Amir Tehari says Thursday’s show in Iran was a flop.

So dismal was Thursday’s show that some regime supporters are already calling for an end to the exercise. The official events were boycotted by a majority of Iranians — and many senior regime figures also failed to show, including two former presidents, the mayor of Tehran and several retired generals of the regular armed forces.

“What is the point of an exercise that shows how divided our nation is today?” asks a member of the Islamic Majlis, Iran’s ersatz parliament. “Unless a political solution is found to bring the two camps together again, we should forget about anniversaries and demonstrations.”

A “political solution” is precisely what several key regime figures are urging “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei to adopt. Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani and his brother Sadeq, who heads the judiciary, are among those advising Khamenei to meet some opposition demands, even if that means shortening Ahmadinejad’s second term as president.

But Khamenei is also coming under growing pressure from those within the establishment who urge an early and massive crackdown. “Those who demonstrate against the system are waging war on Allah,” says Gen. Muhammad-Ali Aziz Jaafari, the guard commander and the chief advocate of an “iron fist” policy.

Khamenei is wavering. Always weak and indecisive, for years he depended on stronger men, like former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, to help him face difficult situations. But now Rafsanjani is flirting with the opposition, leaving Khamenei alone and exposed to pressure from rival factions within the regime.

From a demonstration in Teheran today.

For what it’s worth, Obama being a tool of Israel is news to Israelis. Obama’s approval rating there is 4% compared to Dubya’s of 88% when he left office.

Christopher Hitchens:

…much kudos to David Ignatius of the Washington Post for his column last Friday, in which he restates the findings of a little-known trade publication with the arcane name of Nucleonics Week. To quote directly, the article reports that there might be some reason to think that:

Iran’s supply of low-enriched uranium—the potential feed-stock for nuclear bombs—appears to have certain “impurities” that “could cause centrifuges to fail” if the Iranians try to boost it to weapons grade.

Among other things, this could explain why Iran is cynically negotiating to send its low-enriched uranium to other states, such as France and Russia, to have it enhanced to a higher grade. Such a move, of course, would also be compatible with a “peaceful” program, if anyone is left who believes that this is all the Islamic republic really wants.

Meanwhile, the mullahs have punk’d Obama, as Powerline explains:

This morning, I noted that Iran’s government is telling the Iranian people that the Obama administration has consented to Iranian enrichment of uranium, thereby dismaying our European allies. I linked to, but did not discuss in detail, a Time article that appeared today. The Time article was based on interviews with Obama administration officials and was intended to put a positive spin on the administration’s effort to engage with Iran. Now, news from Vienna, where representatives of Iran, the U.S. and other nations are meeting, allows us to put the whole story together.

John P. Hannah in the LA Times:

If current negotiations falter, international efforts to curtail Iran’s nuclear program may escalate to the imposition of “crippling sanctions” or even the use of military force. A crucial question that policymakers must consider is whether such punitive measures would help or hinder the popular uprising against the Iranian regime that emerged after the country’s fraudulent June 12 presidential elections.

The so-called green movement — the color has been adopted by the opposition — poses the most serious challenge to the survivability of the Islamic Republic in its 30-year history. Few analysts doubt that if it succeeded in toppling Iran’s hard-line regime, the crisis over the Iranian nuclear program would become far more susceptible to diplomatic resolution.

Before June 12, conventional wisdom suggested that both harsh sanctions and military action would likely strengthen the Islamic Republic by triggering a “rally around the regime” effect. Iran’s rulers, so the argument went, would exploit outside pressure to stoke Persian nationalism, deflecting popular anger away from the regime’s own cruelty onto the perceived foreign threat — in effect, short-circuiting the country’s incipient democratic revolution.

But the conventional wisdom has taken something of a beating post-June 12. Before the elections, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sought to blame all of Iran’s travails — a deteriorating economy, international isolation, the mounting threat of war — on the United States and Israel. But the Iranian people were buying none of it. On the contrary, by the millions they have gone to considerable lengths over the last four months to make one thing clear: When affixing responsibility for the misery, shame and danger being visited on their once-great nation, they focus overwhelmingly on the ruling regime itself — on its economic incompetence, its tyrannical nature, its international belligerence.

