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Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor ^ | December 2, 2005 | Chris Zambelis
Radical Islam in Latin America By Chris Zambelis In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the possibility of al-Qaeda infiltrating Latin America became a priority for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials. However, the most publicized incidents of radical Islamist activity in Latin America have not been linked to al-Qaeda but instead to the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah, which is ideologically and politically close to Iran. These include the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the July 1994 attack against the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AIMA), also in the Argentine capital, allegedly in retaliation for...

The Washington Times | December 5, 2005 | Julia Duin
The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Jewish leaders to devise strategyBy Julia DuinTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished December 5, 2005 A group of Jewish leaders meets in New York this week to develop a response to the religious right, which they say is eroding civil liberties and planning to "christianize America." Led by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the private meeting is set for today, said an assistant to Mr. Yoffie. Both men were unavailable for comment Friday, and neither organization would divulge details of the meeting, including who...

New witnesses to challenge Saddam: The court trying Saddam Hussein is to hear from more witnesses in Baghdad a day after the ousted Iraqi leader said he was not afraid of being executed.

Saddam Hussein angrily interrupted as Ahmed Hassan Mohammed described men, women and children being rounded up, tortured and killed.

He faces charges over the killing of 148 people from the village of Dujail following a 1982 attempt on his life.

The trial was also suspended for more than an hour because of a walkout by defence lawyers disputing the legitimacy of the court.

Saddam Hussein stands accused alongside seven former senior Iraqi officials and could face the death penalty if found guilty.

Up to 10 witnesses have been lined up to describe the Dujail massacre, some of whom are expected to conceal their identities.

On Monday, the court heard from two - Mr Mohammed, who was 15 at the time of the deaths, and Jawad Abdul-Aziz Jawad, who was then only 10.

According to Mr Mohammed, the Iraqi forces' torture equipment included a mincing machine sometimes fed with living human bodies.

He gave a rambling, emotional and sometimes deeply moving account of suffering, says the BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson, inside the Baghdad courtroom.

He told how women and children were tortured, and said that dead babies were often abandoned in public.

The court heard him describe how one of his friends was killed: "They broke him. They broke his arms, his legs, and they shot at his feet.

"People who were arrested were taken to prison and most of them were killed there. The scene was frightening. Even women with babies were arrested."

A visibly angry Saddam Hussein argued with the judge, demanding the opportunity to explain his grievances with the process.

Proceedings on Monday, the third hearing in the trial, started amid chaotic scenes.

When defence lawyers began questioning the legality of the proceedings, presiding judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin ruled that only written complaints would be considered.

That prompted furious outbursts from Saddam's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, and another co-defendant before defence lawyers walked out and the judge suspended the hearing.

One defence lawyer, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, said that unless the trial was seen as "absolutely fair", it would "divide rather than reconcile Iraq".

He also called for more security for the defence team, following the murder of two lawyers in recent weeks.

The previous two hearings led to adjournments, following complaints by the defence that it needed more time to prepare.

Five die in Israel suicide blast: A Palestinian suicide bomber has killed five people and injured dozens in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya.

The bomber attacked the Sharon shopping centre, the scene of previous bombings, at about 1130 (0930 GMT), injuring some 40 people, several of them seriously.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the attack and released a video of the bomber.

Israeli security officials are due to meet later in the day to discuss possible responses to the attack.

Reports quoting military officials say they will recommend air strikes targeting militant leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has also asked the legal authorities for permission to renewal the controversial policy of demolishing suicide bombers' homes.

Before Monday's bombing, Mr Mofaz had already ordered a resumption of so-called "targeted killings" of wanted Palestinian militants.

Heightened tensions in recent days have been marked by Israeli air strikes and Palestinian militant rocket attacks.

Reports from Netanya suggest the bomber was prevented from entering the shopping centre by police and security guards. He then detonated several kilograms of explosives outside the gate.

"Just as police were going to check him, he put his hand in a bag and blew himself up," deputy police chief Avi Sasson said on Israel Radio.

SUICIDE ATTACKS IN ISRAEL 5 Dec: Five die, Netanya 26 Oct: Six die, Hadera market 28 Aug: 20 hurt, Beersheba 12 July: Two die, Netanya 25 Feb: Five die, 50 hurt, outside Tel Aviv nightclub

"There was a boom and there was a flash," witness Yisrael Klein told Israeli TV.

Israeli TV showed panels across the front of the shopping mall shattered by the force of the blast.

The Islamic Jihad group named the bomber as Lutfi Amin Abu Salem, from a village between the West Bank towns of Jenin and Tulkarm.

A video released by the group showed the purported bomber posing with a grenade launcher and an assault rifle.

The attack was the first suicide bomb in Israel since a blast in the town of Hadera on 26 October.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Netanya bombing as an act of "terrorism" and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Senior negotiator Saeb Erekat said the attack "harms Palestinian interests" and called on both sides to maintain the ceasefire declared in February.

"They refuse to dismantle the terror organisations and put them out of business once and for all. And we've seen these results today in Netanya," said spokesman David Baker.

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, speaking for the European Union, condemned the bombing as "cowardly" and urged the Palestinian Authority to do more to prevent such attacks in future.

In 2002 an attack at a Passover meal killed 29 people and sparked a huge Israeli military operation in the West Bank.

The last attack was in July, when another Islamic Jihad bomber attacked the Sharon shopping centre, killing two people.

Russia confirms Iran missile deal Russia has confirmed a deal to sell surface-to-air missiles to Iran, insisting they are for defence only.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said a contract to deliver TOR-M1 missiles to Iran had been signed.

He said the deal "in no way upsets the balance of forces in the region," Russian news agencies reported.

Iran has reportedly agreed to buy 29 of the mobile air defence systems in a contract worth more than $700m (£400m; 600m euros).

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says the sale is not banned under any treaty, but it has already been criticised by the United States and Israel.

Earlier, Iran announced that it was planning to build a second nuclear power plant in the south of the country, despite coming under pressure from the international community over its nuclear ambitions.

Iran has previously said it wants to build 20 nuclear power stations in as many years.

Earlier this year the Russian government faced criticism from the West when Moscow agreed to sell missile systems to Syria.

Iran to build new nuclear plant: Iran's government has approved plans to build a second nuclear power plant, Iranian state media has reported.

This comes amid growing Western concern over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, with talks between Iran and EU negotiators due to restart within days.

Few details were given about the proposed plant, to be built in the south-western Khuzestan province.

The US and EU suspect Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons programme but Tehran says its intentions are peaceful.

