01/04: "The Winds of War" - Ahmadinejad, Bolton Both Rip Brits Over Standoff

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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03/31: "The Winds of War" - If the Iranians Hate us, Let Them Also Fear Us
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=235789

<center>Ahmadinejad, Bolton Both Rip Brits Over Standoff 

March 31, 2007
ABC News
Mike Lee
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/International/story?id=2998103&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312 </center>
A former American diplomat has told ABC News that Britain's low-key approach to trying to resolve the boat crisis with Iran amounts to a show of weakness that could hurt western efforts to limit Iran's nuclear weapons program. "I think, ironically, the softly softly approach of the British foreign office simply convinces the Iranians that's all there is to it," John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told ABC News. "I think it will have a negative effect on the European efforts to negotiate on the nuclear weapons side." 

Added Bolton, who currently hold no public office, "I think that the Iranians have to believe that force is an option. I think we need to have that ever present in their thinking. Because if they conclude that they are free from the use of force in a case of hostage taking, they may well conclude that they are free from the use of force against their nuclear weapons program."

But in London, Middle East analyst Rosemary Hollis, of Royal Institute of International Affairs, told ABC News that while the British response may conflict with the American approach, it is tried and tested.

"It is a British tradition of diplomacy, which is about literally relishing the complexity of the situation and finding what is achievable without having to behave like a cowboy," she said.

There have been conflicting interpretations of the latest set of statements by both sides in the conflict between Britain and Iran over the detention of the 15 British sailors and Marines who are now into their second week of captivity.

Iran seized the naval personnel in the northern Persian Gulf on March 23 when they were on a U.N.-backed mission searching for smugglers. Tehran said they strayed into Iranian waters, but Britain insists they were well in Iraqi territory.

British, Iranian Leaders Exchange Words

On one side today, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said, "Things have gone a little quieter and so we hope that is a good sign and people are thinking fresh, 'What is the way out of this situation?'"

But in Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that London had mishandled the aftermath of the detention of British naval personnel in the Gulf. The Iranian leader seemed to be showing his displeasure that Britain had turned to the Security Council and the European Union for support over the detentions.

"After the arrest of these people, the British government, instead of apologizing and expressing regret over the action taken, started to claim that we are in their debt and shouted in different international councils," Ahmadinejad said.

In other developments, Iran's ambassador to Moscow said the 15 Britons captured eight days ago could face punishment if found guilty of illegally entering the Islamic Republic's territorial waters. But only hours later, the Iranian State News Agency seemed to back away from those reports, blaming them on a faulty translation.

Former U.S. Ambassador Bolton told ABC News, "I would favor the use of force to extract the hostages, I don't think we're at that point yet."

He added, "If [Iran] thinks they are immune from the use of force they will behave accordingly. Weakness is provocative."

But Middle East analyst Rosemary Hollis told ABC News, "The Americans have surely learned that, A, you need allies, and, B, force doesn't solve everything."

For the moment, at least, the British government seems to agree.=

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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<center>Bush Buys into Iran Hostage Crisis 

March 31, 2007
News.com.au
From correspondents in Camp David
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21484404-23109,00.html </center>
US President George W. Bush has said overnight that Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines was "inexcusable behavior" and he supported British efforts to get them back. 

"It's a serious issue because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi waters," Mr Bush said.

"And it's inexcusable behavior and I strongly support the (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair government's attempts to resolve this peacefully," Mr Bush said after talks with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva.

The US leader rejected suggestions that Washington could help in the eight-day-old standoff by freeing five Iranians captured by US forces in northern Iraq in January.

"I support the (British) prime minister when he made it clear there were no quid pro quos," Mr Bush said. "The Iranians must give back the hostages."

night driver · Mar 31, 2007

Young lady is CLEARLY too young to remember Maggie......

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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<center>Iran Snubs UK Olive Branch

April 01, 2007
The Observer
Ned Temko, Mark Townsend and Jason Burke
http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2007&m=04&d=01&a=2 </center>
Hopes that a British diplomatic olive branch would help secure the early release of 15 sailors and marines taken hostage by Iran were dashed last night when the country's President denounced London's handling of the crisis.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in his first statement on the arrest of the crew, was quoted as telling a rally marking the Persian New Year that Britain should have 'apologised and expressed regret' but had failed to act 'in the legal and logical way'. The crowd shouted 'Death to Britain', Iranian media reports said.

Ahmadinejad added: 'The British occupier forces did trespass our waters. Our border guards detained them with skill and bravery. But arrogant powers, because of their arrogant and selfish spirit, are claiming otherwise.'
The comments were reported hours after Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett - in what aides termed a 'step back' from confrontation - told an Iranian television reporter 'everyone regretted' the crisis had been allowed to develop. A 'way out' should be found, she said.

As friends of one of the captives showed their concern by draping yellow ribbons over the Cornwall pub where he used to work, Downing Street suggested the crisis was finely balanced. Tony Blair was said to remain determined to press for the immediate release of the hostages, but also to recognise that 'we may be in this for the long haul'.

Officials were at pains to say Beckett's use of the word 'regret' in her remarks, made after a European Union ministers' meeting in Germany, should not be seen as an apology, or as a retreat from Britain's insistence the sailors were 'in Iraqi waters, under a UN mandate' and must be unconditionally freed. But a source close to the Foreign Secretary said her comments were a deliberate move to lower the diplomatic temperature.

Asked by the Iranian reporter if she had a message for Iran, she said: 'The message I want to send is that I think everyone regrets that this position has arisen.

'What we want is a way out of it. We want it peacefully and we want it as soon as possible. We would like to be told where our personnel are, and we would like to be given access to them, but we want it resolved.'

The Foreign Office source said: 'For the last couple of days we have been toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose. This is a small step back, to give people a little space and to see whether we get anything substantive from the Iranians.'

The Foreign Office also confirmed it had replied to a letter from Iran's Foreign Ministry. The Iranian letter did not ask for an apology, only a future 'guarantee' not to enter Iranian waters. The British reply was apparently aimed at seeing whether that might provide a window for a diplomatic solution.

While Britain would not retreat on its insistence that the naval patrol was acting legally, and still less offer an apology, 'our objective is not publicly to prove the Iranians wrong. We've got to look for a way forward,' said the source.

In separate developments yesterday, Downing Street was passed evidence purporting to show that the arrest of the British sailors was planned days in advance. Hossein Abedini, spokesman for the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran, said the arrests were a 'meticulously concocted operation' to divert attention from Iran's nuclear programme.

But the Ministry of Defence hinted for the first time it may have made mistakes surrounding the incident. An inquiry has been commissioned to explore 'navigational' issues around the kidnapping and aspects of maritime law. An MoD source said the inquiry would examine procedures 'to see whether there are any lessons to be learnt'.

skip1 · Mar 31, 2007

DOT

The Flying Dutchman said:
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03/31: "The Winds of War" - If the Iranians Hate us, Let Them Also Fear Us
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=235789

<center>Ahmadinejad, Bolton Both Rip Brits Over Standoff 

March 31, 2007
ABC News
Mike Lee
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/International/story?id=2998103&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312 </center>
A former American diplomat has told ABC News that Britain's low-key approach to trying to resolve the boat crisis with Iran amounts to a show of weakness that could hurt western efforts to limit Iran's nuclear weapons program. "I think, ironically, the softly softly approach of the British foreign office simply convinces the Iranians that's all there is to it," John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told ABC News. "I think it will have a negative effect on the European efforts to negotiate on the nuclear weapons side." 

Added Bolton, who currently hold no public office, "I think that the Iranians have to believe that force is an option. I think we need to have that ever present in their thinking. Because if they conclude that they are free from the use of force in a case of hostage taking, they may well conclude that they are free from the use of force against their nuclear weapons program."

But in London, Middle East analyst Rosemary Hollis, of Royal Institute of International Affairs, told ABC News that while the British response may conflict with the American approach, it is tried and tested.

"It is a British tradition of diplomacy, which is about literally relishing the complexity of the situation and finding what is achievable without having to behave like a cowboy," she said.

There have been conflicting interpretations of the latest set of statements by both sides in the conflict between Britain and Iran over the detention of the 15 British sailors and Marines who are now into their second week of captivity.

Iran seized the naval personnel in the northern Persian Gulf on March 23 when they were on a U.N.-backed mission searching for smugglers. Tehran said they strayed into Iranian waters, but Britain insists they were well in Iraqi territory.

British, Iranian Leaders Exchange Words

On one side today, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said, "Things have gone a little quieter and so we hope that is a good sign and people are thinking fresh, 'What is the way out of this situation?'"

But in Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that London had mishandled the aftermath of the detention of British naval personnel in the Gulf. The Iranian leader seemed to be showing his displeasure that Britain had turned to the Security Council and the European Union for support over the detentions.

"After the arrest of these people, the British government, instead of apologizing and expressing regret over the action taken, started to claim that we are in their debt and shouted in different international councils," Ahmadinejad said.

In other developments, Iran's ambassador to Moscow said the 15 Britons captured eight days ago could face punishment if found guilty of illegally entering the Islamic Republic's territorial waters. But only hours later, the Iranian State News Agency seemed to back away from those reports, blaming them on a faulty translation.

Former U.S. Ambassador Bolton told ABC News, "I would favor the use of force to extract the hostages, I don't think we're at that point yet."

He added, "If [Iran] thinks they are immune from the use of force they will behave accordingly. Weakness is provocative."

But Middle East analyst Rosemary Hollis told ABC News, "The Americans have surely learned that, A, you need allies, and, B, force doesn't solve everything."

For the moment, at least, the British government seems to agree.=

Here is a nice DOT for you: Bolton recently said that the only way to stop the Mullahs nuke program is through REGIME CHANGE.

JohnGaltfla · Mar 31, 2007

Dutch, I guess I beat you to the Jerusalem Post tonight...check this story out!

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=235909

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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<center>The Feuding Camps Behind Iran Crisis 

April 01, 2007
The Observer
Jason Burke
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2047511,00.html </center>
As negotiations continue between the Foreign Office and Tehran to ensure the release of 15 British sailors, reveals the faction-ridden world of Iran's politics where nothing is as it seems.

Tomorrow, as it has almost every day for the last nine, a dark blue Mercedes carrying Rasoul Movahedian, His Excellency the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Court of St James, will leave the embassy opposite the south side of Hyde Park and head through the traffic for the short drive to Whitehall. 

