Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?

[Kilo]

Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?
Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

http://www.newsweek.com/media/93/Fareed-thumb7.jpg

By Fareed Zakaria
NEWSWEEK


Updated: 1:57 PM ET Oct 20, 2007

At a meeting with reporters last week, President Bush said that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." These were not the barbs of some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This was the president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the [I]knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.
The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

When the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami was elected president in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figurehead. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the unelected "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn't have a nuclear button yet and won't for at least three to eight years, according to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore. But these are just facts.)

In a speech last week, Rudy Giuliani said that while the Soviet Union and China could be deterred during the cold war, Iran can't be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a "residual rationality," he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao—who casually ordered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insurgencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposed them—were rational folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has done what that compares? One of the bizarre twists of the current Iran hysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

If I had to choose whom to describe as a madman, North Korea's Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad, I do not think there is really any contest. A decade ago Kim Jong Il allowed a famine to kill 2 million of his own people, forcing the others to survive by eating grass, while he imported gallons of expensive French wine. He has sold nuclear technology to other rogue states and threatened his neighbors with test-firings of rockets and missiles. Yet the United States will be participating in international relief efforts to Pyongyang worth billions of dollars.

We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003.

The one time we seriously negotiated with Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to create a new political order in the country. Bush's representative to the Bonn conference, James Dobbins, says that "the Iranians were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance to make the final concessions that we asked for." Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence. The then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, "looked down and rustled his papers." No reply was ever sent back to the Iranians. Why bother? They're mad.

Last year, the Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bush and Vice President **** Cheney, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal predicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, President Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he explained, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the Prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world" (my emphasis). This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/57346

[dangerclose]

The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years



Gee, I wonder why? (Misunderstood leader circled in red)

http://i24.tinypic.com/2hwd5pe.jpg

[Kilo]

Resign, Retire, Renounce

What should generals do if Bush orders a foolish attack on Iran?

By Fred Kaplan

Posted Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007, at 7:17 PM ET

From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to U.S. Central Command, most of America's military leaders have expressed wariness about, if not outright opposition to, the idea of bombing Iran.

So, if President George W. Bush starts to prepare—or actually issues the order—for an attack, what should the generals do? Disobey? Rally resistance from within? Resign in protest? Retire quietly? Or salute and execute the mission?

The appropriateness of military dissent is a hot topic among senior officers these days in conferences, internal papers, and backroom discussions, all of which set off emotional arguments and genuine soul-searching.

"What should we have done in the run-up to the war in Iraq?" the generals are asking. "What should I do the next time?" is the tacit question stirring the conscience.

At play here is a tension between two fundamental principles of the military: the duty to provide civilian decision-makers with unvarnished military advice on issues of warfare and the obligation to obey all lawful orders by superiors. Under the Constitution, the president is superior to the highest-ranked general or admiral.

For the past few years, many officers have wrung their hands over the top generals' failure to assert their views as strongly as they should have during the planning stages of the Iraq war. Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted on invading with one-third to half as many troops as the generals were recommending. They knew that disaster loomed, yet after the first round of disagreement, they said nothing.

In April 2006, three years after the war began, six retired generals spoke out against the war plans and called for Rumsfeld's resignation. Critics of the war lauded this "generals' revolt (http://www.slate.com/id/2139777/)," but many active-duty officers—especially the junior and midlevel officers (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/magazine/26military-t.html) actually doing the fighting—were repelled. They asked: Where were these generals when they were still wearing the uniform, when their dissent might have meant something? How could they have led us into battle while having so little confidence in the battle plan?

Yet some senior officers believe dissent has no place within the military, especially once a decision is made. Others wouldn't go that far, but the guidelines are murky on where to draw the line. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is clear: All military personnel, including officers, are obligated to obey "lawful orders (http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm92.htm)." In fact, it is a crime, punishable by court-martial, not to obey. The qualifier—"lawful order"—is important: It pre-empts the Nazi defense of war crimes ("I was just following orders" is no excuse if the orders were unlawful), and it's a legitimate way out for conscientious soldiers who do not want to take part in atrocities like My Lai or torture sessions like Abu Ghraib.

But it's one thing for a sergeant to disobey a lieutenant in the frenzy of battle. It's quite another for generals to declare a president's order "unlawful." That's not an act of conscience; it's a coup d'état. (There are some circumstances that could confuse the most honorable officer. For instance, in the last weeks of Richard Nixon's presidency, when Nixon was drinking heavily and teetering on the edge of sanity, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to check with him (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198308/hersh-ford) before executing any military orders from the White House. Even then, it's worth noting, the chain of command was circumvented by the civilian defense secretary, not by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.)

