Important Political News

[donsaeid]

سازمان عفو بين الملل که يک سازمان فعال در زمينه حقوق بشر است، يک مزرعه دار بريتانيايی را که چوبه دار می سازد و آنها را به کشورهايی با سابقه ضعيف در زمينه حقوق بشر می فروشد، محکوم کرده است.
ديويد لوکاس گفته است حدود ده سال است که تجهيزات اعدام را به کشورهايی نظير زيمبابوه می فروشد.

سازمان عفو بين الملل می گويد فروش چوبه دار که بر اساس قوانين تازه اتحاديه اروپا از ماه ژوئيه غير قانونی خواهد شد، "وحشتناک" است.

اما آقای لوکاس گفته است تجارت چوبه دار اشکالی ندارد و "تجارت، تجارت است."

او افزوده است که برخی از مردم سزاوار حکم اعدامند.

تغيير قوانين

او می گويد قيمت چوبه های دار بسته به نوع آنها متفاوت است، يک چوبه دار حدود ۱۲ هزار پوند به فروش می رسد، اما چوبه های دار چند تايی که روی کاميون های بارکش نصب می شوند حدود ۱۰۰ هزار دلار قيمت دارند.

مدير دفتر بريتانيای سازمان عفو بين الملل می گويد: "وحشتناک است که يک بريتانيايی ظاهرا قصد دارد به رئيس جمهور موگابه (در زيمبابوه) چوبه دار بفروشد."

"سال هاست بر سر خلاء قانونی در مورد تجهيزات اعدام بحث می شود. اگر شرکتی در خود بريتانيا در کار صدور وسايل اعدام است، تلاش های بريتانيا برای مخالفت با حکم اعدام در جهان مسخره خواهد بود."

يکی از سخنگويان سازمان عفو بين الملل می گويد بر اساس قوانين تازه اتحاديه اروپا در زمينه تجارت که از ۳۱ ژوئيه ۲۰۰۶ به اجرا در می آيند، صادرات چوبه دار غير قانونی خواهد بود.

يکی از سخنگويان اداره تجارت و صنعت گفته است که دولت از اينکه صدور چوبه دار غير قانونی اعلام شده خشنود است

intoresho dige nadide bodim... yani ye tejaratam dar in mored hast? afrighaia yani inghadr mashghole koshtane ham digean ke vaghte sakhtane chobeye dar ham nadaran? baba ey vallah...

Be in migan az abe gelalood mahi gereftan....

fekr konam on porteghal foroshi ke donbaleshim injast

[Rasputin]

hahaha, saeid to koshti mano . Inja digeh reply nakon .

[donsaeid]

hahaha, saeid to koshti mano . Inja digeh reply nakon .

loool tanafos masnoi baladama...

migam mano mamnool vorod kardi kheili jaha... looool

[Rasputin]

سرانجام برای نخستين بار، استادان و دانشجويان ايرانی مقيم خارج از کشور اين امکان را يافتند تا زير يک چتر گرد هم آمده و به تعامل آرا و تبادل اطلاعات بپردازند. ' پايگاه اطلاعات استادان ايرانی شاغل در دانشگاههای خارجی' Iranianprofessors.com اولين تلاش در راه برقراری ارتباط بين استادان ايرانی در نقاط مختلف دنيا از يک سو و استاد و دانشجو از سوی ديگر به شمار می رود که به همت انجمن دانشجويان ايرانی دانشگاه رايرسون کانادا ( تورنتو) صورت گرفته است.
در مرحله اول طرح راه اندازی اين پايگاه اينترنتی ، که از حدود هشت ماه پيش شروع شده است ، تنها در کشور کانادا ۲۵۰ استاد ايرانی تمام وقت شاغل به تدريس در محيط های دانشگاهی شناسايی شده اند.

در اين خصوص نيما احمدی، مدير انجمن دانشجويان ايرانی دانشگاه رايرسون، گفت: 'دومين مرحله کاری ما شناسايی استادان ايرانی دانشگاههای امريکا است، که به تازگی آغاز شده است.'

وی اضافه کرد: ' در کانادا بيشترين تعداد استادان ايرانی در دانشگاههای تورنتو کنکورديا، رايرسون، واترلو و دانشگاه کارلتون مشغول تدريش هستند که عمدتا در رشته های فنی مهندسی ( ۷۹ درصد) ، بيزينس ( ۹ درصد) ، و پزشکی ( ۱۳ درصد) دارای تخصص هستند.'

