Ahmadinejad gives Christmas Speech

Channel 4 of the U.K. broadcasted an alternative to the Queens Speech - this one by Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran giving a short message of hope and prosperity for Christmas.



Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, delivered Channel 4's alternative Christmas address yesterday, sending a message of "happiness, prosperity, peace and brotherhood for humanity" which immediately ignited a furious row.

The speech by Mr Ahmadinejad, whose nuclear ambitions and views on Israel and homosexuality have strained relations between Iran and the West, was moderate, with none of the harsh rhetoric for which he has gained notoriety. God, he said, had created "every human being with the ability to reach the heights of perfection". He also urged Muslims and Christians to work together towards a world of "love, brotherhood and justice".

Speaking in Farsi with English subtitles, Mr Ahmadinejad sent his congratulations to "the followers of Abrahamic faiths, especially the followers of Jesus Christ, and the people of Britain".

He said the world's ills had come about through nations failing to follow the teachings of the Prophets, including Jesus. He also made a thinly-veiled attack on the US, claiming Christ would have been against "bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers" and would have opposed "warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over".

Israel called the message a "sick and twisted irony". Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador to Britain, said: "In Iran, converts to Christianity face the death penalty."

The full text of a Christmas message - Click Here!
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The fact of the matter is that this was the best Christmas Message i have ever heard - It was a religious message - much better than the usual message from the Queen which is probably written by 10 Downing street and is more political. I would be happy to hear more messages like this in future. As for the Israeli ambassador - he seems to stay silent on the plight of Palestinian Christians that have been forced out of Bethlehem, West Bank and those that continue to live there face oppression by the Israeli government. No mention of the wall dividing the Jews against Muslims & Christians, that is causing economic hardship, business to go bust, high unemployment rates between Muslim and Christian Arabs, checkpoints all over Palestine causing further hardships – no mention of the dwindling numbers of Christians in place where many believe Christianity began.

Ex-IDF Chief Ya'alon: "We must consider killing Ahmadinejad"

Taken from Haaretz, Israel, 23/11/2008

Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon was quoted as saying by an Australian newspaper this week that the West must consider all options necessary to stop Tehran's nuclear program, including assassinating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.



"We have to confront the Iranian revolution immediately," Ya'alon said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, published Monday morning in Australia. "There is no way to stabilize the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped."

When asked whether "all options" included a military deposition of Ahmadinejad and the rest of Iran's current leadership, Ya'alon told The Herald: "We have to consider killing him. All options must be considered." The Jerusalem Post, meanwhile, quoted an aide to Ya'alon as saying the former chief of staff never suggested assassination, just defeating the Iranian regime.

Ya'alon, who served as IDF chief from 2002 through the final year of the Palestinian Intifada in 2005, also told The Herald that a military strike on Iran would be welcomed by regional elements as quelling the most divisive conflict in the Middle East today.

"Any military strike in Iran will be quietly applauded by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states," he was quoted by The Herald as saying.

"It is a misconception to think that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most important in the Middle-East. The Shiite-Sunni schism is much bigger, the Persian-Arab divide is bigger, the struggle between national regimes and jihadism is much bigger," he was quoted as saying. "And I can't imagine the U.S. will want to share power in the Middle East with a nuclear-armed Iran."

The former army chief told the paper he has long seen Iran as the source of regional terrorism and was surprised the United States chosen to invade Iraq in its stead.

"I was chief of staff during Operation Iraqi Freedom and I was surprised the U.S. decided to go into Iraq instead of Iran," The Herald quoted him as saying. "Unfortunately, the American public didn't have the political stomach to go into Iran."

Ya'alon made headlines last week when he announced that he would be running for the Knesset on hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud list, after weeks of being courted by the opposition leader.

Interesting reading:
(1) Israeli hawks ready to fly on Iran - Brisbane Times - Click here!
(2) NZ Government overrules war-crimes arrest order against Moshe Ya'alon - New Zealand Herald Click Here!

Report: Israeli jets flying over Iraqi territory in preparation for strike on Iran

Taken from YnetNews, Israel, 11.07.2008

Sources in Iraq's Defense Ministry say for past month Israel using American bases to conduct overflights as part of rehearsal for possible bombing or Iranian nuclear facilities




Israeli fighter jets have been flying over Iraqi territory for over a month in preparation for potential strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, sources in the Iraqi Defense Ministry told a local news network Friday, adding that the aircraft have been landing in American bases following the overflights.

Word of Israel's alleged Air Force maneuvers in Iraq has reached Iran. The sources said the US has boosted security in and around the bases used by Israel during the exercises.

According to the Defense Ministry officials, retired Iraqi army officers in the Al Anbar district reported that fighter jets have been regularly entering Iraqi airspace from Jordan and landing at the airport near Haditha.

The sources estimated that should the Israeli jets take off from the American bases it would take them no more than five minutes to reach Iran's nuclear reactor in Bushehr.American officials said recently that more than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters took part in maneuvers over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece in the first week of June, apparently a rehearsal for a potential bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities.

We must bomb Iran, says US Republican guru

Taken from Daily Telegraph, UK, 27/10/2007
By Toby Harnden in New York

A senior foreign policy adviser to the Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani has urged that Iran be bombed using cruise missiles and "bunker busters" to set back Teheran’s nuclear programme by at least five years.


Podhoretz is a founder of neoconservatism

The tough message at a time of crisis between the United States and Iraq was delivered by Norman Podhoretz, one of the founders of neoconservatism, who has also imparted his stark advice personally to a receptive President George W. Bush.

"None of the alternatives to military action - negotiations, sanctions, provoking an internal insurrection - can possibly work," said Mr Podhoretz."They’re all ways of evading the terrible choice we have to make which is to either let them get the bomb or to bomb them."In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Podhoretz said he was certain that bombing raids could be successful."People I’ve talked to have no doubt we could set it back five or 10 years. There are those who believe we can get the underground facilities as well with these highly sophisticated bunker-busting munitions."

Although Mr Podhoretz said he did not speak for Mr Giuliani, the former New York mayor whom he briefs daily appears to have embraced at least the logic of his hard-line views.

During a visit to London last month, Mr Giuliani said Iran should be given "an absolute assurance that, if they get to the point that they are going to become a nuclear power, we will prevent them or we will set them back five or 10 years".

Mr Podhoretz said: "I was very pleased to see him say that. I was even surprised he went that far. I’m sure some of his political people were telling him to go slow ... I wouldn’t advise any candidate to come out and say we have to bomb - it’s not a prudent thing to say at this stage of the campaign."

But Mr Podhoretz’s 77 years and his position as a pre-eminent conservative foreign policy intellectual means he can not only think the unthinkable but say the unsayable.

"My role has simply been to say what I think," he said, explaining that he takes part in weekly conference calls and is in daily email contact with the Giuliani campaign.

He is the most eminent of a clutch of uncompromisingly hawkish aides assembled by Mr Giuliani. They include Daniel Pipes, who opposes a Palestinian state and believes America should "inspire fear, not affection", and Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official who has argued that Condoleezza Rice’s diplomacy is "dangerous" and signals American "weakness" to Teheran.

"Does Rudy agree with me?" Mr Podhoretz asked rhetorically. "I don’t know and I don’t wish to know." But he added that "Rudy’s view of the war is very similar to mine."

Mr Podhoretz’s thesis is that the war on terror is in fact World War Four and that the 42-year-long Cold War should be more properly described as World War Three.

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest honour, by President George W. Bush in 2004, Mr Podhoretz later sought a rare one-on-on audience with the US commander-in-chief. They met in New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel in the spring.

The author of the recent World War IV: the Long Struggle Against Islamofacsism spent about 35 minutes outlining his case for air strikes against Iran as Mr Bush’s then chief adviser Karl Rove took notes.

"Whether I had any effect on him I truly don’t know but I sure tried my best to persuade him," he said.

"He was very cordial. He was warm. He listened. He occasionally asked a question as I made the case but he was truly poker faced."

Mr Podhoretz left the meeting unshaken in his belief that Mr Bush would attack Iran before he leaves office.

"The spirit of the questions was not to try to refute or contradict what I was saying. I didn’t get any negative vibes."

He said that now "the debate [over Iran] is secretly over and the people who are against military action are now preparing to make the case that we can live with an Iranian bomb".

Neither Mr Bush nor Mr Giuliani, however, would countenance Teheran acquiring a nuclear weapon and either one would authorise military action once they were convinced Iran had passed the point of no return with its uranium enrichment programme.

"Unlike a ground invasion where you’ve got to mass hundreds of thousands of troops, it takes six months and everybody knows you’re mobilising, with air strikes, we’ve got three carriers in the region and a lot of submarines," Mr Podhoretz said.