Outright disobedience of a presidential order, then, is an option that no senior U.S. officer wants even to contemplate—and we should be thankful for that. But in a widely circulated article titled "Knowing When To Salute (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB798.pdf)," published in the July 2007 newsletter of the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, retired Lt. Col. Leonard Wong and retired Col. Douglas Lovelace laid out nine options short of disobedience that a senior officer might take when political leaders resist military advice.

If the situation involves little or no threat to national security, they write, an officer can request reassignment, decline a promotion, or take early retirement.

If it involves a high threat to national security, there are several ascending courses of dissent: "public information" (a euphemism for leaking to the press?), writing a scholarly paper, testifying before Congress, engaging in "joint effort" (plotting?)—and, finally, if all else fails to change things, resigning.

There is a huge distinction between retiring and resigning. When officers retire, they do so with full benefits, health care, and continued membership in the fraternity of military officers. When they resign, they give up all of that.

This is why no U.S. general has resigned in more than 40 years—and the last one to do so later asked, without success, for reinstatement.
Yet Wong and Lovelace argued that mere retirement "should not be an option when the threat to national security is high. … It may be personally satisfying to leave the distasteful aspects of a policy battle, but it ignores a responsibility to the nation and the [military] profession to do what is right."

In other words, if generals want to protest an impending decision, and if that decision affects (in the generals' view, if it gravely harms) national security, they should fall on their swords, and falling on swords unavoidably hurts. If it doesn't hurt, it's not really falling on a sword. Wong likens it to civil disobedience: Those who engage in that act do so knowing they face jail. Similarly, if an officer decides that he cannot in good conscience carry out the obligations of his commission, he should give up the commission and the benefits that go with it. Ducking out quietly—giving up the responsibilities but not the rewards—is a cop-out.

Generals who stop short of considering resignation are not necessarily selfish. For there is another distinction to draw between the generals' revolt over Iraq and a hypothetical revolt over, say, a decision to attack Iran.
The retired generals who spoke out in 2006 criticized not so much the decision to invade Iraq but rather the way that the invasion was planned and carried out—specifically, Rumsfeld's refusal to send what they considered enough troops.

To many officers, these generals—and many other officers who said nothing—had the right, even the obligation, to speak their minds on troop levels, tactics, and strategy. However, in disputes that involve policy, many of those same officers believe they have no business speaking out in public or even speaking out at all.

Retired Col. Don Snider, a professor at the Army War College who has written extensively on civil-military relations, says officers can engage in dissent only on very narrow grounds. "Officers are the servants, not the masters," he said in a phone interview. "If they can't accept that, they should get out." However, he emphasized, they should get out quietly—that is, they should retire (and maybe explain their actions a few years down the road, after the crisis has blown over). To resign in protest would mean injecting themselves into issues—of policy, politics, and foreign policy—that go beyond a military officer's professional expertise and ethos.

One officer who often thinks about these issues, but who asked not to be identified, agrees with Snider to a point—officers, he says, shouldn't go "outside the lane" in their dissent—but adds that there's a "fine line" between political policy and military judgment. For instance, if a president goes to war on the basis of faulty or jiggered intelligence findings, the decision isn't strictly "policy," since intelligence analysis is also among an officer's professional tasks.

These are the sorts of fine lines that senior officers are mulling and skirmishing over with great intensity right now. If the run-up to Iraq were somehow replayed, it's a fair bet that one or two generals would resign—or retire, then speak out more promptly than they did. (Gen. Greg Newbold, who was the Joint Staff's director of operations at the start of the Bush administration, retired shortly before the invasion but didn't speak out for three years—a lapse that, he later wrote, he regretted.)

If there is a run-up to an Iranian war, what would the generals do? This is not an easy question. But here is my proposal (an easy proposal, some would charge, correctly, since I'm not in the military): If the top officers up and down the chain of command all agreed that an attack on Iran would be a disaster, on whatever grounds, they should do all they can to sway the president—and anyone who has influence over the president—against it.

They should arrange to be called before congressional committees and to be asked awkward questions, which would elicit their critical replies. At the final hour, they should threaten to retire or resign en masse and, if that didn't work, they should follow through. (Even if they quietly retired, the fact that three or four or six or eight generals did so at once would have some impact.)

