran's Oil Ministry is seeking a 25 percent increase by 2015.

0938 GMT: Iran's Nuclear Spin. Press TV is portraying the International Atomic Energy Agency report as "two-sided", verifying "the non-diversion of declared nuclear material" but "call[ing] on Iran to further discuss and cooperate on alleged issues".

0930 GMT: Punishing the Cleric. Kalemeh claims that Molana Abdol-Hamid, the Sunni Friday Prayer leader in Zahedan in eastern Iran has been prevented from leaving the country.

In his Friday Prayer address last week Abdol-Hamid described the Islamic Republic as a system that gives equal freedom to both pro- and anti-Government groups and allows voices of opposition to be heard: “The people of Iran brought the Revolution to victory to achieve its goals and now they demand the reviewing and realization of those goals.”

0925 GMT: Political Prisoner Update. Reporters and Humanright Activists in Iran reports that Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafar Dolatabadi has personally handed down a 16-count indictment to Bahareh Hedayat during an interrogation session at Evin Prison. Charges include spreading propaganda against the regime, taking part in post-election events, talking to foreign media organizations, insulting the Supreme Leader, insulting the President, and conspiring to act against national security.

0820 GMT: It is reported that the prominent German insurers "Münchner Rück" and "Allianz Versicherung" (the largest insurance firm in Europe) are pulling out of Iran because of the political situation.

0815 GMT: Another Office for Rahim-Mashai. President Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, may be widely disliked, but he continues to pile up the honours of office. The latest title is chief of pilgrimage and culture of Razavi Province, whose capital is the important religious city of Mashhad.

0810 GMT: Economy Watch. The leading reformist MP Nasrullah Torabi has criticised the flaws and the deceptive figures in the Ahmadinejad budget, claiming it is based on an estimate of 12-15% inflation rather than the true figure of 20-25% and that the development budget is only 20% of the total expenditure rather than the declared 35%.

0740 GMT: Friday is likely to be a Distraction Day. The "Western" media are likely to be possessed and obsessed by the nuclear story, running the Iran Imminent Threat headlines. They will do that even though the real story is that Tehran is nowhere close to nuclear weapons capability. How do we know? Well, because the Obama Administration said so on Thursday --- see our separate analysis as well as the draft of the International Atomic Energy report.

In Iran, the regime will maintain its post-22 Bahman strategy, declaring that all is now well while condemning foreign instigation of a supposedly marginal protest. Friday Prayers in Tehran will be one venue for the display.

We'll be looking elsewhere, however. The meeting between Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi (see separate document) was a big signal yesterday that the opposition is re-assessing and preparing for its next surge. Theirmessage from the two men was "Be Patient. We're Working on This"; we'll be looking for reactions.

And of course the "establishment" challenge to President Ahmadinejad continues to pick up momentum. Economy Watch today has a piece assessing the state of Iran's banking sector.

We also report this morning from the  Cultural Front: it appears that the Iranian Government is blocking the booklovers' social site Goodreads as a threat to the regime.

Comments

[Catherine]

Here's a real story I found this morning. It explains the arrests of non-activists and shows just how paranoid the regime is: Extensive Project Begins to Identify Families of the Executed http://persian2english.com/?p=7195

[Catherine]

Karim Sadjadpour gave an interesting interview to Spiegel Online, ‘Interview With Iran Expert Karim Sadjadpour: ‘Running A Marathon, Not A Sprint’, which has been posted (in English) here: http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=24606

Nugget:
Karim Sadjadpour: Iran certainly resembles a military dictatorship more than it does an Islamic republic. However, I wouldn’t argue that the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) have supplanted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I think both men have spearheaded Iran’s transition to military dictatorship. Khamenei is the IRGC’s commander-in-chief; he handpicks their top commanders and changes them frequently. Up until now, I haven’t seen any evidence of the IRGC’s being disloyal to him.