در پايگاه اينترنيتی استادان ايرانی دانشگاههای خارج از کشور، تمامی مراجعه کنندگاه اين امکان را دارند تا به اطلاعات طبقه بندی شده بر حسب کشور، دانشگاه محل تدريش، ذانشکده و دپارتمان، مراتب تحصيلی، و نشانی های پستی و اينترنتی استادان دسترسی پيدا کنند.

با راه اندازی اين پايگاه اينترنتی دانشجويان و علاقه مندان به ادامه تحصيل در دانشگاههای خارجی می توانند به راحتی با استادان ايرانی شاغل در رشته های مورد نظرشان ارتباط برقرار کنند.

نيما احمدی در خصوص ايده اوليه راه اندازی اين پايگاه اين گونه توضيح داد: 'ابتدا به اين فکر افتاديم که در وب سايت انجمن دانشگاه برای استادان ايرانی دانشگاه رايرسون وب پيج (صفحه اينترنتی) درست کنيم تا دانشجويان ايرانی دانشگاه و خود استادان بتوانند با سهولت بيشتری با هم ارتباط برقرار کنند. که اين کار ما با استقبال خيلی خوبی مواجه شد و وقتی فهميديم تنها در دانشگاه رايرسون ۲۶ استاد تمام وقت ايرانی داريم، به اين فکر افتاديم که اين کار را برای ساير شهرهای کانادا و بعد آمريکا و اروپا هم انجام بدهيم.'

از زمان راه اندازی اين سايت يعنی حدود سه ماه قبل تا به حال، ۶۰ هزار نفر به اين سايت مراجعه کرده اند و تمامی خدمات لازم از جمله راه اندازی، ساماندهی، مديريت، به روز سازی و خدمات فنی ، همگی با تلاش داوطلبانه دانشجويان انجام شده است.

و به گفته نيما احمدی کل بودجه طرح به چيزی حدود ۵۰۰ دلار کانادايی خلاصه می شود که از منابع مالی انجمن تامين شده است.

به زودی طرح اعطای بورسيه دانشجويی در مقطع کارشناسی ارشد و دکترا توسط اين پايگاه اجرا خواهد شد، که طی آن همه ساله تعدادی از دانشجويان ايرانی پس از ارزيابی های لازم اين بورسيه را دريافت می کنند.

اعطای بورس تحصيلی به دانشجويان ايرانی در اين پايگاه پس از تشکيل کميته ای از استادان و متخصصان و نيز تدوين آيين نامه لازم صورت خواهد گرفت.

قرار است به زودی در وب سايت استادان ايرانی، صفحه ويژه ای برای استادان باز شود تا در آن تمامی فرصت های موجود برای کار با استاد در رشته ها و دانشگاههای مختلف به اطلاع دانشجويان برسد.

پايگاه 'استادان ايرانی' با مشارکت سازمان فرهنگی اجتماعی 'پرشين سيرکل' در روز يازدهم ماه مه گردهمايی استادان ايرانی دانشگاههای کانادا را برگزار خواهند کرد

[Rasputin]

Middle East scholars in defense of Jahabegloo

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran
c/o H.E. Javad Zarif
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

Fax: 212-867-7086

Your Excellency:

We write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and the Committee on Academic and Intellectual Freedom of the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) to protest in the strongest possible terms the recent arrest of Dr. Ramin Jahanbegloo, a prominent Iranian intellectual and political theorist. We urge you to use your good offices to determine the circumstances of his detention and to secure his immediate release.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America and the International Society for Iranian Studies are the preeminent international organizations in their respective fields. MESA, founded in 1966, and ISIS, founded in 1967, were established to promote scholarship and teaching on Iran, the Middle East, and North Africa. MESA publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2600 members worldwide; ISIS publishes the international journal of Iranian Studies and has more than 500 members worldwide. Both organizations are committed to ensuring academic freedom, the free exchange of ideas, and freedom of expression in all its forms, both within Iran and the Middle East and in connection with the study of Iran and the Middle East in North America and elsewhere.

According to information we have received Dr. Jahanbegloo was arrested at Tehran's Mehrabad airport in late April. Officials from your government have stated that Dr. Jahanbegloo is currently undergoing "interrogations" and that he is suspected of crimes related to "security and spying". Despite these statements, as of this date no official charges have been filed against Dr. Jahanbegloo. Officials have stated that charges against Dr. Jahanbegloo will only be filed after his interrogation. Given these facts we are concerned that officials of your government are in the process of coercing confessions from Dr. Jahanbegloo. We also have reason to believe that he has been allowed only limited access to his family, and as far as we know he has not had any access to legal counsel.

