Rouhani, Like Countless Iranian Officials Before Him, Affirms: Iran Will Never Seek Nuclear Weapons

NBC's Ann Curry interviews Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran, September 18, 2013

(Photo Credit: David Lom / NBC News)

Speaking in Tehran to NBC's Ann Curry in his very first interview with an American media outlet, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani again - and repeatedly, considering Ms. Curry kept asking him the same question over and over - asserted Iran's wholesale condemnation of nuclear arms and its commitment never to build or acquire such weaponry.

Rouhani's statements were consistent with those of nearly every high-level Iranian official and diplomat over the past twenty years.

After Curry stated (totally incorrectly), "The world believes that Iran could build a bomb very quickly," Rouhani replied:

We have never pursued or sought a nuclear bomb and we are not going to do so. We are solely seeking peaceful nuclear technology.

Once wasn't enough for Curry. She asked, "Can you say now categorically then, that Iran will not build a nuclear weapon under any circumstances whatsoever?"

So Rouhani repeated:

The answer to this question is quite obvious. We have time and again said that under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever.

Again, Curry pondered, "So the answer is 'no'?" After Rouhani again affirmed this point, she gave it another shot. "I want to make sure I understand. So the American public, so the world understands. If you can say categorically that Iran will not seek a nuclear weapon under any circumstances whatsoever. Is the answer to that yes or no, sir?"

Rouhani was polite and patient. "The answer is that this country will never seek nuclear weapons."

He added that "Iran wants nothing beyond what is defined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regarding the nuclear [rights] of countries," a common statement often made by Iranian officials who understand that the Western demand on Iran to shutter or scale back its IAEA-safeguarded nuclear program is in itself a violation of Iran's inalienable national rights.

In fact, Curry shouldn't be so surprised by such statements coming from the top Iranian executive, as she has made a habit out of asking Iranian presidents the exact same question multiple times in a row and receiving the same answer.

When she interviewed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in September 2009, he told her, "We don't have such a need for nuclear weapons. We don't need nuclear weapons. Without such weapons, we are very much able to defend ourselves...It's not a part of our any – of our programs and plans."

As a perfect example of how the mainstream media operates, after the interview, Curry published a summative report entitled, "Ahmadinejad refuses to rule out weapons."

Two years later, when Curry again interviewed Ahmadinejad in Tehran, she asked the president directly, "Is Iran working on a nuclear warhead?"

Ahmadinejad's reply was consistent, as always:

This is an old and repeated story. These are the same claims made by the U.S. administration many times. They have been repeating these claims for many years. This is not a new thing for us. In principle, we are against nuclear weapons because it is against our beliefs and ideology. We do not consider nuclear weapons as a useful weapon. The period or era of nuclear weapons is over...

Can nuclear weapons offer solutions to the current international problems? Can they bring superiority for the nuclear states? Certainly the answer is 'no.'

He further stated, "We think those who try to build or make nuclear weapons, they are doing something absurd and useless. They only jeopardize their own situation and they waste the wealth of their own nations if they do it," and explained that, as opposed to "a period of nuclear bombs," today is an "era of humanity."

Responding to allegations of a clandestine Iranian nuclear weapons program, he explained (as he always had):

We have integrity and are sincere in what we say because we are not afraid of any power and we do not need to conceal our intentions. If we want to build a nuclear weapon, we have the courage to announce it openly. We are not afraid of others.

Still unsatisfied, Curry decided to repeat herself, asking, "Is the answer yes or is it no, with all due respect?"

When Ahmadinejad reiterated, "We do not need nuclear weapons and we do not accept nuclear weapons. We are against that," Curry quadrupled-down, "So you're saying the answer is no?"

The president replied, "Right, that's right, certainly."

Apparently, Ann Curry has trouble taking 'no' for an answer. And yet, all we hear is that Rouhani's unequivocal statement against nuclear weapons is something new and unprecedented. Clearly, it's not.

Missed by many in the media is the fact that Rouhani's statement echoed similar assurances made by Iranian officials for over twenty years. For instance, in early 1992, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), Reza Amrollahi, said, "We have never had nor will ever have other intentions" than using nuclear equipment for exclusively peace purposes.

Years later, in August 2005, Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, Sirus Naseri, declared "that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons," while in mid-2011, President Ahmadinejad, reiterated, "Never, never. We do not want nuclear weapons. We do not seek nuclear weapons. This is an inhumane weapon."

On January 30, 2012, Ali Akbar Salehi, who at the time was Iran's Foreign Minister and is now head of the IAEO, said, "Iran is never, ever after nuclear weapons." Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly stressed that Iran would - just as Rouhani told Ann Curry - never pursue nuclear weapons, insisting, for example, on February 22, 2012, "The Iranian nation has never sought and will never seek nuclear weapons."

A Reuters report trumpeted Rouhani's vow "that his government will never develop nuclear weapons" as "his strongest signal yet that he may be seeking a diplomatic thaw with the West after decades of acrimony."

Similarly, Brian Williams, during Wednesday night's broadcast of NBC Nightly News, told his audience that Rouhani's exclusive interview with Curry contained a "big revelation about nuclear weapons" and was "significant because it represents the first reason for any optimism, the first sign of any movement from Iran on the issue of nuclear weapons."

What an absurd thing to say. Such is the scope of perception in the mainstream media.

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A shorter version was originally published as the sixteenth update to a post from October 10, 2012 compiling the consistent eschewing and condemnation of nuclear weapons by Iranian officials over the past couple decades.

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New Documentary Reclaims “The Canadian Caper” from Affleck’s “Argo”

Ken and Pat Taylor attend the premier of “Argo” in Washington, DC on October 10, 2012.