This is a dangerous business. It shouldn't be undertaken often (and even on this outing, it should be done only in coordination with, perhaps at the behest of, civilian officials who agree with their positions—say, the secretaries of defense and state). But if the bombing led to disaster, as many of these officers now believe it would, they must realize—and, given the experience in Iraq, they probably do realize—that they would share the responsibility. The question is: Will anticipation of this responsibility lead them to do something beforehand, if only as recompense for having done too little before the disaster of Iraq?


Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate. He can be reached at war_stories@hotmail.com.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2176122/

[Kak]

Gee, I wonder why? (Misunderstood leader circled in red)

http://i24.tinypic.com/2hwd5pe.jpg

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/12/cia.iranpresident/index.html

[dangerclose]

You're right, they all look alike.



I'll take the word of those who spent 444 days there, but thanks.

[Rictor]

The claim that Iran is a threat of any kind rests on several assumptions, none of which are true.

1. Iran can and soon will acquire a nuclear weapon.
The IAEA has seen no sings of a nuclear program and Iran has stated numerous times that it's not interested in nukes.

2. The Iranian government is irrational and crazy enough to use nuclear weapons.
The government, like any government, is rational in protecting its self-interests. It is not suicidal.

3. Iran is aggressively trying to dominate the Middle-East.
Iran is a Persian Shia state who's influence is severely limited, who's economy is not doing well, who's military is 20 year behind the times, who is politically opposed by nearly all Arab states and who's oil is running out.

Ergo, Iran, even a nuclear Iran, is not a threat of any kind.

[0rphie]

The claim that Iran is a threat of any kind rests on several assumptions, none of which are true.

1. Iran can and soon will acquire a nuclear weapon.
The IAEA has seen no sings of a nuclear program and Iran has stated numerous times that it's not interested in nukes.

2. The Iranian government is irrational and crazy enough to use nuclear weapons.
The government, like any government, is rational in protecting its self-interests. It is not suicidal.

3. Iran is aggressively trying to dominate the Middle-East.
Iran is a Persian Shia state who's influence is severely limited, who's economy is not doing well, who's military is 20 year behind the times, who is politically opposed by nearly all Arab states and who's oil is running out.

Ergo, Iran, even a nuclear Iran, is not a threat of any kind.
relax, some people just have to have enemies. now the bad guy is Iran. not because it's bad just because it got oil.

[Kilgor]

relax, some people just have to have enemies. now the bad guy is Iran. not because it's bad just because it got oil.

Now ?

try 1979, decades ago. And ever since its declared some kind of war against the west.

[LMAV]

relax, some people just have to have enemies. now the bad guy is Iran. not because it's bad just because it got oil.

Yeah, lets just pretend they haven't been ramming "death to America" down their population's throats for decades! You do realize they actually have anti-American propaganda on buildings in their cities? I dare you to find something similar here in the US.

[0rphie]

I dare you to find something similar here in the US. this forum is not enough? I have never been to Iran, so I have not seen those building with anti-american slogan or whatever you refer to. In my whole life I met only two people from Iran. Do you think Iranians should be pro American when we changed their government in 1953?

[0rphie]

Now ?

try 1979, decades ago. And ever since its declared some kind of war against the west.
try 1953. and British before that.

[tehran2002]

Yeah, lets just pretend they haven't been ramming "death to America" down their population's throats for decades! You do realize they actually have anti-American propaganda on buildings in their cities? I dare you to find something similar here in the US.
Just look at the US government. Just because you don’t see pictures of Iranian “terrorists” on your buildings it doesn’t mean that the US is not spreading anti-Iranian propaganda. Years of sanctions, attempts to isolate Iran financially, economically, politically lead by the US government is not spreading anti-Iranian propaganda to you?

And to the people who keep brining up the 444 day hostage crises. You guys are clueless about the situation . Although it was wrong to take over embassy you have to examine why the students took over the embassy in the first place. It was because the US allowed the dictator Shah into America. About 30 years prior to that ago the US did the same thing and then the CIA coup occurred in 1953 which dismantled the democratic government of Dr. Mosaddag and brought back the dictator Shah. So the Iranians had every reason to be suspicious and mad at the same when the US decided to allow the Shah into their country . And at that time Shah was the most hated figure in Iran. I couldn’t imagine what the US would do to Iran, if Iran allowed Bin Ladin into the country after 9/11.

[SOG]

Years of sanctions, attempts to isolate Iran financially, economically, politically lead by the US government is not spreading anti-Iranian propaganda to you?


so when russia and china also agree iran should be santioned because its being foolish thats the powerful USA pulling one over on them also? cmon, bull crap.


Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?
Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

and stop. no point in reading the rest.

