Because this kind of rhetoric...

Iran and Syria plan to create a new world order, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday. "Iran and Syria have a joint mission to create a new world order on the basis of justice, humanity and belief in God," Ahmadinejad told visiting Syrian Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Abrash. Syria is Iran's main ally in the Middle East and both countries consider Israel to be their political arch-foe. "At the current juncture, the role of Iran and Syria is historic."

... and these kinds of moves...

Iran sees Latin American nations as partners in creating a new world order. Ahmadinejad recently told the visiting Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro: "We need to establish a new systemand take measures based on that system.... Many countries will join the new system." That Iran and Venezuela view nuclear power as part of an attempt at global hegemony was reinforced in a joint press conference this month between Maduor and his Iranian counterpart Manuchehr Mottaki: "Our experiences prompt us to generate nuclear fuel independently and even broaden the scope of our activities to meet the demands of other countries."

... always end well.

Meanwhile China says that the proper response to Iran's firm and seemingly final rejection of nuclear talks is more nuclear talks. Because maybe the mullahs are just kidding. Or maybe - per the faux sophistication Obama picked up from whichever experts are feeding him lines - maybe they're just really confused. They're not so confused that they can't deploy three new satellites as a cover for their ballistic missile program or launch a massive anti-dissident crackdown. But to figure out their negotiating stance after a decade-plus of nuclear talks - well they just haven't had enough time to think about it.

Is there going to be a clash between the West and Iranian's global coalition? Of course there will be. But it will happen on Iran's own nuclear timetable and, because of that, it will be particularly horrific. Future generations will rightly ask why the US and its allies allowed lunatics - lunatics who openly expressed their intentions - to acquire WMDs. And they'll be told that a loose coalition of duly-appointed diplomats, self-declared intellectuals, fully-accredited journalists, and intellectually dishonest liberals cooperated to knock the knees out of the last American President who had the opportunity and intention to stop Iranian nuclearization.

Then they'll go to college and learn that it all goes back to American settlers attacking the Indians or something.

References and related after the jump...

I'm not sure if this list includes the 20+ mothers who were preemptively rounded up at the beginning of December - from the way it reads it seems to be about a totally different group - but in any case many of the mothers landed in the hospital on their way to being disappeared. Current status: unknown:

A rights group is demanding Iran release 33 mothers detained during their weekly memorial vigils for their children killed in the nation's ongoing violence. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran says that nine of the jailed woman received emergency medical treatment after they were rounded up by security forces Saturday... The women are part of a "mourning mothers" gathering held by women whose children have been killed in unrest since disputed elections in June.

Meanwhile even Guardian columnists are declaring themselves less than sanguine about how the mullahs are trying protesters for being "Enemies Of God." No one's gone so far as to acknowledge the paper's years of dishonest pro-Iran defenses - nor are they inclined to talk about how conservatives have been slandered as warmongers for predicting exactly this - but at least there's a limit to the degree of theocratic fascism they'll defend. Maybe.

Now for my own part, I would have stopped spinning pseudo-sophisticated "Iran is moderate" pretexts back when Ahmadinejad offered "documented proof" that America was conspiring to block the return of the Messiah. But I can see how the international left and their ilk might have thought he was just being funny.

References:
* Mothers Arrested Before Opposition Rally in Iran [NYT]
* Iran rights group calls for release of 'mourning mothers' [AP]
* Iran's judiciary takes a military colour [Guardian]
* Clenched With Promises To Crush Pro-Reform "Enemies Of God" [IIFSC]
* Guardian: We're Not Sure that Hezbollah and Iran are Working Together [MR]
* Iran Has Proof US Blocking Return of Messiah or Something [Jawa]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Iran
* Arab and Muslim World
* Political Islam

Because, as the AP writeup takes zero time in pointing out, that's worked out so well in the recent past:

Yemen's president said he is ready to open a dialogue with al-Qaida fighters who lay down their weapons and renounce violence, despite U.S. pressure to crack down on the terror group. The United States has complained in the past that Yemen struck deals with al-Qaida fighters and freed them from prison after they promised not to engage in terrorism. Some later broke those promises and are now believed to be active in al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh vowed that his government is "determined to stand up to the challenges" of al-Qaida and that his security forces will track down as many al-Qaida fighters as possible among those who refuse to stop violence. But he left the door open for negotiations. "Dialogue is the best way ... even with al-Qaida, if they set aside their weapons and return to reason," he said in an interview with Abu Dhabi TV aired late Saturday. "We are ready to reach (an) understanding with anyone who renounces violence and terrorism."

Simply as a technical matter, dialogue with an enemy who's committed to your annihilation is actually not the "best way." There's simply not that much to talk about. In fact, to the extent that the balance of power in Yemen is shifting towards AQ and away from the central government, wasting time in the hope of dialogue is likely to be a disaster.

Meanwhile AQ has established residence in Yemen because it sets them up for attacks on Saudi Arabia, a target that Iranian-funded Shiite jihadists have also been attacking with regularity and visible success. Saudi Arabia has responded with everything up to and including a formal naval blockade on northern Yemeni cities that - on top of everything else - further weakened the government.

Oh: and the entire civilian population is literally physically crippled by a massive drug epidemic. So even when they want to do something they can't get people into work. It's that bad. Of course it's been that bad for a while, and until recently the Obama administration was going to send a bunch of Gitmo jihadists into the country. Smart power.

As for renouncing violence and terrorism - and I hate to be the bearer of bad news - they don't really mean it. The 170 jihadists released in February certainly didn't mean it. That's why they did things like "break their promises" and returned to AQ's ranks.

References and related after the jump...

You can't really blame them for betting on the strong horse:

While the West is discussing sanctions against Iran, Turkey is discussing the establishment of a joint industrial area with Iran on their shared border the Iranian state news agency, Fars, reported on Friday. Iran's industry minister, Ali Akbar Mehrabian, met on Friday with Turkey's trade minister, Nahat Argon to discuss increasing economic activities between the two nations. Mehrabian said after the meeting that there was a lot of potential for joint economic activities between the two countries.

These aren't just bilateral moves either. The Turks are also boosting their ties with Syria. They've chosen a side and they're making and breaking alliances accordingly:

Two factors in particular seem to have led to Turkey's shift away from Israel and toward Syria. First, Turkey no longer needed Israeli assistance to pressure the Syrian government to change its policy of providing safe-haven to the terrorist Kurdish Worker's Organization (PKK). Second, in the past seven years, once secular Turkish politics have undergone a profound Islamist transformation. At the same time, the dynamic between the Turkish military and the state's civilian leadership has changed. No longer does the military have the upper hand. Today, the Turkish military can do little to impact the policies of the Islamist AKP, which promote solidarity with Islamist, anti-Western regimes while dismissing secular, pro-Western Muslim governments.

That also answers the brainteasers that were getting thrown around mid-2009, about whether Turkey can be politically moved in a secular direction. Turns out when a population keeps electing Islamists who promise to move away from the West, the country ends up moving away from the West. And I was really hoping they were just kidding about all that.

Meanwhile the State Department is trying to jumpstart Israeli-Syrian negotiations via Turkish mediation. Because apparently - at least to George Mitchell - the Turks seem like neutral and objective arbiters. George Mitchell, by the way - there's a guy who's really been building bridges between the US and Israel this week.

References and related after the jump...

Of course:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday the Obama administration remains open to negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, despite intransigence from Tehran... Clinton said it is clear that administration efforts to engage Iran in talks to restrain its nuclear program in 2009 fell short... Obama had said that if Iran did not respond positively to his overtures by the start of 2010 he would move toward tougher sanctions. Clinton said the administration is consulting with other nations about new sanctions, but she stressed that this does not mean the administration is abandoning its effort to start a dialogue with Iran. There is no hard-and-fast deadline for Iran to respond, she said.

I'm a little sad they're giving up on deadlines. Iranian laughter in the face of Obama's blustering - plus the inevitable US crumbling - made for some easy content. Though the WH probably didn't have a choice now that China, after years of evading existing sanctions, just said no to new UN sanctions. So Obama's oh-so-sophisticated charade - that there were ever any "genuine sticks" behind all of the "genuine carrots" - wasn't going to last much longer.

Of course the Iranians still sneeringly chortled in victory about how they agree with Clinton that sanctions are meaningless. They've been so emboldened by this WH's appeasement that they're now setting their own deadlines on negotiations, a nice little demonstration of just how brazen they've gotten:

Iran's foreign minister warned the West on Saturday that it had one month to accept Iran's counterproposal to a deal brokered by the United Nations aimed at slowing the Iranian nuclear program, or else Iran would begin further enriching its nuclear fuel stockpile on its own. The comments by the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, were broadcast on state television and presented as an "ultimatum" to the West just two days after Iran missed a deadline set by the United States and its allies to accept a deal that was brokered in October in Geneva.

They're also holding large-scale military exercises next month, right about the time that their "ultimatum" will be expiring. No worries though. This isn't anything that the WH's vaunted "targeted sanctions" - specifically designed to be watered down - can't fix right up. Smart power and all the rest.

References and related after the jump...

The Iranians can't even muster enough respect for Obama to let him send envoys to debase themselves in front of the mullahs. The administration wanted to dispatch Kerry to Tehran in the midst of the most recent crackdown, a move naturally seen as a shameless betrayal by the Iranian dissidents being beaten and shot and run over by basij cars. Nope.

Pathetic:

Iranian legislators on Sunday decided to not allow a visit from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), according to Iranian media. "Members of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee (a subcommittee of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission) voiced opposition to the request after studying the issue," Hassan Ebrahimi, head of the committee, told the semi-official Fars News Agency. Several Iranian news outlets reported last week that Kerry had submitted an official request to visit Tehran in an emissary role... On Saturday, Iranian legislators stepped up the rhetoric against the news that Kerry was considering traveling to Tehran with the blessing of the White House.

At least we're not also trading top Iranian-backed Iraqi terrorists for British computer specialists who were brutally kidnapped while tracing exactly how Iran interferes in Iraqi affairs. The raid that captured the specialist involved the kidnap of four British body guards who were later executed - bound - with bullets to the head. Which is exactly how Khazali's gang murdered the American soldiers they had kidnapped in a separate raid:

So mind-bendingly insane is this that I thought Roggio might have been duped by his sources. Not so: Both the Guardian and now Jake Tapper have independently confirmed that it's true. Remember Qais Khazali?... He used to be an al-Sadr deputy, then broke away and hooked up with Iran to start his own little mini-Hezbollah. That group, the "League of the Righteous," ended up pulling off one of the most notorious, sophisticated anti-American operations of the Iraq war in Karbala. The toll: Five Americans murdered, four of them after they were kidnapped, bound, and shot in the head like animals. U.S. troops caught up to Khazali... Petraeus ... accused Iran's Quds Force -- the creme de la creme of the Revolutionary Guard, responsible for assisting Iranian proxy jihadis like Hezbollah in other countries -- of bankrolling the whole thing. And now, after three years in U.S. custody, he's free.

Obama wanted to send the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Tehran to - what? Explain how there's no hard feelings about the whole "brutalizing their people and executing our captured soldiers" thing? Insist that we're willing to look the other way if they'll pretend to think about maybe not laughing at our threats of toothless sanctions?

And they wouldn't even let us go through the motions of groveling to them.

Remember when conservatives ridiculed "smart power" as a faux sophisticated excuse for US obsequiousness? And the left said that conservatives were thoughtless warmongers and - in fact - Obama was going to restore America's dignity and respect? That's definitely the sense I'm getting from this gambit. Dignity. And. Respect.

References and related after the jump...

I posted theses quotes about Hamas - one from Larijani and the other from Ahmadinejad - on Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched? yesterday. But they're worth reposting here so that maybe we can puzzle them out together. Because Sunnis and Shiites don't cooperate, and yet here are Sunnis and Shiites seemingly cooperating. Mindbending:

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani on Sunday defended his country's support for Hamas, during a high-profile visit to Cairo. Larijani told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that Teheran is proud of its "moral" support for Hamas. He also denied that Iran is undermining Egypt's efforts to reconcile between Hamas and Fatah. The Iranian official called his meeting with Mubarak "constructive," and noted that Iran and Egypt shared a "positive vision on bilateral relations," according to Iranian Press TV.

And:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday reiterated his support for Hamas, during a visit by the Palestinian group's Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal, according to Iran's official news agency. "The government and the people of Iran will always stand by the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people," Ahmadinejad said during the meeting with Mashaal.

Larijani used similar language in February, saying "it's an honor to support Hamas." In March Iran confirmed that support by throwing a fundraising party for their Gaza proxies. In April month Egypt made clear that the two were linked, targeting Hamas as part of a broader anti-Iran regional push. And so on.

Of course there are 2007 papers outlining the full-blown Hamas/Iranian alliance, with Tehran's financial and military support transforming Gaza into a de facto Iranian statelet. Quite the opposite from being stymied by Sunni/Shiite tensions, Iran is positioning itself as the unique unifying force that transcends those tensions. Historical tensions do exist in the Muslim world. But they're the basis for Iran's pan-Islamist identity not a barrier to it:

Driven by its desire to achieve the status of a world Islamic power, Iran is now a uniting force between Sunni and Shi'ite radical groups. This new bloc of Iranian allies not only poses a threat to the West, it challenges the moderate states of the Middle East, who used to fear a "Shiite Crescent" spanning from Iran through Lebanon. Threats of a crescent are now replaced by a wider fear of Iran-sponsored radicalism that spans the region. Indeed, the influence of Iranian radicalism knows no boundaries, thanks to Tehran's increasingly pragmatic approach toward Sunni groups.