(Photo Credit: Leigh Vogel/AFP/Getty Images)

A year after it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, eleven months after its blockbuster opening weekend, nearly seven months after being released on DVD and winning three Academy Awards, and less than a week after premiering on HBO, Ben Affleck’s movie “Argo” is still leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of Canadians – politicians and the public alike – over its depiction of the escape of American diplomats from post-revolutionary Iran during the hostage crisis.

Affleck’s Hollywood tale – “a propaganda fable” and “trite cavalcade of action-movie clichés and expository dialogue,” in the words of Salon's Andrew O’Hehir – of scary, irrational, violent Muslims and innocent, courageous and heroic Americans, written by Chris Terrio (who was awarded an Oscar for his script), took great narrative liberties with the factual history of the story.

The Associated Press reports, “‘Argo’ came under criticism from some Canadians, including former ambassador Ken Taylor, who said he felt slighted by “Argo” because it makes Canada look like a meek observer to CIA heroics.” Taylor called the original postscript to the movie “disgraceful and insulting,” as they implied that the 112 citations and awards he received for his work in providing refuge to and organizing the escape of the six Americans was undeserved. Due to his outrage, Affleck changed the text to reflect Canada’s important role in the rescue.

“Taylor kept the Americans hidden at his residence and at the home of his deputy, John Sheardown, in Tehran for three months and facilitated their escape by arranging plane tickets and persuading the Ottawa government to issue fake passports. He also agreed to go along with the CIA’s film production cover story to get the Americans out of Iran,” AP explains.

Well, as Taylor said recently, “Everything goes full cycle.”

Last night, September 12, he received a standing ovation at the very same film festival where “Argo” premiered a year ago, following the world premier of the new Canadian documentary “Our Man in Tehran.”

Speaking after the screening alongside Taylor, Joe Clark, Canada’s Prime Minister in 1979, said to great applause, “I think the truth is the better story.”

Soon after the initial release of “Argo,” former President Jimmy Carter, speaking at Canada’s Queen’s University in November 2012, said he was ”taken aback by [the film's] distortion of what happened because almost everything that was heroic, or courageous or innovative was done by Canada and not the United States.”

Earlier this year, Carter reiterated that “90% of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian [while] the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA…Ben Affleck’s character in the film was only in Tehran a day and a half and the real hero in my opinion was Ken Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process.”

Taylor himself as been a staunch critic of the film and its presentation of both Iran and the specific events of the diplomats’ hiding and rescue. “The amusing side,” he has said, “is the script writer in Hollywood had no idea what he’s talking about,” remarking that “Argo” misunderstands and misrepresents both Iranians and their revolution, ignoring their “more hospitable side and an intent that they were looking for some degree of justice and hope and that it all wasn’t just a violent demonstration for nothing.”

“Our Man in Tehran,” directed by Larry Weinstein and Drew Taylor, chronicles what is widely-known in Canada as “The Canadian Caper,” striving to set the record straight through first-person accounts by those closely involved in the affair, including Ken Taylor, his wife Pat, former Prime Minister Joe Clark, former Canadian Secretary of State Flora MacDonald, veteran CBC journalist Joe Schlesinger, former CIA agent Tony Mendez, and former CIA agent and hostage William Daugherty.

Taylor calls the documentary “a very true but engaging presentation of what happened in Tehran.”

While Daugherty describes “Argo” as “a great, exciting fictional movie,” with an accurate account of the embassy seizure, he says, “Then it starts to deviate from reality and never comes back. The airplane chase down the runway was a nice little touch. In reality, they just walked through.”

Similarly, one of the actual American diplomats depicted in “Argo,” Mark Lijek, has questioned the efficacy and value of the CIA’s own actions, admitting that the agency’s fake film cover story, integral to the plot of “Argo” was, in fact, “never tested and in some ways proved irrelevant to the escape.”

In fact, the departure of the six Americans from Tehran after three months of hiding out under Canadian roofs was actually rather uneventful, a far cry from what is depicted as spine-tingling, hair-raising action sequences in Affleck’s film.

“If asked, we were going to say we were leaving Iran to return when it was safer,” Lijek recalled, “But no one ever asked!…The truth is the immigration officers barely looked at us and we were processed out in the regular way. We got on the flight to Zurich and then we were taken to the US ambassador’s residence in Berne. It was that straightforward.”

In “Our Man in Tehran,” former Ambassador Ken Taylor finally reveals he thought the CIA’s idea for the fake movie, a sprawling science-fiction epic, was absurd, and that it would have made far more sense to pretend to be producing a movie about the Iranian Revolution itself at the time.

“But that’s the CIA and that’s Hollywood,” he says.

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Originally posted at Muftah.

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Iranian American Artists On A Mission to Stop War Through Hip Hop

Close the ears on your head,
that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes.
There are other things to see, and hear.
Music. Dance.
A brilliant city inside your soul! ~ Rumi
Justin Mashouf, two-time Emmy winning filmmaker, artist, and erstwhile friend of Muftah, sent us this press release yesterday:

Iranian American rap artist Base One Basic and director Justin Mashouf released their video "Call to Disarms (Why Are You Scared of Iran?)," today (09/05/13) as US lawmakers debate taking military action in Syria.

Director Justin Mashouf, mentions “As the Syrian civil war escalates and American intervention becomes more likely, anti-Iran hawks have increased their efforts to justify action against Iran.”

Independent hip hop artist Base One Basic says,”Hip hop is an international language and our message to the world is to put an end to senseless violence and war.”

The video features a variety of scenes from the lives of Iranians across 6 cities in Iran including Tehran, Tabriz, Shiraz, Mashhad, Qom, and Isfahan. From traditional Iranian martial artists, breakdancers, and freestyle BMX riders, the video shows Iranians of all walks of life.

Watch the video below:

Download the song here: https://baseonebasic.bandcamp.com/

Base One Basic - Call to (Dis)arms
Directed by Justin Mashouf
Song Produced by Bei-Ru
All Lyrics by Base One Basic (Shervin Nooravi)
Artwork by Ehsaan Mesghali

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Originally posted at Muftah.