There’s good reason to doubt they would react differently now were the United States and its partners to impose painful sanctions. If anything, the bloody crackdown the Iranian people have endured since the election has only fueled their hatred of the current ruling clique and their determination to be rid of it as soon as possible.

Popular loathing of the regime has reached such levels that almost any negative development is likely to be seized on as ammunition to attack its gross misrule. Almost any outside action that further squeezes Iran’s tyrants and calls into question their legitimacy in the eyes of the world will be welcomed, even at the risk of imposing additional hardships on the Iranian people. The last thing on their minds is defending an indefensible regime in the face of tough international sanctions.

That was certainly the message I heard at a recent gathering of Iranian activists in Europe, including figures closely linked to the green movement’s leadership. Sanctions must be imposed, and in strong doses, the group urged. A weak dose, or gradual approach, only allows the regime to adjust, they said. To be effective, sanctions must act like a shock, not a vaccine.

UK Telegraph:

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.

The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad’s birthplace, and the name derives from “weaver of the Sabour”, the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran’s Ministry of the Interior.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad’s track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.

Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, said: “This aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad’s background explains a lot about him.

“Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith.

…that Obama, citing US intelligence reports about Iran’s missile program, concluded that we didn’t need the missile shield in Europe.

Intelligence reports are not always “slam dunks,” as Bush learned vis-a-vis  Iraq. No matter: Obama was using them as a fig leaf.

But here’s a big oops.

The crisis in relations with Iran escalated ominously yesterday after the leaders of the US, Britain and France accused the regime in Tehran of operating a secret uranium enrichment facility buried deep in a mountain bunker near the ancient religious city of Qom. Barack Obama called Iran’s activity “a direct challenge” to the international community.

Iran had previously insisted that its plant at Natanz, which is open to international inspection, was the only one involved in enrichment. The new revelation sharply raises the stakes at a time when Israel has been signalling that military strikes against Iran are on the table.

Claudia Rosett:

You can learn strange things, poring over transcripts of remarks made by U.S. officials traveling abroad (we do this so you don’t have to). And so it was when I pulled up a transcript of remarks made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last weekend in Mumbai, India. These were the remarks in which, to the Obama administration’s growing list of apologies for the United States, Clinton added a U.S. apology to India for the climate of the planet:

“Our point is very simple: That we acknowledge, now with President Obama, that we have made mistakes — the United States — and we along with other developed countries, have contributed most significantly to the problems that we face with climate change.” (The main thing Clinton got for her pains was a demand from India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the West fork over almost $200 billion per year to the developing world to offset costs of cutting emissions).

Come again, Madame Secretary? You don’t have to love carbon to understand that there are tradeoffs in this world. While America’s free enterprise system has been emitting all that now-reviled carbon dioxide, it has also served as the world’s liveliest source of inventions for improving quality of life around the globe. The verdict of real science (as opposed to United Nations “consensus”) is still out on what causes climate change, or whether carbon dioxide has anything much to do with it. But in coping with a global climate that has been changing since before our ancestors crawled out of the primal soup, the best hope of mankind for adapting to the weather is not a global web of UN-driven caps and regulations, but precisely the kind of creativity and flexibility that has been the hallmark of the American system. It’s a terrible idea to constrain that, and it’s dangerously absurd to apologize for it. More on this in my column this week for Forbes.com , “Stop the Apologizing.”

In further remarks, Clinton responded to a press question about her meeting earlier in the day with a number of influential Indian business executives, include the head of Reliance Petroleum, which has served in the past as a major supplier to Iran of gasoline — a product for which Iran does not have enough refining capacity to meet its own domestic demands. Clinton was asked if she had discussed with these Indian executives the possibility of using gas exports as a lever against Iran. (Interest in such leverage has been simmering on Capitol Hill, and in response to this, Reliance recently halted gas exports to Iran. But the Obama administration, rather than talking up this example, or leaning on other suppliers to stop as well,  keeps skirting the issue, while trying to extend that hand to Tehran).

