i.e. would Iranians rise up against the Islamic regime?
Or fight like hell against the foriegn attackers?
Pt.1 An Iranian-American journalism student finishing her degree in Iran gives her take.
Pt.2 A retired Iranian-American TV producer who came to America after the revolution (and detests the Mullahs) gives his
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Former U.S. secretaries of state say they support talks with Iran
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1021344.html
By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Five former U.S. secretaries of state on Monday announced their support for talks with Iran, with all five saying the United States should not wait to launch diplomatic engagements with the Islamic Republic.
The former chief diplomats, Madeleine K. Albright; James A. Baker, III; Warren Christopher; Henry A. Kissinger; and Colin L. Powell issued their support for talks during a roundtable discussion entitled "The Next President: A World of Challenges," held at Washington D.C.'s George Washington University.
Moderator Christiane Amanpour of CNN asked the diplomats how they would respond if Iran declared it was prepared to make a deal with the U.S. after the upcoming elections. Kissinger responded "I'm in favor of negotiating with Iran," noting that the main concern is whether a nuclear weapon could make its way into the hands of a non-state actor.
Albright also issued her support for talks, saying, "We need to engage with Iran. You have to deal with countries you have a problem with."
Albright added that the issue is more serious because the war in Iraq has strengthened Iran. She also said the U.S. has an inaccurate view of Iranian society, saying, "[Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is not particularly popular, and we don't understand Iranian society, it's not monolithic."
Powell issued a harsh rebuke to those who would stonewall the Islamic Republic, saying, "we should start to talk to them and not wait till later. What are we afraid of?"
The former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also said the U.S. could use economic aid as a means of thawing relations with Iran, saying, "I had one meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister. I said to him: 'What's the major problem facing Iran today?' He said: 'We have a young population and we have to create jobs' - they have major economic problems, now that's something we can deal with."
Former Clinton administration secretary of state Warren Christopher highlighted U.S. military shortcomings in the need to pursue talks, saying, "We cannot afford not to have a dialogue, the military options are very poor."
The former secretaries of state also were asked who they endorsed for president, with James Baker III, secretary of state under George H.W. Bush's administration, issuing his support for John McCain and Albright saying "I'm supporting Senator Obama, it will send a message of diversity."
Powell said he hadn't yet decided who he's supporting because "there's too much talk about lipstick and pigs," adding, "we must move beyond issues of heroism or color, and ask, Who's going to have the best economic policy and bring the best judgment?
By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Five former U.S. secretaries of state on Monday announced their support for talks with Iran, with all five saying the United States should not wait to launch diplomatic engagements with the Islamic Republic.
The former chief diplomats, Madeleine K. Albright; James A. Baker, III; Warren Christopher; Henry A. Kissinger; and Colin L. Powell issued their support for talks during a roundtable discussion entitled "The Next President: A World of Challenges," held at Washington D.C.'s George Washington University.
Moderator Christiane Amanpour of CNN asked the diplomats how they would respond if Iran declared it was prepared to make a deal with the U.S. after the upcoming elections. Kissinger responded "I'm in favor of negotiating with Iran," noting that the main concern is whether a nuclear weapon could make its way into the hands of a non-state actor.
Albright also issued her support for talks, saying, "We need to engage with Iran. You have to deal with countries you have a problem with."
Albright added that the issue is more serious because the war in Iraq has strengthened Iran. She also said the U.S. has an inaccurate view of Iranian society, saying, "[Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is not particularly popular, and we don't understand Iranian society, it's not monolithic."
Powell issued a harsh rebuke to those who would stonewall the Islamic Republic, saying, "we should start to talk to them and not wait till later. What are we afraid of?"
The former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also said the U.S. could use economic aid as a means of thawing relations with Iran, saying, "I had one meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister. I said to him: 'What's the major problem facing Iran today?' He said: 'We have a young population and we have to create jobs' - they have major economic problems, now that's something we can deal with."
Former Clinton administration secretary of state Warren Christopher highlighted U.S. military shortcomings in the need to pursue talks, saying, "We cannot afford not to have a dialogue, the military options are very poor."