Dr. Jahanbegloo is a highly respected scholar and academic who is currently the head of the department of Contemporary Studies at Tehran's Cultural Research Bureau, an important institution in your country that has gained international recognition for its important scholarly work in the area of Iranian history, culture, and politics. Dr. Jahanbegloo's work as part of the Cultural Research Bureau has contributed to the high regard in which it is held by scholars both inside and outside of Iran. He has also studied and taught at major universities in Europe and North America, including the Sorbonne, Harvard University, and the University of Toronto. In his role as a public intellectual Dr. Jahanbegloo has also consistently advocated for the US and Europe to adopt a less confrontational approach in dealing with Iran. His published work includes over twenty books in Persian, French, and English on topics relating to European and Iranian intellectual history and political philosophy. Dr. Jahanbegloo's writing reflects a thoughtful consideration of Iran's encounter with modernity and the difficult and complex process by which modern Iranian intellectuals have sought to define universal values such as democracy and human rights in terms that are organic to Iranian tradition. Given the arbitrary and unusual nature of Dr. Jahanbegloo's detention, we are compelled to conclude that his arrest is connected to his scholarly and intellectual pursuits.

We also feel compelled to remind you, Your Excellency, that the rights of individuals to freedom of thought, opinion, and speech are explicitly protected under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Article 23), as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a state party. The arbitrary arrest of Dr. Jahanbegloo does further harm to the reputation of Iran as a country where scholarly research and inquiry are highly valued. Dr. Jahanbegloo's arrest and detention can only be conceived as a direct attack on the principles of academic freedom and critical intellectual inquiry.

Your Excellency, we trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of this matter and will take the appropriate measures. We urge you to secure his immediate release.

Yours Respectfully,

Juan R.I. Cole
President
Middle East Studies Association (MESA)

Janet Afary
President
The International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS)

[Rasputin]

مقام های گمرک آلمان می گويند که چهار مرد را که ادعا می شود سعی در صدور تجهيزات جهت يابی، قابل استفاده در هواپيماهای بدون سرنشين تجسسی، به ايران داشتند را بازداشت کرده اند.
روز سه شنبه سه دستگاه تجهيزات جهت يابی دارای کاربرد نظامی و اسناد تجاری همراه آنها در يورش پليس گمرک آلمان به 10 مرکز تجاری و مسکونی در شهرهای اسن، هانوور، مونيخ و اشتوتگارت ضبط شد و همچنين چهار نفر بازداشت شدند که ظاهر دو نفر آنها ايرانی و دو نفر ديگر آلمانی هستند.

يک سخنگوی گمرک شهر کلن گفت: "علاوه بر اقلامی که موفق به جلوگيری از تحويل آنها شديم، برخی اجناس قبلا به ايران تحويل داده شده است."

پليس هنوز در تلاش برای پی بردن به اين مساله است که اين گروه موفق به ارسال چه تعداد اقلام دارای کاربرد دوگانه - برای مقاصد نظامی و غيرنظامی - به ايران شده است.

مقررات صادرات در آلمان فروش کالاهای دارای کاربرد دوگانه به ايران بدون مجوز صادراتی را ممنوع می کند.

به گزارش خبرگزاری رويتر يکی از بازداشت شدگان يک مرد ايرانی است که مدت های مديد در استان راين وستفاليای شمالی زندگی می کرد. بنابه اين گزارش پسر وی نيز بازداشت شد.

آنها مظنون هستند به کمک يک مهندس آلمانی اهل بادن وورتمبرگ اقدام به خريداری و تحويل دادن وسايل جهت يابی که می تواند در هواپيماهای بدون سرنشين تجسسی ايران کاربرد داشته باشد کرده اند.

با اين حال يک مقام آلمانی که نخواست نامش فاش شود در گفتگو با خبرگزاری آسوشيتدپرس گفت نمی تواند تاييد کند که اين پدر و پسر ايرانی و مهندس آلمانی جزو بازداشت شدگان هستند.

دو مرد ايرانی همچنين مظنون هستند تلاش داشته اند ترتيب خريداری 30 جنگنده چک برای ارتش ايران را بدهند.

گمرک آلمان که نام بازداشت شدگان را منتشر نکرد گفت که شخص پنجمی نيز تحت تعقيب است اما چون خارج از کشور است امکان بازداشت او وجود ندارد

[Rasputin]

Iran leader strikes defiant note

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has issued a defiant message over the diplomatic stand-off over his country's nuclear programme.

