M Ahmadinejad

[Rasputin]

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday challenged the authority of the U.N. Security Council as Iran faces a deadline to halt its uranium enrichment and he called for a televised debate with President Bush on world issues.

The White House dismissed the idea of a debate, describing it as a diversion.

The Security Council has given Iran until Thursday to suspend enrichment, a process that can produce either fuel for a reactor or material for weapons, or face economic and political sanctions.

"The U.S. and Britain are the source of many tensions," Ahmadinejad said at a news conference. "At the Security Council, where they have to protect security, they enjoy the veto right. If anybody confronts them, there is no place to take complaints to.

"This (veto right) is the source of problems of the world. ... It is an insult to the dignity, independence, freedom and sovereignty of nations," he said.

Ahmadinejad challenged Bush to a live, televised debate on "world issues and the ways of solving the problems of the international community."

He said such a debate would show "the proposals of the Iranian nation on how to run the world better, different from the U.S. method of use of force."

In dismissing Ahmadinejad's proposal, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States was willing to talk to Iran in the context of a "positive response" to the package of incentives offered by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.

"Talk of a debate is just a diversion from the legitimate concerns that the international community, not just the U.S., has about Iran's behavior, from support for terrorism to pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability," Perino said, adding: "Iran may want to look first to allowing free expression and open debate within its borders, as opposed to the current practice of crushing dissent."

It was not the first overture Ahmadinejad made to Bush. Earlier this year, he wrote a letter to Bush that was promptly dismissed by Washington as irrelevant and not addressing the key issue of its nuclear program.

Iran says its nuclear program is intended solely to generate electricity, while the United States and Europe contend it secretly aims to develop weapons.

Ahmadinejad rejected any suspension of enrichment, even if U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked for it during an upcoming visit to Iran.

"The use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is the right of the Iranian nation. The Iranian nation has chosen this path. ... No one can prevent it," he said.

Iran last week responded to the incentive package aimed at getting Tehran to roll back its nuclear program. Iranian officials said the Islamic country did not agree to halt enrichment _ the key demand _ before engaging in further talks.

Ahmadinejad called the response an opportunity for the two sides to resolve the issue and he didn't rule out the possibility of direct talks with the United States.

"The opportunity the Iranian nation has given to other countries today is a very exceptional opportunity for a fair resolution of the issue," he said.

The Iranian president also called Israel a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East.

"The Zionist regime has deprived the Palestinian nation and other nations of the region of a single day of peace. In the past 60 years, it has imposed tens of wars on the Palestinian nation and others," he said.

[Rasputin]

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday challenged the authority of the U.N. Security Council as Iran faces a deadline to halt its uranium enrichment and he called for a televised debate with President Bush on world issues.

The White House dismissed the idea of a debate, describing it as a diversion.

The Security Council has given Iran until Thursday to suspend enrichment, a process that can produce either fuel for a reactor or material for weapons, or face economic and political sanctions.

"The U.S. and Britain are the source of many tensions," Ahmadinejad said at a news conference. "At the Security Council, where they have to protect security, they enjoy the veto right. If anybody confronts them, there is no place to take complaints to.

"This (veto right) is the source of problems of the world. ... It is an insult to the dignity, independence, freedom and sovereignty of nations," he said.

Ahmadinejad challenged Bush to a live, televised debate on "world issues and the ways of solving the problems of the international community."

He said such a debate would show "the proposals of the Iranian nation on how to run the world better, different from the U.S. method of use of force."

In dismissing Ahmadinejad's proposal, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States was willing to talk to Iran in the context of a "positive response" to the package of incentives offered by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.

"Talk of a debate is just a diversion from the legitimate concerns that the international community, not just the U.S., has about Iran's behavior, from support for terrorism to pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability," Perino said, adding: "Iran may want to look first to allowing free expression and open debate within its borders, as opposed to the current practice of crushing dissent."

It was not the first overture Ahmadinejad made to Bush. Earlier this year, he wrote a letter to Bush that was promptly dismissed by Washington as irrelevant and not addressing the key issue of its nuclear program.

Iran says its nuclear program is intended solely to generate electricity, while the United States and Europe contend it secretly aims to develop weapons.

Ahmadinejad rejected any suspension of enrichment, even if U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked for it during an upcoming visit to Iran.

"The use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is the right of the Iranian nation. The Iranian nation has chosen this path. ... No one can prevent it," he said.

Iran last week responded to the incentive package aimed at getting Tehran to roll back its nuclear program. Iranian officials said the Islamic country did not agree to halt enrichment — the key demand — before engaging in further talks.

Ahmadinejad called the response an opportunity for the two sides to resolve the issue and he didn't rule out the possibility of direct talks with the United States.

"The opportunity the Iranian nation has given to other countries today is a very exceptional opportunity for a fair resolution of the issue," he said.

The Iranian president also called Israel a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East.

"The Zionist regime has deprived the Palestinian nation and other nations of the region of a single day of peace. In the past 60 years, it has imposed tens of wars on the Palestinian nation and others," he said.

[Rasputin]

It's hard to reason with people when they're afraid, especially when those people are Jews and their fear is the worst one possible: fear of the return of Nazism. It becomes even harder to reason with them when there are a lot of influential Jews out there manipulating that fear.

