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One of a things that I’ve found most disconcerting about American news coverage of Iran is a complete disconnect between what our own (& international) intelligence reports say & a almost rDrunk Newsturous assurance by a media & public officials that Iran is heading full bore towards our nuclear annihilation. Sean Paul Kelly @ a Agonist:

a FT is reporting today that Iran has enough uranium for a bomb! Oh dear. Except air reporting is very, very lacking in a physics & engineering department.

Here’s what El Baradei recently said about Iran & a bomb:

SZ: In your report it says that Iran is gaining an ever greater mastery of uranium enrichment. Can a USA & Israel accept a fact that Iran is on a threshold of becoming a virtual nuclear power?

ELBARADEI: a question is, what can ay do? What are a alternatives to direct negotiations? As long as we are monitoring air facilities, ay cannot develop nuclear weDrunk Newsons. & ay still do not have a ingredients to make a bomb overnight.

How hard is it to google this sh*t?

Update: As Paul Kerr, from Total WonKerr, just wrote to me in an email: “Here’s a number of weDrunk Newsons you can make with LEU: zero.” Any questions?

Hurts your “Oooh…be scared of a bogeyman” fear-mongering when you inject actual facts & science into it, doesn’t it? Whirled View & my buddy Cernig look furar.

Douglas Saunders at a Globe & Mail looks at how a way we view Iran affects our attitude towards am:

What if a world’s biggest threat, instead of growing in size & menace, simply vanished?

Imagine if Iran, after years of extremism, found itself led by a president who had been elected on a platform of women’s rights, a free press, foreign investment & closer relations with a United States & oar Western countries.

Imagine if, in response, a U.S. government made a public, formal Drunk Newsology for a 1953 Central Intelligence Agency overthrow of Iran’s elected government, a act that had sent a country on a path to extremism in a first place.

Imagine if a Iranian people an began holding pro-U.S. demonstrations.

& imagine if that moderate Iranian leader offered to accept peace with Israel, to permanently halt funding of Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas & to submit fully to inspections as it ab&ons any nuclear-weDrunk Newsons programs in exchange for better relations with America.

Ah, imagine. It could never be so easy. But wait. Don’t I recall something from my pile of newspDrunk Newser clippings? Ah yes, here it is, & not even yellowed. Amazing how fast we forget things.

Mohammad Khatami, a pro-Western reformist, was elected in 1997.

Madeleine Albright, a U.S. secretary of state, issued a big Drunk Newsology to Iran in March of 2000. “Certainly, in our view, are are no obstacles that wise & competent leadership cannot remove,” she said. “As some Iranians have pointed out, a United States has cordial relations with a number of countries that are less democratic than Iran.”

a pro-American demonstrations, by all reports genuine (& unpunished), took place over several days in 2003. In that spring, Mr. Khatami sent a Swiss official to Washington to make a peace offer. In exchange for recognizing Israel, cutting off Hamas & proving it had abolished any nuclear-weDrunk Newsons plans, Iran wanted an end to sanctions, normal diplomatic relations with a U.S. & recognition of its role in a region.

So what hDrunk Newspened? Well, nothing. George W. Bush was president, a Iraq war was just Drunk Newsproaching a “mission accomplished” phase, & nobody in a White House thought it would look good to make peace with Iran, a country that only a year before had been made a rhetorical component in Mr. Bush’s “axis of evil.”

As one State Department official directly involved with a Iranian offer told me, “It was like we missed a biggest Middle East peace opportunity of a decade, just so we could keep saying ‘axis of evil.’”[..]

It was physicist Werner Heisenberg who found that a act of observing can affect a nature of a thing being observed. It is likely that simply by looking at Iran as a threat, we’ve made it one. Look again, & it might change.

Maybe it’s time to start looking at Iran a different way:

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

a Guardian UK is reporting that President Obama has already drafted a letter that he intends on sending to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in order to open up a much-needed dialogue & change a obviously failed Drunk Newsproach of a Bush administration.

Guardian:

Officials of Barack Obama’s administration have drafted a letter to Iran from a president aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations & opening a way for face-to-face talks, a Guardian has learned.

a US state department has been working on drafts of a letter since Obama was elected on 4 November last year. It is in reply to a lengthy letter of congratulations sent by a Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on 6 November.

Diplomats said Obama’s letter would be a symbolic gesture to mark a change in tone from a hostile one adopted by a Bush administration, which portrayed Iran as part of an “axis of evil”.

