Dec. 29, 2006: The San Francisco-based
Center for Justice and Accountability, in conjunction with MEHR Iran,
have sponsored a lawsuit by Iranian-American torture victim Gholam
Nikbin, 59, that will come before Federal District Court in
Washington, DC on Jan. 9, 2007. The lawsuit alleges that
IRI officials, at the direction of then president Rafsanjani and then
MOIS minister Ali Fallahian, tortured Nikbin for converting to
Mormonism and for permitting dancing and music at his wedding in Iran.
For background information, see Mehr's
call to victims of torture to sue the IRI,
and the original 2003 press release on the Nikbin case
 Dec 27, 2006. An Israeli think tank
associated with the Ministry of Defense has published a stunning report
on Ahmadinejad's Holocaust Denial conference in Tehran, with
photographs of the main participants. The reddish-blond-hair, blue-eyed
conference chairman Mohammad-Ali Ramin would like to
headquarter his hate-organization in Berlin, because of Germany's
association with the Holocaust. "The resolution of the Holocaust issue
will end in the destruction of Israel," Ramin said recently. Ramin
would appear to be a perfect Ayran, with an Iranian father and
German-born mother. You can download a PDF copy of the report here.
Dec. 27, 2006: Two recent columns by
FDI Exec. Director: Showdown, which looks at the
Dec. 23 UNSC resolution on Iran's nuclear program, and Tehran's vow
to proceed at "top speed" with uranium enrichment; and Baker-Hamilton
Lunacy, which analyzes misconceptions about
Iran in the Iraq Study Group report; and
Dec. 11, 2006: Students burned
pictures of Ahmadinejad and set off firecrackers during a speech by
the Iranian president today at Amir Kabir university.
The disturbances were reported by Iran's
semi-official FARS news agency, close to the IRGC, and by a student Web
site. CNN reported that students interrupted Ahmadinejad's speech by booing and chanting "Death to the dictator." In the
official version, ahmadinejad approved their chant, which was edited by
IRNA to become "down with dictators." Students supporting Ahmadinejad
reportedly clashed with pro-freedom demonstrators.
CNN called it a "rare demonstration." In fact,
it was not at all.
Just last Wedneday, Dec. 6, some 2,000
students at Tehran university took to the streets, also protesting
the regime and the lack of freedom. Here, they exhibited photos of
Ahmadinejad in derision, upside down, While the BBC refused to cover
the demonstration, FoxNews published photographs
taken by an Iranian student news service and posted on an Iranian weblog.
Dec. 7, 2006: The Iranian Solidarity Congress
urged President Bush in a letter sent today to reject the
"counter-productive recommendations" of the Iraq Study Group regarding
Iran. "It would be a suicidal policy for the United States to
negotiate with the terrorist leaders of the Islamic republic," wrote
ISC chairman, Dr. Assadollah Nasre Esfahani. "The mullahs would
consider any such negotiations to be a clear
indication that their policy of supporting terrorists in Iraq has
defeated the United States.
Dec. 6, 2006: Help two Iranian
Christians, now being threatened with expulsion by Turkey to their
native Iran, where they face certain death as apostates. Turkish
authorities arrested Azita
Shafagghat and her husband Ahmad-Reza Shafaggat on June 18, 2006 after a harrowing escape from Iran and
mistreatment by Greek asylum authorities. Read
more about their case here (thanks to Siavash and SoSIran).
Nov. 22, 2006: Following the recent
arrest of dozens of Baha'is in Iran, the Interior Ministry in
Tehran has tasked all provincial governments to collect detailed
information on the Baha'i community.
In a measure reminiscent of Nazi data
collection on German (and later, European) Jewish communities, an
interior Ministry circular dated Aug. 19, 2006, obtained by the secular opposition group Marzeporgohar, tasks local officials to gather up-to-date statistics on
the income, occupation, social activities, addresses, foreign travels
and contacts of all Bahai's in their juristiction, and to return
completed data sheets to Seyyed Mohammad-Reza Mavali-Zadeh, Director
General of the Political Bureau, Ministry of Interior, by September 6,
2006.
