U.S. FAILURE IN IRAQ ENCOURAGES IRAN

"... officials at all levels of government here say they see the American presence as a source of strength for themselves as they face the Bush administration. In almost every conversation about Iran's nuclear showdown with the United States and Europe, they cite the Iraq war as a factor Iran can play to its own advantage..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/weekinreview/29slackman.html?_r=1

MIDEAST ELECTIONS TURN DEMOCRACY AGAINST U.S.

"... (concerning) the administration's campaign for greater democracy in the Middle East. Elections in Iran, Iraq, Egypt and now the Palestinian territories have resulted in the defeat of secular and moderate parties and the rise of Islamic parties hostile to U.S. interests."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/27/AR2006012701562.html

MAHDI ARMY SIDES WITH IRAN

"... Muqtada Sadr, the... militant young cleric, said on Sunday that the Mahdi Army, which is now a big part of the Iraqi government to be, says that his forces will fight alongside Iran’s if Iran is attacked by the United States over its nuclear program..."
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0123-26.htm
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iran_Iraq_Sadr.html

BRITAIN ADMITS WRONG IN BLAMING IRAN FOR BOMBS

"... Government officials now acknowledge that there is no evidence, or even reliable intelligence, connecting the Iranian government to the infra-red triggered bombs which have killed 10 British soldiers in the past eight months... the mother of a young soldier killed... by an improvised explosive device at al-Amarah, north of Basra... said: "They don't like Iran and they are using this for sympathy towards their attitudes, claiming that they were involved in the murder of our sons. ... it was just an excuse for another invasion. They have a foothold in the Middle East and they want to go further."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article336567.ece

U.S. MAY BE PLANNING TO STRIKE IRAN

"Recent reports in the German media suggest that the United States may be preparing its allies for an imminent military strike against facilities that are part of Iran's suspected clandestine nuclear weapons program... "western security sources" claim that during CIA Director Porter Goss' Dec. 12 visit to Ankara, he asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide support for a possibile 2006 air strike against Iranian nuclear and military facilities... The Turkish government has also been given the "green light" to strike camps of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iran on the day... (of the strike)..."
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,392783,00.html

IRAQ AND IRAN BUILDING TIES

"... Baghdad is keen strengthening mutual ties in all areas with Tehran... The Iraqi foreign ministry is planing to dispatch a special delegation to Tehran to discuss issues outstanding between the two nations... Iran has agreed to Iraq's proposals for opening a coordination office in Tehran... The two nations have been striving to forge closer trade ties..."
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0512246904234417.htm

ISRAEL HAS PLANS TO ATTACK IRAN

"... plans to attack Iran's suspected nuclear sites... are on the table, and were dutifully leaked by the Israeli military to the London Sunday Times, one of Rupert Murdoch's papers and a staunch ally of Israel. The Israeli Army has already received orders from Sharon (special forces commandos are already on "G" readiness, maximum alert) to strike Iran in late March - after the alleged discovery of presumed secret uranium enrichment sites camouflaged into civilian structures... Sharon's spokesman Gissin... left the door open; an attack would be launched only "after all diplomatic options had been exhausted".
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL16Ak03.html

AHMADINEJAD CALLS HOLOCAUST A MYTH TO TAKE PALESTINE

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad... (called) the Holocaust a ''myth'' used by Europeans to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world... Ahmadinejad last week questioned whether the Nazi destruction of 6 million European Jews during World War II occurred and said Israel should be moved to Europe... Ahmadinejad said that if Europeans insist the Holocaust happened, then they are responsible and should pay the price... 'If you committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Holocaust.html?hp

IRAN BENEFITTED FROM INVASION OF IRAQ

"... One country... has benefited greatly from the US-led invasion (of Iraq). Iran, increasingly radical, now knows that the United States lacks both the military strength and the political will to attack it. And the new, democratic, predominantly Shia Iraq has become its closest ally. None of this is what... (the neocons) in Washington expected back in 2002.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4527908.stm

NEO-CONSERVATIVE IPC REPRESENTS THE MEK TERRORIST ORGANIZATION IN U.S.

"... Raymond Tanter's Iran Policy Committee has called for Washington to deploy against Tehran the Iraq-based Mujahideen-e Khalq, which is listed as a terrorist group by the State Department..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GK30Ak01.html

"... The Iran Policy Committee (IPC), a think tank established in February by Raymond Tanter, professor of political science at Georgetown University, is supported by several neo-conservative politicians and analysts, including Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Tom Tancredo and Bob Filner... The case for regime change in Iran has been most enthusiastically taken up by the IPC.. (and) the IPC has been tasked by the Iranian opposition group, Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a proscribed terrorist organization, to provide professional lobbying and public relations services... IPC gives the impression that it has gone beyond advocacy and is now, to all intents and purposes, representing the MEK in the US..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GK30Ak02.html

U.S. RELYING ON MEK

"... the MEK (Mujahideen-e Khalq) is the largest and the best-organized Iranian opposition group, with realistic estimates between 6,000 to 10,000 fighters, members and supporters combined. More importantly, the MEK demonstrated its ability to deliver reliable information when it revealed, on August 14, 2002, that the Islamic Republic possessed an advanced nuclear program that included facilities at Natanz and Arak. The MEK now finds support within parts of the American government as a "third option".
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GK18Ak02.html

PREPARATIONS FOR NUCLEAR STRIKE AGAINST IRAN

"... The US has been provocatively sending unmanned Predator aircraft into Iran... mapping Iranian radar systems, information the US would need before launching an attack... the US has already targeted missiles at Iranian power plants at Natanz and Arak... Some 4,000 fighters of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), an armed organization that seeks to overthrow the current regime in Tehran, have a base north of Baghdad near the Iranian border. The US has thrown a protective umbrella over the MEK's soldiers and equipment..."

