Israel has only mere days to launch an attack on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor if Russia makes good on its plan to deliver fuel there this weekend, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton warned Tuesday.
He said that once Russia has loaded the fuel into the reactor — slated for Saturday – Israel would no longer be willing to strike for fear of triggering widespread radiation in an attack.
Benjamin Weinthal berichtet für die Jerusalem Post:
The German chapter of Stop the Bomb on Monday slammed Germany’s government and industry for rewarding “the [Islamic] regime’s rampant terror against the Iranian freedom movement.” It alleged that economic statistics indicated Germany continued to increase its trade in recent months with Iran.
Trade boomed in May, according to the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce in Hamburg. German exports (€295 million) to Iran increased by 26 percent as compared to the same month in 2009. Imports soared by 34%.
German exports to Iran climbed by 11.5% in the first five months of 2010 (to €1.536 billion) compared to the same period last year, the Chamber of Commerce wrote on its Web site. [Weiterlesen...]
RAHANA – Wie berichtet wird, waren gegen einige dieser wegen Drogenschmuggels verhafteten Personen KEINE Todesurteile verhängt worden. Sie waren lediglich zu Geldstrafen verurteilt worden. Dennoch wurden sie aufgrund einer richterlichen Anordnung unerwartet und ohne Vorankündigung hingerichtet.
Eisern verteidigt das Regime seine Unrechtsstaat gegen ausländische Interventionisten (Quelle: WELT online):
Die Regierung in Teheran hat den Westen aufgefordert, sich nicht in den Fall der zum Tod durch Steinigung verurteilten Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani einzumischen. „Unabhängige Nationen können nicht akzeptieren, dass andere Länder in seine richterlichen Entscheidungen eingreifen“, sagte der Sprecher des Außenministeriums, Ramin Mehmanparast. Seinen Angaben zufolge dauern die Ermittlungen zu dem Fall noch immer an. Ashtiani wird Ehebruch vorgeworfen.
Das Vorgehen der Gerichte sei strikt geregelt, besonders wenn es um Mord gehe, sagte Mehmanparast weiter. Der Fall werde „akribisch“ geprüft. Die Empörung über das Urteil sei vor dem Hintergrund des Atomstreits zwischen dem Westen und dem Iran „politisch“ motiviert, sagte der Ministeriumssprecher.
Eine Freilassung Ashtianis schloss er aus. „Wenn wir wegen Mordes Verurteilte frei ließen, gäbe es keine Sicherheit“, sagte Mehmanparast.
Ein iranischer Oppositioneller hat Nokia Siemens Networks wegen der mutmaßlichen Lieferung von Abhörtechnologie an die Regierung in Teheran vor einem US-Gericht verklagt. In der am Montag von seinen Anwälten eingereichten Klageschrift wirft der im Iran in Haft sitzende Journalist Isa Saharchis dem deutsch-finnischen Technologieunternehmen Beihilfe zu Menschenrechtsverletzungen vor.
Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi
Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons, and for long range missiles to put them on, is not just destabilizing the Middle East, it is beginning to change the strategic calculus in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Russia’s new war of words with the Teheran regime is a sign that Moscow is starting to recognize this. The threat that Russia faces from the aggressive and ambitious Islamic Republic and its allies, is one that it has not had to deal with seriously for more than four hundred years. They have long memories in the Kremlin, and no one there has forgotten the centuries of the „Tartar Yoke.“
If Iran does go nuclear the question arises : How will it use its nuclear weapons? Even if we assume that they are not crazy enough to launch them against Israel or Saudi Arabia, they will give the leaders in Tehran a new set of military options that should make world and regional leaders very nervous. A clue to the new kind of warfare may been seen in the December 2008 attack on Mumbai. Evidence now indicates that this was launched by elements within the Pakistani intelligence service. Thanks to Pakistan’s bomb, they were able to do so with relative impunity. North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan fits into a similar pattern. Iran’s ability to launch such attacks, combined with its angry ambition, would make the what happened to India and to South Korea seem like mosquito bites.
Jeffrey Goldbergs Analyse, dass der „Point of No Return“ in Bezug auf einen nuklear bewaffneten Iran erreicht sei und Israel demnach wohl innerhalb des nächsten Jahres angreifen müsse und werde, hat einige Wellen geschlagen. Bei The Atlantic will man offenbar weiterhin surfen und hat daher eine eigene Themenseite eingerichtet, auf der bis zum 25. August jeden Tag ein „Nahost-Experte“ zum Thema Stellung beziehen wird. Auch wenn vorher nicht verraten wird, um wen es sich da handelt, ist davon auszugehen, dass es sich nicht um Gestalten wie Udo Steinbach oder Volker Perthes handeln wird.
