First they came for the Yugoslavs. Then the Afghans. Then the Iraqis-up to 1m killed since the illegal invasion of 2003. Now it’s the Islamic Republic of Iran that is menaced by the advocates of perpetual war.But before the military attacks, come the lies.  Lots and lots of them.As the neocon-inspired propaganda campaign against Iran goes into overdrive, I thought it was time we had a new regular feature: Iran Lie Watch. For starters: compare and contrast.The Guardian, 1st January 2010.David Petraeus says hostage Peter Moore was 'certainly' held in IranGeneral David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, today confirmed a US intelligence assessment which said the freed British hostage Peter Moore was "certainly" held in Iran for at least some of his 31 months in captivity. As...

Manchester HOPI members are walking to raise money for Workers Fund Iran, and I'd urge all people to make a contribution if you can! Marshajane "On March 5th six members of the Hands Off the People of Iran Manchester branch will be walking the Bogle, a fifty six mile walk round Manchester. We are walking to raise money for the charity Workers Fund Iran, which was set up in December 2005 with the aim to reduce and relieve poverty amongst Iranian workers (both employed and unemployed) who are victims of the economic policies of the Iranian regime, including mass non-payment of wages. The charity is not aligned to any political organisation. Funds sent to Iran will be distributed amongst the most needy working class families who are facing destitution. We hope the funds will stop...

The UN Human Rights Council has turned its attention to a country other than Israel - namely, Iran. US human rights official Michael Posner spoke at the session of that body:[He] told the council that since disputed presidential elections in June, Iran had suppressed the protests of millions of Iranians, "often resorting to violence," resulting in detentions, injuries and deaths. Mr. Posner... also condemned growing restrictions on freedom of expression and called for immediate action by Iran to end torture.For Britain...... Peter Gooderham, called on Iran to invite Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to investigate post-election violence and assess the state of human rights and to accept a visit by the United Nations' top human rights official, Navi Pillay.Human Rights Watch has voiced its...

The US policy of engagement with Iran never got off the ground – and now Hillary Clinton has resorted to Bush-era sabre-rattlingHillary Clinton's sudden volley of shots at Iran marks the end of an engagement policy that never really began. She wants to convince the world that the regime in Tehran is opposed to serious talks with the west. That may be true, but we'll probably never know because in fact, no one has offered such talks.In laying out the American approach to Iran, Clinton showed how little US foreign policy has changed since the last years of the Bush administration. President Bush famously explained that he would not negotiate with unfriendly regimes because he didn't want to "reward bad behaviour". He wanted states like Iran to change of their own accord, not as a result...

Dear readers, It is with some concern that I read in the papers that Iran could face tough new UN sanctions within weeks after it announced plans to step up its uranium enrichment programme. Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, earlier said Tehran had told the UN’s nuclear watchdog it would start enriching uranium to 20% from today.  The move heightens fears that Iran is moving closer to weapons-grade uranium. What reaction has there been from the international community? Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, angrily denounced the Iranian regime for refusing to send its uranium stocks abroad for enrichment in a deal that would have met the country’s needs but removed the danger the material would be used to make nuclear bombs. “This is real...

The US is circulating a discussion paper on possible further UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, says a Western diplomat at the UN.The measures include expanding travel bans and asset freezes on people connected with the nuclear industry.This comes despite the apparent acceptance by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of a deal.This would allow Iran to send most of its low-enriched uranium abroad in return for research reactor fuel rods.Washington has called on Iran to match its words with actions.Last month, diplomats said Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it did not accept the terms of the deal and had instead demanded a simultaneous exchange on its territory.The US and its allies fear Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Iran...

Former prime minister slammed for trying to shift focus onto threat from Tehran during appearance at Chilcot inquiryTony Blair has been accused of warmongering spin for claiming that western powers might be forced to invade Iran because it poses as serious a threat as Saddam Hussein.Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Iran, accused Blair of trying to make confrontation with Iran an electoral issue after the former prime minister repeatedly singled out its Islamic regime as a global threat in his evidence to the Iraq war inquiry yesterday.Blair said many of the arguments that led him to confront the "profoundly wicked, almost psychopathic" Saddam Hussein seven years ago now applied to the regime in Tehran."We face the same problem about Iran today," he told the Chilcot...

Iranian president dismisses western deadline to accept deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuelThe Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, today dismissed a year-end deadline set by the US for Iran to accept a UN-brokered deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.As Iran faces a renewed US drive for further sanctions, Ahmadinejad made light of the threat. "If Iran wanted to make a bomb, we would be brave enough to tell you," he told supporters in the southern city of Shiraz. He said the west could give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care".In an interview aired on US television yesterday, Ahmadinejad dismissed documents apparently describing Iranian efforts to make a nuclear trigger as "fabricated and distributed by the US".The president brushed away a report in...

