EDITOR: The Countdown has now started!

As US and UK warships are congregating in the Gulf, ready to start the war on Iran, and US troops are collecting in Israel and the Gulf, Israel is ready to start the war, with the support of its criminal partners. Three nuclear powers are attacking a nations without nuclear weapons, under the pretext od protecting Israel, the country which has introduced the nuclear weapons into the Middle East, and refuses to allow any inspections of the IAEA, as opposed to Iran, which opened its facilities for inspection. This is supposed to be a balanced policy… Israel has managed to manoeuvre the west again into an imperialist war, exactly as it did in 1956 during the Suez Canal imbroglio. The result, one suspects, is likely to be similar. Nonetheless, the absence of democratic opposition to this coming destructive war is amazing in the so-called democracies which initiated this war. The great crisis of capital seems to be no problem for the war-mongers, either.

BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!

‘Israel and U.S. postpone massive defense drill in fear of escalation with Iran’: Haaretz

Israeli defense officials tell Channel 2 that Washington wants to avoid causing further tensions in region after various foreign reports of U.S. and Israeli preparations for strike on Iran.

Israel and the United States have postponed a massive joint defense exercise, which was expected to be carried out in the coming weeks, in order to avoid an escalation with Iran, Channel 2 reported on Sunday.

According to an Israeli defense official, Washington wants to avoid causing further tensions in the region, especially in light of the sensitive situation that has been generated after various reports in the international media that the U.S. and Israel are preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The drill, codenamed Austere Challenge 12, was supposed to simulate the missiles fired by Iran or other antagonistic states toward Israel. Defense officials told Channel 2 on Sunday that the drill is now scheduled to take place in the summer.

Both Israeli and U.S. officials said the exercise would be the largest-ever joint drill by the two countries, involving thousands of U.S. soldiers.

News of it came amid heightened tensions between U.S. allies and Iran, after Tehran threatened it could close the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil supply route.

But the IDF said the drill was planned long ago and is not tied to recent events. The drill “is not in response to any real-world event,” the IDF wrote in a statement last week.

The Defense Ministry said in an official statement that the postponement of the drill has not yet been announced, and that the subject is currently being discussed between Israeli and U.S. officials.

They did note, however, that the drill was not canceled due to budget considerations.

In late 2009, Israel and the United States also held a huge joint missile defense exercise, involving about 1,000 U.S. troops, alongside an equal number of Israeli military personnel.

U.S. army chief heads to Israel as fears over attack on Iran mount: Haaretz

Visit comes as U.S. attempts to determine Israel’s intentions with regard to a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Thursday for talks with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, and other senior defense and intelligence officials.

The visit comes as the United States attempts to coordinate with Israel on the issue of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and to determine Israel’s intentions with regard to a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Dempsey may also meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ahead of Dempsey’s visit, the Wall Street Journal published statements by senior American officers who said the United States had increased preparations for a possible Israeli attack on Iran. They also said the United States has refreshed plans for defending American installations in the Middle East in the event of a retaliation by Iran.

One senior officer told the Wall Street Journal that the United States’ concerns regarding a possible Israeli attack on Iran were increasing.

In November, following a visit to Israel by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Haaretz reported that Netanyahu and Barak had refused to vow against attacking Iran without first coordinating with the United States.

According to the Wall Street Journal, both U.S. President Barack Obama and Panetta have conveyed messages through quiet channels to senior Israeli officials regarding the serious implications of an Israeli attack on Iran. They also reportedly told Israel it should allow more time for sanctions on Iran to take effect.

In the meantime, the United States is preparing for various scenarios following an Israeli attack on Iran, senior American officials reportedly told the Wall Street Journal. These include an attack by Shi’ites in Iraq on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. There are currently 15,000 U.S. citizens in Iraq.

Dempsey’s visit to Israel also comes against the backdrop of increased tension between Iran and the West over Tehran’s threats to close the Straits of Hormuz, which would compromise oil shipments to the West, and threats to avenge the recent assassination of an Iraqi nuclear scientist on Wednesday. The regime is accusing Israel, the United States and Britain of the assassination.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has denied responsibility for the attack. Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel had no role in the attack, to the best of his knowledge.

The spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff, Massoud Jazayeri, said: “Our enemies, especially America, Britain and the Zionist regime [Israel], have to be held responsible for their actions.” According to a report in the New York Times on Friday, senior American officials said Obama recently told the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khameneii, via a secret channel that closing the Straits of Hormuz would constitute crossing a “red line.” Obama reportedly said such an action would draw a severe American response.

Also this weekend, Netanyahu said in an interview with the Weekend Australian that he believed the strong sanctions against Iran were damaging the regime in Tehran. He said he thought a combination of the sanctions and the threat of U.S. military action against its nuclear facilities could force Iran to back down.

