Iranian autocrat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is blessing us with his annual pilgrimage to the United Nations General Assembly. More media savvy than before during his last two annual Big Apple forays, he made his ritualistic yet shopworn gesture for dialogue "based on respect and justice" (i.e. code words to his UN Security Council hosts to drop their opposition to Iran's illicit nuclear weapons development program).
Perhaps Fidel Castro's recent criticism of him must have gotten under the Iranian president's skin. Ahmadinejad did not launch into his usual Holocaust denial stupor or incendiary anti-Israel rhetoric for which Castro publicly dressed him down. Instead, he reserved his bluster to warn the U.S. that it has no idea what a real war is about (not even "World War II"). Remember, such out-of-this-universe assertion comes from a guy who condones the stoning of women in the 21st century.
Mahmoud's theatrics aside, Iran is defying the IAEA and the UN to such an extent that even Iran's few remaining allies are worried -- one reason why Castro took his ally, Mahmoud, to task.
To their credit, the Obama Administration and the Congress have each been effective in ratcheting up UN-sponsored and mandated economic sanctions against Iran in a reasl effort to forestall the need to redress Iran's defiance of the UN by military means. A rare demonstration of true-bipartisanship in this day and age.
Under United Nations imprimatur, the U.S. is jawboning most of Iran's international partners to slam the door as tightly as possible on trade and banking relations in the hope that Iran's Supreme Leader will be forced to make a choice: either risk further sanction-induced internal instability and accelerate Iran's rush to nuclear weapons capability or obey the official will of the international community. There is a fine record of success so far. Although there are no instant cures when it comes to imposing international sanctions -- unfortunately, their success or failure will be measured not it years but in months.
If sanctions fail to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, the President has made it justifiably clear that "all options remain on the table," but that the U.S. prefers a peaceful resolution of the crisis -- a position that is eminently reasonable and responsible under the circumstances.
Iran's threat to global stability, its state sponsorship of terrorism, its illegal military support for Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah, its violations of human and civil rights, and its nuclear weapons ambitions represent a quandary that has preoccupied national security experts for years.
Yet, for some inexplicable reason Mahmoud's latest charm offensive seems to be captivating some in the media who are caught up in his, umm, let's say, "witchcraft."
It has been distressing to witness the fawning that Mahmoud generates among news neophytes when he comes a-callin'. Case in point, the appearance of a callow cadre of "rip and read" commentators whose foreign policy credentials amount to the occasional visit to IHOP. They pop up on television as so-called Iran and Middle East experts railing unsubstantiated accusations against Iran's critics. Dismissive of Iran's internal oppression or its malevolent international conduct they insist that sinister and extremist forces are hard at work to brainwash the Obama Administration into a military conflict with Iran. They point to unsubstantiated conspiracies and fringe sources to buttress the fairy tales.
As apologists for Iran's misconduct and Ahmadinejad's reliance on the big lie, they do not want to be bothered by facts, details or complexities that cause diplomats to lay awake at night. Just today, I heard one such "salon seater" dismiss Iran's nuclear weapons program as a figment of the IAEA's imagination and painted anyone who disagrees with his characterization of Iran's challenges to the UN's global security obligations as an "extremist."
Alas, another enlistee in the "Newt Gingrich Traitors & Treachery Academy" whose graduates are promised rich donor rewards from blind followers for stoking fears of fifth columnists within our midst.
No one can deny that the potential use of military forces against Iran's illegal nuclear weapons program is fraught with immediate and long-term consequences. U.S. military officials and diplomats are justifiably reticent to resorting to the use of force to resolve Iran's international defiance. Americans have sacrificed far too much in Afghanistan and Iraq to stumble into an avoidable war with Iran. Fortunately, neither seasoned national security journalists nor news neophytes will be making that call. That decision rests on the shoulders of a Commander in Chief who will have far more information and intelligence at his disposal than any army of arm chair experts.
"illegal military support for Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah"
There has been no evidence of Iran's support for Al Qaeda and much that indicates they are opposed to this group:
BBC:
"Iran announces al-Qaeda arrests"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4689151.stm
Iran may have provided Hezbollah with military training but Hezbollah's arsenal as dispayed in 2006 contained few if any of the sophisticated weapons that Iran manufactures.
Hamas has no weapons worth mentioning.
We do know that the U.S. supports MEK militarily:
"In an interview with NPR on his latest New Yorker Article, titled ‘Preparing the battlefield', the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals more striking details of his findings on the aim of the $400 million budgeted US covert operations inside Iran. He provides valuable information on US military preparations to strike the country, on the total expansion of the Bush Administration's executive power, about the US recognition of Iran's overall positive role in Iraq and on the US support for the anti-Iran terrorist organisations Jondollah, PJAK and MEK."
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/5551
Easy for you to say. What, however, if you lived in Sderot, or any of the southern cities and towns In Israel where more than 4,000 Hamas rockets have rained destruction and death upon innocent Jewish women and children during the past five years? Would that be"worth mentioning?" It is so easy for you to dismiss the daily danger to Israeli lives from Iran-provided mortars and rockets (and suicide bombers, snipers and terrorist attacks). But, Jewish blood has always been cheap. Why should anyone change their opinion now?
A man who sits there and looks at whoever is interviewing him and say "why do you have the nerve to ask me these questions?" Or, "Would you speak to your President like this"?
Obviously, it is all meant for his own public not for ours.
How does it translate in the Middle East when he show the daring and strength and fearlessness to tell an American report, "...would you speak to your President like this..."