IRAN'S NUCLEAR STANDOFF September 2002: Work begins on Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr December 2002: Satellite photographs reveal nuclear sites at Arak and Natanz. Iran agrees to an IAEA inspection September 2003: IAEA gives Iran weeks to prove it is not pursuing atomic weapons November 2003: Iran suspends uranium enrichment and allows tougher inspections; IAEA says no proof of any weapons programme June 2004: IAEA rebukes Iran for not fully co-operating with nuclear inquiry November 2004: Iran suspends uranium enrichment as part of deal with EU August 2005: Iran rejects EU proposals and resumes work at Isfahan nuclear plant

The International Atomic Energy Agency and western countries have repeatedly expressed concern over a lack of transparency in Iran's nuclear activities.

Iran has previously said it wants to build 20 nuclear power stations in as many years to meet its future energy needs.

BBC Teheran correspondent Frances Harrison says the announcement of the new plans could be aimed at deflecting criticism that Iran does not have any operational nuclear power stations to justify its production of enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.

Iran's first nuclear power plant at Bushehr is due to start generating electricity next year, years behind schedule.

Iran MPs consider new oil nominee: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has nominated a fourth candidate for oil minister, after failing to get backing for the previous three.

The new nominee is Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh, currently the acting oil minister and a former deputy oil minister under a previous government.

Previous nominees have been considered cronies of the president and been rejected for a lack of experience.

Experts said Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh's history in the oil ministry could make his acceptance by parliament more likely.

"It looks like a good decision to name someone from within the oil ministry. The atmosphere is more positive," oil consultant Hatef Haeri told the AFP news agency.

Kamal Daneshyar, head of parliament's energy commission, said: "He has 30 years of experience in the oil sector and I personally back him. He is an expert, committed, a follower of the Supreme Leader and religious."

Oil accounts for 80% of Iran's export revenues and oil minister is therefore a key post.

Analysts say the stalemate has damaged investor confidence and Iran's standing within oil cartel Opec.

Mr Ahmadinejad has pledged to reform the oil industry by purging the "mafia" he says runs it and distributing the revenues more evenly among the poor.

Correspondents say the hardline president's autocratic leadership style has upset some MPs.

Since his election in June, Mr Ahmadinejad has replaced 40 diplomats including many key ambassadors, the heads of all seven of Iran's state banks, and key nuclear negotiators.

Iran ' s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has claimed the Holocaust was a "myth", in a fresh attack against Israel .

He also called for the Jewish state to be moved as far away as Alaska .

"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," said President Ahmadinejad, in a speech carried live on state television.

"If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jew, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream," he said.

"Our proposal is this: give a piece of your land in Europe, the United States , Canada or Alaska so they can create their own state," he said, in a speech to thousands of people in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan .

"Be certain that if you do that, the Iranian people will no longer protest against you and will support your decision."

Israel has responded by calling on the world to "open its eyes" to the Iranian regime and its nuclear program.

"We hope these extremist comments by the Iranian president will make the international community open its eyes and abandon any illusions about this regime," said foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev, speaking to AFP.

"Israel is calling once more for Iran ' s nuclear program to be submitted by the International Atomic Energy Agency to the UN security council", and for sanctions to be imposed, he said.

The Iranian leader ' s comments underline the danger his regime poses and the country ' s nuclear capacity to the world.

Mr Ahmadinejad has already sparked international outrage over a string of anti-Israeli outbursts, in October calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map", and last week describing the country as a "tumour" that should be moved to Germany or Austria .

But his latest comments are the clearest yet that he is a denier of the Holocaust — Nazi Germany ' s systematic slaughter of an estimated six million Jews between 1933 and 1945.

"If you say it is true that you massacred and burned six million Jews during the Second World War, if you committed this massacre, why should the Palestinians pay the price?" Mr Ahmadinejad asked.

"Why, under the pretext of this massacre, have you come to the heart of Palestine and the Islamic world..., why have you created an artificial Zionist regime?" the president said.

WASHINGTON (AFX) - Iran has become a problem for Middle East stability on several fronts that the international community will have to address, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

Taking questions after a speech on Iraq to the Heritage Foundation, Rice again took Iran to task on a range of issues, from its suspected nuclear arms program to its anti-democratic clerical regime.

' I do think that it has to be said, it has to be spoken, that Iran is a problem for a stable and democratizing Middle East, ' she said. ' And the international community will have to find a way to deal with that. '

The chief US diplomat reiterated US complaints the Iranians were trying to clandestinely interfere in neighboring Iraq , where Shiite Muslims are in the majority.

She said they were also supporting the Iraqi insurgency as well as backing Islamic militants opposing efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The recent verbal assaults by Iran ' s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Israel ' have, I think, sharpened the contradictions and made clear that this regime is out of step with the international community, ' Rice said.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ca6ec07c-6b65-11da-8aee-0000779e2340.html

A court in Italy has ordered the freezing of an Iranian government account held in a Rome bank in what lawyers say represents an unprecedented legal victory for three US families seeking compensation from Iran for its alleged support of Palestinian suicide bombings that killed their relatives.

Lawyers and activists in Washington said their success in Italy was likely to be followed by similar cases against Iran in other courts in Europe and possibly Asia . The ruling could also open the floodgates to similar civil cases against the Islamic regime and other states accused by the US of sponsoring terror.

A civil court in Rome ordered Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) last week to freeze an account held by the Iranian government, drawing diplomatic protests from Tehran on the basis that Iran 's official accounts were protected by the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations.

“It's not about blood money,” said Steven Flatow, a US lawyer from New Jersey whose daughter Alisa was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber on a bus in Gaza in 1995. He told the Financial Times that the three families brought their case to demonstrate they had the power to deliver the message to Iran that it should stop supporting terrorist groups.

The other two US families involved sought compensation for Sara Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld, an engaged couple killed together by a Hamas suicide bomber on a Jerusalem bus in 1996.

The three families were the first to take advantage of a 1996 law that authorised Americans to sue for damages those nations designated by the US as sponsors of international terrorism.

The US courts accepted arguments that Iran had a direct role in both bombings through its support and training of the militant groups that claimed responsibility. In 1998 and 2000 the courts awarded damages of $374m plus interest. After wrangling with the Clinton administration, the three families shared about $56m taken from Iranian assets already frozen in the US .

They then took their case across the Atlantic to seek the balance and continue their campaign for justice.

Legal experts said the Rome court had adopted the rulings of the US courts. A further hearing is expected to determine how to award the frozen funds.

The Iranian government did not contest any of the US or Italian cases in court, but sought redress in direct contact with the capitals.

According to Italian reports, an Italian foreign ministry official wrote to the Rome court in an apparent effort to stop the freezing. But Gianfranco Fini, foreign minister, intervened on behalf of the Americans, according to Mr Flatow.

Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat who has followed the case closely, said: “Nations that sponsor terrorism like Iran need to stop hiding behind legal technicalities that help them evade accountability. Those who have suffered at the hands of these terrorists should not be denied justice.”

http://www.iribnews.ir/Full_en.asp?news_id=203438

Tehran -- ' Resistance along with unity and adherence to Islam ' s statutes is the sole way to ensure the Palestinian liberation and the future of the country ' s people ' , Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei told Khalid Mashal who leads the political bureau of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas.

Ayatollah Khamenei said that the Palestinian nation owes resistance and struggle against the usurper Zionist regime for its successful movement in recent years, particularly for the repelling of the regime from the occupied Gaza Strip.

He drew on the ongoing plight of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories and said that the experience of the past fifty years shows that no better conditions will be achieved by budging to the Zionist occupiers and sitting negotiation with them, instead pressures will further go up. He upheld resistance as the only option which will guarantee victory.

The leader noted that the enemies of the Palestinian nation are today embattled with a host of own political and economic problems, adding that, yesterday they retreated from Lebanon and today were forced to withdraw from Gaza and, God willing, the Palestinian nation and resistance groups will push them out of the Beit ul-Moqaddas tomorrow.

' Intifada proved that the Palestinian nation is mightier than the Zionist regime and America ' , Ayatollah Khamenei said, noting that America sees its defeat in the Middle East and is stepping backward unlike its superficial and shear bullying. He urged the Palestinian nation and resistance groups to get the point and vigilantly keep on their way of Jihad.

For his part, Khalid Mashal highly appreciated the Supreme Leader and the Iranian government for supporting the Palestinian nation and said that the positions of the Islamic Republic of Iran reflect sentiments of the Islamic and Arab nations. He said that all Muslims are taking honor in these courageous positions. He regretted that other Islamic governments do not dare adopt such positions.

He briefed the leader on the latest developments in the occupied lands and the Palestinian people ' s appalling conditions and stressed that despite all these pressures, the Palestinian people have grown more committed to continue resistance. He vowed that the Hamas movement will never spare its principle approach of resistance.

He added that the movement will contend to no less that the liberation of all occupied territories, the return of refugees and the exit of occupiers. He reaffirmed the idea of the IRI ' s late founder, Imam Khomeini who had once likened Israel to a cancerous tumor and vowed the movement will never accept it.

Ahmadinejad meets Hamas leader

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday conferred with the leader of Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, Khalid Mashal.

According to a report by presidential office, President Ahmadinejad during the meeting stressed that Palestine issue is related to the entire Islamic Ummah (nation).

He reiterated, "we are all obliged to heed our religious and divine responsibilities in offering services to the Palestinian movement."

He added, "Palestinian movement is not restricted to a particular geographic region."

The president noted out, "resistance is the secret for embracing victory and the main ideal of the Islamic world is the liberation of the entire land of Palestine , the repatriation of all Palestinian refugees to their motherland, and the establishment of a popular political system in Palestine ."

Ahmadinejad emphasized, "prestige of Islam needs to be preserved and we should all keep in mind that it is God that grants victory."

The president meanwhile emphasized the need to preserve unity and asked for efforts made by all Palestinian resistance groups aimed at boosting solidarity and serving the Palestinian cause more effectively.

Khalid Mashal, too, said during the meeting, "the Palestinian nation, Hamas Movement and the Islamic world appreciate the stands adopted by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the usurper regime of Israel and are proud of those stands that are serving the interests of the Islamic nations and the Islamic world."

Hamas leader said, " US policies have proved to fail in dealing with regional problems, and most obviously in Iraq , and today the regional nations are witnesses to the emergence of a wave of objections and opposition against the US policies pursued in the regions, in Asia, and Europe ."

Khalid Mashal added, "Hamas is committed to insistence on the need to restore the natural rights of the Palestinian nation and the liberation of the entire occupied lands, including the occupied holy Qods."

He said, "we do not recognize the legitimacy of Israel and are committed to continuation of resistance movement aimed at ending occupation and repatriation of all refugees."

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 13 – Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed on Tuesday the United States-backed roadmap to peace in the Middle East and called for “resistance” against the state of Israel as the only path to “liberation” in the troubled region, state television reported.

In a meeting with Khaled Mashaal, the political chief of Hamas, Khamenei said, “The only way to ensure the liberation of Palestine and the future of its people is continued resistance along with force, unity, and adherence to Islam ' s statutes”.

“Experience of the past 50 years shows that surrender the face of the Zionist occupiers and negotiations with them will only make the situation worse”, the Supreme Leader said.

He said that he hoped that “Palestinian resistance groups” would force the “occupiers” out of Jerusalem .

“Despite its false superficial show of force, the United States has been met with defeat in the Middle East and is in the process of retreating. Palestinian people and resistance groups must take this situation into consideration and vigilantly continue in their path of Jihad”, Khamenei added.

London , Dec. 13 – A former top adviser to United States President George W. Bush on Iraq policy described Iran on Monday as the greatest external threat to Iraq , Reuters news agency reported.

Robert Blackwill, who was deputy national security adviser during Bush ' s first term, told the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, “Iraq thinks Iran is the major strategic threat to Iraq”, not suicide bombers or insurgents.

Blackwill was previously Bush ' s special envoy to Iraq and then ambassador to India . He resigned from the administration to join a consulting firm in November 2004 and is still well-regarded among many in the administration for his analytical insight, including on both Iraq and India .

Within three months Iran will reach a point of no return in terms of its technological capacity to manufacture a nuclear bomb, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz told the Knesset ' s Security and Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

"This fact does not represent a threat to Israel just yet, because Iran will have to overcome a few obstacles before it can put the weapons to use," he added.

Western intelligence agencies have been trying to figure out how close Iran is to the bomb for a number of years. In Washington , a change of position has occurred of late, and a "critical decade" is the latest estimate – but views there are also divided.

Last week, Israel ' s stance was strengthened by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Elbaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who said that the minute Iran completes work on its Natanz core, three months would separate the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The timing mentioned by Halutz – March 2006 – is especially interesting. At the start of the week, the London Sunday Times published an article saying that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon instructed the IDF to prepare for a military strike at the end of March, in light of Israeli estimations that uranium is being enriched in Iranian civilian sites at this very moment.

According to the report, which was denied by Jerusalem , the level of preparedness of the Air Force has been moved up to the highest level for the same reason.