"Nothing works better than gevalt," an unnamed former AIPAC staffer told The Forward during the organization's recent Washington, DC, convention, which featured a multimedia horror show whose plot was that Hitler had come back as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"The parallels of the geopolitical climate of March 5, 1933, and that of March 5, 2006, are stirring in their likeness, eerie in their implication," a grim AIPAC chief Howard Kohr warned the huge audience. It was a very successful event.

Yet the fear of a nuclear Iran, of course, isn't all that's got so many Jews imagining 21st-century Nuremburg rallies and concentration camps. Hamas, al-Qaida, anti-Semitism, the cartoon riots, the torture murder of the French Jew Ilan Halimi - this build-up of bad news has convinced any number of Jews that we are living through a reprise of the 1930s, that this era of militant Islam is plainly an updated version of the Nazi years.

It's understandable why people, and not just Jews, would make such an equation. After all, Iran, Hamas, al-Qaida and the like are definitely proto-Nazi in their ideology, in their designs for the Jews and everyone else they hate. The wish lists of today's Islamists and history's Nazis do not differ in any important way.

BUT WHILE their wishes are basically the same, their abilities to carry out those wishes are vastly different, and that's the decisive comparison, or lack of comparison, between the two. The forces of militant Islam don't have anything approaching the power the Nazis had. The world's reaction to Islamism today could hardly be more different from its reaction to Nazism in the Thirties. As a result, militant Islam is limited in its potential for evil in a way Nazism wasn't. While Islamism today is obviously dangerous, it is nowhere remotely as dangerous to the world - or to the world's Jews - as Nazism was.

We can start with Iran: Either its nuclear facilities are going to be crippled one day by American missiles, or, if that's not possible, it will know that if it dares use its nuclear weapons it will be committing suicide. And even if Iran does go nuclear, it would still be dwarfed in power by its enemies. The Nazis were allowed to build the second strongest military in the world. They also had over one-third of world Jewry as helpless targets. Iran has 30,000 Jews who feel secure enough to publicly protest Ahmedinejad's denial of the Holocaust. Where's the comparison?

And if Hamas is also a contemporary equivalent of the Nazis, where is Hamas's Hitler? His name was Ahmed Yassin, and he never made it to his bunker; instead, a helicopter gunship dispatched by the Jewish state - another new development since the 1930s - killed him. Israel has killed Hamasniks in droves; it's forced Hamas into effectively suing for peace. Israel is the colossus of the Middle East; militarily it is more powerful than the entire Muslim world combined. How can anybody compare this to the state of Jewish affairs when Hitler was in power?

But let's continue. Al-Qaida, yet another Nazi knockoff, was chased out of Afghanistan, along with the quasi-Nazi Taliban - and the entire Western world supported America in that war. In dozens of countries, police forces and intelligence agencies are hunting al-Qaida and its affiliates. Where is all this "appeasement" everyone's talking about?

And look at France, the so-called "surrender monkey." It swooped down on the animals who killed Halimi, capturing the ringleader in the Ivory Coast. French security forces are not known for their timidity or gentle hand in pursuit of violent criminals, whatever their religion, whatever their motive. They are not collaborateurs with Islamism.

The leaders of Europe are aware of the threat from militant Islam, and their constituents are hyperaware of it. Jews have to understand that whatever increase there has been in anti-Semitism, it is nothing compared to the increase in Islamophobia - not only in America, but in Europe as well. My guess is that the law-abiding Muslims of Europe are living in much greater fear of persecution than Europe's Jews are.

Unlike in the 1930s, today the world is fighting totalitarianism. Unlike in the 1930s, today the free world is incomparably stronger than the forces of totalitarianism. The Jewish state by itself is stronger than those forces; for the Jewish people, these times couldn't be more starkly different from the time of the Nazis.

If anything, the free world, or at least its leader, has shown a tendency to overreact to Middle East totalitarianism; witness what's happened in Iraq. I don't think any responsible person wants to see America go on another long-term mission like that inside Iran, driven again by visions of mushroom clouds, WMD, and a Muslim dictator whom everyone keeps comparing to Hitler.

IF PEOPLE will step back, look at the big picture - at the radical imbalance of power between Islamism and its enemies - and realize that we are in a thousand times stronger, more secure position than our forebears were in the 1930s, it won't make anybody an unpatriotic American or a bad Jew. It'll no doubt ruin their chances to work for AIPAC or the Israeli hasbara machine, but that's not the end of the world, either.

Still, if we shouldn't be misled by old, traumatic fears in dealing with the threat of militant Islam, how should we deal with it? I'd suggest the way we've been dealing with it for the last few years, which is vigilantly. Also by learning from our mistakes, such as in Iraq. And by going easy with the gevalt. Take a look at the world run by those mullahs, then look at the world run by us infidels. Who's winning?

[Rasputin]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Tehran will not yield to international pressure to stop its sensitive nuclear work.
"Iran will not back down an inch... and will not accept being deprived of its rights," he said in a speech.

The UN had set a 31 August deadline for Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment and re-processing activities.

If Iran is found not to comply, the US wants UN powers to discuss a resolution which could impose sanctions on Iran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due to submit a report to the UN Security Council which is expected to say that Iran has not complied with the UN demand.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the deadline had passed but he did not expect immediate action from the world body.

"Even though the deadline has expired I don't think the Council is going to act tomorrow," he said, on a visit to Jordan.




Key nuclear sites

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani are to holds talks in coming days.

The two agreed in a telephone call "to have a face-to-face meeting soon", Mr Solana's spokeswoman said, adding that a date and venue has yet to be decided.