Netanyahu said the Iranian economy was “showing clear signs of stress.”

“For the first time,” he said, “I see Iran wobble under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank.”

Netanyahu’s remarks notwithstanding, a senior Israeli official told Haaretz yesterday that there was disappointment in Jerusalem over the fact that harsher sanctions have not been imposed on Iran.

“Without sanctions on Iran’s central bank and on its oil exports, the regime will not back down and will not stop its nuclear program,” the official said.

Iran: Paranoid or under siege?: AL Jazeera English

What is motivating Iran’s tough talk of enriching uranium and shutting down a major global oil chokepoint?
D. Parvaz

With tighter sanctions, talk of Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and the assassination of yet another nuclear scientist in Iran, tensions are building on multiple fronts as a coalition of countries tries to stop Iran’s nuclear programme.

Ali Larijani, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, told the IRNA news agency on Thursday that UN nuclear inspectors would be welcome in the country and that issues with the nuclear programme can be resolved via negotiations. The path to diplomacy is, however, obscured by decades of ill will between Iran and the West.

The problems go as far back as the US and UK-led coup that unseated Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 and reinstated the unpopular Shah. But even if historical baggage could be left in the past, today’s issues alone are enough to pose major diplomatic stumbling blocks.

The Iranian government insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful and not aimed at weaponisation, while the US and some EU countries suspect otherwise. The West has upped the ante with harsh sanctions and embargoes since a November report from the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that it was “increasingly concerned” about the nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.

As if to emphasise a point, Iran followed up talk of blocking the Strait of Hormuz with ten days of military exercises in the Gulf and an announcement that it has begun nuclear enrichment at one of its facilities.

“The Iranian threat has been blown out of proportion not because of Iran’s impressive military might, but because people are unclear whether the Iranian regime is led by rational actors,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an associate in the Middle East Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He put things in perspective by adding that Iran’s military budget is less than two per cent of that of the US, and less than a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s.

But it’s not just the West that is blowing things out of proportion.

“The Iranian government’s paranoia is to some extent a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Sadjadpour.

Defiant stance

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a solid history of tough talk, but it has escalated its provocative rhetoric in recent months. Sardar Mohamad Reza Naghdi, the commander of the Basij armed group, has said his organisation is “counting the moments” and waiting for an excuse to “put an end to the Zionist agenda”.

Who is targeting Iran’s scientists?
January 2012: Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, supervisor at Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility, is killed by car bomb in Tehran. Iran blames Israel and US for the attack.
July 2011: Darioush Rezai, a physicist and university lecturer, is shot in Tehran.
November 2010: Two car bombs target two physicists, both reportedly involved in Iran’s nuclear programme – Majid Shahriyari is killed while MaFereydoun Abbasi-Davani is wounded. Iran blames Israel and the US.
January 2010: Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, a nuclear scientist, is killed by a car bomb in Tehran. Anti-state activists say he was targeted because he supported opposition figure Mirhossein Mousavi, but the government only said the Tehran University lecturer did not work for its nuclear programme.
June 2009: Shahram Amiri, a lecturer at Malek Ashtar University (closely connected to the Revolutionary Guard) said he was kidnapped in Saudi Arabia. He claims he was transferred to the US and enticed “to spread lies” about Iran’s nuclear programme. The US denies this, claiming that Amiri was in the US of his own free will. Amiri returned to Iran in July 2010.
February 2007: Although not a scientist, the disappearance of Ali Reza Asgari in Turkey was reported by the UK’s Guardian to have been the result of a CIA plot targeting Iran’s nuclear programme. Asgari, who some say was a US spy, had held a number of high-profile posts, including general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and a deputy cabinet minister of former President Mohammad Khatami.

In December, a high-altitude stealth reconnaissance drone was downed in Iran, and images of the drone were broadcast on Iranian TV with banners hanging off of its wings which read: “We’ll crush America underfoot” and “US can’t mess with us”.

But Iran has been messed with. There was the Stuxnet computer virus, which in September 2010 attacked Iran’s nuclear power plant in Bushehr.

There have also been several mysterious explosions at key locations  in Iran. In October 2010, a blast at a military base in the western province of Lorestan killed “several” and was dubbed “an accident” by the government.

Another explosion in November killed 17 at an arms depot west of Tehran. Later that month, a blast was heard near the city of Isfahan, although the government denied that an explosion had happened, emergency services had initially confirmed it.

Although the US navy has twice in the past week rescued Iranian crews in Gulf waters – once from Somali pirates, once from a wrecked vessel – its presence in the Gulf is nonetheless unwelcome and seen as a threat by Tehran.

Strings of deaths, disappearances, and, in one case -reappearance – of Iranian physicists continues to deepen the acrimony and mistrust between Iran and the US and Israel.