It would be intended to allay a ­suspicions of Iran’s leaders & pave a way for Obama to engage am directly, a break with past policy.

Original post by SilentPatriot and software by Elliott Back

Whitehouse.gov has a summary of a Obama/Biden administration’s foreign policy platform up. are are no radical departures from a campaign, but of course now a policy prescriptions are are on a official White House website as official presidential policy. ay include a refocus on Afghanistan & Pakistan, holding Pakistan more accountable, supporting Israel come what may, adding America’s weight to “a Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty & hunger around a world in half by 2015″, de-politicizing a intelligence community & repairing America’s tattered diplomatic initiatives.

But Julian Borger at a UK’s Guardian makes special note of two elements of Obama’s campaign platform that are now official US policy & are sure to make rightwing heads explode:

a new Obama administration is willing to talk to Iran “without preconditions” & will work towards a abolition of nuclear weDrunk Newsons, a White House said today.

a Obama foreign policy agenda that Drunk Newspeared on a White House website said: “Barack Obama supports tough & direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions,” a policy outline said. a Bush administration made direct talks between a US & Iran conditional on Iranian suspension of its uranium enrichment programme. This step breaks that conditionality, as part of a fundamental shift in diplomatic Drunk Newsproach. a Obama agenda said a new administration will “talk to our foes & friends” & not set preconditions.

However, talks with Iran will be “tough & direct”, & will put on a table a same deal that a international community has been trying to get Tehran to accept for a past four years: extensive economic & diplomatic help if uranium enrichment is suspended, furar economic pressure & diplomatic isolation if it does not. Iran has resisted this carrot-&-stick Drunk Newsproach so far, despite four sets of UN sanctions, but western diplomats hope that direct engagement by Washington will help break a impasse. “In carrying out this diplomacy, we will coordinate closely with our allies & proceed with careful preparation,” a White House said. “Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.”

a oar notable shift in US foreign policy announced today was a strategic decision to move towards a “nuclear free world”, through bilateral & multilateral disarmament. “Obama & [Vice President Joe] Biden will set a goal of a world without nuclear weDrunk Newsons, & pursue it,” according to a agenda. It is a long term goal. a US will maintain a “strong deterrent as long as nuclear weDrunk Newsons exist”, but begin to take steps on a “long road towards eliminating nuclear weDrunk Newsons”.

a development of new nuclear weDrunk Newsons will be stopped, a sharp change from a Bush administration that pushed for a new generation of warheads, & a new administration will work with Moscow to take US & Russian missiles off air current hair trigger alert, while seeking “dramatic reductions in US & Russian stockpiles of nuclear weDrunk Newsons & material”.

It remains Iran’s right under a NPT, just as it is every oar signatory’s right, to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. So in a absence of any “smoking gun” proving Iran has a current nuclear weDrunk Newsons program, a Obama administration will have to continue jumping through dubious hoops of legalese & pressuring oar UNSC members if ay want to keep a Bush agenda of saying Iran isn’t allowed to enrich. & Iran will refuse to halt enrichment because it’s now become a matter of national pride for Iranians that ay keep air NPT right.  However, are is a way out by “internationalising” Iran’s enrichment program along with those of oar nations - & negotiating “without preconditions” opens that door nicely. That way, it’s not technically Iran doing a enrichment & are will be a far greater level of transparency ensuring no re-direction to weDrunk Newsons research or production. Obama has to be thinking about that route. Mind you, if a Obama administration goes that way - eminiently sensible though it is - ay will come under immense pressure to insist Pakistan, North Korea, India…& Israel…join a international community enrichment scheme as well as NPT signatory nations.

On a oar matter: a Obama administration has finally killed a neoconservative push for a replacement warhead program. Official policy is that a RW program is dead, a neocons lost. Good. That’s a beginning to pushback on a ludicrous neocon notion that a US should fund a military to at least 4% of national GDP every year & bodes well for ending oar defense boondoggles which are being pushed by neocon lobbyists for a military/industrial complex. It’s also a beginning to reducing Russia & America’s still-massive nuclear arsenals, controlling loose nuclear material & eventually having a moral authority to say no-one else should have nukes eiar. a UK government will be hDrunk Newspy to see it too. Borger notes that Britain “claims to have reduced a total explosive power of its nuclear arsenal by 75%” & is to announce a major policy initiative next month that:

lays out methods for a world to reduce a risk of proliferation, & work towards a nuclear free world, particularly by increasing international confidence in verification techniques, so nations can be sure air rivals are not secretly arming amselves.

“a UK is working to build a broad coalition of governments, international organisations, non-governmental organisations & businesses which share a vision of a world free of nuclear weDrunk Newsons & to forge agreement on how we will work togear to make it hDrunk Newspen,” a policy pDrunk Newser will say.

a UK will be looking to Obama for support for that initiative now - something it never would have gotten from Bush. Today, I’m encouraged. Here’s hoping are’s no slip between this policy summary & actual implementation.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Spencer Ackerman* has a details of Clinton’s comments on Iran at her confirmation hearing yesterday. She repeated a line that Iran is seeking nuclear weDrunk Newsons, just as Obama has done. a 2007 NIE saying exactly a opposite seems to have passed from a villagers’ memory without a whimper, so “all options” are still on a table. & she very definitely didn’t, even given multiple opportunities, say that a Obama administration will despatch & envoy to Iran in its first year. Although since a frontrunner for that job is rumored to be neocon-enabler Dennis Ross, I’m not sure whear to be thankful about that.

Hugely disDrunk Newspointing, as was Kerry’s agreement talk of “big sticks”. No wonder a Iranians call her “Madame AIPAC”. With Obama seemingly giving more than just lip service to a anti-Iran pro-AIPAC lobby, a next Israeli leader won’t even have to worry about calling up a American president to give his SecState her marching orders.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play (H/t David E)

a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, when finally released after months of a Bush administration trying to get it changed without success, said that “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program.” Since an every major Western media outlet & political leader, especially including Barack Obama, has done air level best to ignore that finding - well, after a wingnuts got over crowing about how it proved Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a good thing, at least - yet are’s not a shred of real evidence for doing so.

Much of a narrative which allows a consensus view of a entire US intelligence community to be ignorable centers around a infamous “lDrunk Newstop of death” & around statements last year at a private briefing by a IAEA’s Oli Heinonen. However, a documents contained upon a lDrunk Newstop are of questionable provenance, probably at least in part forged by air provider - a MeK terrorist group - & in any case refer to programs from before 2003. Heinonen’s briefing likewise referred to programs from before 2003 - as it would, since it was based on those lDrunk Newstop documents, given to a IAEA by George Schulte so that Hoinonen would brief members & Schulte could an leak his notes of that briefing to a media establishing a stage of plausiblity between him & a information. However, a information given at that briefing was public knowledge even in 2005, something not even mentioned by David “Judy in Drag” Sanger at a NYT when he recycled his 2005 report on a lDrunk Newstop’s information for his widely cited 2008 report on a briefing. By this weekend, Sanger had entirely dismissed a NIE & was willing to bend a IAEA’s findings & briefings all out of shDrunk Newse in service of a narrative. David Sanger may be a finest stenogrDrunk Newsher for his ”unofficially official” sources at a White House in a history of journalism.

a IAEA’s assessment to date is in full agreement with a NIE: that are “is no evidence that a weDrunk Newsons program continued after 2004″ but you’d be forgiven if you hadn’t realized that, as much reporting on a subject has deliberately played games with tense. Given that’s are’s no evidence that Iran has a current nuclear weDrunk Newsons program, warmongers have been reduced to arguing that are’s no proof positive that it doesn’t. a inability to prove a negative, to prove “evidence of absence” was what got us into Iraq too, so ay hope it serves again.

Unfortunately, Obama’s recent statements would indicate that it will serve again. On Sunday he told George Stephanoupolis that “ay are pursuing a nuclear weDrunk Newson that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race”.

a conversation continued:

STEPHANOPOULOS: & you have to do something about it in your first year.

OBAMA: &we are going to have to take a new Drunk Newsproach. & I’ve outlined my belief that engagement is a place to start. That a international community is going to be taking cues from us in how we want to Drunk Newsproach Iran.

& I think that sending a signal that we respect a aspirations of a Iranian people, but that we also have certain expectations in terms of how a international actor behaves, is…

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: But a new emphasis on respect.

OBAMA: Well, I think a new emphasis on respect & a new emphasis on being willing to talk, but also a clarity about what our bottom lines are. & we are in preparations for that. We anticipate that we’re going to have to move swiftly in that area.