US ambassador to the UN John Bolton has said Iran is well aware that ignoring the UN demands could trigger sanctions.

He said the five permanent members of the Security Council had repeatedly warned that failure to meet the deadline would result in them seeking sanctions.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said US Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns and senior officials from the UK, France, Russia, China and Germany would meet in Europe early next week to discuss the issue.

What form any sanctions against Iran would take has yet to be determined.

Russia and China, which can both veto action at the Security Council, have urged patience and said they would not support severe punishments.

Iran maintains it has a right to a nuclear programme which, it says, has a purely civilian aspect.

But Western powers accuse Iran of trying covertly to develop a nuclear bomb.

US claims

A senior White House official has told the BBC the US continues to detect low level uranium enrichment by Iran.

Such activity would be in defiance of demands from both the UN and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Iranians were trying "to familiarise themselves with the process of enriching uranium" and the technology associated with the product.

However, the official said the end product was not of a superior enough quality to be used for nuclear weapons.

On Saturday Mr Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new phase of a heavy water reactor project in Arak.

Heavy water reactors produce plutonium which can be an alternative route to a nuclear device, the other being highly enriched uranium.

Observers say the move was aimed at sending out a signal of defiance ahead of the Security Council's deadline.

After inaugurating the heavy water plant, Mr Ahmadinejad again said Iran would never abandon its nuclear programme, but that nuclear weapons were not its goal.

[Rasputin]

It is argued that "Presidential obsession" with 'mahdaviat' leads Mr. Ahmadinejad to "a conviction that leaves little room for compromise. He thinks that the Mahdi will come in near future as his knight in shining armour? The only missing link that in Presidents opinion delays Mahdi's arrival is that world is still far too peaceful, the degree of clash and disasters that will set the chain of celestial events of 'mahdaviat' have to gather speed.

The recent mess in Lebanon by his proxies was a component of that uncompromising ideological fixation. The altercation with America and Israel and wish to empower Iran with nuclear programs are all designed to lay the foundation for the Mahdi's return." Creation of universal strife and commotion is very much a part of mahdaviat. Peace and cohabitation in the world means 'mahdaviat' becomes superfluous. Iranian President is duty bound to help create environ which is conducive to Mahdi return, unfortunately 'universal peace' does not help the prophecies that are integral part of his understanding of the scriptures.

The President does puts his money where his mind is, in 2004, as mayor of Tehran, Mr. Ahmadinejad clandestinely instructed the city council to construct a magnificent boulevard to orchestrate and prepare for the Mahdi arrival, as a President he has allocated $17 million for a blue-tiled mosque closely associated with mahdaviat in Jamkaran, south of the capital.

Present insanity, psychosis, wars and craftiness in politics of the Middle East has religious historical conjecture; higher the chaos and bigger the noise, the greater the chances of a divine intervention. Very few in the West can understand the undercurrents of self- obliteration so evident in Nasarullah's cult and multitude of suicide bombers. The question is to analyze events in context of the prophecies of 'doom and gloom' for the infidels as firmly believed by the leadership in Iran. Professor Lewis, in my opinion, overstated the importance of 22nd August.The night of 'Mairaj'is an annual celebration had no greater significance this year, the President I doubt, was expecting the emergence of 'Mahdi' on 22nd Aug.

In opinion of the present 'Hujjati leadership' the higher the level of 'expectation' greater is the degree of their devoutness. To hasten coming of Imam they consider their right to further the mayhem and bedlam, after all the global level of chaos has to increase in frequency and intensity so that Imam finally decides to appear. The bloodier the earth becomes, the higher the chances of emergence of Imam are from greater Occultation, lesser the civility the better are the chances, so the 'leadership' is sincerely bound by their ideological belief to create problems. In effect 'increased expectations of coming of Imam' have justified their inclination of intensified wicked doings. Ideology has helped 'global chaos creation' as a corner stone of the state policy.

Two questions are important to understand!!

Q-1. Has Nasrallah's apology to the Lebanese, seems to have created a scenario where Ahmadinejad and the "Supreme Guide" has suffered a tremendous loss of face?

The 'apology' has cost Lebanon 50 billion$-plus in real and lost opportunity terms for a period of next 5 years at least, rather, in terms of 'what-could-have-been.' The recent conciliatory statements from the Iranian President are just indicative of a way out or a face-saver from a self-destructive streak he got engaged in through his proxy. The anarchy it appeared was not big enough to help Imam appear from the greater Occultation! May be they now need to prepare for the bigger chaos! What next? May be nuclear tipped Zalzals may help tip the balance and generate sufficient universal anarchy for Imam to finally come out of the heavenly shroud.

Q-2. Was Ahmadinejad actually under the impression that the Mahdi was going to reappear this year on 22nd Aug and when that date came and gone, he was forced to back down in humiliation?

In a 'hadith' widely regarded as authentic, Prophet Muhammad stated:

"Even if the entire duration of the world's existence has already been exhausted and only one day is left before the Day of Judgment, God (Arabic: Allah) will expand that day to such a length of time, as to accommodate the kingdom of a person out of my Ahl al-Bayt who will be called by my name. He will then fill the Earth with peace and justice as it will have been filled with injustice and tyranny before then." -- Sahih Tirmidhi, V2, P86, V9, P74-75.