Iran, for its part, retaliates mostly by arresting and charging foreigners with spying, as it most recently has with Amir Hekmati, a US-born Iranian. Hekmati, a former US marine, has become the first US citizen to be sentenced to death in Iran after being charged (in closed court) with espionage, corruption and being an enemy of God (mohareb).

Faraz Sanei, a researcher at the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said Hekmati’s case “may very well be politically motivated”.

“By detaining Mr. Hekmati for months without providing him access to a lawyer or visits by his family and Swiss consular officials who represent American interests in Iran, Iranian authorities have deprived him of his fundamental right to be free from arbitrary arrest and detention, and to have access to a fair trial,” Sanei said.

Surrounded by troops and weapons

Reza Marashi, research director of the National Iranian American Council, thinks two issues dominate the geopolitical map in the Middle East.

“One, you literally see Iran surrounded by US military bases – not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but everywhere else. They are flanked by no less than 15, possibly 17 bases in the region … so Iran’s not unreasonable to have that threat perception,” said Marashi.

“But more importantly, the United States and Iran have very different views on what the security architecture of the region should look like. Iran refuses to become a compliant US ally in the mold of Saudi Arabia, or Jordan, or Mubarak’s Egypt. And the United States has an unfortunate track record of relations in the region – there’s no example of a country that’s on equal footing with the United States, right? And Iran refuses to enter into that relationship.”

There are still troops and military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and three US allies in the region – India, Pakistan and Israel – possess nuclear weapons.

Then there are the massive US weapons sales made to Iran’s neighbouring countries – recent ones include $3.38bn worth of missiles to the UAE, $11bn in jets, tanks and more to Iraq and $30bn worth of hardware, including F-15 fighter jets, to Saudi Arabia.

The US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have failed to deliver key strategic outcomes for Washington and have raised the stakes between the US and Iran because they “empowered the latter arguably at the expense of Washington”, said Sabahat Khan, an analyst specialising in maritime security issues at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

A divide as deep as the gulf

Tensions in the region have profound consequences for oil markets. Sadek Zibakalam, professor of politics at Tehran University told Al Jazeera’s Inside Story the question isn’t whether other countries can make up the gap Iran’s oil should leave in the global market.

“The point is that the United States, by putting the embargo on Iranian oil is forcing the Islamic regime to take a drastic action, drastic decision, such as blocking the Strait of Hormuz.”

The sanctions, said Zibakalam, are tantamount to asking for regime change.

“If you prevent Iran from selling its oil on the international oil market, you are really saying that ‘We are going to overthrow the Islamic regime.'”

And that, Sadjadpour told Al Jazeera, is Iran’s primary concern – that “cultural and political subversion meant to inspire a ‘velvet revolution’ – something against which no nuclear weapon would guard.

Furthermore, Khan told Al Jazeera that Iran’s perceptions of threats aren’t just rooted in its poor relationship with Israel, but also in mistrust of the states in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

“Put crudely, Iran’s threat perceptions are defined by regional military competition, primarily with the United States, and a level of political competition with Saudi Arabia and the GCC.”

Would nukes help Iran?

From the perspective of security, Khan said that “historically, nuclear weapons have been used defensively,” as a deterrent from attacks, but that with a nuclear arsenal, Iran might become more aggressive, threaten the stability of the region and even prompt other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, to pursue nuclear weapons.

Also, in a way, the more foreign governments pressure Iran to back away from weapons via sanctions, the less chance they have of winning hearts and minds in Iran.

“More than anything else, what does help garner support for the Iranian government amongst the Iranian people is the sanctions and the secret assassinations and the killings that are going on,” said Marashi.  “Iranians are fiercely nationalistic and they’re politically savvy and they’re capable of thinking two thoughts simultaneously, meaning, ‘We don’t like it [that] our government beats, kills and imprisons us.'”

“‘But we also don’t like it when foreign countries do that to our nuclear scientists, we also don’t like it when the United States says that the target of these sanctions is the government, not the people,’ when ten out of ten times, it’s the people who end up getting hurt the most, and it’s the political elites who get to skirt the sanctions and continue to live lavishly.”

Report: U.S. preparing for an Israeli strike on Iran: Haaretz

Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. officials are becoming increasingly concerned that Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear facilities; U.S. wants to give sanctions more time.

The United States has stepped up contingency planning in case Israel launches a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

According to the report, U.S. defense officials are becoming increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to carry out such a strike.

“Our concern is heightened,” a senior U.S. military official told the Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. military is reportedly preparing for a range of possible responses to an Israeli strike on Iran, including attacks by pro-Iranian Shiite militias against the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

The report said that, largely as a deterrent to Iran, the U.S. has 15,000 soldiers in Kuwait and has moved a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf region.