The committee also discussed the issue of Palestinian convoys and passages. Halutz told Knesset Members that for the time being, the army has frozen agreements over crossings from Gaza to the West Bank via Israel , due to the "lack of effort by the Palestinians to deal with weapons smuggling and Qassam rocket attacks."

he deal over the crossings, which was mediated by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and meetings around the issue, are continuing thanks to efforts by David Welch, assistant U.S. Secretary of State.

Deputy Minister Zeev Boim said: "As long as Qassam rockets and terror attacks by the Islamic Jihad continue, and the Palestinian Authority is not taking real steps (to counter these), movement of Palestinian convoys will not be possible.

“It must be understood that security matters are not open to negotiations, and if the Palestinians don ' t provide security on their side – they won ' t receive the carrying out of the agreement on our side."

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/shea200512130826.asp

Last Friday, senior Saudi leaders approached the international press privately in order to quietly denounce Iran 's president as an extremist. According to foreign-press accounts, the three Saudi officials, who asked to go unnamed, were fuming. (The Associated Press reported that the local press carried nothing of the flap.) President Ahmadinejad's remarks in Mecca the day before denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be moved to Europe had upstaged a Saudi-convened summit attended by 50 Muslim nations that was intended to show a united front against — of all things — extremist thought.

Tehran had also put the Saudis on the spot back in November, when Iran 's president had called for the eradication of the Jewish state. Shortly afterwards, Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki Al-Faisal made his American debut at a friendly forum — Washington's Middle East Institute — and someone in the room had the temerity to ask why Saudi Arabia hadn't joined the rest of the civilized world in condemning the Iranian president's threat against Israel. The dapper-suited ambassador replied that the Saudis preferred quiet diplomacy, adding with the tiniest hint of nationalist indignation that the Saudis wouldn't go public just to get Western “cookies.” The nervous moment quickly passed and the ambassador moved on to regale the audience with a humorous camel-riding story involving his old pal Wyche Fowler, Clinton 's former ambassador to Riyadh and an ex-senator, who is now the institute's president.

Since 9/11, the Saudi embassy has been staging a lavish public-relations campaign directed at American audiences. (The December 12, 2005 edition of The New Republic , for example, contains seven full pages of Saudi advertising.) The Mecca conference was itself part of this effort. Saudi Arabia is desperate to overcome its reputation as an incubator of intolerance and terrorism and show a moderate face.

But if it wants to score points with the West, why isn't the House of Saud in full-throated protest against the Tehran madman? Why the “quiet” diplomacy and insistence that Saudi condemnations be unofficial and “off the record”? After all, it wasn't just the United States , Europe, Russia , and the United Nations that openly decried Ahmadenejed — even some of his own radical Islamist allies back in Iran publicly distanced themselves from his latest provocation. Instead of seizing on the Iranian's outburst as a golden opportunity to take a clear stand against extremism and show themselves as level-headed moderates in contrast to the reckless Shiite hardliner, the Saudis were guarded and hesitant.

The Saudis are coy for a reason. An open and unequivocal condemnation of Ahmadinejad's outbursts by the Saudis would make them look like hypocrites to home audiences. As is well known, what the Saudis say in English differs greatly from their statements in Arabic. Wiping Israel off the map is exactly what Saudi authorities have been avowing for years to Arabic-speaking audiences. Saudi publications collected from American mosques that were translated from Arabic this year by Freedom House are replete with such statements.

In a publication produced by the Saudi press ministry, the late King Fahd is quoted:

[W]e consider ourselves to be in a continuous war against the Zionist enemy in every way until we achieve the hopes of the Arab nation driving the occupier out.

Another publication was produced by the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America , a Virginia-based satellite office of a Saudi state university that, until it was raided by the FBI last year, had been staffed by over a dozen Saudi diplomats and chaired by the kingdom's previous ambassador Prince Bandar, better known in Washington for his charm and wit. It says:

[I]f we …give [the Jews] a document stating that they have a right to a part of Palestine under the pretense that we are impotent, the presence of the Jews will become a legal presence…. [M]y children after me will come and throw you out, or the police will come and throw you out, and the house will not remain yours just because you were a powerful thief supported by the East or the West.

A Saudi government fourth-grade textbook collected from a New Jersey mosque warns about the dangers posed by the very concept of an “infidel” state in the midst of the Muslim world:

[Israel is intended as] a thorn in the back of the Muslim nations, and a window through which colonialism can sneak up among the ranks of the Muslims to work on dividing them and light the fire of hatred between them.[T]he Muslims will not rest until they cut off this disease and purify the land of Palestine from the plague of Zionism, and until its rightful owners reclaim it.

The Saudis also take a mixed approach to the United States . A Saudi ad currently running in America highlights the slogans, “ committed friends ” and “ strong allies .” Yet Arabic-language Saudi propaganda has long insisted that America is the enemy.

The Saudi publications found in the United States — from the Saudi education ministry, cultural ministry, press ministry, embassy cultural attaché, air force, and the monarchy's own publishing houses — reflect the extreme dualistic worldview of the hard-line Wahhabi sect of Islam: There are two antagonistic realms or abodes, the Muslim and the infidel, that can never be reconciled. This means that when Muslims are in the land of the “infidel,” they must behave as if on a mission behind enemy lines while they work to create an Islamic state. Such publications direct that those who disagree in any way are to be dehumanized, discredited, and intimidated. The language, substance, and goals in these Saudi materials are the same as those articulated by Ahmadinejad and al-Qaeda.

Booklets published in Arabic for the "Immigrant Muslim" by the Saudi embassy in Washington , for example, instruct Muslims to “hate” Americans. They counsel that, because America is ruled by infidel civil law, “it is forbidden” for a Muslim to become an American citizen, or join the U.S. military, or support Americans in any way.

The Saudi government exploits its position as custodian of Islam's two holiest shrines, asserting that its rulings and interpretations of the faith are the authoritative ones. Muslims who fail to follow these dictates — whether they are Shiites, Sufis, or anyone else — are condemned as apostates. And, as another ministry of Islamic affairs book bluntly threatens its Muslim reader, if you become an unbeliever and fail to repent, “you should be killed.”

Such publications, distributed not only in the United States but around the world, are merely one part of Saudi Arabia 's Wahhabization campaign. It spreads its ideology through its sponsorship of schools, mosques, imams, media outlets, cultural centers, and websites. A Treasury official told Congress that Saudi Arabia is the “epicenter” of Islamic extremism. Witnesses at a recent Senate hearing on the Saudi Accountability Act estimate that the Saudis expend three times as much as the Soviets did on external propaganda during the height of the Cold War. The late King Fahd's website continues to provide a long roster of names of American universities, mosques, and other sites in the U.S. , Europe and elsewhere that have benefited from his generosity. As Mayor Giuliani knew when he returned the $10 million check from Saudi Prince Talal after September 11, these donations come with strings attached.