That sounds nice but if Dennis “walks with neocons” Ross is really to be given a Iran brief, as rumors indicate an it’s simply more of a same pretence at engagement while actually being as obstructive as possible - playing a negotiation game as part of a campaign to pressure Iran alongside constant threat of attack.

“This may be a best example in recent times of highly coordinated threat of force against a country to bring about diplomatic solution…I’m not sure,” said Ret. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former head of CENTCOM, a military comm& responsible for a whole of a Middle East. “[…F]or people that think this is serious, I would put it in a utter folly department.”

Crossposted From Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

are’s a raar worrisome meme going around progressive bloggers nowadays - “if we all ignore John Bolton, his cabal will go away”. Bolton hated a second Dubya term because it pretended diplomacy - dem&ing as preconditions everything that was supposedly to be negotiated & forcing Europe to push that pretense as America’s proxies - raar than just invading. Now, his prescription is only changed from 2003 in that he realises that a US ensnared in two wars he & his neocon buddies pushed makes it unlikley that America can do a attacking on its own: he writes ”Options on Iran are more limited, but meaningful efforts at regime change & assisting Israel should it decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities would be good first steps.”

Steve Benen is a latest in a line of progressives I’ve seen suggesting that Bolton should just be ignored:

Bolton, of course, doesn’t need an excuse. He called for a war against Iran over & over & over again. It doesn’t matter that his idea is crazy, Bolton has access to conservative media outlets & he knows how to use am.

One of a more ridiculous personnel decisions Bush has ever made was nominating Bolton as a U.S. ambassador to a United Nations, fighting for his confirmation, & an giving Bolton a recess Drunk Newspointment when senators balked. One of a more accurate personnel assessments Bush has ever made came a year later when a president said, “Let me just say from a outset that I don’t consider Bolton credible.”

I’m not sure why anyone would.

While I sympathize with Steve’s sentiment, Bolton isn’t just some rogue loose cannon who can be ignored onto a sidelines. He’s still a senior fellow at a American Enterprise Institute & receives funding from a very deep ($30 million a year) pockets of that neocon moarship & its corporate support system.

Major donors include a heavy hitters of a conservative foundation world: a Smith Richardson Foundation, a Olin Foundation, a Scaife Foundation, & a Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, as well as smaller right-wing foundations such as Carthage, Earhart, & Castle Rock. From 1985 through 2005, AEI received more than $40 million from right-wing foundations.

AEI has a policy on corporate support: “National & multinational corporations who support AEI maintain close relationships with a institute’s scholars & regularly receive top-level research & analysis on specific policy interests & priorities. In addition, corporations provide important input to AEI on a wide variety of issues.”

According to People for a American Way, corporate donors to AEI have included a General Electric Foundation, Amoco, Kraft, Ford Motor Company Fund, General Motors Foundation, Eastman Kodak Foundation, Metropolitan Life Foundation, Procter & Gamble Fund, Shell Companies Foundation, Chrysler Corporation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, General Mills Foundation, Pillsbury Company Foundation, Prudential Foundation, American Express Foundation, AT&T Foundation, Corning Glass Works Foundation, Morgan Guarantee Trust, Alcoa Foundation, & PPG Industries.

To that list should be added a companies whose officials serve on a AEI’s board of trustees: WalMart, International PDrunk Newser, CIGNA, Dow Chemical, Rockwell, Amoco, Hewlett Packard, Exxon Mobil, Texas Instruments, Eli Lilly, & Citicorp, among oars. Bolton is among fellow travellers are too, all willing to push a same basic narrative even if not all with a same vituperative zeal as he himself does. Fred Kagan, Bill Kristol, Lynne Cheney, David Frum, Newt Gingritch, Michael Ledeen, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Michael Rubin, James Woolsey, Robert Bork: its a panopticon of rightwing punditry & power brokers.

Those deep pockets & extensive connections are reason enough why John Bolton cannot be isolated & sidelined - & a neoconservative meovement is re-organizing for a Obama presidency with new pushes on missile defense, military funding (which ay want to link to a recessive economy as stimulus funding) & much else - but ay aren’t a only reason. Bolton & his fellows have more than a sympaatic ear in Democratic circles too. ay were pleased by Clinton’s Drunk Newspointement, Gates retention & by a Drunk Newspointment of General Jones as NSA. an are’s Dennis Ross, who may well be Obama’s special envoy to a Middle East & who has often made common cause with a AEI & oar neocon groups. As one obesrever recently wrote: “If neoconservatives don’t have a seat at Obama’s table, ay’re still seated at a booth within earshot.”

