BAGHDAD, Aug 17 –Washington’s envoy to Iraq has claimed that pulling US troops out of the country could open the door to a “major Iranian advance” that would threaten US interests in the region. Ambassador Ryan Crocker also accused Tehran of seeking to weaken the Iraqi government so that it could “by one means or another control it”. Crocker’s allegations clash head-on with Tehran’s public support for Iraq’s government. Washington
By GARY LEUPP Hamid Karzai, hand-picked by Washington to pose as president of the broken country of Afghanistan, says his government has “very, very good, very, very close relations [and] will continue to have good relations with Iran.” He declares on CNN, “So far, Iran has been a helper” in fighting terrorism. Nuri al-Maliki, favored by Washington as the most viable prime minister to pretend to lead the bleeding country
A stable Iraqi state would constitute a strategic victory—and the only one still possible. by William S. Lind Among the bits of lore of the United States Senate is a story that dates back to before I arrived there in 1973 as a staffer to Sen. Robert Taft Jr. of Ohio. A senator—from New York, perhaps—known for depending wholly on his staff while treating it with contempt, told his assistant
How reporters trumped up a story about Iranians killing Americans in Iraq by Gareth Porter On July 2 and 3, The New York Times and the Associated Press, among other media outlets, came out with sensational stories saying that either Iranians or Iranian agents had played an important role in planning the operation in Karbala, Iraq last January that resulted in the deaths of five American soldiers. Michael R. Gordon
TEHRAN, Aug. 6 –Iran has manufactured the Middle East’s most powerful supercomputer at the Research Center for Ultra High-Speed Processing of Amir Kabir University of Technology.A researcher with the project’s team, Bahman Javadi, said the project is the result of two years of research, Fars reported.“The supercomputer has 216 Aptron processing units with two gigahertz frequency that utilizes cluster technology and functions in a parallel manner. This computer has 56
By Gareth Smyth, Financial Times The following is the transcript of an interview that Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for legal and international affairs, Abbas Araghchi, has given to UK’s Financial Times. Financial Times: What is the big obstacle to Iran and the US talking to each other? Abbas Araghchi: We had no plan to do so, although the Americans were obviously interested … We didn’t think the theatrical behavior would
Larouche reports that Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, the Congressman from the 14th CD of Texas, would not back down in an interview today with Murdoch’s Fox TV News, about the fact that the White House would use a “Gulf of Tonkin” incident to launch war against Iran. This is also the view of Lyndon LaRouche, who has identified this danger, calling it “Gulf of Tonkin II.” In a straightforward
AFP – WASHINGTON: Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a key US ally, contradicted US assessments of the threat posed by Iran and insisted in an interview aired Sunday that Tehran played a beneficial role in his region. “So far, Iran has been a helper and a solution,” Karzai told CNN on the eve of a visit here Sunday to meet with President George W. Bush for talks on the deteriorating security
So why hasn’t Iran started by wiping its own Jews off the map? By Jonathan Cook 08/03/07 “ICH” — – — Iran is the new Nazi Germany and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new Hitler. Or so Israeli officials have been declaring for months as they and their American allies try to persuade the doubters in Washington that an attack on Tehran is essential. And if the latest media reports
According to Iranian news reports, Iraqi sources have confirmed that an American surveillance plane has crashed into Iyad Allawi’s residence. The aircraft slammed into Allawi’s house in Baghdad on Thursday. The incident comes as US support of the former Iraqi prime minister is heightening while at the moment he is the most vocal opposition to the current Iraqi government. Allawi had told Aljazeera that he dismissed some of the US
by Gordon Prather Last week the Christians United For Israel organization held its annual show-of-force in our Nation’s Capital and Max Blumenthal recorded for posterity – if, God Willing, there is to be one – this most “politically extreme, outrageous” spectacle. “Founded by San Antonio-based megachurch pastor John Hagee, CUFI has added the grassroots muscle of the Christian right to the already potent Israel lobby. Hagee and his minions have
DEBKA reports that Tehran and the Russian Rosoboronexport arms group are about to sign a mammoth arms deal running into tens of billions of dollars for the sale to Tehran of 250 Su-30MKM warplanes and 20 IL-78 MKI fuel tankers. DEBKAfile’s military sources report Iran has stipulated delivery of the first aircraft before the end of 2007. The transaction, Russia’s largest arms deal in 30 years, will endow Iran with
TEHRAN, July 25 –President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran’s firm policy regarding Iraq is to support the country’s security, solidarity and its government.Ahmadinejad made the remark while speaking to reporters at the end of the Cabinet session on Wednesday, ISNA reported.Commenting on the second round of Iran-US talks on Iraq held in Al-Khadra district west of Baghdad on Tuesday, the president said, “Assisting the people and government of Iraq was the
by Matt Duss for Foreign Policy in Focus In a July 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed, writer Kimberly Kagan touted the success of the Iraq surge strategy. Kagan noted, among other supposed triumphs, that the Maliki government had “confronted Muqtada al-Sadr for promoting illegal militia activity, and has apparently prompted this so-called Iraqi nationalist to leave for Iran for the second time since January.” While one can perhaps excuse Kagan’s
Today I am publishing an interview which truly gives me great pleasure: my Q&A email exchange with Mizgîn, a Kurd who has studied in the West and who generally supports the PKK. That is all I can say about her as in fact that is all I know about her. And that is how it should be. On my blog, names do not matter, not even self-evidently nonsensical ones (like,
by Mehrnaz Shahabi, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 (CASMII Columns) David Milliband, British foreign secretary, confirmed in an interview (1) with the Financial times, 8th July, that there is no evidence of Iranian complicity in instability in Iraq or attacks on British troops: Asked by the FT, “What do you think of Iran’s complicity in attacks on British soldiers in Basra”?, Miliband’s first response was, “Well, I think that any evidence
by Philip Giraldi The July 17 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) “On the Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland” [.pdf] warns that al-Qaeda has reconstituted itself in the tribal areas of U.S. ally Pakistan, that it has resumed training of cadres intending to carry out “high impact plots” against the United States, and that the terrorist threat for the next three years continues worldwide and is even growing in places like
A Japanese official says his country will use yen in half of its future crude transactions with Iran as requested by the Islamic Republic. Head of Japan’s Petroleum Association, Fumiaki Watari, noted substituting yen with dollar for half of Japan’s transactions is feasible. Watari who also chairs Nippon Oil Corp. pointed out that the Japanese refining companies are presently working to change the currency unit for their transactions, Shana reported.
One of the most absurd accusations against Iran has been that Tehran is secretly arming (and even possibly training) the anti-Imperial resistance forces in Iraq. Why is this an utterly absurd accusation? Because as Robert Dreyfuss explains it in his many excellent articles (see here, here and here) the USA and Iran are supporting the same side in this war: the Maliki government. They are also the only ones to
by HarkavyIt always pays to be suspicious when a U.S. official ramps up fear, but Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff‘s “gut feeling” remark about an Al Qaeda attack on the U.S. this summer sparks a different suspicion — and a similar sinking feeling: Israel is about to launch a unilateral strike on Iran. It’s not a cinch, but that queasy feeling is building. Seymour Hersh wrote long ago (in his
