"Plan B" From Outer Space: The Hype Over Iran Continues

Nearly identical headlines from The Telegraph on February 26, 2013 and The New York Times on August 8, 2013

The following is the 79th update to my comprehensive, ongoing compendium of constant predictions and prognostications regarding the supposed inevitability and imminence of an alleged Iranian nuclear weapon, hysterical allegations that have been made repeatedly for the past three decades.


As predicted, tautologies based upon the speculative allegation that Iran is "pursuing a parallel track to a nuclear capability through the production of plutonium" are rapidly proliferating, just in case a deal is struck between Iran and the United States that alleviates concerns over Iran's enrichment of uranium.

In an opinion piece in the New York Times, master-alarmist Amos Yadlin, former head of Israeli Military Intelligence and current director of Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, repeats the tired talking points that we've heard again and again by now.

In an article entitled, "Iran's Plan B for the Bomb" - a headline swiped almost verbatim from the Telegraph's February 26 report called "Iran's 'Plan B' for a Nuclear Bomb" about the same exact thing - Yadlin and a colleague write that, according to the IAEA, "Iran already has enough low-enriched uranium to produce several nuclear bombs if it chooses to further enrich the fuel," adding that "Western experts like Graham T. Allison Jr. and Olli Heinonen estimate that if Iran decided to develop a bomb today, it could do so within three to five months."

In fact, a recent article by Graham Allison in The Atlantic demonstrates exactly the type of disinformation, conventional wisdom and faulty assumptions that passes for expert analysis in the Western debate over the Iranian nuclear program.

Yadlin also cites a recent ISIS study, which "estimates that at the current pace of [second-generation centrifuge] installation, Iran could reduce its breakout time to just one month by the end of this year. The report also estimates that at that pace, by mid-2014 Iran could reduce the breakout time to less than two weeks."

Using the recent overwrought reporting on Iran's nascent Arak reactor, Yadlin explains, "Some American and European officials claim that Iran could produce weapons-grade plutonium next summer" which he says means "Iran is making progress on this alternative track." Yadlin goes on:

A functioning nuclear reactor in Arak could eventually allow Iran to produce sufficient quantities of plutonium for nuclear bombs. Although Iran would need to build a reprocessing facility to separate the plutonium from the uranium in order to produce a bomb, that should not be the West’s primary concern. Western negotiators should instead demand that Iran shut down the Arak reactor.

Hilariously, Yadlin then proceeds to try and justify the cause for concern, writing without irony, "Of the three countries that have publicly crossed the nuclear threshold since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty entered into force in 1970, two — India and North Korea — did so via the plutonium track."

Catch the operative word there? Publicly.

Everyone knows that Israel crossed that very same threshold decades before India, Pakistan or North Korea. Yadlin is also clever enough to note 1970 as the beginning of his timeline, since Israel already had a fully-functional, undeclared nuclear weapons program by the late 1960s - a program still unacknowledged and unmonitored.

Yadlin concludes by demanding the United States continue its useless policy of "sanctions and a credible military threat" and warns that the "moderate messages" emanating from the Iranian leadership since the June election of Hasan Rouhani "should not be allowed to camouflage Iran's continuing progress toward a bomb."

For Israeli officials past and present, when it comes to Iran the lies never stop.

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Modern and Contemporary Iranian Art, On Display and In Demand

Untitled, by Abolghassem Saidi (1973). Oil on canvas.

(Collection of Sam Bayat and Charlotte Denise Madeleine Bayat)

An upcoming exhibition at the Asia Society in New York City will highlight over 100 pieces of pre-revolution Iranian art – paintings, photography, drawing and sculpture – created by “the most noteworthy Iranian artists of the 1950s to 1970s” compiled to “shed light on a period when Iranian artists were engaged with the world through the Tehran Biennial in Iran as well as exhibitions overseas, and when their work was collected by institutions inside and outside of Iran.”

The landmark loan exhibition, entitled Iran Modern and running from September 6, 2013 to January 5, 2013, “maps the genesis of Iranian modernism in order to argue that the development of modernist art is inherently more globally interconnected than previously understood” and “provides a dynamic perspective on Iran’s rich culture and history for the public.”

Meanwhile, a recent article in Art Radar Asia, an online magazine that tracks contemporary art trends, calls Iran “one of the most prolific and productive countries for contemporary art” in the Middle East and identifies eight innovative, influential and internationally-renowned Iranian artists of the past 35 years.

Included in Art Radar‘s list and accompanied by concise and illuminating blurbs about their work are photographer Abbas Kowsari, abstract calligrapher Golnaz Fathi, and painters Afshin Pirhashemi, Alireza Adambakan, and Babak Roshaninejad.

Here is an excerpt:

Reza Derakshani

Born in Sangsar in 1952, painter, musician and performance artist Reza Derakshani grew up in a tent in the countryside. His nomadic childhood inspires his art. He studied art in Tehran and Pasadena, California. In 1983, following the Islamic Revolution, he lived in exile in New York and Italy. He currently lives and works in Dubai and Austin, Texas.

Derakshani’s gallery, Kashya Hildebrand, had this to say about the artist and his method of working: “By investigating the essential nature of his cultural identity in a singularly original manner, he has connected to the spirit of the most exciting art made internationally today.”

Derakshani’s artwork is collected by high-profile figures such as Leon Black, Sting and Trudie Styler and the Royal family of Abu Dhabi. The British Museum has recently commissioned new works.

Masters of Persian, Reza Derakshani (2008). Mixed media on canvas.

Afshin Pirhashemi 

Afshin Pirhashemi, born in 1974 in Urmia, where he lives now, is known for his black and white photo-realistic paintings of women. 

His artistic talent was seen from childhood. As a teenager, he received a grant from the Italian Ambassador to study at the Rome Art Academy, and then received his BA at Azad University. 