International Atomic Energy Agency vote could form the basis for a future binding resolution by the UN security councilIran faced rare international unity today when the governing board of the UN nuclear watchdog issued a formal demand that it immediately halt work on a secret uranium enrichment plant at the centre of concerns that the country is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.Russia and China lined up with the US, Britain, France and Germany to censure Iran in a vote by the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), passing the first resolution against Iran in nearly four years by a 25-3 margin.The IAEA vote could form the basis for a future binding resolution by the UN security council, which in turn could be used to impose sanctions.The Foreign Office said the...

Report by the International Atomic Energy Agency reprimanded Tehran over secret facility near QomThe United Nation's nuclear watchdog today ordered Iran to provide more details about its secret nuclear facility hidden in a mountain near the holy city of Qom.The watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in a report published today, reprimanded Tehran for failing to notify it of its plans for the construction of the new facility, a breach of its international treaty obligations. The agency said preparations were being made by Iran for the site to start up in 2011.It said that the episode raised doubts about Iran's denials that other such secret facilities exist. "Iran's declaration of the new facility reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under...

Four-member team sees heavily protected facility near Tehran marking first independent examination of siteUN inspectors got their first look today inside a once-secret uranium enrichment facility that has raised western suspicions about the extent of Iran's nuclear programme.The semi-official Mehr news agency reported that the four-member team visited the heavily protected facility, carved into a mountainside south of Tehran. The tour marked the first independent examination of the site, but no results were expected until after the inspectors leave Iran later this week.The review also coincides with the countdown to Iran's expected decision on whether to accept a UN-brokered deal to process its nuclear fuel abroad – a plan designed to ease western fears about Iran's potential ability to...

Enriched uranium would be processed in RussiaIran has been given two days to approve a uranium deal that the United Nations says could defuse the long-running crisis over the country's nuclear programme.The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog organisation, Mohamed ElBaradei, said the draft agreement to ship out 75% of Iran's enriched uranium for processing abroad "could open the way for a complete normalisation of relations between Iran and the international community".The Iranian delegation to the talks in Vienna cautiously welcomed the deal as being "on the right track", but said it would be up to Tehran to approve the deal.Under the draft agreement ElBaradei put forward during two and a half days of negotiations, 1,200kg of Iranian low enriched uranium (LEU) would be sent to Russia...

IAEA Chief: Direct talks are only solution to Iran nuke crisisBy Reuters 18/10/2009Direct talks without preconditions between the United States and Iran are the only solution to the conflict over Tehran's nuclear program, the U.N. nuclear agency's head was quoted as saying on Saturday.New sanctions against Iran would only aggravate the dispute rather than push it to give in to international demands, Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Austrian daily Die Presse."Of course you can impose further sanctions. But I consider it rather unlikely that new sanctions will make Iran come around," ElBaradei said in an interview to be published on Sunday. "President Barack Obama has understood that talks with Iran are the only possible solution," the...

If anyone is in any doubts about the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran, or thinks it’s just western scare-mongering, listen to the country’s Arab neighbours: “I think the gulf states are well advised now to develop strategies on the assumption that Iran is about to become a nuclear power,” said Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, a political science professor at United Arab Emirates University. “It’s a whole new ballgame. Iran is forcing everyone in the region now into an arms race.” This realization, in turn, is raising new anxieties and shaking old assumptions. Writing in the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi, for instance, the editor, Abdel-Beri Atwan, said that with recent developments “the Arab regimes, and the gulf ones in particular, will find themselves part of a new...

I've just received my 'Geneva Press Kit' from 'The Israel Project', a Zionist lobbying organisation whose aim is to 'inform' journalists about the threats that Israel faces and why it is so imperative for the 'international community' to impose even more draconian sanctions on Iran. I'd like to share it with you.Economic sanctions helped to end apartheid in South Africa. They also helped change Libya’s nuclear policy. Now they can be used to end the nuclear crisis in Iran.The Iranian nuclear program must be halted to protect everyone. Only economic sanctions can peacefully require Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons.That’s why the international community must take urgent action now to peacefully stop the threat of a nuclear Iran. Here are nine ways to curb the threat and avoid...