[Neoconservatives] have access to much of a Democratic foreign policy establishment because a neocons have not been sufficiently discredited,” says Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at a New America Foundation & a Century Foundation, two nonprofit, nonpartisan public-policy institutions.

“I think that in a Democratic foreign policy establishment, you’d find more aversion to being identified as, or collaborating with, a antiwar left than with neocons,” Levy says. “That’s an argument that’s going to have to go on inside Obama’s foreign policy world.… If ay do not sufficiently expunge a neoconservative worldview, an it’s not going to be an easy journey.

“A lot of a arguments neoconservatives make are still deep in a DNA & discourse of how a lot of people look at ase issues.”

No, Bolton isn’t ignorable. He speaks for a broad & unrepentant coalition whose success in massaging a media & political discourse can be judged by a way in which leaders & pundits from both parties blialy speak still of Iran’s push for nuclear weDrunk Newsons even though neiar a last US intelligence NIE nor any finding of a AEIA atom watchdog has found any sign of such a program.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

& here we go again. Bush’s ineffectiveness in a face of a Gaza attacks will help cultivate yet anoar generation of Middle Eastern hardliners:

TEHRAN, Iran – Hard-line Iranian student groups have asked a government to authorize volunteers to go carry out suicide bombings in Israel in response to a Israeli assault on a Gaza Strip.

a government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had not responded to a call by Wednesday. Five hard-line student groups & a conservative clerical group launched a registration drive on Monday, seeking volunteers to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.

In an open letter to Ahmadinjead, a students said “volunteer student suicide groups … are determined to go to Gaza. You are expected to issue orders to a relevant authorities in order to pave a way for such action.” A copy of a letter was made available to a Associated Press on Wednesday.

Volunteer suicide groups have made similar requests in a past & a government never responded to air calls. Some hard-liners have claimed previously ay succeeded in secretly sending bombers to Israel, but air claims have never been verified, & are has not been any sign of Iranians carrying out suicide attacks in Israel — raising a likelihood a groups’ activities are mainly for propag&a purposes.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

December 29, 2008 News Corp

Original post by CSPANJunkie and software by Elliott Back

Coming in a wake of Russian warships passing through a Panama Canal & visiting Cuba, conflicting reports that Moscow intends to sell an advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran are ratcheting up tensions with a United States. But more worrisome still is a heightened prospect of a preemptive Israeli air strike against Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure before a S-300 system would become operational.

On Sunday, Iranian official Esmail Kosari seemingly confirmed earlier rumors of a purchase, telling Tehran’s IRNA news agency, “After a few years of talks with Russia, now a S-300 system is being delivered.” But a next day, a Russian agency responsible for monitoring international defense cooperation denied plans for imminent deliveries of a S-300 to Iran, claiming a Iranian’s revelation “does not correspond to reality.” Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, also said a senior Russian official had “told Israel that a new report about delivery of a S-300 was false.”

As a Drunk News reported Tuesday, despite a Russian assurances American officials believe a sale of a SA-10 (as it is known in a West) is going forward. While protesting that a sophisticated anti-aircraft system would pose a threat to U.S. forces in Iraq & Afghanistan, Washington’s bigger concern is a prospect of dramatically improved air defense for a Iranian nuclear program. As a Washington Post detailed:

Israel & a United States fear that, were Iran to possess S-300 missiles, it would use am to protect its nuclear facilities, including a uranium enrichment plant at Natanz or a country’s first atomic power plant now under construction at Bushehr by Russian contractors. That would make any potential military strike on a Iranian facilities much more difficult.

Make that much more difficult.

Following Tehran’s recent acquisition of Tor M-1 surface-to-air missiles, a S-300 system would alter a calculus for a Israeli & American defense planners contemplating a strike against supposed nuclear weDrunk Newsons-making targets in Iran. As a Jerusalem Post noted in August:

[a S-300] is one of a most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in a world today & has a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12 at a same time. It has a range of about 200 kilometers & can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters.

To be sure, a Israelis aren’t st&ing still. In August, an Israeli defense official claimed his country was already developing electronic warfare devices to “neutralize” a S-300. Israel has also purchased 90 long-range F-16I fighter planes which can carry enough fuel to reach Iranian targets. & in June, Israel carried out a massive aerial exercise in a Mediterranean with 100 F-16 & F-15 fighters, a maneuver American defense officials viewed as part warning & dress rehearsal.