Clinton’s answer: A big shrug. She did not discuss it, and this is something “we will look at later.”

That’s one mixed up set of priorities. What America really ought to be sorry about is a foreign policy that apologizes for the weather, while ignoring a last, best hope for peacefully stopping the Iranian march toward nuclear crisis in the Middle East.

Two weeks ago, it seemed the mullahs had prevailed.

But much is still going on. For coverage, NiacInsight is the place to go.

Discouraging news. Trita Parsi and Reza Aslan

Iran’s popular uprising, which began after the June 12 election, may be heading for a premature ending. In many ways, the Ahmadinejad government has succeeded in transforming what was a mass movement into dispersed pockets of unrest. Whatever is now left of this mass movement is now leaderless, unorganized — and under the risk of being hijacked by groups outside Iran in pursuit of their own political agendas.

In 1999, students in Iran demonstrated against the closing of reformist newspapers. The unrest lasted a few days and was brutally suppressed. The demonstrators were almost exclusively students. No other segments of society joined their ranks in any meaningful numbers. With their limited appeal to other segments of society, the demonstrators failed to grow in numbers and attain their political objectives.

The demonstrations following the Iranian election on June 12 share few if any characteristics of the student uprising of 1999. What we have witnessed taking place in Iran is a mass movement attracting supporters from all walks of life, all demographics, all classes, and even all political backgrounds. Even supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have expressed discomfort with the developments in Iran, arguing that they voted for Ahmadinejad because they thought he would be a better president, and not because he would be a better dictator.

Indeed, the post-election demonstrations have neither been an uprising of intellectuals and students nor die-hard anti-regime elements from northern Tehran. Instead, the masses that poured in the streets included large numbers of people who often have been loyal to the Iranian government and who in many ways have a stake in its survival. (We can call them Iran’s political middle, or its swing voters.) This is precisely why this movement has constituted such a threat to the Iranian government — not once since 1979 has such an alliance of Iranians come together. (more…)

Warning: bloody and graphic.

Christopher Hitchens:

I have twice had the privilege of sitting, poorly shaved, on the floor and attending the Friday prayers that the Iranian theocracy sponsors each week on the campus of Tehran University. As everybody knows, this dreary, nasty ceremony is occasionally enlivened when the scrofulous preacher leads the crowd in a robotic chant of Marg Bar Amrika!—”Death to America!” As nobody will be surprised to learn, this is generally followed by a cry of Marg Bar Israel! And it’s by no means unknown for the three-beat bleat of this two-minute hate to have yet a third version: Marg Bar Ingilis!

Some commentators noticed that as “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei viciously slammed the door on all possibilities of reform at last Friday’s prayers, he laid his greatest emphasis on the third of these incantations. “The most evil of them all,” he droned, “is the British government.” But the real significance of his weird accusation has generally been missed.

One of the signs of Iran’s underdevelopment is the culture of rumor and paranoia that attributes all ills to the manipulation of various demons and satans. And, of course, the long and rich history of British imperial intervention in Persia does provide some support for the notion. But you have no idea how deep is the primitive belief that it is the Anglo-Saxons—more than the CIA, more even than the Jews—who are the puppet masters of everything that happens in Iran.

The best-known and best-selling satirical novel in the Persian language is My Uncle Napoleon, by Iraj Pezeshkzad, which describes the ridiculous and eventually hateful existence of a family member who subscribes to the “Brit Plot” theory of Iranian history. The novel was published in 1973 and later made into a fabulously popular Iranian TV series. Both the printed and televised versions were promptly banned by the ayatollahs after 1979 but survive in samizdat form. Since then, one of the leading clerics of the so-called Guardian Council, Ahmad Jannati, has announced in a nationwide broadcast that the bombings in London on July 7, 2005, were the “creation” of the British government itself. I strongly recommend that you get hold of the Modern Library paperback of Pezeshkzad’s novel, produced in 2006, and read it from start to finish while paying special attention to the foreword by Azar Nafisi (author of Reading Lolita in Tehran) and the afterword by the author himself, who says:

In his fantasies, the novel’s central character sees the hidden hand of British imperialism behind every event that has happened in Iran until the recent past. For the first time, the people of Iran have clearly seen the absurdity of this belief, although they tend to ascribe it to others and not to themselves, and have been able to laugh at it. And this has, finally, had a salutary influence. Nowadays, in Persian, the phrase “My Uncle Napoleon” is used everywhere to indicate a belief that British plots are behind all events, and is accompanied by ridicule and laughter. … The only section of society who attacked it was the Mullahs. … [T]hey said I had been ordered to write the book by imperialists, and that I had done so in order to destroy the roots of religion in the people of Iran.