According to ArtTactic, the price range for his paintings is from USD 10,000- 50,000, and he is listed as having high market confidence. Pirhashemi won awards for his painting at the 2003 Tehran 6th International Art Biennial, and the 2004 Beijing Art Biennial Award.

Marriage, Afshin Pirhashemi (2012). Oil on canvas.

(Ayyam Gallery)

Farhad Moshiri 

According to Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Tehran-based Farhad Moshiri, who was born in Shiraz, Iran, in 1963 and educated at California Institute of the Arts, “overturns both pop culture and highbrow imagery by transforming it into figurative artwork.” His works are often hand-embroidered and sparkle with his use of glitter, sequins, and crystals. Even though his shimmery works look playful, he is addressing ”the flaws of contemporary Iran all while toying with its traditional forms; he acknowledges the appeal of the western world in addition to its limitations.”

God in Color, Farhad Moshiri (2012). Hand embroidery on canvas.

(Galerie Perrotin)

From high-priced auctions in Tehran to exhibitions in New York, Iranian artwork from the past six-plus decades – created in the midst of monarchy, modernization, foreign intervention and popular revolution – never ceases to reflect the complexity of Iranian culture, reinvent itself, attract attention and amaze the world.

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Originally posted at Muftah.

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Alas, Arak: Plutonium, the Press & a New Path to Propaganda

Heavy-water production plant near the central Iranian city of Arak

The following is the 77th update to my comprehensive, ongoing compendium of constant predictions and prognostications regarding the supposed inevitability and imminence of an alleged Iranian nuclear weapon, hysterical allegations that have been made repeatedly for the past three decades.


One of the Wall Street Journal's resident Iran hysterics and consummate warmonger Jay Solomon offers up a lede today that should go down in history as one of the most shameless pieces of propaganda seen in a mainstream newspaper:

Iran could begin producing weapons-grade plutonium by next summer, U.S. and European officials believe, using a different nuclear technology that would be easier for foreign countries to attack.

This single line, from an article with the spooky headline, "Iran Seen Trying New Path to a Bomb," not only implies the Netanyahu-approved shibboleth that Iran is actively (and clandestinely) seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, but also hints at a potential Israeli or American military attack on Iran without ever mentioning that such an action would be - incontrovertibly - a war crime.

Solomon, in his tireless efforts to paint Iran as intransigent and nefarious in order to persuade an ignorant readership that diplomacy is futile and violence the only option, suggests that this alleged, hypothetical and wholly speculative "second path to potentially producing a nuclear weapon could complicate international efforts to negotiate with Iran's new president, Hasan Rouhani, who was sworn in Sunday in Tehran." And, again, only two sentences after he first floated the potential for military action, repeats: "It also heightens the possibility of an Israeli strike, said U.S. and European officials."

And, yet again, just two sentences later, repeats essentially the same exact thing: "Now, the West is increasingly concerned Iran also could use the development of a heavy water nuclear reactor to produce plutonium for a bomb. A heavy-water reactor is an easier target to hit than the underground facilities that house Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities."

Solomon's report constantly cites "U.S. and European officials" as its unnamed sources for these oh-so-alarming revelations, sometimes throwing in the undefined term "U.N. officials" for variety. The tangential and circumstantial reasoning behind this manufactured hype is pathetic. Writes Solomon, "A reactor like the one under construction is capable of using the uranium fuel to produce 40 megawatts of power. Spent fuel from it contains plutonium—which, like enriched uranium, can serve as the raw material for an explosive device. India and Pakistan have built plutonium-based bombs, as has North Korea." Ergo, bombs away!

"The Arak facility, when completed, will be capable of producing two nuclear bombs' worth of plutonium a year," Solomon writes, crediting "U.S. and U.N. officials" for the assessment. Just two months ago, it was said that, in theory, "Arak would potentially be able to produce one bomb's worth of weapons-grade plutonium a year."

In truth, the facility at Arak is years away from becoming operational and no decision has been made (nor is it likely ever to be made) by the Iranian leadership to weaponize its civilian nuclear program, thereby making any such predictions totally irrelevant.

Earlier this year, the Telegraph, Associated Press and Reuters all published nearly identical reports on the potential of the heavy-water plant at Arak becoming a proliferation risk and raising the possibility of an Israeli attack. For instance, an anonymous "Western diplomat in Vienna" told Reuters in early June, "The concern about that plutonium route and the Arak site has got much stronger. I think it is another red line."

Unsurprisingly, none of the reports amounted to anything but hysteria. The Telegraph's report, from February 26, 2013, even admitted (far down towards the end of its report) that Iran "still lacks the technology to reprocess plutonium and use it for a weapon."

It also featured Mark Fitzpatrick - think tank pundit and permanent fixture in mainstream media articles on the Iranian nuclear program - warning that any attack on Arak would have to occur before it becomes operational due to the catastrophic consequences of bombing an active nuclear facility. Because "the option of a military strike on an operating reactor would present enormous complications because of the radiation that would be spread," Fitzpatrick told the Telegraph, "Some think Israel's red line for military action is before Arak comes online."

Similarly, in the new Wall Street Journal incarnation, Solomon writes, "Any Israeli strike on the reactor complex, said current and former U.S. officials, would likely have to take place before Tehran introduces nuclear materials into the facility, because of the potential for a vast environmental disaster a strike could cause."

What breaking news!

Buried at the end of this latest propaganda piece, after myriad misleading statements about UN Security Council resolutions, Israeli military capabilities, and Iranian obligations under international law, Solomon quotes go-to nuclear alarmist Olli Heinonen, a former high-level IAEA official, as saying, "There is a good possibility that [the reactor] can reach its first nuclear criticality by the end of 2014."

"However," Heinonen adds, in a conclusion that undermines the entire tenor and tone of Solomon's article up to that point, "no significant quantity of plutonium should be available for actual extraction before 2016."