[tehran2002]

so when russia and china also agree iran should be santioned because its being foolish thats the powerful USA pulling one over on them also? cmon, bull crap.



and stop. no point in reading the rest.
Last time I checked China and Russia were opposing US sanctions and even the fact that Iran was trying to obtain a nuclear bomb . Putin said Iran was not a real threat . What amazes me is the most is that how simple and idiotic Americans can be at times . After the lies and the failures of Iraq those same Americans are now targeting Iran , didn’t you learn your lesson already ?

[Banko]

try 1953. and British before that.
Guess this moron hasn't heard of the hostage situation that occured in Iran.

[Kilgor]

try 1953. and British before that.

If you really wannta be a smart arse, try WW2 when the Iranians threw their lot in with the germans.

[Rictor]

So did Italy, Japan, Romania, Finland and like half the world. Actions in WW2 count for nothing.

The point is that a nuclear Iran has not attacked or invaded anyone for a century. They don't have the resources to dominate anyone. They pose no military threat. The notion that they're going to acquire nukes tomorrow and use them to conquer the Middle East and spread their revolution is absurd.

[kraf001]

Gee, I wonder why? (Misunderstood leader circled in red)

http://i24.tinypic.com/2hwd5pe.jpg

I love it when ppl tell a lie so many times even they believe it themselves... poor Ahmadinejad if only Iranians gave 1/1000 of the amount of credit you give him he could become supreme leader...

[kraf001]

If you really wannta be a smart arse, try WW2 when the Iranians threw their lot in with the germans.

OH WOW... honestly WOW... so Reza Khan Pahlavi (Iran's king at the time) felt like heading it off with the Germans and now all of a sudden Iran was involved in WWII... can you name me a battle or anything... a small moment that any Iranian was involved in WWII...

it is pathetic really the "lets go after Iran" crowed have basically nothing to support their argument so this the best they can come up with... that Iran was with the nazis? like how? because we let the Jews take refuge in our land? because what we let the allied forces to invade Iran from every corner without firing a bullet and then change our king and install their own puppet Shah?...

it is ok though maybe 100 years down the track you can brainwash ppl so much so they will believe that Iranians fought against Americans in WWII... find it funny that ppl actually watched miss Carolina and were surprised by her ignorance!

[dangerclose]

it is ok though maybe 100 years down the track you can brainwash ppl so much so they will believe that Iranians fought against Americans in WWII... find it funny that ppl actually watched miss Carolina and were surprised by her ignorance!



Actually it was Miss Teen South Carolina. Maybe you are one of the ones from South Africa or the Iraq who doesn't have a map. Like such as.

[kraf001]

Actually it was Miss Teen South Carolina. Maybe you are one of the ones from South Africa or the Iraq who doesn't have a map. Like such as.
LOL I missed a "South", at least I didn't get a whole continent wrong... so I take it you agree to the point I was trying to make and the only thing wrong with my post was using Carolina instead of south Carolina... thanks for the correction though...

[budgie]

This thread has gone way off topic. Sure Iran has been a regional nuisance since 1979 - under successive leaders but only one regime. Ahmedinejad is only one of these leaders and can hardly be likened to Hitler or Stalin. In fact he's more a mouthpiece for the Mullahs than anything else.

[Kilgor]

OH WOW... honestly WOW... so Reza Khan Pahlavi (Iran's king at the time) felt like heading it off with the Germans and now all of a sudden Iran was involved in WWII... can you name me a battle or anything... a small moment that any Iranian was involved in WWII...

it is pathetic really the "lets go after Iran" crowed have basically nothing to support their argument so this the best they can come up with... that Iran was with the nazis? like how? because we let the Jews take refuge in our land? because what we let the allied forces to invade Iran from every corner without firing a bullet and then change our king and install their own puppet Shah?...

it is ok though maybe 100 years down the track you can brainwash ppl so much so they will believe that Iranians fought against Americans in WWII... find it funny that ppl actually watched miss Carolina and were surprised by her ignorance!

Go check wiki.

Then come back and tell us why Iran was a strategically important area in ww2...

[kraf001]

Go check wiki.

Then come back and tell us why Iran was a strategically important area in ww2...

that is not what you said though.

[SOG]

Last time I checked China and Russia were opposing US sanctions and even the fact that Iran was trying to obtain a nuclear bomb . Putin said Iran was not a real threat . What amazes me is the most is that how simple and idiotic Americans can be at times . After the lies and the failures of Iraq those same Americans are now targeting Iran , didn’t you learn your lesson already ?

last time you checked?