"I would say it would take five minutes. You’d wake up one morning and the strikes would have been ordered and carried out during the night. All the president has to do is say go."

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So what do we know about this neo-con warmonger? Podhoretz was said to be born on January 16, 1930, in a working-class section of Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish immigrants Julius and Helen Podhoretz. He received an A.B. degree in literature and criticism in 1950 at Columbia University and concurrently earned a degree in Hebrew literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary. I wonder if he is a member of AIPAC?

Why is he wanting to bomb Iran? (apart from the obvious reasons) Have we forgotten what happened in Iraq - Where were the Weapons of Mass Destruction? The only WMD were in the hands of the US military as it destroyed Iraqi infrastructure when there was no threat from the Iraqi regime of Saddan Hussein. The only chemical weapons used in Iraq came from US troops against Iraqi civilians. So do we really want to bomb Iran? WHY NOT ASK THE EXPERTS? Dr Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an inter-governmental organization under the auspices of the United Nations is such an expert. He has repeatedly stated that Iran does not have any Nuclear weapons. Who do we believe an expert or a crazy warmonger?

There are currently 189 states party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty including Iran. Countries that don't abide by the rules are the likes of India, Pakistan, and Israel - all so called friends of the USA. Who is the only country in the world to use real Weapons of Mass Destruction? Well it would be easy to ask the citizens of the city of Hiroshima unfortunately I belive most of those are all dead.

With regards to the crazy Podhoretz, Dr ElBaradei gave one of his sternest warnings against using military action against Iran -Referring to "the extreme people who have extreme views" he said: "...You do not want to give additional argument to some of the 'new crazies' who want to say let us go and bomb Iran" -

SO with Iran NOT having anu Nuclear weapons and experts believe it will take 3 to 8 years to make any weapons why are we so worried? And even if they did have any weapons so what? (has Pakistan ever attacked India and vice versa even though they are perseved to be enemies?) Who are Iran going to attack considering the other Superpower that exists in the Middle East? (It was only because brave Mordechai Vanunu exposed this Israel secret in the Sunday times in 1986) It is belived Isreal has over 200 Nuclear weapons.

So my queston is shouldn't we be reducig our own weapons before dictating to others what they could do? Shouldn't we trying to get Pakistan, India and Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? The only threat to the world comes from these neo-cons, these fools should be banished to Siberia, their only goal is to make money and they will do whatever it takes to achieve that.

Iran's parliament approves labeling CIA, U.S. Army terrorist groups

Taken from Haaretz, Israel, 30/09/2007
By The Associated Press

Iran's parliament on Saturday approved a nonbinding resolution to label the CIA and the U.S. Army terrorist organizations.

The move is seen as a diplomatic tit-for-tat after the U.S. Senate voted in favor of a resolution urging the State Department to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.

"The aggressor U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency are terrorists and also nurture terror," said a statement by the 215 lawmakers who signed the resolution at an open session of the Iranian parliament. The session was broadcast live on state-run radio. The hard-line dominated parliament said the two were terrorists, because they were involved in dropping nuclear bombs in Japan in World War II, used depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, supported the killings of Palestinians by Israel, bombed and killed Iraqi civilians and tortured terror suspects in prisons.

The resolution, which is seen as a diplomatic offensive against the U.S., urges Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government to treat the two as terrorist organizations. It also paves the way for the resolution to become legislation that - if ratified by the country's hard-line constitutional watchdog - would become law. The government is expected to remain silent over the parliament resolution and wait for U.S. reaction before making its decision.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate voted 76-22 in favor of a resolution urging the State Department to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. While the proposal attracted overwhelming bipartisan support, a small group of Democrats said they feared labeling the state-sponsored organization a terrorist group could be interpreted as a congressional authorization of military force in Iran.

The Bush administration had already been considering whether to blacklist an elite unit within the Revolutionary Guard, subjecting part of the vast military operation to financial sanctions.
The U.S. legislative push came a day after Ahmadinejad told world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly that his country would defy attempts to impose new sanctions by arrogant powers seeking to curb its nuclear program, accusing them of lying and imposing illegal penalties on his country.

He said the nuclear issue was now closed as a political issue and Iran would pursue the monitoring of its nuclear program through its appropriate legal path, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the UN's nuclear watchdog.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated over Washington accusations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and has been supplying Shiite militias in Iraq with deadly weapons used to kill U.S. troops. Iran denies both of the allegations.

Earlier this month, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, named a new head for the elite Revolutionary Guard. He appointed Mohammed Ali Jafari, described as a senior figure in the hard-line force, to replace Yahya Rahim Safavi, who led the Guard for the last decade.

In a new decree, Khamenei also appointed Jafari to run the Basij, groups of volunteers dedicated to support the ruling Islamic establishment, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The appointment effectively merged the two forces. Further intertwining the Guard with the popular Basij force is widely believed to be aimed at undermining U.S. efforts to designate the Guard a terrorist organization.

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Can anyone blame Iran (or even it's people) for declaring the CIA a terrorist organisation? The CIA has a history of destabilising Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. In Iran this process began in 1953 when the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize foreign oil companies. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, SAVAK (trained by the CIA & Mossad), was as brutal as the Gestapo. The Shah was an evil dictor (supported by the US) and kept his people oppressed. For his support, he awarded foreign oil companies to resume extracting oil from Iran but was forbidden to see its accounts (i.e how much oil was extracted and how much money was made) - Sound familiar? His dictatorship made Iranian people more angry towards him and the Western world and bred fundamentalism. It was only until 1979 that the people of Iran were set free by the Islamic revolution that overthrew him. The US backed puppet fled to Egypt, never to return. All foreignors and westernised Iranians had also fled Iran. Iranian students stormed into the US embassy, held 52 embassy employees hostage for a 444 days. The US government severed diplomatic relations and imposed economic sanctions on April 7, 1980 and later that month attempted a failed rescue. Shortly afterwards, Iraq invaded Iran and it was the start of Iraq-Iran war where millions of people died. To get revenge, the US backed Saddam Hussein's Iraq in their war against Iran, helping them with weapons (to fight the Soviet backed Iran) but at the same time secretly allowed Israel to sell American weapons to Iran using the profits to arm the Contras fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Well you couldn't make it up! The people of Iran are forgiving people, they want a fresh start with the USA, but the USA hasn't forgotten it's embarassing defeat in Iran and want's to make ammends. On July 3, 1988 the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 en route to UAE killing all 290 passengers and crew on aboard, including 38 non-Iranians and 66 children. The Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters at the time. According to the US government, the Iranian airbus was mistakenly identified as an attacking F14 fighter. The Iranian government maintains that the Vincennes knowingly shot down a civilian aircraft. Today, Iran has changed alot. Whether you like him or not Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has tried on numerous occasions to make friendship with the Bush administration. Bush does not want to know. Ahmadinejad recenty went to the States and answered questions by students and public from Columbia University. He has since extended an invitation to U.S. President George W. Bush to speak at an Iranian university - I doubt Bush will ever take that offer. Jaw Jaw is better than War War!

Here's more info of the roles the CIA played in recent time . All information has been extracted from a brilliant site informationclearinghouse.info

The U.S. Congress created the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act. The official duty of the Central Intelligence Agency is to serve as an intelligence gathering agency.

In reality, the CIA does not only gather information but consistently targets and engages in covert operations, psychological operations, and acts of terrorism both domestically and internationally.

CIA past operations and activities
Operation Phoenix was an assassination program conducted by the CIA during the Vietnam conflict. Its objective was to eliminate Vietnamese who might oppose the U.S but also to terrorize the entire population of South Vietnam and to suppress opposition to the occupying U.S. forces. Over 20,000 Vietnamese were murdered, often at random.

During the 1980s the CIA used profits from its cocaine smuggling activities to finance the Contras in Nicaragua who were responsible for the murders of tens of thousands of civilians, and it attempted to disrupt the country's economy, in order to destabilize the legitimate Sandinista government. For this, the U.S. was condemned in the World Court for "unlawful use of force," and it rejected a U.N. security council resolution calling upon it to observe international law. We must note that George Bush Sr. was vice president at the time .

On Sept. 11, 1973, the CIA planned and organized the military coup d'etat in Chile which overthrew the legitimately elected government of Salvador Allende and brought to power the regime of General Augusto Pinochet. This regime abducted, tortured and killed thousands of Chilean citizens in an attempt to suppress opposition.

