Iran — of the day

April 3rd, 2007

It’s an odd little news cycle, this week — there’s a lot of bluster and allegation and in-fighting … blah blah blah … and not a lot of actual news. It’s a War of Words at the moment … which is, I suppose, infinitely better than any new War of Bodies — and that should be our focus of moment: affirmations of peace and cooperation and restoration in this Holy Week … lest we end up, again, April Fools. And that said, let’s look at the Iranian situation … and Bushie blundering to make is dire.

Jude

Washington hurting British bid to free crew
Tough words from U.S. highlight rift between White House and Downing Street
DOUG SAUNDERS, Globe and Mail
4/2/07

LONDON — The Iranian prisoner crisis revealed a widening schism between Britain and the United States Sunday as U.S. leaders called for tough action and British officials confirmed that they are trying to free their 15 imprisoned sailors by quietly reaching a compromise with Tehran.

British officials believe that Iran is not seeking a prisoner exchange or other further bounty in exchange for the sailors, who have been imprisoned for 10 days, and they are hoping the crisis can be resolved peacefully in the next few days.

As two more British sailors were shown Sunday night in another Iranian broadcast reading confessions and a small crowd of radical students in Tehran threw rocks and firecrackers at the British embassy there, British diplomats exchanged letters with the Iranian foreign ministry seeking a conciliatory end to the standoff.

Officials in London said that they believe their “confidence-building” operations, in which they offer to guarantee the Iranian government that British vessels will not stray into Iranian waters, offer the best hope of winning the freedom of the sailors and marines who have been in custody since they were seized by Iran’s Republican Guards on March 23. Iran says the sailors had strayed into Iranian waters. Britain says they remained in Iraqi waters, where they are allowed to operate in support of the war in Iraq.

“We are anxious that this matter be resolved as quickly as possible, and that it be resolved by diplomatic means, and we are bending every single effort to that. … We are in direct bilateral communication with the Iranians,” British Defence Minister Des Browne told reporters Sunday.

But Britain’s delicate diplomatic efforts were set back by U.S. President George W. Bush, who made a statement Saturday in which he characterized the imprisoned sailors as “hostages” — a phrase that Britain has been carefully avoiding to prevent the crisis from becoming a broader political or military conflict.

“The British hostages issue is a serious issue because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi waters, and it’s inexcusable behaviour,” Mr. Bush said in response to a reporter’s question during a press conference at the Camp David retreat.

He had reportedly promised not to raise the issue of the sailors, as British officials worry that the entry of the United States into this crisis could cause it to escalate into an irreconcilable confrontation.

Other U.S. officials have been even less amenable to the British approach. John Bolton, who until recently was Mr. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations, has appeared on British TV describing the British approach as “pathetic.”

Mr. Bush stressed that the United States would not turn over Iranian officials it had arrested in Iraq earlier this year on accusations that they were supporting insurgents, saying he supported Prime Minister Tony Blair’s view that “there were no quid pro quos. The Iranians must give back the hostages. They’re innocent, they were doing nothing, and they were summarily plucked out of water.”

But British officials say that a prisoner exchange has never been offered or suggested by Iran, and that Mr. Bush’s words could cause harm by putting the Iranians in a position from which they cannot back down if it becomes a major confrontation with their long-time enemy, the United States.

British negotiators believe the Iranians have already won all the rewards they have been seeking — mainly by using several of the hostages for propaganda purposes by broadcasting videos and letters in which they admit, possibly under duress, to trespassing on Iranian territory and demand that their government withdraw from Iraq.

British officials are said to believe that a hard-line group of Republican Guards has been controlling the prisoners, possibly with the backing of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but that the imprisonment lacks a political goal beyond the humiliation of Britain and its allies, and that more moderate parties, including Iran’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are not interested in a prolonged standoff, like the 444-day 1979 U.S. hostage crisis, that would isolate Iran.

Ayatollah Khamenei has not yet spoken publicly on this crisis, and there are some observers in Iran who believe that he has abandoned his support for Mr. Ahmadinejad over the way the President’s radically anti-Western gestures have distanced Iran from the rest of the world and damaged the economy.