Die Olympischen Jugendspiele in Singapur haben am zweiten Wettkampftag ihre Unschuld verloren. Unmittelbar vor dem Finale im Taekwondo hat der Iraner Mohammad Soleimani auf den Gold-Kampf verzichtet. Als offizielle Begründung wurde eine Verletzung angegeben.
Da er im Finale aber auf den Israeli Gili Haimovitz getroffen wäre, wird auch über ein politisches Motiv der Absage gemutmaßt. «Das ist schon bei uns angekommen. Wir werden nun die Hintergründe sichten», erklärte Thomas Bach, deutscher Vizepräsident des Internationalen Olympischen Komitees (IOC), der Nachrichtenagentur dpa.
Michael Rubin erklärt in der New York Daily News einmal mehr, was für eine Gefahr von einer nuklear bewaffneten „Islamischen Republik“ ausginge. Gerade deshalb, weil voraussichtlich die Revolutionsgarden die Kontrolle über die Bombe(n) hätten:
When Iran develops nuclear weapons, determining their command-and-control will become America’s overriding intelligence objective. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s genocidal rhetoric shocks the West. Would he control the bomb? Not likely. In the Islamic Republic, the president is subordinate to the supreme leader. Khamenei may be the ultimate political authority in Iran, but will an aide carrying launch codes generated daily shadow him day and night? Equally unlikely; the ayatollah allows no aide so close.
Possession is 90% of the law. And in that sense, on a day-to-day basis, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–which will „own“ the arsenal–will control it. This is no comfort: Not only do the Revolutionary Guards contain Iran’s most radical ideologues, but they also remain effectively a big, black box to Western analysts. [Weiterlesen...]
Einer der größten Salzwaseseen der Welt, Lake Urumieh, droht auszutrocknen. Mehr in dieser Facebook Gruppe.
Heute auch eine besorgniserregende Meldung von Press TV. Wenn die schon so schwarzmalerisch schreiben, steht es um das Gebiet sicher noch schlimmer. So heißt es, der See drohe innerhalb von sieben Jahren auszutrocknen.
Ein Schicksal, dass der einst größte See im Iran schon hinter sich hat.
Mehr Infos bei Stop the Bomb.
Die Islamische Republik Iran steht in jüngster Zeit beständig im Zentrum der medialen Aufmerksamkeit. Im Hinblick auf die innen- und außenpolitischen Spannungen sowie die internationale Bedeutung des Landes sehen wir gerade zu diesem Zeitpunkt eine besondere Notwendigkeit für gegenseitigen Austausch und Dialog. Mit dem Deutsch-Iranischen Studentendialog möchten wir eine Plattform schaffen, die einen konstruktiven Austausch zwischen jungen Iranern und Deutschen ermöglicht. Dazu sind bereits zwei Veranstaltungen in Planung.
Konstruktiver Ausstausch! Wie etwa dieser?
Clemens Wergin berichtet für die Welt:
Es sind die Meldungen nur einer Woche: Die Amerikaner verkaufen den Saudis 84 moderne F-15-Kampfflugzeuge und den Kuwaitern 209 Patriot-Raketenabwehrbatterien. Die Iraner sagen, sie hätten eines der schnellsten Boote der Welt, den britischen „Bladerunner“, mit Geschützen ausgerüstet. Zudem wolle man weitere zwölf Torpedo- und Raketenboote in Dienst stellen. Nach bisher unbestätigten Meldungen einer für gewöhnlich gut informierten Website soll der amerikanische Flugzeugträger „USS Truman“ nicht wie geplant gen Afghanistan, sondern zurück zum Persischen Golf beordert worden sein. Während Europa am Strand liegt, braut sich im Persischen Golf etwas zusammen. [Weiterlesen...]
John Bolton ist nicht nur einer der prominentesten Befürworter für einen Schlag gegen das iranische Atomwaffenprogramm, sondern befürwortet diesen schon seit vergleichsweise langer Zeit. Seine jüngste Warnung mag daher mit Vorsicht zu genießen sein, ist aber dennoch besorgniserregend:
News that Russia will load nuclear fuel rods into an Iranian reactor has touched off a countdown to a point of no return, a deadline by which Israel would have to launch an attack on Iran’s Bushehr reactor before it becomes effectively „immune“ to any assault, says former Bush administration U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton.
Once the fuel rods are loaded, Bolton told Fox News on Friday afternoon, „it makes it essentially immune from attack by Israel. Because once the rods are in the reactor an attack on the reactor risks spreading radiation in the air, and perhaps into the water of the Persian Gulf.“ [Weiterlesen...]
Das wäre der 21. August – diesen Jahres, wohlgemerkt.
