full-scale war between the US and Iran (1 Viewer)

I think any talk of a US military strike purely to influence the election result is paranoia.

I don't know. I wouldn't rule it out. Yassamine Mather isn't someone whos prone to hyperbole.

I want to see the mullahs overthrown from within Iran and from below, not through the imposition of a new Shah or/and the MEK.
 
World Renown Nuke Expert Nails Bibi to the Wall on Iran Bomb Threat
…by Jim W. Dean,
… and featuring Clinton Bastin, Chemical Engineer, Atomic Energy Commission, ret.

”Sure, Iran could divert a few tons of 3.5% or a ton of 20% enriched uranium hexaflouride gas for enrichment to 90+%. But what then? No one has ever made a nuclear weapon from gas.”

This week a letter was sent to President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu by Clinton Bastin, lead consultant to the IAEA and their top expert in the area of nuclear weapons design and processes.

To us the complete letter below outlines that the IAEA has been hijacked by elements unfamiliar with nuclear weapons that seem to be “tasked” with gross misrepresentations of science and physics in order to support the concept that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.

Bastin assumes these horrific errors are due to incompetence. He spent 40 years as a nuclear weapons designer for the United States involved hands on daily work in advanced physics and the most complicated and dangerous manufacturing and assembly process known to man. But many of us, on the other hand, have spent our lives hunting down conspirators and are busy still doing it.

Clinton has spent his life supporting safe nuclear energy, supporting international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and serving his country, initially in combat in World War II and in a lifetime of achievement at the Department of Energy and working with a wide variety of organizations including the IAEA and president of the 900,000 member Nuclear Workers Union. Bastin is also a retired Marine officer. ...
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/09/26/netanyahu-caught-ignoring-top-iaea-no-iran-bomb-report/
 
I don't know. I wouldn't rule it out. Yassamine Mather isn't someone whos prone to hyperbole.

Come on,any strike on Iran has the potential to ignite the whole region.
Attacking Iraq and Afghanistan is one thing,an attack on Iran would be a completely different matter.Im not saying politicians are above such maneuvers to boost their ratings but the unpredictability of what happens then should dissuade the Americans from doing anything.
 
Come on,any strike on Iran has the potential to ignite the whole region.
Attacking Iraq and Afghanistan is one thing,an attack on Iran would be a completely different matter.Im not saying politicians are above such maneuvers to boost their ratings but the unpredictability of what happens then should dissuade the Americans from doing anything.

The US electorate has no stomach for a fight with Iran.
It would not be a popular decision while their armed forces are dying in Afghanistan.

And despite all his bluster, I doubt Romney would do anything a whole lot different to what Obama is currently doing.

The sanctions have the twin effect of bringing the ayatollahs to the bargaining table and unsettling the regime.
 
Come on,any strike on Iran has the potential to ignite the whole region.
Attacking Iraq and Afghanistan is one thing,an attack on Iran would be a completely different matter.Im not saying politicians are above such maneuvers to boost their ratings but the unpredictability of what happens then should dissuade the Americans from doing anything.

I hope you are correct. But at several times its gotten very close to war. Then there is the possibility of Israel doing a solo run. Take a look at a few of the earlier articles on the site.
 
Iran coup: Tudeh’s inglorious role

Torab Saleth reviews: Ervand Abrahamian, 'The coup: 1953, the CIA and the roots of modern US-Iranian relations', New Press, 2013, pp304, £16.84

With the continuing efforts made by the self-proclaimed global imperial power, the USA, to achieve ‘regime change’ in Iran, it is timely that a book about the 1953 coup - in which the US, with the help of the British government, carried out exactly such regime change - has been published. The coup was aimed against Mohammad Mosaddegh’s National Front1 government, which had nationalised the British-controlled Iranian oil industries.

If Los Angeles-based Iranian TV stations or Facebook campaigns have given the imperialists a false impression that a nation is waiting to be liberated by the US and its allies, this book should remind them why there is in fact still a deep and widespread hostility in Iran towards the USA and Britain: precisely because of this event.

The historical irony is that the forefathers of the current dictators in Tehran were indeed part of the very same ‘pro-democracy’ coalition of forces that helped the US in its 1953 coup. The Shi’ite hierarchy was instrumental in it. Indeed the coup succeeded at the second attempt because of the help accorded by Shi’ite rent-a-crowd mullahs. The same rabble-rousers who were instrumental in helping the CIA save the shah in 1953 organised riots two decades later in support of ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Indeed, the whole calamity called the ‘Islamic Republic of Iran’ would not have come into existence if it had not been for that coup. ...
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-coup-tudeh’s-inglorious-role
 
Iran tribunal: What a legalistic shambles.