Fantastic as these claims may have seemed three years ago, they sound mild when compared with the ravings and gibberings that are now issued from the Khamenei pulpit. Here is a man who hasn’t even heard that his favorite conspiracy theory is a long-standing joke among his own people. And these ravings and gibberings have real-world consequences of which at least three may be mentioned:

A young woman named Neda was standing next to her father watching the protests, when a regime gunman shot her dead from a rooftop.

Very graphic.

From NIAcinsight.

A reference point of history is being shaped these days and nights. People ask themselves what they should do or where they should go. I believe that it is my duty to tell you about my beliefs—tell you, and hear from you, and learn. May we all remember our historic duty, and not run from the tasks upon which the fate of our children and future rests.

Thirty years ago, a revolution was victorious in our country—a revolution in the name of Islam. It was a revolution for freedom, for humanity, for honesty and dignity. During these years—especially when Imam [Khomeini] was alive—we expended so many human resources, finances and hard work to establish this holy structure. And we gained so much—a spiritual life which we had never had before. And people tasted a new way of life which, regardless of all hardships, tasted sweet to them. What people gained was God’s grace, freedom, and the signs of a holy life. I am certain that those who have seen those days will never be satisfied with anything less. (more…)

History News Network:

I hope Barack Obama takes the time to read Ayatollah Khamenei’s speech. He would find it most educational. For the Supreme Leader, as Obama likes to call him, has not directed his rhetorical fire at his most forthright detractors, France and Germany.

No, he directed them, as he always did and would have done if Obama had been more forthright in his response, at the United States. If president Obama hoped his “tepid” response would undermine Khamenei’s ability to posit America as the enemy (second, of course, to the Zionists), he was wrong. In other words, he betrayed American values in a manner that disgusted the editors of the Egyptian government daily Al Ahram and got “Death to America” chants in return.

Why?

Because his offer of a finger merely brought about the demand for the entire hand:

Changes in words are not adequate; although we have not seen much of a change there either. Change must be real. I would like to say this to US officials, that this change that you talk about is a real necessity; you have no other choice, you must change. If you do not change, then divine traditions will change you, the world will change you. You must change, but this change cannot be in words only. It should not come with unhealthy intentions. You may say that you want to change policies, but not your aims, that you will change tactics. This is not change. This is deceit.There can be true change, which should be seen in action. I advise US officials, whoever is the decision-maker in the United States, whether the President, Congress, or others, that the US Government has not worked to the benefit of the American people. Today, you are hated in the world. You should know this, if you do not already. Nations set fire to your flag. Muslim nations across the world chant “Death to America.”

We don’t shoot citizens dead in the street for protesting against the government (and if the guv tried, the citizens are armed and would shoot back, thanks to the 2nd Amendment).

If America is so hated in the world, why are the vast majority of global immigrants coming to the USA? That’s a question both Khamenei and Obama should answer.

Little things mean a lot.

When BayNewser heard that someone from the State Department had emailed Twitter to ask them to delay maintenance to allow Iranians to continue tweeting, we pictured some fusty old guy at Foggy Bottom in a rumpled Brooks Brothers suit and wayward spectacles.

Imagine our surprise, then, when we learned that, instead, it was a 27-year-old whiz kid whose job is to advise the State Department on how to use social media to promote U.S. interests the Middle East.

And imagine our further surprise when we learned this young gentleman wasn’t one of Barack Obama’s social media geniuses, but instead was a Condi Rice pick hired specifically to advise the State Department on young people in the Middle East and how to “counter-radicalize” them.