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Treaty Obligations, War Crimes and Accountability:A Study in American Hypocrisy

The U.S. Air Force firebombing Japan in 1945

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
- Juvenal, Satires (VI, 347–8)

"I have no interest in any open-ended conflict in Syria, but we do have to make sure that when countries break international norms on weapons like chemical weapons that could threaten us, that they are held accountable," President Barack Obama said in a PBS interview earlier this week.

With allegations of a horrific chemical weapons attack outside Damascus and new reports of a "napalm" bomb being dropped on a school playground in northern Syria, this statement, made by an American Commander-in-Chief, would certainly come as a surprise to many of Obama's predecessors, considering the use of chemical weapons has been standard U.S. military procedure for decades.

Napalm, which is classified as an incendiary, rather than chemical, weapon, is composed of a gel that sticks to the skin and can burn down to the bone. Used extensively by the U.S. military during the last years of World War II in both the European and Pacific theaters, the napalm bombing of Japan killed at least 330,000 people. Twice the amount of napalm as was dropped on Japan in 1945 was used by American forces over three years during the Korean War: 32,357 tons as compared to 16,500 tons.

Between 1963 and 1973, the U.S. military dropped nearly 400,000 tons of napalm on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. In 1980, the United Nations declared the use of napalm gel in densely-populated civilian areas to be a war crime.

Agent Orange, a chemical weapon derived from herbicides, was also used by Americans during the Vietnam War. Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed nearly 20 million gallons of material containing chemical herbicides and defoliants mixed with jet fuel in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, as part of Operation Ranch Hand.

A 2008 Globe and Mail article reported that "Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed by the defoliants, 500,000 children have been born with defects from retardation to spina bifida and a further two million people have suffered cancers or other illnesses. Yet they have received no compensation from those who produced the chemicals and those who made them a weapon of war."

According to the the United Nations, Agent Orange is "one of the most toxic compounds known to human," and the Vietnamese Red Cross has estimated that "as many as one million people in Vietnam have disabilities or other health problems associated with Agent Orange."

A recently published report in Foreign Policy revealed that, during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980-1988, "America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen." Among the findings, the report stated that, in 1988, "U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent," and that "Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence."

More:

In contrast to today's wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein's widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.

When the U.S. role in Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iranians and Kurds was reported in The New York Times over a decade ago, the revelations were stridently denied by American officials, despite being well-known and documented. Senior military officers with the Defense Intelligence Agency told the Times that "the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war," but "Secretary of State Powell, through a spokesman, said the officers' description of the program was 'dead wrong,' but declined to discuss it." Furthermore, Powell's deputy, "Richard L. Armitage, a senior defense official at the time, used an expletive relayed through a spokesman to indicate his denial that the United States acquiesced in the use of chemical weapons."

The report also states, "The Pentagon 'wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas,' said one veteran of the program. 'It was just another way of killing people -- whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference,' he said."

Even more recently, the U.S. military used white phosphorus, a chemical compound whose use in civilian areas constitutes a war crime, during its 2004 attacks on Fallujah in Iraq, just as America's best friend in the region, Israel, dropped white phosphorus on civilian areas in its 2008-2009 massacre in Gaza.

It should be noted that, while the United States is a party to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which bans the use of napalm against civilians, it has never signed Protocol III on the convention, the statute that specifically bans the use of all incendiary weaponry. Nevertheless, even without signing it, this protocol came into force for the U.S. on July 21, 2009.

Furthermore, Israel is one of only seven nations on the planet – along with Syria, Angola, South Sudan, Egypt, North Korea, and Myanmar – to refuse to abide by the international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).  As such, every year the United States provides upwards of $4.6 billion (with a "b") in military aid collectively to two states - Israel and Egypt - that deliberately do not adhere to the "international norm" of eschewing, let alone the legal prohibition against, the use of chemical weapons.

However, despite this, a deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said this week that state non-compliance with treaty obligations recognized by the vast majority of the international community - even by non-signatories to such treaties - should not absolve those states from accountability.

During a press briefing on August 27, spokesperson Marie Harf described the CWC as a "multilateral disarmament agreement" that "provides for the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction under universally applied international control and prohibits the use of chemical weapons. Currently, 189 nations, which represent about 98 percent of the global population, have joined the Chemical Weapons Convention." As such, she continued, even though there are a few nations that have not yet acceded to the convention, "clearly that should not enable them to escape responsibility for their actions."

Harf added, "There is a reason that the overwhelming majority of the international community – again, that agrees on little else – has stood against the use of these weapons, and Syria should not be able to flout the clearly expressed view of the international community here."

The following day, Harf reiterated this position:

[T]he indiscriminate use of chemical weapons against civilians is a violation of international law. I also talked a little bit about international norms and the Chemical Weapons Convention, which they are obviously not a party to, but which clearly laid out that a majority – a vast majority of the world spoke up and said that we are taking a stand against chemical weapons and the world has spoken on chemical weapons. And we're not going back, and they have to be held accountable.

To suggest that the United States does not go back on its word when it comes to commonly-accepted mandates of international law is laughable. In 1998, the vast majority of the world's nations voted to adopted the Rome Statute, establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) and granting it authority to "bring to justice the perpetrators of the worst crimes known to humankind – war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide." The United States voted against it.

When the statute was officially adopted by the international community in 2002, the United States, Israel and Sudan all signed it, but formally refused to present it for ratification. In a letter to the UN Secretary-General on May 6, 2002, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, stated, "in connection with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted on July 17, 1998, that the United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty. Accordingly, the United States has no legal obligations arising from its signature on December 31, 2000." While the Obama administration has walked back this Bush era rejection, it has still refused to ratify the treaty and accept the ICC's jurisdiction.