Nov. 16, 2006: Iran
prepares to hang 11 Ahwazi Arabi activists,
by hanging from cranes in public squares.
Nov.
15, 2006: Ahmadinejad opens the door to "talks" with the United
States, but only if the U.S. "changes its policies" toward the regime
and the region. He also announces that Iran is close to completing
nuclear R&D. "I'm very hopeful that we will be able to hold the big
celebration of Iran's full nuclearization in the current year," he said. (The Persian calendar year ends on March 20.)
For more, see Frontpage magazine today.
Meanwhile, the IAEA in Vienna has caught
Iran cheating again. Samples taken from the Karaj nuclear waste
site turned up the presence
of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium, useful for making nuclear
weapons (but not for making nuclear reactor
fuel, as Iran claims it is doing). The IAEA notes that "Iran has not
provided the Agency full access to operating records" of its centrifuge
enrichment cascades, so it has no way of measuring how much fuel Iran
has actually enriched or to what extent. Additionally, the report notes
that:
- "Iran continues to decline to discuss" IAEA
demands to establish a monitoring mechanism at its fuel fabrication
plant;
- "Iran has not made available" new
information as requested on its centrifuge production programs.
- "Iran has still not provided a copy" of a
key 15-page document that describes the process for manufacturing HEU
"hemispheres" (nuclear weapons cores)
- "Iran has not yet responded" to Agency
requests for clarification on a bunch of issues, including the
so-called Green Salt Project for high-explosives testing and the design
of a nuclear-capable missile re-entry vehicle.
It's just four pages, but this report packs in
lots of information. Download a PDF file of the entire report here.
Sept 21: Frontpage
magazine column opposing the CFR "Grand
Bargain for Iran," by Kenneth Timmerman.
Sept. 19, 2006: American and Iranian
Jewish groups call for mass demonstration against Ahmadinejad at
the United Nations for Wednesday, Sept 20, 2006, starting at noon. The
demonstrations were timed for Wednesday to avoid confusion with an MEK
rally today. PLACE: 2nd Avenue and 47th Street, NY, NY. TIME:
12:00PM, Sept 20..
Sept 18, 2006: The Council on
Foreign Relations has invited Ahmadinejad to address the
Council in New York this week, drawing a blistering
response from Sen. Rick Santorum. "President
Ahmadinejad does not afford his own people the freedom of speech,"
Santorum wrote. "By allowing him the opportunity to address a public
forum in the United States, you would be sending the wrong message to
the people of Iran."
The CFR has consistently promoted a "grand
bargain" with the regime in Tehran, a policy it laid out in detail in a
2004 white paper written by Ray Takeyh and his wife, Suzanne Maloney,
on behalf of Brzezinski and Scowcroft. As a State Department
official, Suzanne Maloney has been instrumental in blocking U.S.
government funding to pro-democracy groups in Iran.
Sept 15, 2006: Senator Rick Santorum
(R, Pa) called on the U.S. to end "phony negotiations"
with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, in an apperance
yesterday on Capitol Hill with Reza Pahlavi and Sen. Mel Martinez (R,
Fla). In his presentation, Reza Pahlavi repeated his call, which he
issued last week in a separate meeting with Sen. Sam Brownback (see
below), for the U.S. to confront and pressure the Iranian regime, while supporting the Iranian people.
Sept.
8, 2006: The families of twelve Jewish Iranian citizens who
disappeared while trying to flee Iran during Khatami's presidency
served a subpoena on Khatami tonight while he attended a
fund-raiser in Arlington, Va for the Council on American-Islamic
Relations, CAIR. The ground-breaking lawsuit, filed suit in a New
York court this week, gives Khatami 20 days to respond to the
allegations that he was directly responsible for the torture and
disappearance of Iranian citizens. [PDF file of
the complaint]. The plaintiffs, who are not
U.S. citizens, brought the suit under special laws - the Alien Torts
Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act - which permit foreigners to
sue their tormentors for torture and kidnapping in American courts. The
lawsuit filed in the New York District Court is being represented by
attorneys Robert Tolchin of New York, Nitsana
Darshan-Leitner of Jerusalem and Pooya Dayanim, president
of the Iranian Jewish Public Affairs committee in Los Angeles.