Liberal sophisticates who point to historical Sunni/Shiite dynamics as some kind of argument are - predictably - stalled at the beginning of a debate they think they're ending. Which doesn't stop the media from quoting them extensively. But at least it also makes them extra obnoxious!

References and related after the jump...

Iran's building next-generation centrifuges and has just formalized the construction of 10 new nuclear sites. Those 10 new facilities were supposed to lock in their "isolation" according to the White House. Instead Obama will push back the so-called drop dead date for a third or fourth time. I don't think anyone's under any illusions any more. This is what it is:

Obama has long proclaimed a Dec. 31 deadline for cooperation or retaliation of some unspecified kind. But Iran and, before it, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, has confidently counted on years of international dithering on enforcing printed sanctions. So naturally on ABC's "This Week" this week, George Stephanopoulos asked Obama adviser and ex-newspaper reporter David Axelrod about the approaching Obama deadline. Axelrod started to say something about talking but checked himself and spoke instead of "consequences." But, as often occurs in diplomatic-speak -- and politics-speak too, come to think of it -- it's what you don't say that's often more important than what you do utter. Axelrod declined to reiterate the Dec. 31 date.

Now you might think that Iran officially settled on confrontation months ago when Mottaki confirmed the "no" that had been coming from every Iranian lawmaker. Certainly his his followup - "we'll only accept the kind of swap where we don't have to really swap anything" - was seen as a diplomatic non-starter.

But what you don't understand is that Iran has actually been very secretly demonstrating a clear willingness to negotiate. Here's how it probably went down. First Iran decided to export their radical ideology and expand their sphere of influence by broadly and continuously supporting a Shiite insurgency in Yemen. Then we gave them a super-secret signal that we would look the other way by having a State Department Undersecretary announce at a conference that we don't think they're involved. Then Iran didn't do something that our experts retroactively decided they had been planning to do, which was a covert signal back from the mullahs that they were interested in negotiations.

Or maybe it happened differently. Maybe the signal was our continued inaction in response to Iran's bloody interference in Iraq. We didn't do anything. Then they invaded Iraqi territory. Then we still didn't do anything. Now they're staying on Iraqi territory. And that's a sign that they're open to low-level confidence building measures. Because why else would they grab territory except as a setup for making concessions during negotiations?

There was a point during the campaign where American Jewish liberals, seemingly all at once, started parroting this weird talking point about how Bush failed on Iran and so people should vote for Obama. I was never able to totally untangle the logic - it was this kind of "Iran bad / Bush equal Iran / McCain equal Bush / QED" move - but I did understand that Obama was going to use his super-keen diplomatic ninja skills to increase pressure on the mullahs.

Now we have the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which is pretty much the absolute minimum we can do while still pretending to do anything. And we also have Obama blocking the legislation, which after passing the House was all set for quick Senate passage by the end of the year. Now if there was a certain amount of pressure being brought to bear on the mullahs, and then Obama decreased that pressure - is that the same as increasing pressure?

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, needs time to consider the bill... That means it's extremely unlikely the Senate will rush the legislation before year's end, as had been reported earlier especially considering other pressing matters. The go-slow approach takes some of the wind out of the version of the bill... It has become increasingly clear in recent days that the Obama administration wants to slow down the prospect of unilateral sanctions while it attempts to mass international support for multilateral measures aimed at forcing Iran to make its nuclear workings transparent...

What exists now is a situation in which many major Jewish groups -- including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Reform movement -- are pushing hard for bills that Obama and Kerry would prefer to work slowly and carefully. Only Americans for Peace Now is publicly aligned with the administration in counseling changes to the proposed sanctions.

The original reason for Obama's decision - per an interview Clinton gave to Al Jazeera last week - is that Bush was unilateral and so Obama isn't going to be unilateral. I'm not exaggerating. "There are many things we could go off and do unilaterally, as the prior administration certainly demonstrated. That's not our chosen path," Quote unquote.

In recent days the pretext has become a little more nuanced, and the new excuse is that US sanctions would undermine efforts to get Russia and China into a sanctions regime. Now that's not the most coherent argument - US legislation would only matter if it set a floor for multilateral sanctions, which this doesn't - but honestly why waste the time? It's much quicker to just repeat how Russia and China are never going to join us in an effective regime, prior US action or not.

The Chinese have become so brazen that they're now saying they can't engage in P5+1 talks until next year because - really - their schedule is just too full. An apocalyptic regime is about to get its hands on some of the planet's most destructive weapons, and the Chinese are washing their hair or folding their socks or whatever it is they've got booked:

An upcoming meeting by the P5+1 on trying to curb Iran's nuclear program has been postponed at China's behest, senior officials from three of the countries involved said Monday. One of the officials said China cited scheduling problems in asking for the deferral, and the six countries may instead talk by videoconference before the year's end. A US spokesman said that the meeting might take place next year. The official said China seemed to have genuine problems in attending the meeting in Brussels or outside the Copenhagen climate summit and did not appear to be seeking to delay it. Still, the development was a setback in efforts to present a unified front on Iran in the face of continued Iranian defiance on its nuclear program.

In fairness, no one could have predicted that the Chinese were serious in October and November when they said they wouldn't support sanctions in December. But at least we got them to back a "toughly worded" letter to Iran, something that Obama claimed as a huge diplomatic victory. Again: really.

Perfect. Just absolutely perfect:

South Korea's military said Friday it was investigating a hacking attack that netted secret defense plans with the United States and may have been carried out by North Korea. The suspected hacking occurred late last month when a South Korean officer failed to remove a USB device when he switched a military computer from a restricted-access intranet to the Internet, Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said. The USB device contained a summary of plans for military operations by South Korean and U.S. troops in case of war on the Korean peninsula.

Now the real question is whether "not disconnecting a USB drive" is dumber than the all but willful neglect that led to Iranian-backed terrorists grabbing realtime video feeds from our Predators. In that story - which broke yesterday - the Pentagon had long known that our downlinks could be cracked by anyone with off-the-shelf software. And by "long known" I mean "known since Bosnia" and by "off-the-shelf" I mean "$26." Which is exactly what happened:

"Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds... [This points] to a potentially serious vulnerability in Washington's growing network of unmanned drones, which have become the American weapon of choice in both Afghanistan and Pakistan." -- Gee, you think? Don't get me wrong; I'm no military genius or anything, but it seems to me that one particular task at the Pentagon should be to make sure that our enemies don't have real-time access to our Predator video feeds. We've used encrypted and frequency-hopping communications systems for decades now. No one thought to apply that technology to drone communications?

Hey, I don't mean to make a big deal about this. But it's not at all clear that we're winning right now. There's the vulnerability of modern society to asymmetric warfare, and then there's the stupidity of individuals, large bureaucracies, and individuals within large bureaucracies. They're both pretty bad. But it's really hard to do something about the warfare thing when the stupidity part keeps getting in the way.

And what the hell are war plans doing on a jump drive to begin with?

References:
* Hackers steal SKorean-US military secrets [AP]
* Great news: Iranian-backed terrorists hacked US drone video feeds [Hot Air]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Military News
* North Korea
* Iran

Iran provokes. The US responds with milquetoast banalities. Like clockwork:

The new medium-range missile tested by Iran is "not particularly different than what we've seen in the past," said Pentagon defense spokesman Geoff Morrell on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report. The report quoted Morrell as saying that US intelligence shows the missile - said to be capable of targeting parts of Israel - is not a sign of advanced military capabilities acquired by Teheran... "Such actions will increase the seriousness and resolve of the international community to hold Iran accountable for its continued defiance of its international obligations on its nuclear program," he said.

Really? Because according to the NYT the new missile is more accurate and can be launched faster than all of their previous missiles. Meir Javedanfar - writing an article titled "The plus side of an arms race with Iran" - also admits it's "a sign that Iran is making significant advances in its missile programme" and moving past its inaccurate Shahab-3's.

Now Iran is threatening to launch precision strikes against Tel Aviv's skyscrapers and against Israeli nuclear sites. In the former case Israel would have to respond with overwhelming force well beyond its conventional capabilities. In the latter case Israel would interpret the attack a non-conventional strike and respond accordingly. So in a very real way, the inaccuracy of Iran's missiles is all that prevents an inevitable Israeli/Iranian war from going nuclear.

Now just for completion's sake. Iran's got enough material to build a nuclear bomb. They've been developing nuclear warheads for years and the IAEA - for all that they've been hiding the fact - undeniably knows it. They've been developing nuclear triggers for years and the US - for all that the 2007 NIE authors misled Americans about it - has known it all along.

Oh. And they might building an H-Bomb:

It's that time of the week again. One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show, 6:30pm PST, streamed live from Blog Talk Radio. Head over there after the show starts for a chance to ask questions in the chat room or get on the air. The podcast will be available immediately afterward, though of course it's much less fun.

This week's interview is with Noam Bedein, the founder and director of the Sderot Media Center. I've been pushing them on you guys for at least a couple years. The SMC is the only NGO doing consistent media work on the ground in Sderot, which is in turn the only city on the planet where civilians are constantly targeted by rocket barrages (so much much for Israel's vaunted military superiority, which is supposed to be the basis of "risks for peace").

So singular is the SMC, that they were the ones called upon to provide evidence and testimony to the Goldstone Commission about Hamas's war crimes. None of that made it into the UN resolution - and it was never going to, which is why the Israeli government rightly refused to cooperate with Goldstone's kangaroo court - but it's good that an NGO was there to make sure that Goldstone couldn't claim official ignorance. Noam will update listeners on the situation in the Negev, where schoolchildren are again under Palestinian rocket fire, and talk about his organization's role in bringing that to public attention.

As always Dan Diker joins in at the beginning of the show, if only to make sure that there's some expert saying something. Major topics: the Israeli/UK rift - which as of this morning required the British Prime Minister to clarify that UK policy recognizes that Israelis are people too - and Iran's global proliferation network. There's also a segment on the myth of linkage that I'd really like to get to - we'll see if we have time.

Money line from the UK segment, bearing in mind that it takes a lot to get Diker using strong language about anything, let alone about diplomacy itself: today Britain is "leading the charge to uproot and delegitimze the Jewish State." That's a week after Sweden tried to divide the ancient capital of the Jewish people. Bold!

References:
* Noam Bedein - Sderot In An Era Of Hamas War Crimes [Omri Ceren Show]
* Noam Bedein, the founder and director of the Sderot Media Center. [MR]
* Brown: Livni welcome in UK any time [JPost]
* Obama: We Must Achieve Peace By Forcing Israel To Give Up Jerusalem And Open Its Borders [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Cast Lead
* Britain

At least now we know what unblinking pretexts Obama's getting from his Iran advisers. They need to explain why all their nuanced Tehranology - which always ends with some new inscrutable justification for pro-Iran gestures - has merely emboldened Khamenei into confidently coming out as a hardline thug. It can't be that liberal foreign policy experts have spent the last few decades disingenuously denying that the Iranian political echelon is controlled by apocalyptic hardliners.

It's not that they produced paper after paper in the 90's predicting - incorrectly - that "moderates" would be electorally empowered if Albright made apologies and Clinton offered back channel concessions. It's not that they spent the Bush years howling - untenably - that offering a Grand Bargain would enable "conservative pragmatists" to "get Khamenei's ear." And it's certainly not that they made up tales - suspiciously - of Iranian wiggle room on nukes while lunatics were being installed as negotiators.

Sure it all looks exactly that way. And sure a genuinely nuanced analysis of Iranian ideology explains why it looks that way, since Khamenei's commitment to pan-Islamism would stymie state-level negotiations even if he wasn't the ultra-hardliner that he is.

But what you don't understand is that there are all these factions. And they're fighting with one another. And - even though it might appear like one side keeps winning, indicating either that there's no internal struggle or that it doesn't matter - you need to ignore that in the same way you ignore decades of failed diplomatic outreach. Just a few more weeks of sophistication and all this carefully calibrated groveling will yield a modus vivendi. You'll see!

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday an unsettled political situation in Iran may be complicating efforts to seal a nuclear fuel deal between Tehran and major world powers... "But it is going to take time, and part of the challenge that we face is that neither North Korea nor Iran seem to be settled enough politically to make quick decisions on these issues," he told Reuters in an interview at the White House.

Which is weird, because it certainly looks like the regime came to a quick decision. Here's how the talks have been going post-Qom, pegged either to the dateline or - where the lede was explicit - to when specific statements were made:

As part of my determined and ongoing campaign to dilute the Mere Rhetoric brand - strongly linked as it is now to an ethos of online anonymity and amatuer ranting - I'm co-sponsoring a real-life expert event with Dore Gold on Monday Nov. 2nd at the Skirball. The official co-sponsor list: Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, One Jerusalem, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and Mere Rhetoric Media, which is a fake entity I just made up to cover MR's "dyanmic and growing stable of political and academic blogs, social media assets, and multimedia offerings" (see? branding!).

More importantly: Dore Gold on Iran. Skirball. November 2nd. I've pasted the full flier, which is nicely laid out and includes some more logistical information, after the jump. Click on it to download a full-sized copy.

You can also click through to the CJHS writeup or just RSVP preemtively because it's Dore Gold and he'll be talking about Iran on the week where the IAEA will be declaring "so we looked into that Qom site that we gave Iran weeks to clean out, and it turns out it was empty - nothing to worry about!" CJHS put on a Skirball event with Norman Podhoretz about a month ago that sold out and had an overflow line stretching almost out the door. So if you're going to attend - and you should, given how what Gold said in August is happening now and what he'll be saying next week will be happening in December - it behooves you to RSVP sooner rather than later.

