Will 2008 Bring a Welcome New Perspective on Iran?22 Mar 2008Summary: Now, in 2008, it?s clear that Americans? dissatisfaction with their government and foreign policy is growing. Many Americans are realizing that the administration and media have played an active hand in distorting the nature and source of the threats facing their country?a recent example being the declassification of the 2003 National Intelligence Report (NIE), with its finding that Iran is not engaged in an active nuclear weapons program. source: Washington Report on Middle East Affairsread more
Bush erroneously says Iran announced desire for nuclear weapons21 Mar 2008Summary: Georege W BushIran, however, has never publicly proclaimed a desire for nuclear weapons and has repeatedly insisted that the uranium enrichment program it’s operating in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions is for civilian power plants, not warheads. Bush made his assertion Wednesday in an interview marking the Iranian New Year with Radio Farda, a U.S. government-run radio service that broadcasts into Iran in the Farsi language. The White House released the transcript on Thursday. source: McClatchyread more
McCain isn’t suited for office21 Mar 2008Summary: Bottom line, if you are so ignorant or confused that you think Shiite ayatollahs in Tehran are training and arming radical Salafi Sunnis to blow up Shiites in Iraq, you really should not be president. source: Hattiesburg Americanread more
The Idiocy of King George21 Mar 2008Summary: President George Bush’s most recent remarks on Iran, as usual fact-challenged and unhelpful, have finally made the transition from the politically contrived to the downright stupid. source: The Huffington Postread more
Architect of War(s)21 Mar 2008Summary: It has become the common wisdom in Washington that the likelihood of war has dropped to near zero because of the release in December of a National Intelligence Estimate claiming Iran had abandoned its plans to manufacture nuclear weapons in 2003, along with the vigorous resistance put up by senior officers like Admiral Fallon. But Fallon is now out of the picture, and the White House shows no evidence of being influenced by the common wisdom; source: Agence Globalread more
Bush’s Alternate Reality21 Mar 2008Summary: FroomkinPresident Bush on Wednesday said something demonstrably false and inflammatory about Iran—asserting that the Iranian government has “declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people.” source: Washington Postread more
Bush, McCain ?gaffes? on Iran echo Iraq war lies21 Mar 2008Summary: Within the past week, both US President George W. Bush and the Republican Party?s presumptive nominee for the 2008 presidential election, Senator John McCain, have made widely broadcast statements about Iran that are as demonstratively false as they are provocative. source: WSWSread more
McCain’s Gaffes Reflect Bush’s Iran-al-Qaeda Myth21 Mar 2008Summary: Sen. John McCain’s confusion in recent allegations of Iranian training of al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq is the result of a drumbeat of official propaganda about close Iran-al-Qaeda ties that the George W. Bush administration and neoconservatives have promoted ever since early 2002. source: AntiWar.com read more
Military action in Iran would be disaster – Annan20 Mar 2008Summary: Military action against Iran over its nuclear ambitions would be “a disaster” and the only way to solve the impasse is through dialogue, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Thursday. source: Reuteraread more
Israel, Pentagon talk arms sales20 Mar 2008Summary: According to reports, he discussed the Joint Strike Fighter, a state of the art combat plane due to be ready for use by 2013.