Of course, the language of international law and accountability is also never leveled at Israel when it commits war crimes or develops an undeclared and unmonitored arsenal of nuclear weapons in defiance of the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which Israel - along with only three other countries on Earth - is not a signatory.

In fact, in May 2010, after the 189 signatories of the NPT - including Iran and Syria called for an international conference in 2012 with the goal of establishing "a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction," Israel denounced the accord, describing it as "deeply flawed and hypocritical," and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, "As a non-signatory state of the NPT, Israel is not obligated by the decisions of this Conference, which has no authority over Israel. Given the distorted nature of this resolution, Israel will not be able to take part in its implementation."

At the time, President Obama also decried the resolution for what he claimed was an unfair focus on Israel - the only nuclear-armed state in the region - and promised to "oppose actions that jeopardize Israel's national security."

When the time of the proposed conference rolled around in December 2012, the United States prevented it from taking place.

It is clear that the United States is not considering military strikes on Syria out of any deference to the obligations of international law or concern for innocent civilians. As Omar Dahi notes in Jadaliyya, "The fact that the United States is threatening to strike now has nothing to do with the welfare of Syrians, and everything to do with the United States maintaining its own 'credibility,' its position as a hegemonic power."

Even taking the U.S. government at its word - a dubious thing to do in light of past experiences - presents problems of its own, namely that any purportedly punitive military action against Syria would itself be a violation of the very laws the United States is claiming to defend.

Recall, for instance, what then-Senator Barack said back on December 20, 2007: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation...As President, I will not assert a constitutional authority to deploy troops in a manner contrary to an express limit imposed by Congress and adopted into law."

International relations professor Charli Carpenter has just addressed these factors in Foreign Affairs:

The Obama administration has already confirmed that its primary concern is with protecting the norm and punishing its violators. Given that goal, the appropriate course of action would be to, first, independently verify who violated it. The United States claims that it has “no doubt” that Syria was behind last week’s chemical attack, but that remains an open question until the UN inspectors have completed their investigation. Second, the United States would have to consider a range of policy options for affirming, condemning, and lawfully punishing the perpetrator before resorting to force, particularly unlawful force. As Article36.org, a nongovernmental organization notes, these might include condemnation, an arms embargo, sanctions, or any of the other bilateral and multilateral measures that are typically used to respond to violations of weapons norms (and which might be at least as effective than air strikes, if not more so). Third, should the United States decide on military action, with or without a UN Security Council resolution, it would need to adhere to international norms regulating the use of specific weapons in combat.

It is thus worrying that the proposed military strikes against Syria rely on Tomahawk missiles, which are capable of carrying cluster munitions and which have been decried on humanitarian grounds by numerous governments and civil society groups. Equally alarming is that the planned strikes would likely involve the use of explosives in populated areas, which is in violation of emerging international concerns about such behavior. Although there is historical precedent for the legitimacy of violating the UN Charter in order to enforce global humanitarian norms, it would be seen as hypocritical to violate those very norms in the service of their affirmation.

As always, with a potentially imminent military strike on the horizon, the American government has once again affirmed its belief that - unlike the rest of the world - when the United States or its friends abrogate international law and commit war crimes, they should not be held to account.

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UPDATE:

MSNBC's resident loudmouth Chris Matthews - who fancies himself somewhat of an historian - is apparently wholly unaware of the U.S. military's past use of chemical weapons. Speaking on Morning Joe earlier this week, Matthews bellowed:

If you basically put down a red line and say don’t use chemical weapons, and it’s been enforced in the Western community, around the world — international community for decades. Don’t use chemical weapons. We didn’t use them in World War II, Hitler didn’t use them, we don’t use chemical weapons, that’s no deal. Although we do know that Assad’s father did. Then he goes ahead and does it.

Let alone Matthews' ignorance of our own actions, even more surreal is the statement that "Hitler didn't use them." Matthews seems to be forgetting about that whole Holocaust thing, when the Nazis committed genocide by gassing millions of Jews in death camps.

Since no allusion to either Syria or Nazi Germany is allowed to pass in the mainstream media without making erroneous comparisons with Iran, Matthews added that, based on Assad's alleged use of weapons of mass destruction, "It makes you wonder what the mullahs will do if they have a couple of nuclear weapons, just a couple."

Well, first off, Iran isn't building nuclear weapons and, even according to U.S. intelligence assessments, hasn't even made a decision to do so. It has also routinely denounced the acquisition, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons for the past three decades.

Moreover, that Matthews would think Iranian leaders would instigate atomic armageddon for absolutely no reason is bizarre. But then, again, with a history of promoting misinformation and demonstrating utter ignorance about the Iranian nuclear program, it is no surprise Matthews is pushing such shameless propaganda.

Second, Matthews fails to point out here that, in fact, only one single solitary nation in world history has ever actually used nuclear weapons: the United States of America, which dropped them on civilians, slaughtering hundreds of thousands.

As Robert McNamara recounted to filmmaker Errol Morris in The Fog of War, "[U.S. Air Force General Curtis] LeMay said, 'If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.' And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

McNamara wondered, "Was there a rule then that said you shouldn't bomb, shouldn't kill, shouldn't burn to death 100,000 civilians in one night?"

(h/t to JTA's Uriel Heilman for jumping on this.)

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UPDATE II:

September 5, 2013 - As usual, Jim Naureckas of the brilliant and essential Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) perfectly articulates yet another aspect of the double standard applied to standards of international law and human decency by both our mainstream media and the government officials who feed it talking points and phony outrage.

Naureckas addresses the recent spate of breathless reporting on the alleged use by the Syrian military of cluster bombs, detailed in a new report by Human Rights Watch and described by The New York Times' Rick Gladstone as a "widely prohibited weapon" responsible for "maiming and destroying indiscriminately."