In the good old days of the Moscow trials it was customary for fallen members of the Soviet leadership to disappear from group photographs, their image wiped out of history, as they fell out of favour with Stalin. How ironic that the 21st century unholy alliance between Iran’s soft left and neo-conservatives in what is known as the Iran Tribunal seems to have adopted the same method in dealing with the embarrassing outcome of its second phase.

The Farsi version of the long-awaited final resolution never made it to the IT website and the English version1 has been either removed or hidden away somewhere where it is difficult to find.2 As the embarrassing clauses were translated into Farsi, the organisers were confronted with a barrage of criticism. The soft left has attempted to justify the disappearance of the final statement with the claim that the ‘findings’ were temporary resolutions - although the ‘prosecutor’, Payam Akhavan, and his allies consider the job done and deny the ‘temporary’ nature of the findings. ...

...When we warned the Iranian left about the dangers, we were not acting in a sectarian manner. We were saying that, contrary to their claims, they are not part of the ‘third force’ confronting both the Iranian regime and imperialist forces. Once we give free rein to the likes of Akhavan and so accept the hegemony of bourgeois forces, including those who are proud of their association with the National Endowment for Democracy, we are no longer defending the Iranian working class. On the contrary, such forces are allies of the ‘first force’ - the imperialist powers and world capitalism - irrespective of whether this betrayal is carried out consciously or not. In the same manner, apologists of one or other faction of the Islamic regime, those who refuse to call for its overthrow, should be counted within the ranks of the ‘second force’.

Far from being sectarian, Hopi was acting in a responsible way, trying to stop comrades from falling into a dangerous trap.
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-tribunal-what-legalistic-shambles
 
Iran: Boycott the vetted election, not the mass protests

The Islamic republic is bitterly divided at the top and subject to crippling international sanctions. Yassamine Mather analyses the political situation in the run-up to the June 14 presidential poll

On the last available day, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani arrived at the ministry of the interior to register himself as a presidential candidate. Rafsanjani was the Islamic republic’s fourth president, from 1989 to 1997, and is now once again standing as a ‘reformist’. In reality he is the candidate of capitalism and probably still one of the richest men in Iran. Despite that, the announcement that Rafsanjani had entered the race ‘to save the country’ generated an almost unprecedented hysteria.

There are two main explanations for his timing. The principlists (conservative, hard-line supporters of the supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei) are accusing Rafsanjani (also known as the fox because of his political cunning) of holding back before making his dramatic, last-minute move in order to surprise and spread confusion amongst his opponents. There is some truth to this claim: confident of an easy ride, principlists entered the presidential elections with at least seven serious candidates, and another 14 less serious contenders. One assumes that, had they known they would be facing such a figure, they would have tried to rally round a single candidate.

Some of Rafsanjani’s allies have claimed he was waiting for the approval of the supreme leader before putting himself forward. Two weeks ago he said he would only go ahead if Khamenei wanted him to do so, but a few days later there was a slightly different version: he would only put his name forward if the supreme leader did not object to his nomination. His telephone conversation with Khamenei1 or one his close advisers2 (depending on which version you read) only took place at 4.30pm Tehran time on May 11 - less than one and a half hours before the deadline. Rafsanjani’s daughter confirms this.3

Whatever the truth, Rafsanjani, who is now benefiting from the full support of the ‘reformist camp’ led by Mohammad Khatami, is no opponent of the Islamic regime. In fact he does not even claim to be a reformist: he is, in his own words, a “moderate”. Some consider him to be a “pragmatist conservative”4 - someone who tried to mediate between the ‘reformists’ and the conservatives after the debacle of the 2009 elections. Now he has, according to Khatami (Iran’s last ‘reformist’ president) made a “major sacrifice” and come forward to fulfil his duty to the “nation, the Islamic Republic and the faith”. ...
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-boycott-vetted-election-not-mass-protests
 
Iran: Election farce exposes regime’s crisis
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-election-farce-exposes-regime%E2%80%99s-crisis
The Iranian elections are a travesty that demands a boycott, says Yassamine Mather

Supporters and apologists of Iran’s Islamic Republic in Respect,1 Counterfire2 and the Socialist Workers Party3 have in the past told us that Iran is not a dictatorship. It has democratic elections to determine the president and the composition of its parliament ...

The regime’s 11th presidential elections have demonstrated how far removed this is from reality. Having arrested and imprisoned all serious opposition, including the regime’s own ‘reformists’, the remaining factions, despite being at each other’s throats, are all agreed that only those candidates for president who completely uphold the line of the supreme leader may be permitted to stand. So not only has the favourite of outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, been barred. So too has the moderate centrist and former president, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The omens were not good from the beginning. The supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had disowned his chosen candidate of 2009. Ahmadinejad, who came to power following a controversial vote in elections many Iranians believed to be rigged, is now considered an enemy. In fact, despite the careful vetting of candidates for this and other elected posts on religious grounds, as determined by the constitution, Iran’s clerical dictators, in the form of two supreme leaders, have ended up falling out with almost everyone who has occupied the presidency, beginning with ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who famously turned his back on the regime’s first president, Abulhassan Banisadr.