Several thousand miles east, the official car of Geoffrey Adams, the 48-year-old British ambassador in Tehran, will leave the gardens of the magnificent colonial-style compound of the embassy on Ferdowsi Avenue and nose its way through the jams of the Iranian capital to the gates of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Far to the south, a British warship floating in Iraqi national waters is still missing 15 sailors and Marine commandos taken captive by the Iranians 10 days ago. Across Europe, in Washington, in the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, and, of course, in London, diplomats and ministers are penning memos, making phone calls, debating, deciding. Dozens of relatives are waiting for news. Everyone remains guarded about the glimmers of hope that emerged at the end of last week. 'It looks like a difficult and dangerous situation. Largely because it is,' said one diplomat yesterday.

The problem for the British - and for the world community - is only now becoming clear. It lies not in the Gulf, not in chancelleries around the world, but in the shadowy, fast-moving and vicious world of internal Iranian politics. The ambassadors' journeys, the ministers' phone calls, the whole diplomatic effort is now in danger of disappearing into the black hole of internal Iranian policies.

The basic events are easily established. Ten days ago two small boats containing a boarding party from HMS Cornwall, a 20-year-old frigate patrolling the strategically crucial Gulf waters, were intercepted by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, a secretive, semi-autonomous and ultra-hardline part of the Iranian state. They were escorted with little ceremony towards the Iranian coast. Tehran says the two British vessels were in their territorial waters. London denies this. The 15 have since been held in an undisclosed location somewhere in Iran.

The first thing the British government did when the news of the hostage-taking broke was to call in Movahedian. He was seen by Sir Peter Ricketts, the Permanent Undersecretary, in his ground-floor office in the Foreign Office. The meeting was 'brisk and cordial'. A day later, however, the Iranian ambassador was back, this time to see Foreign Office minister Lord David Triesman of Tottenham. The discussion, which lasted an hour, was 'frank'. Though the recently appointed Movahedian, a hardliner with little experience, left smiling and waving at photographers, it was clear that the FCO was not just dealing with a simple misunderstanding.

Over the last weekend, the British government worked out its strategy. Military force, sources say, was never discussed. Instead the FCO decided to stick with the formula followed for years: engagement and international pressure. 'Dealing with Iran is like talking to a hypersensitive adolescent with anger-management issues who is building a bomb in his bedroom,' said one former intelligence officer. 'Your options are limited.'

But the classic Foreign Office approach is designed for states which behave in classic ways. And Iran does not. Iran is a system of interlocking and contesting factions and power bases, always in tension with each other. Its foreign policy is a product of this Hobbesian battle for control of the state's shaky apparatus. The limitations of the Foreign Office strategy rapidly became evident.

When, last Sunday, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, spoke to her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, the conversation was polite but firm. It was, Beckett told Mottaki drily, 'very clear' that no violation of international law had occurred. But Mottaki gave nothing away. In Tehran, hardliners were calling for the captured sailors to be put on trial. Organised demonstrations by selected ultra-conservative groups were taking, in small numbers, to the streets.

On Monday the ambassadors pursued their symmetrical shuttles. Movahedian's Mercedes was back in Whitehall. Adams, the Middle Eastern specialist appointed a year ago as British ambassador to Tehran, was back amid the plastic flowers and heavy carved furniture of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But Adams's efforts and another request from Beckett to her counterpart for immediate release were both similarly rejected. It was time, Tony Blair said, to move to a 'different phase'. But the suspicion was growing among analysts and diplomats that the British were talking to the wrong people.

Intelligence analysts had been predicting some of kind of confrontation between Iran and the UK for a long period. Though most Britons rarely concern themselves with the Middle Eastern state, Iranians know plenty about Britain. As an imperial power, Britain exploited and influenced Iran for decades, even invading the country when crucial strategic interests were threatened. London continued to support its interests through the Fifties and Sixties. The result is that many ordinary Iranians are persuaded that Britain has never lost the imperial urge to manipulate affairs in their country. 'The Iranian fear of and belief in a British conspiracy is extraordinarily strong,' said Dr Rosemary Hollis of London's Chatham House. 'There is a natural fear that the British are going to be spying or going into territorial waters.'

Relations have deteriorated even further since the election in 2005 of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the populist former mayor of Tehran. Ahmadinejad has pursued an aggressive and provocative foreign policy, denying the Holocaust, calling for Israel to be 'rubbed off' the map, and accelerating Iran's nuclear programme in the face of international opposition. Some say his anti-Western rhetoric is designed to distract from failing economic policies. Others that it comes straight from the heart. 'Iran's government is in the hands of a fanatical clique,' said Frederic Encel, a Paris-based international relations lecturer. 'They may be relatively small in number, but they hold the key positions.'

The problem for Britain is that a vicious internal power struggle is under way between the 'pragmatic' and the 'idealist' wings of the 'mullah-ocracy', the clerics who have ruled the country since they seized power in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. The battle is between Ahmadinejad and hardliners such as the Revolutionary Guards, the pragmatic wing of the mullahs - grouped around former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been playing the various factions against each other.

What is now becoming clear is that the taking of the hostages was planned well in advance by members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps who used the ongoing new year holiday in Iran and the absence of their rivals to go into action. 'Striking at Britain is a good way of winning big Brownie points, both at home and with the Arab constituency more broadly in the region,' said Dr Ali Ansari, of St Andrew's University, a respected Iran expert.

It is likely that the Revolutionary Guards are holding the hostages, suggesting their release will be the result of negotiation among players within the Iranian state as much as externally. The minister Beckett has been talking to may not even know of the hostages' location.

As Blair talked of 'ratcheting up the pressure' on Tuesday, the Americans, whose silence so far has been deafening, made their presence felt. After consulting London, Washington gave permission for the two aircraft carrier battle groups now stationed close to Iranian waters to start major manoeuvres, planned long before the hostage crisis and aimed at pressuring the Iranian regime on the nuclear issue.

It may be the nuclear factor that has sparked the current crisis. Iran says it is pursuing a peaceful nuclear programme - a claim that the international community does not believe. Successive attempts to get Tehran to halt its efforts have failed, leading to United Nations sanctions. The hostages were taken just before the most recent set were voted on eight days ago.

Other events have boosted tensions too. A group of Revolutionary Guards was arrested in January in northern Iraq by American forces and a senior Revolutionary Guards general has defected to - or, according to Tehran, been abducted by - Iran's 'enemies'. The day before the 'abduction' a British colonel in Basra accused the Iranians of paying local Iraqis to launch attacks on British troops around the city. 'The Revolutionary Guards and the people around Ahmadinejad are incredibly sensitive to Western interference,' said one senior Western diplomat based in the Middle East. 'They are also incredibly narrow in their thinking. They genuinely believe that the British are party to an American bid to dominate their sphere of influence and their country.'

In the middle of last week the crisis went global. It got its public, media face on Friday with the release by the British of the name of the only woman in the group of detained sailors, Leading Seaman Faye Turney, a married mother from Plymouth. Iranian state TV stoked the media frenzy on Wednesday by broadcasting an interview with the 26-year-old, wearing a head scarf, accompanied by footage of the other servicemen eating. The sailors had 'trespassed', she said, but their captors had been friendly.

The first of a series of letters purportedly written by Turney was also released by Tehran. A second and a third, released over following days, criticised British involvement in Iraq. The wording of the letters revealed that they had been written in Persian and then translated. It was a clumsy mistake that betrayed the hand of the unworldly Revolutionary Guards as opposed to the more travelled diplomats of the Foreign Ministry. Further televised interviews with sailors followed.

The Foreign Office has been attempting a three-track strategy to resolve the crisis. The first track, in the United Nations, was a disappointment. After four hours of talks on Thursday, the UN security council issued a watered-down if unanimous statement voicing 'grave concern' at the capture of the sailors. Crucially the resolution did not say that the British forces had not strayed into Iranian waters, something the British had originally asked for. The Europeans went further, issuing a strong condemnation of the sailors' detention.

It is the third track of diplomacy, the quiet conversations with nations like Russia and Turkey, which may have finally brought about the glimmers of hope of a settlement that briefly pierced the gloom on Friday afternoon and this weekend. For though the Russians had blocked the UK's strong wording of the UN resolution, Moscow is thought to have urged restraint in Tehran. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, is also thought to have played a key role as a broker.

The result was a letter delivered to Britain on Thursday night and made public by the Iranians on Friday morning which called for an explanation rather than an apology and a guarantee that the UK would not violate Iranian sovereignty in the future - a demand that the FCO might be able to meet. But a solution still looks a long way off. Nothing is likely to happen before the end of the new year holiday next week - and then only if the right levers are pulled in Tehran.

Whatever happens, the root problems remain. Iran has an aggressive, ideologically committed and fearful leadership facing increasing domestic unpopularity and diplomatic pressure. Vicious internal battles constantly threaten to spill out onto the global stage. The international community is divided over what to do to most pressurise Iran. Britain and America are weakened by the quagmire that is Iraq. The dark blue Mercedes shuttling between the Iranian Embassy and Whitehall is likely to have a few more journeys to make.

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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<center>Ali Khamenei: The Real Power in Iran

April 01, 2007
Independent Online
Angus McDowall
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2411284.ece </center>
British diplomats wrestling with the crisis caused by Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and Marines in the Gulf nearly 10 days ago have been directed to a recent speech by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"In case the enemies of Iran intend to use force and violence and act illegally, without a doubt the Iranian nation and officials will use all their capabilities to strike the invading enemies," he said. "We can also carry out illegal actions."

The words have been interpreted as the green light for the Revolutionary Guards, the more ideological wing of the military, to take action against the British military personnel. Certainly they carry more weight than if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had said them - Iran's firebrand President may make the headlines in the West, but at home his position is very much contingent on Khamenei's support.

After Ahmadinejad's wild rhetoric and economic mistakes were blamed for increasing the pressure on Iran in January, he was unofficially reined in, and has played a much quieter role in the past two months. The supreme leader may well have been behind this, though as usual in Iran's confusing political system, nobody can be quite sure.

Only Khamenei has both the legal powers and the personal authority to impose his will on the other parts of the state. "Everyone behind the leader," shouted a young man with fierce eyes at Tehran's Friday prayers. "We will follow the leader to victory." But Khamenei does not command universal obedience. He sits instead at the fulcrum of Iranian politics, where elected politicians hash out policy with unelected apparatchiks, Revolutionary Guards and turbaned religious jurists.

The expansive white beard and huge glasses create an impression of extreme old age, but Khamenei is only 67. Despite long-running rumours of ill-health, he looks unlikely to leave the Iranian political scene any time soon. If the West is to successfully navigate its numerous disputes with Iran - which, as well as the crisis with Britain, include the nuclear issue, accusations of terrorism, human rights, the future of Iraq and sanctions - it must read him correctly.

