William Pfaff - Arab Awakening and a Failed European Aeronautics Merger

It has been a bad week for American policymakers concerned with the Middle East (as for the Middle Easterners themselves), and it will be important to see what Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make of it in their second debate (which occurs after this writing).

From the beginning of the Arab Awakening (“Arab Springtime,” as it was, but alas two springtimes have already passed), my opinion has been to stay out of these events, as far as possible, and certainly not to attempt to control them. To do so has seemed certain to fail and leave the Western countries suffering serious collateral damage.

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/arab_awakening_and_a_failed_european_aeronautics_merger_20121016/

Gareth Porter - U.S. Hard Line in Failed Iran Talks Driven by Israel

Negotiations between Iran and the United States and other members of the P5+1 group in Baghdad ended in fundamental disagreement Thursday over the position of the P5+1 offering no relief from sanctions against Iran.

The two sides agreed to meet again in Moscow Jun. 18 and 19, but only after Iran had threatened not to schedule another meeting, because the P5+1 had originally failed to respond properly to its five-point plan.

The prospects for agreement are not likely to improve before that meeting, however, mainly because of an inflexible U.S. diplomatic posture that reflects President Barack Obama's need to bow to the demands of Israel and the U.S. Congress on Iran policy.

The U.S. hard line in the Baghdad talks and the failure to set the stage for an early agreement with Iran means that Iran will not only increase but accelerate its accumulation of 20-percent enriched uranium, which has been the ostensible reason for wanting to get Iran to the negotiating table quickly.

Iran's enrichment to 20 percent, which Tehran has justified over the past two years as needed by its Tehran Research Reactor to produce medical isotopes, can be turned into high enriched uranium more quickly than the 3.5 percent enriched uranium for Iran's nuclear power programme.

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http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gareth-porter/43412/u-s-hard-line-in-failed-iran-talks-driven-by-israel

Stephen Lendman - IS AMERICA GOING TO WAR? Anti-Iranian Propaganda in High Gear

Listen to Stephen weekly on Thursday's at 11am (Eastern) and Saturday and Sunday at 1pm (Eastern)

When America goes to war or plans one, the media march in lockstep. 

Articles, commentaries, editorials, and broadcasts feature Washington handout-style journalism. 

Managed news misinformation substitutes for truth and full disclosure. Readers and viewers are deceived and betrayed.

For years, Iran and Syria have been targeted for regime change. Independent governments aren't tolerated. Puppet ones are planned to replace them. Scoundrel media play leading roles.

On May 24, The New York Times headlined "Iran Nuclear Talks End with No Deal."

P5+1 talks failed as expected. Washington bears full responsibility. Deal-making isn't at issue. It's portraying Iran as uncooperative for added justification to wage war.

"The six wanted a freeze on Iranian production of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, which is considered a short step from bomb grade."

In fact, it's a giant one to 90% required for weapons making. It's especially so without intent to produce them.

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http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31069

US Concerned Israel May Attack Iran "at Any Moment"

The Obama administration is worried that Israel's new coalition government in could signal an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities at "any given moment," one of Israel's leading TV stations reported Thursday night.

Shaul Mofaz and his Kadima party’s joining a unity government with rightwing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu could be the final step in a united front for attack by Israel, according to the Hebrew-language Channel 10 News.

The televison station quoted unnamed Obama administration officials as saying they believed a Likud-Kadima coalition government could make a decision about an Israeli attack on Iran before the U.S. presidential elections in November.

* * *

Israel's Arutz Sheva Channel 7 reports:

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/11-6

Paul Pillar - Netanyahu’s ‘King David’ Complex

Israeli hardliners and American neocons say U.S. and Israeli interests are one and the same, meaning that if Israel bombs Iran, the United States should join in. But other observers say Washington must create some distance from Israel’s messianic Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

We have a comparative lull at the moment in what has been saturation attention to Iran and its nuclear program. The lull comes after the concentrated warmongering rhetoric associated with the recent visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the AIPAC conference in Washington, and before the opening in mid-April of the only channel offering a way out of the impasse associated with the Iranian nuclear issue: direct negotiations between Iran and the powers known as the P5+1.

It is a good time to reflect on how much the handling of this issue underscores the gulf between Israeli policies and U.S. interests. The gulf exists for two reasons. One is that the Netanyahu government’s policies reflect only a rightist slice of the Israeli political spectrum, with which many Israelis disagree and which is contrary to broader and longer-term interests of Israel itself.