According to the New York Times, it was Jared Cohen, a member of the Policy Planning Staff, who contacted Twitter on Monday, inquiring about their plan to perform maintenance in what would be the middle of the day, Iran time. Following that contact, Twitter decided to postpone their maintenance so that it would take place in the middle of the night Iran-time, even though that meant it would be the middle of the day U.S. time.

The Times noted that the move marked “the recognition by the United States government that an Internet blogging service that did not exist four years ago has the potential to change history in an ancient Islamic country.”

So we wondered, who was this young guy with this remarkable insight?

Cohen was only 24 when he was hired into the Policy Planning Staff back in 2006. He’d received an undergraduate degree from Stanford and a master’s degree from Oxford, where he’d been on a Rhodes Scholarship. Oh, and he’d also talked his way into a visa for Iran (according to a December 2007 New Yorker profile), where he met young people his own age who threw underground house parties and made alcohol in bathtubs.

“Iranian young people are one of the most pro-American populations in the Middle East,” Cohen told the New Yorker. “They just don’t know who to gravitate around, so young people gravitate around each other.”

The New York Times account includes this…

The episode demonstrates the extent to which the administration views social networking as a new arrow in its diplomatic quiver. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talks regularly about the power of e-diplomacy, particularly in places where the mass media are repressed.

…without noting that Condi Rice hired Cohen.

Given the difficulties reporting from Iran, no one really knows the import of what’s happening there. But the website of the National Iranian American Council is a good source.

They linked to this video of Ahmadinejad getting harassed as he left his mosque.

Someone I assume to be a government official walking up to a car with hand raised, in gray suit, condescendingly saying “Droplets of water, return to the ocean.” (it’s a reference to a poem)

The cameraman asking him: “Have you not been looking to the streets? Just look at the streets!”

Second cameraman: “Mr. Mirzavi, we liked you.” [too many people talking at the same time - inaudible] Cameraman again: “Just don’t cheat this time.”

Then they start screaming “MOUSAVI!” when Ahmadinejad shows up and “LIAR!” when he is pulling away, and then my favorite: “Ahmadi Bye bye.”

Back here, Michael Ledeen has written two books about Iran. His post yesterday had this insight:

I think that many pundits insist on thinking about the Iran-that-was-five-days-ago, instead of the bubbling cauldron that it is today.  The same mistake is repeated when people say that Mousavi, after all, is “one of them,” a member of the founding generation of the Islamic Republic, and so you can’t expect real change from him.  The president made that mistake when he said that he didn’t expect any real difference in Iran’s behavior, no matter how this drama plays out.

I think that is wrong;  at this point, Mousavi either brings down the Islamic Republic or he hangs.  If he wins, and the Islamic Republic comes down, we may well see the whole world change, from an end of the theocratic fascist system, to a cutoff of money, arms, technology, training camps and intelligence to the world’s leading terrorist organizations, and yes, even to a termination of the nuclear weapons program.

I think that, whatever or whoever Mir Hossein Mousavi was five days ago, he is now the leader of a mass movement that demands the creation of a free Iran that will rejoin the Western world.  And yes, the wheel could turn again, this revolution could one day be betrayed, all kinds of surprises no doubt await the Iranian people.  Yes, but.  But today, there is a dramatic chance of a very good thing happening in Iran, and thus in the Middle East, and therefore in the whole world.

Iran’s riot police zip through a crowd wielding truncheons. In the US, the citizens would be armed. Even so, they get one down.

Jonah Goldberg:

Do it, President Obama, please. Take the side of democracy.

Declare yourself and your nation on the side of hope and change where it is more than a slogan and better than a rationalization for ever-bigger government. Stop measuring the success of your diplomacy with Iran by the degree to which the grinning, hate-filled stooge of a clerical junta will “temper” his rhetoric about the pressing need to destroy Israel and slow his ineluctable pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Instead, choose a higher standard. Look to history. Look to the aspirations of the students risking their lives and livelihoods to protest a sham election. Stop fawning over the mythological Muslim street only when it hates America, and look to the real Iranian street at the moment of its greatest need, when its heart may be open to loving America.