Beyond this, Solomon cites "U.N. officials" (whatever that means) as claiming that Iran has "significantly restricted the IAEA's ability to inspect the reactor and its development plans." He deliberately omits this tidbit of information, reported by Bloomberg News back on June 6, 2013: "Iran encouraged United Nations nuclear monitors to use powerful new detection technologies to dispel international concern that the Persian Gulf country is seeking to build atomic weapons."

"We always welcome the agency to have more sophisticated equipment, to have more accuracy in their measurements, so that technical matters will not be politicized," Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh told the press in Vienna at the time, adding that Iran "won't object to IAEA monitors using new technologies to determine whether plutonium is being extracted from spent fuel at its new reactor in Arak."

Solomon's report, which surely will be seized upon by an endless parade of disingenuous warmongers and professional liars as proof that Iran must be bombed posthaste, is as embarrassingly transparent as they come.

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Lost in Mistranslation:Before Inauguration, Rouhani Gets the Ahmadinejad Treatment

Oh, look, an Iranian president said something about oppression and occupation in Palestine and his words were mistranslated, misinterpreted, widely condemned and proliferated by warmongers as evidence of hatred and aggression. Obviously, this comes as no surprise as we've all been here before.

And yet again, the accusations are not true.

Speaking to reporters during a rally on Quds Day, Iran's Palestinian solidarity commemoration held annually on the last Friday of Ramadan since 1979, incoming Iranian President Hassan Rouhani - whose official inauguration takes place August 4 - described the day as an opportunity for people to "present the unity of Islam against any type of oppression or aggression," explaining that, "in our region, it is an old wound that has been sitting on the body of the Islamic world, in the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of Palestine and the dear Quds. And this day, in fact, is a remembrance that Muslim people will not forget this historical right and will always stand against oppression and aggression."

These words were erroneously reported on a number of Iranian news sites, and from there spread rapidly through the international press, as having included a reference to "Israel" or "the Zionist regime" as a "wound" or "sore" that "needs to be removed." Rouhani's actual comments made no specific mention of the State of Israel or its government, nor did they note that such a place or leadership required excising.

Unsurprisingly, hysterical reactions by Israeli officials and their media mouthpieces were swift and predictable. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately insisted that through the alleged statement, "The real face of Rouhani has been exposed earlier than expected," adding, "Even if his comments will quickly be denied – that's what the man thinks and that's the Iranian regime's game plan."

Of course, any comment questioning the ultimate perfection of Israel and the nobility of the Zionist project is subject to intense and immediate pushback by agenda-driven groups, politicians and pundits. Accusations of genocidal intent and annihilationism abound. Even after the mistranslation was (immediately and admirably) exposed by numerous observers and analysts, corrected and Rouhani's statement regarding Western-imposed "oppression and aggression" in the Middle East and the description of the occupation of Palestine as a "sore" or "wound" on the region made perfectly clear, commentators like Jeffrey Goldberg still refused to acknowledge their over-reaction. A tweet on Goldberg's Twitter feed with the fabricated quote remains uncorrected.

Goldberg's smug triumphalism is not only pathetic, it also reveals his ignorance as to the common usage - both historically and recently - of such terms to describe the Zionist colonization of Palestine and the ongoing Israel/Palestine impasse.

For instance, in May 2008, during his first presidential campaign, Barack Obama did his best to appeal to the good graces of the mainstream press in order to burnish his pro-Israel bona fides. During one such conversation with a highly influential gatekeeper of the American Jewish community's discourse on Israel, then-Senator Obama was asked whether he thought "that Israel is a drag on America's reputation overseas?" He replied:

No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable.

Considering the interviewer to whom Obama said this was none other than Jeffrey Goldberg himself, one would think Rouhani's language wouldn't alarm him so much.

Back in early 2003, in a lengthy essay published in Foreign Affairs promoting the coming invasion of Iraq, neoconservative pro-interventionist Michael Doran even described "Arab-Israeli conflict" as a "festering wound" in which "several million Arabs chafe under unwanted foreign rule."

Even more recently, as noted by an astute commenter on Mondoweiss, Shibley Telhami, a scholar at the University of Maryland and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, used very similar language in Foreign Policy late last month:

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is part and parcel of collective Arab identity; a constant reminder of contemporary Arab history full of dashed aspirations and deeply humiliating experiences. It is seemingly unending, with repeated episodes of suffering over which Arabs have no apparent control. It is an open wound that flares up all too frequently, representing the very humiliation Arabs seek to overcome.

In fact, the reference to the imposition of the Zionist project on Palestine and the Palestinians goes back over 90 years, all the way to the British parliament.

On June 21, 1922, during a session in the House of Lords discussing the implementation and parameters of the Balfour Declaration, parliamentarian George Clarke (Lord Sydenham) argued, "What we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend."

He predicted the ultimate failure of the Zionist experiment because, in his words, "the harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country—Arab all round in the hinterland—may never be remedied."

As history has shown, this "running sore" has yet to be healed, but - in the meantime - the place called Palestine has all but been wiped from the map.

Yet another thing to note may be that, in 1988, the Vatican's Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace issued a report called "The Church and Racism: Toward a More Fraternal Society", which condemned doctrines of superiority, lamenting that "in sharp contrast to this growing awareness of human dignity, racism still exists and continually reappears in different forms. It is a wound in humanity's side that mysteriously remains open."

It also explains that "[t]here are different degrees and forms of racism," including discrimination based upon "ethnic origin, color or language."

"Today apartheid is the most marked and systematic form of this: change is absolutely necessary and urgent here," the report states, "There are, however, many other forms of exclusion and rejection for which the reason invoked is not race, but which have similar effects. All forms of discrimination must be firmly opposed. It would be hypocritical to point a finger at only one country: rejection based on race exists on every continent. Many practice a discrimination in fact which they abhor in law. Respect for every person and every race is respect for basic rights, dignity and fundamental equality."