Partial blurb:

One of Israel's greatest living foreign policy experts, Ambassador Gold will be speaking about his new book The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West and about the threats posed by a resurgent Iran arming itself with weapons of mass destruction... The Rise of Nuclear Iran systematically lays out the elements of Iran's weaponization program: highly enriched nuclear material, long-range ballistic missiles, and nuclear-capable warheads. The revelation of the Qom enrichment facility and Iran's subsequent missile tests have confirmed all of Gold's warnings, making his book required reading for anyone who seeks to understand Tehran's current and future plans. Now Ambassador Gold will lay out a bleak case against the West's "sticks and carrots" engagement policy and highlight the consequences of its likely failure: a "nuclear umbrella" for global terrorists, a Middle East dominated by Shiite hegemony, a Western hemisphere subject to Iranian threats, and a ever-present genocidal shadow over the Jewish State.

RSVP: Click.

The full interview with Dr. Ledeen is now available on the One Jerusalem audio page. It's more than double the length of the highlight clips I played as part of Wednesday's show. If you haven't heard the Wednesday show, by the by, you should hit the widget on the MR sidebar or hop directly to the Blog Talk Radio page. There are still no people calling in but other than that I've almost entirely managed to make the equipment not be broke.

The full interview gets into a lot more detail about the scope of the Iranian threat and about internal Iranian political dynamics. At one point there's a kind of an indirect crash course on the Iranian hierarchy, which will be useful if you're participating in one of those "who's getting arrested today" fantasy leagues that have been springing up. There's also a series of musings on exactly what species of stupid must be swaying our historically-stunted diplomatic community. "What would they have to believe to think that" is always an interesting question, though it'd be a lot more entertaining if it wasn't for their Memento-like approach to Iranian engagement wasn't pushing the Middle East into nonconventional war.

Two final teaser quotes to sweeten the pot on the full interview: (1) Dr. Ledeen answers the question "where do you see the next 6 months going inside of Iran" and (2) there's an extended discussion about Tehran palace intrigue that culminates in the line "people very close to them are betraying them." Genuine inside baseball stuff.

In the meantime you obviously should grab Ledeen's new book Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West. If there was any sense in the world it'd be required reading in the White House. Instead Obama and his staff are engrossed in a book about how the White House needs to be wary of Pentagon wartime advice. What could go wrong?

References:
* AUDIO EXCLUSIVE :: Michael Ledeen, Author of 'Iran & The War Against the West' -- Full Interview! [One Jerusalem]
* Michael Ledeen - Iran's Accomplices To Evil [The Omri Ceren Show]
* Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West by Michael Ledeen [Amazon]
* Reading "Lessons in Disaster" in the White House [Politico]

Previously:
* Khamenei Seizes Control Of Iranian Republican Guard Militias, Installs Son As Head Thug
* HuffPo: Conservatives "Insist The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion Are Real"
* The Omri Ceren Show - Wednesday At 2pm PST - Michael Ledeen On His New Book "Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West"

As promised, here are last week's Council winners. The top post was from Soccer Dad, who pointed out a week ago what Netanyahu was slamming the table about yesterday:

The media likes to boast that they are the "first rough draft of history." Part of that claim is that they are disinterested parties just reporting the facts as they are. Rafael Broch of Just Journalism had an excellent op-ed in Ha'aretz demonstrating the falseness of that claim... And so every Israeli self-defense is subject to a filter, which suggests that each such action might well be a violation worthy of condemnation if not punishment. Consider the other side of the coin. On Friday Israel released twenty female security prisoners in exhange for a video of captured soldier, Gilad Schalit. Schalit has been held for three years and not allowed any visits by the Red Cross. How did the Associated Press orient its story? On the plight of the prisoners!

Also on the subject of media mendacity, the runner up non-Council post was from Jammie Wearing Fool on CBS's attempt to discredit conservative blogs. CBS's demonstrably and embarrassingly failed attempt to discredit conservative blogs. We've now reached a point where the media rushes to defend Obama against "spurious" charges without actually checking whether those charges are spurious. You have to click on the links guys.

Back to Council posts, the runner up post was from Joshuapundit on the sham negotiations in Geneva:

We're not going to discuss 'sanctions', or anything like that with Iran, but we'd like to talk to them one on one about whatever's on their mind if that works out. But of course, we're not insisting or anything like that. We'd really, really like the Iranians to let the IAEA take a peek at their hidden nuclear facility near Qom, (as if the IAEA is going to be able to find its behind with both hands)but we don't insist on it. And we're certainly not going to try to get Iran to comply even by mentioning the prospect of sanctions against them, let alone force. And nothing harsh like any deadlines. Whenever things are all tidied up and it's convenient, El Baradi and the boys will drop by - if that's OK.

On a largely unrelated note, has anyone noticed the Kafkaesque turn domestic law enforcement has taken? The top non-Council post is about the age of opaque law enforcement we've apparently entered. Closer to home, the FTC is defending their new anti-blogger regulations specifically by promising they'll only selectively enforce them. I have yet to go to law school - and while we're on that topic, if you'd be so kind - but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to work that way.

References and previously after the jump...

We're settling into our regular time slot this week, going live at 2pm on Wednesday and running the full 45 minutes. You'll be able to help yourself to the podcast any time afterward either through the widget to the left or through the One Jerusalem frontpage. But to hear the show live you have to be on The Omri Ceren Show's Blog Talk Radio page. The widgets only serve archived shows. The only way to listen live is via the Blog Talk Radio page. Once you're following along from there you can call in, get on the air, and provide grist for the ever-churning mill that is One Jerusalem Radio.

My interview this week is with Michael Ledeen, conservative foreign policy expert and best-selling author, discussing his new book Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West. The book goes on sale bright and early tomorrow morning but you can preorder it either from Amazon or from less traditional but more discounted web storefronts like Overstock.com. As usual I'll play interview highlights tomorrow on the show and then make the full exclusive interview available on the One Jerusalem audio page.

There's an entire slow-moving Book Notes-style interview to be done with Ledeen about how his deep "no despised regime can last" sensibilities map onto his previous work on Machiavelli. My hunch: straightforwardly. But this week's interview focused less on theory and more on the immediately terrifying issues in Accomplice to Evil - the West's shameful sellout of Iranian reformers, the genuinely fragile nature of the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad regime, and the few - but compelling - options for dealing peacefully with Iranian nuclearization. "We don't have to bomb Iran" is the explicit optimistic upshot, "unless we continue abandoning the struggle for freedom" is the less sanguine warning.

Also on the show Wednesday: the Goldstone Report is undermining moderate Palestinians, the Obama administration's discovery that the Taliban aren't our enemies, Nobel Peace Prize lol's, and whatever happens between now and then. Tune in!

References:
* The Omri Ceren Show [Blog Talk Radio]
* One Jerusalem [Official Site]
* One Jerusalem Audio Page [One Jerusalem]
* Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West by Michael Ledeen [Amazon]
* Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are As Timely And Important Today As Five Centuries Ago by Michael Ledeen [Amazon]

Previously:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* The Omri Ceren Show At 11am PST Today - Dore Gold On The Rise Of Nuclear Iran
* The Omri Ceren Show Debuts Monday At 11am PST With Dore Gold Interview, Vitriol

I guess I was wrong during yesterday's TOCS news segment when I said that Geneva would give Iran time to limp across the nuclear finish line. They're actually sprinting ahead:

Iran plans to install a more advanced type of centrifuge at its newly revealed uranium enrichment site, an Iranian newspaper reported Tuesday, a development certain to add to international concerns about the country's nuclear work. Iranian scientists have carried out research and development in recent months for the new generation of more efficient centrifuges, and most of the machines' components are made domestically, said the head of Iran's nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, according to the Kayhan daily newspaper.... Iran insists its enrichment work is only meant for use in generating power.

The size and nature of the Qom facility put to rest even the pretense that they might be telling the truth only wanting to generate power. But it's nice to see they're still willing to unblinkingly trot out the line. Saves people the trouble of unpacking new lies.

On sanctions, here's that NYT story about how we couldn't implement a robust sanctions regime even if we got Russia or China on board. Luckily we can get neither Russia nor China on board so that's not an issue.

Not that Obama seems particularly interested in trying. First there was that September deadline that he set and that the Iranians made a huge show of totally and completely blowing off. It promptly and mysteriously vanished, only to be replaced by a new December deadline.

Then there was that hardline announcement that Iran had two weeks to let inspectors into Qom. Guess how it went:

The One laid down the two-week deadline yesterday at around 3 p.m. ET; this dispatch from The Hill was posted at 2:23 this afternoon. The big "ultimatum" didn't last 24 hours: "A State Department spokesperson on Friday signaled the president's mandate that Iran has two weeks to permit inspections of its recently unveiled uranium refinement plant was not "written in stone." "I don't think that there's a hard-and-fast deadline," State Department Spokesperson Ian C. Kelley said during Friday's press briefing, after a reporter asked what the consequences of Iran's inaction might be."

As for our broader strategy - I can't blockquote this entire Fox News blog post so I'll just send you there directly. Title: "US Won't Push for Sanctions in Nuke Talks With Iran, Open to Direct Negotiations, Denial of Access to Covert Enrichment Facility Not a Deal-Breaker."

Meanwhile our State Department has taken to granting emergency visas to Iranian regime toadies "with unusual speed." Just to be nice, ya know?

References and previously after the jump...

Thirty minutes till the very first episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show. You should be able to listen to it either here or at One Jerusalem via the Blog Talk Radio widget. If it's not streaming correctly then you can head over to the main TOCS page where it'll definitely be working. You might want to take a stroll over there anyway since there's all kinds of information about calling in and sharing the show.

I wrapped up the interview with Ambassador Gold this morning and I'll be playing highlights from that plus whatever news segments we have time for. The full 25 minute interview will be made available after the show exclusively on the One Jerusalem audio page. The highlights I'll be playing focus mainly on the Ambassador's new book Rise Of Nuclear Iran and how it relates to - and predicted - the last few weeks of Iran-related news. The full interview also includes comments on Obama's Middle East diplomacy and about a couple other domestic and geopolitical controversies. Definitely something to check out.

In the meantime we're unwrapping the plastic here at the palatial One Jerusalem studios and we'll be on the air shortly. If you want to try to get on the air the number is 347-857-2022. We're only going 30 minutes today - 15 less than what we'll be doing during our regular Wednesday time slot - but I'll still try to fir a few folks in.

References:
* One Jerusalem
* The Omri Ceren Show [Blog Talk Radio]
* Rise Of Nuclear Iran by Dore Gold [Amazon]

Previously:
* One Jerusalem Conference Call With Dore Gold: The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West [Video]
* Mere Rhetoric Updates - Site Changes And News
* The Omri Ceren Show Debuts Monday At 11am PST With Dore Gold Interview, Vitriol

Per the last post, the debut episode of The Omri Ceren Show - hereinafter labeled TOCS in a desperate attempt not to sound clownish - will air tomorrow at 11am. This opportunity is courtesy the newly-minted One Jerusalem Radio, where the thinking apparently goes "our dignified high-level podcasts with noted politicians, scholars, and authors go like gangbusters - just think how popular an anger-filled hour of sarcasm and bile courtesy of an unknown blogger will be!" See also: trust, misplaced.

Tomorrow's interview is going to be with Ambassador Dore Gold, who'll be discussing among other things his new book The Rise Of Nuclear Iran. Gold's recent work got him tagged - by as erudite and careful a leftist mind as Max Blumenthal no less - as a member of the Party Of Death. Apparently the suggestion that Iran has a weapons program comprised of secret enrichment facilities, long-range ballistic missiles, and nuclear-capable warheads constitutes "a gigantic vaudeville of doom, despair, and destruction." So hopefully I'll get to ask the Ambassador why he hates life.

Around 10:30am I'll push a post live with a widget that looks very much like this thing, except it'll hopefully have a working link instead of the "undefined" tag showing now:

I'll also give you information on how to call in, light up the switchboard, and get on the air with questions. I can't imagine any of this will actually work so you should probably count on accessing the show from the main TOCS page on Blog Talk Radio. It has tools for streaming, information on calling in, and lots of social media buttons for sharing and participating.

I'm hoping that after a couple episodes a community of affirmation will coalesce around the show, very much like a group therapy session except with an extra heaping helping of warmth and comfort. Because isn't making a human connection what we're all really here for anyway?

References:
* Mere Rhetoric Updates - Site Changes And News [MR]
* Pastor Hagee's party of death (with Lieberman and Dore Gold) [Blumenthal]
* Reports: Obama Knew About Secret Iran Facility During Transition, Experts Pushed Engagement Anyway With Pro-Iran Pretexts [MR]
* Iran: Surprise, We've Got Working Ballistic Missiles [Video] [MR]
* Intel Shows Iran Fitting Missiles With Nuclear-capable Warheads [National Terror Alert]

Previously:
* Video: Israeli Missile Defense Group Emphasizes Need, Technological Feasibility Of Anti-Missile Systems
* One Jerusalem Conference Call With Dore Gold: The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West [Video]
* One Jerusalem Conference Call: Ambassador Dore Gold On How Current Limited Negotiations Are A Slippery Slope To Losing Jerusalem

It'd be easy to think of this as high comedy from the usual band of celebrity tyrant clowns who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy establishment, not least of which because it's high comedy from the usual band of celebrity tyrant clowns who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy establishment:

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi called on Monday for a new global definition of terrorism. Meeting a day after the end of a summit of African and South American leaders in Venezuela, the two men signed a declaration urging a global conference be held to sketch out new terms defining terrorism. Neither spoke publicly about the document, which rejects "attempts to link the legitimate struggle of the people for liberty and self-determination" with terrorism, according to a Venezuelan government website.