It appears that Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations, was closely involved diplomatically with the Southern Cone governments at the time and well-aware of Operation Condor. The first cooperation agreements were signed between the CIA and anti-Castro groups, and fascist movements such as the Triple A set up in Argentina by Jose Lopez Rega ("personal secretary" of Juan and Isabel Peron), and Rodolfo Almiron. The post-junta truth commission found that the Argentine military had "disappeared" at least 10,000 Argentines in the so-called "dirty war" against "subversion" and "terrorists" between 1976 and 1983; human rights groups in Argentina put the number at closer to 30,000. We must note that George Bush Sr, was head of the CIA at the time it began and vice president at the time it ended.

Operation CHAOS was the most vicious aggressive domestic surveillence operation conducted on American antiwar groups and activists like Abbie Hoffman, whose objectives were to:

1. Gather information on their immorality.
2. Show them as scurrilous and depraved.
3. Call attention to their habits and living conditions.
4. Explore every possible embarrassment.
5. Investigate personal conflicts or animosities between them.
6. Send articles to newspapers showing their depravity.
7. Use narcotics and free sex for entrapment.
8. Have members arrested on marijuana charges.
9. Exploit the hostilities between various persons.
10. Use cartoons and photographs to ridicule them.
11. Use disinformation to confuse and disrupt.
12. Get records of their bank accounts.
13. Obtain specimens of handwriting.
14. Provoke target groups into rivalries that resulted in deaths.

The CIA was allegedly involved in the April 2002, Venezuela failed coup that tried to overthrow President Hugo Chavez, who was democratically elected.

In 2002 the CIA distorted Iraq data to the media in order to justify George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Most recently, former CIA employee, Luis Posada Carriles, who is believed to be the mastermind behind the 1976 Cubana de Aviacion bombing which killed 73 people, walked free from a U.S. court Tuesday following a court ruling for his liberation.

These are only a handful of operations; there have literally been hundreds and many are still classified as secret by the U.S. government.

For a time-line checkout here.

Iran Attack Could Be 2nd Holocaust, Gingrich Warns

Former US House speaker, who is considering running for presidency on Republican ticket, warns that if Iran acquires nukes, Israel and US would be under severe threat; 'Firing one or more bombs at Israel could be a second Holocaust for the Jewish people,' Gingrich says

Taken from Ynet News, Israel, 20.07.07
By Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – Former House speaker and possible presidential contender Newt Gingrich said Thursday that the United States should make efforts to bring about a regime change in Iran and warned against the dangers of Tehran attaining nuclear weapons.

An Iranian nuclear strike on the United States could be more devastating than the Japanese attack in 1941, Gingrich told Project Israel, a non-profit organization established to provide the American media with information on Israel.



On Thursday Project Israel held a press conference on the Iranian threat, and invited presidential hopefuls to participate and voice their opinions on the issue.

"The stakes for Israel are even graver," Gingrich said. "The use of one or more nuclear weapons against Israel would constitute a second genocide of the Jewish people," said Gingrich, who is apparently considering running on theRepublican ticket.

Gingrich emphasized the gravity of the Iranian threat in his statement: "Indeed, the Iranian President does not even require us to read a book like Mein Kampf to understand how serious he is.

He enthusiastically makes speeches proclaiming to the world his commitment to genocidal annihilation of another nation."

"Meanwhile the civilized world wrings its hands and the United Nations acts with contemptible weakness," he added.

Rival Democratic candidate Senator Hillary Clinton issued a statement noting that American policy on Iran must be "clear, unambiguous and effective."

The US cannot let Iran build or acquire nuclear weapons, nor support terrorism, she said.

The senator responded firmly to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel should be "wiped off the map," saying, "We must not tolerate threats to the existence of Israel."

The leading Democratic candidates told Project Israel that Iran can be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons through economic and diplomatic channels.

Democratic Senator Barack Obama, Clinton's chief Democratic rival, declared that, "Allowing Iran - a radical theocracy that supports terrorism openly threatens its neighbors - to acquire nuclear weapons is a risk we cannot take."

Obama demanded the UN take stronger action and boost sanctions on Tehran. "All nations need to understand that, while Iran's most explicit an intolerable threats are aimed at Israel, its conduct threatens all of us," Obama said. Democratic candidates John Edwards, Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd also said sanctions on Ahmadinejad's regime should be boosted.

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I just have two things to say to Newton Gingrich - I don't believe the Iranian leaders intention is to wipe Israel off the map in terms of destroying Israel and it's citizens - what he was saying is to change the Zionist regime in Israel. Secondly, Gringrich asks for regime change in Iran, well the USA and UK did participate in regime chnage in Iran. The last time we forced a regime change was because the democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq of Iran was imposing to nationalise the Oil industry in Iran - Well, we didn't let him because we took control of Iran via a coup and made the Shah of Iran (a puppet of ours) into the supreme leader. The Shah was an evil dictator, who tortured civilians and allowed multinational companies to run the Oil industry in Iran. He opposed democracy. The fact of the matter was that he was given enormous luxuries and finance for letting Allied governments run the oil. The Shah of Iran had no control over the Oil. In fact he was not even allowed to look into the accounts of the oil, he had no record of how much was produced and sold and what level remained in reserve. The only agreement was that Iran would receive a small percentage of profits made from the sale of the Oil (and hence the Country and the people were deprived of the wealth they would have received). The Shah of Iran kept his people poor whilst we enjoyed the benefits of his enormous riches. His secret police were trained by the CIA and Mossad to keep civilians in order and keep him in power. The legacy of the Shah and his brutality didn't last long, he himself was overthrown by the people of Iran via Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and fled the country into exil. The people of Iran hated the Shah and all the western countries that interfered with Iran - that is why there is so much hatred against the US government and it's foreign policies. I say let the people of Iran decide the fate of Iran - That is what they did with the Shah and look what happened to him.

Iran's Jews Reject Cash Offer To Move To Israel

Taken from The Guardian, UK, July 12, 2007
By Robert Tait in Tehran

# Expats offer families £30,000 to emigrate
# Our identity is not for sale, say community leaders

Iran's Jews have given the country a loyalty pledge in the face of cash offers aimed at encouraging them to move to Israel, the arch-enemy of its Islamic rulers.

The incentives — ranging from £5,000 a person to £30,000 for families — were offered from a special fund established by wealthy expatriate Jews in an effort to prompt a mass migration to Israel from among Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community. The offers were made with Israel's official blessing and were additional to the usual state packages it provides to Jews emigrating from the diaspora.

However, the Society of Iranian Jews dismissed them as "immature political enticements" and said their national identity was not for sale.

"The identity of Iranian Jews is not tradeable for any amount of money," the society said in a statement. "Iranian Jews are among the most ancient Iranians. Iran's Jews love their Iranian identity and their culture, so threats and this immature political enticement will not achieve their aim of wiping out the identity of Iranian Jews."

The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the incentives had been doubled after earlier offers of £2,500 a head failed to attract any Iranian Jews to leave for Israel.

Iran's sole Jewish MP, Morris Motamed, said the offers were insulting and put the country's Jews under pressure to prove their loyalty.

"It suggests the Iranian Jew can be encouraged to emigrate by money," he said. "Iran's Jews have always been free to emigrate and three-quarters of them did so after the revolution but 70% of those went to America, not Israel."

Iran's Jewish population has dwindled from around 80,000 at the time of the 1979 Islamic revolution but remains the largest of any country in the Middle East apart from Israel. Jews have lived in Iran since at least 700BC.

Hostility between Iran's Islamic government and Israel means Iranian Jews are often subject to official mistrust and scrutiny. In 2000 10 Jews in the southern city of Shiraz were jailed for spying for Israel, which Iran refuses to recognise.

A Jewish businessman, Ruhollah Kadkhodah-Zadeh, was hanged in 1998, apparently for allegedly helping Jews to emigrate.

Jews generally avoid political controversy, but Mr Motamed wrote a letter of protest to Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, last year after he called the Holocaust "a myth". Mr Ahmadinejad had earlier said that Israel should be "wiped off the map".

Jews are free to practise their religion and have their own schools, although they are forced to open on Saturdays, the Jewish sabbath.

Despite the absence of diplomatic ties with Israel, Iranian Jews frequently go there to visit relatives.

Billionaire Gambler Sued By Iran In UK Court

Well you couldn't make this up Part 3.....

Taken from The Times, UK, May 11, 2007
By Michael Herman and Alex Spence

A billionaire trader who is one of the world’s most prolific gamblers has won a £60m High Court battle with the Iranian military over a missing aeroplane, Times Online has learnt.

Fouad al-Zayat - known in casinos across the world as the "Fat Man" - was accused by the Iranians of taking payment for a luxurious jumbo jet which was never delivered.

Mr al-Zayat claimed that he had failed to deliver the plane, meant for use by the country’s President, because of a dispute over money.



The disclosure will drag the shy Mr al-Zayat into the limelight once again. The Syrian born entrepreneur, who is said to have gambled more than £200m, was reluctantly exposed to publicity in March when he was successfully sued by Aspinalls casino over a £2m gambling debt.

