JEWS LIVE FREELY IN IRAN

"Some 25,000 to 30,000 Jews live relatively freely among the country's majority Shiite Muslims... and many say that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fiery anti-Israeli rhetoric is about politics, not religion... They caution against comparing Iran's official and visceral opposition to the creation of Israel and Zionism with the regime's acceptance of Jews and Judaism itself. "If you think Judaism and Zionism are one, it is like thinking Islam and the Taliban are the same, and they are not."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0427/p01s03-wome.html

U.S. NEGOTIATING INDIRECTLY WITH IRAN

"... Using Switzerland as an intermediary, American and Iranian officials have exchanged diplomatic messages on a variety of nuts-and-bolts subjects, including the fate of an American citizen missing in Iran, the future of five Iranian operatives whom American forces seized in Iraq, and old financial and property disputes. The contacts amount to a shift for the White House, which rebuffed an Iranian offer of wide-ranging talks on Iran’s nuclear program, Middle East peace, and direct relations after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq..."
http://www.kansascity.com/136/story/82718.html

KUWAIT PREPARES FOR U.S. ATTACK ON IRAN

"Kuwait government sets up emergency team to prepare for an Iran-US military conflict... Deputy Saleh Ashour reported Tuesday that the Kuwait cabinet had formed a team to draw up plans to keep the country running during a war..."
--DEBKAfile (Israel), April 25, 2007
http://www.debka.com/index.php

U.S. SPONSORING TERRORISM AGAINST IRAN

"... American intelligence has been training and equipping anti-Iranian terrorists belonging to the so-called Jundallah in camps inside Afghanistan. The Voice of America recently interviewed Jundollah leader Abdul Malek Rigi. He is a wanted by Tehran for several kidnappings and over 50 killings. In the latest incident, on March 25, Jundallah terrorists blocked the Zahedan-Zabol highway in Sistan-Balochistan province, killing 22 people, injuring six others and taking eight people as hostages. Later, four of these hostages were killed and the video footage of their killing was broadcast on a number of Arab television channels..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID21Ak01.html

U.S. MILITARY IN IRAQ POSITIONING FOR IRAN WAR

"... It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border. This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2439530.ece

IRAN PRESENTS GULF SECURITY PLAN

"Iran has proposed a 10-point plan for ensuring collective security in the Persian Gulf region...
The 10-point proposal is as follows:
1. Establishment of a Persian Gulf Security and Cooperation Organization comprising the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as well as Iran and Iraq in accordance with Clause 8 of Resolution 598 of the United Nations Security Council.
2. Preparing common security grounds for fighting terrorism, organized crime and drug smuggling, as well as other joint security concerns.
3. Gradual removal of all restrictions in political, security, economic and cultural fields.
4. Development of trade ties by taking the countries' potentials into consideration and conducting joint investment in economic projects to achieve a regional free-trade mechanism.
5. Guaranteeing the security and energy export of regional countries to secure their interests and achieving a sustainable mechanism for energy needed by the world.
6. Building confidence among regional countries in the nuclear field.
7. Setting up a joint consortium for uranium enrichment among regional countries to procure nuclear fuel and other peaceful nuclear activities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
8. Forging serious cooperation among regional countries for having a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.
9. Putting an end to arms races in the region by providing resources for the purpose of economic development and fighting poverty.
10. Making foreign military personnel exit the region and establishing full security by the regional countries..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East.html

BRITISH ASKED U.S. TO NOT PROVOKE A WAR

"The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes... Pentagon officials asked their British counterparts: what do you want us to do? They offered a series of military options... The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf... At the request of the British, the two US carrier groups, totalling 40 ships plus aircraft, modified their exercises to make them less confrontational..."

"A senior Iranian source with close ties to the Revolutionary Guard, told the Guardian: "If this had been between Iranian and American soldiers it could have been the beginning of an accidental war."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2051971,00.html

U.S. SPONSOR OF TERROR GROUP AGAINST IRAN

"A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005... The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran. It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight.."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html

BOTCHED U.S. RAID LED TO SAILOR HOSTAGE CRISIS

"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...
"(on) 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... 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... 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... 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..."
"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.."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2414760.ece