The former secretaries of state also were asked who they endorsed for president, with James Baker III, secretary of state under George H.W. Bush's administration, issuing his support for John McCain and Albright saying "I'm supporting Senator Obama, it will send a message of diversity."
Powell said he hadn't yet decided who he's supporting because "there's too much talk about lipstick and pigs," adding, "we must move beyond issues of heroism or color, and ask, Who's going to have the best economic policy and bring the best judgment?
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
What To Do (part 2)
From a pacifist group:
IRAN NEXT? NO WAR!
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
CALL
Ask your Congressional Representative to OPPOSE
H Con Res 362 “The Iran Blockade Resolution”.
A blockade, even a partial one, is an act of war. Peaceful prevention of deadly conflict is possible.
For more information about this bill:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=11521886
To figure out who your congressperson is:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
Call the Congressional switchboard:
202-224-3121
800-828-0498
866-340-9281
SIGN
Sign the Peace Action online petition against war with Iran. This is a growing list of 100,000 names to lobby for peace.
http://www.peace-action.org/Iran/index
Who wants diplomacy not war?
Five former Secretaries of State, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, members of both political parties, met in March 2008 and urged the next presidential administration to open a dialogue with Iran.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in 2004, expressed his reservations over an attack on Iran, saying such a move "will create generations of Jihadists". In April 2007, he said that diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff with Iran over its disputed nuclear program are "working" and should be given a chance to succeed.
Admiral William “Fox” Fallon, former Chief of US Central Command: "This constant drumbeat of conflict ... is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions." What America needs, Fallon says, is a "combination of strength and willingness to engage".
Senator Barack Obama said, “… the threat from Iran is grave but what I've said is that we should not just talk to our friends, we should be willing to engage our enemies as well”.
IRAN NEXT? NO WAR!
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
CALL
Ask your Congressional Representative to OPPOSE
H Con Res 362 “The Iran Blockade Resolution”.
A blockade, even a partial one, is an act of war. Peaceful prevention of deadly conflict is possible.
For more information about this bill:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=11521886
To figure out who your congressperson is:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
Call the Congressional switchboard:
202-224-3121
800-828-0498
866-340-9281
SIGN
Sign the Peace Action online petition against war with Iran. This is a growing list of 100,000 names to lobby for peace.
http://www.peace-action.org/Iran/index
Who wants diplomacy not war?
Five former Secretaries of State, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, members of both political parties, met in March 2008 and urged the next presidential administration to open a dialogue with Iran.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in 2004, expressed his reservations over an attack on Iran, saying such a move "will create generations of Jihadists". In April 2007, he said that diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff with Iran over its disputed nuclear program are "working" and should be given a chance to succeed.
Admiral William “Fox” Fallon, former Chief of US Central Command: "This constant drumbeat of conflict ... is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions." What America needs, Fallon says, is a "combination of strength and willingness to engage".
Senator Barack Obama said, “… the threat from Iran is grave but what I've said is that we should not just talk to our friends, we should be willing to engage our enemies as well”.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
What to do?
This is an old article but it lays out how congress could stop the attack.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/feb/05/opinion/oe-weiss5
Congress must stop an attack on Iran
By Leonard Weiss and Larry Diamond
February 05, 2007
DESPITE ANGUISH and anger over the Bush administration’s decision to escalate its failing war in Iraq, Congress is unlikely to cut off funding. Even most opponents of the war fear that they could be blamed for not supporting the troops in the field and for a possible descent into even greater catastrophe in the face of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
But nothing prevents Congress from using its power of the purse to prevent an American attack on Iran. President Bush’s neoconservative advisors and pundit supporters have been beating the drums of war with Iran since 2003, when the president declared Iran to be part of an “axis of evil.” Recall that a senior administration official told The Times that Iran should “take a number” in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. In his recent address to the nation on the troop surge in Iraq, Bush issued more threats to Iran. Now the president has named a Navy admiral to head the U.S. Central Command and dispatched a second aircraft carrier and minesweepers to the Persian Gulf, presumably to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz in the event of conflict.