You often invoke President Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon to justify your domestic agenda. You and your supporters invite comparisons to Camelot. Well, what of John F. Kennedy’s most solemn vow? “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

No, we should not bomb Iran, or invade it. Those prices are too steep; those burdens are too heavy. But maybe you could lift a finger for democracy?

During the campaign you mocked those who belittled your rhetoric as “just words.” Well, what you’ve offered so far is less than just words. You’ve put a fresh coat of whitewash on Iran’s sham “democracy.” On Monday, you proclaimed yourself “troubled” by the events in Iran, before hinting that you’d negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad no matter what an official investigation into his “landslide” victory found. (Would you trust Mafia internal audits, too?) (more…)

The revolution will be on Flickr.

In my car yesterday, I listened to NPR interview the LA Times writer who covers Iran. Ahmadinejad was referred to as a “conservative.” Key thoughts:

• Iranians were excited to have a real contest in this election
• It would take big urban turnout to counter the rural vote expected for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• Obama’s speech in Cairo helped the moderate candidate because it “lowered the temperature” between the US and Muslim nations, thus defusing Ahmadinejad’s appeal as the tough guy ready to stand up to us

On my return trip, I heard Hugh Hewitt interview Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard. Key thoughts:

• Obama’s speech signaled American weakness and allowed Ahmadinejad to claim that only the threat of nukes brought the US to the table
• Israel will be forced to act against Iran’s nuclear threat

The news this morning:

Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election by a thumping margin, official figures showed Saturday, but his moderate challenger rejected the tally as a “dangerous charade” that could lead to tyranny.

UPDATE: Video of protest

Maybe Obama should have insisted on at least one precondition: sanity.

US President Barack Obama’s offer to talk to Iran shows that America’s policy of “domination” has failed, the government spokesman said on Saturday.

“This request means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed,” Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

“Negotiation is secondary, the main issue is that there is no way but for (the United States) to change,” he added.

After nearly three decades of severed ties, Obama said shortly after taking office this month that he is willing to extend a diplomatic hand to Tehran if the Islamic republic is ready to “unclench its fist”.

In response, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a fresh tirade against the United States, demanding an apology for its “crimes” against Iran and saying he expected “deep and fundamental” change from Obama.

Iranian politicians frequently refer to the US administration as the “global arrogance”, “domineering power” and “Great Satan”.

The Scotsman: 

A COURAGEOUS if bizarre bid by Iran to construct the world’s biggest ostrich sandwich and encourage healthy eating became spectacular victim of its own success yesterday when an enthusiastic crowd of hungry onlookers scoffed the titanic snack as it was being measured.

Three representatives from the Guinness Book of Records blinked in amazement as people devoured the nutritious dish within minutes.

It’s a dangerous world out there.

On August 21st, 2008, the MV Iran Deyant, 44,458 dead weight bulk carrier was heading towards the Suez Canal. As it was passing the Horn of Africa, about 80 miles southeast of al-Makalla in Yemen, the ship was surrounded by speedboats filled with members of a gang of Somalian pirates who grab suitable commercial ships and hold them and their cargos and crews for ransom. The captain was defenseless against the 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades blocking his passage. He had little choice other than to turn his ship over to them. What the pirates were not banking on, however, was that this was no ordinary ship.

The MV Iran Deyanat is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) – a state-owned company [that] regularly falsifies shipping documents in order to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments to avoid the attention of shipping authorities, and employs the use of cover entities to circumvent [UN] weapons proliferation [regulations].

[The hijacked ship] was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates – 50 onboard and 50 onshore. The Somali pirates attempted to inspect the ship’s seven cargo containers but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the “access codes” and could not open them. Pirates have stated they were unable to open the hold without causing extensive damage to the ship, and threatened to blow it up…. the pirates broke open one of the containers and discovered it to be filled with packets of what they said was “a powdery fine sandy soil” ….

Within a period of three days, those pirates who had boarded the ship and opened the cargo container with its gritty sand-like contents, all developed strange health complications, to include serious skin burns and loss of hair. And within two weeks, sixteen of the pirates subsequently died, either on the ship or on shore… …At this writing, the MV Iran Deyanat is at anchor, watched closely by American, French and Russian naval units.