At the heart of Iranian politics since the revolution, as Friday prayer leader, party apparatchik, president and, from 1989, as supreme leader, Khamenei has had an intimate involvement with every aspect of the Islamist state. He appoints the heads and senior members of the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards and the Guardian Council, which controls who can run in elections. His speeches are rarely specific, but they set the tone of policy.

As president he ran the Iran-Iraq war alongside the then speaker of parliament, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, developing close ties to the top military leaders. And as supreme leader he has fought to maintain the primacy of his position after initial challenges to his religious authority and reformists' later incursions.

Ali Khamenei grew up in the great shrine city of Mashhad, near the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. The son of a cleric, his formative years were spent in the vaulted iwans and cloistered courtyards of great mosques, sitting cross-legged on exquisite Persian carpets, absorbing the religious teachings of his elders.

But his upbringing did not shelter him from Iran's tides of violence. At 14 he would have seen the rioters running in the streets as British and American agents brought down the populist Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadeq. As a young student in Qom, the great seminary city, he took part in risings against the Shah. Radicalised and revolutionary, he was imprisoned several times before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in 1979 to usher in Islamic rule.

In the wake of that upheaval, a bombing campaign shattered Iran's new leadership. Khamenei narrowly escaped: a bomb hidden in a tape recorder at a press conference crippled his right hand.

It is impossible to tell Khamenei's story without telling that of Khomeini, the father of Iran's revolution. There is a revolutionary mural - one of many in central Tehran - showing the leader's face looking up towards the future and contained entirely within the stern, patrician features of his predecessor. "The path of Khamenei is the path of Khomeini," reads the slogan.

In offices, shops, restaurants and hotel lobbies the two faces sit side by side, each in its own frame. And on television, endless montages of the revolution show the two men praying together, the one posthumously conferring legitimacy on the other.

Khomeini's death left the young republic with a quandary. His charisma had been pivotal to the revolution: how could it continue without him? The blend of political leadership and religious authority embodied in Khomeini was rare. None of the grand ayatollahs seemed suitable, so minds turned to the younger, more politicised clerics.

When the Assembly of Experts, an elected body of old clerics and Islamic jurists, elected Khamenei supreme leader, Rafsanjani replaced him as President. The pair have dominated Iranian politics in the 18 years since, both as rivals and as partners.

But Khamenei could never hope to enjoy the instinctive support given to Khomeini for his charisma, his supreme religious authority and his leadership of the revolution. When Khomeini had graced a cause or a person with his favour, the country followed. Where he criticised, heads rolled. The new supreme leader now possessed many of Khomeini's powers, but had to negotiate to push them through.

The very highest clerics in Shia Islam are accorded the title Source of Emulation. Hundreds of thousands,even millions of devotees, base their religious practices entirely on their pronouncements. Khomeini was the most eminent such cleric of his generation, followed by Shias across the world. He could mobilise a mass of religious support that Khamenei could not.

The system Khomeini created is called velayat-e faqih: rule of the jurist. Shias recognise 12 legitimate heirs of the Muslim community left by Mohamed. The twelfth disappeared in the ninth century, but Shias believe he still hides somewhere in the cosmos and will one day return.

Theologians used to say that until then, all temporal power was unlawful. Khomeini's innovation was to see Shia jurists as the imam's natural deputies. This revolutionary idea emerged after a century of growing clerical politicisation and as the Shah's royal state began to collapse.

Khamenei and Rafsanjani have now run Iran under the system for nearly twice as long as Khomeini. They have survived numerous upheavals with a combination of shrewd political management and ruthless intolerance of threats to the system.

But as the pressure on Iran increases, questions remain over his understanding of the West, which he is not known to have visited. If he did instigate this most recent confrontation, it is unclear whether he expected Britain to react so forcefully. Ali Khamenei is a leader unlike any other, but the rules of politics still apply: a single miscalculation can change everything.

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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<center>Generals Hold Key to Hostage Crisis

April 01, 2007
The Sunday Times
Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin
http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2007&m=04&d=01&a=3 </center>
The fate of the 15 British marines and sailors held in Tehran may depend on the outcome of a power struggle between two of Iran’s top generals, write Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin.

According to an Iranian military source, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards has called for them to be freed. 

Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi is said to have told the country’s Supreme National Security Council on Friday that the situation was “getting out of control” and urged its members to consider the immediate release of the prisoners to defuse tension in the Gulf.

However, Safavi’s intervention was reportedly denounced by another senior general at a meeting of high-ranking commanders yesterday.

Yadollah Javani, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ political bureau, was said to have accused him of weakness and “liberal tendencies”. Javani is said to have demanded that the prisoners be put on trial.

Reports of the clash emerged as Terry Waite, who was kidnapped in Beirut while trying to negotiate a hostage release in 1987, offered to travel to Tehran to try to secure the release of the 14 servicemen and one woman.

“I don’t think one needs to be afraid of these people, but one does need to have respect for their point of view, whether you agree with it or not,” said Waite, who spent almost five years as the hostage of an Iranian-backed fundamentalist group in Beirut.

“I would rather like it if they would prove their humanity by giving me access to the country and the people being detained.”

In Tehran, tension was expected to increase further today with a huge demonstration by students outside the British embassy. The protest was being organised by the Basij, a paramilitary force of about 10m people paid by the regime.

At similar protests in the past, they have shouted, “Death to Britain” and thrown stones. An Iranian official said security was being increased in case the embassy was besieged.

The developments followed a warning by Safavi, the Revolutionary Guards commander, that Iran should prepare for a possible invasion, which he believes could come as early as next month.

US military exercises in the Persian Gulf involving two aircraft carriers, 100 aircraft and 10,000 personnel have fuelled fears in Tehran that America may be on the verge of launching airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear programme.

Many military officers believe the British naval party intercepted on March 23 was part of a ploy to test Iran’s readiness for an invasion. Tens of thousands of Basij, the force that provided the shock troops for the Iran-Iraq war, have been sent to the Iraqi border.

Iranian military sources said the Supreme National Security Council had concluded on Friday evening that Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, should order the release of the British naval personnel on Safavi’s advice.

However, according to one account, which could not be confirmed, Javani described Safavi’s recommendation as tantamount to treason.

The demand for a trial was backed by advisers to Khamenei. “The British aggressors must be tried and dealt with according to Iranian laws,” said Ayatollah Mojtahed Shabestari, an influential cleric.

Iran’s ambassador to Moscow, Gholamreza Ansari, said a legal process was already underway. “If there is no guilt, they will be freed,” he added. But he denied that he had said they could face trial. Other officials called on Britain to send a delegation to Tehran to resolve the crisis.

Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, urged Iran to resolve the crisis peacefully and said London was open to talks.

A reply was sent to an Iranian embassy letter asking London to acknowledge that its sailors had trespassed in Iranian waters and to confirm that it would not happen again. The Foreign Office refused to reveal its response.

Javier Solana, the EU policy chief, said he hoped to talk directly to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Additional reporting: Michael Smith

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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<center>Elite Revolutionary Guard Broadens Its Influence in Iran
Unit That Captured Britons Has Sway In Politics, Economy

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 1, 2007; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/31/AR2007033101105.html </center>
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite unit at the heart of the latest Middle East crisis, has greater power today than at any point since the revolution's early days to export Islamic militancy and challenge the West's presence in the region, say U.S. officials and Iran experts.

Its naval forces abducted 15 British sailors and marines nine days ago. Its special forces unit is operating deep in Iraq, providing militias with deadly roadside explosives used against American troops, U.S. officials say. It supplied missiles used by Hezbollah last summer in the longest war Arabs ever fought with Israel. And it now plays the largest role in Iran's ambitious military industries, including attempted acquisition of nuclear weapons and surface-to-surface missiles, according to an upcoming book by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Revolutionary Guard controls Iran's most potent weapons, including long-range missiles. It test-fired some of them last fall. (By Sajjad Safari -- Mehr News Agency Via Associated Press)

Bush Says Iran Must Release 'Hostages'

CAMP DAVID, March 31 -- President Bush on Saturday condemned Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines as "inexcusable behavior" and demanded that the "hostages" be released, weighing in for the first time as the situation escalates into a sustained confrontation with Tehran.

But almost three decades after the 1979 revolution, the Revolutionary Guard has also become a leading political and economic force in Iran. One of its veterans, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, became Iran's president in 2005. The force and a network of current and former commanders have also moved into Iran's oil and gas business, won bids on major government construction contracts, and even gained lucrative franchises such as Mercedes-Benz dealerships, the sources say.

"The Revolutionary Guards are quickly emerging as the most prominent actor in Iran," said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They're playing an increasingly active role on the domestic political scene, have enormous economic assets and interests, are a key player in the nuclear program, and are essentially running Iranian activities in Iraq and Lebanon."

The Guard's high profile is one of the reasons that the assets of its top officials were frozen, because of ties to sensitive nuclear and missile programs, under two U.N. resolutions passed on March 24 and Dec. 23. Among the officials cited were the Guard's top commander, Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, and deputy commander, Brig. Gen. Morteza Rezaie, as well as the heads of the Guard's ground forces, navy, Quds Force and Basij (Mobilization of the Oppressed) volunteers.

The widening presence of its Quds Force in Iraq is the reason U.S. troops launched two raids in December and January on Iran's operating bases, detaining seven men in Baghdad and Irbil. Five are still held, although Iranian officials expected them to be released on the Iranian new year, March 21.

Although neither Tehran nor London has linked the events, the 15 Britons were captured two days after Tehran expected the five in Iraq to be freed and the day before the U.N. vote freezing the assets of seven top Revolutionary Guard commanders.

In his first public comments on the matter, Ahmadinejad said yesterday that the Guard had demonstrated "skill and bravery" in detaining the Britons.

Ahmadinejad, who was a midlevel officer, mirrors the evolution of the Guard, formed to protect the revolutionaries and prevent a military coup. The Guard is separate from Iran's conventional military -- and less than one-third the size, according to Cordesman. Iran's regular army, navy and air force total more than 400,000 troops. The Guard numbers about 125,000. But its numbers belie its power.

The Guard gained stature during Iran's eight-year war with Iraq, when it fought some of the toughest battles, provided human minesweepers and took huge casualties. That generation has now come of leadership age, said Kenneth Katzman of the Congressional Research Service, the author of "Warriors of Islam," a book about the Guard.

"They fought as young men, and now they're middle-aged. They have gone from the battlefield to mayoralties, governates and management of ministries," Katzman said. Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was a senior Guard commander.

The Guard is now a less effective conventional fighting force than it was during the Iran-Iraq war, Cordesman said. But it controls the deadliest arms, including adapted Scud missiles with ranges up to 1,200 miles, along with a chemical and biological weapons program and missile production. The Revolutionary Guard remains "the center of Iran's hard-line security forces," he said.

The most secretive Guard unit is the Quds Force, which conducts operations beyond Iran's borders using proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Cordesman says in the book. It has several directorates -- for Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Jordan; Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula; North Africa; and Europe and North America, Cordesman writes. It has operatives in many embassies abroad, he says, and runs Iran's training camps for unconventional warfare.

In January, Cordesman says, Iran's Supreme National Security Council gave the Quds Force control of Iran's operations in Iraq and expanded it from 5,000 to 15,000 troops. After its men were captured in Iraq, the force has lowered its visibility and changed its style of operations, U.S. officials say.

The Quds Force is led by Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and reports directly to the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Many senior Revolutionary Guard officers have close family ties to top members of the clergy, according to a study of the Guard by Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The Guard's ties and the widening corruption in Iran have increasingly led its commanders, companies and connections to bid on and win government contracts, including for recent oil and gas projects, for which they are not qualified, U.S. officials say. The result, they add, is that key projects are either poorly done or farmed out to other contractors, for a commission.

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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It's only fair John that you beat me to a Jerusalem Post news article; after all. I am running into a lot of financial-type news articles on my raw news feeds now, and I have been posting them :xpnd:

I am not a financial wizz by any means! But I did sleep at Motel 6 - the last time I was away from home

~ Dutch

<center>The new Cold War

BY NOAM CHOMSKY
1 April 2007
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Display...April/opinion_April4.xml&section=opinion&col= </center>
IN the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria. Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important.

As was the norm during the Cold War, resort to violence is regularly justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the main enemy, often on the flimsiest of pretexts. Unsurprisingly, as Bush sends more troops to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Iraq — a country otherwise free from any foreign interference, on the tacit assumption that Washington rules the world. 

In the Cold War-like mentality that prevails in Washington, Teheran is portrayed as the pinnacle in the so-called Shia Crescent that stretches from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, through Shia southern Iraq and Syria. And again unsurprisingly, the "surge" in Iraq and escalation of threats and accusations against Iran is accompanied by grudging willingness to attend a conference of regional powers, with the agenda limited to Iraq.

Presumably this minimal gesture toward diplomacy is intended to allay the growing fears and anger elicited by Washington's heightened aggressiveness. These concerns are given new substance in a detailed study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism experts Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, revealing that the Iraq war "has increased terrorism sevenfold worldwide." An "Iran effect" could be even more severe.

For the United States, the primary issue in the Middle East has been and remains effective control of its unparalleled energy resources. Access is a secondary matter. Once the oil is on the seas it goes anywhere. Control is understood to be an instrument of global dominance.

Iranian influence in the "crescent" challenges US control. By an accident of geography, the world's major oil resources are in largely Shia areas of the Middle East: southern Iraq, adjacent regions of Saudi Arabia and Iran, with some of the major reserves of natural gas as well. Washington's worst nightmare would be a loose Shia alliance controlling most of the world's oil and independent of the United States.

Such a bloc, if it emerges, might even join the Asian Energy Security Grid based in China. Iran could be a lynchpin. If the Bush planners bring that about, they will have seriously undermined the US position of power in the world. To Washington, Teheran's principal offense has been its defiance, going back to the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the hostage crisis at the US embassy.

The grim US role in Iran in earlier years is excised from history. In retribution for Iranian defiance, Washington quickly turned to support for Saddam Hussein's aggression against Iran, which left hundreds of thousands dead and the country in ruins. Then came murderous sanctions, and under Bush, rejection of Iranian diplomatic efforts in favuor of increasing threats of direct attack.

Last July, Israel invaded Lebanon, the fifth invasion since 1978. As before, US support for the aggression was a critical factor, the pretexts quickly collapse on inspection, and the consequences for the people of Lebanon are severe. Among the reasons for the US-Israel invasion is that Hezbollah's rockets could be a deterrent to a potential US-Israeli attack on Iran.

Despite the saber-rattling, it is, I suspect, unlikely that the Bush administration will attack Iran. Public opinion in the United States and around the world is overwhelmingly opposed. It appears that the US military and intelligence community is also opposed to an attack. Iran cannot defend itself against US attack, but it can respond in other ways, among them by inciting even more havoc in Iraq.

Some issue warnings that are far more grave, among them the respected British military historian Corelli Barnett, who writes that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III." Then again, a predator becomes even more dangerous, and less predictable, when wounded. In desperation to salvage something, the administration might undertake the risk of even greater disasters. The Bush administration has created an unimaginable catastrophe in Iraq. It has been unable to establish a reliable client state within, and cannot withdraw without facing the possible loss of control of the Middle East's energy resources.

Meanwhile Washington may be seeking to destabilise Iran from within. The ethnic mix in Iran is complex; much of the population isn't Persian. There are secessionist tendencies and it is likely that Washington is trying to stir them up — in Khuzestan on the Gulf, for example, where Iran's oil is concentrated, a region that is largely Arab, not Persian.

Threat escalation also serves to pressure others to join US efforts to strangle Iran economically, with predictable success in Europe.

It is also necessary to demonise the leadership. In the West, any wild statement of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, immediately gets circulated in headlines, dubiously translated. But as is well known, Ahmadinejad has no control over foreign policy, which is in the hands of his superior, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The US media tend to ignore Khamenei's statements, especially if they are conciliatory. For example, it's widely reported when Ahmadinejad says that Israel shouldn't exist — but there is silence when Khamenei says that Iran supports the Arab League position on Israel-Palestine, calling for normalisation of relations with Israel if it accepts the international consensus of the two-state settlement that has been blocked by the US and Israel for 30 years.

The US invasion of Iraq virtually instructed Iran to develop a nuclear deterrent. The message, loud and clear, was that the US will attack at will, as long as the target is defenseless. Now Iran is ringed by US military forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and the Arabian Gulf and close by are nuclear-armed Pakistan and particularly Israel, the regional superpower, thanks to US support. In 2003, Iran offered negotiations on all outstanding issues, including nuclear policies and Israel-Palestine relations. Washington's response was to censure the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer.

The following year, the European Union and Iran reached an agreement that Iran would suspend enriching uranium (as it is entitled to do under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and in return the EU would provide "firm guarantees on security issues" — code for US-Israeli threats to bomb Iran. Apparently under US pressure, Europe did not live up to the bargain. Iran then resumed uranium enrichment. A genuine interest in preventing the development of nuclear weapons in Iran — and the escalating warlike tension in the region — would lead Washington to implement the EU bargain, agree to meaningful negotiations and join with others to move towards integrating Iran into the international economic system.

JohnGaltfla · Mar 31, 2007

Dutch, you can have the first posting when the first bomb falls on Friday night

I'll just do a play by play live on my radio show

Between the two of us, we'll have everyone in their bunkers one hour after it starts.

:shkr:

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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<center>March 31, 2007

‘They will be scared by sound of death chants’

David Brown and Michael Theodoulou in Cyprus
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1593990.ece </center>
The detained sailors and Marines are likely to be kept in good physical conditions but will find their detention by Iranian forces a frightening experience, experts say.

The 15 are most probably being held in the military barracks at Jamshidiyeh in the foothills of the Alborz mountains which shelter Tehran. Although the seven Royal Marines are drilled in techniques to cope with capture, the eight sailors have little relevant training. 

The number of vehicles entering the barracks has increased significantly since the British were caught, according to Alire-za Nourizadeh, a senior researcher at the Centre for Arab--Iranian Studies in London.

The complex has an iconic role in Iranian revolutionary history and is no stranger to unwilling VIP guests. The Shah of Iran’s former officials, including a Mayor of Tehran, cabinet ministers and the Empress’s bureau chief, were locked up there in the 1970s.

“They are kept in rooms with heating and [air] conditioning,” Dr Nourizadeh said. “They are getting good food and will be allowed to watch the television for a few hours each day and the guards will try to get them newspapers.

“They will be scared. They will feel under pressure because they will hear chants of ‘Death to America, death to the UK’ [from soldiers in the barracks]. They will see men with guns. They will see all sorts of threatening gestures from the guards and the people around them will look at them with hate in their eyes.

“They [the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards] wanted to show to the Iranian people that they are so strong that they can go and take British troops. They wanted to keep these soldiers for some time and see what happens.

“Now they will want to show the Iranian people that they are not going to give in to British demands.”

A Ministry of Defence source said that the sailors being held would have been given little training in how to cope with capture. “The sailors would probably have watched a video followed by a question-and-answer session,” he said.

“The Royal Marines would be better prepared. The key of their training is to keep themselves alive and to deny any intelligence to the enemy. They would be aware of the psychological and intelligence tricks that would be used against them.”

Videos of the captives have shown them eating kebabs and smoking. They have been seen smiling and looking relaxed.

What is happening off-screen is a matter of constant concern in London. Iran’s refusal to grant consular access to the prisoners is alarming. The Revolutionary Guards’ erratic record feeds Britain’s fears.

The Guards, a corps established after the 1979 revolution to protect the fledgeling Islamic republic from “internal and external threats”, is the regime’s most trusted power centre when it comes to national security and has every reason to humiliate “little Satan” Britain.

Iran is expected to make a training film about the Britons’ detention as it did when eight British sailors and Marines were seized briefly in similar circumstances in 2004.

That video, being shown in selected universities to students of the Baseej, a hardline civil defence force, portrays the infidels as powerless in the face of devout Iranian forces. One of the Britons had “wet his pants” when a Revolutionary Guard yelled at him, Soheil Karimi, the film’s director, told students at the film’s premiere in November.

Chris Adams, a navy reservist from the 2004 incident, told the Plymouth Evening Herald how the Iranians had removed the two senior officers from the rest of the men. The Britons were moved around in twos to reduce the likelihood of an attempted escape. The 15 sailors and Marines now being held are believed to include an officer but it is unclear if he is with the rest of the party.

“They took everything from us and blindfolded us,” Mr Adams said. “I was scared. We were blindfolded and had weapons pointing at us. We were not allowed to talk.”

As now, the Iranians insisted that the Britons were in their waters although the captives were convinced of their innocence. The British decided to humour the Revolutionary Guards.

“It was pretty rough and ready. We were pushed about. They kept asking us why we were in Iranian waters,” Mr Adams said.