Mr Ahmadinejad warned that Iran will defend its interests and declared that it was "ridiculous" for Britain and the US to possess nuclear weapons while pressing to stop Iran's own nuclear programme.

The president was speaking in Indonesia where he is attending talks with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta.

He said he was unconcerned about the possibility of UN sanctions and that he felt the West had more to lose than Iran did if the country was isolated.

Earlier, key UN Security Council members agreed to present Tehran with a choice of incentives or sanctions in deciding whether to suspend uranium enrichment.

Mr Ahmadinejad said he was ready to negotiate with the US and other countries but warned that threats against his country would make talks more difficult.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

A United States intelligence agency has been collecting data on the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans, a report in USA Today has alleged.
The country's three biggest phone companies have been handing over call records to the National Security Agency (NSA) since 2001, the newspaper says.

President Bush refused to confirm or deny the existence of the programme.

He said he had authorised intelligence gathering in the wake of 9/11, adding that the activities were "lawful".

"Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaeda and their known affiliates," he said in a brief White House statement after the newspaper report appeared.

"The privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected," he said, adding: "We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."

The USA Today report does not claim the government listened in on phone calls.

But it cites an unnamed source as saying the NSA has used data on telephone calls to build "the largest database ever assembled in the world".

Senate response

US senators reacted quickly to the allegation, saying they would order the phone companies to testify about it.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, reacted with anger to the report, brandishing the newspaper in committee meeting.

I think this is going to present a growing impediment to the confirmation [of Michael Hayden to head the CIA]

Sen Dianne Feinstein
"We need to know what our government is doing to spy upon Americans," he said.

But Republican senators suggested Mr Leahy was over-reacting.

They pointed out that the story did not allege wiretapping, only the creation of a database in order to analyse calling patterns.

Experts disagree about whether the government has the authority to demand the data it is allegedly compiling.

"I'm quite confident that if it's true it's illegal," Prof Michael Greenberger of the University of Maryland school of law told the BBC.

The communications act of 1934 bars companies from releasing information about callers, he said.

But the three phone companies in question - AT&T, Verizon, and Bell South, all told USA Today they had not broken any laws.

Together the firms serve more than 200 million customers. A fourth company, Qwest, reportedly declined to participate in the programme.

A civil liberties group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed suit against AT&T last month after a former AT&T employee indicated the company was engaging in the kind of data-mining the USA Today report described.

Sensitive time

The Bush administration has asserted that the president has the authority to monitor communications in order to disrupt terrorist activity.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has testified before the Senate in defence of a programme of wiretapping without warrant ordered by the president.

The USA Today report comes at a potentially sensitive moment for the administration.

Gen Michael Hayden, the man who headed the NSA when the data-mining operation was allegedly launched, was nominated this week to head the CIA.

He is due to face confirmation hearings from the Senate soon.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein warned the latest allegations would "present a growing impediment to the confirmation".

[Rasputin]

در حالی که محمود احمدی نژاد، رییس جمهور ایران، به طور ضمنی گفته است برای گفتگو با همه کشورها درباره برنامه اتمی کشورش آمادگی دارد، آمریکا بار دیگر مذاکره مستقیم با این کشور را رد کرده است.
در پی ارسال نامه آقای احمدی نژاد به رییس جمهور آمریکا، بعضی از سیاستمداران آمریکایی شامل مادلین آلبرایت، وزیر خارجه اسبق این کشور، چاک هیگل، عضو مجلس سنا و سندی برگر، مشاور امنیت ملی رییس جمهور سابق آمریکا، خواستار تغییر در موضع کاخ سفید و پذیرش گفتگو با ایران شده اند.

مقام های آلمانی نیز خواستار مذاکره مستقیم دو کشور برای یافتن بحران هسته ای ایران شده اند.

آقای احمدی نژاد روز پنجشنبه در اندونزی در پاسخ به اين سوال که آيا جمهوری اسلامی آماده مذاکره مستقيم با آمريکاست گفت: "ما اهل گفت و گو هستيم، اما طبيعی است كه شرايط گفت وگوها تفاوت دارد و ما با دوستان خود همچون اندونزی به راحتی گفت و گو می كنيم، چون هيچ كدام از دو طرف بد اخلاقی نمی كنند."

اما شان مک کورمک سخنگوی وزارت امور خارجه آمریکا با تکذیب افزایش فشارهای بین المللی بر کشورش برای گفتگو با جمهوری اسلامی می گوید مناقشه هسته ای ایران با بحران اتمی کره شمالی تفاوت دارد و نیازی به گفتگوی مستقیم نیست.