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[...] The Latest from Iran (19 February): Finding the Real Stories … [...]

[WitteKr]

@Catherine 1. Not just paranoid. Also very confused and uncoordinated...
Have a look here - and enjoy the colour of the bikes in this Tehran experimental project to ease traffic congestion, improve air quality and cater to the desires of increasingly health- and fitness-oriented Iranians:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/02/iran-on-city-streets-another-green-movement-begins-to-roll-out.html

[Catherine]

WitteKr,
Yeah, life goes on. It's so bizarre to think that both the project to identify families of the executed and the Bicycle Houses' green bicycle project are happening simultaneously in the same place.

[Bahman]

Did khamenei just call Pakistan infidels?

"our religious tenets and beliefs consider these kinds of weapons of mass destruction to be symbols of genocide and are, therefore, forbidden and considered to be haram (religiously banned). "

[Bahman]

I realize that until yesterday's IAEA report, there has been no objective info on whether or not Iran is pursuing a neuclear weapon...but why is EA so adament about believing everything that Iran regime says about its nuclear program and ridiculing anything that the west says?

If this regime does develop a nuclear weapon, Iranian people will be the ones who will pay the highest price for this adventure in the name of Mahdi.

Do you really doubt that this regime would stop at nothing to maintain its power?

[Scott Lucas]

Bahman,

For me, it's not a question of "believing" regime or "ridiculing" West. It is a matter of making a judgement based on the available evidence. And that evidence, once you strip aside the media spin, is that Iran is years away from a military nuclear programme, if Tehran is pursuing that objective.

Beyond that, my personal frustration is that the primary issue --- the internal tension inside Iran --- is set aside by many in favour of attention to the nuclear issue. And I think that is a weakness which the regime can and does exploit.

S.

[Rev. Magdalen]

Professor Lucas, how can you be totally, absolutely bet-your-life sure that the current IRI regime is "years away" from obtaining a nuclear weapon? They've lied about so very many things before; it seems they are actively trying to deceive the West, as indeed the religious principle of taqiyya allows them to do. How can the world be sure of anything this regime says?

Even if we can verify by satellite that the Regime's facilities will not be capable of producing bomb-level uranium for years, how would we know if the Regime simply bought nuclear material on the black market from some unscrupulous arms trading group? I recall there were rumors when the USSR fell that some of their nuclear material had gone missing, and was never heard about again, so if that was ever true it must be out on the black market somewhere, along with whatever else has slipped out of the world's labs since then, and an awful lot of the Iranian people's oil revenue has disappeared SOMEWHERE.

I'm not trying to start a panic, I'm just saying it's not unreasonable for people to ask these questions when we're confronted with a Regime that claims to be based on a devotion to religion, and then breaks every sacred law in that religion in a blatant attempt to retain and consolidate power at all costs. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic tolerates rape as an interrogation tactic in his prisons. He endorsed the principle of sending children to clear minefields by walking through them. He mutilates his victims' bodies, defaces their tombstones, and forbids them the mourning ceremonies dictated by the Almighty for all humans.

Then he tells us not to worry, he couldn't possibly be pursuing a bomb because he's so very, very pious and devoted to his religious principles. It's just not believable.

I hope everyone stays calm, and the world gets out of this tense situation without anyone's brothers or sisters going into harm's way. I sincerely believe it's possible, and we can work it out as one people on this planet. But I'm not going to agree that the people who are very worried about an Iranian bomb have some ulterior motive. I think they're actually worried about getting blown up by an Iranian bomb, and that's not a bizarre thing to be worried about, it's very plausible.

[Scott Lucas]

Rev,

If I had 100% certainty, it wouldn't be a case of betting my life, it would be making a lot of money at the bookmakers.