Several hundred Iranian-Americans gathered
outside the National Cathedral in Washington, DC last night to
protest the visit of mullah Mohammad Khatami. Anglican canon Keith
Roderick noted that "the Anglican Church in Iran was decimated
during [Khatami's] presidency," and criticized Bishop John Chane and other church leaders for inviting Khatami to the National Cathedral.
Sept. 7, 2006: Iran torture victims today accused Khatami at the
National Press club, appearing with Senator Sam Brownback (R, Ks), and
Rep. Brad Sherman (D, Ca). The two-hour press conference turned into a
workshop on democracy, as Reza Pahlavi answered supporters who called
on him to assume political leadership of the opposition movement, "I
don't think this is the moment to give somebody a title." Pahlavi
called for Iranians to create a massive nonviolent protest movement
inside Iran that would bring about a change of regime. Asked about the
future form of government Iran should have, he specifically refused to
favor a monarchy or a republic. "All I care about is that it is secular
and democratic in nature," Pahlavi said. See NITV covereage of the
press conference
here, and an interview with FDI Exec.
Director Kenneth Timmerman here.
Sept. 5, 2006: FDI will be working
with Iranian-American organizations and others to coordinate activities
on Thursday, Sept 7, 2006, when former Islamic Republic
president KHATAMI comes to Washington, DC. A major protest will
be held outside the National Cathedral, which is hosting Khatami, at 6
PM. Many Iranian-American groups have written to the Right. Rev. John
Bryson Chane, episcopal bishop of Washington, DC (who runs the
Cathedral). Senators Brownback, Allen and Santorum and others have
protested Khatami's diplomatic visa to the
State Department. FDI Exec Director Timmerman explains why the Bush
Administraiton should Just Say No to Khatami.
May 30, 2006: New
photographs available from recent protests
by Christian Iranians in the Northwest city of Ourimieh, in West
Azerjaijan province; and from student protests in Tehran.
Worried at the dramatic growth of Christianity
in recent years, Ahmadinejad pledged in November to drive Christians
from Iran. "I will stop Christianity in this country," Ahmadinejad
reportedly said. (See the
Dec. 19 posting below)
In Gorgan, in the northern province of
Golestan, an Iranian Christian who converted from Islam 33 years ago
has been held incommunicado by the secret police for the past three
weeks, the Christian news service Compass Direct reports. Ali Kaboli, 51, was taken into custody on May 2 from his
workshop in Gorgan. No charges have been filed against Kaboli, who has
been threatened in the past with legal prosecution for holding
"illegal" religious meetings in his home, says Compass Direct.
May 25, 2006: Just posted: the FrontPage magazine symposium,
"Iran: To Strike or Not to Strike," with Jim Woolsey, Tom McInerney,
and Ken Timmerman
May
24, 2006: Clashes between protesting university students and
security forces continued today in Tehran, Hamedan and Zanjan. The BBC
reported that 40 police officers have been injured, while Iran's
student news agency INSA said protestors shouted "Death to
reactionaries and dictatorship!" and "We don't want the Islam of the
Taleban" - slogans reminiscent of the July 1999 student uprising. In
Tehran, Ahmadinejad accused the U.S. of "hatching plots" and backing
demonstrations by ethnic Azeris in Tabriz, where thousands protested a
racist cartoon in the state-run daily, Iran.
May
23, 2006: Amir Taheri, whose column sparked the controversy
over the new "dress code law" under discussion in Iran's Majles, yesterday
said his sources for reporting on the bill were three Majles members who had attempted to block the bill since it was first
drafted in 2004. While the final form of the bill is still up in the
air, Taheri said "ideas are being discussed with regard to
implementation,including special markers, known as zonnars, for
followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths
other than Islam that are recognized as such.