Buhris also asked about the latest model F-22 stealth jet, the Jerusalem Post reported, concerned that it might face a confrontation with Iran before the JSF is ready. Congress has banned selling the F-22 abroad. source: JTAread more
Russian FM warns military action on Iran ‘disastrous’20 Mar 2008Summary: TEL AVIV (AFP) ? Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday warned that any military means to solve Iran’s controversial nuclear programme would have a “disastrous” effect. source: AFPread more
Bomb Bomb Iran?20 Mar 2008Summary: Given McCain’s dangerous preference for force over diplomacy, especially in the Mideast, this is not a minor matter. (He wasn’t really kidding when he sang “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran …”) By suggesting that the Iranians are aiding al-Qaida, the Arizona senator and his neoconservative allies are building a case for strikes against Tehran and perhaps even “regime change,” just as similar allegations, since proved false, were deployed to justify the invasion of Iraq. source: Salonread more
Casualties of War20 Mar 2008Summary: Yesterday President Bush marked the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq with a speech at the Pentagon claiming that “The world is better, and the United States is safer” as result of a war that has claimed nearly 4000 American lives, wounded 30,000 and cost well over $500 billion and counting. source: CASMIIread more
The only lesson we ever learn is that we never learn19 Mar 2008Summary: Five years on, and still we have not learnt. With each anniversary, the steps crumble beneath our feet, the stones ever more cracked, the sand ever finer. Five years of catastrophe in Iraq and I think of Churchill, who in the end called Palestine a “hell-disaster”. source: The Independentread more
McCain’s repeated “slips of the tongue” on Iran and al-Qaida19 Mar 2008Summary: Glenn Greenwald demonstrates that McCain has repeatedly made this looney assertion and that it wasn’t just a momentary slip. You wonder whether, if he had been corrected by anyone but Lieberman, he would even have backed off momentarily. -Juan Cole source: Salon.comread more
US launches legal review of Swiss-Iran gas deal19 Mar 2008Summary: The United States on Wednesday warned that it was launching a legal review of a gas deal signed earlier this week between Iran and Switzerland to see whether it violates terms of US sanctions. source: AFPread more
McCain Camp Again Links Al Qaeda to Iran19 Mar 2008Summary: John McCainFor the second day in a row, Sen. John McCain?s campaign linked al Qaeda in Iraq to Iran ? an assertion Democrats say is misleading if not outright inaccurate. The McCain campaign, which acknowledged that the senator misspoke on Tuesday, insisted that its statement today is fully supported by facts. source: Wall Street Journalread more
5 Years Ago, as War Neared, Hillary Clinton Was Silent, ‘NYT’ Archives Show19 Mar 2008Summary: Wherever you stand on the Obama/Clinton race, one thing nearly everyone agrees on is this: She voted for the war resolution in 2002, has not apologized for that vote since—but now says the resolution did not really authorize the war and calls the 2003 invasion a mistake. source: Editor and Publisherread more
Why Did the US Invade Iraq?19 Mar 2008Summary: US troops in IraqThe official reasons ? the threat posed to the US and its allies by Saddam Hussein’s alleged programs of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the possibility that he would pass along those arms to al-Qaeda ? have long since been discarded by the overwhelming weight of the evidence, or, more precisely, the lack of evidence that such a threat ever existed. source: AntiWar.com read more
Futile Surges and Bailouts18 Mar 2008Summary: There is a lot of talk in Washington these days about “containment.” Foreign policy pundits insist that the U.S. must contain Iran, whose rise as a political-military power poses a threat to Western strategic and economic interests in the Persian Gulf region. source: AntiWar.com read more
McCain Conflates Shiite Iran And Sunni Al Qaeda, Needs To Be Corrected By Lieberman17 Mar 2008Summary: Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was ?common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that?s well known. And it?s unfortunate.? A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate?s ear. McCain then said: ?I?m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.? source: Think Progressread more
On the US Policy of Dual Containment of Iran and Iraq17 Mar 2008Summary: If containment means the destruction of any country that stands in the way of US and Israel, the fate of Iran might be similar to that of Iraq; ultimately an excuse will be found to do to Iran what was done to Iraq. The advocates of the dual containment policy, particularly those who had argued that Iran should be contained before Iraq, have been relentless. They will not stop until they achieve the ultimate containment of Iran. source: Payvandread more
Calls for Admiral to ?blow whistle? on Iran strike16 Mar 2008Summary: Calls are growing on Admiral William Fallon and other senior military officers to make a public stand against the Bush administration?s alleged plans to attack Iran. Admiral Fallon?s resignation last week from his position as head of the US Central Command is seen as a blow for those seeking a diplomatic resolution to the current standoff with Iran. His resignation has drawn demands that he ?come clean? as to his reasons for stepping down and expose the true extent of the Bush administration?s plans for military intervention. source: Westminster Committee on Iranread more
The British Government runs scared of Israel16 Mar 2008Summary: On 18 February 2008, the British Government was forced to release a draft dossier on Iraq?s so-called ?weapons of mass destruction? under the Freedom of Information Act. But it succeeded in persuading a Freedom of Information Tribunal to allow a handwritten reference to Israel in the margin of the document to be suppressed. source: Spin Watchread more
Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII)