Category Archives: Iran

An Exchange Neoconservatives Didn’t Want To See

Neoconservatives can relax. It would appear that America’s notoriously stupid news media reported in haste and before verification that Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s new leader, and a member of his cabinet, were sending out happy Rosh Hashana tweets to Iran’s Jewish community.

“As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah,” Hassan Rouhani was purported to have tweeted, with the new president’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, following with a succinct “Happy Rosh Hashanah” tweet.

CNN Jessica Yellin erupted almost as she does when Obama looks her way or says her name during a press “briefing.”

International Business Times provided a correction it got from Iran’s official FARS News Agency:

“Mr. Rouhani does not have a tweeter account,” Presidential Advisor Mohammad Reza Sadeq told FNA on Thursday.

The western media claimed late Wednesday that the Iranian president has tweeted a felicitation message to the worldwide Jewish community to congratulate them on the advent of the new Jewish year.

“As the sun is about to set here in Tehran, I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah,” the western and Israeli media quoted Rouhani as saying in his tweet. The message was posted with a picture of a man in a yarmulke bowing his head in prayer.

In response, Sadeq explained that “proponents and fans of Mr. Rouhani were active in the cyberspace during the recent presidential election in Iran and used many web pages with titles similar or close to Mr. Rouhani (‘s name) to run their activities”.

“Of course, such activities are fully normal during election campaigns, and some of them might continue their operation even after the election,” the advisor continued.

“Yet,” he emphasized, “any official news on him (the president) is released by the presidential office.

Neoconservatives will have to conserve their energies until the next time they will be called upon to deflect any friendly gesture Iranian leaders may attempt.

Hands-Off Syria

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Neoconservatism

It’s not often that I agree with Barack Obama, but his hands-off Syria policy, if it is to be believed, is, I’m sorry to say, the right one. It is unlikely, unfortunately, that the US is uninvolved in some covert operation in Syria. One “international affairs and defense analyst” told RT that “since 2012, if not earlier, weapons have been supplied to the rebels … a covert supply of weapons, of course – through Turkey and with the assistance of Saudi, Qatari and Turkish intelligence services.”

As for Israel’s strafing of Syria, what triggered this Israeli strike? The “crisis in 2006 was triggered by cross-border raids on Israel by Hamas in Gaza and by Hezbollah in Lebanon.” Journalist and Middle East expert Ali Rizk is searching for provocation (as we libertarians ought to):

Has there been any military action, has Israel been attacked by any side, whether it be Hezbollah or Syria? Has Israel been attacked by any side whatsoever? Israel has not been attacked.
So we hear this talk about game-changing weapons. But that doesn’t give the right or justification for such escalation…I have to emphasize, the clear message if anyone had any doubts I think now it has become clear: Israel wants Bashar Assad to fall. That is Israel’s choice. Netanyahu himself has said time and again: “Syria is the linchpin between Iran and Hezbollah.”

BBC News’ Jonathan Marcus thinks he’s found justification. Neoconservatives will concur. “According to US intelligence sources,” he reports, “the target of the first of these latest Israeli attacks [inside Syria] which took place overnight on Thursday was a shipment of ground-to-ground missiles at a warehouse at Damascus airport.”

…these latest air strikes underscore Israel’s equal worry about sophisticated conventional weapons being passed to Hezbollah. This includes sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, anti-shipping missiles, or accurate long-range ground-to-ground missiles. Such concerns are longstanding. … The missiles, which had been shipped from Iran, according to the sources, were Fateh-110s – a mobile, highly accurate solid-fuelled missiles with the capability of hitting Israel’s main population centres, like Tel Aviv, from southern Lebanon.
…What’s not clear, American officials admit, is exactly who the missiles were intended for – the Syrian army or Hezbollah. But the airport warehouse is said to have been under the control of personnel from Hezbollah and Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force.

UPDATED: Iran, Susan Rice And The Tit-For-Tat Gangs

Democrats, Iran, Middle East, Republicans, Trade, UN

The Stupid Party and its followers have been maligning “United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice for an investment portfolio that “includes investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in several energy companies known for doing business with Iran, according to financial disclosure forms.”

The Evil Party and its devotees have responded by pointing “to ]John] McCain’s financial disclosures, which reveal $1,000 to $15,000 in the JP Morgan International Value Fund. What’s the second-biggest holding in that fund? Why, Royal Dutch Shell, of course. McCain has another $1,000 to $15,000 stake in the JPMorgan Emerging Markets Equity Fund, which invests in China’s CNOOC, which has contracts to ‘develop some of Iran’s biggest oil and gas fields.'”

Two observations: The arguments the Democratic and Republican factions advance exist on a continuum of cretinism. There is no qualitative difference between them. Both Republicans and Democrats agree that Iranians should be crippled economically, when the truth is that Iran should be bartered with, not boycotted. Trade, not democracy, is the best antidote to Iran’s belligerence. The more economically intertwined countries become, the less likely they are to go to war.

The second and secondary point is that the woman (Susan Rice) probably has no idea how all her money is invested. Most people do not examine each and every investment fund they have in their portfolio.

UPDATED (Dec. 2): Rice may, however, be accused of hypocrisy and worse for enforcing sanctions, yet investing in Iran.

A-Jad Has A Question

China, Debt, Federal Reserve Bank, Iran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (or A-Jad) has a question for the presidential candidates, if Candy Crawly (or the next bobblehead) will allow it. Asks A-Jad:

“How long can a government with a $16 trillion foreign debt remain a world power?”… “The Americans have injected their paper wealth into the world economy and today the aftermaths and negative effects of their pseudo-wealth have plagued them.”
…“An empire, or a government, remains in power so long as the people under its power support it, but today the Americans have acted in a way that the world nations do not like them at all, and therefore, their international legitimacy is annihilated.”

More important than “international legitimacy,” for which Obama has not stopped striving: Both candidates have told the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds to go to hell. Where will the US be without America’s largest creditor, China?