May 22, 2006: Iranian lawmakers and
regime officials sought to allay suspicions concerning a proposed new
dress code law, dismissing a report that the bill sought special
outfits for religious minorities, Reuters reported on Sunday. The
Reuters account does not say the earlier reports were false, as some
have claimed; it says that the bill sought to legislate "Islamic"
dress. Clearly, the firestorm over the proposed bill, initially debated
two years ago but revived recently, is not over. Read more.
May 19, 2006:The Islamic Republic
Majles, or Consultative Counsel, on Tuesday debated a law that would
require Christians and Jews to wear a special badge, reminiscent of the
yellow star Nazi Germany and Vichy France imposed on Jews during the
1930s and 1940s. "This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Hier
predicted that the law, which must move out of committee to the whole
Majles, then be approved by the Supreme Leader and the Council of
Guardians, "will certainly pass unless there's some sort of
international outcry." Read More...
 May 18, 2006: The MEK
(Mujahedin-e Khalq) is organizing major conferences in Paris and in
Washington, DC in the coming week, in an effort to shore up support for
the group among European and American law-makers. In recent years, the
MEK has shifted its rhetoric, abandoning earlier statements, contained
in Maryam Rajavi's "16 Points" that it planned to ban all opposition
once it seized power through a violent uprising. Now the MEK claims to
be a non-violent, pro-democracy group.
The Paris meeting will take place on
Monday, May 22, from 5-8 PM, at the Salons Hoche, 9 avenue Hoche,
75008 (near l'Etoile). No prior reservations are necessary. An
announcement from the group says it is being organized by the
London-based "Gulf Intelligence Monitor," a subscription-based website.
Several of the U.S. participants told FDI they were going to Paris to
"attend a conference with the leaders of the National Council of
Resistance of Iran," the main MEK front organization.
The five American participants - Ray Tanter,
Maj. Gen (ret.) Paul Vallely, Lt. Gen (ret.) Thomas McInerney, Navy
Capt. (ret) Chuck Nash, and LtCol.(ret). Bill Cowen - are all members
of the Iran Policy committee, an organization set up by Tanter
and by former CIA officer Clare Lopez in early 2005. The group has
published a number of "white papers" -- all of which have one thing in
common: they urge the Bush administration to take the MEK and its
various front organizations off the State Department list of
international terrorist organizations. The group regularly has hired
rooms at the National Press Club to hold press conferences.While it
lists "members" on its website, it provides no information on a board
of directors, and is not registered in the corporations data bases
of Washington, DC, Maryland, or Virginia. The
NCRI website links to the latest IPC White paper, calling IPC "an independent U.S. policy group."
No sponsor is listed for the May 25, 2006
Washington, DC conference, but the logo accompanying the on-line
registration form is identical to the "lion
and the sun"
logo the MEK adopted from the Iranian flag
of the shah's period.
So where is the MEK getting the money to
finance these elaborate public relations activities? And why is the FBI
allowing a group that is on the State Department's list of
international terrorist organizations to operate openly in the United
States?
May 8, 2006: Even the talk of sanctions
are affecting the IRI. Today's
Roozonline reports that the price of steel
beams used in home construction increased by 50% in one week. This
followed an upsurge in the price of gold coins, as people have
converted bank deposits into cash. At the same time, neither the Euro
or the dollar have increased significantly, which the Persian-language
website said showed this was not regular inflation but a sign that the
population lacked confidence in the future of the regime.
Also today, Newsmax.com reported that the
regime is sending money, weapons, and targeting information to eight
different terrorist groups as part of a "Judgment Day" plan to attack
the United States, Britain, and their allies in the Middle East, in the
event of allied strikes on Iranian nuclear, missile, and leadership
targets.
May 7, 2006: URGENT ACTION:
FDI has received information from inside Iran concerning the fate of Mehrdad
Lohrasbi, a human rights activist jailed at the start of the
July 1999 student uprising. Mr. Lohrasbi has been incarcerated at
the Karaj Gohardasht prison since the 18th of Tir (July 9) 1999. In
recent months, serious illnesses and bad prison conditions have put
his life in danger, but prison authorities have refused pleas from
his family to transfer him to a prison hospital. FDI will publish
updates on Mr. Lohrasbi's condition as we receive them.