The case also shows that despite the kidnapping of British soldiers last month, the Iranian Government still uses the British courts to settle costly disputes.

Jason McCue, Mr al-Zayat’s solicitor, said that the British courts should not be used by the Iranian Government to settle costly and needless disputes.

“This whole case is preposterous. The Iranian military kidnap our troops one week and then try and use our courts the next to settle a private commercial dispute that has nothing to do with the UK.

“The Iranians are working flat out to develop nuclear weapons and British taxpayers' are footing the bill for court time to decide whether we should help them boost their coffers,” he said.

The case centres on a deal that Mr al-Zayat brokered during 2002 with intermediaries acting for Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian President.

The Iranian leader had ordered a £49m passenger jet through Mr al-Zayat’s companies in Britain, Cyprus and the Middle east.

The deal got bogged down in a complex dispute about payments. During a trip to Lebanon in May 2004, Mr al-Zayat claims that he was kidnapped at gunpoint by members of the Iranian Revolutionary guard in Beirut.

According to reports, he was held under guard in the Iranian embassy for a week and was released only after he had signed a document agreeing to pay back the money that the Iranians claimed that he owed them.

Mr al-Zayat is an imposing figure. He is 6ft tall and has acquired his nickname because of a large waistline.

He stays at the Four Seasons, Park Lane, when in London. He is a well-known figure among the wealthy Lebanese and Syrian communities in Knightsbridge and Kensington and has the reputation of being extremely generous.

Four years ago, Mr al-Zayat told a newspaper that he had lost large sums at the roulette table in London.

“This is the only sin I have," he said. "I have lost a lot of money. I know it's wrong to lose money like this, but if you've ever been to a casino you will understand what the atmosphere is like,” he said.

Mr al-Zayat, who is married with three children, built his fortune on a string of lucrative deals. Former business partners say that he acted as an intermediary in contracts for the supply of defence-related equipment in Cyprus and the Middle East.

He has been named in the US courts as a businessman who gave tens of thousands of dollars to a corrupt Republican congressman. Robert Ney was sentenced to 30 months in jail after telling the court that he accepted money from a number of sources, including gambling chips from Mr al-Zayat.

The Iranian Ministry of Defence sued Mr al-Zayat and his aircraft leasing business FAZ Aviation in London’s High Court.

The Iranians argued that since FAZ Aviation’s “principal place of business” at the time it began legal proceedings was London, a UK court should hear its claim for recovery of the money lost on the aircraft.

But on Wednesday Mr Justice Langley, sitting in the commercial court, dismissed the Iranian's case. He ruled that FAZ Aviation – which is incorporated in Cyprus and has its registered office in Nicosia – did not conduct sufficient business in London at the time of the claim. The UK courts, therefore, had no jurisdiction to intervene in this dispute, he said.

The Iranian Government’s solicitors at Norton Rose declined to comment on its client’s plans.

The decision is the second time that a British court has refused to help Iran recover its alleged losses. Earlier this year it asked the Serious Fraud Office to apply for a freezing order on Mr Al-Zayat’s assets as part of an Iranian criminal investigation into the Airbus deal.

The freezing order was initially granted but subsequently revoked after a judge discovered it had been requested by an Iranian military judge.

The SFO will appeal this at a hearing next Tuesday. If the appeal fails, Mr Al-Zayat will be able to sue the British Government for compensation over his treatment.

U.S. Decides Against Freeing 5 Iranian Agents

Administration Resists Tehran's Pressure, State Department Recommendation

Taken from The Washington Post, April 14, 2007; Page A12
By Robin Wright

After intense internal debate, the Bush administration has decided to hold on to five Iranian Revolutionary Guard intelligence agents captured in Iraq, overruling a State Department recommendation to release them, according to U.S. officials.

At a meeting of the president's foreign policy team Tuesday, the administration decided the five Iranians will remain in custody and go through a periodic six-month review used for the 250 other foreign detainees held in Iraq, U.S. officials said. The next review is not expected until July, officials say.

The five, seized in a Jan. 11 raid by U.S. forces in the Kurdish city of Irbil, are at the center of increasing tensions between Washington and Tehran. The decision is certain to further irritate Tehran, which has ratcheted up pressure on the United States and on its allies and even its friends in the Iraqi government to win freedom for the Irbil five.

The decision came as Iraq's government spokesman, on a White House visit Friday, urged better ties. "We feel that the improvement and the better relations between the United States and Iran could minimize -- could make the [Iranian] interference less," Ali Dabbagh said in a news briefing with White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Differences over the five Iranians reflect an emerging divide on how to deal with Iran. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went into the meeting Tuesday advising that the men be freed because they are no longer useful, but after a review of options she went along with the consensus, U.S. officials say. Vice President Cheney's office made the firmest case for keeping them. Their capture signals that Iran's actions are monitored and that Iranian operatives face seizure.

The administration has expressed concern about Tehran's role in Iraq. Iran has long aided Shiite militias but more recently has also armed some Sunni militias, officials say. Officials also allege that Iran has provided roadside explosives that have killed U.S. troops. But Washington needs Iran's cooperation to stabilize Iraq.

Since the capture, Iran has threatened not to attend a key meeting in Egypt next month of Iraq's neighbors - as well as the United States and international groups involved in Iraq - that Washington hopes will foster cooperation on Iraq. Without Iran, which exerts great influence in Iraq, the meeting could have only a marginal impact, according to Iraqi officials and Middle East experts.

When the Iraqi government did not obtain release of the five detainees, Iran refused to allow a plane carrying Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to fly over Iran en route to Japan last week. Iran has also been pressing the detainees' case at the United Nations.

Some U.S. officials now say the seizure of 15 British sailors last month by the Revolutionary Guard may have been part of an effort to pressure Washington through Britain, its close ally and the second-largest troop contributor in Iraq. One reason Washington does not want to free the Iranians is to avoid the appearance of a deal to win the 15 Britons freedom last week, U.S. officials acknowledged.

The January raid on Iran's liaison office in Irbil was the second by U.S. troops. In December, U.S. troops in Baghdad nabbed Brig. Gen. Mohsen Chirazi, the No. 3 official in the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force, and Col. Abu Amad Davari. They were soon released under Iraqi government pressure.

In January, the United States again targeted two high-ranking Iranians, including Gen. Minojahar Frouzanda, the Revolutionary Guard intelligence chief, and Mohammed Jafari, deputy head of Iran's National Security Council, U.S. officials say. They eluded capture.

The United States is invoking Iraqi law as well as U.N. Security Council resolutions 1546, 1637 and 1723 authorizing the U.S.-led coalition operating in Iraq as grounds to detain the Iranians.

The U.N. resolutions allow the multinational force to take steps to protect itself.

The Irbil five are members of the elite Quds Force, an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps charged with Iran's clandestine foreign operations. The Quds Force has ties to the Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant groups as well as to Iraqi political movements that the United States has supported.

The administration's decision comes at an awkward time. Washington is about to send a fourth message to Iran asking for information on the whereabouts of former FBI agent Robert A. Levinson, who has been missing since he flew to Iran's Kish Island five weeks ago. The Financial Times and Reuters reported Friday that Levinson may have met on Kish Island with Daoud Salahuddin, a convert to Islam once known as David Belfield who is still wanted by the FBI for the 1980 murder in Bethesda of Iranian dissident Ali Tabatabai.

Female Sailor Was Forced To Strip, Another "Cried Like A Baby" In His Cell - But Iranian Video Shows All The Crew Happy!

Taken from Daily Mail, UK, 9th April 2007
"MoD bans military staff from selling their stories"
by LUCY BALLINGER

Britishe Soldiers that were captured in alleded Iraian Waters were accused of "behaving like reality TV stars" after the UK Ministray of Defense said there were "exceptional circumstances" behind their 13-day ordeal, bracketing them with winners of the Victoria Cross.

Earlier, released hostage Faye Turney had said she "felt like a traitor" when she was ordered by her captors to pen "confession" letters.



The 26-year-old mother told how she was forced to admit that she had been trespassing in Iranian waters. She claimed her captors said if she did not write the letters then she would be imprisoned "for several years".

Leading Seaman Turney was one of several of the sailors and marines who have chosen to profit from their ordeal. She is likely to receive more than £100,000 for her dramatic story.
Not all the captives agreed to accept money from the media.

The most senior member of the crew, Royal Navy Lieutenant Felix Carman admitted he found the subject of being paid "a bit unsavoury". He said he would hand over any money he is offered to charity.





In an interview with the Sun Mrs Turney told how she feared she would be raped by her Iranian captors after being separated from her colleagues and stripped to her underwear.

