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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U.S. Defines Its Demands for New Round of Talks With Iran

By David E. Sanger and Steven Erlanger

//www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/world/middleeast...

The Obama administration and its European allies plan to open new negotiations with Iran by demanding the immediate closing and ultimate dismantling of a recently completed nuclear facility deep under a mountain, according to American and European diplomats.
They are also calling for a halt in the production of uranium fuel that is considered just a few steps from bomb grade, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of the country, the diplomats said.

That negotiating position will be the opening move in what President Obama has called Iran’s “last chance” to resolve its nuclear confrontation with the United Nations and the West diplomatically.

(This is so absurd. Before talks have even started the Americans have killed the deal. Of course the Iranians are not going to accept these pre-conditions. This is the same tactics they used prior to destroying Iraq, an agenda that was set by "Project for a New American Century". Here is a couple of links in case you are not familiar with this "Project". You will notice the names associated with the "Project for a New American Century" are almost all the same as those advocating a military attack on Iran.)

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_A...

//www.newamericancentury.org/

(First they will get rid of Assad and then they will come after Iran. Netanyahu was jumping the gun and trying to go after Iran first and he was told to back off until after regime change in Syria. But this assumes the Russians and Chinese fail to show some backbone and stop this modern day crusade.)

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Thinking the Unthinkable on Iran

By Jonathan Schell

//www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/06-1

(This is an exceptional article and one that should be read in its entirety. Given its length and density I'll just highlight parts of it. It is one of the best and most logical arguments for nuclear disarmament. )

In the aftermath of the recent talks in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama, it seems likely that for the time being—perhaps for the rest of this election season—there will be no attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by either the United States or Israel.

Time apparently was won for diplomacy, but a high price was paid.

At a stroke, it removed from consideration the nuclear live-and-let-live policies the United States practiced throughout the cold war toward the Soviet Union and other nuclear powers, including China.

Disarmament wars are not the invention of Obama or even Bush; they have been “on the table” of US policy for almost two decades. The fact is that after the cold war ended the United States, by an almost unnoticed cumulative process, turned for the first time in the nuclear age to a policy of using force to stop proliferation.

All previous nonproliferation efforts by the United States, or any country for that matter (the exception that proved the rule was Israel’s Osirak attack), had been conducted by political means alone, mostly diplomacy.

This does not mean that every country will build nuclear weapons, but it does mean that every country (and some groups that are not countries) will be able to build nuclear weapons if it so chooses. Today the number that can is estimated to be upwards of fifty, and climbing.

Therefore, it was with a certain surprise that the policy-makers discovered that nuclear danger was by no means a thing of the past after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989—something brought sharply to their attention by decisions taken in such places as Pyongyang, Delhi, Islamabad and Tehran. The bomb, formerly a superpower monopoly reserved for the globe’s elite, was now spreading to the back alleys of the world, as had been predicted long ago.

It was in this atmosphere that the long, fruitful tradition of disarmament by diplomacy was shelved and the policy of disarmament by force so thoughtlessly adopted.

Far from providing a solution to a proliferation problem, war with Iran would almost certainly precipitate an immediate proliferation catastrophe.

Given these realities, the only serious military policy would be the overthrow of the Iranian government and long-term occupation of the country, which alone could produce a more lasting result. Regime change is the necessary corollary to any disarmament war worthy of the name. But merely to mention such a harebrained, reckless, destructive and self-destructive idea as an American occupation of Iran, especially in the aftermath of the Iraq fiasco, is immediately to reject it.

Fortunately, an alternative nonproliferation policy is ready to hand. It is to return to, extend, deepen and carry to its logical destination the previous strategy of nonproliferation and arms control by diplomatic and other political means.

Nothing would be more effectual in healing the division than a believable commitment—not a vision but a plan—by the nuclear powers to surrender their own arsenals. The double standard, a leftover from the bipolar disguise that the nuclear dilemma wore during the cold war, is an anachronism. It ill suits a world in which every nation knows that, whether it wants nuclear weapons or not, it is capable of building them or soon will be. Only the single standard of a nuclear weapons–free world fits the realities of the new era.

Such a policy would turn away from military force to achieve its aims, yet it would not be without the backing of a kind of “force” of its own—the force of the united will of the people of the world, aligned with their governments, to live free of the shadow of nuclear danger, whether posed by those who possess nuclear weapons or those who want to possess them.

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Debate: Attacking Iran, AIPAC, Israel-Palestine and Obama with Rashid Khalidi and Jonathan Tobin

Democracy Now

//www.democracynow.org/2012/3/5/debate_attack...

(At first I was wondering why a non-Iranian was chosen for this debate then I soon discovered that Prof. Rashid Khalidi is extremely well informed about Iran and a very good choice to debate one of the most right wing editors of a Jewish weekly whose position on Iran can be guessed.)

(Watch the debate on high quality video, or listen to it, or read the transcript. One of the best news sites out there, and started almost single-handedly by an exceptional woman, Amy Goodman.)

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The New Domino Theory: We're Wrong About an Iranian Nuclear Arms Race

Zachary Keck

//www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2...

Many in the U.S. warn that an Iranian bomb will compel its neighbors to go nuclear as well, but much like the Cold War "Domino Theory" about the spread of communism, they're wrong.

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Iran-born Israeli unimpressed by online ‘love campaign,’ won’t hesitate to bomb Iranians

Mehran Farhadian

//www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4212685,...

(In Iran News: 017 there were several quotes about Iranian-Israeli's saying positive things about their life in Iran so I thought I'd balance this out with the views of a chap that brings babies into the world, an Iranian-Israeli pediatrician who closes this article with this sentence: )

I’m your friend and I love you, but I won’t hesitate to bomb you. Consider yourselves warned.

(Would you take your child to be treated by a doctor that "won't hesitate to bomb" his birthplace?)

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White House Denies Involvement in Iranian Nuke Scientist’s Death

//www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/white_...

(Do you remember how quickly the Obama Administration denied any involvement in the assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, an Iranian nuclear scientist? Given Sy Hersh's investigative reporting, extensively referred to in Iran News: 017, Prof. Roshan was most probably killed by MEK agents, who most likely had been trained by Americans and the Mossad. So a very quick denial was essential to quickly stop any questions being asked.)