May 4, 2006: Senator Richard Lugar,
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, believes the United
States should hold "direct talks" with the Tehran regime. But "Direct talks" with the
Tehran regime "are not just a bad idea. They are a monumentally
bad idea, whose wrong-headedness has been proven time and again
over the past 26 years," FDI Executive Director
Kenneth Timmerman argues in his weekly column at FrontPage magazine.
May 1, 2006:
Dissident Amir Abbas Fakhrevar successfully fled Iran at the end
of April, and has begun talking to the Western media about recent
events inside Iran. Fakhrevar was elected to the High Council of the
Referendum movement at their historic December 2005 assembly in
Brussels, Belgium, and is one of three key leaders from "inside" Iran
associated with the Referendum Movement.. "Amir will now be able to
speak freely about his views. His voice is a critical and important
voice that must be heard now," Executive Committee member Pooya Dayanim
told FDI.
For more information on the Referendum
movement, read their first on-line newsletter, released in March. Ironically, some of the initial
signatories of the Referendum petition inside Iran have refused to join
the Referendum movement, instead urging the U.S. Department of State to
support the long-dead reform movement inside Iran (see April 20 - below)
Also today, Reza Pahlavi told the
editors of the conservative weekly Human Events that he hoped to
finalize within the next two to three months the organization of a
movement aimed at overthrowing the Islamic regime in Tehran and
replacing it with a democratic government. Read the complete interview.
April 28, 2006: Ahmadinejad tells the
United Nations they can do nothing. "The Iranian nation won't give a
damn about such useless resolutions," he told an audience in
northwestern Iran today, Newsmax reports. U.S. ambassador
to the United Nations John Bolton today reassured the Iranian people
that eventual UN sanctions were not aimed at them, but at the regime,
and that developing nuclear weapons was not in Iran's interest.
Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy delivered its report today
to the UN Security council in New York. that Iran had failed to comply
with the UNSC demand that it halt all uranium enrichment activities. US
officials said this "opened the way" for Chapter 7 sanctions under the
UN charter, Newsmax reported.
Click here to read today's complete IAEA report (pdf file).
April 20, 2006: The State
Department says it will spend $85 million to promote democracy in Iran.
But will that money actually go to people and organizations who will
work toward that goal? An estimated $50 million of the money has
already been earmarked to expand Persian-language broadcasting into
Iran - by the U.S. government, not by Iranians who know their country
best. And some of the remaining money appears to have been mis-spent as
well, given to supporters of "reformist" clerics in Iran, not to groups
and political parties who seek to put an end to absolute clerical rule.
See "The
State Department's Dead Parrot", from FrontPage Magazine.
March 12, 2006: Violent clashes in Piranshahr. Violent
clashes rocked the predominantly Kurdish city of Piranshahr, near the
border with Iraq, as angry residents attacked official buildings,
banks, security patrol cars and trucks, according to the Students
Movement Coordinating committee, SMCCDI. The riot took place
following the murder of a resident by Islamist Militiamen, and the
refusal of the local authorities to restitute the body of the victim to
his family.
Security forces closed all accesses to the
Governor's Office and opened fire on the crowd. Several demonstrators
were injured and one has been reported in critical condition Additional
troops were sent from the neighboring cities in order to control the
situation which remains tense. The residents are requesting the public
trial of agents involved in the murder and the shooting.
March 10, 2006: No Opposition in Iran? This
is the mantra we hear almost daily from career State Department
bureaucrats and from the CIA. They should look at these digital video
clips, taken at Wednesday's demonstration in downtown Tehran by several
thousand women on International Women's Day. This is precisely the type
of operation the State Department should be funding with the $75
million Condoleeza Rice has asked Congress to authorize. We need to
help Iranians to document the rampant and savage human rights
violations of the regime.
This first clip shows women
gathering to sing freedom songs in Laleh Park. The
second clip shows the initial attempts by
security forces to disperse the thousnads and thousands of
demonstrators.The
third clip shows the orders given by a
regime official, in civilian clothes, to a uniformed militiaman, who
launches a violent onslaught on the demonstrators. This
final clip shows the crowd fleeing after
some 60 women have been arrested and hundreds have been brutally beaten.