In the last six months, the State Department and some in the media have begun to question the House of Saud about its noxious Arabic propaganda. Saudi Arabia 's official response is, in the words of one of its recent ads, that “the State is proceeding in its gradual and studied course of reform.”

So gradual is its studied course that it's imperceptible. Extremism remains the order of the day in Riyadh , staged summits and public-relations campaigns notwithstanding.

At the same time that the ads appeared in November, the Saudi Al-Madina newspaper reported that one brave Muslim teacher in Saudi Arabia by the name of Mohammad al-Harbi was sentenced to 750 lashes and a three-and-a-half-year prison term for making positive statements about Jews and the Bible. Such religious tolerance is forbidden, according to the Saudi publications we found, because it “ breaks the wall of resentment between the Muslims and the unbelievers .”

Early last week, Prince Talal was back in the news. Attending an Arab media conference in Dubai , he admonished fellow Arabs to be more “pro-active” in influencing the American media. By week's end, Saudi officials were working to put spin on the Mecca conference debacle. But they still think they can have their cake and eat it too.

America is not the tightly controlled world of the Middle East . After 9/11, we are taking a closer look at those who claim to be our friends. And we know that friends don't call friends “infidels,” in any language. If the Saudi public-relations campaign is to succeed in improving that country's image, the House of Saud needs to disavow its own message of religious hatred and intolerance.

- Nina Shea is the director of Freedom House ' s Center for Religious Freedom .

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/657021.html

The following statistics will help explain the difficulty in imposing economic sanctions on Iran: In the beginning of 2006 the total trade between it and China will reach some $8 billion, and by the end of 2006 it will rise to $10 billion; the gas pipeline between Iran and India will cost some $10 billion, and is meant to provide a significant portion of India ' s gas needs; and Russia is set to sign an agreement to sell Iran $1 billion in weapons.

Iran , which is becoming transformed by world oil prices into an ever wealthier state and one that can pay for its deals primarily in cash, is economically prosperous. It appears that its leadership thinks its in such a good position that it can reject a Russian compromise proposal on the nuclear issue, and that it can depend on China to veto any sanction the United Nations may decide to impose.

On the domestic front, too, the regime can enjoy freedom of action for the time being. The presidential elections only completed the process under way for three years, in which conservatives won a majority in the local authorities and in parliament - for which the reformists are partly to blame. And so Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can curse and swear at Israel and the United States , deny the Holocaust and suggest that the Jews return to Europe, without such a statement constituting a change in Iran ' s standing. However within the government, the Iranian president can reach only the line marked by spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who continues to control the important nuclear portfolio, but that ' s still a lot of leeway.

This standing of Iran, and particularly the dependence of Russia and China on Iran (along with other countries like Japan, India and Pakistan, which have no veto power in the UN Security Council), create the impression that the West does not have a real option in light of the threat of Iran ' s being armed with a nuclear weapon - whether that threat is true or false.

This impression is very close to reality, as long as international organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council are bound by two fundamental understandings that accompany its treatment of Iranian nuclear power. The first is that at the moment there is no military option, certainly not while the war in Iraq teaches a daily lesson to those who support this option; and the second is that in light of Iran ' s strong economic standing and its special ties with China and Russia, it will be unrealistic to threaten it with economic sanctions.

It is not superfluous to add to these fundamental understandings the American attempt to get Iran involved in quieting Iraq so that it can finally begin to think about a time to withdraw. In the last two weeks, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq , Zalmay Khalilzad, has been trying to find an Iranian interlocutor on the issue, so far unsuccessfully. These attempts further strengthen the feeling of Iranian power.

Moreover, an Iranian nuclear weapon is seen in Europe, Russia and China solely as breaching the world balance of power, but not as a direct threat to them. This is in utter opposition to the position of Israel , which is not particularly impressed by breaches of the world balance of power, as it doesn ' t protest the development of Indian or Pakistani nuclear power (and is itself not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Israel sees Iranian nuclear power as a direct threat to it, and only to it.

That ' s where another reason for the international shoulder-shrugging comes in: Iranian nuclear power is considered almost exclusively an Israeli problem, and this fact makes it even more difficult to get the world to act jointly against Iran . Meanwhile, it seems that the more Israel raises the Iranian issue, the more distant a solution seems. The double trap - that of the United States against its partners, Russia and China , and that of Israel , which seeks to convince others that Iran poses a world threat - plays well into the hands of Iran . Even if Iran does not end up producing a nuclear weapon, it will be able to continue holding the whip of the threat of producing it and rely on world disagreements to rescue it.

http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=94732

Former justice department prosecutor and intelligence expert John Loftus says that Israel is unable to thwart Iran ' s nuclear projects through military action – but that there is an alternative.

" Israel only has a few option and striking back is not one of ' em," Loftus told Israel National Radio's Tovia Singer . "The F-16-IL version that Israel possesses only has a combat radius of about 2,200 kilometers and you would need about 3,000 to hit the hard targets in Iran . Iran saw what [ Israel ] did to the Osarik reactor in Iraq and have spread their nuclear development stuff all over the country and a lot of the stuff is in the northeast corner of the country – completely out of Israel ' s flight range. So, unless Iraq votes to allow Israel over flight rights to attack Iran – which isn ' t going to happen - then Israel simply doesn ' t have the fuel to fly around Saudi Arabia to come up the Straits of Hormuz and attack Iran . There is simply not a military option available to Israel ."

Loftus stressed, however, that there are other options that are likely to succeed and are already being put into effect. "The Bush administration is hoping that, ironically with [French [President] Jacques] Chirac ' s help, UN pressure will cause a regime-change in Syria . That the [UN ' s] Mehlis investigation [examining the Syrian governments connection to the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri] is going to come down hard and heavy. The US military is chomping at the bit to go across the border and take out the terror bases in Syria that Assad claims are not there. Once Syria is gone, Iran is isolated, with US troops on both their borders, in Afghanistan and in Iraq ."

The intelligence expert, with contacts in the Pentagon says that the strategy is not for the US to actually invade Iran , but to affect a regime-change. "One of the intelligence agencies, which shall remain nameless, asked me to hold a conference of dissident groups in Iran . We are holding that conference and getting ready for regime-change."

Singer asked Loftus why US fighter jets do not bomb Iranian nuclear targets on their own from aircraft carriers in the region.

"That ' s a real good question that has been carefully studied," Loftus answered. "There are over 360 separate targets inside Iran that have been identified. Most of them are non-vulnerable – many underneath residential neighborhoods and Islamic shrines. These are not places we can bomb. The Iranians were paying attention when Iraq ' s reactor was bombed and have learned the lessons."