Roger Cohen thinks he has a fourth option in how to deal with Iran.  First, here he  is agreeing that sanctions won’t work and accepting the same logic on likely outcomes as Eliot Cohen did: Yes, it feels good to do something, but it doesn’t necessarily help. In this case, sanctions won’t for four reasons. One: Iran is inured to sanctions after years of living with them and has in Dubai a sure-fire conduit for goods at a manageable surtax. Two: Russia and China will never pay more than lip-service to sanctions. Three: You don’t bring down a quasi-holy symbol — nuclear power — by cutting off gasoline sales. Four: sanctions feed the persecution complex on which the Iranian regime thrives. A senior German Foreign Ministry official last week told an American Council on...

"Sanction and pressure will not be conducive to the ongoing diplomatic efforts over the Iran nuclear issue, said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu here Thursday."We hope the concerned sides will take this opportunity, step up diplomatic efforts and push for positive results in the upcoming meeting between Iran, the six major countries and the European Union," said Jiang at a regular briefing.The six countries of China, the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany have agreed to hold talks on Oct. 1 with Iran on its nuclear program."China always believes that sanction and pressure should not bean option and will not be conducive to the current diplomatic efforts over the Iran nuclear issue," Jiang said."(1)Good, the bullying of Iran its just ridiculious. As long as...

Iran was a major focus of attention in New York last week. The E3+3 and many others expressed grave concern about its nuclear programme, and declared a determination to address it through negotiation if possible, isolation and sanctions if necessary. We also had the standard, abhorrent, remarks from President Ahmadinejad about Israel, insulting the values of the chamber in which he was speaking. Friday saw the revelation of a covert enrichment facility near Qom. Iran's response was evasive. They denied it was secret. True-we knew about it and have now given the IAEA a full briefing along with France and the US. Then President Ahmadinejad said that  Iran did not have to declare all its nuclear facilities to the US. Also true, and totally beside the point. Iran has to declare them...

Tehran must let in UN inspectors, says US president, as pressure mounts for tough sanctionsLive blog: Follow reaction to Iran's revelationBarack Obama has issued a strongly worded ultimatum to Iran after it admitted having a secret uranium plant that was revealed earlier today by US officials.Obama demanded that the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) be allowed access to the secret site, which according to US officials is built inside a mountain near the ancient city of Qom, one of the holiest Shia cities in the Middle East."We expect the IAEA to immediately investigate this disturbing revelation," Obama said during a hastily arranged press conference at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.Obama, flanked by Gordon Brown and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, spoke about a growing...

This article of mine appears in the First Post. No Western leaders have yet congratulated President Ahmadinejad on his controversial election victory in Iran. But among the list of leaders who have done so is a name that many will find surprising: President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. Karzai telephoned Ahmadinejad to congratulate him on his victory, saying that relations between Afghanistan and its Western neighbour had "expanded" during Ahmadinejad's time in office and that he hoped ties would continue to strengthen. You won't read too much about it in the mainstream Western media, but the truth is that in a battle which the US President and British Prime Minister repeatedly tell us is fundamental to our own security - Iran is on 'our' side. Shia Iran's opposition to the Sunni...

iransolidarity.org.ukIn June 2009 millions of people came out on to the streets of Iran for freedom and an end to the Islamic regime. Whilst the June 12 election was a pretext for the protests - elections have never been free or fair in Iran – it has opened the space for people to come to the fore with their own slogans.The world has been encouraged by the protestors’ bravery and humane demands and horrified by the all-out repression they have faced. It has seen a different image of Iran - one of a population that refuses to kneel even after 30 years of living under Islamic rule.The dawn that this movement heralds for us across the world is a promising one – one that aims to bring Iran into the 21st century and break the back of the political Islamic movement internationally.This is...

A Poem by Seen-e SorkhThis week I have been attending graduation ceremonies.It has been a time of joy and excitement for the students and their families.These young men and women have a bright future ahead of them.And they are celebrating the end of one chapter as they embrace the next.But, in Iran, graduation ceremonies did not take place this week.Instead, the students were shot in their dorm rooms.In lieu of receiving a diploma, Iranian youth were handed a death sentence.Their bodies, their minds, their souls – were targeted for a brutal killing.This week in Iran, instead of wreaths of flowers, students were covered in blood.They held up their fingers in a V to signify victory.But, they were told to stop or their fingers would be cut.My Iranian brothers and sisters did not walk...