The apartheid analogy is applicable with regard to Israel, of course. And as usual, the continuing obsession with Iranian rhetoric, to the exclusion of all historical context, remains transparently propagandistic.

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Portions of this piece were originally published on Mondoweiss.

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UPDATE:

August 8, 2013 - Professor William Beeman, chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, has provided some additional, edifying analysis of the (mis)translation of Rouhani's comments.

Beeman, formerly an anthropology professor and director of Middle East Studies at Brown University and currently a visiting professor at Stanford University, has been a Middle East specialist for over three decades and is the author or editor of more than 100 scholarly articles, 500 opinion pieces and 14 books, including Language, Status and Power in Iran, and The "Great Satan" vs. the "Mad Mullahs": How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other.

A fluent Persian speaker, Beeman's expertise in sociolinguistic interaction and cross-cultural linguistics provides particular insight into this latest episode of exaggeration and exploitation when it comes to assessing the statements of Iranian leaders.

Beeman explains that, "when assessing translations of sensitive terms, one must be extremely careful," and continues:

The two terms that have been overly interpreted in President Rouhani's remarks (and remember, they were made on the fly in response to a reporter's question--not in a formal speech prepared in advance) are zakhm, which has been rendered in English as "wound," or "sore," and Al-Qods, which is rendered as "Jerusalem." The translation of both of these words may be dictionary-accurate, but they really do not mean the same thing as their English counterparts.

Zakhm is an all-purpose word for the results of an injury or a surface infirmity on the body. Thus it encompasses a much broader meaning than wound, sore or injury. Used as a metaphor, it can even refer to emotional distress. It is really wrong, in my opinion, to treat it literally even as a metaphor. A zakhm is not "removed" no matter what the Iranian press initially said in their unfortunate addition to President Rouhani's remarks, but it can be healed, treated or "get better" on its own. When I first heard the Iranian press translation, I thought the word must be lakkeh, which is generally "spot," or "blot" which can certainly be removed. When I heard the original, the broad meaning of President Rouhani became clear.

The other term, Al-Qods is certainly translated as "Jerusalem," but it is the spiritual Jerusalem which is not bounded by specific territorial demarcation. The English term "Holy Land" really comes much closer to the meaning of Al-Qods. There is a perfectly good Persian word, Orushalem, for Jerusalem to refer to the actual city. Thus the people who want to claim that President Rouhani is talking about the state of Israel are really straining hard to use this use to talk about an attack on the state of Israel.

All that said, it is quite unreasonable,. in my opinion, to interpret an answer on the fly in a press event as "state policy," as was done, and especially wrong to insist on maintaining an interpretation based on a mistranslation even after the correction was made clear.

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UPDATE II:

August 9, 2013: A week ago, when this story broke, Michael Doran - a former Bush administration official and constant champion of U.S. military aggression, Western-backed regime change, and Israeli hegemony - chimed in via his Twitter account.

Following a snarky tweet (after all, what's Twitter for, if not snark?) quoting Rouhani as referring to the "Zionist regime" as a "wound on the body of the Islamic world," Doran tweeted a "correction":

Correction: According to Rouhani, Israel is not a wound to be eliminated, it's just a "sore," which, of course, he will fix!
— Mike Doran (@Doranimated) August 2, 2013

Now recall what Doran wrote himself of Israel and Palestine a decade ago, as noted above. The "Arab-Israeli conflict," he wrote in Foreign Affairs, "is a festering wound" in which "several million Arabs chafe under unwanted foreign rule."

Keep up the snark, Mike. It's what you're best at.

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Wagering on War Crimes: The Atlantic’s Latest Anti-Iran Propaganda

(Graham Allison / The Atlantic)

With just days until the inauguration of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s next president and a new round of unilateral sanctions recently passing the House of Representatives – measures drafted and demanded by right-wing, pro-Israeli pressure groups, designed deliberately to destroy any chance for positive diplomatic overtures and set the stage for a war - speculation and prognostications are again swirling around regarding both the Iranian nuclear program and the potential of a military attack on Iran.

Of course, this is nothing new. In fact, this kind of thing has been happening for years now. It’s simply part of the same, never-ending loop of fear-mongering and threats heard again and again in perpetuity.

The latest, overwrought, bromidic claptrap published by a mainstream media outlet is an article in The Atlantic written by Graham Allison of Harvard University’s Belfer Center. Entitled "Will Iran Get a Bomb—or Be Bombed Itself—This Year?", Allison posits and attempts to answer "12 key questions about Iran’s nuclear challenge," which is apparently code for “efforts by the United States and Israel to force Iran to relinquish its inalienable national rights by explicitly abrogating international law.”

The article was adapted from a recent lecture delivered at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual gathering of imperial apparatchiks and their fawning acolytes in the press and pseudo-intelligensia. It relies heavily on a gullible audience ignorant of the history and reality of the Iranian nuclear program.

For Allison, fallacies flow freely. Specious reasoning bolsters spurious claims. A rhetorical wager is made as to whether or not Iran will be bombed before December 31, 2013 without any mention of the fact that such an act would unequivocally be a war crime of the highest order. He spouts Israeli talking points about Iranian intent and progress and utilizes to maximum alarmist effect terminology that has no technical legitimacy, such as referring to 19.75% low-enriched uranium as “medium-enriched uranium,” simply because it sounds scarier. The term “medium-enriched uranium” does not exist in the official nomenclature of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Allison also repeats the common error that Netanyahu warned in 1992 that Iran was “3 to 5 years” from a bomb. While there were plenty of other Israeli predictions made in 1992, most of them claiming Iran would have a nuclear bomb by the end of the decade (matching the assessment of the NIE at the time), Netanyahu’s time frame was not among them. He issued his estimate three years later, in 1995.

