Iran

Americans are in a panic over rising gas and heating oil prices, and with reason. For months, the price of a barrel of crude oil has been rising steadily, hitting a record $127 yesterday.

Analysts keep getting trotted out on TV and in print, attributing the dramatic price rise to everything from “peak oil”—the idea that producing countries have reached their peak of productive capacity, and that the only direction for oil supplies looking forward is down, while demand continues to rise—to increasing demand in China and India, to supply bottlenecks, to specific news events, like a pipeline break in Nigeria, or a closed refinery in California.

By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, May 14 (IPS) - Early this month, the George W. Bush administration's plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to endorse U.S. charges of Iranian involvement in arms smuggling to the Mahdi Army, and a plan to show off a huge collection of Iranian arms captured in and around Karbala had to be called off after it was discovered that none of the arms were of Iranian origin.

The news media's failure to report that the arms captured from Shiite militiamen in Karbala did not include a single Iranian weapon shielded the U.S. military from a much bigger blow to its anti-Iran strategy.

By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, May 14 (IPS) - Early this month, the George W. Bush administration's plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to endorse U.S. charges of Iranian involvement in arms smuggling to the Mahdi Army, and a plan to show off a huge collection of Iranian arms captured in and around Karbala had to be called off after it was discovered that none of the arms were of Iranian origin.

The news media's failure to report that the arms captured from Shiite militiamen in Karbala did not include a single Iranian weapon shielded the U.S. military from a much bigger blow to its anti-Iran strategy.

Council delays vote on Iran resolution
By Rex W. Huppke | Chicago Tribune

The Chicago City Council, leaping broadly outside its normal purview, tried to stop the United States from invading Iraq 5 years ago. The nation's third-largest city aimed a strongly worded anti-war resolution right at President Bush, and yet he went ahead and toppled Saddam Hussein anyway.

Undeterred, local politicians have decided to take another shot at repressing international conflict: They're considering whether to oppose a U.S. invasion of Iran.

"We're just out there!" South Side Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6th) exclaimed Tuesday in the City Council chambers, shortly after dubbing the current administration "war-mongering imperialists."

This morning, the Chicago City Council considers a resolution against war with Iran and in favor of real diplomacy. I'll be following the proceedings here. The meeting started at 10 AM Central.

The proceedings are streamed on the web.
mms://chicago-city-council.wm.llnwd.net/chicago_city_council

10:16 At the moment the Council is "debating" a resolution praising a recently passed Chicago resident who owned a barbecue restaurant. My spin: this is good for us. I think it would be hard for anyone to argue that the Council doesn't have time to consider the resolution against war with Iran.

10:35: Currently considering resolution honoring Eugene Pincham. Here’s the MSNBC obituary.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23945335/

The motto of the state of Maine is "I lead" or "I direct." Will Chicago's City Council follow the lead of Harpswell, Maine, in voting opposition to war with Iran?

This article below ran the same day as the town of Harpswell, Maine voted overwhelmingly "to call for peace with Iran by submittng a resolution to Maine Representatives in Congress to:

1. Prohibit the us of funds to cary out any military actions against Iran without explicit Congressional authorization.
2. Ensure US relations with Iran are consistent with international law.
3. Encourage talks without preconditions between the US and Iran n nuclear issues and the ending of violence in Iraq."

Hopefully Chicago and Harpswell will inspire people in other municipalities to push for similar expressions of opposition to the administration's drumbeat for a widened and vastly more disastrous war in the Middle East. When the people lead, the politicians will follow.

The hearings have commenced. See below.

This is a live blog of the Chicago City Council hearings on the proposed resolution against a US attack on Iran, and calling for real diplomacy.

The proceedings begin with a press conference. At 11:30 central the actual hearings are supposed to begin.

Press Conference

10:41 Alderman Joe Moore, sponsor of the resolution opposed to a US military attack on Iran and urging the US to pursue real diplomacy.

5years ago the council made history passing a resolution against war in Iraq.

Sadly our leaders did not take heed. Now most observers agree the war was a horrible mistake.

Now more than 4000 dead, tens of thousands wounded, more than a million Iraqis killed or wounded.

National Priorities Project, Chicago has spent...[see comment below.]

History is repeating itself. The Administration is beating the drum of war, despite the Iran NIE.

As in the runup to war in Iraq, basing the threat on unsubstantiated information.

Please call your Congress Member at 202-224-3121 and Email them and ask them to co-sign a letter to President Bush from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers threatening impeachment if Bush attacks Iran. Below is a note from Conyers asking his colleagues to co-sign. Below that is the letter to Bush.

With Senator Obama the presumptive Democratic nominee, the question facing America, increasingly, boils down to this: intensify the "clash of civilizations," at the continued expense of domestic needs, or turn to diplomacy to resolve international conflict, so we can re-orient our national priorities to health care, education, economic recovery, and protecting the environment.