The very fact that he is allowed to bold face lie on OUR time shows his strength, not ours!
Today's American media is sick and getting sicker by the day and truly has become an evil force in this country, helping us eat ourselves up fro the inside out, instead of being what Ben Franklin had invited it to be, the strength of this countries freedoms.
From my high horse ... all I can see ignorant people making stupid chatter...
THREE cheers for you!! THESE PEOPLE ARE RECKLESS AND incurable ideologues. I can't believe you've been given space on the HP!
You say that there is no evidence that Iran plans to start a nuclear weapons program. The rest of the world wonders when Iran might stop their nuclear weapons program. Only a ME (Arab or Persian) citizen, living in a total news blackout, could make this statement.
And as long as Israel defends nuclear ambiguity as 'strategic advantage', Iran can also defend it's nuclear ambiguity as 'strategic advantage'. So leave Iran alone as long as you allow Israel and any other country to defend it's nuclear ambiguity as 'strategic advantage'.
If the US and Israel want Iranian nuclear transparency, then Israel better be just as tranparent.
This whole Iran issue is only being pushed by people like the neocons and AIPAC whose loyalties are with Israel and it is to the detriment of America's interests.
In addition, try this one - name the country that already has nukes, and they have whole sections of their country that are controlled only by militants, and they use that area to stage attacks against us. A whole country overflowing with poor radicals who hate the US and Israel.
They sell nuke tech to other hostile nations and maybe to terrorists. Their military sympathizes with their militants. and they are already at war with another of our allies.
Oh, wait, that's our ally Pakistan.
Now, why is Iran more dangerous that our ally Pakistan again?
Iran has not broken a single article of the NPT, and there is no evidence behind anything essential they are being accused of.
Iran wants to destory Israel. The have said this publicly. They provide their regional proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, et. all) with weapons to use against Jewish civilians. Since Israel gave Gaza to Palestinians in 2005, more than 4,000 Iranian rockets have rained down from Gaza into Israel, aimed at the most defenseless Jews, Israeli women and children, in cities and towns near the Gaza border. I empahsize that the targets of Palestinian terrorists are Israeli citizens living in their legal homes, inside of Israel.
Now do you understand why Iran is dangerous?
Ahmadinejad did not say he wants to wipe Israel off the map, he said Zionism, like Soviet Communism, or Nazism, is a corrupt form of government that needs to be done away with.
But Israeli, AIPAC, et. al keep misquoting the Iranian President, who has recently suggested that he even accepted the two-state solution, if it brings justice to all Palestinians.
Unlike Israel of course who, for 60 years, has been relentless in their enthic cleansing of the indigenous population on Palestine and wiping all vestiges if the Palestinians people, culture, etc. out.
When and where specifically?
According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs' recent study of how the American public thinks about foreign policy based on a survey of 2500 Americans, only 33 percent of those surveyed feel that Israel is “very important” to the US, while 41% said it was “somewhat important.” It is also worth noting that on the list of countries that were said to be “very important” to the United States, Israel ranked fifth behind China, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan. Of course, all of those countries have a normal relationship with the US.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26391.htm
A majority of the Arab public now see a nuclear-armed Iran as being better for the Middle East according to a poll surveying 3,976 people in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates, during the period of June 29–July 20, 2010.
http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/0805_arab_opinion_poll_telhami.aspx
Finally, POTUS, repudiating his foreign policy team's quixotic demands on Iran, recently said to a group of journalists that "They [Iran] should know what they can say 'yes' to."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/04/AR2010080406238.html
Not exactly happy days for neocons.
Please note, Iran is not on that list.
This statement could only be uttered by someone possessed of no understanding of Iran's system of government whatsoever. None.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Iran
Sir! Referring to your comment;
"based on respect and justice" (i.e. code words to his UN Security Council hosts to drop their opposition to Iran's illicit nuclear weapons development program).
Could you please explain how the nuclear programs of some countries are considered perfectly legal while those of others considers illicit?
Is that clear enough for you ?
Is the NPT clear to you? It is not the superpowers place to do anything. It is an agreement with member states who are equal, under which the superpowers are obliged to disarm, fully, and are under the same safeguards that rule Iran. Yet, no inspection are allowed by any of the superpowers.
S. Korea is the only official violator of NPT when they were found to be secretly enriching uranium up to 76%. The US blocked any action against them. So where is your high horse on what "is illegal....and the super powers take it upon themselves to enforce the NPT?"
Should it not apply equally?
I must have missed the successes, their nuke program is still going full steam ahead.
So I have some questions for Mr. Ginsberg which I hope he will answer. If not I must conclude he written this article with the intention to paint a picture of Iran according to his own particular political preferences. Which is fine with me, but has of course nothing to do with reflecting the truth about developments in Iran.
“to Iran's illicit nuclear weapons development program”
Please give information which proves Iran wants, or has the intention to develop, nuclear arms.
“from a guy who condones the stoning of women in the 21st century “.
Please gives the original quotation in which he condones the stoning.
“that even Iran's few remaining allies are worried”
Who are you referring to ? Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, China, Russia, Venezuela, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Brazil ?
“its illegal military support for Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah”
Where is the information that substantiates this illegal military support ?
“nuclear weapons ambitions”
Again where are the fact that substantiate this allegation ?
“They pop up on television as so-called Iran and Middle East experts railing unsubstantiated accusations against Iran's critics”.
Who are those so-called experts and what was the exact content of their unsubstantiated accusations ?
“they do not want to be bothered by facts, details or complexities”
What are the fact, details and complexities these apologists ignore ?