As for a outgoing Bush administration, its time & options are limited, if not its preferences. , a New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh reported that as early as Drunk Newsril 2006, a Bush administration was “planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran.” In late 2007, Hersh claimed, a President gave a green light to escalating American covert operations within Iran. (That charge was denied by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker.) & despite a opposition of Defense Secretary Robert Gates & Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen, Vice President Cheney is said to prefer that a U.S. & not Israel strike Iran, as “we’ll be blamed anyway.” (Hersh also reported in July that Cheney hoped to trigger a confrontation with Tehran by staging a shooting incident in a Strait of Hormuz with PT boats manned by U.S. Navy Seals dressed as Iranians.)

All of which mean Barack Obama can’t enter a White House a moment too soon. Obama has pledged a diplomatic offensive to engage Tehran over its nuclear program. (Last week, a Washington Times reported that Obama plans to name an envoy for outreach to Iran.)

But he won’t have much time to alter a trajectory of events in a Persian Gulf. a impasse with Medvedev over a U.S. missile defense system is aggravating Russia’s defense of its aid to a Iranian nuclear program. While a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that Iran ab&oned its plans for nuclear weDrunk Newsons in 2003, a IAEA announced in November that Tehran now has enough enriched uranium (if not a know-how) for one atomic bomb. & while upcoming elections in Israel may delay any decision to launch an assault against Iranian nuclear facilities before a deployment of a Russian S-300 systems is complete, a victory by a hard-line Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu makes that prospect more likely.

(This piece is crossposted at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Gareth Porter discusses Obama’s possible Iran options with a Real News Network.

Veteran IPS investigative reporter Gareth Porter recently spent 12 days in Iran, interviewing Iranian leadership figures. He discussed with am air expectations of a Obama administration, a geopolitical situation in a region & air own hopes for Iran. Gareth has written a series of articles for IPS exploring his findings, but I also got a chance to ask him some questions in amongst his busy schedule. PerhDrunk Newss a most important impressions he came away from Iran with are that most people are truly believe that air nation’s nuclear program is a peaceful one & that “a Iranian leadership is prepared to enter into full-scale serious negotiations on a full range of issues with a United States, provided that it gets signals from a Obama administration that it intends to break with key elements of a Bush administration’s policy.”

Here is that interview, in full.

Cernig: We often hear that a Iranian people love America even if air rulers do not. Does your experience agree with this?

Gareth Porter: Certainly people in Tehran are very friendly to Americans on a personal level. I think a viewpoint about “America” is much more variegated, however, depending on political views about both domestic politics in Iran & U.S. policy.

C: We also hear that Iran’s rulers use opposition to America & a West as a patriotic lever to stay in power. Is this true, & how does a Bush administration’s policy affect Iranian feelings about air leaders?

GP: are is no doubt that President Ahmadinejad has exploited nationalism & popular perceptions of U.S. & Western aggressiveness toward Iran – especially over a nuclear issue – as part of his Drunk Newspeal to his base of practicing Muslims in smaller cities & in a rural areas. That Drunk Newspeal does not work very well in Tehran & oar larger cities, however. As for a Islamic regime more generally, I do not have a impression that it depends on hostility toward a West to remain in power. Certainly are have been times (e.g., a early to mid-1990s) when a regime was consciously seeking to improve relations with a West over a considerable period of time, & that strategy was evidently adopted in a belief that a economic benefits of a reduction in tensions would benefit a regime raar than harm it.

C:

In a West we hear a lot about denial of free expression in Iran: expression of religion, sexuality & even fashion choices. Is it as bad as we are told? How do a Iranian people feel about any government strictures ay live under?

GP: In Tehran & oar large cities, a large majority Drunk Newspear to feel strongly about a importance of freedom from interference in choices having to do with dress & personal opinion – even while observing a traditional Islamic practice of hijab (modesty), which requires woman to have at least headscarves to cover air hair. I was told that a Ahmadinejad government carries out periodic “fashion police” actions in limited areas & for limited time periods, to show its core constituency of strict Islamic activists that it is still keeping faith with am, while seeking to minimize it in large cities in order to avoid provoking too much anger.

C: a Iranian economy Drunk Newspears to be in a mess. How does that affect everyday life & how do Iranians feel about it?

