Month: October 2010

Deborah Johns, former vice chair of the Tea Party Express, has denounced North Carolina candidate for Congress Ilario Pantano and has endorsed his Democratic opponent. Johns is the mother of a Marine and once organized pro-Iraq War counterprotests against Cindy Sheehan.

Ilario Pantano shot and killed two unarmed prisoners in Iraq while serving in the Marines and survived charges of premeditated murder before returning to America to run for Congress in North Carolina this year.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Johns turned against Pantano after reading the transcript of the military hearing that eventually cleared Pantano of the charges. In April 2004, Pantano killed two unarmed Iraqi detainees, twice unloading his gun into their bodies and firing between 50 and 60 shots in total. Afterward, he placed a sign over the corpses featuring the Marines’ slogan “No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy” as a message to the local population.

“That is not a war hero,” Johns said. “It is people like that that give all our military a bad name.”

Read the complete story and updates on The Daily Beast.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 29th, 2010:

The National Interest: Ted Galen Carpenter writes that while the Obama administration has said it wants to use diplomacy to bring an end to Iran’s nuclear program, Washington’s negotiating strategy casts doubts on the administration’s sincerity. He remarks that the latest U.S. and European offer, as it currently stands, “includes conditions that are tougher than those contained in the version that the Ayatollah Ali Kamanei rejected last year.” He identifies two possible reasons: the P5+1 might have no interested in a negotiated settlement or that European American policymakers are confident the sanctions regime is “beginning to bite” so the Iranians are ready to capitulate. “If the former explanation is true, the conduct of Washington and its allies is both reprehensible and dangerous,” and “if the latter explanation is true, Western negotiators may be overestimating—perhaps wildly overestimating—the impact of the latest round of sanctions,” concludes Galen. He proposes that if Obama is sincere in pursuing a settlement, then concessions and compromise are required, and “not the State Department’s version of macho posturing.”

The Jerusalem Post: Hilary Leila Krieger reports on the Obama administration’s attempts to revise the uranium enrichment deal with Tehran that collapsed last year as a “confidence-building step” to move forward talks it hopes to reconvene in November . The original proposal, negotiated in Vienna last October, involved Iran sending most of its enriched uranium to France and Russia for further enrichment. Mark Dubowitz, the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies‘ Iran expert, yet again endorses crippling sanctions and warns Iran will probably just use the negotiations as a stalling technique. This has been his consistent meme in numerous op-eds and interviews. “The sanctions are clearly inflicting serious damage on the Iranian economy and forcing the regime to implement measures to counter the impact of sanctions,” Dubowitz assessed. “Some of these countermeasures, like massive reductions in subsidies for gasoline and other commodities, could be economically disastrous and further fan the flames of political discontent.” “I think the Iranian regime genuinely believes [it] can withstand the economic and political pressure,” he concluded.

Time: Vivienne Walt writes that while U.S. and European sanctions appear to be having an effect on Iran’s economy, Iran still has many economic allies and “even the U.S.’s close allies in Europe have stopped short of cutting their relations with Iran.” While Iran’s trade relationships with the West continues to be challenged by sanctions, Iran is expanding its alliances with Asian countries eager to access Iran’s oil and take on the contracts abandoned by departing Western companies. “Despite that flexibility in the sanctions, many European politicians believe that the U.S. has strong-armed them into following Washington’s demands on Iran,” and companies are under pressure to cut ties with Iran, even if not required to do so by their governments. “Because the U.S. has Iran on a blacklist, the rest of the world has to follow,” a Swiss investment manager told Walt. “What makes it a shady country anyway? Because the U.S. says so? The U.S. is trying to corner other countries.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 28th, 2010:

Foreign Policy: Marc Lynch blogs that while the White House is considering “talk[ing] more openly about military options [against Iran],” according to The New York Times’ David Sanger, such rhetoric would be counterproductive and dangerous. Lynch warns that if the Iranians return to the P5+1 nuclear talks, “Iran will quite reasonably refuse to bargain under the threat of military force, and will view American offers under such conditions as manifestly insincere,” and won’t find a military threat credible. More importantly, such threats would destroy any confidence building measures and widen existing divisions. “The greatest danger of introducing open war talk by the administration is that it would represent the next step in the ‘ratcheting’ of which I’ve been warning for months and pave the way either to the 1990s Iraq scenario or to an actual war,” says Lynch.

The Jerusalem Post: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) Benjamin Weinthal writes that new EU sanctions will have an impact on EU-Iranian gas deals but unlike the U.S. sanctions the new EU sanctions will not place sanctions on individual Iranian officials because of human rights violations. Weinthal interviews FDD’s Mark Dubowitz who tells him, “A fragile political consensus exists in favor of sanctions in Europe. If the Obama administration doesn’t provide determined leadership by either sanctioning foreign companies which are violating US law, or persuading these companies to terminate their Iranian ties, European governments will not enforce their own sanctions.” Weinthal repeats his Dubowitz’s calls for Swiss energy company Elektrizitätsgesellschaft Laufenburg (EGL) to cancel its €18 billion-€20 billion gas deal with Iran.