Next up: a redefinition of "Holocaust" that excludes genocides where the murderers were merely seeking Lebensraum. Subtle these tools are not. Not that they have to be: we've now reached a point in global geopolitics where Chavez is the one urging his fellow cretins to help the President of the United States, ostensibly the leader of the free world. Explicitly:

Meanwhile, Stone's new buddy gushed about Barack Obama, short one Communist buddy since Van Jones departed in the dark of night over the weekend. Maybe the two can pal around and have a beer at the White House: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy who once called George W. Bush "the devil," said on Monday he hoped to be able to work more closely with President Barack Obama..."I have no reason to call him (Obama) the devil, and I hope that I am right," Chavez told reporters in Venice. "With Obama we can talk, we are almost from the same generation, one can't deny that Obama is different (from Bush). He's intelligent, he has good intentions and we have to help him."

In fairness, Chavez and Obama do have a few overlapping perspectives. It's not just big things like reinstalling Zelaya or engaging Iran. It's the little things, the everyday things, the things at the level of sensibility. Like their mutual vaguely reflexive need to trash former President Bush in front of international forums. Those are the kind of shared eccentricities that really bring two people together.

Not in the way that Chavez is being "brought together" with African countries in an "anti-imperial" alliance. Or the way he's being "brought together" with Iran to create what Costa Rica's former US ambassador calls "a menace to the Western Hemisphere." Or the way he's being "brought together" with Qaddafi to build up a new world order. Those are much more robust alliance, built on shared anti-Western interests.

But it's still kind of heartwarming.

References and previously after jump...

Within a few minutes of the Iran nuke revelation Mark Knoller had a "senior US official" spinning it as some kind of "victory." It wasn't the most credible spin ever offered by an administration - and making it into an unblinking party line didn't help - but it wasn't "Honduras is a coup" deplorable or anything like that. It's undeniably dumb - Iran not only forced Obama to tip his hand but did it in a way that strengthened their negotiating position - but at least it was kind of sort of in the ballpark:

Paul Ingram, executive director of the British-American Security Information Council in London, an independent research and advocacy organization, said the timing of Iran's revelation -- in between United Nations General Assembly sessions and and the key meeting between Iran and key Western powers -- is deliberate on Iran's part. "It is not at all surprising that Iran would want this news to come out now," Ingram said. "It strengthens their hand." The fact that Iran has proactively informed the world helps Iran diplomatically in conducting nuclear negotiations, Ingram said, adding that to characterize this second facility as a covert operation is misleading. The Iranians have yet to start production at Qom and are revealing it before that happens.

So "US victory" isn't really a tenable argument. But it's what you're supposed to do and it's what they did. So points for that.

As it turns out, though, spinning diplomatic setbacks as victories doesn't only mean you're being inane. In this White House it also means you're off message:

Reid: "Thank you Mr. President, you just mentioned sanctions that have bite, what kinds of sanction, and I know you can't get into details but what kind of sanctions at all would have bite with Iran, do you really think that any kind of sanctions would have any effect on somebody like Ahmadinejad, secondly some of your advisers today said that this announcement was a victory, do you consider it a victory and if so why didn't you announce it earlier since you have known since you were President elect?." Obama flustered by the question: "I'm not interested in victory, I'm interested in solving the problem"

That's quite the nuance-infused take on the international scene, and it's certainly justified when countries can come together for mutual benefit. International relations obviously doesn't have to be a zero sum game. Except - weirdly - when it is a zero sum game. Like when one country wants to build a nuclear bomb and another country wants them not to, that's a situation where you'll have a winner and a loser. Best case scenario for pretending otherwise: you look moronic. Worst case scenario: the other side actually believes you and hardens their posture accordingly.

I guess the actual worst case is that Obama's not pretending. But that's just silly. Video via Gateway Pundit:

This is more or less the same stunt he pulled when he couldn't make up his mind on "victory in Afghanistan." So at least he's consistently inconsistent.

References and previously after the jump...

The stuff about the transition comes from what Knoller's reporting, and in retrospect it makes sense. If the NIE estimated that there were 10-15 hidden facilities - and they did - presumably they had explicit game on at least a few of them. Nice of Obama to trot out surrogate after surrogate to threaten Israel against taking out the facilities, always under the pretense that he had things under control. Speaking of which, how did Iran get wind that their cover was blown?

As for Russia, they still see Iran as critical to their economic health, so don't expect much from Moscow. Earlier this week, they sounded fatalistic about new sanctions, and some wondered if Obama hadn't worked out some quid pro quo based on the shift on missile defense in eastern Europe. Instead, it looks as though Obama may have shared this intel with Russia, which is probably how Iran found out about it.

Since this post is supposed to be about engagement and the faux sophisticates who fabricate pretexts for it, here are the Sept. 8 and Sept. 19 LA Times editorials urging "conversations" with Iran. In between the paper published a third pro-engagement Opinion, this one about how Iran was ever-so-close to moderation.

The drip drip drip consistency of the engagement push might cause some people to suspect that a loose group of pro-Iran journalists, intellectuals, and politicians were manipulating the news cycle. But the alternative - that the LA Times is filled with morons who didn't get the "no one really believes engagement will work any more" memo - shouldn't be totally dismissed.

Taking a step back: I was always kind of fond of the left's anodyne Bush-era assurances about how Iran could never get their centrifuges running. There were all kinds of reasons: contamination of the equipment, impurity of the uranium, the misalignment of the moons of Saturn, etc. It was the specificity coupled with the bluster in the context of the mindblowing stupidity that was always so delightful.

This current crop of Iran apologists is just unimaginative.

Why not? Iran already got precisely the right read on Western resolve when we let them blow off that September deadline. What's this going to do? Give the impression of appeasement?

The consequences of letting the September deadline pass without demonstrating a decisive response is clearly not understood in Western capitals. Iran will carefully calibrate its next moves on the basis of how it believes the U.S. and its allies will act in the weeks ahead. Up until now, President Obama's efforts to reach out to the Iranian leadership with carefully-crafted public messages and private letters have elicited the opposite response of what he intended... What might have been seen in Washington as a magnanimous gesture was perceived in Tehran as a sign of reduced Western resolve.

And so this morning - somehow knowing that their cover was blown - the mullahs went ahead and let slip a second previously undisclosed nuke facility. This one's not big enough to be helpful with energy generation. But if you were intent on, say, building a nuclear bomb - if that was your intention then it's quite useful.

This is the first facility out of the 10-15 secret ones that the 2007 NIE said Iran probably had. It's the third one they've been caught lying about. So in response we've issued a strong statement about how we're going to give them until December to explain themselves. Because maybe this whole thing is just a giant misunderstanding!

Obama called "disturbing information" -- a secret uranium enrichment facility Western intelligence agencies have discovered near Qom, 97 miles southwest of Tehran. Calling the news "a challenge made to the entire international community," President Sarkozy said that "if by December there is not an in-depth change by the Iranian leaders, sanctions will have to be taken." Brown said the "level of deception by the Iranian government and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments will shock and anger the whole international community and it will harden our resolve...We will not let this matter rest.

So disturbed was Obama, per Tapper, that he began to experience "great and increasing doubts about the strictly peaceful nature" of Iran's nuke program. You know, they might actually be up to something!

References and previously after the jump...

Even the left now admits that Iran and Venezuela are cooperating to sow global instability, with Venezuelan oil going to Iran and Iranian missiles coming to Venezuela. But at least Chavez is also building nuclear facilities with Russia's help. At least there's that:

Hugo Chavez wants to join the nuclear energy club and is looking to Russia for help in getting started. The Venezuelan leader is already dismissing critics' concerns over his nuclear ambitions, offering assurances his aims are peaceful and that Venezuela will simply be following in the footsteps of other South American nations using nuclear energy.

Yet his project remains in its planning stages and still faces a host of practical hurdles, likely requiring billions of dollars, as well as technology and expertise that Venezuela lacks. Russia has offered to help bridge that gap, and Chavez has announced that the two countries have created an atomic energy commission.

Of course a simple bilateral relationship - even one built on mutual nuclear capabilities - is too small time for these cretins. They're determined to have their own full-blown Iran-Venezuela-Hezbollah terror axis:

Two related items that should give the Obama administration pause as it seeks ways to engage Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and other countries in Venezuela's sphere of influence (Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador primarily). The first is the new Memorandum of Understanding signed between the militaries of Venezuela and Iran. According to the official FARS News Agency, Iran's defense minister, in a visit to Caracas, "underlined Tehran's all-out efforts to help Venezuela promote its defense capabilities and bolster its power of deterrence through bilateral Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) on military cooperation." Chávez, for his part, stated that "The Bolivarian and the Islamic Revolutions have a lot in common and these commonalities have consolidated the two countries' bonds."...

At the same time, 17 people were arrested in the small Caribbean island (and Dutch territory) of Curacao on charges of transporting several tons of cocaine and sending some of the money to Hezbollah. "We have been able to establish that this group has relations with international criminal organizations that have connections with the Hezbollah," prosecutor Ludmila Vicento said.

Chavez has also purchased himself some brand new tanks. His military and terror financing has drained Venezuela's coffers to the point where they can't even keep the lights on any more. Maybe this is something Obama can talk with them about.

References and previously after the jump...

About time. The UAE has been the gaping hole in the Iran sanctions net for years:

The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship carrying North Korean weapons to Iran, marking the first time a nation has acted on UN sanctions to stop the communist state's proliferation, a diplomat said Friday... A diplomat, speaking to AFP in New York on condition of anonymity, said UAE government officials had informed the UN Security Council's sanctions committee, which is responsible for implementing sanctions on Pyongyang. "It is an issue that is being processed by the committee," said the source, who declined further comment on details on the weapons.

I was going to end with the MR post from last April about how Obama prevented our cutting-edge missile defense from getting deployed lest it "provoke" the North Koreans. But instead here's a post from last Tuesday about how Obama's diplomatic push toward Pyongyang is paying off.

Do you think the informal club of celebrity tyrants who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy community actually laugh out loud when they talk about Obama?

With regime change off the table, and President Obama dishing out "mutual respect" faster than the rulers of Tehran, Tripoli, Pyongyang or Caracas can spit their contempt right back in his face, tyrants are becoming ever more weirdly trendy. They are globalized, in our face, on the Web, on television--and as New York braces for the September opening of the United Nations General Assembly, some of them, with considerable ceremony, are coming to town.

The most flamboyant among them enter a VIP orbit, in which they may be officially reviled, but also eagerly sought after. Recall the banquet hosted by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last September at the midtown Manhattan Grand Hyatt for 1,000 or so of his closest friends. Or remember the gushing accounts two years ago of the invitations sent out, as Time magazine described it, on "creamy stationery with fancy calligraphy," to a select 50 or so American opinion-makers to sup with Ahmadinejad at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York. Whatever the protesters shouted outside the security cordon, it has become an accepted part of New York's fall season that Ahmadinejad and his retinue arrive for a hoopla of motorcades, talk shows, press conferences and banquets.

It's easy to forget that Ahmadinejad was endlessly fascinating to the left, right up until his "no gays in Iran" stunt made it declasse to defend him. Before that happened foreign policy experts were actually flirting with painting him - apocalyptic lunatic though he is - as a relative moderate:

There have been rumors swirling for the past week that the IAEA is keeping an explosive Iran report in a drawer. Israel apparently got wind of it and went so ballistic that the US and Europe had to pick it up and push ElBaradei:

"What we and all the allies are pressing for is for the full case to be laid out, in public," one senior Obama administration official said last week, speaking anonymously because he was discussing intelligence data... But agency officials say that Mohamed ElBaradei, the departing director general, resisted a public airing, fearing that such a presentation would make the agency appear biased toward the West in the effort to impose what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently called "crippling" sanctions. Dr. ElBaradei, who has argued for allowing Iran to maintain a token capacity to produce uranium under strict inspection, has said that the evidence does not create an airtight case against Iran.

Yeah, ElBaradei would never want to appear biased. That's why he refers to the "Arab world" as "we", calls the WMD-producing Syrians his "brothers," engages in personal boycotts of media organizations that are insufficiently hostile to Israel, won't acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, regurgitates untenable pro-engagement talking points on Iran, and goes out of his way to undermine the West's military options against the mullahs. Because he doesn't want to appear biased.

On the plus side, the IAEA pinky-swears they're not hiding any report, that Iran is slowing down their nuke development, and that there's no "evidence in the agency's files that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability":

The U.N. nuclear watchdog on Friday hit back at reports that it had hidden information about Iran's disputed atomic programme, in a rare public comment on the agency's sensitive inspections work... The IAEA has no evidence showing undeniably that Iran has a bomb agenda, a diplomat close to the IAEA said earlier this week. The diplomat said ElBaradei had been loath to publish information that could be used for political ends and make the agency look biased against Iran... His successor, Japan's veteran IAEA envoy Yukiya Amano, has said he has not seen any evidence in the agency's files that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability.

Meanwhile there are undiscovered tribes in the Amazon without access to electricity who have "seen evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons." At this rate the UN's vaunted nuclear watchdog will be very last organization on the planet to discover that those lunatics really do have a nuke program. Or at least the last one to admit it.

References and previously after the jump...