Anyone need any more proof that
support for this regime is only skin-deep?
March 2, 2006: The State Department
has created a special office to phttp://www.zshare.net/video/3-wmv-wwe.htmlromote democracy-promotion in Iran, unnamed State Department
officials said today. the New Office of Iran Affairs will have staff in
NESA and in the Bureau of Democracy, Human rights and Labor (DRL). In
addition, Sec Rice has announced she will set up an new regional office
Dubai to deal with Iran and Iranians, and will assign officers to
handle Iranian affairs in Azerbaijan, Germany, and Britain. Democrats
in the Center for American Progress were quick to criticize the new
move as counter-productive, noting that current conditions in Iran make
"it likely that the administration's new strategy will backfire and
only strengthen Tehran's hard-liners."
Feb. 23, 2006. Repression of Iranian Sufis
continues. Following the violent raid and destruction of the Sufi
hosseiniyeh in Qom on February 13, and the
arrest of an estimated 1,000 followers, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and
former Majles speaker Mehdi Karrubi condemned the regime on Monday for
the attack and called for an apology and compensation to the Sufi
community. The regime has acknowledged the arrests, and said that 200
people had been injured. Opposition sources
tell FDI that 3 women were killed when they tried to flee Revolutionary
Guards troops and their car overturned, while a man was shot dead,
apparently by Pasdaran troops. 150 people remain in custody.
Feb. 22, 2006: A women's
coalition in Tehran has anjounced it will
hold a commemoration of International Women's Day on March 8 inTehran's
Laleh Park. According to preliminary information FDI has received,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi is expected to speak, among
others. Developing...
Feb. 16, 2006: Condoleeza Rice has
asked for $75 million to enhance U.S. broadcasting in Persian and to
help pro-democracy groups in Iran. But does anyone at the State
Department have a clue what to do? Read about it in today's FrontPage magazine.
Jan 24, 2006: IRI president Ahmadinejad
escaped an assassination attempt in December, and key supporters
were killed in a Falconjet crash last week. Clearly, the
zealot-president has enemies inside Iran. But are they powerful enough
to get rid of him? And would his disappearance significantly change the
threat posed by the Islamic Republic? Read the news from Newsmax.
Jan 21, 2006: IRI president Ahmadinejad
left Syria after two days of talks with Syrian president Bashar Assad,
during which he pledged continued support for Hezbollah. Assad escorted
Ahmadinejad before crack Syrian troops in Damascus upon his arrival. See the photo. While in Damascus, he met with leaders of Hamas,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and PFLP-GC leader Ahmad Jibril, notes Joel Himmelfarb in the Washington Times. Among Ahmadinejad's guests was Ramadan Abdallah Shallah,
the former University of South Florida professor who became the leader
of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the mid-1990s.
Jan. 19, 2006: FDI has learned from
sources in Iran that the high command of the Revolutionary Guards Air
Force have issued new orders to Shahab-3 missile units,
effective since Tuesday, Jan. 16, ordering them to move mobile
missile launchers every 24 hours in view of a potential
pre-emptive strike by the U.S. or Israel. FDI's source says the
launchers move only at night, and have been instructed to change their
postions "in a radius of 30 to 35 kilometers." Before the new orders,
the Shahab-3 units changed position on a weekly basis. Advance Shahab-3
units have been positioned in Kermanshah and Hamadan province, within
striking distance of Israel. Reserve mobile launchers have bee moved to
Esfahan and Fars province.
Separate
sources in the U.S. and Iran have told FDI recently that the Iranian regime is planning a nuclear
weapons test before the Iranian New Year on March 20, 2006.
In Tehran, a website with close ties to former
president Hashemi-Rafsanjani, aftab.com, today carried an
interview with "national security expert," Shahrouz Ebrahimi. In an
article titled "The military threat against Iran is serious," Ebrahimi
argued that given the serious miltiary threats now facing Iran from
Israel and the United States, "the decision-makers should observe the
strategic interests of Iran, not their own tactical interests. They
should pursue a moderate understanding of the world." It was one
more shot across the bow of Ahmadinejad from the Rafsanjani camp.