She told how she had mouthed to her Captain, Chris Air: "Are they going to rape me?"

"I mouthed it to him again and again, but he didn't answer. With a blindfold on, I was led away from the rest of the guys. All I could hear from behind me was one of them shout, 'They're going to execute us'," she said.

"It was the first time I got really scared. I genuinely believed they might do it. I'd already been prodded in the side with a pistol. I asked, 'What are you doing to them?' But they didn't answer me.

"I was thrown into a tiny cell and ordered to strip off. They took everything from me apart from my knickers. Then some cotton pyjamas were thrown in for me to wear and four filthy blankets. The metal door slammed shut again."

A few hours later she was told to wrap a black Islamic cape around her and then taken to see the officer in charge.

"I asked him, 'Where are my friends? I want to see them.' He rubbed the top of my head and said with a smile, 'Oh no, they've gone home. Just you now'. I was taken back to my cell again and that was my lowest moment.

"All I could think of was how completely alone I was. They could do anything now and nobody would know.

"At that moment I just totally lost it. All I could think of was what my family must be going through. What would my husband Adam be telling Molly (their three-year-old daughter)? Did they even know I was missing? I cried my eyes out."

Mrs Turney told how she "felt like a traitor" when she was ordered to write the confession letters on Iranian TV.

She said she was held in isolation for five of the 13 days. One morning she was given the impression by her captors that she was being measured for a coffin. "I heard the noise of sawing and nails being hammered near my cell. I couldn't work out what it was. Then a woman came into my cell to measure me up from head to toe with a tape.

"She shouted the measurements to a man outside. I was convinced they were making my coffin."

In the evenings she was blindfolded and taken to a room where she was interrogated two or three times a night for hours at a time.

"They asked which were my ship's ports of call, where were other coalition ships in the Gulf, how do Royal Navy ships protect themselves, how do we communicate, what was the U.S. doing?

"That could have put my colleagues at risk, and there was no way in hell I was ever going to do that, no matter what they did."

Mrs Turney said she refused to answer the questions, but the threats became intense. "An interrogator said to me, 'You don't understand, you must cooperate with us. Do you not want to see your daughter again?'."

On her fifth day in captivity, she said, she was told: "If I confessed to being in Iranian waters and wrote letters to my family, the British people and the Iranian people, I'd be free within two weeks.

"If I didn't, they'd put me on trial for espionage and I'd go to prison for 'several years'. It was a horrible dilemma. If I did it, I feared everyone in Britain would hate me. But I knew it was my one chance of fulfilling a promise to Molly that I'd be home for her birthday on May 8.

"I decided to take that chance and write in such a way that my unit and my family would know it wasn't the real me. There was nothing damaging to security in anything I wrote, I made sure of that. And I never meant a word of it."

In fresh video clips aired on Iran's stare-run Arabic satellite TV channel Al-Alam today several of the sailors and marines can be seen dressed in tracksuits, playing chess and table tennis. In the footage, crew members can be heard laughing and chatting.

Iranian Video Clip From Sky News, UK (Opens In Windows media Player)

The newscaster who spoke over the beginning of the footage said the video proved "the sailors had complete liberty during their detention, which contradicts what the sailors declared after they arrived in Britain."

The youngest of the British sailors held by Iran also spoke today of his "nightmare" at the hands of his captors.



Arthur Batchelor, 20, told the Daily Mirror he "cried like a baby" in his cell.

He said fellow captive Faye Turney risked beatings from guards for whispering reassurances to him as he sat petrified and blindfolded on a boat after they were snatched at sea.

The sailor also revealed his guards mockingly nicknamed him "Mr Bean".

He told the newspaper: "It was beyond terrifying. They seemed to take particular pleasure in mocking me for being young.

"They tried to persuade me that I was responsible for all that was happening to us because I was the boat's navigator - but I knew we had been inside Iraqi waters when we were seized.

"A guard kept flicking my neck with his index finger and thumb. I thought the worst, we've all seen the videos. I was frozen in terror and just stared into the darkness of my blindfold."

News that Mrs Turney alone is likely to make at least £100,000 was condemned by former Defence Ministers, ex-soldiers - and families who have lost loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At Westminster, even some Labour MPs suspected a Government spin operation designed to distract attention away from embarrassing questions over the capture itself.

PR expert Max Clifford said he had been approached by the fathers of two of the hostages for advice on how to do a deal with the media.

He described the decision as a "propaganda exercise" because it "suited" the MoD for the stories to be told.

"They were very encouraging, they were very happy about them doing this, that's the way they (the fathers) were putting it to me," said Mr Clifford.

Mike Aston, whose 30-year-old son Russell was one of six Redcaps killed by an Iraqi mob, said he was "absolutely amazed" by the "tacky and sordid" decision.

He said: "Regarding my son's death, I can put my hand on my heart and say that I've never sought or made a penny out of it. I think to actually sell my story would besmirch my son's memory.

On the unofficial website the Army Rumour Service, some contributors suggested the hostages who decide to sell should leave the Armed Forces - and all proceeds should be donated to families of those killed in Iraq.

One wrote: "Bloody ridiculous! Two sodding weeks, not a scratch, fed and watered, cigs, new suits. Heroes my a***!"

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It is difficult to imagine the ordeal the crew must have gone through but from all the video coverage the evidence does suggest that the captured UK sailors (whether taken from Iraqi or Iranian Waters) were looked after by the Iranian Authorities. I did not approve of the sailors being paraded on Iranian TV but it did show that the soldiers were healthy and in good spirits. They seemed calm and relaxed even when they were reading out messages on Iranian TV apologising for trespassing into Iranian waters but when they came back to the UK and read out “scripts” of their ordeal in Iran at a press conference – it seemed all too manufactured.

The only crime the Iranians committed was making Faye Turney wear a very unfeminine outfit – The crew are lucky to be in the UK, If the Iranians pressed charged for Spying (which these sailors were doing) then it would’ve been 7 years in jails. I hope we don’t get into a similar situation again, I doubt whether the Iranians will be this hospitable again.

Iran Has 'Joined The Nuclear Club Of Nations' Says Ahmadinejad

Taken from The Daly Mail, UK, 9th April 2007

The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stunned the international community by declaring his country has joined the "nuclear club of nations".



He said: "With great honour, I declare that as of today our dear country has joined the nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale."

Iran is now on a collision course with the West for dramatically expanding the uranium enrichment programme that the United Nations has demanded it halt.


The country's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani confirmed that it has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility in central Iran.

Until now, Iran was only known to have 328 centrifuges operating.

President Ahmadinejad was speaking at a ceremony at the Natanz facility to mark the one-year anniversary of Iran's first success in enriching small amounts of uranium.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful but uranium enrichment can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material for a nuclear warhead.

But Britain and the United States accuse Iran of intending to produce weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said Iran should suspend enrichment immediately. He said: "We are concerned that Iran appears to have confirmed more nuclear enrichment activity. This is a further breach of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and UNSC (UN Security Council) resolutions.

"Iran knows exactly what it must do: comply with UNSC resolutions 1737 and 1747 by suspending all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities before discussions can begin on assistance with a modern civil nuclear power programme."

He added: "We have always made it clear that we are happy for Iran to have a civil nuclear power programme but they have to satisfy the international community that that is what it is seeking to develop.

"The international community stands together in ensuring that Iran does not develop the means to acquire nuclear weapons."

The expansion of enrichment is a strong show of defiance toward the United Nations, which has vowed to ratchet up sanctions as long as Iran refuses to suspend the process.

The Security Council first imposed limited sanctions in December, then increased them slightly last month and has set a new deadline of late May for Tehran to stop enrichment.

The escalation of the dispute follows comes with tensions between Iran and the West high following its 13-day detention of 15 British sailors and marines.

The personnel, who were seized by Revolutionary Guards off the Iraqi coast, have said they were put under psychological pressure by their captors to force them to "confess" to being in Iranian waters when captured.

In his speech, President Ahmadinejad said the door to negotiations with the West remains open. "Iran welcomes any suggestion and dialogue to resolve the issues," he said.

He insisted Iran has been cooperative with the UN nuclear watchdog, allowing it inspections of its facilities. But he warned; "Don't do something that will make this great nation reconsider its policies."

Larijani said his country was willing to offer assurances that its program is peaceful. But he said the West must accept its nuclear programme as a fact.

"We are ready to reach understanding with the Westerners through a corridor of real negotiations - in the current situation, in which Iran's nuclear activities have been concluded," state television quoted Larijani as saying.

"The understanding regards assuring the other party about the peacefulness of Iran's nuclear activities," he said. "But we do not give in our rights." On April 9, 2006, Iran announced it had first enriched uranium using an array of 164 centrifuges.