While the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which has been signed by 112 countries, prohibits the possession and deployment of these bombs, the Times buries the fact that, among the nations who have not signed the protocol is the United States itself, along with its buddy Israel.

Naureckas notes:

Huh–so the country that the New York Times is based in, where most of its readers live, is one of the countries that refuses to sign the treaty banning these horrific weapons? Maybe that's worth a mention before the eighth of 11 paragraphs.

In fact, readers might be interested to know that not only does the U.S. not ban cluster bombs, it actually uses them–they've been used by U.S. forces in Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq, with the most recent target being Yemen. As the Human Rights Watch report notes in a portion not quoted by the Times:

The last reported US use of a cluster munition was in Yemen on December 17, 2009, when one or more TLAM-D cruise missiles loaded with BLU-97 bomblets struck the hamlet of al-Majala in southern Abyan province, causing more than 40 civilian casualties.

But that's the strange thing about cluster bombs: When they're used by official enemies, they're weapons of indiscriminate terror (FAIR Blog, 4/16/11, 1/2/13). When they're used by the United States, they're not much worth talking about.

Israel's own widespread use of cluster bombs, along with white phosphorus, in its 2006 devastation of southern Lebanon was met with widespread international opprobrium.

In September 2006, a Ha'aretz report quoted the head of an IDF rocket unit as saying, "What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," adding that the Israeli military had "fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets."

"In addition," the report revealed, "soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war."

Furthermore, "[t]he cluster rounds which don't detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended."

Indeed, the 500,000 unexploded Israeli cluster bombs have continued to kill Lebanese civilians, as well as livestock, over the past seven years.

United Nations officials deemed the Israeli use of cluster bombs in Lebanon to be "outrageous" and "immoral," while Human Rights Watch found that Israel's "indiscriminate and disproportionate cluster munition attacks on Lebanon" had "violated international humanitarian law."

Despite this, the United States has never sought to punish the Israeli government for its clear breach of what is seems to call "international norms."

Shocking.

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Only Bad Guys Ignore Public Opinion, Right?Not to Mention International Law

It is conventional wisdom in U.S. government officialdom and among our mainstream punditry that popular opinion in Iran has absolutely no impact on the decision-making of that country's leadership. The common refrain is that the policies, namely with regard to foreign affairs and national security, pursued by Iran's political and military elite have little relation to - and are often at odds with - the will of the Iranian people.

Despite this assumption, in fact, most public opinion polls of Iranian citizens demonstrate a wide range of perspectives and attitudes, much like that of any other diverse and informed population, and consistently find that government policies track closely with public opinion, especially when it comes to foreign policy, relations with the West, sanctions, perceptions of the United States government and the nuclear program.

There are naturally large segments of the Iranian population who disagree with their government's handling of many different issues, from the economy to international relations, just as there are anywhere. One need only look at public opinion polls here in the United States to see similar, if not far more striking, public opposition to official policies.

Nevertheless, politicians and the media continue to push the idea that Iran is an anomaly in this regard - a dictatorial authoritarian state in no way beholden to its oppressed citizenry; a virtual security state in which government officials make life and death decisions of war and peace with no regard to the will of the masses.

Before the recent Iranian presidential election this past Spring, Secretary of State John Kerry presaged, "Ultimately, the Iranian people [will] be prevented not only from choosing someone who might have reflected their point of view, but also taking part in a way that is essential to any kind of legitimate democracy."

Once Western observers were shocked by the result of the June 14 vote - the election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani - the White House issued a statement of congratulations to the Iranian people for "making their voices heard."

"It is our hope that the Iranian government will heed the will of the Iranian people and make responsible choices that create a better future for all Iranians," it read.

With the bloody civil war in Syria now driving headlines and drawing battle lines over the alleged use of chemical weapons, this perception has once again been articulated when it comes to Iran's continuing support of the Syrian government and efforts to avoid the escalation of military conflict in the region.

Writing this week for the U.S.-government funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reporter Golnaz Esfandiari remarked:

Iran's support for Syria, which has already come under criticism by many Iranians, could become even more unpopular as more and more countries point the fingers at the Syrian regime over the suspected chemical attack on August 21.

That does not mean that Iran will discontinue its support for Syria -- public opinion doesn't count for much in a country like Iran -- and for now Iran appears to be determined to stand by Assad.

The implications here are obvious. We are told that the Iranian public doesn't support its own government's policies on Syria, and the Iranian government simply doesn't care, instead forging ahead with what a Western readership is supposed to immediately dismiss as destructive and wrongheaded policy.

The very same day that Esfandiari published her story, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf - Jen Psaki's late summer pinch-hitter - defended the Obama administration's increased threats of military intervention - most likely in the form of airstrikes - on behalf of anti-Assad rebels, which may occur in a matter of days.

During her daily press briefing, Harf was asked whether she was "aware that most – in fact, if not all – public polls show that the American people, by a very large majority, oppose to any kind of intervention? Should that factor in in any kind of decision?"

The reporter posing the question was referring to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted between August 19 and 23 and released the previous day, which found that a mere 9 percent of respondents currently supported American military intervention in Syria. According the Washington Post, "this is the lowest support for intervention since the poll began tracking opinion on the issue."

So, considering countries like Iran - y'know, the brutal, myopic, dictatorial kind - supposedly don't make foreign policy calculations based upon public opinion (in contrast, presumably, to noble, responsive democratic nations like the United States), how did Ms. Harf reply?

Here's how:

I think the President’s been clear that he makes decisions about our national security based on what's best for national security interests of this country, and I think it's clear here that there are core national security interests at stake for the United States. Clearly, the mass-scale use of chemical weapons or a potential proliferation of these weapons flagrantly violates an important international norm and therefore threatens American security.

Apparently, what is demanded of other nations simply doesn't apply when it comes to our own policy-making.