Rafsanjani, who was Khamenei’s first president, fell out with the supreme leader. So did Mohammad Khatami, a vetted, obedient servant of the regime - he was out of favour by the end of his first term and definitely an enemy by the end of his second. Last but not least, for all his earlier support for Ahmadinejad against leaders of the green ‘reformist’ movement, the supreme leader fell out with his chosen president in the first months of his second term and in the end it could hardly be any worse.

What is different this year is that the entire electoral process has become a joke even before the election campaign has started. Because Khamenei was determined to reduce electioneering from months to only three weeks, it was not until May 21, just 24 days before the polls, that Iranians got to know the final list of candidates. However, Khamenei had apparently been concerned that the absence of any known figure, never mind a controversial one, might lead to a lacklustre campaign and no doubt this played a part in the supreme leader’s quiet encouragement of Rafsanjani to enter the foray. ...
 
This article could go on a few threads but I believe this one is the most appropriate. Full text at link.

Progressive sentiments amidst reactionary illusions

Gilbert Achcar has strongly objected to being described as a ‘social-imperialist’ in the Weekly Worker. So what is the truth about him? Yassamine Mather investigates

Gilbert Achcar does not fit the description of a stereotypical social-imperialist. First of all, he is passionately pro-Palestinian. His book, The Arabs and the holocaust: the Arab-Israeli war of narratives,1 is a valuable study of the myths created around the formation of the state of Israel. He describes himself as anti-war and indeed his articles written at the time of the US invasion of Iraq were unambiguously anti-war.

Achcar has distanced himself from both conspiracy theorists and those who defend reactionary dictators in the Arab world - those who claim that the enemy of the US is necessarily a friend or that Muslim fundamentalists are the ‘anti-imperialist allies of the international working class’. In Hands Off the People of Iran we have always argued against those who confuse reactionary anti-western rhetoric with anti-imperialism and we recommend Achcar’s article, ‘Eleven theses on the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism’.2 Achcar’s stance on such questions has been consistent. He is also right when he argues against the view held by many on the left that US wars in the Middle East are all to do with oil.

The only time I met Achcar (and shared a platform with him) was at a conference in Lausanne in 2003.3 The main difference in our two approaches lay in my insistence that the left should support the Iranian working class’s call for the overthrow of the capitalist Islamic Republic of Iran. (From memory GA was less critical of Tehran. He emphasised the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam, the latter being the religion of the oppressed, he said.)

Apart from that instance, as far as Iran is concerned, he has made some useful comments: for example, in criticising president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s holocaust denial, in clarifying the progressive characteristics of the Iranian opposition movement in 20094 and there is no doubt that until 2011 all his writing fell on the right side of the thin line between opposing both imperialism and the Islamic regime, on the one hand, and support for regime change from above, be it in the form of a military intervention or sanctions, on the other.


http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/progressive-sentiments-amidst-reactionary-illusions
 
Iran: No let-up on sanctions
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-no-let-sanctions

How long after the inauguration of Rowhani before disillusionment sets in? Yassamine Mather discusses the limitations of Hassan Rowhani

Iran’s new president, Hassan Rowhani, will take office on August 3. He faces major internal as well as international problems. It will be interesting to see how a man who describes himself as a ‘centrist’ will try to reconcile the warring factions of the Islamic Republic, but also the increasing divide between ordinary Iranians - victims of sanctions, poor economic management, as well political repression - with an increasingly paranoid religious dictatorship.

However, the new president’s biggest and most immediate problem will be the nuclear issue. He was, after all, elected on the basis of promises to ‘resolve’ it and thus remove sanctions. In the month and a half since his election he has already faced some serious setbacks, particularly over sanctions.

Iran is now facing more sanctions than the day he was elected - including the academic boycott of research by Iranian scientists and engineers. They have only just begun to take effect, even though they were passed by the US Congress and approved by the Senate in early 2013.

In what is an unprecedented move against Iranian academics, major publishers are instructing journal editors that, in accordance with US department of the treasury regulations, they should not be involved in the management and processing of any manuscript through peer review with any author or co-author who is acting directly (as an employee) or indirectly on behalf of the government of Iran - which includes “any political subdivision, agency or instrumentality thereof, [including] the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. ...
 
Interesting documenty about Iran in the 60's 70's

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In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq's favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration's long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn't disclose."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/nati...-involvement-saddams-nerve-gas-attacks/68698/
 

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