What Is This World Coming To?

The London Daily Telegraph claims that it has evidence that the world’s most dangerous anti-Semite may well have a Jewish background.

“A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots. A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.”

Wonderful.  A Persian self-hating Jew with an Islamic messianic complex and a nuclear bomb.

Iran said it successfully test-fired short-range missiles during drills Sunday by the elite Revolutionary Guard, a show of force days after the U.S. and its allies condemned Tehran over a newly revealed underground nuclear facility that was being secretly constructed.

English-language Press TV reported the Fateh-110, Tondar-69 and Zelzal were test fired in a missile defense exercise, but did not give specifics on range or other details. All are short-range, surface-to-surface missiles.

Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, told reporters Iran tested a multiple missile launcher for the first time. Press TV showed pictures of at least two missiles being fired simultaneously and said they were from Sunday’s drill in a desert in central Iran. In the clip, men could be heard shouting “Allahu Akbar” as the missiles were launched.

“The message of the war game for some arrogant countries which intend to intimidate is that we are able to give a proper, strong answer to their hostility quickly,” the Web site of state television quoted Salami as saying. He said the missiles successfully hit their targets.

Salami told reporters Iran had reduced the missiles and their ranges so they could be used in quick, short-range engagements. He also said Iran would test medium-range Shahab-1 and Shahab-2 missiles on Sunday night and long-range Shahab-3 missiles on Monday, during the drill set to last several days. The Revolutionary Guard controls Iran’s missile program.

The Jerusalem Post cites anonymous sources in reporting that six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi have been hanged in the holy city of Mashhad. The report has not been confirmed independently.

The sources said the hangings occurred Monday after the country’s top legislative body upheld the victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Earlier today, Mousavi reiterated his demand for a revote and said he was working to help organize a group to defend citizens’ rights. He said the committee would release documents “proving fraud and irregularities in the election.”

The Basij militia wants him prosecuted, accusing him of “disturbing the nation’s security” in a letter to the country’s top prosecutor, the Guardian reports

The Times of London has a profile of Mousavi.

Former president Mohammad Khatami delivered a strong attack against what he termed the “coup” on democracy. He criticized the outcome of the June 12 vote and called for the release of hundreds of opponents who have been arrested in demonstrations and at home.

Vice President Joe Biden made history yesterday when he withheld a comment that was on his mind.

“I have doubts, but withhold comment,” Biden said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

But don’t freak out — Biden only said he was planning withhold comment, and not that he actually intended to.

Later, he told CNN that the Iranian government has suppressed crowds and limited free speech, which he said raised questions. He also called the strong showing by Ahmadinejad “unlikely,” based on pre-election analysis.

“Is this the response, is this the accurate response, is this the wish of the Iranian people?” Biden said.

Ok. Knowing that Ahmadinejad is a dictator who probably stole the election, what will be the White House response?    “The decision has been made to talk,” says Biden. “And we’re signed on to that.”

On October 28, Biden had this to day about his boss-to-be.

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America.

“Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

“And he’s going to need help . . . to stand with him. Because it’s not going to be apparent initially; it’s not going to be apparent that we’re right.”

I have to give ol’ Joe points on that one.  It ISN’T apparent that they’re right.  Not even to them.

Iran’s state TV reported Monday that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered an investigation into claims of fraud in last week’s presidential election.

Khamenei ordered the powerful Guardian Council to examine the allegations by pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims widespread vote rigging in Friday’s election. The government declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner in a landslide victory.

It is a stunning turnaround for Iran’s most powerful figure, who previously welcomed the results.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Embassy in Moscow announced Monday that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had put off a visit to Russia, and it was unclear whether he will come at all.

Ahmadinejad had been expected to travel to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg and meet on Monday with President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in which Iran was to attend as an observer.

The change in plans came amid street protests in Iran following Ahmadinejad’s re-election in a bitterly disputed vote Friday.

On Sunday, Mousavi wrote an appeal to the Guardian Council, a powerful 12-member body that’s a pillar of Iran’s theocracy. Mousavi also met Sunday with Khamenei.