[Russian sources claim she] was an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel. The entire cargo of radioactive sand, obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.

Memri TV spotlights the subliminal anti-Iranian message in this TV commercial on a Shiite channel. For those who follow such things, that’s Shia versus Shia, Iraq versus Iran.

Watch here.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted on Monday that Muslims would uproot “satanic powers” and repeated his controversial belief that Israel will soon disappear, the Mehr news agency reported. “I must announce that the Zionist regime (Israel), with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene,” he said.“Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.”

George W. Bush:

…the founding charter of Hamas calls for the “elimination” of Israel. And that is why the followers of Hezbollah chant “Death to Israel, Death to America!” That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that “the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties.” And that is why the president of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men  and try to explain away their words. It’s natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

A former Iranian president has said that exporting violence to other countries is “treason” against Islam and Iran’s 1979 revolution, an apparent accusation that the country’s hard-line rulers are engineering unrest abroad.

Mohammad Khatami, a reformist and popular intellectual, made no mention of U.S. and Iraqi accusations that Iran is arming and training Shiite extremists in neighboring Iraq. But he said Iran should avoid actions that give it a bad image.

Engineering violence in other countries would be contrary to the goals of the 1979 Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khatami said.

“What did Imam (Khomeini) want and what did he mean by ‘exporting the revolution’? Taking up arms and causing explosions in other countries and establishing groups to carry out sabotage in other countries? Imam was strongly opposed to these behaviors,” Khatami told students in northern Iran on Friday.

“This is the biggest treason to Islam and the revolution.”

Iraqpundit:

The Iranian propaganda machine is saying that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Baghdad was a great success, mostly because the Iranian leader was received so politely by some of Iraq’s leaders. Much of the U.S. coverage of the visit seems in line with this version, the idea being, apparently, to portray Iran as the real beneficiary of Bush’s Mideast policy.But ordinary Iraqis had a different reaction to the event. There are numerous reports of protests against the Iranian president’s visit, and this story says Ahmadinejad thought it the better part of valor to cancel his planned trip to the holy sites of Kerbala and Najaf. 

Indeed, the Arabic report says that Ali Sistani refused to receive Ahmadinejad, which might be a reason the Iranian president chose not to go these sites. After all, it would look strange for him to visit the holy sites and not pass by Sistani’s home. Sistani’s position has been that he does not meet with heads of state.Another reason might be security. There are reports that the U.S. military did not protect Ahmadinejad during his stay in Baghdad. If that’s so, then the drive south would have been risky, even at the political level. Iran’s PR message would have been especially muddled if Ahmadinejad had to face Iraqi protesters along the way.

And from another voice, Alireza Jafarzadeh:

Behind the orchestrated pomp and pageantry during the visit to Baghdad last weekend by the Iranian ayatollahs’ president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was hard to miss the revulsion of Iraqis of all stripes. Adjectives like “historic” could not disguise the frustrating reality for Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs: outside of Iraqi political spheres dominated by Tehran surrogates, they are seen as enemies of a secure, non-sectarian and democratic Iraq.

The greeting parties, in the Baghdad airport and later in various government buildings, were who’s who of Tehran’s proxies in Iraq’s government. They “listened to Ahmadinejad,” according to McClatchy News Service, “without need of translation into Arabic, clearly comfortable hearing his Farsi.” Not surprising; for more than two decades, they were employed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Qods Force, and the Ministry of Intelligence. Learning Farsi was a job requirement.

Outside of the very limited segment of Baghdad where Ahmadinejad visited, there was outrage. A young Baghdad resident told the New York Times, “I think Ahmadinejad is the most criminal and bloody person in the world. This visit degrades Iraq’s dignity.” Up north in Kirkuk, where Arab tribes and political parties rallied against Ahmadinejad’s visit, a tribal leader told the Times, “How can we tolerate this? Today we live under the regime of the clerics. The Iranian revolution has been exported to Iraq.” An Iraqi businessman added, “His visit is intended to reassure his followers here,” but is “provoking and enraging” the rest of Iraq.