Muhammad al Mahdi ((868- ?- the guided) is the 12th and last Imam of the Twelver Shi'i, and is also known as Muhammad al Muntazar (the awaited). The Twelver Shi'i believe that he was born to a Byzantine slave named Narjis Khatun, and that his birth was kept quiet by his father, the Eleventh Imam, Hassan al Askari, because of the intense persecution of the Shi'is at that time. Mahdi is a 'Myth'; all non-secular societies expect help from heavens when they make an error of judgment in earthly affairs. Two recent examples are, that of Ahmadinejad and Muttawakil (Taliban FM), both looking to lead the 'kingdom of justice' with heavenly help before the Day of Judgment that 'Mahdi' will institute.

The Taliban's preoccupation with heavenly help is well known- their FM; Muttawakil expected the heavenly forces to protect Taliban from destruction of the US forces: the birds will appear from heavens and destroy the planes and attackers like they did in times of Abraha. He invoked this passage from Quran in a pre-Afghan war interview; ( Surat al-Fîl): 'Seest thou not how thy Lord dealt with the Companions of the Elephant? Did He not make their treacherous plan go astray? And He sent against them flights of Birds Striking them with stones of baked clay. Then did He make them like an empty field of stalks and straw (of which the corn) has been eaten up.'[Qur'ân: 105]

The Mahdi, according to majority Sunni and Shi'ite tradition, will arise at some point before the Day of Judgment, institute a kingdom of justice, and will in the last days fight alongside the returned Jesus against the Dajjal (Antichrist or false Messiah). Mahdi hidden since birth, reappeared at age of 6 to assert his claim to the Imamate, only to then disappear down a well to avoid the sad fate of his father and grandfather. For the next seventy years he maintained contact with his followers through a succession of four assistants, each known as Bab (Gate), Uthman al Amir; his son Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Uthman; Abu'l Qasim Husayn ibn Ruh an Nawbakhti; and Abu'l Husayn Ali ibn Muhammad as Samarri. The period when he used the 4 Babs as his form of contacting the Shi'is is known as the Lesser Occultation.

On his deathbed in 941 CE, the fourth Bab, as Samarri produced a letter from the Imam stating that there should be no successor to as Samarri and that from that time forward the Mahdi would not be seen until he reappeared as champion of the faithful in the events leading to the Judgement Day. Therefore, after 941 CE there has been no earthly expression of the Imamate. This period is known as the Greater Occultation.

Titles of the 12th Imam include: Sahib az Zaman (Master of the Age), Sahib al Amr (Master of Command), al Qa'im (the one to arise), Bagiyyat Allah (remnant of Allah) and Imam al Muntazar (the awaited Imam). – anyone who has professed to be the Mahdi so far has been cruelly dealt with, killed or banished, so this myth is likely to continue; a legend for time immemorial; a cultish folklore religious chronicle which will never end because the hero, i.e., 'The Mahdi,' as soon as one claims to be so, will face charges of apostasy.

I don't think that "Khomienites' "expected Mahdi" and 'Wahhabis' "return of Christ," short of Allah climbing down on earth from his heavenly throne can be easily agreeable as authorities vested in a mortal completely wrest controls from the present rulers of these countries. How can these self appointed leaders and despots give control to someone who appears new and claims authority from Allah, even his is the one he will be dealt the way previous appearances have been handled. 'Mahdi' and 'return of Christ' within the orthodoxy of Islam is like their faith in 'Allah' as far as the omnipotent and omnipresent remains hidden and without a physical form the conviction is crystal-clear, however a 'corporeal existence' would breed scorn. The Shiites and the Sunnis universal acceptance is implausible as scripture based verification processes are at two extremities.

The present divisions within Islam are so wide apart that they cannot agree on a 'set' of claimants for such a holy title. One should not forget that these holy figures will carry the combined authority of the Prophet and Allah, so 'Saudis and Khomienites' will have to give up the key of 'oil and treasury' to the claimant; the temporal and the sacred power will be invested in these expected manifestation who would lead them to ultimate victory.

Anytime any manifestation made such a claim in Saudia and Iran, he has been dealt with an iron fist. Many people through history have claimed to be the Mahdi, a messianic figure expected in Islam. These have had varying degrees of success in convincing fellow Muslims of their station.

However, the predominant set of Muslims regards them as false claimants, or pretenders. These claimants were often at the centre of political intrigue or radical social upheaval. In the 8th century was Salih ibn Tarif - 10th century-Said ibn Husayn-12th century Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Tumart-15th century Syed Muhammad Jaunpuri -19th century Siyyid 'Alí-Muhammad (The Báb)- Muhammad Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad 20th century- Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan Juhayman ibn-Muhammad ibn-Sayf al-Utaibi.

Ahmadinejad as well as King Abdullah and Ummah as a whole will make sure to behead any impostor who would have dared announce such a ' undertaking' on 22nd August.

[Rasputin]

Belief is one thing, acceptance in him is quite a different matter, they all sincerely belief in the holy arrivals rather it is a cardinal sin to question, who will certify them from 'Allah' is something that has so far remains unanswered. I am sure that someone appearing on 22nd Aug would have met the fate of others that were considered as heretic and impostors. Even a fair hearing is not accorded to any claimant; he starts from the unenviable station of falsehood. The barrier to meet the criteria of 'Allah appointed' is too towering. Egyptians refused Moses, Jews thought of Christ as superfluous, Qurayyash rebuked Mohammed, how would have Ahmadinejad accept someone appearing on 22nd Aug as ordained from Allah?