به گفته او تلاش های دیپلماتیک آمریکا بر به نتیجه رساندن طرح اتحادیه اروپا مبتنی بر عرضه فهرستی از مشوق ها و اقدامات تنبیهی به طرف ایرانی برای ترک غنی سازی اورانيوم تمرکز دارد و کشورش اقدام دیگری را در نظر ندارد.

مقام های آمریکایی بارها با اشاره به گفتگوهای هسته ای اتحادیه اروپا و روسیه با ایران و همچنین اشاره به آنچه حمایت ایران از تروریسم می دانند، گفتگوی مستقیم با جمهوری اسلامی را به جز درباره عراق بی مورد دانسته اند.

فرصت جدید

بعضی از تحلیلگران آمریکایی می گویند در حالی که محتوای نامه آقای احمدی نژاد به نگرانی های اصلی غرب از سیاست های ایران اشاره ای نداشته است، باید به آن به عنوان فرصتی جدید نگاه کرد.

لیونل بینر، محقق شورای روابط خارجی آمریکا، می گوید زمان ارسال نامه آقای احمدی نژاد به گونه ای طراحی شده است تا توپ مذاکرات هسته ای را به زمین آمریکایی ها بیاندازد.

به گفته او آقای بوش باید با استفاده از این فرصت، در نامه ای خطاب به مردم ایران به تشریح نگرانی های آمریکا از برنامه هسته ای ایران بپردازد.

کارشناسان با اشاره به اختلافات اساسی میان ایران و آمریکا می گویند چنین اقدامی می تواند بر این اختلافات تاثیر مثبتی داشته باشد.

به هر حال، برگزاری هر گونه گفتگو میان ایران و آمریکا به سادگی امکان پذیر نخواهد بود.

به رغم اعلام آمادگی دو کشور برای گفتگوی محدود درباره وضع عراق، هنوز مذاکره ای در این باره انجام نشده است

[Rasputin]

بيش از چهارصد تن از اساتيد و کارشناسان امور خاورميانه و نيز تعدادی از مقام های سابق دولت آمريکا با ارسال نامه ای به جورج بوش رئيس جمهور آمريکا نسبت به هر گونه اقدام نظامی عليه ايران هشدار داده و خواستار مذاکره مستقيم ايران و آمريکا شده اند.
چند تن از امضا کنندگان اين نامه با حضور در دو کنفرانس خبری در واشنگتن به تشريح توصيه ها و هشدارهای خود پرداختند.

احمد صدری استاد دانشگاه "ليک فارست" و هماهنگ کننده اين پروژه، محمود صدری استاد دانشگاه تگزاس، جيمز ايکينز سفير اسبق آمريکا در عربستان سعودی، بهراد نخعی مهندس فيزيک اتمی از دانشگاه تنسی و حميد زنگنه استاد اقتصاد دانشگاه ويدنر در دو کنفرانس خبری در دانشگاه جورج تاون و نيز در موسسه غيردولتی اف سی ان ال (که یک لابی غیرانتفاعی ویژه خدمات عمومی در واشنگتن است) حاضر و به سوالات خبرنگاران پاسخ دادند.



اين فضای بسيار پر تنش بين ايران و آمريکا بسيار بسيار خطرناک است و اين امکان را ايجاد می کند که در اثر محاسبه اشتباه و يا حتی بر اثر کوچکترين سوء تفاهم کار به يک برخورد نظامی بکشد.


احمد صدری، استاد دانشگاه لیک فارست

سخنرانان در اين دو جلسه هشدار دادند که در صورت حمله آمريکا به ايران فاجعه ای به مراتب عظيمتر از عراق رخ خواهد داد و منطقه خاورميانه برای دهه ها به گرداب خشونت فرو خواهد رفت.

پس از اين جلسه احمد صدری در گفتگو با بی بی سی درباره جدی بودن حمله آمريکا به ايران گفت: "من حمله آمريکا به ايران را يک خطر جدی ارزيابی می کنم. اين فضای بسيار پر تنش بين ايران و آمريکا بسيار بسيار خطرناک است و اين امکان را ايجاد می کند که در اثر محاسبه اشتباه و يا حتی بر اثر کوچکترين سوء تفاهم کار به يک برخورد نظامی بکشد. من تصورم اين است که اين خطر را نبايد به هيچ وجه دست کم گرفت."

