11-Nov-14: Two weeks before deadline with Iran, Kerry leave talks early and Iranian plan for "annihilating" Israel goes mostly unreported

Kerry in Muscat: Hello, I must be going [Image Source: Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency]

An interim agreement between Iran and the world (in this case, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) is due to expire on November 24, less than two weeks from now. Iran has gained huge benefits from the existence of the agreement - including agreement by the United States to unblock $2.8 billion in frozen funds, in return for Iran converting a quarter of its enriched uranium stocks - which can be used to make a bomb - into fuel. The unblocking happened, to Iran's great pleasure. The converting has not.

David Horovitz, the editor at Times of Israel, offers a plain-spoken assessment [here, under the give-away title "Looming Iran deal spells the empowering of evil"] of where things stand in relation to the global threat from Iran. If you're looking for glimmers of hope, seek them elsewhere. A brief extract:

It’s almost over. It really doesn’t much matter if a triumphant US Secretary of State John Kerry announces in the next few hours or days that a dramatic accord has been reached with Iran to regulate its nuclear program, or if it is decided to extend the negotiations beyond the November 24 deadline to finalize that deal. We know where the negotiations are heading. We know that the conclusion is dire... Ultimately, the failure is rooted in President Barack Obama’s desire to heal relations with America’s enemies in this part of the world. But what the administration would like to have perceived as a new generosity of spirit emanating from Washington, a desire to conquer past animosities, to build new bridges, to play fair, is regarded in this brutal region, by the purveyors of that brutality, as weakness.

Israel's role, caught right in the middle of this depressing international squeeze, was on our minds again yesterday when the central authority in Iran came out with a re-statement of its higher goals. A CNN report quotes Iran's "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling in a new and more detailed way for "the elimination of Israel" while explaining that he (naturally) opposes "a massacre of the Jewish people in this region".

The Iranian leader made his call for Israel to be "annihilated" on Twitter over the weekend. Mixed in with tweets insisting that Iran is committed to diplomacy on other issues, Khamenei posted a series of tweets slamming Israel. Among them was a document called "9 key questions about elimination of Israel." While he and other Iranian leaders have spoken similarly of Israel in the past, the one-page document, packed with specific details, was new. It says the "proper way of eliminating Israel" is for "all the original people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians and Jews wherever they are, whether inside Palestine, in refugee camps in other countries or just anywhere else, take part in a public and organized referendum." The "Jewish immigrants who have been persuaded into emigration to Palestine do not have the right to take part"... In the meantime, "armed resistance is the cure," he says, calling for the West Bank to be "armed like Gaza." The call reflects internal Palestinian politics as well. Iran supports Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. Hamas' rival faction, Fatah, controls the West Bank... [CNN, "

David Horovitz explains what this means in the context of the now-ending negotiations with Iran:

Directly endangered by Iran, and rightly reluctant to resort to the military intervention that the United States should have credibly threatened, Israel cannot afford to adopt the Three Wise Monkeys approach. We see the evil all too clearly. While the international community celebrates a Pyrrhic victory, protecting this country, never anything less than immensely challenging, will have become significantly more complex. [Times of Israel]

Here's another not-so-marginal marginal development. This past weekend, The Times of London ran an interview with Olli Heinonen ["Iran nuclear threat bigger than claimed"] who served the the International Atomic Energy Agency for 27 years and was its Deputy Director-General for Safeguards. He says Iran may well have more than five times the number of advanced centrifuges we think they have been assumed to have.

Iran could have up to 5,000 IR-2m centrifuges rather than the 1,008 it has claimed. The IR-2m devices are up to five times more effective in enriching uranium than older IR-1 types. [Times of London]

The IAEA has said for some time that the Iranians keep stone-walling on giving the required access to "secret" facilities.

All the while, the Americans remain optimistic. Or are they? Al Arabiya's television news last night (Monday) announced ["Nuclear talks end in Oman with ‘little progress’", audio report translated from Arabic]

Good evening, I am Taher Baraka greeting you, and presenting to you the Last Hour for tonight brought to you by Al-Arabiya. I will begin with the headlines:.. Two days of talks in Muscat were not enough to bridge the gap between Iran and the West on the differences on the nuclear file,.. A senior Iranian official said that there is no significant progress in the nuclear talks with the United States and the European Union... The US State Department said that the foreign ministers of the US and Iran held direct, difficult, and serious talks...

Israel's i24 TV news report this morning seems to explain what those direct, difficult and serious talks have produced:

US Secretary of State John Kerry left Muscat, Oman, where talks between world powers and Iran on its nuclear program were underway, without him or his colleagues giving any statements to the press. However, a senior Iranian negotiator said the latest talks ended without any progress, "We can no longer talk about progress in the negotiations, but we are optimistic that we can reach an accord" before the final November 24 deadline, Iran's deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said, quoted by ISNA news agency, after two days of talks between Iranian, US and EU officials. Kerry was due to leave Oman to join US President Barack Obama in Beijing for an Asia-Pacific meeting, but apparently left ahead of schedule... A mutual press conference Kerry planned to hold... was also cancelled, casting the planned talks deadline of November 24th... into further doubt. [i24 TV]

What is not left in doubt is the murderous intent of the Iranian leadership. Khamenei's 9-step plan [here] lays it out, which is headed "Why should & how can #Israel be eliminated? Ayatollah Khamenei's answer to 9 key questions":

We do not expect the usurper Zionists to easily surrender... Up until the day when this homicidal and infanticidal regime is eliminated through a referendum, powerful confrontation and resolute and armed resistance is the cure of this ruinous regime. The only means of confronting a regime which commits crimes beyond one's thought and imagination is a resolute and armed confrontation. [From Khamenei's official Twitter account posting, November 9, 2014]

Why should & how can #Israel be eliminated? Ayatollah Khamenei's answer to 9 key questions. #HandsOffAlAqsa pic.twitter.com/IVPOuNfMQH
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) November 9, 2014

We were reminded how "resolute and armed confrontation" looks (here and here) yesterday. It involves knives (at least) and cars, Palestinian Arab attackers and dead Israeli Jews.