It is satisfying for Ahmadinejad to expect deliverance from Allah for his nation that is falling behind in keeping in progress with the world, the notion of a divine leadership that will take them to the top is very intoxicating and opiate. The 'failures' of today can be postponed on 'deliverance' expected from appearance of Imam, this sells politically very well. The myth has to linger on it is the very 'veiled nature' of the passion that gives momentum and strength to the political grandstanding, rather may be political grandstanding find its roots in the divine assurances of the deliverance from the shackles of the infidels.

This whole 'Mahdi' thing is a cerebral fascination; it definitely helps the society that links clash and chaos to unfolding of a greater goal. A legendry saga has become a pseudo truth that might never come to pass but the hope that Islam will recoup the splendor of the past gives glimmering anticipation to the faithful. Ahmadinejad and Nasarullah believes that this defeat and this apology is an intermission one day the Imam will lead him to the obliteration of his entire class of enemies, eventually the faithful will reign supreme.

The hurdles for any claimant are too high to surmount. It is a great feeling to have a Mahdi, but no good enough a mortal will satisfy the expectations. President Ahmadinejad for sure will cast the first stone to bury the man.

[Rasputin]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday challenged the authority of the UN Security Council, two days before its deadline demanding Teheran stop uranium enrichment, and declaring that no one could prevent Iran from pursuing a peaceful nuclear program.

"The US and Britain are the source of many tensions. At the Security Council, where they have to protect security, they enjoy the veto right. If anybody confronts them, there is no place to take complaints to," Ahmadinejad said at a press conference. "This [veto right] is the source of problems of the world... It is an insult to the dignity, independence, freedom and sovereignty of nations."

He said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is expected in Iran on Saturday, also had to "move within the framework of international regulations... No one has a special right or advantage."

In Jerusalem, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, a former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head, warned that Iran's nuclear capability constituted the only real threat to Israel's existence ever presented by a Moslem country.

"All of the other threats have been strategic threats, but nuclear weapons in Iran threaten Israel's very existence," he said, adding that "Iran is - rightly - viewed as a country without limits."

Dichter said Iran armed Hizbullah to ensure a second-strike capability should Western powers attack its nuclear facilities. "Hizbullah is a division of the Iranian army," he said, "the first division that Iran founded together outside its borders."

He also told reporters that it would be much easier to launch an attack against Iranian nuclear capability rather than to attempt to bring about regime change.

Ahmadinejad also spared no words in his analysis of Israel's role in the region, saying that Israel's creation is a "tale" and calling the Jewish state a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East.

"The Zionist regime has deprived the Palestinian nation and other nations of the region of a single day of peace. In the past 60 years, it has imposed dozens of wars on the Palestinian nation and others," he said.

He also proposed having a televised debate with US President George W. Bush on world issues.

"When we want to talk with a friendly country, we speak under clear circumstances. And talks with those who every day show an angry face to our nation requires other conditions. If conditions are met, yes," he said. He did not specify what conditions would be needed to hold talks.

Earlier on Tuesday, an Iranian senior official said Teheran would pursue nuclear activities, despite international pressure and invited Western companies to bid for tenders to build nuclear plants, a news agency reported.

"We have had... another 21 thousand megawatts of nuclear power plants approved by the parliament that will be built in the next 20 years," Seyed Ala'addin Barojerdi, chairman of parliament's National Security and Foreign Affairs Commission, was quoted as saying by national news agency Bernama. "International tenders for building of two of these nuclear power plants have been so far presented and we would be willing to see the Western companies participate in these projects."

If there are no takers, he said the Iranian government would undertake the projects on its own.

"This is not a trend that could be stopped and we shall definitely [be] involved in the construction of what we do need for ourselves" in the future, he said after meeting Malaysian parliament officials.

[Rasputin]

TEHRAN, Iran -Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country's universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism.

"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students.

Ahmadinejad complained that reforms in the country's universities were difficult to accomplish and that the educational system had been affected by secularism for the last 150 years. But, he added: "Such a change has begun."

The president, in his role as head of the country's Council of Cultural Revolution, does have the authority to make such changes. But his comments Tuesday seemed designed more to encourage hard-line students to begin a pressure campaign on their own, thus forcing universities to oust the teachers.

Iran retired dozens of liberal university professors and teachers earlier this year. And last November, Ahmadinejad's administration for the first time named a cleric to head the country's oldest institution of higher education, Tehran University, despite protests by students.

Ahmadinejad is widely believed to need to jockey between various interest groups in Iran, at a time when hard-liners increasingly control more of the top rungs of government but still encounter resistance from parts of the public at large. Moderates also still remain in the government.

But Tuesday's comments seemed to follow a campaign promise by Ahmadinejad to develop a more Islamic-oriented country. Since taking office last August, he has also replaced pragmatic veterans in the government with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners.

Ahmadinejad's aim appears to be installing a new generation of rulers who will revive the fundamentalist goals pursued in the 1980s under the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. Shortly after the revolution, Iran fired hundreds of liberal and leftist university teachers and expelled numerous students.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

رژيم وخيم تر شدن بحران پرونده هسته ای را که خود در ايجاد آن مسوول است بهانه کرده است تا به نام مقابله با "عوامل دشمن" و "تامين امنيت" کشور از کارگران خشمگينی که ماههاست حقوق شان پرداخت نشده گرفته تا دانشجويان ناراضی و زنان و جوانان و... را سرکوب کند.