Iran’s government is deeply divided into factions and parties, which often control their own police, justice systems and wings in the major prisons. British officials and many Iranian observers believe that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s more radical supporters are unlikely to prevail in this dispute since it offers few opportunities for gain. Iranian media have reported that moderate factions, including some leaders in the Republican Guards, have advocated the release of the prisoners.

Many observers noted that most Iranians have been on their country’s New Year’s vacation since the crisis began. Newspapers have not been publishing there, more moderate Foreign Ministry officials have not been in their offices, and the Revolutionary Guards have had a monopoly on the issue in a holiday period that will end tomorrow.

“It’s the Supreme Leader who has to make the ultimate decision,” said Mehrdad Khansari of London’s Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies. “He has allowed each faction to air its grievances, present its positions. … He has heard from the moderates — I mean, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards has expressed a desire for releasing these people — whereas other groups within the Revolutionary Guards have expressed a harder position.”

Iran opens way for diplomatic deal to free captive sailors
MICHAEL SETTLE, Herald UK
April 02 2007

IRAN’S chief international negotiator signalled last night that the row over the 15 captured British sailors and marines could be resolved through diplomacy.

Ali Larijani said there was no need to put the crew on trial and Iran’s priority was “to solve the problem through proper diplomatic channels”. His comments came as officials in the US said they were asking Iran for information about a former FBI agent who is believed to have gone missing several weeks ago.

The agent, who was on private business in Iran, was reported missing by his family and employer.

advertisementHis disappearance came after tentative signs of a breakthrough emerged in the diplomatic crisis between Britain and Iran.

Earlier, Iran said it had noted positive changes in Britain’s attitude and promised not to show fresh pictures of the 15 sailors.

Senior Whitehall sources told The Herald that, following an exchange of messages, the government was waiting for a statement by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, today at the end of the country’s prolonged New Year public holiday.

Tony Blair’s spokesman said: “There is a lot going on behind the scenes but it is better I don’t go into that in any way. At this stage, it is best to wait and see what the Iranian response is.”

He did not contradict the suggestion that the 15 sailors were hostages and was emphatic that Britain was not engaged in negotiations. He said: “Iran knows our position. They know stage-managed TV appearances are not going to affect our position. They know we have strong international support.”

When it was suggested the government, 11 days into the crisis, still did not know where the sailors were held, the spokesman replied: “I’m not getting into that,” adding: “What happens next depends on the Iranian response.”

Earlier, Iranian state television showed more pictures of the captured sailors, standing in front of maps, supposedly confessing their transgression into Iranian waters - an assertion flatly denied by the British government. The footage cut quickly between several of the men, who were not heard to say anything.

State-run radio reported that further personal confessions by the servicemen were not being broadcast because of “positive changes” in Britain’s stance. However, Iran claimed all 15 UK service personnel had confessed to illegally entering the country’s waters. But last night Iran seemed to have moderated its tone. Mr Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who had indicated last week that the case may “face a legal path”, was more conciliatory.

He said that Iran wanted a quick conclusion to the crisis. “We are not interested in letting this issue get further complicated,” he said. “We definitely believe that this issue can be resolved and there is no need for any trial.”

Mr Larijani, the top negotiator in all of Iran’s foreign dealings, said in Tehran that there should be a delegation to clarify if the 15 had strayed into Iranian waters. He also called for all those involved to stop using “the language of force”.

He said: “There is a difference of view between the UK government and the Iranian government and this issue should be resolved bilaterally.

“Definitely our priority would not be trial,” he added, unless “the UK government would be insisting on not solving the problem through diplomatic channels”.

For Britain’s part, “a guarantee must be given that such a violation will not be repeated”, he added.

Larijani also called for a delegation “to review the case, to clarify the case, first of all - to clarify whether they have been in our territorial waters at all”. He did not say who might be in such a delegation.

He added: “Through sensationalism, you cannot solve the problem.”

The 15 British personnel were captured by Iranian forces in the Persian Gulf on March 23. Iran says that they were in its territorial waters but Britain insists they were in Iraqi territory.

Meanwhile, the US State Department said it was sending an official inquiry to Iran over the missing former FBI agent via Swiss diplomats, who act as a go-between with Tehran because the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

FBI spokesman Rich Kolko said the agent retired nearly a decade ago. He said the missing man was last seen in Iran early last month and was not working for the FBI.