Never once is international law or the potential cost of a military strike in human lives even alluded to. Allison doesn’t acknowledge that Iran has never once been found to have violated its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that even issuing threats against another state is a breach of the UN Charter.

Furthermore, meaningless graphs and visual aids with bizarre football and mushroom cloud imagery are presented as serious analysis. It appears that “end zones” are the new “red lines.”

While Allison correctly notes that the U.S. intelligence community has determined no decision has been made by the Iranian leadership to actually manufacture a nuclear weapon, never for a moment does he question the presumption that Iran desperately wants to acquire an atomic arsenal, despite the fact that no credible evidence has ever been presented to back up this allegation.

Allison, in his finite wisdom, concludes that Iran will neither obtain a nuclear bomb nor get attacked by the end of this year, which is no real feat of foresight considering Iran isn’t even building a nuclear weapon and has no nuclear weapons program. Any rational observer of these issues is also well aware that, hysterical headlines aside, no one is going to launch a military assault on Iran, especially not Israel.

The assumed ‘bomb or be bombed’ conundrum is, in fact, a false dichotomy resulting from myopic and prejudiced (and jaundiced) thinking. It’s also old news; a false choice presented as the only potential future, articulated by commentators and government officials alike for years now. The Economist ran a story back on December 3, 2009 with the headline, “An Iranian nuclear bomb, or the bombing of Iran?“, pondering, “So which will it be: a war with Iran, or a nuclear-armed Iran?”

Three and a half years later and this is still the best the Iran Expert Industry has to offer?

With expert analysis such as this from the director of a leading policy institute run by an Ivy League school, it is no wonder the public discussion here in the United States regarding Iran is not only often juvenile and uninformed, but also disingenuous and, ultimately, dangerous.

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Originally posted at Muftah.

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Wide Asleep in FAIR Extra!, August IssueAfter Ahmadinejad, Alarmism Still Reigns

The following article originally appeared in the August 2013 issue of Extra!, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's monthly magazine.

EXTRA!

Aug

01

2013

After Ahmadinejad, Alarmism Still Reigns
Spinning Iranian election results to maintain an official enemy
By Nima Shirazi

With the surprise election (CNN, 6/15/13) of moderate pragmatist Hassan Rouhani as the next president of Iran, and the attendant departure of the West’s favorite bogeyman, outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, from the political stage, U.S. elite media have had to rapidly adapt the collective narrative in order to maintain their alarmist depiction of the Islamic Republic.

For the past eight years, references to what is perceived as Ahmadinejad’s bombastic rhetoric abounded in political speeches and were readily parroted by the press (Extra!, 6/12). He was routinely presented as a megalomaniacal, apocalyptic madman, hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons in order to annihilate Israel (e.g., New York Daily News, 9/23/11).

While Iran’s political and religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has always had final say over the direction of Iran’s nuclear program—one which, despite a decade of intrusive inspection, has never been found to have a military dimension (Reuters, 2/22/13)—this fact is only now deemed noteworthy without Ahmadinejad to kick around anymore. For years, the media produced report after hysterical report (Jerusalem Post, 5/10/06; NBC News, 9/25/07; Fox News, 9/11/12) on the Iranian nuclear program without mentioning Khamenei (Foreign Policy, 11/9/09; Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/11; AFP, 10/8/12).

With Ahmadinejad’s coming departure and an election on the horizon, government officials, commentators and reporters alike had been tactfully pivoting away from placing any emphasis on the Islamic Republic’s elected executive, focusing instead on the office of the supreme leader. This way, regardless of how the vote turned out, the Iranian leadership would appear stagnant, the election written off as “meaningless” (National Review, 6/13/13), and the established perception of a threatening, intransigent Iran would go unchallenged.

The neoconservative opinion editors of the Washington Post eagerly led the charge. A pre-election editorial (6/12/13) determined that “the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ensured that only conservative regime loyalists were allowed to enter Friday’s first round of elections,” and that, regardless of who succeeds Ahmadinejad, “all authority over foreign policy will lie with the ayatollah.” The Post definitively declared, “Mr. Rouhani, who has emerged as the default candidate of Iran’s reformists, will not be allowed to win.”

When the dust settled from the Iranian ballots, and Rouhani had in fact won, the Post’s editors (6/18/13) were unfazed. Suddenly, “there was good reason” why Khamenei “chose to accept [Rouhani’s] victory.” After all, they wrote, Rouhani—with his “more moderate face”—was “a reliable follower of the supreme leader” who could well make it easier for Tehran to resist sanctions and other international pressure without slowing its progress toward a nuclear bomb, its intervention in Syria’s civil war or its sponsorship of terrorism.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board (6/17/13) agreed. “Expect Mr. Rouhani to go along for the talks, but mainly to ease Western sanctions and buy more nuclear time,” they wrote.

Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has accused Ahmadinejad of “expanding a fanatic doctrine of genocide” and “developing nuclear weapons to achieve it” (AP, 9/25/07), declared after Rouhani’s victory (Washington Post, 6/20/13) that the nuclear program is “guided and controlled by Khamenei. He remains committed to pursuing the path of arming Iran with nuclear weapons, and I’m afraid the elections are not going to change that.” Israeli officials are reportedly frustrated that Rouhani’s election makes the chances of a U.S.-led military strike even more remote than it already was (Ha’aretz, 6/18/13).

While before the election, Rouhani was viewed as presenting too much of a challenge to the Iranian regime to be permitted to win, the predominant line afterwards was that he was, at best, an ayatollah-approved figurehead signaling a clever change in the Iranian leadership’s public relations campaign (New York Times, 6/17/13) —and proving that the crippling sanctions regime was working (Washington Post, 6/17/13; AP, 6/20/13).

