Attack Iran and you attack Russia

[Purveyor]

The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A high-level diplomatic source in Tehran tells Asia Times Online that essentially Putin and the Supreme Leader have agreed on a plan to nullify the George W Bush administration's relentless drive towards launching a preemptive attack, perhaps a tactical nuclear strike, against Iran. An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia.

But then, as if this were not enough of a political bombshell, came the abrupt resignation of Ali Larijani as top Iranian nuclear negotiator. Early this week in Rome, Larijani told the IRNA news agency that "Iran's nuclear policies are stable and will not change with the replacement of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council ." Larijani will keep attending SNSC meetings, now as a representative of the Supreme Leader. He even took time to remind the West that in the Islamic Republic all key decisions regarding the civilian nuclear program are made by the Supreme Leader. Larijani actually went to Rome to meet with the European Union's Javier Solana alongside Iran's new negotiator, Saeed Jalili, a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), just like President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

In itself, the Putin-Khamenei meeting was extraordinary, because the Supreme Leader rarely receives foreign statesmen for closed talks, even one as crucial as Putin. The Russian president, according to the diplomatic source, told the Supreme Leader he may hold the ultimate solution regarding the endlessly controversial Iranian nuclear dossier. According to IRNA, the Supreme Leader, after stressing that the Iranian civilian nuclear program will continue unabated, said. "We will ponder your words and proposal."

Larijani himself had told the Iranian media that Putin had a "special plan" and the Supreme Leader observed that the plan was "ponderable". The problem is that Ahmadinejad publicly denied the Russians had volunteered a new plan.

Iranian hawks close to Ahmadinejad are spinning that Putin's proposal involves Iran temporarily suspending uranium enrichment in exchange for no more United Nations sanctions. That's essentially what International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammad ElBaradei has been working on all along. The key issue is what - in practical terms - will Iran get in return. Obviously it's not the EU's Solana who will have the answer. But as far as Russia is concerned, strategically nothing will appease it except a political/diplomatic solution for the Iranian nuclear dossier.

US Vice President Dick Cheney - who even Senator Hillary Clinton now refers to as Darth Vader - must be foaming at the mouth; but the fact is that after the Caspian summit, Iran and Russia are officially entangled in a strategic partnership. World War III, for them, is definitely not on the cards.

---eoe---

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ26Ak06.html

[Uncle Joe]

1. Honestly, I believe

this is why Bush encouraged the Cubans to rise up against Castro or his successor, more as a poke in Russia's eye in retaliation for their support of Iran than a real belief that the Cubans will revolt, and also because as an election year is coming up, he's attempting to curry favor with the Cubans in south Florida for Republican votes.

[raccoon]

2. One more for Greatest, DUer's, let's do it....k&r. nt

[Froward69]

3. just to point out

a funny. "who even Senator Hillary Clinton now refers to as Darth Vader" Cheney is really lord palpatine. Evil behind the throne, pure evil without any hope to be brought back from the dark side. unlike vader who ultimately does reform.

[rAVES]

6. exactly.

[mikelgb]

4. new cold war

it keeps the complex going

[Baby Snooks]

5. The Alliance between Iran and Russia

There has always been an alliance between the two countries despite a period in which the communists were regarded as a threat to the Shah which was interesting, and still is, because the alliance was actually forged by the Shah's sister who traveled to Russia, when she was 18, to meet with Stalin. But then the revisionists of the Republican Party have always overlooked that fact when railing about their right to Iranian oil as if it belonged to them instead of to the Iranian people.

The worst mistake of the 20th Century was the Carter Administration's decision to allow Khomeini to return to Tehran and to allow the Shah to be deposed which allowed Khomeini to plant what really can only be called a garden of evil, from which the roots of Islamic terrorism have spread and bloomed, in Tehran. But that was not a concern of the CIA of George HW Bush which orchestrated many of the early student protests and led to a change in public opinon which probably influenced the Carter Administration as much as the CIA propaganda about the Shah being a despot and cruel dictator who murdered million in his torture chambers which of course have yet to be discovered. It was, really, the same propaganda the CIA peddled about Saddam Hussein until it discovered "weapons of mass destruction" which also have yet to be discovered. The CIA lies. It lied to Carter. Everyone but Congress, it seems, has finally accepted that the CIA lies.

The only concern then, as it is now, was control of the oil reserves. One need only look at Iran-Contra to know the truth of why the Shah was deposed. George HW Bush felt that Khomeini offered the better deal. Had Iran-Contra not been exposed, who is to say we wouldn't have become allies instead of enemies of the Islamic Revolution in return for control of the oil reserves. The reality of Iran is a harsh reality that the American people simply refuse to look at because of the ramifications to our horrendous foreign policy that for too long has been dictated not by diplomats but by the CIA. The reality of Iran is more easily seen in the reality of Iraq. But the American people really don't want to look at that reality either.

As for the garden of evil, some would say that the Bushes have watered and pruned the garden. Bush calls Iran an enemy. And yet Halliburton has been dealing with Iran all these years. Including, and particularly, when Cheney was head of Halliburton.

This would not be the first time we believed we had the better deal and found instead that the Islamic fundamentalists had the upper hand. So many snakes, so many snake charmers. And very often the snake charmer is bitten by the snake. Often when picking the pockets of the audience.

Regardless of anything, an attack on Iran may prove to be an attack on Russia. But given the recent criticism of Putin, that may be what the Bush Administration intends which of course will most likely result in World War III which will not be the result of Iran and its supposed aim of obtaining nuclear weapons but the result of the United States believing that it alone determines the course of mankind.

By engaging Russia in conflict, the spoils of war might include the Caspian reserves. And Bush and Cheney believe that we would win such a war and win the spoils.

And of course the reason we are in Afghanistan is that pipeline which will be used to transport oil to a port in India as well as eventually, if we can "colonize" Iran the way we have Irag, to Haifa. To bypass the Persian Gulf. But also to bypass China and force China to buy the Russian oil from us instead of from Russia. The pipeline in Afghanistan, now a UNOCAL project, was the pipeline that Enron intended to build. Before it went bankrupt although Enron really was never bankrupt. It was merely put out of business. Probably by the Bush Administration. As for UNOCAL one might wonder how much UNOCAL has donated to various members of Congress. Nancy Pelosi in particular.

We are headed for a major war. And possibly for a world war. And yet Nancy Pelosi continues to maintain that impeachment serves no purpose and that it is off the table. Keeping it off the table is keeping war on the table. And it is on the table because of her refusing to allow articles of impeachment to be filed.

It doesn't matter whether the votes are there. It only matters that they are filed. History does repeat itself. Like Nixon, Bush might be forced out of office. Because of members of his own party informing him that they will vote for impeachment if it is put to a vote.

The Republicans found themselves being drowned by blindly following their Pied Piper. The same fate apparently awaits the Democrats.

[Chulanowa]

7. The worst blunder of the 20th century with regards to Iran...

Is the 1953 CIA-sponsored overthrow of its democratically elected government replaced with a monomaniacal despot, who's oppressive policies are exactly why there was need for a revolution, any revolution in Iran.