“When we were briefed we were told that, as we were not at war, we could tell them what we needed to survive.

“We told them we were very sorry for being in Iranian waters — we were prepared to tell them anything they wanted to hear.”

He continued: “We were given an adequate amount of water. We were drinking out of a bucket, eating our food off the floor but you eat. We didn’t question it. It was 55 degrees.”

If Iran decides to try them for illegal entry they will come under the control of the hardline judiciary.

There is virtually no precedent but diplomats say that the legal procedure could take two different courses. In one the Britons could face a judicial administrative procedure rather than a trial in its usual sense with argumentation and barristers. A judge or the prosecutor would record the facts and either then, or after a recess, the judge would give his decision. Britain would not necessarily be informed in advance of the proceedings.

Alternately, the authorities could give notice of a trial, in which case British diplomats would ask to be present and the detained Britons might have a lawyer to speak for them. In either case, the proceedings would be swift, amounting to summary justice.

A long week

Friday, March 23 Iran seizes 15 Royal Navy sailors and marines in Gulf. British and Iranian envoys are each summoned to host foreign ministry

Saturday Iran says sailors have confessed to entering Iranian waters illegally. Britain repeats calls for their immediate release

Sunday Margaret Beckett speaks to Iran counterpart. Tony Blair calls for release of captives. Iran says it may pursue illegal entry charges

Monday Iran tells Britain detainees “fit and well”. Faye Turney, 26, naval boat driver, named as a captive

Tuesday Tony Blair gives warning of “different phase” if sailors not freed; shows Iran data that the 15 were in Iraqi waters. US Navy begins biggest Gulf exercise since 2003 Iraq invasion

Wednesday Britain publishes GPS coordinates of navy team and freezes all other diplomatic business with Iran. TV in Iran shows captives. Letter “from Turney” published saying Britons were in Iranian territory. Britain expresses outrage at video and letter

Thursday UN issues statement, not as strong as Britain sought, expressing “grave concern”

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

JohnGaltfla said:
Dutch, you can have the first posting when the first bomb falls on Friday night

I'll just do a play by play live on my radio show

Between the two of us, we'll have everyone in their bunkers one hour after it starts.

On that *day* John - ole pard. I'll be too busy making "last second" arrangements. And you'll be a doing tha same - er ya a whole lot dimmer than I think yas are.....

JohnGaltfla · Mar 31, 2007

The Flying Dutchman said:
<center>

On that *day* John - ole pard. I'll be too busy making "last second" arrangements. And you'll be a doing tha same - er ya a whole lot dimmer than I think yas are.....

LOL, the minute the bombs drop, I'm popping popcorn unless I'm on the air. I can't make any more preps than I have and Friday afternoon, I'll have my tanks topped off and then some.

The reality is that until I see the ChiCom response, I'm not dragging out the sand bags to build my fallout lean to.

The good news is I'm 60 miles south of CentCom.

The bad news is I've heard the ChiCom missiles ain't as accurate as advertised.... :shkr:

The Flying Dutchman · Mar 31, 2007

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<center>Mar. 31, 2007 20:38

Iran fears strike by 'warmongers'

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
VIENNA, Austria
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173879218400&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull </center>
Iran is blaming the US and Israel for its decision to withhold information from the outside world on its nuclear program, saying in a confidential letter that threats from the two "warmongers" led it to curtail cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The IAEA - the UN nuclear monitor - in turn told Iran that it is defying the 35-nation board of the agency with its move and urged it to reverse its decision. Both the Iranian document and the confidential IAEA response were made available to The Associated Press on Friday. 

The exchange reflected heightened tension between Iran and the Vienna-based IAEA arising from Teheran's refusal to heed the UN Security Council and freeze uranium enrichment and the council's decision earlier this week to pass a second resolution increasing sanctions in response to the Islamic republic's nuclear defiance. A decision by the IAEA board to refer Iran to the council last year led to that UN body's involvement in trying to curb Teheran's nuclear defiance

The agency also is waiting for Teheran to respond to its requests and allow it to install remote cameras at key locations at Iran's underground enrichment plant at Natanz.

No enrichment is yet taking place at Natanz. But diplomats accredited to the IAEA said Friday that Teheran may start doing so within days. If so, those cameras are crucial for IAEA experts in their efforts to monitor possible attempts to reconfigure machinery there into making weapons grade uranium - used in the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

Iran insists it wants to enrich only to low-levels, suitable for generating nuclear power. But the international community increasingly fears that Teheran may want to develop enrichment for weapons uses.

Its resistance to having the cameras mounted in locations the agency has specified is further raising concerns.

A diplomat accredited to the agency said the centrifuges are in the lowest level of the three-tiered Natanz facility and are blocked from view by a wall. The agency has only been able to mount cameras outside that wall, he said, demanding anonymity because his information was confidential.

The agency's request for extra cameras was made by Olli Heinonen, the IAEA deputy director general of the Iran file.

It was unclear whether Heinonen's move was prompted by concerns that Iran was approaching the limit of 500 centrifuges assembled in series - a number that the IAEA considers the red line as far as additional monitoring is concerned.

Two diplomats on Friday said that Iran had already linked up more than 900 of the devices and was ready to introduce uranium gas in them, starting the process of enrichment on a larger scale than previous attempts.

A third said negotiations over the IAEA request for additional cameras were scheduled for the weekend between senior Iranian and agency officials.

Iran initially announced its move to keep some information from the agency on Sunday, with officials saying they would no longer provide the IAEA with advance notice about any new nuclear facilities they wanted to build. The decision was in response to the "illegal and bullying resolution by (the) Security Council," said government spokesman Gholan Hossein Elham.

Expanding on the decision, the confidential letter, dated March 29, declared that "the United States and the Israeli regime ... are threatening the use of force and attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran and have repeatedly stressed that military action is an option on the table.

"So long as such threats of military action persist, Iran has no option but (to) protect its security through all means possible, including protection of information which can facilitate openly stated and aggressive military objectives of the warmongers," said the letter, signed by Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA.

Blaming the IAEA for failing "systematically and repeatedly to maintain confidentiality of sensitive information," Soltanieh wrote that "therefore such dangerous dissemination of sensitive information will have to be curtailed through steps which limit their scope and availability."

The agency, in response, noted in its Friday response that the move is "contrary" to the board's decision and suggested it may indirectly be in breach of agreements linked to the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Calling Iran's decision "regrettable," the agency, in a letter signed by a deputy of senior IAEA official Vilmos Cserveny, urged the Iranian authorities "to reconsider their decision."

Before the decision, Teheran had committed itself to informing the agency of any planned new nuclear construction before such construction begins - a commitment it has not always kept. For instance, Teheran delayed informing the agency three years ago that it was building tunnels in the central city of Isfahan to house parts of its uranium enrichment program.

Former UN nuclear inspector David Albright said Iran's decision could clear the path for Iran to do clandestine nuclear work related to its enrichment program - a possible pathway to nuclear arms.

Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security tracks Iran's nuclear program, said that Iran may be looking to build a "backup facility" for enrichment that would remain undetected - and safe - in case of attack by the United States or Israel.

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Israel PM hints at military action

Apr 1, 2007
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411319/1044946 </center>
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert played down the chances of expanded Israeli military action for now in the Gaza Strip to counter Hamas's military build-up but said the army would be prepared to act if other options failed. 

Israeli and US security officials say Hamas's forces are expanding faster and receiving more sophisticated weapons and training than those under Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's control.

Israeli security sources estimate that Hamas now has about 10,000 militants, and say that the Islamic militant group's armed wing has been busy digging tunnels and upgrading its rocket arsenal for a possible confrontation.

"We won't be deterred from using military activity if we come to the conclusion, after an intense, level-headed examination, that there is no better way... But that is not the situation (currently)," Olmert told Israel's Channel 2 television in an interview.

Israel and the United States said Hamas was receiving money and equipment from Iran. Washington plans to provide $US59 million ($82 million) to bolster Abbas's presidential guard.

"The question is: Does it have to be military activity? If it has to be military activity by us, does it have to be right now?" Olmert said when asked about warnings by top security advisers about Hamas's build-up.

Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said the Islamic militant group would be ready for any conflict with Israel.

"Raiding Gaza will not be that easy and they will be surprised of the tactics we will use," Abu Ubaida said at one of Hamas's training camps as militants practised firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.

In an interview with Time magazine, Olmert called Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas a "terrorist" and accused him of recently transferring more than $US1 million ($1.4 million) to militants to carry out attacks against Israel.

"This is a medal of honour to the prime minister," Abu Ubaida said of Olmert's accusations. "The Prime Minister was born from the womb of resistance and therefore, he should stand beside the resistance and he should resist these pressures."

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Israel PM says 'no' to refugees' return 

Posted on : Sat, 31 Mar 2007 23:19:01 GMT
World News Editor
News Category : World
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/46331.html </center>
TEL AVIV, Israel, March 31 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rejected the idea of allowing Palestinian refugees to resettle in Israel.

"I will not agree to accept any kind of Israeli responsibility for the refugees," Olmert said in an interview carried Saturday on the Jerusalem Post ' s Web site. "It's a moral issue of the highest standard. I don't think that we should accept any kind of responsibility for the creation of this problem." When asked what role Israel should or could play in solving the Palestinian refugee problem, Olmert said the idea of any refugees coming to Israel was "out of the question."

Olmert said Israel has already allowed some Palestinians to enter Israel for family reunification, but he said "even now it's becoming more of a problem than a solution." "I'll never accept a solution that is based on their return to Israel, any number," he said. The Arab League this week dusted off a 2002 peace plan that would require Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 boundaries, agree to an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and negotiate a solution to the so-called Palestinian right to return.

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

JohnGaltfla said:
LOL, the minute the bombs drop, I'm popping popcorn unless I'm on the air. I can't make any more preps than I have and Friday afternoon, I'll have my tanks topped off and then some.

The reality is that until I see the ChiCom response, I'm not dragging out the sand bags to build my fallout lean to.

The good news is I'm 60 miles south of CentCom.

The bad news is I've heard the ChiCom missiles ain't as accurate as advertised....

Actually, John. I was thinking more about all those *new* neighbors you'll suddenly have - you know! Those people who "just moved in near you" that very evening - or the day after - and not one of them has much more then a Hersey Bar for preps! But they do have guns!

You know! The Locusts!.................. Brigands some call them...