"Vice President Dick Cheney has even suggested that Israel might do the job... The Israeli right has been spoiling for a fight with Syria for some time... One Israeli intelligence official told the Financial Times, "It could be a race who pushes the button first - us or the Americans." What that official meant by "the button" is not clear, but the logical candidate is a nuclear strike."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GK17Ak03.html

IRAN PROTESTS TWO U.S. SPY PLANES CRASHED IN IRAQ

"Iran has found the wreckage of two U.S. unmanned spy planes on its territory in recent months... accusing Washington of violating its sovereignty through illegal overflights. Iran "strongly protests against such unlawful acts and emphasizes the necessity to observe the principles of international law concerning the sanctity of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states," its Foreign Ministry said. The Pentagon had no immediate comment to the protest, which came in letters to the U.S. government written months ago but only made public at the United Nations on Monday. They described the crash of a Shadow 200 RQ-7 drone in Ilam Province last July 4, 36 miles (60 kms) from the border, and of a Hermes drone in the Khoram Abad area on Aug. 25, found 120 miles (200 kms) inside Iranian territory."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1108-07.htm

IRANIAN PRESIDENT SAYS ISRAEL MUST BE DESTROYED

"Iran's new hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a group of students at an anti-Israel event today that Israel must be "wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians will destroy it..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/international/middleeast/26cnd-iran.html?hp

U.S. NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY: DISAGREEMENT = TERRORISM

"... the National Defense Strategy of the United States - which explicitly endorses unilateral pre-emptive strikes - remains very much in place. The Bush administration self-declares that it retains a unique "right" to engage in a "pre-emptive/preventive" war against anyone, anywhere, any time, even at a mere suspicion of being subjectively threatened by the theoretical possibility that it might be "attacked" at some undefined place in an indefinite future.

"But even more crucial: any diplomatic or legal disagreement with the US under international law is regarded as such an "attack", or as a form of "asymmetric warfare". So to diplomatically attack the US may also be regarded as an act of terrorism..."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GJ07Ak01.html

U.S. PLAN FOR UNPROVOKED NUCLEAR ATTACK AGAINST IRAN

"... Vice President Dick Cheney's office has requested the United States Strategic Command to draw up a plan to respond to another "9/11 type attack on the US." The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons...

"As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

"According to The Washington Post, the document is "expected to be signed within a few weeks by Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, director of the Joint Staff, according to Navy Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a public affairs officer in Myers's office."

http://search.csmonitor.com/2005/0914/dailyUpdate.html

IRAN TO BE OIL & GAS SUPPLIER TO RUSSIA, CHINA, INDIA, EUROPE

"... As far as both oil and gas are concerned, Iran has everything going for it: 13% of the world's total fossil fuel reserves (132 billion barrels of crude oil and gas liquids, 27.4 trillion cubic meters of gas), which makes it the second-largest oil-and-gas rich country in the world... Iranian oil will last from 70 to a maximum of 86 years, while gas may last longer than 200 years.... Iran will export at least US$60 billion in oil in 2005 - more than $10 billion more than the June estimate. And with oil hovering about $70 a barrel, it could be even more...

"... Geopolitically, as a key energy supplier to China as well as India's major supplier, Iran will be in a more than enviable position. Its political relations with both China and India are excellent. Its trans-Caspian alliance with Russia is iron-clad, as both countries are dead-set, in diplomatic language, not to allow "other great foreign powers" to penetrate the Caspian. And Tehran will do all it takes to position itself, long term, as a key supplier to Western Europe as well..."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI10Ak01.html

NEO-CON RAPPROCHEMENT OF LIKE-MINDED PRESIDENTS POSSIBLE

"... Ahmadinejad's victory has forged the most homogenous and uniformly conservative executive branch, legislature and office of supreme leader in the 27 years of Islamic rule... governments driven by neo-conservative leaders in Washington and Tehran, rather than administrations headed by the US Democratic Party and Iranian reformists who can easily be labeled as soft and accommodationist, may enable credible concessions and discussions to take place..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH17Ak01.html

BUSH TO GAIN FROM WAR WITH IRAN

"... War with Iran next spring can enable (the Bush administration) to win the mid-term elections and retain control of the Republican party, now in partial rebellion over Iraq..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5262493-103677,00.html

MESSAGE TO POTENTIAL OCCUPIERS OF IRAN

"... An Iranian publication recently carried an advertisement calling for applications from aspiring "martyrdom seekers"... tens of thousands are said to have signed up... the possibility that some of them at least will figure in operations to defend cities should the United States attack Iran cannot be ruled out. The value of the public recruitment of suicide bombers is not so much to enlist volunteers as it is a means to send a message to potential occupiers of what lies ahead. "
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH09Ak03.html