Mousavi’s backers have waged three days of street protests in Teheran.

Iran tested its longest-range solid-fuel missile Wednesday - a launch that displayed Tehran’s reach and burnished President Ahmadinejad’s hardline reputation ahead of next month’s election.

The missile was said to be capable of striking Israel, U.S. Mideast bases and Europe.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed the test, which was announced by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The launch raised concerns about the sophistication of Tehran’s missile program and Pentagon officials cautioned that it leaves Iran at a crossroads.

“They can either continue on this path of continued destabilization in the region or they can decide that they want to pursue relationships with the countries in the region and the United States that are more normalized,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

More from the AP

Iran is trying to replicate Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jewish people, Israeli deputy prime minister Silvan Shalom said Tuesday ahead of a Holocaust ceremony at a former death camp.

“What Iran is trying to do right now is not far away at all from what Hitler did to the Jewish people just 65 years ago,” Shalom told reporters before a ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Read the rest of this entry »

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad jarred the world’s nuclear experts with his recent admission that Iran has more than 7,000 working centrifuges, instead of the 3,000 the West was basing all its ‘point of no return’ calculations on.

“We don’t know what to believe about the Iranian program. We’ve heard many different assessments and claims over a number of years,” said Clinton of Iran’s latest claims.

“We do not attribute any particular meaning, with respect to the range of issues that we are looking to address with the Iranians, from this particular statement.”

Given that Iran is now believed to have the capability  to mount a nuclear warhead on missiles capable of reaching all the major capitals of Europe, possibly the east coast of the United States and definitely all of Israel,  an admission that the US doesn’t know what to believe is troubling, to say the least.

While the rest of the country stands frozen in astonishment at the Obama administration’s transformation of America into a fascist state, new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel found it necessary to remind the White House that even a fascist state will need people to oppress.

Netanyahu gave an interview to the Atlantic in which he said, “The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”

Team Obama has been flooding the airwaves with reports of great progress being made with Iran at the G-20 with substantive, cordial, face-to-face talks  between US diplomat Richard Holbrooke and Iranian Mehdi Akhundzadeh.  In Washington, the State Department insisted Wednesday that Holbrooke met with the Iranian envoy. 

In Tehran, the Iranians say an encounter in a hallway does not constitute substantive talks.  “Rest assured,” IRNA quoted Akhundzadeh, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, “that if there is a decision to have talks with U.S., like the talks on Iraq, all will be informed about it. There is nothing to hide.”

Iran has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel.  It has hosted conferences aimed at denying the Holocaust.  One of its conferences was entitled “A World Without Zionism and America.”

Other than that, Iran is perfectly positioned to be our new best friend.

I found it interesting that the London Sunday Times has already found enough similarities between Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter in Obama’s first two weeks to merit an entire column.

“Barack Obama thinks he can charm his adversaries into changing their ways but his personality can’t change the dynamics,” said Tom Edmonds, a Republican consultant. “Carter [president from 1977 to 1981] had the same belief in naive symbolism. Their styles are very different but the political similarities are there.”

Considering the fact that Obama has already entered into secret negotiations with both Syria and Iran,  the Jimmy Carter label may one day be a relative compliment.

Nuclear non-proliferation experts had several “very, very high-level” contacts in the last few months with Iranian leaders, said Jeffrey Boutwell, executive director for the US branch of the Pugwash group, an international organization of scientists which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.

Former defense secretary William Perry, who served in Obama’s election campaign, participated in some of these meetings focused on “a wide range of issues that separate Iran from the West: not only their nuclear program but the Middle East peace process, Persian Gulf issues,” Boutwell told AFP.

The Pugwash official declined to name the other participants, except to say they had considerable clout.

“We had very, very senior figures from both the Iranian policy establishment and from the US; people who have very close, good access to the top leaders in both countries,” Boutwell said.

“The Cable,” the blog of the specialist magazine Foreign Policy, said Iran’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (AIEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, was “among the Iranian officials who attended the Pugwash dialogues.”