Back in June, Obama spokesman Jay Carney explained that, when it comes to Syria, "the ultimate goal here is to bring about a political transition -- one that results in a governing authority that respects the rights of all Syrians" and "that reflects the will of the Syrian people -- all of the Syrian people." The Obama administration, he said, is "working with our partners and allies and the opposition to help bring that about."

Yet earlier that same month, Carney told the press just how the governing authority of his own boss - the Commander-in-Chief of the United States - would react to the will of the American people when it comes to arming Syrian rebels or possible militarily enforcing a no-fly zone against Assad's air force. "The President makes a decision about the implementation of national security options based on our national security interests," Carney said, "not on what might satisfy critics at any given moment about a policy."

A reporter followed up. "Public opinion would not factor into that?," he asked. In response, Carney was clear:

Of course not. What does factor in is what's in the national security interests of the United States and what has the best chance of working -- not satisfying an urge to do something today, but beyond today and next week and the following week -- what actually has the potential to help bring us closer to the achievement of the goal.

A similar statement was made almost exactly a year ago by then-Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak when faced with popular protests and polling data reflecting strong Israeli opposition to a potential military attack on Iran. "The prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister have the authority…and the decision will be made as necessary by the government of Israel. That's how it is and how it needs to be — not a group of civilians or even newspaper editorials," Barak declared.

It is obvious that stark issues of foreign policy should not be left solely to the whims of public opinion; every military decision can not be made via popular referendum. This is not the issue. The issue, rather, is that American rhetoric with regard to how other nations should operate is wholly disregarded when it comes to our own expectations for ourselves or our allies.

It's called a double standard. It's called hypocrisy. It's called American exceptionalism.

Meanwhile, in a striking blow to the Obama administration's efforts to assemble a willing coalition to attack Assad's military installations, the British Parliament voted today against immediate involvement in a military strike against Syria. The decision, won by a margin of just 13 votes, was primarily based on outstanding questions regarding the ultimate culpability for the recent use of chemical weapons based on available evidence.

Reacting to the vote, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that, despite his personal belief "in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons" he would respect the will of the representatives. "It is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action," he said. "I get that, and the government will act accordingly."

When it comes to Syria, the real question yet remains: American public opinion and the war cheerleading from both neoconservative hawks and supposedly liberal voices in the mainstream media aside, will Barack Obama heed not only the mandate of the U.S. Constitution, but also the tenets of international law, which unequivocally prohibit a military strike? What about the fact that such attacks could certainly do far more harm than good by putting even more Syrian civilians lives in danger and exacerbating an already devastating humanitarian crisis?

So far, the signs don't look good.

As Marc Lynch recently wrote in Foreign Policy,

The rumored air strikes would drag the United States across a major threshold of direct military involvement, without any serious prospect of ending the conflict or protecting Syrian civilians (at least from non-chemical attacks). They likely would not accomplish more than momentarily appeasing the whimsical gods of credibility. The attack would almost certainly lack a Security Council mandate. Meanwhile, the response from Arab public opinion to another U.S. military intervention has been predictably hostile; even the very Arab leaders who have been aggressively pushing for such military action are refraining from openly supporting it. And nobody really believes that such strikes will actually work.

According to the New York Times, even in the face of "a stinging rejection" of military action "by America's stalwart ally Britain and mounting questions from Congress," unnamed U.S. "administration officials made clear that the eroding support would not deter Mr. Obama in deciding to go ahead with a strike."

Like his much-maligned predecessor, a lack of solid evidence and respect for legality may not deter this new Decider from launching another war, logic and democracy be damned.

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Is This The Most Pathetic Sting Operation the U.S. Government Ever Concocted?

Ali Baba by Maxfield Parrish (1909)

It is well-known that the law enforcement and national security arms of the United States government routinely hatch and orchestrate elaborate sting operations, and then claim victory over thwarting nefarious plots that they themselves manufactured, planned, coordinated, funded and sometimes even led.

An extensive 2011 Mother Jones investigation by journalist Trevor Aaronson found that, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, “with three exceptions, all of the high-profile domestic terror plots of the last decade were actually FBI stings.” As a result, agencies like the FBI continue touting their own successful defense of our sacred homeland from the over-hyped scourge of domestic and international terrorism, while fabricating the very schemes they themselves gallantly thwart and racking up convictions based upon clear entrapment.

Aaronson, who is the author of “The Terror Factory: Inside The FBI’s Manufactured War On Terrorism,” has said that the United States’ massive counter-terrorism budget would be better spent “identifying real threats and gathering intelligence rather than finding potential threats and trying to make them real.”

In its endless efforts to cast Iran as the most fearsome nation in the world and its internationally safeguarded and regularly inspected nuclear program as an ever-looming threat, the U.S. government’s sting industry went one step further down the rabbit hole this week when “US prosecutors have charged a man from Sierra Leone with trying to sell undercover agents 1,000 tonnes of yellowcake uranium,” Reuters reported today.

Apparently, the suspect – 33-year-old Patrick Campbell of Freetown – is the stupidest wannabe black market uranium dealer on the planet. He was “arrested at John F Kennedy airport on Wednesday after he arrived from Sierra Leone with the sample of uranium concealed in the soles of shoes in his luggage.”

Here’s the rundown:

Campbell said he was affiliated with a company engaged in mining and selling of uranium, gold, and diamonds for export and communicated via telephone, Skype and email that he was seeking to buy processed uranium 308, also known as yellowcake, to be delivered to Iran, [Homeland Security agent Louise] Miller said.

Yellowcake uranium, when enriched, can be used in the manufacture of nuclear fuel and weapons.

The uranium was to be disguised in a mix with other types of ore. The shipment for delivery to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas was to yield 1,000 tonnes of yellowcake, according to the criminal complaint.