• On the 25th anniversary
of the liberation of the U.S. hostages in Tehran, supporters of an
Iranian terrorist organization are demonstrating in front of the White
House, with no response from the FBI. Read
why it is essential to have a clear and
open debate on the Mujahedin-e Khalq now, before it is too late.
Other news today:
• French president Chirac
announced a dramatic shift in French nuclear strategy today in a
speech at a nuclear submarine base in Brest, Reuters reported. State leaders
"who resort to terrorist attacks against us, just as those who use
weapons of mass destruction in any manner, must understand that they
expose themselves to a firm and appropropriate response from us." The
French response could be conventional or "of another nature," Chirac
said, emphasizing that faced with a regional power, France would no
longer choose between "inaction and obliteration."
"The flexibility and the rapid reaction
time of our strategic forces allows us to target our reponse directly
on the centers of power, on [an enemy's] capacity to act. All our
nuclear forces have been configured with this in mind," Chirac said.
On the 25th anniversary of the liberation of
the U.S. hostages in Tehran, supporters of an Iranian terrorist
organization are demonstrating in front of the White House, with no
response from the FBI.
Read why it is essential to have a clear and
open debate on the Mujahedin-e Khalq now, before it is too late.
• Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) told Fox & Friends today that
he would introduce a resolution in the US Senate on Friday,
calling for countries to impose a ban on travel to Iran and a ban on
selling Iran refined gasoline.
• German foreign minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier told ZDF television from Egypt that the
EU-3continues to look for diplomatic solutions to the Iran nuclear
crisis. "We are now looking for them from a different angle and, if
possible, supported by the authority of the Security Council,"
he said.
Jan.
18, 2006: Condoleeza Rice rebuffs the
regime's efforts to kick the can down the road on Tehran's nuclear
program in a major speech at Georgetown University today. "There's not much to talk about," she says, in response to Ahmadinejad's efforts to entice the
Europeans for more talks.
Jan. 12, 2006: U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice this afternoon called for an emergency session of the
IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna, aimed specifically at referring the
Islamic Republic to the UN Security Council for further action. The
"provocative actions by the Iranian regime have shattered the basis for
negotiation," she said. The announcent came after administration
officials told reporters yesterday that Russia had agreed not to
vote against a UN referral in
Vienna. Click here for a full text
of her remarks, including Q& A with reporters. Developing....
Jan. 11, 2006: All five permanent members
of the UN Security Council now have sent diplomatic "demarches" to
Tehran in recent days, urging Iran to back of uranium enrichment or
face an imminent referral to the UNSC for possible sanctions. "When
cautious and circumspect European diplomats use words like "serious,"
"grave," "disastrous," "red line for international community," "urge
Iran to immediately and unconditionally reverse its decision," the rest
of us should take these phrases as unambiguous evidence that an
international crisis of the first water is fast building," writes editorialist Tony Blankley in today's Washington Times.
Also read "Iran's Nuclear Zealot," a
profile of Islamic Republic president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his
obsession with the 12th Imam, by FDI Executive Director Kenneth
Timmerman.
Jan. 10, 2006: The nuclear crisis begins. Iran broke IAEA seals at several nuclear sites today, after
IAEA inspectors in Tehran refused to remove them at Iran's request.
Among the sites where Iran plans to resume nuclear research and
production work are the Natanz enrichment plant, Faraymand Technique
and Pars Trash, where Iran had been assembling enrichment centrifuges.
IAEA Director General Mohammad el Baradei expressed "anger" at Iran's
moves, and delivered an urgent report to members of the Board
of Governors detailing the Iranian moves. In that report, which remains
"confidential," the IAEA said that Iran was feeding uranium
hexafluoride (UF6) into enrichment centrifuges, FDI has learned.
This directly contradicted assertions in Tehran today by Mohammad Saeedi, the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran,
who told reporters that production of nuclear fuel "remains suspended."