Unter explizitem Einverständnis der US-Regierung, wohlbemerkt:
Russia said it would begin loading nuclear fuel into Iran’s Bushehr nuclear-power plant on Aug. 21, marking a crucial final step towards making Tehran a nuclear power.
The Obama administration, which has previously been critical of Moscow’s role in Bushehr, largely voiced support for the Russian position Friday. It’s part of Washington’s broader campaign to prevent Tehran from obtaining atomic weapons.
Senior U.S. officials said the White House consented in recent months to Russia pushing forward with Bushehr in order to gain Moscow’s support for a fourth round of United Nations sanctions against Iran, which passed in June.
These officials acknowledge the Bushehr project undercuts the U.S.’s efforts to present Tehran as isolated internationally. But they stressed that Bushehr doesn’t pose a proliferation risk and challenges Iran’s argument that it needs to produce nuclear fuel indigenously in order to power its civilian power plants. [Weiterlesen...]
Michael Anton kommentiert das für Weekly Standard im Hinblick auf die militärische Option wie folgt:
[I]t should put to rest any speculation that the United States might be contemplating an attack of our own—at least on Bushehr. It also must complicate Israeli calculations. Israel will no doubt do what it believes it has to do. Bush administration officials reportedly communicated to Jerusalem in advance their opposition to the attack on Syria’s reactor in 2007—an attack that went forward anyway. But this time such an attack would have to take place not merely in spite of an ally’s private objections to the operation but of its public approval of the targeted project.
One of the many difficult calculations Jerusalem must make is whether a potential U.S. backlash over a strike the Obama administration doesn’t want is worse than the consequences of not striking. No Israeli government could take lightly the prospect of a serious and potentially fatal breach of relations with the United States. That’s not an existential threat. But it would be dire enough that it’s not worth risking unless the consequences of inaction truly are existential. That’s a hard and unenviable call to have to make.
Editorial of the Kurdish Medya News:
The US officials have always downplayed the use of military option fearing the destabilizing effects such an attack might have on Iran and the region. One could argue that such fears might still be well-grounded and reasonable even if the regime in Iran acquires such deadly weapons. Avoiding the worst of options, the US might be better off seeking other alternatives. The most viable option would be to support the dynamic and potent internal and external opposition forces working diligently to replace this theocratic regime in Iran with a democratic kind that does not threaten regional and world peace and security.
Adopting the policy of “regime change” by the US and its allies can once and for all end the threats posed by the Islamist regime in Iran, and most importantly, espousing this policy will have the least of all possible negative consequences.
Benjamin Weinthal weist auf eine Dokumentation der BBC hin, die sich der in der Überschrift gestellten Frage widmet:
What causes Western intellectuals and journalists to suspend their critical faculties and euphorically embrace genocidal anti-Western regimes and tyrants like the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? John Sweeney, from the BCC World Service, explores this question in a two part BCC documentary series entitled “Useful Idiots,” which can be heard online for only two more days.
There has been no shortage of useful idiots who served as cheerleaders for Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution in the pre- and post-revolutionary period of 1979. The French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984), who goes unmentioned in part 2 of the BBC documentary addressing Iran, waxed lyrical in a series of articles, between1978-1979, about the global significance of Khomeinism: “As an Islamic movement it can set the entire region afire, overturn the most unstable regimes, and disturb the most solid ones. Islam — which is not simply a religion, but an entire way of life, an adherence to a history and a civilization — has a good chance to become a gigantic powder keg, at the level of hundreds of millions of men.” [Weiterlesen...]
Alan Posener in der Welt:
Barack Obama hat Russland angeboten, auf den „Reset-Knopf zu drücken; er hat dem Iran die „Hand ausgestreckt“. Nun hat er aus Moskau und Teheran die Antwort bekommen. Obama sollte zwar den Forderungen der Falken in den USA widerstehen, sofort die iranischen Atomanlagen zu bombardieren. Er sollte aber dem Iran und der Welt – und vor allem Israel, das um seine Existenz bangt – ohne Wenn und Aber klarmachen, dass jeder Versuch des iranischen Regimes, Buschehr für militärische Zwecke zu missbrauchen, einen sofortigen Militärschlag zur Folge haben wird. Deutschland sollte sich hinter diese Erklärung stellen. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
During an August 9 visit to Syria, Ali Akbar Velayati, influential advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, stated that Iran is ready to negotiate with the United States regarding its nuclear program. Yesterday, however, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast announced that Iran has no plans for bilateral negotiation with Washington. These and other conflicting signals point to deep internal divisions among former allies in Iran’s hardline camp. Such divisions are part of a longstanding pattern in the Islamic Republic: as soon as one faction seizes power by cutting out its opponents, it splits into warring parties.