After his arrest Campbell admitted to agents that he had engaged in talks for “a contract for the sale of uranium to be delivered to Iran”, the complaint said. He admitted having a sample with him.

So how did all this go down?

Well, according to the Homeland Security affidavit, Campbell “allegedly responded to an ad in May 2012 on the website alibaba.com seeking to purchase uranium that was placed by an undercover US agent posing as an American broker representing persons in Iran.”

Yes, he responded to an online ad. On a website called alibaba.com. (How’s that for a little unintentional Orientalism?) The website is run by the Alibaba Group, “a family of Internet-based businesses which makes it easy for anyone to buy or sell online anywhere in the world.”

Where else would a devious Iranian mineral trader go for all his nefarious, sanctions-busting, nuclear weapons-making needs?

Quite simply, the story is preposterous. That Mr. Campbell would be lured by a fake broker for Iranian buyers to the United States, of all places, to make a secret uranium deal is embarrassing and sad.

Never once, in the series of events revealed through this case, is any actual connection to Iran ever made. With this in mind, the sensational headline accompanying the report – “Man caught in ‘uranium for Iran’ sting” – is all the more misleading and disingenuously alarmist.

Campbell is charged with violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, in addition to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which regulates trade involving foreign countries deemed by the President of the United States to pose an "unusual and extraordinary threat...to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States." Iran has been deemed such a threat by every Commander-in-Chief since 1979.

If found guilty, Campbell - who was never contacted by anyone from or in Iran or with any connection whatsoever to that country - faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine for moronically doing what an American intelligence agent asked him to do.

Such a bogus scare story about yellowcake being transferred from Africa to a Middle Eastern country accused of having a nuclear weapons program is eerily reminiscent of the claims made in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. Similarly silly allegations have been made about Iran obtaining aluminum tubes and magnets for its nuclear work – another echo of the Iraq narrative.

That Iran would even need to purchase black market yellowcake makes no sense considering Iran currently has adequate uranium ore resources of its own and the facilities to process it. Nevertheless, allegations about Iran acquiring yellowcake from Africa have proliferated for years.

This sting operation is the latest evidence of the utter waste of time and energy wasted on fear-mongering about an Iranian nuclear threat that literally does not exist.

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Originally posted at Muftah.

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UPDATE:

August 24, 2013 - In response to reports about the U.S. government's sting operation, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Chairman of Iran's Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee said today that this "US scenario" was a "joke."

He stated that because Iran has no need to buy yellowcake from the private citizens from other countries, the entire operation (or perhaps just its publicity) appears manufactured with the intent to undermine diplomatic overtures made by Iran toward the United States since the June election of Hassan Rouhani.

"Iran is among the producers of yellowcake; therefore, the claim has been designed with the aim of affecting Iran's talks with the P5+1 group under the new administration," Boroujerdi said, according to PressTV.

"Instead of waging a psychological war, Washington should seize the emerging opportunity in the new Iranian administration and pursue constructive dialog for putting an end to the issue of Iran's nuclear energy program,” Boroujerdi added.

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Rachel Maddow and Chemical Weapons:Inaccurate Information & Telling Omissions

During her August 21 broadcast, in a segment on the reported use of chemical weapons in a horrific attack that killed hundreds of civilians in Syria, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow discussed the possible implications of such an horrendous act and touched upon past uses of potentially similar substances such as Sarin and mustard gas.  She spoke about Saddam Hussein's use of these chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians during the Iran-Iraq War and in the massacre of thousands of Iraqi Kurds in Halabja on March 16, 1988.

Maddow did not deem it necessary, however, to tell her audience about the United States government's role in actively supporting the Iraqi military at the time and perhaps even providing Saddam with the very chemical weapons he then used to slaughter countless human beings.

Furthermore, Maddow noted that, following the Gulf War, the international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was established in 1993 and that only "a handful of countries refused to sign onto that convention: Angola, North Korea, Egypt, South Sudan, Somalia and Syria."

Her list of these six nations was accompanied by an onscreen graphic.

But it wasn't quite right.

In fact, only five states - Angola, North Korea, Egypt, South Sudan and Syria - have never signed nor implemented the Chemical Weapons Convention.

While Somalia did not sign the treaty before it came into force, the country is now, as of June 28, 2013, a member of the convention through the process of "accession," which the United Nations defines as "the act whereby a state accepts the offer or the opportunity to become a party to a treaty already negotiated and signed by other states" and which "has the same legal effect as ratification."

Somalia is not alone in having acceded to the CWC. Other states like Serbia, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Belize, Botswana, Sudan and Iraq have all voluntarily adopted its protocols without being original signatories to the convention.

Missing from Maddow's commentary on the CWC, however, was any mention of the only two states on the planet that have signed the convention yet never ratified it, thereby reneging on their original promise to abide by its rules.

These two nations are Myanmar and Israel. They join the five countries (not including Somalia) mentioned by Maddow in explicitly refusing to adhere to the ban on using chemical weapons.

Israel has a history with Sarin gas and has routinely used chemical weaponry such as white phosphorus in densely populated areas, an act regarding as potentially a war crime.  Despite ongoing claims that it would "stop using artillery shells with white phosphorus to create smokescreens on the battlefield" and that shells containing white phosphorus would be "removed from active duty soon," in early July of this year, Israel's High Court of Justice actually "dismissed a petition calling for a ban on the Israeli military’s use of white phosphorus munitions in populated areas."

Furthermore, Israel is one of only 16 states to never sign nor ratify the Biological Weapons Convention and the only state among those with substantial military might and believed to have actually developed an offensive biological warfare capability. An August 1993 report by the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment identified Israel as a country possessing a long-term, undeclared, offensive biological warfare program.