Additionally, the U.S. has been pre-positioning aircraft and other military hardware and has accelerated arms transfers to U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf region.

According to the report, top U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, have sent a series of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the consequences of a strike on Iran. The U.S. reportedly wants to give sanctions and other measures more time, as part of efforts to compel Iran to abandon its alleged work to build nuclear weapons.

Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by telephone on Thursday and General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will visit Israel next week.

Tension at new high as Iran vows to punish West: Independent

Tehran threatens to close Straits of Hormuz if US enforces an embargo
DAVID RANDALL, DONALD MACINTYRE   SUNDAY 15 JANUARY 2012

They buried a young scientist called Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan in Tehran on Friday. And if the hazardous carousel of attacks, embargoes and official threats does not slow down soon, there could be other bodies and hopes wrapped in a sheet and put into the ground. Many more young men, peace in the Straits of Hormuz and beyond, and supplies of oil at an affordable price could all be as dead as the assassinated Roshan if the crisis over Iran’s nuclear project ratchets up further.

The United States, trying to put pressure on Tehran over its nuclear programme, is pressing for a worldwide embargo on sales of oil from Iran, the world’s second-largest supplier. Iran says it would then order its navy to close the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 per cent of global oil passes. The White House response is that this would be the “crossing of a red line”, which would be met with armed response. Britain agrees and has despatched HMS Daring to the area. Yesterday, a semi-official Iranian news agency said Tehran would punish “behind-the-scene elements” involved in Roshan’s death. This weekend tensions are as high as they have been in a long while.

The US and Israel are not alone in believing that Iran’s nuclear work is designed not, as Tehran maintains, purely for energy supply, but so the Shia state has a weapons capacity. A week ago, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) confirmed that Iran was now enriching uranium to 20 per cent, a level more appropriate to weapons than energy supply. And, in November, the IAEA issued a document drawing on 1,000 pages of intelligence which said for the first time that some of the alleged experiments can have no other purpose than developing nuclear weapons. On 28 January, a senior UN nuclear agency team will visit Tehran to discuss allegations that Iran is involved in secret nuclear weapons work.

President Barack Obama approved new sanctions last month that would target Iran’s central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad. The US has delayed implementing the sanctions for at least six months, worried about sending the price of oil higher at a time when the global economy is struggling. The attempts to embargo Iranian oil sales have met a frosty reception in China, and a pretty cool one in Japan and India. European Union foreign ministers are expected to agree to a ban on imports of Iranian crude oil on 23 January. However, even Europe, whose governments largely share the concerns of Israel and Washington over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, is looking for ways to limit the pain of an embargo. Firms in Iran’s three biggest EU oil customers, Italy, Spain and Greece, all suffering economic pain, have lately extended existing purchase deals in the hope at least of delaying the impact of any embargo for months.

Meanwhile, in Tehran, the anger on show at the funeral of Mostafa Roshan, when thousands screamed “Death to Israel! Death to America!”, grows. Yesterday, Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, said the country was holding Britain and the US responsible for the assassination. Tehran has now sent two separate diplomatic notes to London and Washington, in which it claimed that both countries had an “obvious role” in the killing of Roshan. It has previously accused Israel’s Mossad, the CIA and Britain’s spy agency of engaging in an underground “terrorism” campaign against nuclear-related targets, including at least three killing since early 2010 and the release of a malicious computer virus known at Stuxnet in 2010 which temporarily disrupted controls of some centrifuges – a key component in nuclear fuel production. All three countries have denied the accusations.

Like other Iranian scientists working on Iran’s nuclear programme before him, Roshan was killed by a magnetic bomb placed on his car by two men on a motorbike. Tehran swiftly said the assassins were working for Israel, with President Ahmadinejad declaring: “Once again the dirty hands of arrogance and the Zionist elements have deprived our scientific and academic community of the graceful presence of one our young intellectuals.”

While assassination by opponents of the Tehran regime is the most obvious explanation, opposition groups or internal saboteurs cannot be ruled out. And the defections of at least two prominent Iranian nuclear scientists raise the question of whether some of the killings might be an inside job, aimed at those thought to be actually, or potentially, disloyal – with the added benefit of being carried out in a way that deflects blame abroad. Unlikely perhaps, but not impossible.

The Israelis, as ever, are relaxed about being blamed, as they were in the case of the other assassinated Iranian scientists. In an interview on Friday with CNN Spanish, Shimon Peres, Israel’s President, said that “to the best of my knowledge” Israel was not involved in the hit on Roshan. Given the longevity of Mr Peres’s intimate connection with Israel’s defence establishment, his words carry some weight. But his remarks were limited to this one assassination out of several – successful and unsuccessful – attempts on the lives of scientists connected with Iran’s nuclear programme.