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http://consortiumnews.com/2012/04/02/netanyahus-king-david-complex/

Renee Parsons - Iran and the Non Proliferation Treaty

Soon after President Obama's speech before AIPAC's annual convention, the potential attack on Iran, which just a few weeks earlier had seemed so imminent, faded quietly into the background. Gone from the headlines were the daily threats of military options 'on the table' and bellicose rhetoric that did little to calm the fevered war pitch that was building prior to the AIPAC meeting.

In what seemed like walking a political tightrope, the president offered an impressive inventory of his administration's support for Israel with caution against "too much loose talk of war" and that "now is not the time for bluster" as the president appeared to distance himself from beating the tom-tom for war. Missing, however, was any mention of the president's earlier suggestion implementing UN Resolution 242 which requires a return to the 1967 borders regarding the Palestine-Israel dispute -- an issue at the top of a long list of grievances on U.S. Mideast policy with undeniably deep roots in creating terrorism. 

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renee-parsons/iran-nuclear-weapons_b_1385241.html

Norm Chomsky - Are We About to Get Embroiled in a Nightmare War With Iran?

The January/February issue of Foreign Affairs featured the article “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option,” by Matthew Kroenig, along with commentary about other ways to contain the Iranian threat.

The media resound with warnings about a likely Israeli attack on Iran while the U.S. hesitates, keeping open the option of aggression – thus againroutinely violating the U.N. Charter, the foundation of international law.

As tensions escalate, eerie echoes of the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in the air. Feverish U.S. primary campaign rhetoric adds to the drumbeat.

Concerns about “the imminent threat” of Iran are often attributed to the “international community” – code language for U.S. allies. The people of the world, however, tend to see matters rather differently.

The nonaligned countries, a movement with 120 member nations, has vigorously supported Iran’s right to enrich uranium – an opinion shared by the majority of Americans (as surveyed by WorldPublicOpinion.org) before the massive propaganda onslaught of the past two years.

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http://www.alternet.org/story/154540/chomsky%3A_are_we_about_to_get_embroiled_in_a_nightmare_war_with_iran

Larry Everest - Threats, Aggression, War Preparations...and Lies--U.S. and Israel Accelerate Campaign Against Iran

2012 has brought a flood of war talk and aggressive preparations for war on Iran. Indeed, war looms more ominously week by week.

The U.S., Israel, and the European Union have intensified their economic, political, and diplomatic assault on Iran. They claim it's needed to force Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program, which they say is actually aimed at giving Iran the ability to build a nuclear weapon. Iran says its program is peaceful and is simply for generating nuclear power.

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http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/03/07/18708961.php

Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay - The Corrupt Influence of Money in the American Political System

" I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I’ve made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests." U.S. President Barack Obama, Sunday, March 5, 2012, speech to the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee)

“There are about 50 countries in the world that have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon if they chose to do so, making Iran far from unique but for its persistence as a thorn in the side of Israel and Israel’s powerful lobby in the United States.” Philip Giraldi, Council for the National Interest

"The truth is there are very few members [of the U.S. Congress] who I could even name or could think of who didn't at some level participate in that [system of bribery and corruption in Washington D.C.]." Jack Abramoff, professional lobbyist and onetime power broker for the elite of Washington, D.C. (during a CBS's 60 Minutes interview, Sunday November 6, 2011)

Read More:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29655

Robert Scheer - The Ayatollah Is Right About One Thing: Nuclear Weapons Are Sinful

Given my own deep prejudice toward religious zealotry, it has not been difficult for me to accept the conventional American view that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme theocratic ruler of Iran, is a dangerous madman never to be trusted with a nuclear weapon. How then to explain his recent seemingly logical and humane religious proclamations on the immorality of nuclear weapons? His statement challenges the acceptance of nuclear war-fighting as an option by every U.S. president since Harry Truman, who, in 1945, ordered the deaths of 185,000 mostly innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“We do not see any glory, pride or power in the nuclear weapons—quite the opposite,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Tuesday in summarizing the ayatollah’s views. Salehi added, “The production, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons are illegitimate, futile, harmful, dangerous and prohibited as a great sin.”

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_ayatollah_is_right_about_one_thing_nuclear_weapons_are_sinful_20120229/