Foreign Powers Take Positions, Eye End Game in Syria
FRANCIS MATTHEW: The continuing fighting in Syria is a golden opportunity for foreign governments to put military forces on the ground in advance of any political end-game.
Iran: It’s War in 2013, Says Former Diplomat
IRA GLUNTS, MONDOWEISS: War, according to Aaron Miller, is inevitable unless something extraordinary happens in the next year.
The U.S/Israeli Plan for Iran: It’s Doomed
JUAN COLE: It’s well worth looking at previous situations where major powers tried to use economics to bring Iran to heel.
Ten Reasons Why ‘Iran Plotter’ is ‘No James Bond’
JUAN COLE: He has been presented as the lynchpin of an international conspiracy of stunning complexity. Yet he is almost comically inept – so is Manssor Arabsiar James Bond or Inspector Clouseau?
Some Questions About the ‘Iran Terror Plot’
JASMIN RAMSEY, MONDOWEISS: The mainstream media has worked itself into a collective frenzy about the alleged plot to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. Questions need to be asked, however.
Life Imitates ‘The Onion’: Al Qaeda and U.S. Agree
MICHAEL TOTTEN: You couldn’t make it up but conspiracy theories have a way of making odd bedfellows. Take Al Qaeda and the U.S in opposition to Iran. It’s true.
An Inconvenient Truth: Ehud Barak Off Message
MONDOWEISS: If Iran ever acquired nuclear weapons would it launch an attack on Israel? “Not on us and not on any neighbor.” The speaker? Ehud Barak…
Kuwait and Iran Playing the ‘Expel-A-Diplomat’ Tit-for-Tat Game
DAVID ROBERTS: It’s not the best of times between Iran and several of its neighbours at the moment. The rhetoric is rising and several members of the Kuwaiti parliament are joining in with gusto.
Sunni-Shi’a Friction Takes Sharp Turn for Worse
CROSSROADS ARABIA: As a state of emergency is announced in Bahrain tension between Sunni and Shi’a in the region is on the increase.
Comment on Why What Worked in Egypt, Will Not Trip Up Iran by Joe P
It is a wonderful article but we have also to put in to context that US has been trying to overthrow Iranian government for the past 32 years. This and Iranians experience of operation Ajax means that any sympathy from nationalistic quarters in Iran must be with the government. Also I have to say that the most powerful force in a nation state is the power of nationalism and religion. Combine these two and you get a very powerful elixir which Iranians have unleashed. It is so powerful that it has stood up the history’s most super power for the past 32 years. Despite the large amount of propaganda going around against Iran in western media the truth is different. Almost all scientific polls conducted by western polling agencies and available on internet show that majority of Iranians support their current form of government and even favor being more powerful internationally to the point of even being ready to accept more international pressures in order to have nuclear bombs. That is the wishes of the people of Iran measured by independent western organizations. So Iranian state is very much comfortable with its position and just afew thousand opposition mostly propped up by 150 satellite channels bankrolled by US and beamed into Iran will not make Iranian state unstable. If anything it just makes their actions more justifiable for the majority of Iranians who support them.
One little fact which almost never gets mentioned is that the revolutionary government of Iran in the past decades had invested heavily in education and healthcare boosting its indicators tremendously. Today Iran has the world’s fastest growth rate in science and technology and according to some reports this progress in science and technology is due to Iran Iraq war which was itself due to the revolution. So out of true great revolutions come out also progress in science and technology, as was the case with French, Russian and Chinese revolutions. This does not happen in fake revolutions (read coups or color “revolutions”) like the one in Egypt.
Oil Price Rise means a Happy 2011 in Tehran
JUAN COLE: While U.S consumers bemoan oil price rises it’s smiles all round in Iran. The OPEC chair is in no hurry to do anything about spiraling costs.
Conspiracy, Stupidity Hovers over Iran, Egypt
MICHAEL J. TOTTEN: There’s nothing the Israelis can do to appease this stupidity. They are hated in part because the people who hate them are mad.