With President Bush's approval ratings in the cellar, Senator McCain has to convince America that his candidacy does not represent a continuation of the status quo. He's gotten a lot of help in this task from big media, which continues to promote the idea that he is an independent Republican, a "maverick." [Move-On makes fun of this notion with its "Bush-McCain Challenge" - a "blind taste test" to see if voters can tell the difference between the policies of Bush and the policies of McCain.]

By Sam Gardiner

Although not an always reliable source of good stuff, a Sunday Turkish newspaper article describes an arrangement between Turkey and the United States related to bombing inside Iraq. According to the article, the United States won't permit bombing in the Kandil Mountain without specific target approval. That's interesting because that's is where the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) is located. If the United States is supporting the PJAK for operations inside Iran as the LA Times and others have reported, this is exactly the kind of restrictions that would be impose.

By Coleen Rowley, Huffington Post

Does anyone know what the Guinness Book's record is for fluorescent orange anti-war bannering on a footbridge above eight lanes of moving traffic? What is the record number of "honks for peace" in an hour? If peace with Iraq and Iran has not been achieved by September, will the record honks we received today be broken when "Bomb, bomb Iran" crooner John McCain accepts his party's presidential nomination a couple miles down the road?

By Robert Weitzel

“To misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it . . . An evil unchecked is the prelude to genocide.” - Dr. Mordechai: The Ezekiel Option -

There are over 70 million human beings living in Iran, 17.5 million of whom are under the age of fifteen. Hillary Clinton vowed to attack Iran and “totally obliterate” the majority of the Persian race in a furnace of primordial fire should the Iranian government attack Israel with nuclear weapons, which they do not now possess or are likely to for some time—if ever.

Hillary’s “final solution” to the Persian problem bests Adolf Hitler by a magnitude of ten.

Chicago City Council Considers Resolution Opposing War on Iran

Leading Experts to Testify Against Military Action as Tensions Rise

WHAT: Press Conference & Committee Hearings on Iran Resolution
WHEN: Tuesday May 13 — Press Conference 10:30 AM, Hearings 11:30 AM
WHERE: City Hall — Second Floor Council Lobby & Council Chambers
WHO: Scott Ritter, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Kinzer, Doug Cassel

With the prospect of a U.S. military strike on Iran looming, America's third largest city will decide next week whether to take a stand on this volatile international situation.

Comment from Jes: "I didn't pay to get in ... I wasn't arrested ... AND I got to keep the banner for another day."

AND Hillary's ready for her close-up:

TEHRAN (FNA)- Al-Qaeda's number two leader snubbed US Republican
Senator John McCain for claiming that Iran is working with the
terrorist organization.

During a new online Q&A session, Ayman al-Zawahiri said al-Qaeda wants
to see the destruction of Iran - a Shiite nation battling the
terrorists.

"We hope that war 'saps' both Washington and Tehran," he said
according to a press tv report.

"The dispute between America and Iran is a genuine struggle, and the
possibility of the US striking Iran is real," al-Zawahiri said.

"Whichever country that emerges victorious will find itself in an
intensified and fierce battle [with al-Qaeda]," he continued.

Al-Zawahiri was referring to a recent blunder by the presumptive
Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, who has claimed that Iranian
operatives are "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending
them back" to Iraq.

Although McCain's campaign has attempted to whitewash the senator's

Iran says U.S. aids rebels at its borders
The violence may be driving Tehran's efforts to back its own allies in Iraq.
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD — A series of conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran's borders may be impelling Tehran to back its own allies in Iraq in what it regards as a proxy war with the U.S., according to security experts and officials in the U.S., Iran and Iraq.

Dozens of Iranian officials, members of the security forces and insurgents belonging to Kurdish, Arab Iranian and Baluch groups have died in the fighting in recent years. It now appears to be heating up once again after an unusually cold and snowy winter.

In recent weeks, Iranians have begun the now-routine bombardment of suspected rebel Iranian Kurd positions in northern Iraq, and guerrillas have claimed incursions into northwestern Iran.

Iranian minister facing impeachment
By Press TV

A group of Iranian lawmakers have delivered a plan to the parliament for the impeachment of Commerce Minister Massoud Mir-Kazemi.

The parliamentarians cited reasons for impeachment as excessive sugar imports that inflicted heavy losses on domestic farmers and producers, as well as a failure to enforce tariff rates set in the country's budget laws for cellphone, sugar and rice imports over the past two years.

The lawmakers also singled out 'wrong' commercial policies leading to instability in domestic market and rise in prices, as well as a failure to regulate the commodity market as other factors for the impeachment.

An impeachment plan for a minister can be submitted to the parliament if it bears signatures of at least 10 lawmakers.

Mir-Kazemi has to attend a Majlis session within the next 10 days.

By Gareth Porter, IPS

WASHINGTON, May 5 (IPS) - Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.

Feith's account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was supported explicitly by the country's top military leaders.