There is little doubt that Israel has worked covertly in the past, along with the US, to perpetrate some of what the IDF Chief of Staff, Benny Ganz, making predictions about what might happen in 2012, reportedly described last week as “unnatural events”. And not always in co-operation with the US. A new and apparently well-sourced report in Foreign Policy describes how, to the vexation of the Bush administration and US intelligence, Mossad agents using US passports posed as CIA operatives, mainly in London, and sought to recruit members of the Pakistani Sunni extremist organisation Jundallah during 2007-08 to carry out anti-regime operations inside Iran.

The assassination, whoever carried it out, was obviously aimed at delaying and harrying Iran’s nuclear programme, but such killings certainly will not stop the programme or bring Iran to the negotiating table. And security officials think time is running out. They believe Iran will pass the technological threshold for producing nuclear weapons – the “point of no return” – later this year, and that they will be able to develop an actual weapon within two or three years.

Hence the raising of stakes by both sides. The hope is that, amid the brinkmanship, some diplomatic way through is found. In remarks made in an interview with The Weekend Australian and released on Friday night, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, broke – for him – new ground by declaring that sanctions were actually working. “For the first time, I see Iran wobble under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank,” he declared. “If these sanctions are coupled with a clear statement by the international community, led by the US, to act militarily to stop Iran if sanctions fail, Iran may consider not going through the pain. There’s no point gritting your teeth if you’re going to be stopped anyway.”

If nothing else, the interview implied that the Prime Minister believes that Israel’s refusal to rule out a military strike has had, as he would see it, a positive impact on the international community’s willingness to impose genuinely tough sanctions. The alternative to them working is not a good one. Sanctions, like covert operations, are not a mutually exclusive alternative to war, of course; indeed, they can exacerbate the tensions that then lead to war. But, for now, those wanting to avoid a conflagration in the Middle East have to hope that Mr Netanyahu’s new, if cautious, expressions of faith in them are both genuine and sustained.

EDITOR: It’s the Mossad again, despite rumours…

Despite the insistent rumours and Iranian claims that it was the US responsible for the latest murder of a nuclear scientist in Iran, it seems that it is the old ‘usual suspects’ which have done it. Little surprise there. Israel will do what it takes to start the war.

Western intelligence sources tell Time Magazine Israel’s Mossad targeted Iranian scientist: Haaretz

On Saturday, Iran claimed it had information tying U.S. to the incident; Senior Israeli official tells Time Magazine he ‘doesn’t feel bad’ for scientist killed.

Western intelligence sources told Time magazine on Friday that Israel’s Mossad is responsible for the latest assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist.

A magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in Tehran. His driver was also killed. Sources tell the magazine Israel was behind three previous assassinations of scientists.

A senior Israeli official told is quoted in the report as saying “yeah, one more… I don’t feel sad for him.”

On Saturday, Iranian state television said that Iran had evidence the United States was behind the latest assassination. We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported.
“The documents clearly show that this terrorist act was carried out with the direct involvement of CIA-linked agents.”

The Swiss Embassy has represented U.S. interests in Iran since Iran and the U.S. cut diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Tension has mounted between Iran and the West as the United States and European Union prepare measures aimed at imposing sanctions on the Iran’s oil exports, its economic lifeblood.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Also on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. has stepped up contingency planning in case Israel launches a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

According to the report, U.S. defense officials are becoming increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to carry out such a strike.

Iran accuses US and Britain of role in killing of nuclear scientist: Guardian

Tehran sends diplomatic letter to US saying it has evidence of CIA involvement in killing of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan

Iran has accused the US and Britain of being behind the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist this week in Tehran.

Iran’s foreign ministry has sent a diplomatic letter to the US saying that it has “evidence and reliable information” that the CIA provided “guidance, support and planning” to assassins “directly involved” in Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s killing, the IRNA state news agency reported on Saturday.

Ahmadi-Roshan, a 32-year-old chemist, was killed in Wednesday morning traffic by motorcycle-borne assassins. It was the fifth time in two years that a scientist from the state nuclear programme had been targeted. Each time, the hit squad used a motorcycle.

His death has prompted calls in Iran for retaliation against those deemed responsible.

The US has denied any role in the assassination.

Iran delivered the letter to the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which looks after US interests in the country. The US has had no diplomatic relations with Iran since its 1979 revolution.

IRNA also reported that Iran delivered a letter to Britain accusing the UK of having an “obvious role” in the killing. It said that a series of assassinations began after British intelligence chief Sir John Sawers hinted in 2010 at intelligence operations against Iran.

Sawers has previously said intelligence-led operations were needed to make it more difficult for countries like Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

General Masoud Jazayeri, the spokesman for Iran’s joint armed forces staff, said Tehran was “reviewing the punishment” of “behind-the-scene elements” involved in the assassination, IRNA reported.