“There are no indications that this matter should be viewed other than as a missing person case,” Mr Kolko said.

He also said the former agent had worked on traditional criminal issues, such as organised crime cases, not international terrorism or intelligence work that could have taken him to Iran.

The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
Exclusive Report: How a bid to kidnap Iranian security officials sparked a diplomatic crisis
Patrick Cockburn, Independent UK
03 April 2007

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. The two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials.

The two men were in Kurdistan on an official visit during which they met the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, and later saw Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), at his mountain headquarters overlooking Arbil.

“They were after Jafari,” Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, told The Independent. He confirmed that the Iranian office had been established in Arbil for a long time and was often visited by Kurds obtaining documents to visit Iran. “The Americans thought he [Jafari] was there,” said Mr Hussein.

Mr Jafari was accompanied by a second, high-ranking Iranian official. “His name was General Minojahar Frouzanda, the head of intelligence of the Pasdaran [Iranian Revolutionary Guard],” said Sadi Ahmed Pire, now head of the Diwan (office) of President Talabani in Baghdad. Mr Pire previously lived in Arbil, where he headed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mr Talabani’s political party.

The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Iran believes that Mr Jafari and Mr Frouzanda were targeted by the Americans. Mr Jafari confirmed to the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he was in Arbil at the time of the raid.

In a little-noticed remark, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, told IRNA: “The objective of the Americans was to arrest Iranian security officials who had gone to Iraq to develop co-operation in the area of bilateral security.”

US officials in Washington subsequently claimed that the five Iranian officials they did seize, who have not been seen since, were “suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces”. This explanation never made much sense. No member of the US-led coalition has been killed in Arbil and there were no Sunni-Arab insurgents or Shia militiamen there.

The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President George Bush making an address to the nation on 10 January in which he claimed: “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.” He identified Iran and Syria as America’s main enemies in Iraq though the four-year-old guerrilla war against US-led forces is being conducted by the strongly anti-Iranian Sunni-Arab community. Mr Jafari himself later complained about US allegations. “So far has there been a single Iranian among suicide bombers in the war-battered country?” he asked. “Almost all who involved in the suicide attacks are from Arab countries.”

It seemed strange at the time that the US would so openly flout the authority of the Iraqi President and the head of the KRG simply to raid an Iranian liaison office that was being upgraded to a consulate, though this had not yet happened on 11 January. US officials, who must have been privy to the White House’s new anti-Iranian stance, may have thought that bruised Kurdish pride was a small price to pay if the US could grab such senior Iranian officials.

For more than a year the US and its allies have been trying to put pressure on Iran. Security sources in Iraqi Kurdistan have long said that the US is backing Iranian Kurdish guerrillas in Iran. The US is also reportedly backing Sunni Arab dissidents in Khuzestan in southern Iran who are opposed to the government in Tehran. On 4 February soldiers from the Iraqi army 36th Commando battalion in Baghdad, considered to be under American control, seized Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat.

The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades.

The targeted generals

* MOHAMMED JAFARI
Powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, responsible for internal security. He has accused the United States of seeking to “hold Iran responsible for insecurity in Iraq… and [US] failure in the country.”

* GENERAL MINOJAHAR FROUZANDA
Chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the military unit which maintains its own intelligence service separate from the state, as well as a parallel army, navy and air force

[snipped from] Rabid Hobgoblins
digby, Hullabaloo
Monday, April 02, 2007

Update: And then there’s this. It seems the US has screwed up another bit of spook work, and this time it’s led to the taking of British sailors as hostages. I have to admit that I was one who thought this speech was one of his all time wierdest, and that’s saying something:

US officials in Washington subsequently claimed that the five Iranian officials they did seize, who have not been seen since, were “suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces”. This explanation never made much sense. No member of the US-led coalition has been killed in Arbil and there were no Sunni-Arab insurgents or Shia militiamen there.