"So what is to be done to bring about a regime-change?" singer asked.

"The aircraft carriers are there to defend the picket-line of ships that will place a blockade on the Straits of Hormuz," Loftus said. "Ninety percent of Iran ' s economy is based on oil exports – so a blockade of as little as three weeks can cause their economy to collapse, the people to rise up and the mullahs to be overthrown. The problem with this is that Iran knows that this is the most likely scenario and they have been preparing for three years to thwart it. They [ Iran ] have developed vessels whose job is to sink as many oil tankers as possible to block the Straits of Hormuz. Once two, three or four vessels are sunk, you have cut off 40% of the world ' s oil supply. So the US doesn ' t mind – we have a six-month stockpile of oil - but the EU is much more fragile and susceptible to oil shocks. So we might have to dump a large share of the US stockpile on the world market until the regime falls."

Asked whether he really thinks the government will topple so easily, Loftus responded, "It is hard to do polling in Iran – you have to do it by telephone and you therefore only end up talking to the urban population. But we found that 83% of the Iranian urban population hates the mullahs and don ' t want to grow up under a dictatorship. Most of the country is young and wants music videos and TV and not the mullahs."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20051213-120437-7849r.htm

BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi general formerly in charge of special Interior Ministry forces said yesterday that a senior Iranian intelligence officer was in charge of a network of detention centers where suspected insurgents were routinely tortured and sometimes killed.

Gen. Muntazar Jasim al-Samarrai spoke to The Washington Times just as Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he had widened an urgent investigation into complaints of abuse and torture in the country ' s detention facilities.

The prime minister, who has been pressured by Washington and United Nations officials to end prisoner abuses, promised at a press conference a "very quick" public announcement on the findings.

Gen. al-Samarrai said the Iranian intelligence officer, Tahseer Nasr Lawandi, works directly under the Kurdish deputy minister, Gen. Hussein Kamel, and is known throughout the ministry as "The Engineer."

"The Engineer was behind the torturing and killing in the ministry and was also in charge of Jadriya prison," said Gen. al-Samarrai, who left the ministry after a dispute with superiors and is now living in Jordan .

U.S. troops raided the secret Jadriya facility in mid-November and found 166 prisoners, many emaciated and bearing obvious signs of torture.

An American raid on Thursday on another facility in Baghdad found 625 prisoners huddled in overcrowded and degraded conditions, including at least 13 who required hospitalization. The existence of that prison was first reported by The Washington Times on Saturday.

On Sunday, The Times in a joint investigation with World News & Features identified the locations of at least four other detention centers where torture was said to be routine. Gen. al-Samarrai said yesterday that he knew of 10 such facilities.

Mr. Lawandi, who had been a colonel in the Iranian Mukhabarat intelligence service, was granted Iraqi citizenship May 12, 2004, and awarded the rank of general, Gen. al-Samarrai said by telephone from Amman , Jordan , where he moved his family after two attempts on his life.

The Iranian officer not only masterminded interrogations, tortures and executions at the prisons, but also would take part in torture sessions, often using an electric drill, Gen. al-Samarrai said.

Some of the tortured prisoners were found in morgues with drill holes in their legs and eyes, according to another security source, who declined to be identified.

The general said Mr. Lawandi had worked with the minister and deputy minister to form a special security service to run the detention and interrogation operation and a separate group called the Wolf Brigade to capture suspects and bring them to the secret locations -- usually under cover of darkness.

Gen. al-Samarrai, a 46-year-old career officer, was ousted from the Interior Ministry in a purge of about 600 staff in July. Many were replaced by hard-line loyalists to new Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh and his allies in the Badr Brigade, a militia affiliated with Iraq ' s largest Shi ' ite religious party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq .

The general said the minister had brought 17,000 Badr organization fighters into the ranks of Interior Ministry forces after Iraq ' s militias were officially disarmed. Most had received military training in Iran and were infiltrated into Iraq soon after the defeat of dictator Saddam Hussein.

Gen. al-Samarrai said he had angered his superiors by replacing the members of an ineffectual 14-member inquiry commission and by releasing 124 detainees from a facility north of Baghdad .

That jibes with remarks by religious leader Abdel Karim Abdel Razzak, who recently told an Arab television station that Gen. al-Samarrai had freed him from prison.

While in the ministry and on visits to detention facilities, Gen. al-Samarrai said, he often heard the officers and jailers speaking among themselves in Farsi, the Iranian language, echoing previous statements to The Washington Times by businessmen who visited the ministry. Iraqi Shi ' ites, although adherents of the same branch of Islam, speak Arabic, not Farsi.

Gen. al-Samarrai also said that salaries for many of the ministry ' s employees came from Iran .

"Most of the torturers were either Iranians or were Iraqis who had lived in Iran and had come to Iraq after the invasion" in 2003, he said.

Gen. al-Samarrai listed in detail a number of secret detention and interrogation facilities that had been set up apart from the Jadriya prison.

Four were in the Iraqi capital, including the one raided by American forces Thursday, he said.

Another three are in largely Shi ' ite regions of the country, the general said. He said there are also two detention centers for women in Baghdad , where "female prisoners are tortured and raped."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iran_1

The Bush administration is ruling out a guarantee not to attack Iran to induce it to halt development of nuclear weapons. Iran must first act like a responsible member of the international community and stop violating its agreements, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Monday.

"That would represent a sea change in its behavior," Ereli said. "Then maybe other kinds of notions might be more palatable."

"But right now, I don ' t think people should be asking the United States , ' Why don ' t you do this or why don ' t you do that? ' " the U.S. official said.

Ereli ' s remarks appeared to dismiss a suggestion by Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, who said Monday in Stockholm that he believed the United States would need to give Iran a security guarantee before a final agreement could be reached on Iran ' s atomic programs.

ElBaradei also said the United States would need to become more involved in stalled negotiations between Iran and the European Union aimed at persuading Iran to permanent freeze nuclear enrichment.

Last week, Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph said that step was the last "red line" Iran needed to cross to produce nuclear weapons.

Negotiations, meanwhile, are stalled.

In parallel talks designed to halt North Korea ' s nuclear weapons programs, the United States has offered written guarantees it would not be attacked.

The assurances were offered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell.

On Iran , President Bush, last February, said it was "simply ridiculous" to assume the United States had plans to attack and Rice has made similar statements.