Across Iran, school bells rang on Monday to mark the "national day of nuclear energy." The government sent out SMS messages of congratulations to millions of mobile phone users.


In Tehran, some 200 students formed a human chain at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization while chanting "death to America" and "death to Britain." The students burnt flags of the US and Britain.

Iran has said its next step is to set up 3,000 centrifuges, but it is not clear where the project stands. In mid-January, the hard-line president had been expected to announce that installation of the 3,000 had begun, but he did not. Instead, Ahmadinejad said Iran will gradually announce its successes step by step.

Experts say the Natanz plant needs between 50,000 to 60,000 centrifuges to consistently produce fuel for a reactor or build a warhead.

In the enrichment process, uranium gas is pumped into a "cascade" of thousands of centrifuges, which spin the gas at supersonic speeds to purify it.

Uranium enriched to a low level, at least 3 percent, can be used as fuel, while at a far higher level, more than 90 percent, it can be used to build a weapon.

Iran currently has two cascades of 164 centrifuges each operating at an aboveground portion of the Natanz facility in central Iran. The two cascades have produced small quantities of non-weapons grade enriched uranium, U.N. nuclear inspectors have said.

Two smaller assemblies are known to have been set up in a heavily protected underground portion of Natanz, and have been going through "dry testing" - without gas - since November, according to inspectors.

How I Know Blair Faked Iran Map

Taken from The Daily Mail, UK, 1st April 2007
By CRAIG MURRAY, Former Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Head of the Foreign Office's Maritime Section

Like most senior Royal Navy officers, Commodore Nick Lambert has great reserves of professional expertise and common sense. The Coalition task force commander was aboard HMS Cornwall when 15 Royal Navy personnel serving on the frigate were seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces on March 23.



The Navy states the 14 men and one woman were on a routine patrol in rigid inflatables off Iraqi shores - Iran insists they were in its waters illegally.

A few hours after the 15 were seized, Cdre Lambert said: 'There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were in Iraqi territorial waters. Equally, the Iranians may well claim that they were in their territorial waters. The extent and definition of territorial waters in this part of the world is very complicated.'

And his predecessor in command of the task force, Commodore Peter Lockwood of the Royal Australian Navy, said last October: 'No maritime border has been agreed upon by the countries.'

Both officers told the truth. It is the burial of this truth by No 10 spin doctors, and Tony Blair's remark that he is 'utterly certain' the incident took place within Iraqi territorial limits, that has escalated this from an incident to a crisis. Blair is being fatuous.

How can you be certain which side of a boundary you are when that boundary has never been drawn?

I am best known as the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, but from 1989 to 1992 I headed the Foreign Office's maritime section. This included responsibility for territorial sea claims and for negotiating our own maritime boundaries. The expertise of the Royal Navy was invaluable.

For eight months I also worked with Royal Naval and Defence Intelligence Service personnel in the Embargo Surveillance Centre, a secret unit operating 24 hours a day from an underground command centre in Central London to prevent Iraqi attempts at weapons procurement.

We analysed information from intelligence and other sources, and could instruct Royal Naval craft in the Gulf to board and inspect individual ships. I was responsible for getting the political clearance for operations just like the one now in question, in this exact location. So I know what I'm talking about.

There is no agreed boundary in the Northern Gulf, either between Iran and Iraq or between Iraq and Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq border has been agreed inside the Shatt al-Arab waterway, because there it is also the land border. But that agreement does not extend beyond the low tide line of the coast.

Even that very limited agreement is arguably no longer in force. Since it was reached in 1975, a war has been fought over it, and ten-year reviews - necessary because waters and sandbanks in this region move about dramatically - have never been carried out.

But what about the map the Ministry of Defence produced on Tuesday, with territorial boundaries set out by a clear red line, and the co-ordinates of the incident marked in relation to it?

I have news for you. Those boundaries are fake. They were drawn up by the MoD. They are not agreed or recognised by any international authority.

To put it at its most charitable, they are a potential boundary. It is accepted practice, where no boundary exists, to work by a rule-of-thumb idea of where a boundary, based on a median line between the two coasts, might be.

But to elevate that to a hard and fast boundary, and then base a major international incident on being a few hundred yards one side or the other, is out of order.

Negotiating a maritime boundary is horribly complicated. To set a median line you agree a series of triangulation points on both coastlines and do a geometric triangulation exercise to find a line running out from the coast.

Of course, both sides will argue about which triangulation points on the coast to use. You are allowed, for example, to draw a line across a bay entrance and use that as the coast, but there is plenty of room for the other side to argue over where that line is drawn.

That is only the start. For territorial seas you start at the low tide mark and uninhabited rocks and sandbanks count.

There is huge room for argument - ownership of a useless sandbank is not necessarily a settled thing. Then it really gets complex. What if the sandbank appears only at low tide or moves? In this area of the Gulf, sands shift endlessly.

It is, in short, impossible to say where a real, negotiated or adjudicated Iran-Iraq boundary might eventually lie. It is also why the instinct of both the Foreign Office and MoD was to play this quietly and negotiate our people back.

But the No10 spin doctors stepped in, seeing a propaganda opportunity to portray Blair as fighting evil Iranians.

Navy and Foreign Office experts were horrified at the notion of publishing that map.

In doing so we entrenched Blair's ridiculous boast that our 15 Navy personnel were definitely in Iraqi territorial seas, and claimed the right to dictate Iran's boundary.

It's not surprising Iraq backed British claims - the map is favourable to them. But it makes compromise on the captives very difficult.

Of course, the Iranians equally cannot say unilaterally that these are their territorial waters, and act as if they owned them.

In disputed waters it behoves everyone to act with caution and respect. Plainly the Iranians are not doing that.

None of this vindicates Iran's aggressive behaviour in holding the captives or the so-called confessions.

For Iran to detain the British sailors in these circumstances was provocative and bellicose.

To hold them for a few hours could have been taken as a legitimate, if over forceful way, of indicating their claim to the disputed waters in which the British personnel boarded a neutral vessel.

But Iranian behaviour in the past few days has tipped over into the plain illegal and indefensible.
However I have no doubt Blair is delighted at last to have a Middle East issue with popular support before May's elections.

Yes, Iran has a bad government that is behaving stupidly. But perhaps it is not alone. Both sides have to climb down. We have to state that no agreed border exists and that we had no intention of straying into Iranian waters.

The Iranian government should let our people go immediately. That is the way out of this mess for both sides.

These are extracts from Craig Murray's blog. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

U.S. Cautions Foreign Companies On Iran Deals

Taken from The New York Times,March 21, 2007
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, March 20 — For all its efforts to apply economic and political pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, the United States has never used a potentially potent tool in its arsenal — penalties on foreign companies that assist Iran in producing oil and natural gas.

That may be about to change. The Bush administration has quietly been warning energy companies, including Shell, Repsol and SKS, the Malaysian oil company, as well as the governments of China, India, Pakistan and Malaysia, that penalties are possible if they pursue energy deals with Iran.

As a result, several huge projects planned for Iran could be vulnerable. These include one possible $10 billion project by Royal Dutch Shell and the Spanish oil company, Repsol YPF, to develop a natural gas field offshore in Iran, and a $20 billion venture by SKS Ventures of Malaysia to produce natural gas in Iran’s Golshan and Ferdows fields.

In recent months, the administration has tried to avoid diplomatic or political controversies as a result of its jawboning. But the potential for sanctions is posing a quandary for the administration by setting up a possible fight with Europe if it proceeds with them or a fight with Congress if it does not.

One factor behind the warnings, administration officials acknowledge, is that the Democratic-controlled Congress appears to be moving quickly to pass a law that would make sanctions mandatory out of concern about Iran’s suspected nuclear arms program and support for terrorism.

“What we’re trying to do is create multiple points of pressure on Iran in both the private and public sector,” said R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs. “These companies also need to know that the attitude of Congress on their activities in Iran is hardening.”

But in orchestrating all this pressure on Iran, President Bush and his aides have been careful to avoid any kind of boycott or other threat that might cause oil and gas prices to soar and strangle the economies of the West.

Short of a cutoff, the administration clearly wants to make it harder for Iran to tap into its oil and gas reserves to increase exports in the future. Iran’s energy output has lagged in recent years, and many experts say the country faces the possibility of not having enough oil to export within as little as 10 years.

Last month, the United States ambassador to Spain, Eduardo Aguirre Jr., met with Repsol executives in Madrid to advise them against going forward with a deal to develop Iran’s South Pars field, which contains one of the world’s biggest natural gas deposits. The ambassador was told that the deal was not yet final, according to American and Repsol officials.

“No investment is being made at present,” said a Repsol spokesman in Madrid, who asked not to be identified by name. “There will not be a decision on this until next year.”