JohnGaltfla · Apr 1, 2007

The Flying Dutchman said:
Actually, John. I was thinking more about all those *new* neighbors you'll suddenly have - you know! Those people who "just moved in near you" that very evening - or the day after - and not one of them has much more then a Hersey Bar for preps! But they do have guns!

You know! The Locusts!.................. Brigands some call them...

No problem. I've got some .00 popcorn for them also. It can be served "rapidly" if need be.

pixmo · Apr 1, 2007

<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" bordercolor="#000000" height="43"><tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">Iran denies planning to keep nuclear work secret</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff" height="2"><div align="left">http://www.spacewar.com/2006/070331115719.cefm33zb.html

Iran on Saturday denied that it planned to keep its controversial atomic programme secret, insisting the nuclear work would continue under the supervision of the UN watchdog.
"Inspections and cooperation will go on with no change or halt," Iran's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told state radio.

"All Iranian (nuclear) activities including enrichment are under IAEA inspectors' supervision and there is no problem," he said, asked whether Iran would refrain from presenting information to the IAEA.

Iran limited cooperation with the atomic watchdog in response to a UN resolution adopted this month imposing more sanctions on Tehran for its continued refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

Soltanieh formally announced the decision in a letter sent to IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Thursday.

In a copy of the letter obtained by AFP, Soltanieh said Iran had to protect its nuclear secrets as the United States and Israel "are threatening the use of force and attack against the Islamic Republic and have repeatedly stressed that military action is an option on the table."

In 2003, Iran agreed to give immediate notification of plans to build nuclear plants or to modify existing facilities.

Now it will only notify the IAEA of new sites six months before they begin to function.

Iran says its nulcear programme is aimed at peaceful energy ends, denying allegations that it sought to secretly develop atomic weapons.

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pixmo · Apr 1, 2007

<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" bordercolor="#000000" height="43"><tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">Iran resistance group claims seizure of Brits premeditated
</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff" height="2"><div align="left">http://www.spacewar.com/2006/070331155135.szcmqiqp.html

An Iranian exile group claimed Saturday that the capture of 15 British naval personnel was premeditated "to win concessions from the international community and divert attention from its nuclear projects."
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said that a Revolutionary Guard garrison was on full alert from the night before the incident.

Hossein Abedini, of the organisation's foreign affairs committee, told a press conference in London that the move was a "meticulously concocted operation".

But the Revolutionary Guard plus Iran's foreign and intelligence ministries had decided that this fact should be covered up, he added.

"You can see that the clerical regime had in a premeditated attack arrested British soldiers in order to win concessions from the international community and divert attention from its nuclear projects," he said.

The NCRI said its information had come from within the Revolutionary Guards through the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujaheddin e Khalq (MeK), a dissident movement banned in Britain, the European Union and the United States.

The organisation, which describes itself as the parliament in exile of the Iranian resistance, provided no substantive evidence to back up its claims.

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pixmo · Apr 1, 2007

<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" bordercolor="#000000" height="43"><tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc">Saudis warned Iran not to underestimate US threat: report</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff" height="2"><div align="left">http://www.spacewar.com/2006/070330222933.63au3f28.html

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah warned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he should not underestimate the US military threat on Iran, Newsweek reported Friday.

Ahmadinejad met with King Abdullah on March 4 in Riyadh, and publicly the two leaders agreed to fight growing Sunni-Shiite strife in the region.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told Newsweek in an interview that the king meanwhile warned Ahmadinejad to take seriously threats of US military strikes over Iran's refusal to halts its uranium enrichment program.

"On the nuclear issue, we warned him: 'Don't play with fire. Don't think the threat [of an American attack on Iran] is a nonexistent threat; think that it's a real threat, maybe even a palpable threat,'" Faisal said in the interview posted on the Newsweek website Friday.

"Why do you want to take a chance on that and harm your country?" the king continued, according to Faisal. "What is the rush? Why do you have to do it [enrich uranium] this year and not next year or the year after? Or five years from now? What is the real rush in it?"

The king "speaks to everybody frankly," Faisal said, adding that his ruler bluntly told Ahmadinejad: "You're interfering in Arab affairs," a reference to Iran's alleged interference in other Middle East countries.

Ahmadinejad listened, then denied any interference. "But we said, 'Whether you deny it or not, this is creating bad feelings for Iran and we think you should stop,'" Faisal told Newsweek.

"Certainly what Iran is doing is interfering in Iraq," Faisal said. "We told them this will not benefit them but will do more damage to them than [good]. But we have never put ourselves in a position of conflict with Iran."

The Saudis also told the Iranians "that their interference in Arab affairs is creating a backlash in the Arab world and in the Muslim world. Other Muslim countries are complaining of [Iranian] interference in internal affairs," Faisal said.

"And we talked to them frankly and honestly on this issue and they see the danger that what is happening is going to lead to strife between Shiites and Sunnis."

The Saudi foreign minister also said it was "a catastrophe" for Iran to be holding 15 British sailors and marines it had captured on March 23. Iran insists the personnel were detained for being in Iranian waters but Britain maintains they were inside Iraqi waters.

"This is just not the time for them to have a problem like that looming. We tell them that," Faisal said.

On Wednesday, the Saudi king criticized the US occupation of Iraq in an opening address to the annual Arab summit in Riyadh -- a move some observers say is an effort to distance himself from the embattled Bush administration.

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The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>'Iran Fears U.S. Attack in Summer' 

April 01, 2007
Reuters
Jonathan Saul
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/01/AR2007040100316.html </center>
JERUSALEM -- Iran is making defensive preparations for what it fears will be a U.S. military attack this summer, Israel's military intelligence chief said on Sunday.

Major-General Amos Yadlin also told the Israeli cabinet that Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas and Syria believed they could be targeted in any U.S.-initiated war against Iran, an Israeli government official said, briefing reporters on his remarks.

"What we are seeing is their preparation for the possibility of war in the summer. My assessment is that they are defensive preparations for war," Yadlin was quoted as saying, referring to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.

The government official said Yadlin spoke about Iranian fears of a U.S., not an Israeli, offensive.

The official gave no details about the type of military preparations Yadlin said Iran was making to meet any U.S. attack.

"We are closely monitoring these preparations because (Iran, Syria and Hezbollah) could misinterpret various moves in the region," Yadlin said, according to the official.

In Washington on Thursday, UnderSecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the United States was "convinced diplomacy is the way to proceed" to curb Iran's nuclear program.

Burns told the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee that Washington did not believe conflict with Tehran was inevitable.

The U.N. Security Council widened sanctions against Iran on March 24 after it defied a second deadline to stop enriching uranium, a process Tehran says will yield solely electricity but world powers fear could be used to build atomic weapons.

Washington and London also accuse Iran of supporting insurgents fighting their forces in Iraq.

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Iran Exposes Britain's Weakness

April 01, 2007
Los Angeles Times
Niall Ferguson
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-ferguson1apr01,1,7834846.column?track=rss </center>
Blair's timid response to his soldiers' abduction shows how weak-willed the once-imperial power has become.

Let that be a lesson. Even before Britain's politicians had finished saying sorry last Sunday for depriving millions of their liberty, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, 15 Britons found themselves deprived of their liberty by the Iranian government. When will Tony Blair ever learn that, in international relations, nice guys finish last? 

This is indeed what comes of being too nice. A month before expressing his "deep sorrow and regret for our nation's role in the slave trade," the prime minister had announced his intention to reduce British troop levels in Iraq by 1,600 within a matter of months. "The next chapter in Basra's history," he declared, "can be written by Iraqis." Unfortunately, it looks more likely to be written by Iranians. And somehow I don't think they'll be saying sorry afterward.

Until this crisis, Iran had been on the diplomatic rack. Last weekend, the United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions to punish the regime in Tehran for continuing with its nuclear program. This reflected growing impatience, even on the part of hitherto indulgent Russia, with the Iranians' persistent defiance. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, is never to be underestimated. To regain the diplomatic initiative, he targeted the weakest link on the Security Council. This turns out to be Britain.

There is no serious doubt in my mind that the British sailors taken prisoner on March 23 were in Iraqi rather than Iranian waters. The Iranians themselves initially (and inadvertently) admitted as much. But the key fact remains that, whether through bad luck or negligence, 14 British men and one British woman are now in Ahmadinejad's clutches. Suddenly, the most the Security Council seems able to do — despite the fact that the captives were on a U.N.-mandated mission — is to express "grave concern."

Delighted by their coup, Ahmadinejad and his lackeys have been amusing themselves by forcing Leading Seaman Faye Turney to sign bogus letters dictated to her in Borat-ese: The Iranian people "have brought me no harm, but have looked after me well…. Even through our wrongdoing, they have still treated us well and humanely, which I am and always will be eternally grateful…. Isn't it time for us to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future?"

We have been here before. Englishwomen in bondage play a central role in Linda Colley's masterpiece, "Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600-1850." As Colley points out, it was not only Africans who were enslaved in the 17th and 18th centuries. Tens of thousands of Britons shared their fate if they fell into the hands of the so-called Barbary corsairs, the Moroccan and Algerian raiders who infested the western Mediterranean. The Faye Turney of 1756 was Elizabeth Marsh, seized off the Moroccan coast and subjected, by her own account, to the amorous attentions of the future Sultan Sidi Muhammad. (Incidentally, when is the king of Morocco going to apologize for this?)

In those days there was little hope of rescue. Britain's armed forces were far too thinly stretched over its rapidly expanding empire for Rambo-style missions to liberate scattered slaves and POWs. The most the Barbary slaves could hope for was to be ransomed, to which end collections were regularly made in British churches.

It is in this light that we need to understand James Thomson's immortal lines: "Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves: Britons never shall be slaves." When first set to music in 1740, this was a forward-looking injunction to Britain's rulers to go ahead and rule the waves, precisely so that Britons would no longer run the risk of being enslaved.

Only gradually, in the period of British imperialism not covered by Colley's book, did the British acquire that kind of power: not necessarily the power to prevent Britons from ever being taken captive, but the power to inflict disproportionate retaliation when they were. (And also, let us not forget, the power to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. Had it not been for the policing efforts of the Royal Navy, the legislation passed 200 years ago would have been ineffectual.)

Time and again, the Victorians meted out retribution to those who had the temerity to deprive British subjects of their liberty, the more terrible in cases where the lives and (worse) the honor of Englishwomen were placed in jeopardy. Nemo me impune lacessit was the ancient motto of the Scottish crown: "No one messes with me and gets away with it." In effect, that became the motto of the entire Victorian Empire.