These developments and other administration moves could presage an air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Iran is not innocent of dangerous and provocative behavior. Tehran has supported insurgent groups in Iraq, including helping to provide sophisticated explosives that have killed U.S. soldiers. And Iran’s continued development of a nuclear enrichment facility is in defiance of the international community’s demand to halt those actions. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repulsive statements about the Holocaust and Israel add to the nervousness about Iran’s future actions.
But war is not yet justified, except in the minds of those who have been lobbying for it for years. Iran is still years away from being a nuclear threat, and our experience with “preventive war” in Iraq should teach us a thing or two. Launching another such war without international approval would leave us even more politically isolated and militarily overstretched. Attacking a Middle Eastern country – one much stronger than Iraq and with the ability to cut off oil supplies from the Strait of Hormuz – could inflame the region, intensify Shiite militia attacks on our soldiers in Iraq and stimulate terrorist attacks on Americans and U.S. interests worldwide.
But recklessness, not prudence, has been the hallmark of this administration’s foreign policy. Beyond this, the president and vice president subscribe to what some call the “unitary executive,” which is a fancy way of saying they believe that Congress cannot prevent the president from doing almost anything he wants. The 1973 War Powers Act, passed in the wake of our disastrous war in Vietnam, allows the president to put U.S. troops in a combat situation under certain conditions before obtaining any congressional authorization to do so. When Bush signed the Iraq war resolution, he issued a statement challenging the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, indicating that he could take the nation to war without obeying its restrictions. Unfortunately, even if the president were to agree to the act’s restrictions, he could still attack Iran and have up to 90 days before being required to get congressional authorization for the attack.
What to do? Congress should not wait. It should hold hearings on Iran before the president orders a bombing attack on its nuclear facilities, or orders or supports a provocative act by the U.S. or an ally designed to get Iran to retaliate, and thus further raise war fever.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has warned the administration that it had better seek congressional authorization for any attack on Iran. But we need Senate and House hearings now to put the Bush administration on notice that, in the absence of an imminent military attack or a verified terrorist attack on the United States by Iran, Congress will not support a U.S. military strike on that country. Those hearings should aim toward passage of a law preventing the expenditure of any funds for a military attack on Iran unless Congress has either declared war with that country or has otherwise authorized military action under the War Powers Act.
The law should be attached to an appropriations bill, making it difficult for the president to veto. If he simply claims that he is not bound by the restriction even if he signs it into law, and then orders an attack on Iran without congressional authorization for it, Congress should file a lawsuit and begin impeachment proceedings.
It is, of course, possible that the president’s truculent language and actions toward Iran are a bluff, an attempt to rein in its irresponsible behavior.
But the administration’s mendacious and incompetent course of action in taking the nation to war with Iraq gives us no reason to provide the president with the benefit of any doubt. And stiffening economic sanctions – at a time when Iran’s economy is ailing and the regime is losing popular support – offers a better and safer prospect of exerting leverage.
Another war of choice would only pour fuel on the fires of the Middle East. And the history of this administration shows that if Congress does not constrain this president, he could well act recklessly again, in ways that would profoundly damage our national interest.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/feb/05/opinion/oe-weiss5
Congress must stop an attack on Iran
By Leonard Weiss and Larry Diamond
February 05, 2007
DESPITE ANGUISH and anger over the Bush administration’s decision to escalate its failing war in Iraq, Congress is unlikely to cut off funding. Even most opponents of the war fear that they could be blamed for not supporting the troops in the field and for a possible descent into even greater catastrophe in the face of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
But nothing prevents Congress from using its power of the purse to prevent an American attack on Iran. President Bush’s neoconservative advisors and pundit supporters have been beating the drums of war with Iran since 2003, when the president declared Iran to be part of an “axis of evil.” Recall that a senior administration official told The Times that Iran should “take a number” in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. In his recent address to the nation on the troop surge in Iraq, Bush issued more threats to Iran. Now the president has named a Navy admiral to head the U.S. Central Command and dispatched a second aircraft carrier and minesweepers to the Persian Gulf, presumably to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz in the event of conflict.