The Germany based Free Iran Now network quoted yesterday the sincere doubts of experts if the new sanctions on Iran would really bite and force the regime in Tehran to change the political pass of suppression against the iranian people. At the same day the German-Iran Chamber in Hamburg published its newest figures about German Exports to Iran. The figures show an increase of 11,5% of the exports from Germany to the sanctioned Mullah-regime.
At the same time the vice-president of the of the German-Iran Chamber of Industry Tehran Ghazanfari confirms against german journalists: ” The sanctions don’t lead to anything“. The two sister chambers are obviously not convinced that the time booming exports to Iran are over.
Der Iran hat die zweitgrößten Vorkommnisse an Flüssigerdgas, exportiert allerdings bislang kaum etwas davon. Diesen Missstand zu beheben, ist seit Jahren ein zentrales Anliegen des Regimes. Einem Bericht des Wall Street Journal zufolge hat der Iran nun jedoch zwei LNG-Projekte (liquefied natural-gas) auf Eis gelegt. Dies kann als Anzeichen dafür gesehen werden, dass die Sanktionen erste Wirkungen zu zeigen beginnen:
The LNG pullback could be an early indication that the sanctions—in particular those recently enacted by the European Union—are starting to bite, industry executives and analysts say. [...] [O]ne Iranian gas official familiar with the projects said new EU sanctions, some of which target Iran’s energy sector, played a role.
The measures effectively prevent big European energy companies from playing a significant role in Iran. They also appear to make it harder for Iran to gain niche LNG technology through licensing arrangements from smaller European companies, analysts said.
„Sanctions are one of the reasons,“ the Iranian official said.
Trotz der Sanktionen hat der Iran aber keinen Mangel an Benzin – China und der Türkei sei’s gedankt:
FACTS Global Energy, a Singapore-based energy consultancy, estimates that about six gasoline tankers dropped anchor in Iranian ports in July, about half as many as before the latest sanctions. That is enough to meet demand, the consultancy says, as gasoline rationing has kept a lid on consumption.
The gasoline shipments were from Turkey and China, according to FACTS. Both countries said they would abide by U.N. sanctions but aren’t beholden to unilateral U.S. or EU measures. Iranian distributors can also find gasoline supplies, at a premium, from a flourishing black market for fuel products in the Persian Gulf.
„There is no evidence of a shortage in Iran,“ said Fereidun Fesharaki, an Iranian oil specialist at FACTS.
Wer sich an das Regime der „Islamischen Republik Iran“ heranschmust – selbst schuld. Als ob man – die moralischen Fragen einmal ganz beiseite geräumt – mit solchen verkrachten Figuren wie Mahmoud nicht immer nur verlieren könnte in letzter Konsequenz.
Im Herbst sind Wahlen in Brasilien und der Iran ist im Wahlkampf ob des Schicksals von Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani zum Thema geworden. Ein Hintergrundbericht von Reuters:
„People may not understand Iran, but they understand a woman getting stoned to death,“ said political analyst Maria do Socorro Souza Braga. „In those terms, it’s possible that this issue could have some electoral effect.“
Nicht nur der Libanon scheint dieser Tage endgültig an die iranisch-syrische Achse verloren zu gehen:
Turkey has offered to join Iran in sending weapons to Hizbullah in Lebanon, with help from Syria, according to a report published in an Italian newspaper.
The daily Corriere Della Sera quoted sources Wednesday evening who said that Turkey will “send sophisticated weapons, rockets and guns to Syria that will end up in Lebanon.”
The sources went on to say that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards would “facilitate the transition, ensure safety, watch loads on the routes, and provide support to the border.” According to the report, Iran intends to build a network that will supply the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization with weapons as well, similar to the weapons network that operates in the Sudan.
The newspaper also reported that Turkish and Iranian intelligence heads Hakan Fidan and Hossein Taeb allegedly met to discuss logistics and relations between the two nations.
Die Jerusalem Post hat große Bedenken bezüglich der Wirksamkeit der jüngsten Sanktionen:
The sanctions imposed on Iran by the UN, EU and US have always looked better on paper than in real life.
Their major underlying flaw – not the only one by any means – is the probability that not everyone will adhere to them.
In some cases – such as Venezuela, Syria and lately Turkey – this may be a matter of provocative defiance. In another category are countries less ideologically confrontational but with various economic and geopolitical axes to grind. These include, first and foremost, Russia, along with a host of former USSR components, and China and other East Asian states.
Most galling, however, is the behavior of certain European democracies such as Switzerland which, for their own good, should be in the vanguard of the struggle to defend free world interests against a rogue regime with nuclear ambitions. [Weiterlesen...]
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