I suppose a remnant of that spirit survived into the 1980s. There was certainly something distinctly Victorian about the Falklands expedition: the scale of the venture, the distance covered and the relatively small number of Britons to be rescued.

Yet today we live in a different world. Britain could not refight the Falklands War if Argentina invaded the islands tomorrow. Nor could a British strike force be sent to punish the Iranian government today. If military action is going to be taken against Iran this year, it will be initiated by the United States, not the United Kingdom. And, to judge by Faye Turney's conspicuous absence from the front pages of U.S. papers, a British hostage crisis won't be the casus belli.

As he approaches the 10th anniversary of his election as prime minister, Blair consciously invites comparisons with Lady Margaret Thatcher, the only other premier since 1827 to endure so long. Yet this new crisis of captivity, like Blair's needless kowtowing over slavery, exposes the profound differences between the nice guy and the Iron Lady.

*

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Monday, April 2, 2007. 0:40am (AEST)

Britain says the sailors were seized in Iraqi waters. 

Protesters pelt Britain's embassy in Iran

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1886926.htm </center>
Islamist students threw rocks and firecrackers at Britain's embassy in Tehran on Sunday after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slammed "arrogant" Britain over Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors.

The firecrackers exploded inside the embassy compound which was heavily guarded by anti-riot police and scaffolding to keep protesters at bay, as both sides sought a diplomatic solution to the standoff. 

The students, who belong to the hardline Basij volunteer militia, chanted "Death to Britain" and "Death to America" and demanded punishment for the sailors, seized for alleged illegal entry into Iranian waters on March 23.

In the latest diplomatic salvo, Iranian media reported that Iran has formally protested at what it called a "British shootout" around its consulate in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra on Thursday.

"Following British forces' movements and shootout around the Iranian consulate in Basra the foreign ministry submitted a note of protest to the British embassy in Tehran" on March 30, the ministry said.

The British military denied any such incident occurred, saying its soldiers had come under fire during a routine patrol near the consulate but did not leave their vehicles.

President Ahmadinejad was outside Tehran on Sunday, visiting the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war front in the west of the country to mark the anniversary of the 1979 foundation of the Islamic republic.

On Saturday he again called for Britain to apologise.

"The arrogant issue statements and issue demands against the Iranian people, instead of apologising and expressing regret over the British sailors entering Iranian waters," he said, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.

Tehran has so far refused to bow to pressure to free the captives, who are being held in a secret location and occasionally paraded on state television allegedly confessing and apologising.

Britain insists they were on a routine anti-smuggling patrol in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate, but the Islamic republic says they had strayed into its territorial waters.

US President George W Bush called Iran's seizure of the 15 Britons inexcusable and demanded the release of the "hostages".

"It's inexcusable behaviour and I strongly support the (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair government's attempts to resolve this peacefully," Mr Bush told a news conference on Saturday.

"I support the prime minister when he made it clear there were no quid pro quos," said Mr Bush, whose country's ties with Tehran have been severed for decades following a hostage crisis. "The Iranians must give back the hostages."

The United States has rejected any suggestion that the 15 could be swapped for five Iranian officials held by US forces in Iraq since January.

On Friday the European Union foreign ministers deplored the seizure of the Britons as a breach of international law and threatened to take "appropriate measures" if they were not freed soon.

The current EU president, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, visiting Iran's arch-foe Israel on Sunday, said Britain has Germany's full backing.

"We demand the release of the 15 soldiers and we are standing by Britain's side," she said at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

In a sign both sides wish to pursue the diplomatic option, the Iranian foreign ministry said a note it had received from London in response to its formal protest contained "different points which could be examined".

However, it also added that Tehran was awaiting "a correction of attitude on Britain's part".

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett confirmed her ministry had received a diplomatic note from Tehran over the sailors and responded to it, without elaborating.

"I think everyone regrets that this position has arisen. What we want is a way out of it, we want it peacefully and we want it as soon as possible," she said after meeting her EU counterparts in Germany.

Most Britons favour a negotiated settlement, according to the results of a poll published in Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

The paper also reported that London hopes to send a top navy officer to Tehran to promise that the Royal Navy will never knowingly enter Iranian waters without permission.

Word of such a plan emerged as officials were privately speculating that the crisis could last for months, the newspaper said.

- AFP

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>April 1, 2007

The bottom line for Iran

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article1596696.ece </center>
There is growing evidence that the kidnapping of 15 British sailors nine days ago was a premeditated act of aggression by Iran. It is almost certainly no coincidence that the hijacking in Iraqi waters occurred the day before the United Nations security council voted to tighten sanctions on Iran over its nuclear weapons’ programme. It furthermore coincided with condemnations by American and British commanders of Iranian assistance to terrorists fighting the democratically elected Iraqi government. The Iranian logic is that if the West can behave illegally by invading Iraq, seeking to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions and fomenting unrest within its borders, then why should it, too, not behave illegally?

Yet it is a high risk strategy which may be part of a complex power struggle within the regime, or a bid to reassert its defiant Islamic credentials in the region. Even though the Iranians may be scoring points at the moment, there is a real threat to the country’s trade and status and unknown military dangers if it gets out of hand. Despite these risks, the Iranian leadership seems casually indifferent. Parading the hostages on television, talk of putting them on trial and goading the UK for its so-called belligerent approach when it has been anything but are calculated to cock a snook at Britain. It may be poker, yet it is the West that has blinked.

The British government has so far appeared all too reasonable and indecisive. There seems to have been no determined effort to get its allies to exert pressure on Tehran and no combative stand to ensure the UN security council makes Iran suffer diplomatically and economically. Although these 14 men and one woman were patrolling under the mandate of the UN, its most powerful executive body has shown scant regard for their wellbeing and sent out signals that amount to little more than appeasement. The European Union has been scarcely tougher. It has declined to stop Iran’s export credits and Javier Solana, its foreign policy chief, said he would “contact” the Iranians. Even America, our closest and staunchest ally, seems strangely silent. The hardliners in Tehran must be congratulating themselves over their cunning brinkman-ship and flagrant abuse of international law.

Britain needs to step up the pressure and show that it will not tolerate this behaviour. It must go back to the UN and use whatever diplomatic influence it has to get tougher action. Iran is vulnerable to trade embargoes and its economy is far from robust. We know its people are divided. If Germany and France will not end the valuable export credits for Iran, perhaps Britain and America can give them a helping nudge. Those companies that trade so profitably with Iran might suddenly find a chill breeze in their relations with London and Washington. The best way of bringing Iran to its senses is to hit it in its pocket. It may well be the bottom line that will decide the outcome of this confrontation.

Tink · Apr 1, 2007

Why would they think that we would wait till Summer :confused:

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Ahmadinejad vows news soon on atomic work

Sun Apr 1, 2007 9:19AM EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSBLA14503120070401?feedType=RSS </center>
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president promised on Sunday Iranians would soon hear more news about the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, which the West believes is a covert effort to build atomic bombs despite Tehran's denials.

"The Iranian nation will soon hear fresh news about our country's nuclear transition," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.

He did not give details about any announcements or when the news would be released but Ahmadinejad is due to hold a news conference on Tuesday.

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Israel

Army says Iran, Syria, Hizbullah preparing for possible US strike in summer

Published: 04.01.07, 15:25 / Israel News
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3383775,00.html </center>
Iran, Syria and Hizbullah are preparing for a possible military confrontation with the United States in the summer, the head of the IDF's Military Intelligence said Sunday.

"Their preparation is defensive ahead of war … They fear a war initiated by the Americans because they understand that there might be an attack against Iran over summer, but not by Israel," Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet. (Ronny Sofer)

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Iran accuses US of violating its airspace

Posted on : Sun, 01 Apr 2007 14:47:00 GMT
Author : Xinhua
News Category : Middle East (World)
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/46444.html </center>
Tehran, April 1 (Xinhua) Iran has accused US Air Force of violating its airspace.

Two US airplanes trespassed Iranian airspace Saturday from the northwest of Abadan in Khuzestan province and disappeared southwest, Colonel Aqili, a military commander, was quoted by Iran's state television Sunday.

'The planes cast out white smoke trails attracting the people's attention,' he said.

Aqili said that US had violated Iranian airspace several times in the past.

Iran has detained 15 British seamen alleging the British Navy had trespassed its territorial waters. The issue has sparked diplomatic tension between Iran and UK.

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Bush supports Britain in row with Iran

April 01 2007
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200704/01/eng20070401_362859.html </center>
U.S. President George W. Bush on Saturday slammed Iran's detention of 15 British sailors as "inexcusable behavior" and voiced strong support for British Prime Minister Tony Blair to resolve the issue. 

"It's a serious issue because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi waters," Bush said after holding talks with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva.

"And it's inexcusable behavior and I strongly support the Blair government's attempts to resolve this peacefully," Bush said, adding that Iran must release the detained British sailors.

The Bush administration has repeatedly urged Iran to "unconditionally" release the British sailors.

The British team was seized on Friday near the Shatt al Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran. Tehran has insisted that the British made a blatant "incursion" into Iranian territorial waters.

Source: Xinhua

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Israelis say Hamas is gearing up for war

Steven Erlanger in Jerusalem
April 2, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/is...ring-up-for-war/2007/04/01/1175366080782.html </center>
HAMAS, the dominant faction in the Palestinian government, is building its military capacity in the Gaza Strip, constructing tunnels and underground bunkers and smuggling in ground-to-air missiles and military-grade explosives, senior Israeli officials say.

Hamas had learnt from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, which brought in and stored thousands of rockets in bunkers near the northern Israeli border before its war with Israel last year, the officials said.

The faction had recruited 10,000 fighters to its so-called executive force, a parallel police force intended to counter the control its rival Fatah exercises over the Palestinian Authority's security forces, an Israeli commander who requested anonymity said in an interview in Gaza.

He said the executive force is divided into five "so-called brigades, with battalion leaders" and is receiving more military training and sharing a common headquarters, with the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing.

The commander said that Hamas's improved rockets had a range of about 16 kilometres, which would allow them to hit the Israeli town of Ashkelon.

But he emphasised that despite Israel's growing concerns about Hamas, "we're not going to start a big operation in Gaza".

The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, is under increasing pressure from the political right and from sections of the security forces to deal with the Hamas build-up. Mr Olmert said on Friday he was not ready to order a large-scale military operation in Gaza.

In Jordan on Saturday, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, urged the new Palestinian unity government to embrace Western demands that it recognise Israel and renounce violence to revive Middle East peace talks.

"We call on the members of the unity government to adhere to the quartet principles … to bring forward the peace process," Dr Merkel said at a news conference with King Abdullah of Jordan at the start of a Middle East tour.