The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President George Bush making an address to the nation on 10 January in which he claimed: “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.” He identified Iran and Syria as America’s main enemies in Iraq though the four-year-old guerrilla war against US-led forces is being conducted by the strongly anti-Iranian Sunni-Arab community. Mr Jafari himself later complained about US allegations. “So far has there been a single Iranian among suicide bombers in the war-battered country?” he asked. “Almost all who involved in the suicide attacks are from Arab countries.”

It seemed strange at the time that the US would so openly flout the authority of the Iraqi President and the head of the KRG simply to raid an Iranian liaison office that was being upgraded to a consulate, though this had not yet happened on 11 January. US officials, who must have been privy to the White House’s new anti-Iranian stance, may have thought that bruised Kurdish pride was a small price to pay if the US could grab such senior Iranian officials.

What an excellent idea. I wonder which secret prison they’ve stashed them in?

Has there ever been a president in history that you so wished didn’t have access to military power? Not only is his every policy exceedingly stupid, he seems to mess them up in ways that make that bad idea seem good by comparison to what he actually does. I’ve never seen anything like it.

ABC News pushing Bogus Iran nuke story
Evan Derkacz, Alternet
April 2, 2007

Guest post from Sean-Paul Kelley

How Did Such a patently bogus article get through the editors at ABC news?

Seriously, the article has one source, and one source alone that says an Iranian nuke could be possible by 2009. And what does this one source base this completely unrealistic claim on? 1,000 new centrifuges Iran is installing at Natanz, which the articles notes, are not even operational.

As David Albright says, “If they continue at this pace, and they get the centrifuges to work and actually enrich uranium on a distinct basis,” said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, “then you’re looking at them having, potentially having enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 2009.”

But if you go back and look at the record and see how long it has taken for Iran to get where they are you realize what garbage this article is. We’ve been expecting Iran to install 3,000 centrifuges for some time. And now that they’ve installed 1/3 that number we’re going to blow it up into a crisis? First it was 3,000 centrifuges that make up the red line, now it’s 1,000?

Please. This is nothing more than disinformation, a well timed leak doled out to Ross and ABC. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Russian intelligence leak: U.S. to strike Iran this Friday
Joshua Holland, Alternet
April 3, 2007

Joshua Holland: Grain of salt required.

On Sunday, the Jerusalem Post reported that the U.S. may attack Iran as soon as Friday.

The United States will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps “from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on April 6,” according to reports in the Russian media on Saturday.

According to Russian intelligence sources, the reports said, the US has devised a plan to attack several targets in Iran, and an assault could be carried out by launching missiles from fighter jets and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Russia’s RIA Novosti carried the original story. According to the report, “American commanders will be ready to carry out the attack in early April, but it will be up to the country’s political leadership to decide if and when to attack.”

Two weeks earlier, the paper ran a French-language report that predicted the “point of no return” had been reached in late February, when the IAEA was unable to confirm Iran’s claim that its nuclear program was solely a civilian endeavor.

But don’t buy April 6 in the office when-are-we-going-to-blow-up-Iran’s-shit pool just yet. Because the media leak — true leaks, false leaks, whatever — is an integral tool in multi-party negotiations, and there’s a lot of diplomacy going on behind the scenes between Russia, the EU, the U.S., the UN and Iran.

Read the accounts of veterans of multi-party negotiations — like Richard Holbrooke’s case study of the lead-up to the Dayton Accords — and it’s clear that leaks in that context are often designed not to inform the public, but to send a message to one party or another. You leak stories that might shame one side, or that might lead one side to believe the other will get credit for a breakthrough, or that send a message that time is running out. James Baker, writing about getting the Israelis and the Palestinians to the table in Madrid, described how he’d leak stories that would “lay the dead cat” on one or another party’s doorstep if the negotiations fell apart in the early stages.

And, of course, those moves are held very close to the vest; if it’s a leak designed to send a message rather than to inform, we won’t know that until those on the inside start retiring and/or writing books.

Personally, I don’t think the sale’s pitch for an attack against Iran has been sufficient thus far — the drums haven’t been beaten hard enough on the domestic front — to expect anything to happen in the very near future.

<British Gunboats in an Area Out of Iraqi Control”
A Bogus Hostage Crisis
GARY LEUPP, CounterPunch
April 2, 2007

On March 31 the President of the United States made a statement pertaining to the 15 British sailors and marines unfortunately detailed in Iran: “The Iranians must give back the hostages. They’re innocent. The Iranians took these people out of Iraqi waters. It’s inexcusable behavior.”