If you have difficulty finding the text of the Khamanei manifesto, you're in good company. As far as we can tell, despite the fact that it appears (as a graphic image and not text) in his Tweet, not a single mainstream media news source has published the full text (and if we are wrong on this, please correct us). Does that make it a propaganda failure for the genocidal Iranians, or a victory?

[For a Polish-language vcrsion of this post, click here. Our thanks once again to Malgorzata Koraszewska of the Listy z naszego sadu website for helping us reach a wider audience. Dziękujemy serdecznie.]

27-Jan-14: On Holocaust Memorial Day, a reminder of who still denies it happened, and why

In some parts of the world, mainly in Europe and the UK, January 27 is marked as Holocaust Memorial Day. Over on the website of The Commentator, they connect the day with some serious Holocaust denial being done by, and on behalf of, the Iranian government. The entire article is reproduced here.

Iranian supreme leader's Holocaust denial not a mistranslation
Iran's smiling, moderate, foreign minister, who just charmed the world at Davos, exposed as a liar about the lies of his Holocaust denying supreme leader. Would you trust these people?
The Commentator | 26 January 2014 18:18

You can barely get into conversation with a Western peacenik or an Iranian diplomat on the subject of Iran without them trying to wriggle out of the extreme threats the regime has made to wipe out Israel or its vicious anti-Semitism by saying that this is all a mistranslation or it's been taken out of context.

This matters enormously because the premise of the latest moves in Western policy towards the Islamic repubic is that we can take Iran at its word. If a) all they're doing is lying to us and/or b) all the most damning charges against Iranian threats and rhetoric turn out to be true, we're heading into the abyss.

As many countries and international institutions mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, it is perhaps fitting that one of those "mistranslation" dragons can now be slain.

It has now been definitively established that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a Holocaust denier and that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who charmed everyone at Davos a couple of days ago, has been lying through his teeth in saying that he is not.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) did the hard work that Western media organisations have not done and on Sunday exposed Zarif for what he and his ultimate boss really are. Zarif had told ABC's George Stephanopoulos last September that reports Khamenei had openly denied the Holocaust were as a result of "bad translation" and were taken "out of context." According to MEMRI [here]:

"Despite Zarif's claim that Khamenei's statements had been mistranslated from the Persian, MEMRI found that not only does Khamenei's original Persian statement appear on his Persian-language website, but that the English version on his English-language website is indeed an accurate translation – he did indeed refer to the "myth of the Jewish slaughter known as the Holocaust".

MEMRI's translation from the original of Khamenei's statements on February 7, 2006 reads:

"A more important topic is one that shames Western culture in terms of freedom of speech... This same freedom of speech – which they [i.e. the West] constantly champion – does not permit anyone to question the topic of the myth of the Jewish slaughter known as the Holocaust. On this topic there is no freedom of speech!"

Khamenei has been denying the Holocaust ever since, and supporting and applauding others that do the same. This leaves us with a moral conundrum and an issue over present day policy, both of which overlap and can be formulated into two questions. First, who is worse, the liar about the Holocaust or the liar who lies about the lies of the liar about the Holocaust? Second, would you trust these people as far as you can throw them?

17-Jun-13: In Iran, who is moderate, why, and what does it mean?

Naharnet: Moderate not once, but twice. At least.

There are some mighty optimistic messages going out this weekend about political changes in Iran. See Reuters for instance: "Analysis: Iran moderate's poll triumph is mandate for change", and "Hasan Rowhani, moderate cleric, pulls off Iranian election win" from CBS News.

From a considerably more sober place, the Wall Street Journal carried an op ed yesterday called "Behind Iran's 'Moderate' New Leader | Hassan Rohani unleashed attacks on pro-democracy student protesters in 1999", written by Sohrab Ahmari, an Iranian-American who is the paper's assistant books editor. Key excerpt:

So this is what democracy looks like in a theocratic dictatorship. Iran's presidential campaign season kicked off last month when an unelected body of 12 Islamic jurists disqualified more than 600 candidates. Women were automatically out; so were Iranian Christians, Jews and even Sunni Muslims. The rest were purged for possessing insufficient revolutionary zeal. Regime loyalist Hassan Rowhani, 64, a former nuclear negotiator and security apparatchik, served for 16 years as secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. During his tenure, Rowhani led the crackdown on a 1999 student uprising and helped the regime evade Western scrutiny of its nuclear-weapons program. During the campaign, he boasted of how during his tenure as negotiator Iran didn't suspend enrichment - on the contrary, "we completed the program." 

Some moderate. Some reformer.

As to how much power we ought to credit to the new man, it's worth bearing in mind how the mainstream media worked hard these past few years telling us that the previous president (that would be Ahmadinejad) really had very little substantive power, and that control was actually with "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. See for instance "Ahmadinejad is noisy, but look behind him to find real power in Iran" from the NY Times in 2007. Note to editors: Khamenei continues to wield today no less power than he and his predecessors had then.

And here's a conundrum. A month ago, the only news outlet calling Rowhani moderate was Iran's own notorious state-controlled PressTV (here, for instance). What did they know that no one else does? And why is everyone now lined up behind their view? Stay tuned.