Saeedi was recalled to Tehran from Vienna last Thursday without
explanation as the crisis began to escalate.
The removed IAEA seals "covered P-1 centrifuge
components, maraging steel, high strength aluminium and centrifuge
quality control and manufacturing equipment, as well as two cylinders
containing UF6 located at Natanz," according to a press release from
the Agency. "The seals also covered some process equipment at the Pilot
Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz." Iran claimed it was installing
a small-scale enrichment cascade at Natanz and was feeding UF6 gas into
centrifuges for limited "research and development" only.
British foreign minister Jack Straw expressed
European exasperation with Iran. "There was no good reason why Iran
should have taken this step if its intentions are truly peaceful and it
wanted to resolve longstanding international concerns," Straw said. French foreign minister Philippe Doust-Blazy, added, "We call on Iran to go back on its decision without
delay and without conditions."
U.S. officials told FDI that while Iran was
seeking to downplay its actions, resuming work at Natanz elsewhere
essentially gave the Islamic Republic "nuclear weapons break-out
capabilities. That is why this is significant."
Jan. 9, 2006: A Revolutionary Guards
Falconjet crashed near Ourmieh in western Iran earlier today,
killing 11 top IRGC officers, including the commander of the
IRGC ground forces and the IRGC ground forces intelligence
chief. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who came from the Rev. Guards
ranks, issued a public note of condoleance to the IRGC within hours of
the crash. According to FDI sources, at least one member of Iran's
Majles called the crash "sabotage" and called for a parliamentary
investigation. In a rare move, the commander of the IRGC held a press
conference acknowledging the crash just 90 minutes after it occured,
and authorized the official Islamic Republic News Agency to publish a list of those on
board. In addition to IRGC's Ground Forces Commander Gen. Ahmad
Kazemi, the dead included:
• Commander of IRGC Rassoulollah
27th Army Division, Gen. Saeed Mohtadi,
• Deputy Commander of Ground
Forces for Operation Affairs, Gen. Saeed Soleymani.
• IRGC Ground Forces
Intellligence chief, Gen. Shahramoradi Hanif Montazer-Qaem
• Artillery unit Commander, Gholam-Reza
Yazdani;
• Two members of the Ground
Forces' Command Office, Hamid Azinpour and Mohsen Asadi;
• Deputy Commander of Ground
Forces, Gen Safdar Reshadi,
• IRGC Air Force General
Abbas Karvandi, the plane's pilot, whom FDI sources identified as
commander of the Qadr air base, which is responsible for defending the
air space over Tehran;
• IRGC General Ahmad
Elhaminejad, identified by FDI sources as head of the IRGC air
force college, who was the plane's co-pilot,
• IRGC Colonel Morteza Basiri.
FDI sources in Tehran said the IRGC
leadership was "shocked" by the crash, which apparently resulted from a
failure of both engines of the French-made executive jet. On Monday
evening, the National Security committee of the Iranian Majles went
into an emergency meeting to hear classified information on the crash
and to explore evidence of potential sabotage, our sources reported.
Unidentified gunmen attempted to assasinate
president Ahmadinejad in eastern Iran on December 12, and sources in
Tehran say the new president is facing fierce opposition for rival
clerics who feel he has gone too far in openly defying the United
States and Israel.
Jan. 6, 2006: The slowly-building
nuclear crisis we have long been writing about has now erupted into the
open. Yesterday, the Islamic Republic called back its top nuclear negotiator from Vienna without
warning, walking out on long-planned
negotiations with the European Union over its nuclear program. On
January 4, the Rev. Guards began a series of exercises near the missile proving grounds in Semnan in
central Iran, to test its abilities to wage
Nuclear-Chemical-Biological warfare and NBC defenses. In Tehran,
Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, the not-so-secret power behind Ahmadinejad's
throne, is making noise that he wants to replace Ayatollah Khamenei as
Supreme Leader. FDI Executive Director Kenneth Timmerman examines
the implications of these recent moves
by Islamic Republic leaders in light of the political uncertainty in
Israel following the massive stroke that cut down Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon two days ago.
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