Unlike the negotiations with Iran , the United States is a participant in the negotiations, along with South Korea , Japan , China and Russia .

http://users2.wsj.com/lmda/do/checkLogin?a=t&d=wsj&sd=users2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle_print%2FSB113439781463820139.html

The Wall Street Journal ' s Thinking Global columnist Frederick Kempe talks with Bernard Lewis, a historian and intellectual force behind U.S. policy in the Middle East . They discuss the short American attention span, the effort to spread democracy, Iraq vs. Vietnam , "liberation" vs. "containment" policy, and the scope of the threat from Islamist radicals.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: As a historian, do you believe Americans appreciate the gravity of the moment in Iraq ?

BERNARD LEWIS: Two things. One, in this country I think you will agree there is a general lack of interest in history, even a certain contempt for history. In American English if you say, "That ' s history," it means, "It ' s over and done with and of no current interest or relevance." Second, there is a tendency not to take much notice of other cultures and other civilizations. Yet there is in America a sort of basic instinct for what is good and right in a society, and that works surprisingly well.

Q: One U.S. general recently told me he worries that the American attention span is too short for an initiative that may take years to show success.

A: The American attention span is too short. I would agree with him on that. There have been several examples through the ' 90s. Two obvious ones are Lebanon and Mogadishu .

Q: The most compelling argument the Bush administration puts forward of why to stick it out in Iraq is an appeal to our sense of history and that we ' ll all be happier ten or twenty years from now.

A: The strongest argument is the astonishing success now of the democratic process in Iraq . This is a country that has been through decades of ruthless dictatorship. Yet within a comparatively short time, first they hold a genuine, free, honest, contested election in which millions of Iraqis consciously, knowingly risk their lives standing in lines to vote. That is a remarkable test. Following that, the results of the election were inconclusive. So the Iraqis advance to the second test of democracy, negotiation and compromise, which is probably more difficult than even holding the election. And they ' ve been doing that. Then there was another election, a referendum on the constitution, and now this week they are going to vote on a national parliament. Despite internal difficulties and external sabotage, the process of democratization has succeeded beyond anyone ' s wildest expectations.

Q: Yet some worry that democracy can produce a worse outcome than what we now have. The success in Egyptian elections of the Muslim Brotherhood is a case in point.

A: The process of democracy is neither quick nor easy. There are dangers. Hitler came to power through a free and fair election. But the dangers are increased when we are seen as supporters of corrupt and repressive regimes indifferent to the freedom and well-being of their subjects.

In Iraq , I am not so worried. Democracy doesn ' t come all at once. It has to be developed in stages, and it seems to be doing very well. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt represents a real danger. Yet if they come into power they will have to cope with the monstrous problems Egypt faces. If, like the theocracy in Iran , they fail to deal with these problems, they will have to face the anger of their own people. The danger: they wouldn ' t leave office by the same way they came, through free elections.

Q: Some would argue that the strength of the Iraqi insurgency shows the outcome hasn ' t been a better system but either a worse situation or even anarchy.

A: Fear was expressed in Europe and in certain circles of the United States that democracy couldn ' t work in Iraq . There is a much more deadly fear in the Middle East that democracy in Iraq will work, and that fact that it is working relatively well is why that shabby collection of tyrants who rule most of the Middle East are dead scared. Also, when the terrorists attack a wedding party in Amman , these are desperate measures. They feel they ' re losing. And they are.

Q: If this victory is so clear, why aren ' t Americans feeling that way.

A: My specialization is the Middle East and not the Middle West .

Q: Tack a crack at it anyway; U.S. popular support will be important in shaping the outcome.

A: I have the impression that a considerable part of the American people don ' t really believe the rest of the world exists. There is a certain impatience. Things have to be done quickly or not at all. We saw that on various occasions in the past, and sometimes it ' s self-destructive. Our enemies love that. If you look at the writings and pronouncements of Osama bin Laden and his associates, they have learned the lessons of Vietnam and Mogadishu very well, much better than people here have learned them.

Q: Some say Iraq is a new Vietnam .

A: The comparison is often made with Vietnam . Now one may have differing views on Vietnam , but withdrawing was a disaster for the Vietnamese. A million or more of them became refugees, risking everything to get out of the hell in which we left them. But that was the end of it. The Viet Cong didn ' t follow us here, nor was there any danger they would. But this is different. They are here. We are dealing not with a local enemy but a global enemy. They have made this perfectly clear they see this as a war in three phases. The first phase is evicting the infidels from the lands of Islam, the second phase is recovering what they see as the lost lands of Islam -- which means Spain, Sicily, and the Balkans, and of course Palestine -- and the third one is taking the war into the enemy camp to achieve final global triumph.

Q: Do you feel the Bush administration is wavering in its commitment to Mideast democratization?

A: It ' s difficult to read. Sometimes it looks one way and sometimes it looks another way.

There is a school of thought which would run something like this, not just for the Middle East but for Central America and all sorts of other places of the world as well. It goes, "These people are incapable of decent democratic or civilized government. Whatever we do they will be ruled by sons of bitches, and the aim of diplomacy should be to ensure that they are our sons of bitches and not otherwise. That is a well-known philosophy, still shared by certain [ U.S. ] policy-makers for the Middle East . I think it is a dangerous fallacy. Yet it ' s strongly held and still being advanced.

Q: It ' s been said that you are the closest thing we have today to George Kennan in setting out the doctrine for this administration in the Mideast in the way he did for the Cold War with "containment."

A: Mutatis mutandis. Make the necessary adjustments. What I am afraid of is that what we may be doing is creating in the Middle East the same situation we had in Central America, where they have a choice between Castro and Noriega, dictators hostile or submissive.

Q: Some say we should introduce a new form of containment now instead of putting our own soldiers ' in harms way in the region.

A: Containment won ' t work now. With the Soviets we were dealing with a government in power and mutual deterrence could work. Before very long the so-called Islamists will have nuclear weapons and if they are used it will not be by governments but by terrorists, they will be used by terrorists, and they won ' t have any return address on them.

Q: If you look at the Bush administration now, it doesn ' t seem to have any stomach for regime change in Syria , where most of the terrorists cross to Iraq .

A: Syria ' s government is obviously faltering. The government is under attack at home. It has already withdrawn from Lebanon . A democratic process is reviving in Lebanon . And there are even glimmerings in Egypt and Saudi Arabia . In the Palestinian territories, you see an awakening of democracy. In recent months I ' ve been able to have conversations with people in Arab countries of a kind that would previously been impossible.

Q: For example?