وی درباره احتمال حمله اتمی گفت: "ترس من اين است که در مرحله دوم يعنی بعد از حمله ابتدايی به بهانه اينکه ايران در عمليات تروريستی بر عليه آمريکا شرکت کرده در پاسخ به حمله نظامی ايران مثلا به فرض اينکه حمله عظيمی در يکی از شهرهای آمريکا رخ دهد، يک حمله بسيار شديدی به ايران بشود که در این صورت متاسفانه امکان استفاده از اسلحه کشتار جمعی هم وجود دارد."



با توجه به لحن موجود اگر ايران کوتاه نيايد که بنظر هم نمی رسد کوتاه بيايد شانس اينکه آمريکا و يا اسرائيل به تاسيسات اتمی ايران حمله کنند بسيار بسيار بالاست. ... اگر خدای نکرده چنين چيزی اتفاق بيافتد، بطور قطع حملات تروريستی در آمريکا افزايش می يابد. زيرا اين تنها سلاحی است که آنها دارند


جیمز ایکینز، سفیر اسبق آمریکا در عربستان سعودی

جيمز ايکينز، سفير سابق آمريکا در عربستان سعودی، نيز نگرانی مشابهی ابراز کرد: "من فکر می کنم که اين کاملا جدی است. با توجه به لحن موجود اگر ايران کوتاه نيايد که به نظر هم نمی رسد کوتاه بيايد شانس اينکه آمريکا و يا اسرائيل به تاسيسات اتمی ايران حمله کنند بسيار بسيار بالاست."

"از نگاه ايرانيان فرقی نمی کند که آمريکا اين کار را بکند و يا اسرائيل. زيرا واضح است که اسرائيل با اجازه آمريکا دست به چنين حمله ای خواهد زد و نهايتا اين آمريکا است که مسئول تلقی می شود نه اسرائيل."

وی افزود: "نتيجه آن برای ما يکسان خواهد بود. اگر خدای نکرده چنين چيزی اتفاق بيافتد، بطور قطع حملات تروريستی در آمريکا افزايش می يابد. زيرا اين تنها سلاحی است که آنها دارند."

در ميان امضا کنندگان اين نامه اسامی اساتيد سرشناس ديگری نظير نوام چامسکی، خوان کول، اروند ابراهاميان و نيز ريچارد فالک به چشم می خورد.

امضا کنندگان نامه ياد شده با تاکيد بر اينکه مسئله اتمی ايران راه حل نظامی ندارد خواستار مذاکره مستقيم دو کشور هستند.

آنها همچنين نسبت به عواقبی که اعمال فشار بر ايران برای فعالان سياسی اين کشور را به همراه می آورد، هشدار داده اند

[Rasputin]

The United States will not hold direct contacts with Iran and insists that sanctions must be part of a new carrots-and-sticks offer being drawn up by major powers to curb Iran's nuclear activities, a senior administration official said.

Addressing an influential Middle East policy group on Thursday night, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns promised that Washington will not "quit the diplomatic track easily."

American experts and political figures have increasingly urged the administration to talk directly to Iran in searching for a diplomatic solution.

But Burns rejected that, saying the world must "put responsibility where it lies" -- on Iran, not the United States -- for defying the international community and fanning the nuclear crisis.

He warned Iran and other key players that "we can't be captive to endless discussions in the (U.N.) Security Council and we won't allow ourselves to be."

Burns stressed the need for Washington to maintain a "hard edge" to its policy as the international community seeks to curb Iranian activities that the United States and its allies say are aimed at producing nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian energy program. Tehran denies the charge.

In the latest effort to resolve the crisis, Britain, France and Germany, with backing from the United States, Russia and China, are to unveil in the next 10 days a package of inducements and penalties for Iran, depending on whether it chooses the path of cooperation or resistance, Burns said.

It is still unclear whether Russia and China -- which fear a worsening crisis with oil-producing Iran -- would endorse an offer that includes sanctions, but the United States would insist it includes penalties as well as benefits, he said.

"The package cannot be whole until both halves are joined together," Burns told the annual dinner of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Because of Russian and Chinese opposition, Washington and key European allies have so far failed to secure a U.N. Security Council resolution that would legally oblige Iran to halt all uranium enrichment work or face possible sanctions.

RUSSIAN FUEL OFFER

Burns said the package being drafted by the Europeans would restate Moscow's previous offer to guarantee Iran nuclear fuel for power generation that is produced in Russia, and also include other economic and technological incentives.

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, on Thursday welcomed moves to avert possible U.N. sanctions against Tehran and appealed for compromise, as Iran's president said he was ready to talk.