Last week it was Rafsanjani, who had to pledge allegiance to Khamenei in front of the powerful Expediency Council and repudiate "law breakers." This week it's Hajjarian, arguably the closest thing Iran has ever had to a genuine reformist, brought out to denounce everything he's ever stood for. Pure Orwell:

Saeed Hajjarian was a die-hard hero of Iran's reform movement, campaigning to reduce the power of the Islamic clerics even after being shot in the head in an assassination attempt that left him partially paralyzed. On Tuesday, he was brought into a courtroom propped up by men who put him in the front row of defendants in Iran's biggest political trial in decades, where he proceeded to renounce his entire career as a reformist.

His speech slurred and nearly unintelligible from the 2000 attack, Hajjarian had a statement read proclaiming that Iran's supreme leader represents the rule of God on Earth and asking for forgiveness for his "incorrect" ideas... A procession of the biggest names in the reform movement has taken the stand during the past month, some looking thin and tired, all dressed in blue pajama-like prison uniforms and slippers. They have confessed to taking part in what the government says was a plot backed by foreign enemies to overthrow Iran's clerical leadership in a "velvet revolution."

"Thin and tired" is an understatement. Unremitting solitary confinement, imprisonment in literal tombs, regular beatings, and ritualized rape have left some of Iran's top reformers looking like this. Even TIME - one of the outlets more rather than less prone to publishing pro-engagement talking points as news - is considering the possibility that maybe possibly the IRG is in charge.

The drip drip drip of coerced confessions is developing into something of a pattern:

Iranian authorities put on trial Sunday a group of demonstrators who said they were directed by campaign officials of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi to destroy public property in the chaotic aftermath of the June 12 election. The arrested demonstrators made their statements, which could become part of a case against Mousavi if he is arrested, in the third session of a mass trial of politicians, journalists and academics. There has been widespread criticism of the confessions, which many government opponents say are coerced.

Actual Associated Press headline from the middle of this month: "Waiting on Iran: West seeking signs of Tehran's global direction after turmoil." Seriously. Because they could go either way!

References and previously after the jump...

This morning's One Jerusalem conference call was with Amb. Dore Gold, who's on a media blitz for his just-published book The Rise Of Nuclear Iran. Also on the call: Avi Green (Tel Chai Nation), Jerry Gordon (IsraPundit), and Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit). The audio will be up on their frontpage in a couple hours but in the meantime there's a Fox and Friends video of Gold discussing the book below, also via One Jerusalem.

Basic points from the book and the call: (1) Engagement has already been tried and won't work, (2) Iran will keep their nukes off-limits during negotiations anyway, (3) the mullahs are very deliberately running out the clock, and (4) they already has enough nuclear material to build the Bomb plus the intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver it.

Not that they'd need to, since some of their tests show they're preparing for a shore-based EMP attack.

Where the book gets particularly detailed is on the grinding diplomatic and military dynamics of a post-nuclear Iran: an Iranian "nuclear umbrella" to terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas that detonates the War on Terror, Iranian hegemony over the Middle East that puts stability at the whim of the IRG, and increasing Iranian interference in Latin America at the cost of US influence.

The book is systematic, it has documents that have rarely seen the light of day, and it's as on-point to the next few months as any dead tree publication can be. Grab the audio from One Jerusalem and then buy it.

References and previously after the jump...

Before you try to line up this insanity with the old Inquisition garbage on destroying the sinner's body to save the soul - that's not what's happening here. This isn't a theocratic justification for torture, which would almost be too clean and honest for these cretins. That's the kind of spectacle that, for better or worse, you still have to own.

This even goes beyond old-fashioned brazen totalitarian denial, though there's some of that ala the regime's brazen "prison rapes, what prison rapes" party line. What's added here is sneering anti-clerical populism, where a "salt-of-the-earth" Ahmadinejad thug mocks an ostensibly decadent cleric for breaking under weeks of torture. Charming:

A close aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested that Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist critic of the president, appeared so gaunt during his televised confession this month because he himself had decided to take off some weight. "It's natural that when someone has become fat, in prison he understands that his fatness harmed his body and spirit," said Ali Akbar Javanfekr."So maybe Mr. Abtahi took advantage of this opportunity to lose weight."

Observers were stunned when Abtahi, who served as a vice president for former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, publicly confessed to conspiring against Ahmadinejad. It wasn't just that his words appeared to be copied verbatim from Iran's hardline press. But the 51-year-old looked terrible... The mid-ranking cleric appeared gaunt, withdrawn and without his turban.

Here's the pre and post, via the LAT and courtesy Iranian news agencies. The reports say that he spent weeks under interrogation and in solitary confinement, which in Evin means you're locked up in a tomb-like box, taken out occasionally for beatings, and - even if you're male - regularly raped.

Remember when Iran got a slot on the UN Human Rights Council's Durban steering committee, the better to plan a conference that demonized Israel for human rights abuses? There are literally billions of people, to say nothing of a decent swath of the US foreign policy commitunity, who think that the appointment was perfectly reasonable. But at least when our foreign policy experts explain their reasoning it has an air of nuance.

On the plus side, maybe this is something Obama can ask the mullahs about if they ever deign to let him personally try to appease them.

References:
* Mohammad Ali Abtahi [Babyon And Beyond]
* Figures: Iranian Prison Guards Rape Female Prisoners Before Execution "Lest They Go To Paradise" [MR]
* Clenched Against The Male Prisoners They're Raping [Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched?]
* Iran Elected To UN Human Rights Council, Appointed To Plan Anti-Racism Conference. Hey, Why Not? [MR]

Previously:
* Clinton: Iran Protests Are An "Internal Matter"
* Media Slightly Exaggerating Ahmadinejad's Acceptance Of Israel, Willingness To Give Up Nukes
* United Nations: Iran's Murder Of Peaceful Protesters Raises "Troubling Questions"

Pressure on Israel to give up the Golan, reinvigorated US-Syrian diplomatic ties despite Assad's continued interference with the Hariri tribunal, and a generous offer by Obama to look the other way while Damascus continues to develop WMDs - smart power is very smart:

Iran's supreme leader called his country's alliance with Syria a symbol of resistance in the Middle East on Wednesday, seeking to reinforce a key relationship as Tehran fends off continued criticism over its response to post-election unrest. Visiting Syrian President Bashar Assad exemplified that resistance by criticizing foreign countries for provoking the massive protests that followed Iran's disputed June presidential election. His comments will likely disappoint the Obama administration, which has stepped up diplomatic efforts to pull Syria away from Iran. "I've come here today to personally convey my warm congratulations to you and the Iranian nation," Assad was quoted.

Not only has Obama "stepped up efforts" to suck up to Syria: he's gone so far as to repeatedly trot out surrogates to announce that his oh-so-sophisticated strategy was paying dividends. Turns out not so much.

Iranian press spun Assad's visit as a veritably divine signal that regional actors need to open up a "resistance front" because Israel and the US have become "weak." Terrific:

In a telephone conversation, the Iranian and Syrian Presidents have stated Israel and its allies are getting "weaker" and instead the tide is turning in favor of regional Muslim nations, the Presidential office said in a press report on Friday. According to Mehr News Agency, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "the enemies of regional peace are losing the ground but the formidable alliance of friendly countries like Iran and Syria are getting more powerful." The Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad also insisted that regional developments "are turning in favor of Muslim countries and to the detriment of the Zionist regime and its allies."

No worries though - I'm sure that our renewed promise to deliver Israel and the security team we're sending to Damascus will cause Assad to like us the bestest.

References and previously after the jump...

First Ahmadinejad's tirade from last week, a neat little example of the anti-British conspiracy theories that make up the fabric of daily life in Iran:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that enemy states will be "slapped in the face" if they do not cease interfering in Iran's internal affairs. "The Iranian nation has for 30 years endured the actions of enemy states with magnanimity, but if you do not desist from your interference, it [Iran] will slap you in the face so hard that you will not be able to find your way back home... Ahmadinejad pointed to British interference in Iran's post-election unrest, saying, "Some of this country's officials thought that by launching a Persian-language channel they will be able to reach their objectives in the Islamic Republic, but they underestimated the Iranian nation's love for the rule of its just jurisprudent [Ayatollah Khamenei]."

And now a news petulant fit, this time directed at the US's Farsi language efforts:

Iranian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on Sunday for a bill creating a $20 million fund intended in part to expose human rights violations by the United States, the ILNA news agency reported... The U.S. Senate passed a bill in July that would allocate $30 million for technologies to allow the U.S. government's Farsi-language satellite and radio stations to bypass Iranian government efforts to jam their broadcasts. An additional $20 million would be set aside for developing Web sites and other technologies that will improve Iranian access to censored information. An additional $5 million is authorized for documenting information about human rights in Iran.

"We must respond in kind to America's injustice and tyranny and the interference of this country against Iran," Boroujerdi said, according to Press TV. The lawmakers need to vote again on the bill within six months in order to finalize it.

The WaPo goes on to muse that maybe - maybe - this might be a sign that Obama's outreach isn't going to work because of lingering "distrust." Which is weird because just a few weeks ago the WaPo was channeling Scowcroft and Brzezinski on the point that The One's charming charmfulness had gotten rid of anti-Americanism.

It is interesting that there are foreign policy experts who ritualistically intone that Iran's paranoia over foreign interference is "unfortunately" justified and foreign policy experts who insist that we have to embrace public diplomacy and those are often the same foreign policy experts. Not there's anything wrong in theory with trying to win Arab and Muslim hearts and minds. It's only when State's institutional imperatives for success run up against the reality that there's a deep ideological conflict between the West and large swaths of the Islamic world - only then do we get our diplomats going on obsequious apology tours and our foreign media outlets broadcasting antisemitic cant.

Which also wouldn't matter, except that's all the time.

References and previously after the jump...

That was fast:

An Iranian official has denied he said Tehran was ready for talks with the West on its nuclear programme based on mutual respect and without conditions. State television had earlier reported that Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the UN's nuclear watchdog, had announced its willingness to negotiate. "There have been no comments or interviews with TV networks on nuclear talks or conditions," he later said. Iran has been given until September to end its uranium enrichment programme. Otherwise it faces tougher sanctions. The West suspects Iran is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons, while Tehran insists its programme is solely peaceful.

On the upside, now we're in for a month of eyeroll-inducing Tehranology from our oh-so-sophisticated foreign policy community. I can't wait to learn what kind of subtle signal Khamenei was trying to send to Obama by having Soltanieh announce Iran's willingness to negotiate without preconditions and then immediately backtrack.

It can't be that someone got their signals crossed. It's obviously got to be that Khamenei was sending a note in a bottle about how there's an internal power struggle between him and the IRG, and so Obama should urgently reach out to Khamenei to isolate the IRG. Obviously.

For the record, even Clinton all but admits that engagement with Iran isn't going to work. It's clever of the administration to hold back the largely futile sanctions Obama's supposedly holding over the Islamic Republic - the better to ensure they don't visibly fail before negotiations state - but I think the Iranians cracked that secret a while ago.

Maybe another obsequiousness letter to the mullahs will work!

References and previously after the jump...

References:
* Iran denies nuclear talks offer [BBC]
* Official: Iran Ready for Nuclear Talks With West [Fox News]
* Khamenei Seizes Control Of Iranian Republican Guard Militias, Installs Son As Head Thug [MR]
* Great News: Obama And House Dems Blocking National, International Sanctions On Iran [MR]
* Clinton: Just A Head's Up, But Engagement With Iran Probably Won't Work [MR]
* Bolton: Israel Will Attack Iran By January (Plus: New EU Sanctions Somewhat Underwhelming, Still Better Than What Obama Will Do) [MR]
* EXCLUSIVE: U.S. contacted Iran's ayatollah before election [Washington Times]

Previously:
* Obama WH: When We Confirmed Ahmadinejad's Legitimacy Yesterday, We Didn't Mean To Do That
* Perfect: Iran Creates Propaganda Gold Out Of Hillary's Empty "We Empowered The Protesters" Bragging [Video]
* Iran PressTV Blows The Lid Off Anti-Obama Birther Conspiracy Theories. Turns Out: Jews.

When the post-election protests broke out the WH went out of its way to obsequiously suck up to the mullahs, taking the risk of deflating the dissidents, until public outrage forced them to withdraw their hot dogs and lemonade offers. Then Gibbs confirmed Ahmadinejad's legitimacy on the eve of the inauguration, potentially tipping the decision calculus of protesters, until public outcry forced him to issue noncommittal "the Iranian people will decide" talking points. The goal all along has been to avoid the perception of meddling by never taking a stand when it mattered, among other things on the gamble that the regime would survive and Obama would want to engage it.

It was a supine and disgraceful policy. It would never have been convincing because Iran and its leaders are true believers in conspiracy theories about omnipresent Western manipulation. Even if it had been convincing it would have been futile because engagement won't work. But at least it was a consistent supine, disgraceful, unconvincing, and ultimately futile policy.

And now this crap:

"We did not want to get between the legitimate protests and demonstrations of the Iranian people and the leadership," Clinton said in an interview with CNN broadcast on Sunday. "And we knew that if we stepped in too soon, too hard... the leadership would try to use us to unify the country against the protestors." "Now, behind the scenes, we were doing a lot," Clinton said. "We were doing a lot to really empower the protestors without getting in the way. And we're continuing to speak out and support the opposition."

I only caught the interview because Iranian Tweeters are going ballistic about it. Apparently Iran state media is plastering it all over the airwaves. No wonder Iranian MPs just doubled down on Western "meddling."