The messages to oil companies mark the latest episode in a long campaign of pressure that reached a turning point in December, when the administration won approval of a United Nations Security Council resolution designating 10 Iranian companies and a dozen individuals as off-limits for international financial dealings.

Another resolution designating an additional 15 individuals and 13 Iranian government and business groups, including a leading Iranian bank, could be approved later this week. The administration, using the Security Council list, wants virtually all of the world’s banks and businesses to boycott all of these Iranian entities.

Despite the stepped up American pressure, some Democratic leaders in Congress are complaining that the administration has not gone far enough.

They want Mr. Bush to invoke a statute enacted in 1996 that obliges the United States government to punish any foreign energy company doing business with Iran unless the president waives the sanction on national security grounds.

“This administration has done nothing to punish Iran,” said Representative Tom Lantos, a Democrat of California who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “The method I don’t favor on Iran is to bomb their nuclear facilities. The method I favor is to starve them of resources, which can only be done through sanctions.”

After the bill passed a decade ago, European governments and companies vehemently objected, charging that it amounted to a brazen case of extra-territoriality, the term for one nation imposing its laws on foreign companies and sovereign nations.

At the time, President Bill Clinton, acting to avoid a confrontation with Europe and in part to send a conciliatory message to Iran when moderates seemed to be vying for power, waived the sanctions on several European companies, including Total, the leading French oil concern.

Recalling that precedent, Mr. Lantos said his bill would strip the president of the ability to waive sanctions on Iran on national security grounds. The Bush administration opposes that provision as a weakening of presidential prerogatives in foreign policy.

A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she supported Mr. Lantos’s bill. Mr. Lantos says he is confident he can persuade lawmakers to pass his bill with a big enough majority to override a presidential veto.

The existing sanctions law gives Washington the option to choose among several penalties, including denial of government credits to companies that deal with the foreign oil company, denial of export licenses and a ban on United States government procurement or imports from these companies.

Administration officials say the reason no decisions have been made on whether to invoke or waive sanctions is that the energy exploration deals by Shell, Repsol, China, Malaysia, China and Pakistan are all still in an embryonic stage and that it is better to head them off by using persuasion than penalties.

But they also say that the administration does not want to take any action now that would divide the United States from its allies in Europe on Iran, or to provoke China, India and Pakistan, whose support Washington needs for other foreign policy objectives.

A senior European envoy involved in discussions over Iran said that Europeans would be unhappy with American sanctions against private oil companies, but that they also understood the importance of pressing the Tehran government. “As long as we want to avoid a war with Iran, we have to try sanctions,” he said.

The steps being contemplated are part of a web of pressures, American and European officials say, which could be invoked in coming months. These include plans to sanction more Iranian banks, beyond the two that have already been hit by sanctions and barred from obtaining dollars from American banks.

The aim, American officials say, is to prevent Iran from obtaining dollars, the world’s reserve currency, for use in the purchase of goods or services. Iranian leaders have said that American sanctions are forcing them to sell oil for euros or other currencies, even though oil is traded on the international markets in dollars.

In a separate set of actions, American and European officials say that recent pressure on European governments has led several to reduce or to pledge to reduce their government-backed credit guarantees for deals with Iran.

Germany had $6.2 billion in outstanding export credits to Iran as of 2005, according to figures circulating at the United Nations. But Germany reported recently that after cutting back credits by 60 percent in the last two years, it planned further cutbacks this year.

Japan, which had $1.9 billion in credits as of 2005, has also informed the United States that it has granted no medium- or long-term credit insurance since last June and has cut short-term credits. American officials say they have received similar pledges from Italy and France to cut back their export credits.

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Latest news: Total boss quizzed in Iran probe
The boss of French oil giant Total is being questioned by police as part of a probe into alleged corruption in Iran. Total said Christophe de Margerie and two employees were being interviewed about the firm's role in the South Pars natural gas project in Iran. The company said it was "confident" the investigation would not uncover any illegal activities. The inquiry concerns allegations that illegal payments were made to win the gas contract in 1997. Mr de Margerie was also placed under investigation last year over claims he paid bribes to win bids in Iraq.

Between 1995 and 1999 he headed Total's Middle East operations, then became head of exploration and production before taking the role of chief executive. A number of global figures have been caught up in the so-called Iraq oil-for-food scandal. A French judge is investigating claims that Mr de Margerie paid illegal kickbacks to win favours for his company between 1996 and 2002. The oil-for-food scandal damaged the reputation of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who took personal responsibility for failures at the programme last year.

Iranian Regime Must Be Toppled

Former US ambassador to UN John Bolton tells Ynet world has waited too long and has done too little to restrain Iran, deal with its nuclear program. Bolton does not advocate military action, but says current diplomatic efforts have proved futile

Taken from YNet News, Israel, 03.23.07
By Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON - John Bolton, the outgoing American ambassador to the UN, said that his country should have launched efforts to topple the Mullahs' regime in Iran four years ago. In a special interview, Bolton told Ynet that he was disappointed by Russia's support of Iran in the UN Security Council, and the failure of diplomatic efforts to address the Iranian nuclear threat.

Bolton served as undersecretary of state for arms control during George W. Bush's firs term in office, and has been the US ambassador to the UN in the past 17 months.

"I'd dealt with the Russians extensively…on a range of proliferation matters. In the discussions on the Security Council over Iran, Russia emerged as Iran's biggest protector, for a variety of reasons, some commercial, some strategic, some just political, as opposition to the United States.
"China I think was content to follow Russia's lead in the Security Council, just the reverse of what they did with North Korea where China was the main actor and Russia followed China," he stated.

Bolton explained that the Russians played a major role in helping Iran deal with the diplomatic steps taken against it.

"Russia helped Iran by trying to explain to them that they should not position themselves in a way that maximized the strength of the sanctions against them and to work out where Russia had commercial interests like the Busher nuclear power facility, and to protect and shield as much of that as they could," he said.

Why, in your opinion, did Russia pull out its experts from the Busher nuclear reactor site?
"That was an interesting piece of information, I'd like to see if that really is borne out, but the Russians have been in a dispute over the fuel rods for four years, and we've been urging them for four years not to ship the fuel rods.

"There are obviously different points of view inside Russia, but I think that the nuclear scientists… know Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Maybe the Foreign Ministry hasn't yet figured it out."

According to Bolton, the US "should certainly be increasing the pressure, It's certainly got to be more than we got from the sanctions the Security Council has imposed or will impose in this next resolution.

"I think we've had some success in the financial institutions area, I think we should do more through the proliferation security initiative to deny Iran access to materials and technology that they need. But I think ultimately the only answer to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is to overthrow the current regime in Tehran. They've been pursuing nuclear weapons for almost 20 years.

"We do have historical evidence that when a regime that's been pursuing nuclear weapons changes that there's an opportunity to give up this pursuit. South Africa is one example, the collapse of the Soviet Union saw Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus give back to Russia Soviet-era weapons. Libya gave up its weapons after it saw what we had done to Saddam Hussein."

Are there any forces inside Iran that are working to overthrow the regime?
"I think there are a lot of Iranians that are unsatisfied with the regime, I think that there is more unrest there than what people believe, I think that the government is constrained because of the fall of oil prices and there is mismanagement of the oil sector of Iran's economy, they've got fewer resources to spread around to keep the populous happy.

"There's a large Iranian diaspora that know what the situation is. So, I think that there are a lot of possibilities. It won't necessarily be easy or quick, but that's not to say we shouldn't be pursuing it.

"In think it's very close to the point where Iran will have completely indigenous mastery over the fuel sites, that is to say the point in which stopping the things from the outside will not be sufficient, so I don't think we have much time. That's why all these negotiations with the Europeans have played to Iran's advantage, because time is on their side, time is not on our side."

How can the Iranian regime be toppled?
"Well, I wish we had started four years ago, but I think through internal dissent and outside pressure, those in general terms are what we have to do."

Not through military action?
"I don't think military force is the preferable way to go. I don't rule military force out because as unpalatable as military force might be, Iran with nuclear weapons is even worse. I think you have to show you have tried the alternatives, I think we've spent too much time on this EU-three diplomacy, I think now is the time to ramp up the pressure very dramatically."

What should Israel do? Wait for the world to resolve this?
"I think Israel has to make its own decisions…I think any country threatened with its own survival at stake has to be prepared to do what it has to do. I wouldn't second guess that."

What would be the world's reaction if Israel attacks Iran?
"I'm sure a lot of people would be outraged, they'd be outraged if the United States decided to attack. That's why, if you want to avoid that possibility, then increased pressure on Iran now is important, and the inability of the Security Council to pass strong sanctions resolutions doesn’t augur well for a peaceful outcome."