That said, I'm not basing the analysis on the regime's statements (I haven't exactly been too kind to Ahmadinejad's poses and postures in recent months, for example). Instead, I would go with the IAEA reports as well as those like the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate from the Take a close look at those findings, without the overlay of what the media says is in them, and see what you get. What I have is an Iran that can move about all its uranium stock --- yes, all 1980 kilogrammes --- to make a show of a limited enrichment of 20% supply, not enough to run a civilian reactor let alone think of a military programme.

The IAEA's reservation is that Iran may be hiding stock/technical capacity/equipment somewhere, which is why they keep calling for transparency. That reservation should be noted, but it does not constitute proof that Iran is on the verge of a military programme. To the contrary, one can conclude that unless there is a facility somewhere that is more advanced than Natanz, the Bomb is just a chimera that all sides (including Iran) try to use to diplomatic advantage.

S.

[danial]

16:00 gmt...

“this is a country whose top three exports are pistachios,..."

perhaps if Iran borrowed money without ever paying back and printed money not backed by gold or silver, the country with be exporting other goods.

Whats wrong with pistachios anyway?

[Rev. Magdalen]

Professor Lucas, I hope you are right, but as I said there is also the black market element that we know nothing about, so it really all comes down to the question of intent, of whether or not this regime would seek to acquire and use a nuclear weapon. If they are actively seeking it, they could probably get something that could do a lot of damage, if not a whole nuclear warhead, and we wouldn't know they had acquired that.

Many people say that the regime, even if they cared nothing for religion, would never use a weapon like that because of the certainty of overwhelming retaliation, but frankly I can see how the US defense analysts might conclude this Regime would have no problem cheerfully sacrificing millions of Iranians in order to keep their small cabal in power. They were willing to send children to clear minefields, so the idea of mutually-assured destruction might not work with them.

And we just can't tell where they draw the line. They're clearly violating a lot of the principles they claim to hold dear, so which ones are they still following? No real way to know. I can see how that's honestly very worrisome for many people. For those in charge of protecting the United States, they don't think like you or I would, they are tasked with taking NO chances, allowing no uncertainties of this type, as Don Rumsfeld once clumsily tried to express in poetic form.

I wish that you were there to advise them and be a voice of calm, but I can see how given the principles the defenders of America go by, there's only one way they're going to calculate this out, and the only point I'm trying to make is that it's not based on being puppets for Israel or some hidden motive like that, it's just how they will inevitably perceive this situation, as an unacceptable uncertainty for American safety. They're not trying to pursue some covert agenda, they're actually worried about what they see as a threat.

[Samuel]

Roger Cohen of the New York Times, an enemy of the IRI, explains the stupididy of sanctions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/opinion/19iht-edcohen.html

February 19, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Target Iran's Censors
By ROGER COHEN
NEW YORK — Here’s what happens when a business linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) is targeted with sanctions. A representative of the Revolutionary Guards finds a lawyer in Dubai and says: “Look, I’m on this stupid U.S. Treasury list. I’ll give you 10 percent. Help me set up a shell company in Dubai or Malaysia.”

The Treasury Department enemy list (“Specially Designated Nationals”) is easy to find. It’s at www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/. Revolutionary Guard tycoons in Tehran know that. Once they have a new shell company, say in a cousin’s name, they circumvent the list. They go on reaping the heady profits open to the in crowd when sanctions distort an economy.

Iran has lived with sanctions for a long time; its immune systems are highly developed. As much as 20 percent of the gross national product of Dubai is linked to Iran trade. I don’t see new “targeted” sanctions disrupting this traffic. Iran’s economy, even in a slump, is too big, too diverse and too sophisticated: North Korea it is not.

Still, thanks to Iran’s erratic response to President Obama’s overtures and its ongoing nuclear nationalism (a more coherent political than weapons program), the United States finds itself in lockstep toward new sanctions.

I expect China, averse to conspicuous isolation, will eventually abstain on a new round of U.N. sanctions on Iran. They will be imposed. Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence (and a household name in Iran), will burrow away in search of actionable U.S. sanctions against the Iranian regime.

The sanctions will feel cathartic, satisfy the have-to-do-something itch in the Congress, and change nothing. I’m just about resigned to that.

[Scott Lucas]

Rev,

Well said. I should clear that I don't think the majority of those seeing an Iranian "threat" are manufacturing this because they are in the pocket of Israel or they are itching for one. I worry, however, that being in a political culture which has seen Iran as "threat" for so long --- whether or not the political situation and evidence supported --- those claiming expertise on the subject can move from analysis to suspect assertion.

All I am hoping to do is read the evidence and hope that I'm not far off the mark. I understand the fears, but they should not be the basis of a conflict, nor should they distract from other important issues.

S.

[Scott Lucas]

Seven in 10 Americans believe that Iran currently has nuclear weapons, according to a new national poll.

Friday's release of the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey comes just hours after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the Islamic republic isn't seeking and doesn't believe in pursuing nuclear weapons. Khamenei was responding to a draft United Nations report that said that Iran may be working to develop a nuclear weapon.

The poll indicates that 71 percent of the public says Iran has nuclear weapons, with just over one in four disagreeing. More than six in ten think the U.S. should take economic and diplomatic efforts to get Iran to shut down their nuclear program, with only a quarter calling for immediate military action.

"But if economic and diplomatic efforts fail, support for military action rises to 59 percent, with only 39 percent opposing military action under those circumstances," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/19/cnn-poll-american-believe-iran-has-nuclear-weapons/?fbid=kW8y2O2b_Jl

[gunni]

Scott

I don’t want to make any panic either and it is more than comprehensible that you are setting your focus in covering the moves and politics inside Iran. But - there was a little article written by “Süddeutsche” online at the 4.February giving some details. I was waiting for a conformation from another source but I couldn’t find any. As Rev. Magdalene said there is no way to predict what the regime is going to do – better to be prepared for the worst case. Maybe there are channels to verify this story.
The article says: Iran is developing an atomic warhead (Headline) “It was designed with the help of a former Russian scientist. The carrier of the atomic warhead will be the intermediate range missile "Shahab3". The newspaper “Süddeutsche” got a summary from the IAEA / Wien including their assessment that with this „little help" Iran had received sufficient information to engineer (to produce) the atomic missile. Security services from the West and Diplomats (?) have certified this information.”
The Russian scientist is known by the Süddeutsche. The story gives some detailed info about the ignition, too (Exploding Bridge wires (EBWs).
Source: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/45/502281/text/

[Samuel]

Scott,

"Well said. I should clear that I don’t think the majority of those seeing an Iranian “threat” are manufacturing this because they are in the pocket of Israel or they are itching for me."

It doesn't matter what the "majority" think as long as you have an influential lobby in America made up of Israel supporters who are "itching" for a military attack. These are the same folks who "manufactured" the invasion of Iraq in 2003 out of thin air. The work of the Israeli lobby in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq is no longer the stuff of conspiracy theorists thanks to the work of, among others, Prof. Stephen Walt.

[gunni]

Scott

I don’t want to make any panic either and it is more than comprehensible that you are setting your focus in covering the moves and politics inside Iran. But - there was a little article written by “Süddeutsche” online at the 4.February giving some details. I was waiting for a conformation from another source but I couldn’t find any. As Rev. Magdalene said there is no way to predict what the regime is going to do – better to be prepared for the worst case. Maybe there are channels to verify this story.
The article says: Iran is developing an atomic warhead (Headline) “It was designed with the help of a former Russian scientist. The carrier of the atomic warhead will be the intermediate range missile "Shahab3". The newspaper “Süddeutsche” got a summary from the IAEA / Wien including their assessment that with this „little help" Iran had received sufficient information to engineer (to produce) the atomic missile. Security services from the West and Diplomats (?) have certified this information.”
The Russian scientist is known by the Süddeutsche. The story gives also some details about the mechanism of ignition (Exploding Bridge wires (EBWs).
Source: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/45/502281/text/

[Scott Lucas]

Samuel,

I think a key point is that those in the Obama Administration are not the same folks who manufactured Iraq 2003. Again --- and I can't understand why this has been missed by the media --- the briefing given on Thursday by senior Administration official was significant. While the US Gov't played up the claimed violation of IAEA protocols (thus justifying sanctions), it also played down the possibility that Iran would soon have a nuclear weapon (thus deflecting the calls for military action).