But since the American people don’t trust George W. Bush, let’s seek a second opinion. A credible authoritative one.

Let’s ask the top Iraqi military officer in charge of guarding the Shatt al-Iraq waterway where the Brits were actually apprehended. This man is working for the U.S.-backed regime and probably not inclined to make up stuff to embarrass the U.S. president, who gives him his paycheck. So his opinion should be relevant here. Let’s ask Brigadier General Hakim Jassim.

The good general told Associated Press the day after the March 23 incident: “We were informed [about the British troops' arrests] by Iraqi fishermen, after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control. We don’t know why they were there.’”

Gen. Jassim—again, working for the Anglo-American occupiers of his nation—does not sound outraged by the Iranian action. And notice how the Iraqi client-state apparatus, which for some time has been telling Washington, “Don’t drag us into your anti-Iranian projects” is not calling the detained Britons “hostages.” It has indeed (with much of the world) protested the illegal U.S. detention of Iranian diplomats in Irbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan.

(That particular instance of “inexcusable behavior” hasn’t gotten much press in this country. Nor has the subdued Iranian response to the provocation.)

Gen. Jassim would agree that the Shatt al-Arab river where the Brits were seized has no clearly marked boundary and has been the focus of past quarrels between Iraq and Iran. (Commodore Peter Lockwood of the Royal Australian Navy, commanding the Coalition task force in the waterway last October, said as much: “No maritime border has been agreed upon by the countries.”) Craig Murray, once head of the British Foreign Office’s maritime section, writes that Prime Minister Blair “is being fatuous” in stating that he is “utterly certain” the British ship was seized within Iraqi territorial limits. Murray, best known as the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan (who exposed British complicity in torture in that country) writes as follows:

“There is no agreed boundary in the Northern Gulf, either between Iran and Iraq or between Iraq and Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq border has been agreed inside the Shatt al-Arab waterway, because there it is also the land border. But that agreement does not extend beyond the low tide line of the coast.

“Even that very limited agreement is arguably no longer in force. Since it was reached in 1975, a war has been fought over it, and ten-year reviews— necessary because waters and sandbanks in this region move about dramatically—have never been carried out.”

Gen. Jassim might privately agree that this border issue in any case is the business of Iraqis and Iranians—rather than British and American imperialists popping up in the region at no one’s invitation, on false pretexts, slaughtering people and expecting as they do so that the conquered locals will say “Thanks, boss!”

Bush is trying to depict the March 23 incident as a “hostage crisis,” stoking memories of the 1979-81 Iran Embassy episode. (Younger readers may need some reminding. After the overthrow of the U.S.-backed and universally despised Shah of Iran, in the most genuine mass-based revolutionary upheaval in the history of the modern Islamic world, the Carter administration allowed the Shah refuge in the U.S. and refused to extradite him to Iran to stand trial. This prompted Iranian students to seize the U.S. embassy and detain its personnel. Those seized were released as Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as Carter’s successor in January 1981. The incident unleashed much bigotry, hatred and war fever in this country, to the delight of those wishing to shock the U.S. public out of the “Vietnam Syndrome.”)

Just as the seizure of the Americans in 1979 needs to be understood in perspective, the detention of these Britons has to be understood in the context of the crime of the Iraq War itself. Whatever the actual coordinates of the vessel boarded and seized by the Iranians, why are the British policing the Shatt al-Arab waterway at all?

They’re there fighting an imperialist war. That war is going badly. The neocons still in charge in Washington (and building bridges to the resurgent Democrats led by opportunists competing to convey deference to AIPAC and embrace a hard line against Iran) wish to expand it to include the Islamic Republic. They work overtime organizing that project. That much should be obvious to anybody paying attention.

“How about spinning this as a hostage crisis?” some fine neocon might have said the other day, around the water cooler in the hallway outside the Pentagon’s Iran Directorate offices.

“That could mobilize public opinion. Victims in custody on TV, making ‘forced propaganda statements’ in violation of the Geneva Conventions and stuff like that.”