PARIS, July 12 — Russia and China, crossing a diplomatic threshold in the effort to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, joined the United States and Europe on Wednesday by agreeing to seek a United Nations Security Council resolution ordering Iran to freeze some nuclear activities, or face sanctions.

Published: July 13, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/world/13diplo.html

[Kilo]

last time you checked?



Published: July 13, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/world/13diplo.html



you should read the news more often

the UN won´t do nothing drastic until November, they are waiting for the report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)




http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/8263/newsimg119742970006qu2.jpg
October 16, 2007

Putin: Iran nuke plans 'peaceful'

Story Highlights
Russian President Putin backs Iran's "peaceful" nuclear program during visit

Putin in Tehran to attend summit of Caspian Sea nations to discuss oil rights

Iran, Russia set to discuss Iranian nuclear program, U.S. push for sanctions

Putin downplay rumors of assassination plot; Iran says claims are "baseless"
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran should be allowed to pursue its nuclear program for peaceful purposes, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday during the first visit to the country by a Kremlin leader since 1943.
Putin, who is in Tehran to attend a summit of Caspian Sea nations, said that he and the other leaders agreed that "peaceful nuclear activities must be allowed" in the region.
"The Iranians are cooperating with Russian nuclear agencies and the main objectives are peaceful objectives," he said.
Russia is building Iran's first nuclear power plant and has resisted moves by the U.S. and its allies to impose stronger U.N. sanctions against Tehran.
On Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterated the Bush administration's stance that "all options" must be kept "on the table" in confronting the threats posed by Iran -- a reference to the option of using military action against the long-time U.S. adversary.
"We should have no illusions about the nature of this regime or its leaders -- about their designs for their nuclear program (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/nuclear_proliferation), their willingness to live up to their rhetoric, their intentions for Iraq, or their ambitions in the Gulf region," Gates said in a speech to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.
The leaders of Iran (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/iran), Russia (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/russia), Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan also met Tuesday to reach agreement on issues relating to the sharing and regulating of the Caspian Sea -- the world's largest inland body of water.
Speaking afterwards, Putin said that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third parties intent on military action against other countries in the region -- a reference to rumors that the U.S. planned to use Azerbaijan as a base for a possible attack against Iran, The Associated Press reported.
"We are saying that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state," Putin said.
"The Caspian Sea is an inland sea and it only belongs to the Caspian states, therefore only they are entitled to have their ships and military forces here," added Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Putin, defying reports of an assassination plot against him, was greeted by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as he stepped off his plane at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport.
During a news conference Monday after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Wiesbaden, Germany, Putin (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/vladimir_putin) said rumors of an attempt on his life would not stop his plans.
"Of course I will travel to Iran," Putin said. "If I reacted to these kinds of rumors every time, I could never leave the house."
Iranian officials denied there was an assassination plot against Putin, with a Foreign Ministry spokesman describing rumors of a possible terrorist action during the Putin visit baseless.
"Spreading this kind of totally false news lacks any value and cannot damage the trend of the prepared programs," spokesman Mohammadali Hosseini told the Iranian FARS news agency.
Hosseini blamed the rumor on Western media, particularly the U.S. media, saying the report was "made up by the enemies of relations between Iran and Russia to create a psychological war."
Putin's visit is the first by a leader in the Kremlin to Iran since Joseph Stalin's World War II conference meeting with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
"Putin's trip to Tehran is a show of Russia's independence in global affairs. Putin, who approaches the end of his term, wants to demonstrate that he wouldn't cave in to the U.S. pressure," said Alexander Pikayev, an expert on Iran with Russia's Institute for World Economy and International Relations, in a report carried by AP.
Putin's schedule also includes meetings with Ahmadinejad and Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, AP said.

[SOG]

that has NOTHING to do with what i was talking about. he said:


Last time I checked China and Russia were opposing US sanctions

no, they are formally inquiring as whether to agree to sanctions or not. simple. its not some conspiracy made up by the US. many, many countries agree with the US and even some of the US strongest critics are further investigating. meanwhile a big "nothing" was blown up in syria by the israelis. another zionist conspiracy?

[Kilo]

Iran
Who’s the boss in Iran?

Oct 24th 2007 | NEW YORK
From Economist.com
Reading the tea-leaves of an Iranian resignation


AFPhttp://www.economist.com/images/ga/2007w43/Iran.jpg


IT IS seldom clear precisely who calls the shots in Iran. The resignation of Ali Larijani, secretary of the national security council and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator for the past two years, has stirred a flurry of speculation about the direction of Iranian policy, at home and abroad. In truth, no one outside the inner caucus of the country’s leadership knows why he went or what his departure means for policy.