ElBaradei called for both sides to move away from a "war of the words" and said, "I hope that at this stage we will use more carrots before we think of using sticks."

But Burns said that given an acceleration in Iran's nuclear program, it is imperative to "raise the cost" this year on Tehran if it persists in moving forward with enriching nuclear fuel against the demands of the Security Council.

Iran said any European proposals would have to allow it to enrich uranium for atomic research and development purposes. Burns ruled this out.

He dismissed the unprecedented 18-page letter this week from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush as a "missed opportunity" to seriously address issues at the heart of the dispute.

The United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 when 52 Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran months after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

[Rasputin]

US Aggression-Time Once Again: Target Iran

By EDWARD S. HERMAN and DAVID PETERSON

With the United States having initiated wars in violation of the UN Charter, and hence engaged in the "supreme international crime,"1 against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq in 1999, 2001, and 2003, one might have expected that its commencement of a fourth aggression only a few years later against Iran would arouse the UN, EU, other international institutions and NGOs, and even the supposedly moral and independent Free Press, to serious protest and counter-action, including referral to the UN Security Council under Chapter VII's "threat of peace" articles and support of possible diplomatic and economic sanctions. This has not happened, and in fact the Bush administration has successfully mobilized the UN, whose "primary responsibility" is the "maintenance of international peace and security," and the EU, as well as the Free Press, to facilitate its fourth attack.

We say that the fourth aggression is already underway, because once again, as in the Iraq case, the United States has been attacking Iran for many months, and not just with verbal insults and threats. It has been flying unmanned aerial surveillance drones over Iran since 2004; it has infiltrated combat and reconnaissance teams into Iran "to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic minority groups" (Seymour Hersh);2 it has bestowed an ambiguous "protected" status upon the Mujahedin-e Khalq, a group which, since 1997, the U.S. Department of State has designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization, but a group that the Washington regime now uses to launch cross-border attacks on Iran from within U.S.-occupied Iraq;3 and it and its Israeli client have repeatedly threatened larger scale and more open attacks. This pre-invasion aggression was an important feature of the overall aggression against Iraq, where the US and British greatly increased their "spikes of activity" with massive bombing well before the March 19, 2003 invasion4-major acts of war and aggression begun as early as April 2002, that were almost wholly ignored by the Free Press and "international community."

What is mind-boggling in all this is that new attacks and threats by a country that is in the midst of a serial aggression program, that runs a well documented and widely condemned global gulag of torture,5 that has committed major war crimes in Iraq-Fallujah may well replace Guernica as a symbol of murderous warfare unleashed against civilians6-and that openly declares itself exempt from international law and states that the UN is only relevant when it supports U.S. policy,7 is not only not condemned for its Iran aggression, but is able to enlist support for it in the EU, UN and global media. This enlistment of support occurs despite the further fact that it is now generally recognized that the Bush and Blair administrations lied their way into the Iraq invasion-occupation (but still quickly obtained UN and EU acceptance of the occupation and ensuing ruthless pacification program),8 and that they cynically misused the inspections program, all of which makes the new accommodation to the aggression-in-process and planned larger attack truly frightening.

[Rasputin]

The mechanism by which this is accomplished by the aggressor state is to cry-up an allegedly dire threat that Iran might be embarking on a program to obtain nuclear weapons-it might be doing this secretively, and although it has submitted itself to IAEA inspections for the past three years, it has not been 100 percent cooperative with the Agency.9 Combining this with demonization,10 intensive and repeated expressions of indignation and fear, and threats to do something about the intolerable threat, the Washington regime has managed to produce a contrived "crisis," with huge spikes in media attention and supportive expressions of concern and actions by the UN, IAEA, and international community.11 These groups join the aggressor partly to avoid offending it, but also to try to constrain its determination to get its way-but in the process they accept its premises that there is a real threat and hence give at least tacit support to its aggression program, and sometimes more. On the home front, with the acceptance of the seriousness of the manufactured crisis by the mainstream media and Democrats, and with leading politicos like Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh even egging Bush on, the noise creates its own self-fulfilling pressures on the leadership that manufactured the crisis, who now must "do something" about it to avoid political loss.12