Rather than acknowledging his election as a democratic choice by an engaged and informed populace with its own national, cultural and societal interests, according to many, Rouhani had simply been permitted to triumph by the supreme leader (Foreign Affairs, 6/16/13; New York Times, 6/17/13). As Time managing editor Richard Stengel said to Bob Schieffer on 'Face the Nation' two days after the vote (6/16/13), “Ayatollah Khamenei runs everything, basically, so he allowed this to happen.”

For those pushing military action on behalf of Israel, however, Rouhani is deemed a pathetic pawn of the mullahs, Khamenei’s hand-picked Trojan Horse—a “tool,” as leading neoconservatives Reuel Marc Gerecht (New York Times, 6/17/13) and John Bolton (Fox News, 6/18/13) each wrote. Despite the massive voter turnout and subsequent public celebrations in the streets of Iranian cities and towns, the election was cited as further proof that the Iranian people have no voice or representation in their own government (Foreign Affairs, 6/16/13; New York Times, 6/17/13; Weekly Standard, 6/20/13).

Bill Neely, writing for NBC News (6/18/13), noted that Rouhani is a “wily negotiator” who, between 2003 and 2005, “kept Iran’s nuclear program going without sanctions being imposed and without Iran being referred to the United Nations Security Council.” Rouhani “presents Israel with a challenge,” Neely explained. “Repeating the same phrases about the clock ticking and military options won’t be enough for Israel now—it may have to find another way to check Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

In the meantime, efforts to demonize Rouhani himself were well underway. His academic bona fides were questioned (New York Times, 6/17/13), only to have the Scottish institution from which he received his Ph.D. issue a statement on his behalf.

Rouhani was also accused of duplicity during his tenure as nuclear negotiator (Atlantic, 6/17/13; Reuters, 6/19/13) and implicated by the Wall Street Journal (6/20/13) in terrorist attacks that occurred in the 1990s. Both allegations have been effectively debunked (LobeLog, 6/25/13; Times of Israel, 6/24/13; National Interest, 6/28/13).

At the beginning of July, members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee sent a letter to President Obama making sure that, just because Ahmadinejad’s term is up, Iran must not cease to be villainized, threatened and bullied. “Iran’s election unfortunately has done nothing to suggest a reversal of Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capacity,” it read. “President-elect Rouhani, who served as a nuclear negotiator for Iran at a time its illicit program was well underway, indicated his support for Iran’s nuclear ambitions in his first post-election press conference.”

The letter, which, like most Iran-related correspondence and legislation, was reportedly drafted by AIPAC staffers (LobeLog, 7/2/13), continued, “Indeed, there appears nothing ‘moderate’ about his nuclear policies,” and noted, “Moreover, decisions about Iran’s nuclear program and foreign policy rest mainly in the hands of Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei.” As a result, the House members insisted, “Iran must face intensifying pressure” in the form of more sanctions.

But neither AIPAC nor its friends in Congress needed to worry about the media, which had already fully absorbed the message.

During a broadcast of 'Good Morning America' (6/16/13) shortly after the election, co-anchor Dan Harris spoke with ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl about the prospects of improved relations between the United States and Iran.

After describing Ahmadinejad as “one of the most controversial people on Earth” and someone who “helped push Iran’s nuclear program,” Harris asked Karl whether the election of “a much more moderate successor, Hassan Rouhani,” would “make any difference for Americans? Can we worry any less about the possibility of a conflict with Iran now?”

“Well, maybe a little less, Dan,” Karl replied, noting what he described as Rouhani’s campaign platform of “a more conciliatory approach with the West and more freedom at home.”

“But remember,” Karl quickly added, “those clerics control everything in Iran, including the nuclear program. And Ayatollah Khamenei is still the man in charge and, make no mistake, he is avowedly anti-American and pro-nuclear Iran.”

Not to be outdone, Harris interjected, “And this new president-elect is also pro-nuclear Iran.”

“Absolutely,” Karl replied.


Nima Shirazi is an editor at the online magazine Muftah and writes the political blog Wide Asleep in America.

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Iran Alarmism and the "Time is Running Out" Canard

The following is the 76th update to my comprehensive, ongoing compendium of constant predictions and prognostications regarding the supposed inevitability and imminence of an alleged Iranian nuclear weapon, hysterical allegations that have been made repeatedly for the past three decades.

Citing the latest hysterical analysis of Iran's nuclear program by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), David Albright's Washington D.C.-based propaganda outfit, the Jerusalem Post exclaims that "Iran is expected to achieve a 'critical capability' to produce sufficient weapon-grade uranium by mid-2014, without being detected."

While pretending to advocate merely for a stricter IAEA inspection regime and the limiting of the number of centrifuges Iran is allowed to install and operate, Albright & Co. cry that Iranian progress "is unlikely to be prevented simply by instituting better inspections, whether through increased inspection frequency, remote monitoring, or even implementation of the the Additional Protocol." The report laments that, if the United States and Israel don't launch an illegal, unprovoked military assault on Iran "out of fear of facing international opposition," consequently "Iran could have time to make enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more nuclear weapons."

Thus, the alarmists of ISIS conclude that "IAEA inaction or caution could make an international response all but impossible before Iran has produced enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more nuclear weapon."

Meanwhile, a recent Al Monitor report exposes the agenda dripping from ISIS' analysis. Earlier this month, IAEA Deputy Director Herman Nackaerts explained to reporter Barbara Slavin that "'we would know within a week' whether Iran was diverting uranium from declared sites and seeking to enrich it to weapons grade level."

Nackaerts, who is also head of the IAEA's Department of Safeguards, said that "[t]here are two to six IAEA inspectors on the ground in Iran every day...covering 16 Iranian facilities. On average, he said, that means that an inspector visits Iran's enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow once a week. If there are suspicions about any improper activities, they can go more often, he added.