روشنگری: افتتاح پروژه آب سنگين اراک و سخنان احمدی نژاد که گفت رژيم حتی تهديدی برای موجوديت اسراييل هم نيست و سفر قريب الوقوع کوفی عنان به تهران برای متقاعد کردن سران رژيم اسلامی به پذيرش تعليق غنی سازی اورانيوم در فرصت ناچيز باقی مانده تا 9 شهريور که پايان مهلت تعيين شده در قطعنامه شورای امنيت سازمان ملل برای اتخاذ اقدامات تنبيهی عليه ايران است در ميان خبرهای روز مورد توجه ويژه قرار گرفته است. توجه ويژه به خبرهای مربوط به پرونده هسته ای از آنجاست که اين پرونده اکنون وارد مرحله رويارويی شده و از خبرها چنين برمی آيد حوادث به طرز اجتناب ناپذيری در مسير تشديد رويارويی جريان يافته است. با اين حال گسترش خطر تحريم اقتصادی و حتی تجاوز نظامی خارجی به ايران همچنان که بارها پيش از اين مورد تاکيد قرار گرفت, نه تنها به کاهش سرکوب رژيم منجر نشده, بلکه زير پرده رخدادهای مربوط به پرونده هسته ای اعدام, سرکوب و آدم ربايی از سوی رژيم همچنان ادامه دارد و روزی نيست که خبری در اين زمينه ها منتشر نشود.
در تازه ترين نمونه وزير اطلاعات محسنی اژه ای از تاييد حکم اعدام 6 نفر ديگر از متهمان پرونده اهواز خبر داد. او به دستگيری های جديد اشاره کرد و گفت: "عوامل ناامنيهاى شرق كشور نيز كه در ايران حضور داشتند به طور كامل شناسايى و دستگير شدهاند."

براساس يک خبر ديگر نيروهای سرکوبگر رژيم روز گذشتنه با بردن سه اتوبوس به محل اعتصاب کارگران پرديس سنندج, در پی ناکامی از راضی کردن کردن به ترک محل اعتصاب با با باتوم و اسپری اشک آور و ضرب و شتم به جان کارگران افتادند و آنان را به زور سوار اتوبوس کردند. براساس گزارش "کميته اول ماه مه سنندج" در بين راه کارگران و خانواده هايشان بهتهديد راننده از اتوبوس پياده و متواری شدند که تاکنون خبری از آنان در دسترس نيست."

فعالان حقوق بشر گزارش می دهند که يک وبلاگ نويس ديگر توسط نيروهای امنيتی رژيم ربوده شده است. آدم ربايان ابوالفضل جهاندار از اعضای سابق شورای مرکزی انجمن اسلامی دانشجويان دانشگاه علامه طباطبايی و شورای عمومی دفتر تحکيم وحدت را به محل نامعلومی برده اند.

رژيم وخيم تر شدن بحران پرونده هسته ای را که خود در ايجاد آن مسوول است بهانه کرده است تا به نام مقابله با "عوامل دشمن" و "تامين امنيت" کشور از کارگران خشمگينی که ماههاست حقوق شان پرداخت نشده گرفته تا دانشجويان ناراضی و زنان و جوانان و روشنفکران و فعالان حقوق ملی را سرکوب کند. اما امنيتی که با ضرب و شتم کارگران و اعدام های گروهی در ملاعام و آدم ربايی فعالان دانشجويی و از طريق رعب و وحشت بخواهد تامين شود, هرگز امنيتی پايدار نخواهد بود. اين اعمال جنايتکارانه تنها وحشت دستگاه سرکوب از مردم را بيان می کند و اعترافی است به اين که دولت اقتداگرا - امنيتی احمدی نژاد جز با تکيه بر سرنيزه قادر به حفظ رژيم نيست.

[Rasputin]

Iranian president calls for purge of liberal lecturers

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's outspoken president, fired an ominous warning at the country's educated elites yesterday by calling for a purge of "liberal and secular" academics in the universities.
In what some analysts interpreted as the start of a clampdown, Mr Ahmadinejad derided secular lecturers as a fifth column of western colonialism which he said was seeking to expand into Iran.

"Today students should protest and shout at the president asking why some liberal and secular professors are still present in the universities," he told a gathering of young scientists. "Our educational system has been under the influence of the secular system for 150 years. Colonialism is seeking the spread of its own secular system." While acknowledging it was difficult to change this system, he said: "Such a change has begun."

Mr Ahmadinejad, a hardline Islamist, also said his government had tried to reduce the political influence of university chancellors, many of whom were seen as pillars of the reformist government of his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami.
"A political predominance existed among many of the university chancellors but we have tried to reduce it because we don't believe chancellors should enter into politics at all," Mr Ahmadinejad said.

The president's salvo recalled previous outbursts against ideological targets, including a call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and a demand for western music to be barred from Iran's airwaves.

His latest comments will intensify fears among student and faculty members of an incipient crackdown.

In recent months, several student activists have been imprisoned and dozens of liberal lecturers forced to retire before the statutory age. Last year, Mr Ahmadinejad appointed a radical cleric as chancellor of Tehran university, the country's most prestigious institution.

The government has also buried "martyrs" from the 1988 Iran-Iraq war in some universities in what activists see as an excuse to allow security forces on to campuses to keep watch on the student body.

Iran's Islamic authorities have kept universities under close surveillance since a wave of student protests demanding greater freedom in 1999. A student leader, Akbar Mohammadi, died in jail in July after a hunger strike started in protest at being reimprisoned following a long-term release on medical grounds.