In 1998, Bill Richardson, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs in both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, declared, "I have no doubt that Israel has worked on both chemical and biological offensive things for a long time," adding, "I don't think you'll find much on it. We've always seemed to have a double standard on Israel, compared to talking about the threats from other countries. There's no doubt they've had stuff for years, but getting anybody to say anything publicly about it is going to be pretty hard."

Louis Toscano, a former UPI Jerusalem bureau chief and author of "Triple Cross," a 1990 book about Israel's clandestine nuclear arsenal, revealed, "I've never had much doubt that they were producing a limited arsenal of chemical weapons. In fact, it was widely rumored that a chemical factory was operating under the guise of a university research center around Haifa."

Moreover, Toscano said, "What makes it all the more dangerous is that they, unlike Saddam or any of the other Middle East bogeymen, have developed weapons systems capable of delivering such weapons."

Perhaps Maddow should have pointed that out.

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Calls for Diplomacy with Iran Come from Unlikely Sources

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

(Photo Credit: Abdolvahed Mirzazadeh)

As Congress and Israeli leaders continue to make threats and take actions that serve to dismiss and prevent any possibility of real diplomacy between Iran and the West, namely the United States, a number of unexpected voices are now chiming in on the side of moderation, pragmatism and a negotiation.

Iranian rhetoric since the June election and recent Cabinet appointments of President Hassan Rouhani's new administration signal a strong desire for renewed talks and a reduction in international tensions. Earlier this month, Rouhani stated in a press conference that Iran is "ready to immediately resume talks on nuclear issue," explaining that the "key" to success for the United States "to understand that threats are not the solution. We can resolve the nuclear dispute if all sides have the political will."

Rouhani added, "Actions matter more than words. My administration will defiantly reciprocate actions by U.S.", which he says has been "sending mixed messages" due to "the warmongering lobby," which "has the interest of another country in mind" and "opposes dialogue and is imposing its will…" Essentially, Rouhani concluded, "Statements by White House do not match the actions we see from them. All we want US to do is to hear the message of Iranian people in the recent elections and end sending these mixed messages."

Other Iranian politicians have echoed the president's sentiments. Esmail Kowsari, a member of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said last week, "Once the United States exhibits a confidence-building and realistic behavior, the Islamic Republic of Iran will take a proper decision concerning talks with the U.S.", adding, "What is important for us is the US administration’s practical response and not statements."

"Therefore," Kowsari said, "no decision can be made about negotiations with the United States unless such a change of behavior is displayed by Americans."

Mansour Haqiqatpour, Vice-Chairman of the same parliamentary commission, told the press, "Unfortunately, the U.S. behavior is totally hypocritical and dishonest and the country is pursuing an inappropriate diplomatic trend with regard to establishing relations with Iran."

"In order to talk with Iran," he suggested, "the Americans should renounce their paradoxical behavior and also avoid adopting stances in bad temper so that the process of talks between the two countries can be shaped based on realities."

It is wholly unsurprising that Iranian leaders would look for concrete changes from Washington before taking its alleged overtures seriously. For the past four years, as Reza Nasri has explained in Tehran Bureau, the Obama administration's notion of diplomacy with Iran has been "predicated on intimidation, illegal threats of military action, unilateral 'crippling' sanctions, sabotage, and extrajudicial killings of Iran's brightest minds." These actions demonstrate Washington's goal of complete Iranian capitulation and even regime change, rather than dialogue based upon mutual respect and international law.

Surprisingly, however, the editorial board of the usually hawkish Washington Post last week called upon the West to "resume negotiations soon to explore the depth of Mr. Rouhani’s seriousness and whether his election has come with room to maneuver," couching its appeal in the usual alarmist terms that "talks must proceed with urgency" due to the progress of Iran's nuclear program. Still, they argued, "Western powers should swallow hard and show up ready to talk. Mr. Rouhani's demand for mutual respect is not unreasonable."

Even former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, a vocal proponent of continued collective punishment against the Iranian people, took to the oped pages of the Israeli press last week to express a similar view. "Israel should support the launch of negotiations as soon as possible rather than make it more difficult for the sides to return to the negotiation table," he wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth, the state's leading daily, condemning the dismissive remarks made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran's new president, which imply to "Iranian voters that their actions are insignificant; that there is no chance their situation will improve and that Israel is determined to delegitimize their choice."

"I do not believe Rohani would establish a moderate government unless he knew there was a genuine willingness on the part of the US to negotiate with him," Halevy continued, adding that "Israel officially announce its support for negotiations between the US and Iran" and "add a word of praise for the Iranian people," recognizing the "dignity and honor of the masses in Tehran."

In true Israeli fashion, of course, Halevy suggests that, all the while, "Israel will continue to have its finger on the trigger."

Furthermore, in addition to the advocacy of former diplomats like William H. Luers, Jim Walsh and Thomas R. Pickering - who have long sought to advance a different path forward with Iran and published a comprehensive plan for a new approach this month in the New York Review of Books - a new report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) urges the Obama administration to be more flexible in its consideration of negotiations and potential solutions with Iran.

The report, titled "Great Expectations: Iran's New President and the Nuclear Talks," calls for "Washington to engage in direct bilateral talks with Iran alongside the P5+1 and to be more forthcoming in the negotiations – by offering greater sanctions relief in exchange for Iranian concessions and describing an 'end-state' that would include de facto recognition of Tehran's 'right' to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes," writes IPS's Jim Lobe.

The ICG report not only suggests the scope of discussions between the West and Iran be expanded to include regional security issues, such as the current situations in Syria and Egypt. Perhaps most importantly, however, the report states that "now is not the time to ramp up sanctions," as such actions "could well backfire, playing into the hands of those in Tehran wishing to prove that Iran's policies have no impact on the West's attitude, and thus that a more flexible position is both unwarranted and unwise."

It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration will heed these calls or continue to follow the lead of a lobby-influenced Congress and an obsessed Israeli prime minister.

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Originally posted at Muftah.

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