This gem recently appeared as a brand new YouTube video on an account with this bio: "Sign the petition to try the corrupted Iranian opposition leaders (Rafsanjani, Khatami, Mousavi and Karroubi). While some responsible of the attempt of 'velvet revolution' against Iran are facing trials and admitting cooperation with foreign powers, intelligence agencies and terrorist groups, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, makes her own confessions." If this is what they're pushing into the English-speaking world, imagine what's being produced for domestic consumption.

I've removed the final frames from this propaganda. The clip originally ended with a pictures of Mousavi, Khatami, and Rafsanjani underneath text calling to "FREE IRAN from the Reformist/Moderate mafias," plus the url of the anti-dissident petition. It also had a menu with links to a range of other filth, including a video implying Neda was killed by "secularists."

Perfect:

Actually the State Department had little to nothing to do with Twitter staying open. The Twitter CEOs were more than smart enough to figure out that a "highly visible global event" was an opportunity they didn't want to screw up. As for giving Iranian dissidents financial or logistical support: Obama zeroed that out of the 2010 budget.

And yet Clinton's comments still forced Larijani - who once had come perilously close to opposing the election - to respond by siding with the regime against "Western powers."

Somehow the Obama administration has managed to garner all the negatives of boosting Iranian pro-democracy dissidents without actually doing anything to boost Iranian pro-democracy dissidents. Smart power!

References and previously after the jump...

For the record, I don't think this is one of the many "Jewish Lobby" conspiracy theories that Chas Freeman has fed to Iranian media. And I'm reasonably sure I'm right about that too:

The Israeli government has allegedly used its influence in American politics to strengthen the rumors about US President Barack Obama's birthplace. On Monday, well-known investigative journalist Wayne Madsen said Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's entrenched alliance with the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), various neoconservative groups and fundamentalist Christian organizations had made it "very easy for him to bring this whole canard back" about allegations that Obama has been born in Kenya rather than the United States...

The claimants to the contrary, called 'birthers', are lead by California attorney Orly Taitz who has filed in the federal court Kenyan papers, which certify that Obama is Kenyan-born. The Washington-based journalist said that "just after this fake birth certificate came out, she [Taitz] pops up in Tel Aviv two days later." "She is originally from Moldova, very closely tied to Likud, Netanyahu and also Foreign Minister (Avigdor Lieberman) who is also a native of Moldova," he told Russia Today.

Madsen is also the guy who blew the lid off the secret Jewish plot to colonize Iraq. Which was a real bummer, because we were this close. Regardless, I'm sure that this is something Obama can clear up when he talks with the oh-so-rational state actors behind Iran's oh-so-rational state media.

What do you think the odds are that this gets picked up by Sullivan? I'm thinking: pretty decent:

It's jawdropping that Sullivan would claim that "neocons" and "AIPAC" would want the revolution to fail. One American clearly seeks the failure of the revolution, but that's his own fantasy-boyfriend Barack Obama. And Sullivan can't say that his would-be boyfriend is in the wrong, so he puts Barack Obama's words into the mouths of his enemies -- "neocons" (by which he means Jews) and AIPAC (by which he means Jews).

How about Roger Cohen? Ditto.

References:
* Netanyahu behind Obama birth rumors: Report [Iran PressTV]
* Freeman On Iranian TV: "I Shouldn't Have Been Surprised" Obama Threw Me Under The Bus (Oh, And Israel Won't Survive) [MR]
* Israel hopes to colonize parts of Iraq as 'Greater Israel' [Madsen]
* Andrew Sullivan and Khamanei Agree: Jew-Controlled Media Spreads Lies [Ace]
* Roger Cohen Digs Himself Deeper [Forward]

Previously:
* The "Iran Lobby" Moves Into The White House
* Iran Anti-Holocaust Conference - Pervasiveness as Legitimation
* Arab and Muslim Conspiracy Theories - Iranian Holocaust Denial Edition

And it's only been a week since she realized that North Korean engagement was also a waste of time? At this rate the WH will soon run out of intransigent thugs it can brazenly pretend are ripe for dialogue. If it wasn't for Russia, China, most of Latin America, and all of the Middle East except Israel, I'd almost be a little concerned:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the United States has no illusions that Iran will accept overtures to return to negotiations about its nuclear program and will not wait much longer for Tehran to respond. Both Clinton and national security adviser James Jones said in interviews aired Sunday that Washington has little choice but to deal with the government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, regardless of U.S. feelings about charges he was re-elected in a fraudulent election and sympathy for the thousands who have protested the outcome.

Of course if Obama had followed Europe's lead and come out early in favor of the protesters - as opposed to gambling on the sustainability of the IRG's military coup - the US might have a little more wiggle room now. Ditto if he hadn't imperiously told Israel to lighten up on the Islamic regime. In fact, Washington might have much more than "little choice" if Obama had done anything except shield the regime since he took office. But spilled milk, huh?

At least sanctions have no chance of working now that Iran is ready to go nuclear on a whim:

Unless Iran responds positively to President Obama's offer of talks on its nuclear program by next month, it could face what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls "crippling sanctions."... But a number of Iran analysts are skeptical that new sanctions will break the stalemate... Effective sanctions, say Administration officials, require participation by Iran's key trading partners. That's a problem, since neither Russia nor China is convinced that there's an imminent danger of Iran producing nuclear weapons. Coalition of the willing-style sanctions of the sort envisaged by the congressional legislation may have limited impact because they're unlikely to be implemented by neighbors such as Turkey and Iraq. And the use of naval power to enforce a blockade could easily provoke a war that the U.S. military is eager to avoid. But even if "crippling sanctions" were somehow imposed, Tehran still might not back down.

Which is weird, because I was assured that Obama's "strong carrots and strong sticks" approach - focus groups, it turns out, love buzzwords like "strong" - was the super-sophisticated solution that was going to keep the mullahs from getting the Bomb.

References and previously after the jump...

The crucial and delicate early days of post-election rioting, when dissidents had to calculate whether it was worth flooding into the streets: the Obama administration maintains that Iranian diplomats are still welcome at July 4 celebrations. That doesn't take the wind out of protesters' sails and the regime crackdown begins in earnest. In the middle of that State reverses its position.

The crucial and delicate hours leading up to Ahmadinejad's inauguration, when dissidents again had to make calculations about relative odds of success vs. relative risk: the Obama administration declares that Ahmadinejad is "the elected leader" of Iran in response to a question about his legitimacy. Whether that had any influence on protesters can't really be measured, but in any case critical mass obviously failed to form.

Now guess what:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Wednesday said he had misspoken in calling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Iran's elected leader and that Washington will let the Iranian people decide whether Iran's election was fair. "Let me correct a little bit of what I said yesterday. I denoted that Mr. Ahmadinejad was the elected leader of Iran. I would say that's not for me to pass judgment on," Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One. "He's been inaugurated. That's a fact. Whether any election was fair, obviously the Iranian people still have questions about that, and we'll let them decide about that."

I'm not saying the WH is intentionally abandoning pro-democracy activists at exactly the worst moments and then backtracking to save domestic face. Seriously. Foreign policy can be guided by moral imperatives or hardheaded realism or both. When you try to use only hardheaded realism but you also happen to be flat wrong about the world - well, these things will just kind of happen.

Although if the point is to gamble on the probability of regime instability and adjust accordingly, it's hard to understand why the WH moves toward the protesters exactly when the regime seems most in control. Another few examples and people might begin to suspect that the WH was signaling to the mullahs that anti-regime statements were meaningless boilerplate designed for public consumption.

References:
* Awesome: State Publicly Reassures Iranian Diplomats They're Still Invited To July 4th Parties [MR]
* White House: Ahmadinejad Is "The Elected Leader" Of Iran [Video] [MR]
* White House reverses statement on Iran election [Reuters]

Previously:
* Huge Relief: Obama's Awesomely Awesome Charm Means Anti-Americanism Isn't A Problem Any More
* Clinton To Arab States: Don't Bother Worrying About Iranian Nukes, We've Got Your Back
* Obama To Israel: Stop Growing Domestically And Stop Trying To Defend Yourself From Iran

This in response to a question about Ahmadinejad's "legitimacy," effortlessly linking the two in a way that an administration less committed to appeasement would struggle over. The video is below via Hot Air via Breitbart, but don't miss the timing of this cravenness: on the eve of Ahmadinejad's inauguration, during the few hours when Iranian dissidents are literally sitting on their couches deciding whether it's worth risking their lives:

Iranian opposition groups have called for a new round of street demonstrations Wednesday to coincide with the inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term. The country's reform movement says it plans to demonstrate outside parliament in Tehran, to protest the swearing-in of Mr. Ahmadinejad. A massive security presence is expected outside parliament and in other areas of the capital during the inauguration ceremony.

Given how Obama once compared Iranian nukes to our own stockpile, I suppose we should be grateful that Gibbs didn't go the extra step. "Ahmadinejad is as much the legitimately elected President of Iran as President Obama is the legitimately elected President of the United States, and the President hopes the two of them can sit down and bond over their shared electedness." Although I guess that would get in the way of the MSM meme which insists that Bush is Ahmadinejad.

Anyway, here's Gibbs:

Don't worry. Once Obama's obsequiousness convinces Iran to give up their nuclear program, people will hardly remember this stain on the US's historical legacy. Unless Iran's serious about not negotiating, in which case this administration would come off as veritably Chamberlainesque. Except Chamberlain didn't have his own example as a warning.

References and previously after the jump...

I didn't get around to this tidbit when it came up after the mass "youth" protests on Bastille Day. But since the IRG will undoubtedly be brutalizing protesters during Wednesday's inauguration - itself a fait accompli now that Khamenei's given his seal of approval - might as well take care of it now:

Iran on Thursday summoned the French ambassador to Tehran to protest what it alleged was police brutality against demonstrators in France, ahead of the 14 July Bastille Day celebrations, the official IRNA news agency reports. The deputy director for Western Europe at Iran's Foreign Ministry told the French ambassador, Bernard Poletti: "The Islamic Republic condemns the widespread suppression of those who protest against President [Nicolas] Sarkozy's policies [and] the unacceptable human rights situation in France, which it always claims to defend." According to French police, 13 police officers were wounded and 317 cars were burned in street violence on Tuesday night, the eve of the national holiday, reports AFP.

The last credible count of detained or murdered Iranian protesters was well into the thousands. That number will only climb now that security forces have begun dumping the Iranian soldier 'killed in custody' broken bodies of murdered prisoners on families:

A young Iranian soldier, arrested late last week for allegedly stealing weapons for opposition groups, was killed in custody and his body returned to his family on Saturday, sources in Teheran said. The sources said the bodies of several dissidents, arrested in the course of anti-regime protests in Iran in recent weeks and evidently killed in detention, had also been returned to their families in the past few days.

Several of the bodies bore signs of beatings, the sources said. "In Mashhad, I know of three young soldiers who were arrested two days ago," one source said. On Saturday, "one of their bodies was turned over to family members and loved ones. When I called his family to give my condolences, his sister said he looked like he had been beaten to death when her father received the body."

Can you believe they specifically called out the ambassador for France's "unacceptable human rights situation?" Bold.

References:
* Iran summons French ambassador over Bastille Day protests [IRNA]
* Hey, Anyone Up For More Rioting In France? [MR]
* Clenched By Khamenei, In An Official Endorsement Of Ahmadinejad's Rigged Win [Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched?]
* Iranian soldier 'killed in custody' [JPost]

Previously:
* The "No Spyware For Dictators" Anti-Nokia, Anti-Iran Protest In Downtown LA [Gallery]
* Russia To Obama: No, Of Course We're Not Going To Help Out On Iran
* Figures: Iranian Prison Guards Rape Female Prisoners Before Execution "Lest They Go To Paradise"

This caused quite a stir in the Hot Air headlines and Elder will eventually cross 25,000 pageviews for his post. And the story is predictably disgusting even before you learn that Khomeini mandated prison rapes to prevent "undefiled" female virgins from getting an automatic pass to heaven:

In a shocking and unprecedented interview, directly exposing the inhumanity of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's religious regime in Iran, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia has told this reporter of his role in suppressing opposition street protests in recent weeks. He has also detailed aspects of his earlier service in the force, including his enforced participation in the rape of young Iranian girls prior to their execution...

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband."... "I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their 'wedding' night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die. I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over," he said. "I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her."

But it's the exact opposite of news. Make sure you catch the part about the sweets:

Sediqeh Sadeqpour, a political activist, was arrested and severely tortured. She was released from jail when her legs became paralyzed, but later rearrested and again savagely tortured. Her eyes were gouged out and she was killed in Shiraz on November 4, 1985, when her throat was cut. She was 20 years old.

Mina Mohammadian was executed on February 29, 1987, on political charges. She was held in solitary confinement for eleven months prior to her execution. During that period, she went through forty interrogation sessions, during which she was subjected to the most horrendous tortures. She was repeatedly raped by the regime's Guards. She was 22 at the time of her execution.

Women political prisoners are kept in so-called "residential units" (cement cages, 50 cm square), with their heads cramped down onto their knees, for months at a time. They are beaten regularly, up to 50 times a day. Another common torture of women political prisoners, besides systematic flogging, is suspension for hours from the ceiling by the hands, or upside down, by the feet. In some cases, the torture leads first to paralysis, then to the woman's death. Nahid Shahrokhi-Mahalati, a 22-year-old teacher, was suspended from the ceiling for a prolonged period. She died under torture...