This time, the EU appears to be cooperating even more fully in the developing aggression against Iran than it did in the Iraq case. Although Iran has an absolute and "inalienable" right to enrich uranium under NPT rules (i.e., the NPT's sole condition is that the enrichment can only be "for peaceful purposes"), and although the NPT imposes upon other parties to the treaty the obligation to "facilitatethe fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy,"13 under British, French and German urging Iran, in November 2004, agreed "on a voluntary basis to continue and extend its suspension to include all enrichment related and reprocessing activities," while these states agreed to continue negotiations in good faith for the sake of an agreement that "will provide objective guarantees that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes," and "firm guarantees on nuclear, technological and economic cooperation and firm commitments on security issues."14

But subsequent stages of negotiations foundered mainly because the three EU states could not provide Iran with guarantees on security-related issues without also securing U.S. guarantees for the same-and not only were U.S. guarantees never forthcoming, but Washington and Israel escalated their threats instead. Moreover, it is the longstanding U.S. position that "no enrichment in Iran is permissible," in the words of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. "The reason for that," he added, "is that even a small so-called research enrichment program could give Iran the possibility of mastering the technical deficiencies it's currently encountering in its program. Once Iran has the scientific and technological capability to do even laboratory size enrichment, that knowledge could be replicated in industrial-size enrichment activities elsewhere, that's why we've felt very strongly that no enrichment inside Iran should be permitted, and that remains our position."15 In short, the United States unilaterally refuses to allow Iran its rights granted it by the NPT.

Now some 18 months later, a U.S.-led consortium of states has introduced a draft resolution within the UN Security Council with the intent of imposing upon Iran a deadline for terminating all indigenous "enrichment-related and reprocessing activities" (pars. 1-2), as well as calling on all states to prevent the transfer of the technology and the expertise "that could contribute to Iran's enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and missile program" (par. 4)-thereby following the U.S. lead and criminalizing Iran's and only Iran's pursuit of its "inalienable" rights under Article IV of the NPT, and treating Iran's otherwise legal, NPT-sanctioned enrichment program as a Chapter VII threat to international peace and security. Equally striking, this draft resolution also expresses the Security Council's "intention to consider such further measures as may be necessary to ensure compliance with this resolution" (par. 7).16 This is exactly the kind of phraseology that, if adopted, the Washington regime would have be eager to interpret as a use-of-force type resolution, regardless of whether other members of the Security Council went along with it.

[Rasputin]

We regard the terms of this draft resolution as well as the general thrust of British, French, German, and European Union diplomacy on the Iranian nuclear issue to be a perfect accommodation to the needs of the aggressor state, which openly denies Iran its "inalienable" rights under NPT rules. This also constitutes a death-blow-by-politicization to the NPT and a gross abuse of the functions and powers of the Security Council, all in deference and service to a program in violation of the most basic principle of the UN Charter-that all members "shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means" and refrain from the "threat or use of force" (Article 2).

Since the spring of 2003, U.S. power has produced a steady and indignant focus on Iran's alleged foot-dragging on inspections. As in the case of Iraq's failure through March 2003 to prove that it did not possess any "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD), the U.S.-driven allegations and inspections regime channeled through the IAEA have focused on Iran's parallel failure to disprove a negative-namely, that Iran prove that it is not secretly engaging in practices that are prohibited under the NPT and subsequent Safeguards Agreement (May 15, 1974) and the Additional Protocols (signed December 18, 2003, though only observed "on a voluntary basis"). Moreover, throughout the current 38-month cycle of allegations and inspections to which the IAEA has now subjected Iran, the IAEA has repeatedly adopted a phraseology to the effect that the IAEA is "unable to confirm the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities inside Iran"-an inherently politicized condition that no state would be capable of meeting, no matter what it agreed to do, and whose application depends ultimately on the strength of the political forces that pressure the IAEA to continue the search.17 With enough political pressure, no amount of "transparency" and "confidence-building" measures on the part of the accused state can meet it, as was evident in the Iraq case. And as long as the IAEA reports that it is unable to confirm the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities inside Iran, Iran is helpless before the IAEA's negative condition.

The "threat" and crisis have been sustained in the media by the use of patriotic and fear-mongering frames and suppressions of relevant fact that may even be more brazen and misleading than those justifying the invasion of Iraq. The crisis-supporting frames are: (1) that Iran is a dangerous theocratic state, with an irrational and unstable political and clerical leadership that has supported terrorists and threatened Israel and is therefore not to be trusted with a nuclear program; (2) that it has been secretive about its nuclear program, has not been fully cooperative with the inspections program of the IAEA, and that the reason for this secrecy is Iran's intention to develop nuclear weapons; (3) that its acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability would be intolerable, would destabilize the Middle East if not the whole of Western Civilization, and must be stopped.