Some critics saw Mr Ahmadinejad's remarks as presaging a general repression of internal critics under the cloak of Iran's confrontation with the west over its nuclear programme. The government's official spokesman appeared to herald such a move recently by instructing judges to prosecute journalists who published "lies" about the government

But Professor Sadegh Zibakalam, a political scientist at Tehran university, dismissed suggestions of an imminent purge. "Ahmadinejad is a populist trying to create a charismatic image for himself," he said. "These comments are aimed at those who voted for him and perhaps designed to divert attention from Iran's economic problems. They don't mean there is an orchestrated plot against more liberal lecturers."

[Rasputin]

رييس جمهوری ايران بار ديگر از رييس جمهوری ايالات متحده برای مناظره دعوت به عمل آورده و آمادگی خود را برای ارايه الگويی برای اداره بهتر جهان اعلام داشته است.
به گزارش خبرگزاری دولتی ايران - ايرنا - محمودی احمدی نژاد در جلسه هيات دولت ضمن ابراز آمادگی برای مناظره با جورج بوش، اين بار در صحن عمومی سازمان ملل، گفت که "کسانی که پيشنهاد مناظره را رد می کنند، از قدرت درک و فهم ملت ها نگرانند."

آقای احمدی نژاد گفت که "طرف آمريکايی اگر بخواهد می تواند در اين مناظره با مشاوران خود و به صورت گروهی بحث کند."

هفته پيش رييس جمهوری ايران برای اولين بار از آقای بوش دعوت کرد به منظور مقايسه روش های سياسی آمريکا و جمهوری اسلامی در مناظره ای با وی شرکت کند.

در پی انتشار اين خبر، مقامات آمريکايی در اشاره به بحران هسته ای ايران، گفتند که اين پيشنهاد، به گفته آنان، به منظور انحراف افکار عمومی از نگرانی در مورد هدف های ايران مطرح شده است و آن را رد کردند.

قرار است آقای احمدی نژاد، که قرار است به زودی برای شرکت در اجلاس مجمع عمومی سازمان ملل متحد عازم نيويورک شود، افزود که اين سفر موقعيت خوبی برای برگزاری مناظره است.

وی گفت همه مردم، به ويژه ملت آمريکا، رسانه های همگانی به اين ترتيب می توانند بدون هيچ سانسور، مردم جهان به خصوص ملت آمريکا را در جريان اين مناظره قرار دهند.

آقای احمدی نژاد تاکيد کرد که انجام مناظره بهترين راه برای تحقق صلح است و ابراز اميدواری کرد که طرف مقابل از اين پيشنهاد طفره نرود.

رييس جمهوری ايران گفت که جمهوری اسلامی اعلام داشته که با معيارها، روش ها و ديدگاه های برخی قدرت های غربی، به ويژه آمريکا و بريتانيا برای اداره جهان مخالف است.

وی گفت که هدف از اين مناظره، روشن کردن اين است که "آيا نظامی که بر مبنای ليبراليسم توسط برخی کشورهای غربی ارايه شده و بر روابط جهانی حاکم است بهتر است يا نظامی که بر پايه توحيد و عدالت بنا شده است؟"

رييس جمهوری ايران ابراز آمادگی کرد برای اداره بهتر جهان و از ميان بردن مشکلات کنونی، الگو و نظام ارايه و پيشنهاد دهد.

آقای احمدی نژاد قبلا هم نامه ای حاوی ديدگاه های خود برای جورج بوش ارسال داشته بود که مقامات آمريکايی اين نامه را هم بدون پاسخ گذاشتند.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

شان مک کورمک، سخنگوی وزارت خارجه آمريکا می گويد محمود احمدی نژاد، رئيس جمهور ايران برای شرکت در مجمع عمومی سازمان ملل متحد در نيويورک، از دولت آمريکا درخواست رواديد کرده است.
آقای مک کورمک به خبرنگاران گفته که آمريکا به عنوان ميزبان مجمع عمومی، معمولاً با درخواست رواديد رهبران جهان برای شرکت در اين مجمع موافقت می کند و درخواست رواديد آقای احمدی نژاد نيز در دست بررسی است.

وی نخستين رئيس جمهور ايران است که می کوشد دو بار پياپی در نشست سران دولتهای عضو سازمان ملل شرکت کند.

سال گذشته هنگامی که وی درخواست رواديد سفر به آمريکا داد گمانه زنيهايی در رسانه ها مطرح شد مبنی بر اينکه به دليل موضعگيريهای آقای احمدی نژاد عليه آمريکا و شايعاتی که در مورد شرکت او در گروگانگيری ديپلماتهای آمريکايی در سال 1979 بر سر زبانها افتاده بود، دولت آمريکا به وی رواديد سفر به آمريکا نخواهد داد اما چنين نشد و آقای احمدی نژاد رواديد خود را دريافت کرد.

امسال وی در شرايطی درخواست رواديد سفر به آمريکا کرده که به دليل اظهاراتش عليه اسرائيل و اينکه خواهان محو اين کشور از نقشه جهان شده، بشدت مورد انتقاد دولت و محافل سياسی آمريکا قرار دارد.

جورج بوش رئيس جمهور آمريکا در مصاحبه ای با روزنامه وال استريت ژورنال ابراز علاقه کرده که درباره حکومت ايران بيشتر بداند و گفته است: "علاقه دارم بدانم افراد درون حکومت ايران چطور فکر می کنند".

جورج بوش رئيس جمهور آمريکا نيز قرار است در مجمع عمومی امسال سازمان ملل شرکت و سخنرانی کند.