“Iran’s response will be a tormenting one for supporters of state terrorism,” he said, without elaborating. “The enemies of the Iranian nation, especially the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime, or Israel, have to be held responsible for their activities.”

Jazayeri also accused the International Atomic Energy Agency of being partly responsible, saying that the UN nuclear watchdog made public a list of Iranian nuclear scientists and officials that “has provided the possibility of their identification and targeting by spy networks”.

The British Foreign Office has condemned the killing of civilians. Israeli officials have hinted at covert campaigns against Iran without directly admitting involvement.

The killing has sparked outrage in Iran, and state TV broadcast footage on Saturday of hundreds of students marching in Tehran to condemn Roshan’s death and calling for the continuation of the country’s controversial nuclear programme.

The US and its allies fear Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies this, maintaining the programme is for peaceful purposes only.

The Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum said on Saturday that the US was wrong to condemn the killing.

The national security council spokesman Tommy Vietor said this week: “The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this. We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this.”

And Santorum, who is know for his hardline attitude towards Iran, said while on the campaign trail in South Carolina: “Our country condemned it. My feeling is we should have kept our mouth shut.”

Why you should support the Palestinians: Socialist Alternative

Vashti Kenway

It has been over three years since Israel’s massacre in Gaza, which saw over 1400 people murdered, but those who lived through the experience recall it as though it was yesterday. Blogger Rafat Abushaban gives a sense of the terror and impotence felt by the Palestinians living in the Strip at the time:

Some of the blasts were so powerful that rocks and bricks flew for hundreds of meters, hitting all the houses close by. It was a shocking experience witnessing the huge explosions, while seeing and hearing the metal, bricks and wooden parts of your house falling apart all around you. Here I believe is the very basic rule of life in Gaza: the place that was thought to be safer than others is dangerous after all. You are never safe.

To “never feel safe” is a way of life for the Palestinians. Whether it is the threat of air bombardments over Gaza, which continue almost daily, or the threat of having their home bulldozed by the Israeli state in East Jerusalem; whether it is the prospect of being arbitrarily stopped at one of the many Israeli military checkpoints that dot the Occupied West Bank, or being harassed for speaking Arabic inside the 1948 borders of Israel; whether it is seeing a younger brother or sister tortured in Israeli jails for years for the “crime” of throwing a rock at a passing Israeli soldier, or knowing that if a family member in Gaza gets sick there are no medicines to treat them, the threats are constant.

Last year could have been declared one of the most unsafe years for Palestinians. Human Rights organisation Peace Now found that Israeli settlement building had increased by 20 percent. In November over 700 Palestinians were made homeless by demolitions. Hundreds reported that they were woken in the middle of the night, told they had hour to gather their most prized possessions, and forced to leave.

They were then forced to watch as their homes were bulldozed into rubble. And to rub salt into the wounds the Israeli Knesset passed a law mandating that Palestinians whose homes are bulldozed will have to pay for the cost of the bulldozing.

The apartheid wall – called by African American novelist Alice Walker “an insult to the soul of humanity” – continues to snake through Palestinian communities, dividing them, and stealing their land. This wall is twice as high and three times as long as the Berlin wall, and is a constant visual reminder to the Palestinians that they do not control their own territory, that they are monitored 24 hours a day.

In Gaza the brutal blockade continues. Medical supplies and equipment are running dangerously low. Basics like baby formulas, antibiotics and MRI and X-ray machine are still banned. Most homes have still not been rebuilt after they were bombed in the war, and many suburbs look like a post-apocalyptic film set: all rubble and detritus. There is little to no industry and unemployment and restrictions on freedom of movement lead to extremely high levels of mental illness.

Support for the Palestinians and condemnation of the Israelis has to go deeper than moral outrage. It has to be built on an understanding that what is happening today is built upon a foundation of what Israeli historian Ilan Pappe calls “a project of ethnic cleansing”.

In other words the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli state is deeply racist, even genocidal in intent. Pappe’s research has revealed that the final plan for Zionist colonisation of Palestinian territory in 1948 involved mass expulsions, using tactics that included

large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centres; setting fire to homes, properties, and goods; expulsion; demolition; and, finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning.

In short, the plan was “an initiative to ethnically cleanse the country as a whole”. With the order to begin the operation, “each brigade commander received a list of the villages or neighbourhoods that had to be occupied, destroyed, and their inhabitants expelled”. The establishment of Israel saw over a million Palestinians flee from their homeland and forced into neighbouring countries where they have often lived as second class citizens in permanent refugee camps. The relationship between Israel and the Palestinians is a relationship between colonisers and the colonised.

If you are against colonisation then you must be on the side of the Palestinians.