“Yeah that could help. We have the moral high ground and all that. Good concept.”

“Good to have Brits seized. If it were Americans, there’ll be all these charges that it was contrived, to justify war, yadayada”

“Right, seems nastier if it’s them, not so connected with Bush, because he’sy’know”

“I know. People won’t link this to him, or to us. They’ll think, ‘There they go again, taking British hostages this time.’”

“Nice white people just there doing their job, trying to help us out, not trying to provoke anybody.”

“Mm hm. So our approach will be: Iran’s killing our troops with the IEDs”

“Building nuclear weapons”

“in order to exterminate the Jews”

“Yes, Holocaust. Works very well. And Islamist Iran’s collaborating with Islamist al-Qaeda—”

“..facilitating Taliban escape through Iran, or something like that.”

“Might work. But I’d say, for talking points: IEDs—Iran killing our boys; nukes; holocaust plans; support for terrorism—Hamas and Hizbollah; and this British hostages thing.”

“Hostages. Nice to have their faces there on screen. So obviously in the enemy’s control.”

“Makes you angry. Nice English people in the custody of evil. This is beautiful.”

“Yeah. Brits making statements, under obvious duress.”

“That lady having to wear a headscarf and being told she’d be freed, and then she wasn’t.”

“It’s torture.”

“Torture. Yes. We can use the torture thing I mean, that’s perfect. Tortured young hostage mother, in Iran, under a Muslim head scarf”

“Islamist headscarf, forced on her by the terrorists. Good concept, good plan. Let’s see what the VP thinks!”

“Yup, he’s the man.”
* * *

This conversation is of course imaginary, But I do believe this is how the warmongers reason. The key issue on their minds is: “How can we cause the American people to agree (or at least not disagree to the extent that they might impede our agenda) to an aggressive campaign to topple the Iranian government?” And “How can we get this heroic deed done before our boy is out of power or this administration crippled by political scandal?”

Russian intelligence predicting a U.S. strike against Iran April 6. This is a nation that has not attacked a neighbor in modern times, has sought improved relations with Europe and the U.S. and enjoys good relations with Russia, China and Japan.

Iran did not provoke the present situation. It did not ask to be surrounded by U.S. forces in occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, or in the Persian Gulf. It did not ask to be included in Bush’s bizarre “Axis of Evil” concept, a statement of hostility as categorical as diplomatic discourse allows. But Bush wants regime change in Iran. He wants revenge for the overthrow of the U.S.-backed Shah in 1979. One should see the British “hostage” situation, and interpret Bush’s rhetoric about guilt and innocence in that light.
* * *

April 6, by the way, is Good Friday, the day Christians believe Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world. Muslims disagree. Jesus (Isa), according to the Qur’an (4:157) was not killed. Rather, the Jews crucified somebody else, with his “likeness,” in his place and then lied about it while God raised Jesus up directly into Heaven. Two different versions of the tale of Jesus’ unusual departure from this world, equally implausible from my point of view but embraced by half of humankind. Beautiful harmless comforting myths perhaps. But among their believers a minority believes with absolute conviction, and these can be dangerous, especially if they wield political and military power and think that the God who sent Jesus wants them to smite his enemies.

Especially if they think that a great war centering around Jerusalem (foretold in the Book of Revelation) must precede the Second Coming of Christ.

Especially if they believe that, as that New Testament book indicates, “kings of the East” (Revelation 16:12) will attack the Euphrates region (modern Iraq) before the apocalyptic battles take place in Armageddon and Jerusalem.

Iran borders Iraq to the east. Military leaders predict that any U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran will produce Iranian action against the U.S. in Iraq’s Shiite south.

There are religious fundamentalists in Iran to be sure, fanatics who can be dangerous. But again: Iran has not attacked another country in its modern history. Meanwhile there are religious nuts at the highest levels of power in Washington, capital of a country which, as the (devout Christian) Rev. Martin Luther King once put it, is “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

I will not prophesy that the evil, dangerous persons (including fundamentalist Christians and secular Jewish neocons) responsible for the war on Iraq will purvey a Good Friday assault on Iran. But I won’t be surprised if it happens, with apocalyptic ramifications. Perhaps only in the aftermath will redeeming regime change come here.

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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