محمود احمدی نژاد پيشنهاد داده که طی اقامتش در آمريکا با جورج بوش مناظره تلويزيونی کند اما درخواست او رد شده است.

[Rasputin]

On September 1, the day before Kofi Anan arrived in Tehran for discussions on Iran’s nuclear programme, around a thousand people gathered in Khavaran graveyard to mark the 18th anniversary of the death of thousands of socialist and communist political prisoners who were executed by Iran’s Islamic regime in September 1988, at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. These families were also commemorating the tens of thousands of Iranian communists killed since political Islam took power in 1979. In Khavaran cemetery, encircled by security forces, they showed their defiance by singing the Internationale as a tribute to their loved ones.

The mass killing of leftwing political prisoners was not simply an act of madness by shia clerics, enraged by a humiliating defeat. 1988 marked the beginning of the onslaught of neoliberal capital, albeit with an Islamic face. It was the beginning of a new era, where IMF loans dictated levels of privatisation, where mass unemployment, casualisation and the denial of basic workers’ rights became the order of the day and the contradictory yet cosy coexistence of global capital and shia Islam became a reality. It saw the introduction of devastating neoliberal economic policies that are as valid today as they were during the presidencies of Hashemi Rafsanjani or Mohammad Khatami.

In fact despite his anti-US slogans, the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has presided over one of the most pro-capitalist governments Iran has seen since 1988. An anti-Zionist, Israeli-born radical once told me that the Israeli Labour Party could get away with anti-Palestinian policies that no rightwing Likud government would dare propose. The same is true of Iran’s ‘anti-American’ president. The neoliberal policies introduced during his presidency are far more wide-ranging and ruthless than anything Khatami or Rafsanjani could have envisaged.

Since 1988, when Iran accepted IMF loans, every spring the IMF sends a commission to Tehran to verify the country’s compliance with global capital’s requirements. Every year by mid-summer the Central Bank and the government propose further privatisation in the industrial, banking and service sectors, bringing further misery to tens of thousand of workers, victims of subsequent job losses and casualisation. However, the level and scope of privatisation approved this July is so serious that Iran’s supreme leader, ayatollah Khamenei, had to ‘re-interpret‘ article 4 of the Islamic republic’s constitution. The government plans to sell off 80% of its stake in a range of state-run industrial companies in the banking, media, transportation and mineral sectors, reversing one of its own economic ’principles’, as declared in the constitution.

In fact those who have any doubt about the economic trajectory of Iran’s government only need study its reply to the UN in late August 2006 on the issue of ‘nuclear enrichment’. Most of the 100 or so points raised in the document read more like a begging letter, calling for a lifting of US sanctions to allow US multinationals the kind of investment enjoyed by European, Japanese and Chinese companies in Iran. For all its anti-US rhetoric, in this reply the Iranian government went out of its way to explain why the US does not need ‘regime change’ to secure the interests of capital in Iran.

Of course, the Iranian president has always advertised his devotion to the ‘return of Mahdi’ - the 12th shia imam who is said to have gone into ‘occlusion’ in the 9th century, when he was a child. His return will be preceded by war, chaos and bloodshed. Some have argued that the Iranian president’s obsession with the ‘return’ of this imam leads him to embark on destructive policies - whether related to war, social injustice or capitalist barbarism. Others believe that an ideological state whose economic policies are based on the interests of ‘bazaar’ (market) economics has no reason to oppose the ravages of neoliberal capital.

Whatever the religious or practical explanations of the Iranian government’s economic policies, life for the majority of the Iranian people is getting worse day by day, as the Islamic regime brings out new legislation to defend the owners of private capital. In August 2006, Ahmadinejad’s government unveiled yet another amendment to Iran’s draconian labour legislation. According to the new proposals, challenged by workers in strikes and protests throughout the country, the government’s ‘Islamic’ legislation legitimates sackings and low pay for hundreds of thousand of contract workers and gives unscrupulous capitalists a free hand to sack permanent workers and replace them with contract worker the same day!

There have already been two major strikes on this issue, as well as dozens of less prominent workers’ protests:

l Around 3,000 workers are involved in strikes and protests at the Iran Khodro diesel factory. They were informed that managers have reduced their salaries by between 30,000 and 60,000 tomans a month. According to the ISNA news agency, on the first day of the protests one of the workers tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide by hanging himself. One of the workers told the agency that management are now threatening the workers with dismissal unless they sign written guarantees.

l Workers of the ParRiss factory went on strike on August 19 in protest at conditions imposed by management regarding the renewal of contracts, of which there are three types: one year, three months and one month. The employer’s decision regarding the length of each contract depends on the submissiveness of each worker. Those who did not oppose the attack on working conditions will be rewarded accordingly. Workers were told they will only have jobs if they sign an agreement with the employer, guaranteeing that they will never again oppose working conditions, under penalty of a two-million-toman ($2,000) fine. Following an eight-day protest, on August 26 military and security forces equipped with tear gas and batons attacked the protesting workers and their families.

Dr Raeess Dana, economics lecturer at Tehran University, summarises the conditions of the proposed new law in this way: “The draft ‘ratification’ to the labour legislation contradicts all the claims of the ninth government [of the Islamic republic regime - ie, Ahmadinejad and his cabinet] regarding social justice. If this draft is passed, workers’ lives will be totally destroyed “ Since the ninth government has come to power there is no sign of any attempt at seeking justice for the working class.