According to a "religious" decree [from Khomeini], virgin women prisoners must as a rule be raped before their execution, "lest they go to Paradise." Therefore, the night before execution, a Guard rapes the condemned woman. After her execution, the religious judge at the prison writes out a marriage certificate and sends it to the victim's family, along with a box of sweets. In a written confession in January 1990, Sarmast Akhlaq Tabandeh, a senior Guards Corps interrogator, recounted one such casein Shiraz prison: "Flora Owrangi, an acquaintance of one of my friends was one such victim. The night before her execution, the resident mullah in the prison conducted a lottery among the members of the firing squads and prison officials to determine who would rape her. She was then forcibly injected with anesthesia ampoules, after which she was raped. The next day, after she was executed, the mullah in charge wrote a marriage certificate and the Guard who raped her took that along with a box of sweets to her parents.".

This is a regime with a system of legal sexual slavery, where the mullahs get certificates for "temporary marriages" so they can openly rape prepubescent girls as they travel around the country. That institutionalized rape is taking place in dark torture chambers is a no-brainer. Of course it's happening and of course it's grounded in Khomeinist theology. That's who these people are and that's what they do.

Meanwhile the Palestinian Telegraph has a story (cached copy) about "the pivotal role that feminist and queer movements... have played in" attacking Israel. Priorities.

References:
* Iranian regime savages hit rock bottom [Hot Air]
* Iranians rape virgin girls before executing them [Elder of Ziyon]
* 'I wed Iranian girls before execution' [JPost]
* Women Islam & Equality
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Iran Has Legal Slavery And Rape Of Prepubescent Girls. They Call It "Temporary Marriage". [MR]

Previously:
* Photographs To Help Explain Why There Are No Homosexuals In Iran [Content Warning: Graphic Photos] (Updated: Video Added)
* Israel, Muslim World Approaching International Woman's Day From Different Angles
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Iran Cracking Down On Women's Rights Activists (Plus: American Feminists Mysteriously Unconcerned)

Fascists:

A scary anecdote from Iran. A trusted colleague - who is married to an Iranian-American and would thus prefer to stay anonymous - has told me of a very disturbing episode that happened to her friend, another Iranian-American, as she was flying to Iran last week. On passing through the immigration control at the airport in Tehran, she was asked by the officers if she has a Facebook account. When she said "no", the officers pulled up a laptop and searched for her name on Facebook. They found her account and noted down the names of her Facebook friends... it means that the Iranian authorities are paying very close attention to what's going on Facebook and Twitter (which, in my opinion, also explains why they decided not to take those web-sites down entirely - they are useful tools of intelligence gathering).

They're also not above attacking overseas sites when those sites try to undermine that intelligence gathering.

The Iranians have a habit both of tracking online activity and of being hypersensitive to content. On the tech side, our toothless export regime - we can't even stop HP from selling them printers - has done little to prevent them from importing robust surveillance technology. Nokia confessed to selling them equipment that probably allows super-scary Deep Packet Inspection, though they insist that it's not that that complex (good to know!)

On the content side, the bastards simply lock you up when they find you. Half a year ago they arrested an Iranian peace activist blogger for being an Israeli spy. They promptly got him to "confess":

An Iranian blogger who visited Israel at least twice in the past three years, and who was twice interviewed... about his efforts to "humanize" Israel for Iranians and vice-versa, has reportedly been arrested in Teheran and admitted to spying for Israel. According to a report in Jahan News, which is close to Iran's intelligence community, quoted by the Middle East analyst Meir Javedanfar, the blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, returned to Iran about three weeks ago, having previously been based in Canada. "Prior to his return," Javedanfar writes on his middleeastanalyst.com Web site, Derakhshan had "started attacking [former Iranian president] Ayatollah [Hashemi] Rafsanjani in his blog. It is possible that he fell foul of a power struggle within Iran."

They're also not above disappearing the friends of dissidents. Maybe this is something Obama can talk to them about.

Although probably not, right? (h/t: MR reader KO)

References and previously after the jump...

Via MEMRI via Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched?

Parviz Davoudi, deputy to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stated that Iran currently has over 12,000 centrifuges in operation, and that the Zionist regime has no answer to the Iranian Sajil-2 missile. Davoudi added that Iran has a presence in the West, in America and in Latin America, and that undermining its regime would destabilize the region and the entire world.

It's OK though, because a few months ago Gates said Iran was nowhere close to getting a bomb and Clinton expressed herself skeptical about Iranian nuclear strides:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday expressed skepticism about Iranian claims of new advances in its uranium enrichment program. But she said the claims underscore the need for Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency and return to negotiations on its nuclear program. The Iranian claims of major advances in its nuclear program came only a day after the Obama administration said it was ready to reverse previous U.S. policy and directly engage Iran over the issue. But in a talk with reporters, Clinton declined to call the Iranian statements a rebuff to the U.S. overture and also expressed some skepticism that Tehran has actually made enrichment gains.

Since there's no way they've made that much progress in the intervening months, they're probably just making this up.

References:
* Ahmadinejad's Deputy: We Have 12,000 Centrifuges in Operation [MEMRIBlog]
* Clenched With 12,000 Operating Centrifuges [Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched?]
* Gates: Iran 'not close' to nuclear weapon [YNet]
* Clinton Skeptical About Claimed Iranian Nuclear Strides [VOA News]

Previously:
* Purdue Nuclear Strategy Expert: Bomb Iran Now
* Gates: Israeli Attack On Iran's Nukes Will Cause Iran To Pursue Nukes, Detonate US-Israeli Relations
* Israeli Military Intel: Iran "Halfway" Toward Nuclear Weapon (Plus: Syria, Hezbollah, And Hamas All The Way Toward Every Other Kind Of Weapon)

Another six month extension before they'll consider doing anything. And then in September we'll learn that "the possibility of talks" between Obama and the mullahs "have never have been more delicate." The administration will be "waiting for a response" to their "overtures." And so Obama will pressure Europe to hold off again - which is what happened at the G-8 - and that will be that:

Group of Eight major powers will give Iran until September to accept negotiations over its nuclear ambitions or else face tougher sanctions, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday. Upping the stakes in a dispute with Tehran, Sarkozy said the powers would review the situation at a G20 meeting of developed and developing countries in Pittsburgh on September 24 and 25. "If there is no progress by then we will have to take decisions," said Sarkozy after discussions with G8 partners that wrapped up the first day of their annual summit.

On the plus side, Iran seems ready to deal:

Iran will not back down "even one step" over its nuclear work, a senior adviser to the country's top authority said in remarks published on Thursday, making clear Tehran's continued defiance in a row with the West. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday Group of Eight major powers would give Iran until September to accept negotiations over its nuclear ambitions or else face tougher sanctions.

It certainly seems like their position is evolving, doesn't it? And now that Khamenei's consolidated the support of the Shiite establishment and asserted control over the IRG - well, it's probably worth waiting another half a year.

Imposing sanctions now would only push Khamenei towards the hardliners. Then he might do something crazy, like hamfistedly rig an election for a genocidal lunatic or put a messianic nutjob in charge of nuke negotiations.

References and previously after the jump...

During the Clinton administration the pro-engagement crowd was all about "reaching out to Khatami" in order to "bolster the moderates" electorally. So - over the objections of conservatives who said it would be a gift to Iranian hardliners - the Clinton administration spent some time in abject apology. Iranian moderates were bolstered so much they got thrown out of power.

Suddenly electoral considerations didn't matter to Iran experts. Conservatives who suggested that Iran was probably an apocalyptic state because the President was obviously an apocalyptic nutjob were declared desperately unnuanced. Instead the game was to determine "who had Khamenei's ear" and to empower "conservative pragmatists." Those pragmatists were ostensibly preferable because they will only start nuclear wars if they think they can win them. Now of course they do think they can win them. Different post though.

So having focused on electoral considerations and moderates, Iran experts shifted to pretexts based on palace intrigue and conservative pragmatists. The only problem was that this new pro-engagement line was also wishful thinking. It's been obvious for a while that Khamenei is either personally committed to the Ahmadinejad-style fanatics or is powerless to stop them. At least now we know which of the two it is:

The son of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has taken control of the militia being used to crush the protest movement, according to a senior Iranian source. The source, a politician with strong connections to the security apparatus, said that the leading role being played by Mojtaba Khamenei had dismayed many of the country's senior clerics, conservative politicians and Revolutionary Guard generals.

But these conservatives are reluctant to challenge the Khameneis openly out of fear that any conflict would destabilise the Islamic Republic and weaken Iran in the region. Instead they will use their positions in the organs of state to make it hard for the supreme leader and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to govern... [A source] said Mojtaba had played a leading role in orchestrating Ahmadinejad's disputed election victory on 12 June and had led the backlash against protests through direct control of street militias, known as basiji.

Looks like Khamenei has some influence within the IRG after all. Maybe the guy who fought during the Islamic Revolution as a true believe and took hold of Iran after Khomeini's death as a true believer - maybe he's actually a true believer. Stranger things have happened.

References:
* But, but . . . We've DONE All That [Ledeen / NRO]
* Los Angeles Times Dishonest about Pentagon-Funded Report, Recommends Israel Disarm [MR]
* Khamenei's son takes control of Iran's anti-protest militia [Guardian]

Previously:
* Liberal Foreign Policy Experts: This Ahmadinejad Reelection Was Just So Unpredictable!
* Iranian Cleric: Put A Bullet In Livni's Head (Plus: Smug Liberal Sophistication Unperturbed By Spectacularly Wrong Iran Predictions, Failed Anti-Iran Efforts)
* Foreign Policy Experts Freak Out Over Biden's Gaffetastic "Green Light" For An Israeli Attack On Iran

But only if those enemies dare to "meddle" by condemning the regime's brutal crackdown! It's almost as if he took several of Obama's "we should appease Iran" speeches, pulled out the sentences, rearranged them, and announced "why yes, you should appease us."

Convenient, that:

Meanwhile, the Islamic clerical leadership is showing its determination to keep control. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday issued a sharp warning to Western nations not to criticize Iran over its crackdown, saying relations will suffer if they are seen as "meddling." Iranians, he said, would "unite against their enemies into one fist." His warning appeared to be directed at world powers gathering at the G8 summit in Rome this week, who are to consider a coordinated response to Iran's turmoil.

In other news, the EU condemned the Iranian military dictatorship for the vaguely primitive retributive hanging campaign that the IRG is on:

The European Union on Sunday denounced Iran for a recent spate of executions, highlighting Saturday's hanging of 20 drug traffickers. The rebuke, issued by Sweden days after assuming the EU's rotating six-month presidency, comes as the 27-nation bloc searches for a unified response to Tehran following its post-election crackdown and detention of British embassy staff. "The Presidency strongly condemns the executions in Iran during the past few days, in particular the execution of 20 persons in Iran on 4 July," Sweden said in the statement, adding Iran should abolish the death penalty entirely.

In case you're under any illusions, those "drug dealers" weren't really drug dealers. The regime had already announced that some of the arrested protesters "will not be released." This was the next step.

The EU's condemnation, by the by, makes it the second diplomatic slapdown they've given Iran in the last few days. The first was that public threat to withdraw all the EU's ambassadors. The Obama administration, meanwhile, still can't bring itself to say that the Iranian regime is illegitimate.

Because we don't meddle.

References and previously after the jump...

Since the Obama administration's official position is that "a coup is a coup" no matter who gets ousted, I'm assuming that this will be the last straw in The One's quest for engagement:

The top leaders of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard publicly acknowledged they had taken over the nation's security during the post-election unrest and warned late Sunday, in a threat against a reformist wave led by Mir-Hossein Mousavi, that there was no middle ground in the ongoing dispute over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the elite military branch, said the guard's takeover of the nation's security had led to "a revival of the revolution." "These events put us in a new stage of the revolution and political struggles, and all of us must fully comprehend its dimensions... Because the Revolutionary Guard was assigned the task of controlling the situation, [it] took the initiative to quell a spiraling unrest. This event pushed us into a new phase of the revolution and political struggles and we have to understand all its dimensions."

What will actually happen, of course, is that Obama will wait long enough for the public to stomach engaging these lunatics and then do what he's ideologically committed to doing. It shouldn't take more than two months for the President to announce that he's made the "hard choice" to "air the US's concerns over multiple issues, including political freedoms, without illusions." The only downside is that it won't work and will be universally seen as a legitimization of the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad military dictatorship. Small price to pay for sophistication.

Obama was probably told during the first few days of rioting that the regime would quickly reassert control. That's the kind of analysis you'd expect from the liberal Iran experts who feed the White House their incisive insights. Their near-certain recommendation: "no use antagonizing the regime since we'll have to deal with them in a few months."

When that didn't happen Obama had to mouth some pleasantries about freedom. But - and here's the beautiful thing about having an entire preordained agenda insensitive to changing conditions - he's still protecting the regime:

The United States is opposed to enacting a new set of financial sanctions against Iran that are due to be discussed in the G8 summit next week, diplomatic officials in New York reported Friday. According to officials, sanctions against Iran are expected to top the G8's agenda. Sources are also predicting a pointed debate between the heads of the industrialized nations over an appropriate response to Iranian authorities' suppression of reformist demonstrations in Iran led by Mir Hossein Mousavi and other Iranian opposition leaders.

I'm not sure how this fits into The One's scheme to wield "real sticks" along with the enticing carrot of international legitimacy. I'm also not sure why it comes so soon after Odierno publicly called out Iran for targeting our troops in Iraq. But it can't be the rank appeasement that it looks like. That wouldn't make any sense.

References and previously after the jump...

Of all the regime's atrocities, both great and petty, it's something small like this that might finally detonate its legitimacy.

The Iranian Revolution is built on two pillars. The first involves populism and popular rule, enshrined as the "Republic" part of the "Islamic Republic." Iran's democratic trappings, such as they are, provide a point of pride for Iranians. Both domestically and internationally, Iranians contrast their system with autocratic Sunni regimes. The protests have been so fierce in part because the loss of that democratic legitimacy strikes at the core of Iranian identity.