SF writer Ken Macleod quotes the Iranian revolutionary communist Mansoor Hekmat writing in early 2001 who said: In Iran [...] the reality is that the rise of political Islam and religious rule has caused a staggering anti-Islamic backlash, in both ideological and personal spheres. The emergence of political Islam in Iran has become the prelude to an anti-Islamic and anti-religious cultural revolution in people's minds, particularly amongst the young generation, which will stun the world with an immense explosion and will proclaim of the practical end of political Islam in the whole of Middle East... In my opinion, the Islamic movement in the Middle East and internationally will run out of breath with the fall of the Islamic regime in Iran. The question is not that Islamic Iran will...

SF writer Ken Macleod quotes the Iranian revolutionary communist Mansoor Hekmat writing in early 2001 who said: In Iran [...] the reality is that the rise of political Islam and religious rule has caused a staggering anti-Islamic backlash, in both ideological and personal spheres. The emergence of political Islam in Iran has become the prelude to an anti-Islamic and anti-religious cultural revolution in people's minds, particularly amongst the young generation, which will stun the world with an immense explosion and will proclaim of the practical end of political Islam in the whole of Middle East... In my opinion, the Islamic movement in the Middle East and internationally will run out of breath with the fall of the Islamic regime in Iran. The question is not that Islamic Iran will...

All sorts of conflicting theories about events in Iran and what might be happening.Basically there are similarities to what happened in Armenia in March 2008 when the incumbent President Serzh Sarkisian blatantly stole an election and remained in power because the authorities were willing to mow down protesters in the streets. Armenia and Iran are neighbours and have very good relations - Sarkisian and Ahmedinejad 'work well' together. There is a large Armenian minority in Iran which has substantial priviledges.Over in A Fistful of Euros Douglas Muir paints a sombre picture. The shades of Tien An Men seem likely for Iran.Hoping that the green Proetsers succeeed but not...

The BBC is reporting how Iran is trying to control the media by restricting all foreign media to their offices and personally I think this will give new media a leg up on the old media if they report from the streets of Iran.If the bloggers in Iran get out and about in the cities and get pictures for their blogs then this will have a massive affect as new media will beat old media over and over again until the old media hacks realise that new media is here to stay and its good.So lets see the twitterati and the bloggerati get together and put news out about what's going on in...

For me, any sensible discussion of Iran must accept a number of facts. I will set these out as Set A and Set B. Both sets are true. But ideologues of the right routinely discount Set A, while ideologues of the left routinely discount Set B. That is why most debate on Iran is inane. Set A Iranian Islamic fundamentalism allied to fierce anti-Americanism was born from CIA intervention to topple democracy and keep in power a ruthless murdering despot for decades, in the interests of US oil and gas companies Iranian anti-Americanism was fuelled further by US support for US friend and ally Saddam Hussein who was armed to wage a murderous war against Iran, again in the hope of US access to Iran's oil and gas The US committed a terrible atrocity against civilians by shooting down an...

Delara DarabiJust five days after the execution of child offender Delara Darabi in Iran, the government there is set to kill two more juvenile offenders tomorrow.This news comes despite widespread international consensus that because of children’s immaturity, impulsiveness, vulnerability and capacity for rehabilitation, their lives should not be written off so permanently – regardless of the severity of the crimes they are convicted.Amir Khaleqi and Safar Angooti are set to be executed early Wednesday, May 6, at 4 a.m. local time in Evin prison. The scheduling of these executions, just days after killing Delara Darabi, show that the Iranian authorities have total disregard for international law which unequivocally bans the execution of those convicted of crimes committed under the...

Journalist accused of working for US intelligenceAn Iranian court has sentenced an Iranian-American freelance journalist who was accused of espionage to eight years in jail, her lawyer said today."She has been sentenced to eight years ... I will appeal," Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, her lawyer, told Reuters.Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. In a case that threatens to complicate efforts to improve US-Iran ties, she was subsequently accused of passing classified information to US intelligence services. The trial took place behind closed doors.The US has dismissed the charges against Saberi, who has reported for the BBC and America's National Public Radio (NPR), as "baseless and...

Usually I consider Roger Cohen’s New York Times columns beneath contempt nowadays.  I do not believe he is guilty of active distortion, but his grasp of the issues that he writes about is fatally poor.  Maybe he has seeds of doubt in himself, as shown by his apparent need to strike out at critics. Occasionally, he writes a column in which he dispenses with innuendo and suggestion and actually reveals the core of his ideas.  I always think that these columns are worth examining - after all, they represent the views of one of the premier spokesmen for the ‘engage Iran’ crowd, in the newspaper of record, read by millions.  They could reasonably be expected to offer the best ideas that this crowd have to offer, at least the most influential ones.  April 12’s...