Tehran Bureau: Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the hawkish Washington Institute for Neareast Policy (WINEP) writes that while the Treasury Department’s decision to sanction 37 German, Maltese and Cypriot companies for being controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) but “the latest U.S. actions are not likely to put sufficient pressure on Tehran to change the regime’s calculus.” The Iranian shipping line is alleged to participate in arms smuggling and, according to Levitt is “one of the central players in Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons capabilities.”

On November 11^th, the Boston Chapter of Come Home America will be hosting a talk by Justin Raimondo. The free event, “How We Can Organize a Left-Right Alliance Against the War Parties—and Why We Must” will be held at the Arlington Street Church (351 Boylston Street, Boston, MA) at 7 p.m.

And don’t forget, Justin is speaking in Thousand Oaks, CA tomorrow night; Danbury, CT on November 10; and Berkeley, CA on November 18. To sponsor an event, please email Wendy Honett.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 27th, 2010:

Foreign Policy: Harvard International Relations Professor Stephen Walt blogs the revelations that Hamid Karzai receives money from Iran should come as no surprise. Far from being a “dastardly Iranian plot to control Afghanistan,” Walt points out “given that the two states share a lengthy border, Iran has a considerable interest in Afghanistan’s future course. In fact, it would be surprising if they weren’t trying to buy a little influence in Kabul.” While some pundits have expressed concern about growing Iranian influence in Afghanistan, Walt responds that they should be glad that Iran is sending money to Karzai instead of using it to buy weapons for Hezbollah.

Wall Street Journal: John Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami opines that Karzai, in accepting money from Iran, is “taking the coin of our enemies and scoffing at our purposes.” Ajami attributes the willingness of Karzai to take the money and the Iranian decision to offer it as: “This is the East, and basksheesh is the way of the world.” As for the Iranians, they “…are of the neighborhood, they know the ways of the bazaar.” Ajami, who is quick to defend the Iraq war, says that while Iraq had the possibility of transforming Iraq into a democracy in the midst of “a despotic Arab world” whereas Afghanistan is a “broken country” and a “land of banditry” whose president has no interest in partnering with the United States.

Haaretz: Zvi Bar’el writes that Saudi Arabia sees the recent U.S.-Saudi arms deal as an attempt to deter Israel, not Iran. He argues that the two countries are busily negotiating over key issues regarding their spheres of influence in Iraq and Lebanon. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia share an interest in stopping the special international tribunal investigating Rafik Hariri’s assassination. Stopping the investigation, says Bar’el, would prevent the collapse of the Lebanese government, a scenario which neither country wants. In Iraq, Iran may needs Saudi Arabia’s assistance to convince Ayad Allawi, who has received Saudi support, to join a coalition with Nouri al-Maliki, who has received the support of Muqtada al-Sadr. He concludes, “Meanwhile, it seems the Americans are aiming too high. The real game is in the hands of local forces that are sketching the strategic map, which will be presented to Washington as a fait accompli.”

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Jamie Kirchick writes that the latest WikiLeaks release of Iraq war documents show, beyond a doubt, that Iran “clearly sees itself as engaged in a war against the United States and those attempting to forge and independent and democratic Iraq.” Kirchick opines that the WikiLeaks release provides evidence of an Iranian “training camp for terrorists” who attack U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He concludes that the WikiLeaks release has served to, “… reveal the true nature of Al-Qaeda and the Iranian regime, and to open a window into what the region will look like should their efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq prove successful.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 26th, 2010:

Politico: Laura Rozen reports on Dennis Ross‘, a top Obama adviser on Iran and the peace process, presentation to an AIPAC conference earlier this week. Ross addressed the administration’s efforts to pressure Iran, prioritize sanctions and conduct the “creative and persistent” diplomacy needed to “change the behavior of a government insistent on threatening its neighbors, supporting terrorism, and pursuing a nuclear program in violation of its international obligations.” He warned: “[S]hould Iran continue its defiance, despite its growing isolation and the damage to its economy, its leaders should listen carefully to President Obama who has said many times, ‘we are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.’”

Weekly Standard: Gabriel Schoenfeld points to a study from the Israeli Begin-Sadat Center that examines various polls conducted over the past few years, and concludes that U.S. public opinion is moving toward confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program. With the U.S. elections coming up, Schoenfeld notes the data shows “a gap between the wisdom of the American people and the wisdom of our elites.” Pointing out that Iran has not been much of a campaign issue, he alludes to the non-interventionism of some Tea Party candidates: “[I]t is unclear what the new crowd of candidates that will likely be elected next week thinks we should do about Iran or much else across the oceans. But at the very least their views probably will not be any worse than those of the goofballs they replace.”

Pajamas Media: Martin Kramer, a fellow at WINEP and the Adelson-funded Shalem Center in Israel, states in a long Q&A on Iran that the Persian Gulf is “as crucial to American security as Lake Michigan.” He says that “the world has to ask itself if it can tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran deliberately creating uncertainty, instability, and doubt surrounding the great reservoir of the world’s energy.” Kramer argues for reverse linkage, including the premise that Israel maintains a military occupation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to deter Iranian attacks.