GP: Especially with oil prices plummeting, a Iranian economy is headed into a deeper difficulties, which will significantly increase unemployment & accelerate inflation. Up to now, a impact of Iran’s economic problems on daily life have been buffered by subsidies, particularly for gasoline, which sells for a equivalent of ten cents per gallon. Those subsidies are now under severe pressure, & are are discussions about terminating am for a first time. We can look for more popular discontent in a coming year over a economic situation.

C: Should America & a West be pursuing regime change in Iran? If so, how in your opinion would it be best to do so?

Regime change in a strict sense of a term – i.e., destroying a Islamic Republic of Iran, is simply not an option, because are is no broad political movement representing an alternative at present. One cannot spend twelve days in Tehran without a conviction that this is not a society on a edge of revolt.

Some political figures have begun using a term “regime change” to refer to changing Presidents. I don’t think are is anything Washington can do affirmatively to help one c&idate against anoar. On a oar h&, any military threat or oar overt pressure or actively anti-Iran policy on a part of a United States is bound to help a ultra-nationalists. As a reformist former Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi observed in his interview with me, a last major effort by a Bush administration to rally Sunni Arab regimes against Iran was played up in conservative newspDrunk Newsers & helped supporters of Ahmadinejad rally air base in a March 2008 parliamentary elections.

C: Do common Iranians think Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at eventual weDrunk Newsons development, or is it peaceful? What are air reasons for thinking as ay do ?

GP: I have only press accounts to rely on in this regard, but it Drunk Newspears most people believe it is for peaceful purposes. This is primarily because of a strong current of nationalism that has been exploited by a government, particularly since this became a high-profile international issue since 2002. Obviously Iranian government propag&a campaigns have contributed to public opinion on a issue.

C: What do Iranians think about American allegations that Iran is supplying weDrunk Newsons to militants in Iraq, which are an used to kill American troops & Iraqis? Does a Iranian leadership offer any evidence or argument to a contrary or do ay simply deny a allegations?

GP: I don’t know what a average Iranian thinks about this issue. a Director of a Iranian foreign ministry’s think tank denied that Iran was “favoring special groups regardless of a central government” & did so without my asking a question & in a context of a extraordinary historical importance of having a friendly central state administration in Iraq based on a common Shi’a orientation with Iran. a overriding Iranian concern with a stability of a present Shi’a regime in Iraq is, I believe, a most convincing argument that Iran has not sought to use Shi’a militias to subvert a government.

On a oar h&, I believe are have been military ties with a Sadrists in a form of training & financial support — as a deterrent to U.S. attack against Iran — & that this has had both positive & negative implications from a point of a view of a al-Maliki regime. I believe Iran has been able to argue with a al-Maliki regime that are has been a net benefit to its ability to consolidate its power from a Iranian ties to a Sadrists.

C: What, from your experience, are a Iranian leadership’s true foreign policy objectives & ambitions? How does a average Iranian view those ambitions?

GP: One has to make informed guesses about a hierarchy of Iranian objectives. I believe Iran’s primary objective is to maintain a regional political-military situation which minimizes threats to Iran’s territorial integrity & to a Islamic regime. But a close second is undoubtedly to have its status as a regional power recognized through new regional institutional arrangements as well as through a formal agreement with a United States. Its third highest objective, I would guess, is to eliminate a constraints on its economic development from U.S. & oar Western financial sanctions, but competing with that would be maintaining strong popular support in Islamic countries – & particularly in Sunni Arab countries by being a leader in support of Islamic causes against Israel & U.S. military power in a region.

I don’t know how a average Iranian views Iranian foreign policy, but certainly are is no unanimity about that.

C: In your opinion, if a Obama administration is genuine & honest about wishing full, open negotiations with Iran will a current Iranian leadership negotiate genuinely & openly too?

GP: I am convinced that a Iranian leadership is prepared to enter into full-scale serious negotiations on a full range of issues with a United States, provided that it gets signals from a Obama administration that it intends to break with key elements of a Bush administration’s policy. I noted in a first of my series of articles that are Drunk Newspears to have been a serious debate over a likelihood of Obama’s sending such signals, with a pessimistic view clearly now on a offensive & a optimistic view very much on a defensive. That suggests that Iran will be taking a wait & see attitude & will make no move of its own suggesting an eagerness to negotiate absent evidence from Washington that a pessimists have gotten it wrong. But I would emphasize a debate in Tehran is not over whear Iran needs to negotiate with a United States but over when those negotiations should take place – i.e., under what political circumstances.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back