In order to sufficiently hand-wring about the Iranian program, "ISIS has recommended that inspections should increase to at least twice per week at Iran's enrichment facilities."

Evelyn Gordon. Yes, really.

As expected, neoconservative Likudnik warmongers over at Commentary Magazine are licking their lips and using Albright's nonsense to bolster their calls for mass murder and war crimes. Writing today, contributing blogger Evelyn Gordon calls the ISIS report the "best argument I've yet seen for bombing Iran's nuclear facilities imminently." Gordon is an American émigré to Israel, former Jerusalem Post reporter and current Visiting Fellow at the extreme right-wing Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

"Time is running out," Gordon declares, echoing so many uninformed voices before her:

In March 2006, NPR's national security correspondent Mara Liasson insisted on Fox News that "time is running out. Pretty soon, Iran is going to have the bomb."

By early 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed, "We have time, but not a lot of time." The following year, a Weekly Standard opinion piece co-authored by William Kristol declared, "Time is running out" and called "for Congress to seriously explore an Authorization of Military Force to halt Iran’s nuclear program."

Soon thereafter, Commentary Magazine's Jonathan Tobin warned that, without the United States issuing an explicit military threat, "time may soon run out on any chance for the West to stop Iran," while this past March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eloquently stated that "whatever time is left, there's not a lot of time."

In June 2012 interview with CNN, Israeli President Shimon Peres stated his belief that the "military threat" issued to Iran so far has not been credible enough. "The Iranians think that this is just a warning, that people are not serious enough," he told Elise Labbot. "If the Iranians will understand seriously that this is an option, maybe we shall not need it," he added. "If they think this is a bluff, then it may lead to a war."

When asked "how long" the Iranians have until they are attacked, Peres replied, "I think time is out because they continue to build a bomb," hedging a minute later, saying, "I think time is beginning to run out."

"In short," Gordon concludes in Commentary, "either military action is taken in the coming months, or a nuclear Iran will be inevitable. There is no more time to waste."

In truth, it's time to hit the snooze button.

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EU Sanctions on Iran Continue Collapsing in Court

European Court of Justice, Luxembourg

(Photo Credit: Gwenael Piaser / Flickr)

Over the past few months, strict economic and financial sanctions imposed upon Iran by the European Union have been increasingly challenged in EU courts. And time and again, the legality and legitimacy of the sanctions have been struck down by the General Court of the European Union, the international confederation’s second-highest judicial body.

Recently, on July 11, 2013, a symposium was held in The Hague on “Unilateral Sanctions and International Law: Views on Legitimacy and Consequences,” during which a number of international jurists and legal analysts spoke out against the unilateral sanctions regime imposed on Iran at the behest and bullying of the United States and Israel.

An extensive report by Reuters journalist Justyna Pawlakon this past week examines how EU courts are dismantling these sanctions piece by piece, due to their “irrational” and “arbitrary” implementation and reliance on secret evidence. Below is an excerpt:

At the heart of the issue is the refusal by EU governments to disclose evidence linking their targets to Iran’s nuclear work. Doing so in court, they say, may expose confidential intelligence, undermining efforts to combat the program.

The courts have effectively rejected that argument, saying that if a case is to be made, evidence must be presented. Lawyers for the Iranians argue there simply is no evidence that proves any link to the nuclear program – a view supported by British judges who did review some secret material this year.

“It is very clear there is no evidence,” said Sarosh Zaiwalla, senior partner at Zaiwalla & Co, a London law firm which has successfully represented Iran’s Bank Mellat in litigation against sanctions imposed by the EU.

The bank, one of the biggest private lenders in Iran, won a case in January in the European Union’s Luxembourg-based second-highest court. It had challenged an EU move in 2010 to freeze its assets, saying the EU had failed to prove the bank provided banking services for the nuclear program. The court agreed.

“The chairman of the court asked the EU lawyers, ‘can you show me the evidence?’. And they said ‘no, it’s Iran, and you must presume there is evidence’,” Zaiwalla said.
“The judge was very upset and said ‘this is a court of law and you cannot assume things’.”

In its January 29 judgment, using dense legal language, the General Court said the council of EU governments was “in breach of the obligation to state reasons and the obligation to disclose to the applicant … the evidence adduced against it”.

SECRECY DILEMMA

The lifting of sanctions against Bank Mellat is postponed for now, pending an appeal by EU governments to Europe’s highest court. But the case illustrates the dilemma facing the European Union in its push to stop Iran from advancing the atom work.

Government lawyers are telling the courts to trust them and the courts are refusing. To safeguard its sanctions policy and its economic pressure on Iran, the EU may have to present evidence – including sensitive intelligence – in court.

But because of rules governing pan-European courts, all evidence would then become public which may damage clandestine operations and unravel the process of devising sanctions.

“There is nothing in the current rules to enable us to consider sharing information without it becoming public,” said one European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“This is the crux of the issue. We cannot just be handing information around.”

In Washington, anxiety over court rulings is mounting.

“It’s a real concern of ours that the EU is having difficulties sustaining some of its designations,” David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, told Reuters.

Lawyers for the Iranian plaintiffs paint the conflict as a human rights issue, praising the Luxembourg court for decisions they say amount to taking a stand against government abuse.

“It may be politically embarrassing,” said Maya Lester, a London-based lawyer who represents companies and individuals in litigation concerning European sanctions, including the Iranian central bank and the country’s main tanker company, NITC.

“But in terms of upholding the rule of law, what the European court has done is impressive and quite brave. It shows it to be a court upholding human rights … which is not easy given how political Iranian sanctions are.”

Read the entire report here.

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The Language of Power: Obama's "Humanitarian Hawk" & Israel's New Gladiator at the UN

(Photo Credit: Pete Souza / White House)

In her first appearance before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Samantha Power, Obama's pick for next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, made clear that she will spend her time in the role much as her predecessor Susan Rice did: acting as Israel's consummate defender, fear-mongering about Iran, and opposing any move to champion Palestinian human rights or self-determination.