Since the beginnings of Zionist colonisation, Israelis and their supporters have attempted to deny Palestinians not just a right to land, but the right to an identity, an existence. In a move similar to the declarations of “terra nullius” in Australia, the Zionist movement declared Palestine ideal for Zionist migration as it was “A land without a people for a people without a land”.

These sentiments are widely accepted even today. US Republican Newt Gingrich recently took to the airwaves to declare Palestinians an “invented people”. Rick Santorum, another leading US politician, stated in November that “all the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis, they’re not Palestinians”.

If you support rights of Indigenous populations to their land, you should support the Palestinians.

If you are against racism and apartheid, you should support the Palestinians.

Last year prominent African American activists and writers went on a tour of the Occupied Territories and Gaza. Many of them had grown up in the South of the USA under the racist Jim Crow laws and were shocked by the similarities. They were gob smacked by the “Israeli only roads”, by the differences between Palestinian schools and Israeli schools, and by the many thousands of subtle and not so subtle ways in which the Palestinians are persecuted.

Many comparisons have also been drawn with apartheid South Africa. Indeed one of the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has made stark comparisons with the history of his own country:

I visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinians at Israeli military checkpoints. The inhumanity that won’t let ambulances reach the injured, farmers tend their land, or children attend schools. This treatment is familiar to me as it was to many Black South Africans who were corralled and harassed by the security forces of the apartheid government

Palestinian writer Linah Alsaafin said in a recent article, “Apartheid is very much alive in occupied Palestine. It is our reality that we breathe through our congested lungs every minute of our waking lives.”

If you are against the domination of the US as the world’s biggest superpower, then you should be on the side of the Palestinians.

The Israeli state acts as one of the outposts of US power in the oil rich Middle East. The Bush and Obama administrations have offered unprecedented levels of military aid to Israel since 2007. There is also joint research, development and field testing of anti-missile projects financed separately by the Pentagon.

According to the terms of a memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries in 2007, the US is scheduled to provide Israel with $US30 billion in tax payer funded weapons between 2009 and 2018 – a 25 percent average annual increase over previous levels.

While many previous dictatorial allies of the US are being swept away by the Arab revolutions, Israel maintains its firm commitment to US regional dominance. Indeed 2012 has already seen one of the biggest ever joint military exercises between Israel and the USA.

Obama has given a rubber stamp to Israel, despite its various atrocities. The US vetoed a motion in the UN which condemned Israel’s settlement expansion, and has threatened reduced aid to the Palestinians if they try again to become a member of the UN. In return Israel acts as a loyal ally of the West in the region.

Finally if you support the struggles of the oppressed against their oppression then you should be on the side of the Palestinians

Ever since the initial mass expulsions, the Palestinian movement has been engaged in a struggle for justice. They have suffered immense privation, many have lost their lives, but they have not given up. From the young children who express their frustration by throwing rocks, to the weekly demonstrations in towns like Bi’lin and Ni’lin against the apartheid wall, they remain steadfast.

One activist wrote of the struggle:

In the 1960s in the US, the saying was “We shall overcome.” In Palestine, we say “Samidoon” or “We are steadfast.” There is courage, perseverance, strength and a deep sense of justice that binds rights struggles around the world. The mantra of sumoud, or steadfastness, that Palestinians hold dear, is difficult to adequately convey in translation, but it is not unique to them. It is a common root from which the oppressed draw inspiration and build solidarity.

For all these reasons, the Palestinians should be supported.

The annual Marxism Conference will be hosting a guest speaker from the West Bank town of Ni’lin.

 

Israel’s High Court doesn’t deserve to be defended: Haaretz

Long before the Citizenship Law, the rope was no more than a broken reed of support for the protection of human rights in Israel.
By Gideon Levy
The fight to defend the High Court of Justice from those who would bring it down must stop now. Enough self-righteousness, enough of this masquerade, in which we imagine that we are trying to protect the last beacon of justice and the last bastion of Israeli democracy. Not only is there no longer any point to the struggle – the last-ditch battle has already failed – it is also no longer justified. No more is there reason to defend an institution that issued the shameful rejection of the petition against the amendment to the Citizenship Law.

A court that vets this nationalistic and racist amendment, which discriminates against Arab citizens of Israel solely on the basis of their ethnicity, which in the name of security is prepared to deny basic rights and destroy the lives of thousands of Israeli families, which makes false use of security to try to cover up its racism – is an institution that must no longer be defended. Its name has been taken in vain, and defending it is misleading because it makes it seem to be an institution worth fighting for. It is better to tell the truth: It is not the guardian of the seal of democracy and human rights in Israel. The right wing can continue demolishing it to their hearts’ content; they are only demolishing ruins.