These developments and other administration moves could presage an air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Iran is not innocent of dangerous and provocative behavior. Tehran has supported insurgent groups in Iraq, including helping to provide sophisticated explosives that have killed U.S. soldiers. And Iran’s continued development of a nuclear enrichment facility is in defiance of the international community’s demand to halt those actions. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repulsive statements about the Holocaust and Israel add to the nervousness about Iran’s future actions.
But war is not yet justified, except in the minds of those who have been lobbying for it for years. Iran is still years away from being a nuclear threat, and our experience with “preventive war” in Iraq should teach us a thing or two. Launching another such war without international approval would leave us even more politically isolated and militarily overstretched. Attacking a Middle Eastern country – one much stronger than Iraq and with the ability to cut off oil supplies from the Strait of Hormuz – could inflame the region, intensify Shiite militia attacks on our soldiers in Iraq and stimulate terrorist attacks on Americans and U.S. interests worldwide.
But recklessness, not prudence, has been the hallmark of this administration’s foreign policy. Beyond this, the president and vice president subscribe to what some call the “unitary executive,” which is a fancy way of saying they believe that Congress cannot prevent the president from doing almost anything he wants. The 1973 War Powers Act, passed in the wake of our disastrous war in Vietnam, allows the president to put U.S. troops in a combat situation under certain conditions before obtaining any congressional authorization to do so. When Bush signed the Iraq war resolution, he issued a statement challenging the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, indicating that he could take the nation to war without obeying its restrictions. Unfortunately, even if the president were to agree to the act’s restrictions, he could still attack Iran and have up to 90 days before being required to get congressional authorization for the attack.
What to do? Congress should not wait. It should hold hearings on Iran before the president orders a bombing attack on its nuclear facilities, or orders or supports a provocative act by the U.S. or an ally designed to get Iran to retaliate, and thus further raise war fever.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has warned the administration that it had better seek congressional authorization for any attack on Iran. But we need Senate and House hearings now to put the Bush administration on notice that, in the absence of an imminent military attack or a verified terrorist attack on the United States by Iran, Congress will not support a U.S. military strike on that country. Those hearings should aim toward passage of a law preventing the expenditure of any funds for a military attack on Iran unless Congress has either declared war with that country or has otherwise authorized military action under the War Powers Act.
The law should be attached to an appropriations bill, making it difficult for the president to veto. If he simply claims that he is not bound by the restriction even if he signs it into law, and then orders an attack on Iran without congressional authorization for it, Congress should file a lawsuit and begin impeachment proceedings.
It is, of course, possible that the president’s truculent language and actions toward Iran are a bluff, an attempt to rein in its irresponsible behavior.
But the administration’s mendacious and incompetent course of action in taking the nation to war with Iraq gives us no reason to provide the president with the benefit of any doubt. And stiffening economic sanctions – at a time when Iran’s economy is ailing and the regime is losing popular support – offers a better and safer prospect of exerting leverage.
Another war of choice would only pour fuel on the fires of the Middle East. And the history of this administration shows that if Congress does not constrain this president, he could well act recklessly again, in ways that would profoundly damage our national interest.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Read it and weep,
The New Yorker, July 7, 2008
"Annals of National Security
Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran."
by Seymour M. Hersh
Operations outside the knowledge and control of commanders have eroded "the coherence of military strategy," one general says.
Related Links
Audio: Seymour M. Hersh talks about the White House and Iran.
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of "high-value targets" in the President's war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature ....
www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?printable=true
The New Yorker, July 7, 2008
"Annals of National Security
Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran."
by Seymour M. Hersh
Operations outside the knowledge and control of commanders have eroded "the coherence of military strategy," one general says.
Related Links
Audio: Seymour M. Hersh talks about the White House and Iran.
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of "high-value targets" in the President's war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature ....
www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?printable=true
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