Mr Larijani is widely viewed as clever, pragmatic, and increasingly uncomfortable with the belligerence of Iran’s populist president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But he is no softy, no secularist and no liberal. The son and son-in-law of powerful ayatollahs, he ran the state broadcasting for ten years until 2004; during that time, he was noted for seeking to expunge foreign influence from the airwaves. Before that he had been minister of culture and Islamic guidance. Though appointed to run the national security council by the president, he has long been considered close to the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who has the last word in every aspect of Iranian policy—and therefore plainly outranks and outguns President Ahmadinejad, who nonetheless captures more of the world’s fearful attention.


In the past two years, the European diplomats who have been negotiating with Mr Larijani over Iran’s nuclear plans feel he is flexible up to a point—and certainly worth trying to convince that the merits of a “grand bargain” (whereby Iran would get financial and trade incentives as well as help in developing nuclear power for civil purposes) outweigh the risks of building a nuclear bomb that have already led to UN sanctions and could even lead to war.


In any event, Mr Larijani has sounded frustrated by the mood of rigidity and bellicosity in his president’s office. An Iranian news agency says he had often offered to resign before. The president may be tightening his grip on the nuclear portfolio. He and Mr Larijani are thought to have repeatedly clashed. When the president declared recently at the UN that the nuclear dossier was “closed”, Mr Larijani’s job plainly began to look irrelevant.
Moreover, the background of his replacement, Saeed Jalili, has alarmed the Europeans (Britain, France and Germany) who have been mandated by the West to negotiate with Iran. A former head of the department for America and Europe in the foreign ministry, he is a close friend and ideological ally of Mr Ahmadinejad and has echoed his refrain that there is really nothing to negotiate about.


But the most notable sign of discord in among Iranian policy-makers was a letter signed by no fewer than 183 out of parliament's 290 members praising Mr Larijani in what was widely seen as a lament for his departure. Mr Khamenei’s foreign-policy adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, who was foreign minister for nearly 16 years until 1997, also publicly regretted Mr Larijani’s demise—and may well have been expressing his boss’s sentiments.


Plainly, Iran’s leadership is not at one. The reformers, once led by Muhammad Khatami, who was president from 1997 to 2005, seem demoralised and weak. But the conservatives look increasingly divided between the radicals, led by Mr Ahmadinejad, and more pragmatic figures, such as Mr Larijani. The president is becoming unpopular, largely because he has failed to improve the material lot of the poor who elected him and because his belligerence over the nuclear issue has isolated Iran in the world and made Iranians frightened of the prospect of being bombed. According to one poll, half of those who voted for him in 2005 would not do so again.

The big question is the state of relations between the president and the Supreme Leader. Does their apparent disagreement, at least over the style of nuclear diplomacy, mean that Mr Khamenei is moving towards a more flexible negotiating position—and may perhaps be more amenable to reform in other spheres too? “Khamenei is the new Khatami”, hopefully muses Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst of Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in New York. A rumour is being aired that people around Mr Khamenei may be planning to oust Mr Ahmadinejad when his term ends in 2009—perhaps to replace him with Mr Larijani. But that is no easy task. Mr Larijani bid for the post before, in 2005, and got a paltry 6% of the vote. Mr Ahmadinejad may keep nerves jangling for quite a while yet.

[gaijinsamurai]

Zakaria is right on.
Ahmadinejad may be a troublemaker, but in no way is he in the same class as Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. Only someone who is completely ignorant of the historical facts regrding these three dictators would class a ranting fool who is little more than a figurehead in with them.

[Hollis]

Zakaria is right on.
Ahmadinejad may be a troublemaker, but in no way is he in the same class as Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. Only someone who is completely ignorant of the historical facts regrding these three dictators would class a ranting fool who is little more than a figurehead in with them.


I agree, extreme comparison are rediculous. I Still think Ahmadinejad play Xerxes in the movie 300. The camera angle is what made Ahmadinejad look taller.

CJ, has the photo somewhere.

[Molosi]

and stop. no point in reading the rest.

True. Ignorance is bliss.

[Kilo]

SPIEGEL ONLINE - October 25, 2007, 03:32 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,513572,00.html
US WAR ON IRAN

'Closer to Reality'

By Gregor Peter Schmitz and Cordula Meyer in Washington
Washington society has been chattering about the risk of war with Tehran. It's an open secret that Vice President **** Cheney has made bombing plans, but even high-ranking military experts think an attack would lead to world economic chaos, or even what George W. Bush calls 'World War III.'