Rice, who has been appointed as Obama's National Security Adviser, has said repeatedly that the American delegation to the UN "often works in 'lockstep' with the Israeli delegation" and spends "an enormous amount of time defending Israel's right to defend itself and defending Israel's legitimacy."

"It's an issue of utmost and daily concern for the United States," she declared last year.  A few months ago, she reiterated this point, insisting that her role as an apologist for the Israeli government is "a huge part of my work to the United Nations" and that the United States "will not rest in the crucial work of defending Israel's security and legitimacy every day at the United Nations."

Power has already proven herself a loyal replacement, disavowing any semblance of past critical thinking when it comes to Israeli human rights abuses and abrogation of international law and opposing fear-mongering about Iran's nuclear program. It is no surprise Washington hawks, Zionist ideologues and even the Israeli government are falling over themselves to sing her praises.

In her confirmation hearing yesterday, Power revealed her adherence to AIPAC talking points, essentially working her way down the tried and true list of boilerplate phrases.  "The United States has no greater friend in the world than the State of Israel," she said, adding, "Israel is a country with whom we share security interests and, even more fundamentally, with whom we share core values – the values of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law."

"America has a special relationship with Israel," she stated, to the surprise of no one and the consternation of George Washington's ghost. "I will stand up for Israel and work tirelessly to defend it," she promised in her prepared statement.

She later reiterated her vow: "I commit to you wholeheartedly to go on offense as well as playing defense on the legitimization of Israel," she declared to the assembled U.S. Senators.

Perhaps her most disturbing comments, however, were about Iran.  Shamelessly exploiting the horror of the Holocaust to fear-monger about the Islamic Republic, she declared:

"...within this organization built in the wake of the Holocaust – built in part in order to apply the lessons of the Holocaust – we also see unacceptable bias and attacks against the State of Israel. We see the absurdity of Iran chairing the UN Conference on Disarmament, despite the fact that its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons is a grave threat to international peace and security."

With this statement, Power, in her eagerness to check off all the buzzword boxes prescribed by AIPAC, directly contradicts the consistent assessment of the United States' own intelligence community, which has repeatedly concluded that Iran is, in fact, not pursuing a nuclear weapons as it has no nuclear weapons program.

Early last year, an unnamed U.S. intelligence official told the Washington Post that Iran has not decided to pursue nuclear weapons, explaining, "Our belief is that they are reserving judgment on whether to continue with key steps they haven't taken regarding nuclear weapons."  At the time, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta affirmed this position, admitting, "Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No."

Soon thereafter, the New York Times reported, "Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier." This, the paper noted, "remains the consensus view of America's 16 intelligence agencies."

Either Samantha Power is an idiot or she's lying. And she's not an idiot.

In fact, there was a time when Power wasn't so confident in making such a declarative statement. In a 2008 interview with Miller-McCune, Power noted that she was "not an expert on Iran," but condemned the "American sabre-rattling" of the George W. Bush administration. "The threats – implicit and explicit – of U.S. military action have united very diverse secular, Islamist and nationalist strands" within Iran, she said, adding that American "belligerence" had "backfired."

When asked specifically about whether she thought "Iran is trying to create nuclear weapons," Power replied, "It would surprise me if they weren't, but I don't know."

Still, she disparaged the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate and simply assumed Iran "would see as in its interests to amass as much firepower as possible," due to the foreign threats it faces. Nevertheless, she stated, "It does not seem as though the Iranian regime is close to possessing nuclear weapons" and said that "when U.S. leaders claim Iran poses an imminent threat, they are not currently heard as credible."

Now, five years later, Power sounds exactly like Bush's own UN Ambassador, perennial Iran hawk John Bolton, who in 2006, insisted to the UN Security Council that "Iran had defied the international community by continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons" and that this "pursuit of nuclear weapons constituted a direct threat to international peace and security."

Furthermore, Power's incredulity regarding what she deems the "absurdity of Iran chairing the UN Conference on Disarmament," betrays her own ignorance on Iran's constantly repeated stance regarding nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

Iran has long championed a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East and is a party to all disarmament treaties on weapons of mass destruction, including the Biological Weapons Convention, Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Israel, however, is not a member of any of them.

Last year, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi stated that Iran fully supports the establishment of a NWFZ, but that Israel, and its American backers, presented the "only obstacle to the creation of such a zone...due to its persistent refusal to join the NPT and to place its nuclear facilities under the IAEA safeguards system."

Earlier this month, at the "International Conference on Nuclear Security: Enhancing Global Efforts" held in Vienna, Iran's Ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh reiterated his nation's commitment to universal nuclear disarmament. "The best guarantee for nuclear security is definitely a world free from nuclear weapons," he said, "as a result of which nuclear disarmament process could reinforce nuclear security efforts."

The United States consistently blocks crucial international conferences dedicated to nuclear non-proliferation for the sole purpose of protecting Israel's massive nuclear arsenal from scrutiny.

Samantha Power has surely embraced her new role in Turtle Bay as Israel's stalwart apologist, going to so far as to promise her Congressional interlocutors that she will push for Israel to gain a seat on the United Nations Security Council as a representative of - get this - the Western European bloc of nations, despite being located in the Levant, which is indisputably in the continent of Asia and far to the East of even Eastern Europe from which it is separated by hundreds of miles of water.

Abe Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League's hasbarist-in-chief, once called Susan Rice a "gladiator" fighting in the United Nations on behalf of Israel.  There is no question Samantha Power will, for the sake of our "special relationship" and "shared values" with an aggressive, nuclear-armed, settler-colonial apartheid state, similarly take up the sword and continue to unleash hell on the entire Middle East.

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