Letter from Iran

(The better informed everybody becomes the greater the chance that war can be prevented and propaganda can not distort reality. With a couple of clicks you can do your part by simply forwarding this to others.)

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A War With Iran: Rhetoric Or A Reality?

NPR Staff

//www.npr.org/2012/03/10/148372165/a-war-with...

(This is a good interview and lasts about eleven minutes.)

"We are talking about a preventive war, an unprovoked war," he says. "That's not a decision you get driven to by articles and op-eds. Ultimately, leaders in question have to make that choice and that means they always have the option of deciding to pursue a different course."

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Top ten media failures in the Iran war debate

By Stephen M. Wald

//walt.foreignpolicy.com/blog/2072

9. What about the human beings? One of the more bizarre failures of reporting on the war debate has been the dearth of discussion of what an attack might mean for Iranian civilians. If you take out some of Iran's nuclear facilities from the air, for example, there's a very real risk of spreading radioactive material or other poisonous chemicals in populated areas, thereby threatening the lives of lots of civilians. Yet when discussing the potentially dangerous consequences of a war, most discussions emphasize the dangers of Iranian retaliation, or the impact on oil prices, instead of asking how many innocent Iranian civilians might die in the attack. You know: the same civilians we supposedly want to liberate from a despotic clerical regime.

(Finally the issue of nuclear contamination through the use of "bunker busters" is getting attention. I have been trying to get the word out on this for some time. See "Nuking Iran" on Iranian.com)

(Note: Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.)

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Changing Iran's Nuclear Calculations with Green Energy

By Thomas J. Buonomo

//www.juancole.com/2012/03/changing-irans-nuc...

(Here is a more in-depth article about Iran switching to green energy as a way out of this nuclear crisis which seconds my proposal to set up a Desertec for Iran. See 008.)

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Attacking Iran

by URI AVNERY

//www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/12/attacking-i...

(The author argues that no military attack will take place on Iran because Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz and thereby cause the collapse of the world economy, which I would add is a more powerful deterrent than a couple of nuclear weapons. But I would argue that by closing the Strait of Hormuz Iran will then invite (and justify?) an all out invasion with the goal of controlling enough territory to keep the Strait open. This would mean doing the same thing to Iran as was done to Iraq; taking out all military installations, dams, water treatment plants, factories, power plants, all military related installations, and essentially transforming Iran back to being non-industrialized, and most likely causing genocide as millions will be displaced and murdered so that the oil could once again flow through the Strait of Hormuz. Would the West do this? Yes, they would.)

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Alleged Photos of "Clean-up" at Iran's Parchin Site Lack Credibility

By Gareth Porter

//ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107036

"News stories about satellite photographs suggesting efforts by Iran to "sanitise" a military site that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said may have been used to test nuclear weapons have added yet another layer to widely held suspicion that Iran must indeed be hiding a covert nuclear weapons programme.

But the story is suspect, in part because it is based on evidence that could only be ambiguous, at best. The claim does not reflect U.S. intelligence, and a prominent think tank that has published satellite photography related to past controversies surrounding Iran's nuclear programme has not found any photographs supporting it."

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The Illusion of Attacking Iran

By Deepak Chopra

//www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-il...

"An attack on Qom is equivalent to an attack on Mecca for the Sunni Muslims, which most people agree would be catastrophic for the West."

"Considering the firestorm that arose from the burning of the Quran at a U.S. base in Afghanistan, it was wily religious politics for the Iranians to build the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Facility right next to "Qom," the center of Shi'a scholarship globally and the site of the Holy Shrine of Fatema Mae'sume, sister of the Imam Reza (789-816 AD). It is a significant destination of pilgrimage."

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US should assume Iran seeks nukes: Kissinger

AFP

//www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM...

(The man that has the blood of three million Vietnamese on his hands shares his "wisdom" on Iran. Why is this man still alive and not burning in Hell?)