S.

[Samuel]

Scott,

The poll you cite is very similar to polls taken before the Iraq war showing huge majorities believing that Saddam had WMD's. It just demonstrates how easy it is to manipulate public opinion in the West.

I should add that the Americans did the IRI a huge favor by destroying the Ba'ath regime in Baghdad. It would be difficult to imagine better allies for the IRI than the Shiite parties in Iraq. This is an alliance that will become even stronger when Moqtada Sadr returns from Qom as an Ayatollah to continue the great work of his martyred father.

[Scott Lucas]

Gunni,

Thanks --- this is a similar story to an "exclusive" in The Times of London last month. A group in IAEA are leaking documents to portray the Iranian threat (note that this week's report is also a draft which had not been approved by IAEA Board of Governors), especially on the ignition mechanism. The veracity of the documents is a subject of debate.

S.

[Samuel]

The role of the Israeli lobby in pushing for the invasion of Iraq has also been analyzed by Prof. Juan Cole.

http://www.juancole.com/

"Meanwhile, the main strategy of the Israeli and Jewish-American Right to preserve Israeli capacity to continue the colonization and to act belligerently in the region had been the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That strategem has failed, as I argued in Salon. The Shiite fundamentalists who have taken over Baghdad are pro-Hizbullah and pro-Palestinian. (Hizbullah was in part set up by the Islamic Mission Party, Da'wa, of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and Da'wa supported Hamas in the recent Gaza War). Moreover, Baghdad has ceased helping contain Iran for the Sunni Arab world and the West, and is now a close ally of Tehran. The prospect of a well-armed, 250,000-man Iraqi army now being reconstituted, and riddled with agents of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, must be a matter of consternation for Israelis. Only Jordan separates them from Iraq, now an outpost of the Shiite religious parties allied with Khamenei. The Neoconservatives, such as Richard Perle, David Frum, Paul Wolfowitz, Irv Lewis Libby, Michael Rubin, Douglas Feith, John Bolton, Larry Franklin and others thus not only shot themselves in the foot, but they shot Israel in the chest."

[Rev. Magdalen]

Hey if you think US defense policy is paranoid NOW, you should've seen it when Communist Russia was around! This IS America being "friendly" and "engaging." At least this administration won't immediately assume the Green Movement is destined to fail because "those people" are just not ethnically fit for democracy, as some past politicians might have not-very-secretly argued. Obama respects the Iranian people and trusts them to handle the corruption that's overtaken their country, unless it really appears a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb is imminent from the IRI.

[Barry]

The last "real" war that Israel fought was 1967 - that was when they saw that they were surrounded by Arab States who wished their demise and appeared determined to get it . Statements from Nasser were the final nail in the coffin for those Arab States.

Anybody who glories in the small outbreak that occurred in Lebanon 2006 and thinks that the Israelis have become weak, should think hard and long about the lead up to 1967 - and Israel's reaction to becoming encircled. Iran's military plus Hezbollah and Hamas would not be able to withstand the onslaught of an Israel that fears another attempt at it's extinction. That is the very fundamental of the creation and ongoing existence of the State of Israel. But perhaps that is what Iran wants - considering it's apocalyptic idealogy.

Barry

[Barry]

And anybody who thinks that some kind of alliance can or will form between the Iranian and Iraqi Governments are delusional. Simply remember the border oil well incident of not very long ago - and THAT was a very small incident. .

Barry