US Vice President **** Cheney -- the power behind the throne, the eminence grise, the man with the (very) occasional grandfatherly smile -- is notorious for his propensity for secretiveness and behind-the-scenes manipulation. He's capable of anything, say friends as well as enemies. Given this reputation, it's no big surprise that Cheney has already asked for a backroom analysis of how a war with Iran might begin.


In the scenario concocted by Cheney's strategists, Washington's first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran's uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Tehran would retaliate with its own strike, providing the US with an excuse to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran.


This information was leaked by an official close to the vice president. Cheney himself hasn't denied engaging in such war games. For years, in fact, he's been open about his opinion that an attack on Iran, a member of US President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil," is inevitable.


Given these not-too-secret designs, Democrats and Republicans alike have wondered what to make of the still mysterious Israeli bombing run in Syria on Sept. 6. Was it part of an existing war plan? A test run, perhaps? For days after the attack, one question dominated conversation at Washington receptions: How great is the risk of war, really?


Grandiose Plans, East and West

In the September strike, Israeli bombers were likely targeting a nuclear reactor under construction, parts of which are alleged to have come from North Korea. It is possible that key secretaries in the Bush cabinet even tried to stop Israel. To this day, the administration has neither confirmed nor commented on the attack.


Nevertheless, in Washington, Israel's strike against Syria has revived the specter of war with Iran. For the neoconservatives it could represent a glimmer of hope that the grandiose dream of a democratic Middle East has not yet been buried in the ashes of Iraq. But for realists in the corridors of the State Department and the Pentagon, military action against Iran is a nightmare they have sought to avert by asking a simple question: "What then?"


The Israeli strike, or something like it, could easily mark the beginning of the "World War III," which President Bush warned against last week. With his usual apocalyptic rhetoric, he said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could lead the region to a new world war if his nation builds a nuclear bomb.


Conditions do look ripe for disaster. Iran continues to acquire and develop the fundamental prerequisites for a nuclear weapon. The mullah regime receives support -- at least moral support, if not technology -- from a newly strengthened Russia, which these days reaches for every chance to provoke the United States. President Vladimir Putin's own (self-described) "grandiose plan" to restore Russia's armed forces includes a nuclear buildup.



The war in Iraq continues to drag on without an end in sight or even an opportunity for US troops to withdraw in a way that doesn't smack of retreat. In Afghanistan, NATO troops are struggling to prevent a return of the Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists. The Palestinian conflict could still reignite on any front.


In Washington, Bush has 15 months left in office. He may have few successes to show for himself, but he's already thinking of his legacy. Bush says he wants diplomacy to settle the nuclear dispute with Tehran, and hopes international pressure will finally convince Ahmadinejad to come to his senses. Nevertheless, the way pressure has been building in Washington, preparations for war could be underway.

In late September, the US Senate voted to declare the 125,000-man Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. High-ranking US generals have accused Iran of waging a "proxy war" against the United States through its support of Shiite militias in Iraq. And strategists at the Pentagon, apparently at Cheney's request, have developed detailed plans for an attack against Tehran.


Instead of the previous scenario of a large-scale bombardment of the country's many nuclear facilities, the current emphasis is, once again, on so-called surgical strikes, primarily against the quarters of the Revolutionary Guards. This sort of attack would be less massive than a major strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.


Conservative think tanks and pundits who sense this could be their last chance to implement their agenda in the Middle East have supported and disseminated such plans in the press. Despite America's many failures in Iraq, these hawks have urged the weakened president to act now, accusing him of having lost sight of his principal agenda and no longer daring to apply his own doctrine of pre-emptive strikes.


Sheer Lunacy?

The notion of war with Iran has spilled over into other circles, too. Last Monday Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the US House of Representatives, made it clear that the president would first need Congressional approval to launch an attack. Meanwhile, Republican candidates for the White House have debated whether they would even allow such details to get in their way. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said he would consult his attorneys to determine whether the US Constitution does, in fact, require a president to ask for Congressional approval before going to war. Vietnam veteran John McCain said war with Iran was "maybe closer to reality than we are discussing tonight."


Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has also adopted a hawkish stance, voting in favor of the Senate measure to classify the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Her rivals criticized Clinton for giving the administration a blank check to go to war.

The US military is building a base in Iraq less than 10 kilometers (about six miles) from Iran's border. The facility, known as Combat Outpost Shocker, is meant for American soldiers preventing Iranian weapons from being smuggled into Iraq. But it's also rumored that Bush authorized US intelligence agencies in April to run sabotage missions against the mullah regime on Iranian soil.