The other pillar is the peculiar kind of Islamic nationalism that Khomeini managed to create by fusing Iranian nationalism with political Islamic. If Lenin's trick was to harness Russian nationalism in the cause of Communism - to get revolutionaries to identify vanguard Soviet Communism an expression of Russian greatness - Khomeini did the same thing with Shiite Islam.

The Iran-Iraq war gave Khomeini the opportunity to make Iranian nationalism indistinguishable from fanatical Islam. He called on Iranians to defend the country in the name of Islam and deployed "martyrdom operations" that could only be justified by Islamic theology. A country looking to explain to itself why waves of pubescent boys are being sent across mine fields to clear the way for the soldiers behind them - that's a country that's going to reach out for some powerful ideological machinery.

Khomeini managed to attach his brand of Islam to powerful, millennial-old sentiments of Persian pride. But the flip side was that Iranian political Islam, in contrast to Sunni-motivated political Islam, relies on nationalism to get some of its emotional oomph. All of which is a very roundabout way of saying that this is not going to play well:

Khamenei knows that this is a no-risk gambit. The Obama administration has made it abundantly clear that Britain is no longer a valued ally. The Iranians are quite sure that the Brits won't stand up for themselves given the UK's craven response to the kidnapping of their sailors. So why not:

[Khamenei] said the election was a "political earthquake" for Iran's enemies - singling out Britain as "the most evil of them" - whom he accused of trying to foment unrest in the country. "Some of our enemies in different parts of the world intended to depict this absolute victory, this definitive victory, as a doubtful victory," the supreme leader said. The UK government summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest against the ayatollah's remarks, although the embassy sent a more junior diplomat in his place.

The junior diplomat they deigned to send was the charge d'affaires, presumably because the ambassador couldn't be bothered.

When Khomeini's thugs were rampaging through Tehran during the Carter administration, they had to make a choice between attacking the US embassy and/or attacking the Soviet embassy. The Islamic Revolution was ostensibly aimed equally against both countries. Khomeini regularly railed against how Iran had become a site for Cold War intrigue: tirades against Communism were a rhetorical staple and his "prophesies" about the fall of the Soviet Union are still a common feature of Iranian state propaganda.

But for some reason only the US embassy was overrun. The Soviet embassy was never attacked. Almost as if weakness begets contempt.

References:
* Four Theories Why Obama Is Throwing Britain Under The Bus [MR]
* British Impotence [MR]
* Ayatollah demands end to protests [BBC]
* UK summons Iran's ambassador over Khamenei speech [AP]

Previously:
* Jimmy Carter: Iran Is Nothing To Worry About
* Britain Down On UK-Israeli Ties, Pretty Psyched About Nuke-Building Terrorist Supporting Syrian Regime
* Britain Clearing Dozens Iranians To Study Nuclear Engineering At British Universities. Yes, Really. (Plus: Europe Won't Go Along With US Sanctions?)

A DDOS attack took down Boing Boing a few minutes ago, along with their cyberwar guide to helping the Iranian protesters. The site where they got it from is also offline, although I think that's an account bandwidth issue. In any case, feel free to distribute:

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter.

1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP's over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.

2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.

3. Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don't retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become 'Iranians' it becomes much harder to find them.

5. Don't blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don't publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don't signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind...

Via @allahpundit, the State Department apparently asked Twitter to delay their scheduled downtime to help out the protesters. A very nice move, especially considering the lukewarm support the Obama administration has voiced elsewhere (via @jswtx).

References:
* U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran [Reuters]

Previously:
* Turns Out, Iran's "Moderate" Candidate Started Their Nuke Program
* Liberal Foreign Policy Experts: This Ahmadinejad Reelection Was Just So Unpredictable!
* Foreign Policy Leftists: On Second Thought, The Iranian Election Was Totally Irrelevant

Iran is moderating!
Iran is moderating!
Iran is moderating!

Sweet! Does that mean they're going to give up their nuclear program? No, actually the ostensible moderate is the guy who kicked off their Manhattan Project all the way back in 1987:

International Atomic Energy Agency documents revealed that Iran began a secret nuclear program during the tenure of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader running against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The documents, which Iran transferred to the IAEA several years ago, show that Tehran decided in 1987 to purchase the centrifuges it is using to enrich uranium. Mousavi, who is seen as a moderate candidate in the West, served as Iran's prime minister between 1981 and 1989, and while that position has since been eliminated from Iranian politics, it was an executive position that was similar in nature to the current presidential role.

One of the documents revealed that the then-head of Iran's atomic energy organization requested Mousavi's approval for purchasing the centrifuges on the black market. Iran subsequently acquired the centrifuges through the smuggling ring of Pakistani scientist Abd al-Qadir Khan. The document from March 1987, classified as secret, said that Iran's then-chief atomic energy official said Tehran's activities related to Khan must remain secret. The document appeared as part of a quarterly report the IAEA issues as part of its supervision of Tehran's nuclear program.

Well that sucks. And I had such high hopes this time around.

I mean, sure the Guardian Council has excluded so many moderates that even a Presidential transition won't much affect Iran's ideological posture. And sure they've put another thousand centrifuges online in the last few months. And sure they're blocking IAEA inspections And sure a prominent member of Iran's military establishment, which answers mostly to Khamenei and is insulated from the election, just threatened to destroy Israel with "one strike."

But Roger Cohen says that Iran is "teetering on the brink of change," justifying his months of abject apologism. How can something that's both smug and sniveling be wrong?

References and previously...

Maybe this is something that Obama can talk to him about, after he gets done with the chorus of apologies he has planned in Cairo. He's already conceded that Iran's nuclear aspirations are legitimate even though they float on a sea of oil, so it's not like they'll have much else to talk about:

The hardline Ahmadinejad, who is seeking a second term in office, reiterated on Wednesday his anti-Israel stance and called the Holocaust a "big deception." He also accused the world's liberal democracies of degrading "human values" with their pro-Israel policies, according to quotes carried by the news website of Iranian state television. "The identity of the liberal democracy has been exposed to the world by its protection of the most criminal regime in the history of humanity, the Zionist regime, by using the big deception of the Holocaust. "There is no doubt that the only way to replace the liberal thought is to go back to the teachings of the divine prophets," Ahmadinejad said.

On the other hand, they still have to discuss Iran's naval saber-rattling, including the six warships they just sent into international waters. So the Holocaust probably won't come up. No worries. Our diplomats can still mention it at all the July 4th celebrations to which we're inviting Iranian dignitaries.

Nice move by Ahmadinejad though. When Obama strikes an anti-Israel pose tomorrow, he gets to claim credit and reap any electoral benefits. Iranian hardliners will also get to do their usual crowing about how "Iranian steadfastness" is paying off dividends. The 50 year old but still fresh line about how the West is abandoning Israel and anti-Zionist victory is nigh will also make an appearance.

So all things considered, I think tomorrow's going go awesome.

References and previously after the jump...

We're getting diplomatically tooled by clowns:

Iranian state-run news agency Press TV ran a story on its website this week praising the unveiling of an Iranian-made drone, that according to the Israeli daily Maariv bears a striking resemblance to an earlier photo taken in Israel of an Israeli-made drone. In an article run this week on the Maariv website, the photo used by Press TV of the Iranian drone is shown above a remarkably similar photo from Israel Aerospace Industries of the Heron 1 Israeli drone. The two photos appear to be exactly the same, with the angle of the shot and the clouds in the background identical in appearance.

The picture on top is the comparison that Ma'ariv ran. There certainly does appear to be something of a resemblance.

The new satellite they're about to launch and the nuclear fuel production facility that they're operating, though - those are actually real. Tick tock:

In an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama. The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons -- and quickly -- or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran's nuclear facilities itself... In unusually blunt language, Netanyahu said of the Iranian leadership, "You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran."... Neither Netanyahu nor his principal military advisers would suggest a deadline for American progress on the Iran nuclear program, though one aide said pointedly that Israeli time lines are now drawn in months, "not years." These same military advisers told me that they believe Iran's defenses remain penetrable, and that Israel would not necessarily need American approval to launch an attack.

Defense Tech on IAF capabilities in light of the Sudan operation: "These guys have proven time and time again that failure isn't in their vocabulary... I'm a believer."

References and previously after the jump...

Which is a bummer because I was this close to buying the whole Hope and Change thing:

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged world Muslims on Wednesday to join the Palestinian "resistance" against Israel, but his call was dismissed by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. "The only way to save Palestine is resistance," Khamenei said in an address to a global summit organised by Tehran in aid of the war-battered Gaza Strip and the Palestinians. "Support and help to Palestinians is a mandatory duty of all Muslims. I now tell all Muslim brothers and sisters to join forces and break the immunity of the Zionist criminals."

He also helpfully explained that the Jewish state is a "cancerous tumor" and that the Holocaust is a "big lie." Maybe this is something Obama can talk to him about. In other Iranian news, Ali Larijani - the quintessential "conservative pragmatist" so beloved by US Iran experts - thinks that Jews are trying to eradicate Islam:

Iran's PressTV writes: ... "Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani says that the creation of Israel was aimed at placing Islamic states under Zionist influence. In a speech delivered at the international conference in support of Palestinians in Tehran on Wednesday, Larijani said frequent tensions in the Middle East clearly show that the elders of Zion planned to preoccupy Islamic countries with daily struggles... "The Palestinian crisis is a serious one with almost no precedent. Imprisoning millions of people in Israeli jails and turning millions of others into refugees over the past 60 years is but a portion of Israel's atrocities in Palestine," Larijani added.

Mohammad Ali Jafari - another vaunted non-radical conservative - has taken to musing about how Iran has missiles that can hit Israel:

Iranian missiles can reach Israeli nuclear sites, Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic republic's Revolutionary Guards, said Wednesday. "All the nuclear facilities in different parts of the land under the occupation of the Zionist regime are in the reach of Iran's missile defenses," Jafari was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying. Iran's Shahab-3 missiles have a range of up to 1,250 miles, putting Israel within striking distance. Jafari was quoted as saying that Iran is now a mighty military power to be reckoned with.

At least diplomats and academics sympathetic to the mullahs aren't basically running US foreign policy.

References:
* Iran urges world Muslim 'resistance' against Israel
* Iran: Israel a 'Cancer,' Holocaust a 'Big Lie' [Fox News]
* Iran unmasks the Elders [Elder]
* Iran: We can hit Israeli nuclear sites [JPost]
* The "Iran Lobby" Moves Into The White House [MR]

Previously:
* US Spy Agencies: Actually, It Turns Out That Iran Is Developing Nukes (UPDATE: Obama On The NIE: "Bush Continues To Not Let Facts Get In The Way Of His Ideology")
* Iran And Hamas Rush To Support Al-Bashir Against ICC, Show Support For His Jihad
* Iran: Not Only Are We Not Going To Talk To Obama About Nukes. We're Not Going To Talk To Him About Iraq Either.

That's one less hurdle to developing an intercontinental nuke and this time they're not bullshitting:

Iran says it's sent a domestically-built satellite into orbit. It's a troubling development, if true. Much of the gear and the know-how behind a space launch can also be used for ballistic missiles... The Omid ("hope") satellite was allegedly sent into space on top of a two-stage, 72-foot-long, 26-ton Safir ("messenger") rocket, which uses "a modified version of Iran's most advanced ballistic missile system, the Shahab-3, as its first stage," the Arms Control Association believes. "A liquid-fueled second stage and possibly a small solid-fueled third stage" may follow, the New York Times notes. Getting such a launcher right is key to Iran's military. The Shahab-3 has a reported maximimum range of 1200 miles. To go any further than that require[s] "mastering the staging process," Arms Control Association notes. Earlier multi-stage rocket tests flopped, despite claims to the contrary. If this one worked, it means Tehran could threaten cities thousands of miles away.

The State Department expressed "grave concern." That adequately describes the seriousness of the situation, I think:

On the plus side, it's likely that the CIA had no idea that this was coming because our intel on Iran sucks. It doesn't suck enough to prevent State Department washouts from using the Pentagon's ethos to publish a garbage NIE that detonated Bush's anti-Iran efforts. It sucks just enough to make sure that we couldn't actually do anything about the actually existing program.

You know what would really suck right now? If it turned out that Obama was intent on gutting the missile defense systems that are within our technological reach while making it clear that we're prepared to roll with an Iranian nuke.

Tick tock.

References and previously after the jump...

Rodger Thomas has what could well be the first 'shopped picture of 2009. And wouldn't you know it, the photo involves Israel's Gaza offensive and comes from some of the world's worst photoshoppers at FARS:

I'm pretty bad at spotting these things - it took me multiple tries to see the cloned elements on the Lebanon II Hajj pics - but the debris in this picture does look awfully large. Stan - who does have a good eye for these things - agrees. Offered for your consideration.

References:
* FARS News [Are We Lumberjacks]
* MSM Division Of Labor: NYT Provides The Misleading Anti-Israel Headlines, Hamas Stringers Provide The Fake Pictures [MR]
* Iran: You Suck At Photoshop (updated) [Boing Boing]

Previously:
* Hamas Savages Publicly Mock Shalit Again
* MSM Division Of Labor: NYT Provides The Misleading Anti-Israel Headlines, Hamas Stringers Provide The Fake Pictures
* Israel Draws a Line in the Sand: Only Low-Ranking Terrorists To Be Freed. For Shalit. For Now. Maybe.