Is there a way to on monitor the use of nuclear weapons by terror organizations?
"It's very hard, and I think we're all acutely aware of the limitations on what we know, which is why it is so important and such a priority under the Bush doctrine to deny rogue states and terrorist groups nuclear weapons in the first place."

Bolton, who as ambassador to the UN pushed for the approval of Resolution 1701 in the Security Council, believes that the UN failed in implementing it.

"I was quite concerned during that entire process that we're going to end up with UNIFIL 2, which has been ineffective since it was put on the ground in 1979, and I'm afraid this is what we've come to, even though we call it enhanced UNIFIL, even though it's troops from Italy and France, in other words troops from real armies.

"It's not sealing the border with Syria, Hizbullah is being rearmed, we made a conscious decision in 1701 to put off the question of disarming Hizbullah until another resolution and we're nowhere close to coming back to that.

"So, I don't think 1701 has achieved what the United States at lease said at the outset was our objective, which was to use the conflict to change the strategic circumstances in the region and to avoid yet another Middle East ceasefire that represents simply a return to the status quo antebellum."
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Today, the 15-member U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to impose new sanctions on Iran because of its refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program. The acting U.S. representative to the United Nations, Alejandro D. Wolff, said after the vote: "While we hope that Iran complies with this resolution ... the United States is fully prepared to take additional measures in 60 days should Iran choose another course." He didn't elaborate.

Iran also claimed today that 15 British sailors and marines had confessed to entering its waters in an act of "blatant aggression," an escalation of Tehran's rhetoric over the confrontation. Iran's top military official, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, said the sailors and marines were moved to Tehran and under interrogation "confessed to illegal entry" and an "aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran's waters." Afshar did not say what would happen to the sailors. He accused Britain of trying to cover up the incursion, saying it should "refrain from putting the blame on others."

Here is a link to a nice interview done by Newsnight with John Bolton with regards to the Iraq War Bolton: Few regrets over Iraq

Iran To Hit Back At US ‘Kidnaps’

Taken from The Sunday Times, March 18, 2007
By Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv

IRAN is threatening to retaliate in Europe for what it claims is a daring undercover operation by western intelligence services to kidnap senior officers in its Revolutionary Guard.

According to Iranian sources, several officers have been abducted in the past three months and the United States has drawn up a list of other targets to be seized with the aim of destabilising Tehran’s military command.

In an article in Subhi Sadek, the Revolutionary Guard’s weekly paper, Reza Faker, a writer believed to have close links to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned that Iran would strike back.

“We’ve got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks,” he said. “Iran has enough people who can reach the heart of Europe and kidnap Americans and Israelis.”

The first sign of a possible campaign against high-ranking Iranian officers emerged earlier this month with the discovery that Ali Reza Asgari, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force in Lebanon and deputy defence minister, had vanished, apparently during a trip to Istanbul.

Asgari’s disappearance shocked the Iranian regime as he is believed to possess some of its most closely guarded secrets. The Quds Force is responsible for operations outside Iran.

Last week it was revealed that Colonel Amir Muhammed Shirazi, another high-ranking Revolutionary Guard officer, had disappeared, probably in Iraq.

A third Iranian general is also understood to be missing — the head of the Revolutionary Guard in the Persian Gulf. Sources named him as Brigadier General Muhammed Soltani, but his identity could not be confirmed.

“This is no longer a coincidence, but rather an orchestrated operation to shake the higher echelons of the Revolutionary Guard,” said an Israeli source.

Other members of the Quds Force are said to have been seized in Irbil, in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, by US special forces.

“The capture of Quds members in Irbil was essential for our understanding of Iranian activity in Iraq,” said an American official with knowledge of the operation.

One theory circulating in Israel is that a US taskforce known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) is coordinating the campaign to take Revolutionary Guard commanders.

The Iranians have also accused the United States of being behind an attack on Revolutionary Guards in Iran last month in which at least 17 were killed.

Military analysts believe that Iranian threats of retaliation are credible. Tehran is notorious for settling scores. When the Israelis killed Abbas Mussawi, Hezbollah’s general secretary, in 1992 the Quds Force blew up the Israeli embassy in Argentina in revenge.

Despite the Iranian threat to retaliate in Europe, Iraq is seen by some analysts as a more likely place in which to attempt abductions.

“In Iraq, the Quds Force can easily get hold of American — and British — officers,” said a Jordanian intelligence source.

Bush's Prince Charming Flies To The Rescue

On January 11 the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, sat at the witness table in Hearing Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building explaining why those who talked about engagement with Syria and Iran were all "wet". "That's not diplomacy - that's extortion," she said. On Tuesday Rice returned to the same witness table in the same hearing room. "I'm pleased to inform you that the Iraqis are launching a new diplomatic initiative, which we are going to fully support," she announced cheerfully. And guess who's coming to dinner? Iran and Syria. Heck, it's about time they all talked! Jaw Jaw is better tham War War!

Maybe it's because the long-term control of Iraq's energy assets are in the process of being awarded to foreign multinationals (due to pressure put on Iraq by the UK and USA) that will for the first time have a stake in the country since 1972. Is the Iraqi government (on the brinks of Civil war) in a position to negotiate good terms with foreign oil firms? - the answer is no. One thing is for certain if We didn't go to war in Iraq over WMD, it was more about control of Oil production levels - mission almost completed for Bush. One man who has been busy doing a work in the background is Bandar Bush. Is he involved in the talks with Iran and Syria? This is an interesting story...

Taken from The Sydney Morning Herald, February 24, 2007
By Jackson Diehl (Original article extracted from The Washington Post)

For 22 years Prince Bandar bin Sultan wheeled and dealed his way through Washington as Saudi Arabia's ambassador. By his account he had a hand in most of America's major initiatives in the Middle East over a generation. Early in George Bush's presidency, for example, he brokered US rapprochement with Libya and previewed plans for the invasion of Iraq two months before the war.

For a while after returning home in the middle of 2005, Bandar kept a low profile. Some speculated he was out of favour with the kingdom's ruler, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, despite his appointment as national security adviser. Now he's back: since the beginning of the year the prince has been wheeling and dealing his way around the Middle East.

In the past month Bandar has held three meetings with the Iranian national security chief, Ali Larijani. He has twice met Vladimir Putin, in Moscow and Riyadh; he has overseen talks between the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas leaders; and he has quietly visited Washington to brief Bush. He helped broker this month's Palestinian accord on a unity government as well as a Saudi-Iranian understanding to cool political conflict in Lebanon. And he has been talking to the most senior officials of the Iranian and US governments about whether there is a way out of the stand-off over Iran's nuclear weapons.

Can Bandar bail the US out of the multiple crises it has stumbled into in the Middle East? Maybe not, but Washington's old friend may be one of the best bets a desperate Bush Administration has going at the moment. The Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has manoeuvred herself into a corner by refusing to talk to Syria and Iran and boycotting the Hamas-led Palestinian Government. Consequently, there's little the US can do diplomatically to defuse the conflicts in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, not to mention Iraq. Rice tried calling on Egypt, abruptly dropping the Administration's previous urging that its autocratic Government "lead the way" in democratising the Middle East. But Egypt has been unable to deliver: it tried and failed to pry Syria away from its alliance with Iran, and it tried and failed to win concessions from Hamas.

That leaves Saudi Arabia and the hyperkinetic Bandar. In his last visit to Washington he offered a rosy report on his travels. Iran, he assured his American friends, had been taken aback by Bush's recent shows of strength in the region, by the failure of his Administration to collapse after midterm elections and by the unanimous passage of a United Nations resolution imposing sanctions on Tehran for failing to stop its nuclear program. The mullahs, he said, were worried about Shiite-Sunni conflict spreading from Iraq around the region and about an escalating conflict with the US; they were interested in tamping both down.

Bandar also told Washington that he is hoping to split Iran from Syria, reversing the manoeuvre Egypt tried. The means would be a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran over a Lebanese settlement that included authorisation of a UN tribunal to try those responsible for the murder of the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

Bandar's spin and dazzle make it tempting to think he can pull off almost anything. It's also easy to forget that he works in the interests of Saudi Arabia, not the US. The results can be disappointing. Bush got a reminder of that when Bandar brokered the "Mecca agreement" between the Palestinian leaders Abbas and Khaled Meshal of Hamas. Bush Administration policy has been to strengthen Abbas at Hamas's expense; the accord undercut that approach and all but ruined Rice's plan to begin developing a "political horizon" at a meeting with Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, this week.

That doesn't mean the old Bush family friend is not still welcome at the White House. The Palestinian deal was secondary for Bandar; if he can find a way to broker a deal that stops the Iranian nuclear program and kick-starts a dialogue between Tehran and Washington, it will be his greatest feat of all.