The "quartet" of Middle East peace negotiators - Russia, the United Nations, the European Union and the US - has called for these conditions and the acceptance of existing peace accords.

The new Palestinian government formed by Hamas and the secular Fatah party of the President, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed to respect past agreements.

Dr Merkel was due to meet Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas separately yesterday.

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Gaza buildup of weaponry worries Israel

Published Sunday, April 1, 2007
http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/Apr/20070401News012.asp </center>
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel’s prime minister said yesterday he’s not ready to order a large-scale military operation in Gaza, despite the military’s warnings of a Hamas arms buildup in the coastal territory.

Israel fears that the Islamic militant group Hamas is trying to copy the tactics of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a draw in the summer’s war in Lebanon.

Hamas has exploited a period of relative calm to smuggle large numbers of anti-tank missiles and 30 tons of weapons-grade explosives into Gaza, using tunnels under the border with Egypt, Israeli security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue with reporters.

Hamas has also nearly doubled its number of fighters to 10,000, the security officials said.

Hamas dismissed the claims as Israeli propaganda. A spokesman for the group, Islam Shahwan, said the Hamas force has 5,500 fighters.

Hamas formed a coalition with the Fatah movement of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas two weeks ago. The new government has said it’s ready to consolidate a four-month-old truce but has stopped short of renouncing violence.

In an interview broadcast yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was asked whether a large-scale Israeli invasion of Gaza was needed to halt an arms buildup in Gaza.

"The question is if it has to be a military operation, if it has to be a military operation by us and if it has to be now," Olmert told Channel 2. "We won’t shy away from a military operation if we reach the conclusion, after a thorough check, that it is possible, based on logic and level-headedness and no exaggerations, that there is no better way than this."

Asked whether this was the case now, he said: "This is not the case."

Diplomatic constraints might keep Olmert from ordering a Gaza invasion. The United States is trying to revive Mideast peacemaking by winning greater involvement of moderate Arab states, and a large-scale Israeli military operation could sabotage such efforts.

Kadee · Apr 1, 2007

Everything is pointing to Iran pulling out of the NPT. IMO

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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<center>Israel PM hints at military action

Apr 1, 2007
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411319/1044946 </center>
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert played down the chances of expanded Israeli military action for now in the Gaza Strip to counter Hamas's military build-up but said the army would be prepared to act if other options failed.

Israeli and US security officials say Hamas's forces are expanding faster and receiving more sophisticated weapons and training than those under Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's control. 

Israeli security sources estimate that Hamas now has about 10,000 militants, and say that the Islamic militant group's armed wing has been busy digging tunnels and upgrading its rocket arsenal for a possible confrontation.

"We won't be deterred from using military activity if we come to the conclusion, after an intense, level-headed examination, that there is no better way... But that is not the situation (currently)," Olmert told Israel's Channel 2 television in an interview.

Israel and the United States said Hamas was receiving money and equipment from Iran. Washington plans to provide $US59 million ($82 million) to bolster Abbas's presidential guard.

"The question is: Does it have to be military activity? If it has to be military activity by us, does it have to be right now?" Olmert said when asked about warnings by top security advisers about Hamas's build-up.

Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said the Islamic militant group would be ready for any conflict with Israel.

"Raiding Gaza will not be that easy and they will be surprised of the tactics we will use," Abu Ubaida said at one of Hamas's training camps as militants practised firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.

In an interview with Time magazine, Olmert called Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas a "terrorist" and accused him of recently transferring more than $US1 million ($1.4 million) to militants to carry out attacks against Israel.

"This is a medal of honour to the prime minister," Abu Ubaida said of Olmert's accusations. "The Prime Minister was born from the womb of resistance and therefore, he should stand beside the resistance and he should resist these pressures."

The Flying Dutchman · Apr 1, 2007

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This RUSS article gives a bit more detail on Amajen-dabutthead's impromptu anouncement that he would have news on Iran's possible nuke status soon ~ Dutchman

<center>Iran president promises to announce nuclear work news soon

19:06 | 01/ 04/ 2007
http://en.rian.ru/world/20070401/62910788.html </center>
TEHRAN, April 1 (RIA Novosti) - Iran's president promised Sunday to announce the Islamic Republic's successes in developing its nuclear program. 

Since Iran resumed uranium enrichment in January 2006, the country has been the focus of international concerns, as some Western countries, particularly the United States, suspect Tehran is pursuing a covert weapons program. But Tehran has consistently claimed it needs nuclear power for civilian power generation and is full entitled to its own nuclear program.

"The Iranian people will soon hear fresh news about the country's nuclear development," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

Many experts believe Iran could announce about the installation of new centrifuges for uranium enrichment in Natanz.

The UN Security Council toughened sanctions against Iran last week after the Islamic Republic defied a deadline for it to halt uranium enrichment.

The new resolution freezes financial accounts abroad of 13 companies and 15 individuals involved in uranium enrichment and missile development projects, imposes visa restrictions and bans arms exports from Iran. It also threatens new sanctions, if Iran does not comply with it within 60 days, and urges the Islamic Republic to return to negotiations.

Kadee · Apr 1, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/worl..._r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

March 30, 2007
IAEA Pushes Iran to Accept Cameras at Key Atom Site
By REUTERS
Filed at 5:01 a.m. ET

VIENNA (Reuters) - The International Atomic Energy Agency is pushing Iran to agree to cameras in its underground nuclear plant within days and Western states are mulling whether to seek a crisis IAEA meeting if Tehran refuses, diplomats said.

The U.N. Security Council widened sanctions against Iran last week after it defied a second deadline for it to stop enriching uranium, which Iran says will yield solely electricity but world powers fear is a disguised atomic bomb program.

Tehran, disputing any obligation to do so, has refused to let the U.N. watchdog set up cameras in the Natanz plant where it has installed about a third of 3,000 centrifuges it plans to have running by May to launch ``industrial scale'' enrichment.

The row over Iran's nuclear ambitions has been overshadowed this week by Tehran's capture of 15 British naval personnel. Some analysts have suggested Iran seized the sailors to distract world attention from the nuclear issue.

Diplomats familiar with IAEA operations said the agency's director for nuclear safeguards, Olli Heinonen, had written to Tehran pressing it to relent on cameras within days, with the end of March in mind as the target for a positive answer.

Such cameras, which the IAEA wants to stream images straight to its Vienna headquarters, are seen by inspectors as vital to helping them verify Iran does not enrich uranium to high levels suitable for bomb fuel, or divert materials toward that end.

Iran denies any such intent and has said such intrusive surveillance goes beyond its basic safeguards commitment with the IAEA, while saying it hopes disputes over the extent of monitoring at the plant can be settled to mutual satisfaction.

A senior diplomat close to the IAEA said negotiations were under way to resolve the impasse over cameras.

Doubts over Iran's ultimate nuclear goals prevail abroad since it hid sensitive enrichment research from the IAEA for 18 years and continues to stonewall agency inquiries meant to determine whether its program is wholly peaceful or not.

Diplomats said a number of the IAEA board's 35 member nations met on Tuesday with some Western envoys mooting whether a crisis board meeting might be needed to declare Iran in non-compliance with safeguards rules for blocking cameras.

``Gray AREAS''

``The meeting was inconclusive. There was no consensus over the legalities. It's a matter of interpretation. The Iranians are very good at exploiting legal gray areas and there are gray areas here,'' said one senior diplomat accredited to the IAEA.

Diplomats said IAEA experts were re-examining the fine print of Iran's cooperation accords with the agency.

Board members would be scrutinizing Iran's behavior in coming days before trying to work out a course of action.

The United States denied reports that it was lobbying for a special meeting to haul Iran on the carpet again, a year after the governors referred Iran to the Security Council over its defiance of calls to suspend enrichment as a confidence-building measure and its lack of cooperation with IAEA investigations.

``We strongly support the agency's efforts to safeguard nuclear material in Iran and investigate troubling issues about Iran's program,'' a U.S. mission spokesman said.

The latest IAEA report on Iran issued a month ago said the agency had struck a deal with the Islamic Republic for more frequent inspector visits to Natanz to improve transparency.

But it said Iran had been informed that remote monitoring would be ``required'' once the number of centrifuges exceeded 500.

Iran has said this stance has no legal foundation.

Angered over broader sanctions imposed on Saturday, Iran announced it will no longer give the IAEA early word of plans to build nuclear installations, backing out of a voluntary 2002 agreement supplementing its 1974 basic safeguards treaty.

The move symbolized growing IAEA difficulty in tracking Iran's nuclear activity. Last year Iran canceled voluntary compliance with snap inspections at sites not declared to be nuclear. In January it banned 38 inspectors from Western states, handicapping the 200-member contingent assigned to work in Iran.

Kadee · Apr 1, 2007

I wonder what the chances are of, the UK hostages being held in this location?

http://www2.irna.com/en/news/view/line-17/0704015052130931.htm

Tehran, April 1, IRNA
Iran-Khorramshahr-President
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday wound up a two-day visit to the southwestern province of Khuzestan and left its port city, Khorramshahr, for Tehran.

The president traveled to Khuzestan to inspect the province's war-stricken areas and to renew his allegiance to the lofty goals of martyrs of the Islamic Republic. The province was a center of resistance during the eight-year Iraqi-imposed war.

During his visit, Ahmadinejad inspected Fat'holmobin, Dehlaviyeh, Dokouheh, Dezfoul, Shalamcheh and Mishdagh, main operational bases during the war.

Government spokesman and Justice Minister Gholam-Hossein Elham and head of the Tehran City Council, Mehdi Chamran, accompanied the the president in his visit of the war-stricken region.

Kadee · Apr 1, 2007

http://www2.irna.com/en/news/view/line-17/0703290870190635.htm

Iranian cabinet ratification officially communicated to Elbaradei Vienna, March 29, IRNA
Iran-IAEA-Agreement
an Iranian cabinet ratification on the Safeguards Agreement of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was officially communicated to IAEA Director General Mohamed Elbaradei on Thursday.

In an interview with IRNA, Iran's envoy to the agency confirmed that he had submitted the letter to Elbaradei today.

After issuance of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1747 to impose new sanctions on Iran, the Iranian cabinet in a ratification restricted cooperation between Iran's Atomic Energy Organization and IAEA.

According to the ratification, a safeguard agreement with IAEA to expand cooperation with the agency, approved on February 25 2003, was suspended.

01/04: "The Winds of War" - Ahmadinejad, Bolton Both Rip Brits Over Standoff

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