Gary Sick is an expert on Iran who served as a military adviser under three presidents. He believes that such preparations mark a significant shift in the government's strategy. "Since August," says Sick, "the emphasis is no longer on the Iranian nuclear threat," but on Iran's support for terrorism in Iraq. "This is a complete change and is potentially dangerous."


It would be relatively easy for Bush to prove that Tehran, by supporting insurgents in Iraq, is responsible for the deaths of American soldiers. It might be harder to prove that Iran's nuclear plans pose an immediate threat to the world. Besides, the nuclear argument is reminiscent of an embarrassing precedent, when the Bush administration used the claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- which he didn't -- as a reason to invade Iraq. Even if the evidence against Tehran proves to be more damning, the American public will find it difficult to swallow this argument again.


The forces urging a diplomatic resolution also look stronger than they were before Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants the next step to be a third round of even tighter sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. Rice has powerful allies at the Pentagon: Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral William Fallon, head of US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces throughout the region.


Rice and her cohorts all favor diplomacy, partly because they know the military is under strain. After four years in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US lacks manpower for another major war, especially one against a relatively well-prepared adversary. "For many senior people at the Pentagon, the CIA and the State Department, a war would be sheer lunacy," says security expert Sick.


Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and now a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, agrees. A war against Tehran would be "a disaster for the entire world," says Riedel, who worries about a "battlefield extending from the Mediterranean to the Indian subcontinent." Nevertheless, he believes there is a "realistic risk of a military conflict," because both sides look willing to carry things to the brink.


On the one hand, says Riedel, Iran is playing with fire, challenging the West by sending weapons to Shiite insurgents in Iraq. On the other hand, hotheads in Washington are by no means powerless. Although many neoconservative hawks have left the Bush administration, Cheney remains their reliable partner. "The vice president is the closest adviser to the president, and a dominant figure," says Riedel. "One shouldn't underestimate how much power he still wields."


'Is it 1938 Again?'

Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran last week also played into the hands of hardliners in Washington, who read it as proof that Putin isn't serious about joining the West's effort to convince Tehran to abandon its drive for a nuclear weapon. Moreover, the countries bordering the Caspian Sea, including Central Asian nations Washington has courted energetically in recent years, have said they would not allow a war against Tehran to be launched from their territory.


Cheney derives much of his support from hawks outside the administration who fear their days are as numbered as the President's. "The neocons see Iran as their last chance to prove something," says analyst Riedel. This aim is reflected in their tone. Conservative columnist Norman Podhoretz, for example -- a father figure to all neocons -- wrote in the Wall Street Journal that he "hopes and prays" that Bush will finally bomb Iran. Podhoretz sees the United States engaged in a global war against "Islamofascism," a conflict he defines as World War IV, and he likens Iran to Nazi Germany. "Is it 1938 again?" he asks in a speech he repeats regularly at conferences.


Podhoretz is by no means an eccentric outsider. He now serves as a senior foreign-policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani. President Bush has also met with Podhoretz at the White House to hear his opinions.

Nevertheless, most experts in Washington warn against attacking Tehran. They assume the Iranians would retaliate. "It would be foolish to believe surgical strikes will be enough," says Riedel, who believes that precision attacks would quickly escalate to war.


Former presidential adviser Sick thinks Iran would strike back with terrorist attacks. "The generals of the Revolutionary Guard have had several years to think about asymmetrical warfare," says Sick. "They probably have a few rather interesting ideas."


According to Sick, detonating well-placed bombs at oil terminals in the Persian Gulf would be enough to wreak havoc. "Insurance costs would skyrocket, causing oil prices to triple and triggering a global recession," Sick warns. "The economic consequences would be enormous, far greater than anything we have experienced with Iraq so far."


Because the catastrophic consequences of an attack on Iran are obvious, many in Washington have a fairly benign take on the current round of saber rattling. They believe the sheer dread of war is being used to bolster diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis and encourage hesitant members of the United Nations Security Council to take more decisive action. The Security Council, this argument goes, will be more likely to approve tighter sanctions if it believes that war is the only alternative.


Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

[budgie]

I find the initial scenario a little hard to swallow. Cheney would persuade Israel to strike first then America jumps in to save her when Iran retaliates? Even Cheney couldn't think that up. The fact is that US forces are stretched thin as it is. Any any additional conflict in the region is in nobody's interests. Sure, if there's no other choice America can deliver a (probably costly) hiding to Iran but for that reason alone it is likely the last option on the table.

[gaijinsamurai]

....but never underestimate the ability of our present presidential administration to do something stupid, Budgie.