Let’s speak plainly: This is about transfer. Not by the army, the settlers or the extreme right, but expulsion under the aegis of the law and with the court’s seal of approval.

The ruling of the justices in Jerusalem means breaking up thousands of Israeli families whose mother or father will be expelled. Vladimir can marry Yana, but Mohammed cannot marry Sana.

Among the justifications and pretexts of the majority of the bench, from Justice Eliezer Rivlin’s “the damage is for a worthy goal” to Justice Hanan Melcer’s “the law protects the security of the state,” Justice Miriam Naor’s diabolical reasoning stands out: “Protection does not extend to fulfillment of family life specifically in Israel.” And just where will the people of this land who come from Taibeh or Nazareth go? And why should they go?

The ink is not yet dry on the Entry Into Israel Law before Israel continues its ethnic cleansing by means of the Citizenship Law. Thus will our encampment be pure. And who shall we thank and bless? The “leftist” and “liberal” court.

In the masquerade of defense of the High Court, one mask stands out as particularly deceitful – that of High Court President Dorit Beinisch. A do- gooder, she voted against the shameful ruling. But she drew out the process until an initial justice on the case who opposed the law, Ayala Proccacia, retired and was replaced by a justice who would say yes to the law. Beinisch wanted to have her cake and eat it too – to seem enlightened while not further kindling the anger of the right against her court. Beinisch understands the limitations of power, her supporters say, and realized that the rope could not be pulled too tight, lest it break.

Well, Madame President, that rope has indeed broken. A court that neutralizes itself with its own hands and abuses its office out of fear of its enemies is not a court. Long before the Citizenship Law, the rope was no more than a broken reed of support for the protection of human rights in Israel, particularly as long as these rights face off against the molech of security, which the court worshiped almost slavishly; the ruling on the Citizenship Law has now only given the final seal of approval to the end of the sham.

Of course, the trumpets of the right hailed the decision: “A good wind is blowing from the court,” they said, which is sufficient to understand that a very evil wind is blowing through it.

After the grotesque demonization of the “planned invasive swarm,” and the danger of terror from the Ajaji family, she from the Galilee and he from Tul Karm; after the self-righteous campaign of “everyone does it,” despicably ignoring the essential difference between foreigners and natives of this land – the sovereign or the occupied part – both of whom are members of one people, the High Court has satisfied the fearmongers of demographics and terror, and crushed the rights of minorities in Israel. And now, who are we to complain about the moss growing out of the rock, on the Danons and the Levins, when the cedar trees, which may never have even been cedars, have caught fire?

Israel flunks nuclear safety test, but ranks above Iran and North Korea: Haaretz

Israel scores its highest average grade of 78 in security and control measures, but gets low marks on pervasiveness of corruption, legislation and quantities of nuclear material.

Israel came close to the bottom of a new survey examining the security conditions of nuclear materials held in 32 different countries.

Israel ranked 25th in the study, published by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, scoring 56 out of 100.

Australia was given the highest overall grade on the list of “countries with weapons-usable nuclear materials.” The study deemed Britain the most secure of the countries with nuclear weapons – a group the researchers say includes Israel – followed by the United States. The list concludes with North Korea; Pakistan and Iran are just above it, the latter receiving an overall score of 46.

In response, the Israel Atomic Energy Commission said Israel’s nuclear policy is known internationally to be responsible, restrained and under supervision by the government, Knesset and the state comptroller.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative’s report was timed to coincide with the Nuclear Security Summit to be held in late March in Seoul, South Korea. The organizers have invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the conference. No official response has been made but Netanyahu reportedly intends to send Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor. However, Meridor is not in charge of the Atomic Energy Commission; the head of that body, Shaul Horev, reports directly to Netanyahu.

The study rates each country according to five criteria: quantities and sites, security and control measures, global norms, domestic commitments and capacity, and societal factors.

Israel scored its highest average grade, 78, in security and control measures, which included 100s for security personnel measures, physical security during transportation and independent regulatory agency.

However, Israel was given low marks on pervasiveness of corruption, legislation and quantities of nuclear material.

It was ranked last when it came to nuclear security transparency and procedures for control and accounting procedures. The researchers were convinced that such procedures existed, but the official secrecy around them necessarily worked against Israel.

Yael Doron, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Commission, said yesterday that Israel is perceived both internationally and in the region as having a “responsible and restrained policy.”

Doron said Israel conducted itself “in keeping with its character and democratic values. Israel is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The level of nuclear security and safety has been set by strict international standards. Israel also plays its part in nuclear nonproliferation and the Atomic Energy Commission services as a professional guide to the bodies responsible for monitoring this in Israel.”

She added that the licensing unit in the Atomic Energy Commission was an independent body and that it was monitored by an independent unit on nuclear security that reported from time to time on the state of Israel’s nuclear security to the prime minister.