A: People are more ready to express disgust with their own leadership, there ' s a growing desire for more open and free society. One hears things that would have been shocking previously, such as: " Israel is not the first priority. There are other things we have to deal with first." There are even people who speak with respect of Israel … I ' ve been with people in Arab countries who watch on Israeli television an Arab member of parliament standing up in the house and denouncing the policies and direction of the Israeli government -- on Israeli television, For them it is a mind-boggling experience. It doesn ' t make them love Israel any more, but it does give them some appreciation of the democratic process. It seems that one can do better as second-class citizens in a democracy than as a first-class citizen in a dictatorship.

Q: So why do you think it was the Iraq war that has helped set off changes elsewhere?

A: It simply is not true that Saddam Hussein ' s form of government is normal in this part of the world. This kind of arbitrary dictatorship has no roots, either in the Arab or the Islamic past. The traditional form of government isn ' t democratic, it is authoritarian, but it is not despotic, it is not arbitrary and it is not above the law. They have a very strong political tradition of government according to law and political limits. (See "Freedom and Justice in the Modern Middle East" by Bernard Lewis in Foreign Affairs.)

What was important for the Middle East in Iraq was the fact that a tyrannical regime was removed, that the people are free to express themselves, that the United States did not try to install a tame tyrant but really tried to open the way for the people of Iraq to choose their own government, and this is something new and wonderful.

A successful democracy in Iraq , for example, would be very dangerous for the present rulers of Iran . A largely Shia country practicing democracy would be very worrisome across the border.

Q: Do you believe military means can bring about further changes in the region. Syria ? Iran ?

A: If you mean U.S. military means, I am against it. I think that there is great opposition in both Syria and Iran to their governments. Iranians and Syrians with a little help from outside can do the job themselves.

Q: What is your general view of the situation, in Iraq and the Mideast ? Are you growing more or less confident of positive change?

A: I would describe my position as one of cautious optimism. My optimism derives from events in the Mideast and my caution derives from observing the United States . The situation in Iraq is vastly better than what you would know from reading the media, which really do often present a misleading picture of what ' s happening. In many, many ways Iraqi life has improved enormously, in terms of freedom of press, economic and social improvements, the educational system is reviving. The terrorism is only limited to a certain area, but the terrorists and their sponsors are becoming more and more desperate because they see they are losing.

Q: The daily reports of killings can lead one to believe otherwise.

A: What ' s astonishing when they blow up half the people standing in line at a recruitment center, kill them, is that the next day the other half are back there waiting to enroll. That ' s remarkable. It ' s happened time and time again.

Q: What have we done wrong in Iraq ?

A: The sooner we get out the better, but we cannot just cut and run. The people I talk to in Iraq say we could do a lot better in handing over, in giving Iraqis a bigger share in, for example, the recruitment and training of security personnel.

There were several stages when we could have avoided all these problems with very little trouble. When we had Saddam Hussein on the run [in 1991], we could have finished the job in a matter of hours. The argument at the time was that would have meant going on to Baghdad and setting up an imperial administration, which was nonsense. The Iraqis would have been capable of doing it themselves, but we stopped and let Saddam reconstitute his government. We backed down at a crucial moment.

There was then a free zone in the [Kurdish] north. There were interesting possibilities. It was one-fifth of the territory and one-fifth the population of Iraq . They were beyond Saddam ' s reach. There were lots of things we could have done from there at the time, but we didn ' t. That was another missed opportunity.

Q: And mistakes regarding the war?

A: What was really striking was the ease with which the conquest was completed. There was virtually no resistance. Saddam ' s army just faded away. The country was peaceful for a while. That was an opportunity that was lost. One could have installed something more genuinely Iraqi. It would have been perfectly possible at the time. Setting up a kind of viceroy arrangement in the style of the 19th century British Empire was not a good idea. Looking back now, the actual defeat of Saddam Hussein and occupation of Iraq was remarkably peaceful and easy. People speak with derision about Iraqis not welcoming us. They did. They would have welcomed us much more readily if we hadn ' t let them down ten years earlier.

Q: What ' s the lesson?

A: Our job is not to create democracy. Our job is to remove obstacles and let them create their own. That is what we did in Germany , Italy and Japan , and it is what we should do in Iraq . And now we seem to have moved in that direction.

Q: If George Kennan ' s doctrine was "containment" how would you characterize your own for the Mideast ?

A: Liberation.

Q: Would you expand?

A: I think that ' s clear enough. Enable them to achieve or recover their freedom, to which they are entitled no less than anyone else in the world.

Q: So more activist than was our Soviet policy of containment. Why?

A: Well, we were dealing with the Soviet Union, a mighty imperial power, and we ' re not dealing with anything like that in the Middle East . But comparatively small terrorist movements now are potentially more dangerous than the entire Soviet Union because mutual deterrence won ' t work. In any case, the Soviet Union did not use suicide bombers. Suicide was not part of Communist ideology.

Q: It ' s said your influence has been decisive on the Bush administration.

A: I may have had some influence but I think this is greatly exaggerated. I have never at any time been a formal consultant..

Q: Do you believe the Bush administration is wavering on this liberation policy?

A: "It ' s difficult to read. Sometimes it looks one way and sometimes it looks another way."

Q: How do you best take on the insurgency in Iraq ?

A: This is a military question for which I am not competent.

Q: It ' s a central question. Any general thoughts?

A: We should look more closely into the places from where the insurgents come, Syria and Saudi Arabia and look there.

Q: So what is the historical context you think Americans and Europeans are missing?

A: The threat we face now is more like that of the Third Reich than that of the Soviet Union . It is more militant, more violent, and commands a good deal of support. We are much more threatened than we ever were by the Soviet Union . I would compare where we are to Britain in 1940 add the threat of Hitler and the Nazis. I began the year as a very junior teacher in the University of London and ended the year as a very junior member of his majesties forces. At that time, we were alone, the Soviet Union was supporting Hitler, the united states was at that time resolutely neutral, nevertheless I and my contemporaries had no doubt we would win. I wish I were as confident now as I was then of our final victory.

Q: Why are you less confident now?

A: By 1940, we had no doubts or hesitations. We knew we faced a ruthless and dangerous enemy and we knew we had to stand together. I think now when I look back that if Churchill and his team had had to face the same sort of opposition as does President Bush, Hitler might well have won the war. They are more dangerous than Hitler because we are not as firm as we were with Hitler. And also times have changed. We didn ' t confront the possibility of nuclear terrorists with suicidal ambitions.

Q: But a difference with Hitler is we also have no territorial target.

A: It makes it more difficult.

Q: It also means they can ' t occupy us.

A: The danger is not to occupy but to devastate. They have all the modern possibilities. And in Europe , in some respects they are taking over already. You see that in many ways. Already the Muslim religion enjoys an immunity from criticism that Christianity has lost and Judaism never had. In this Christian West it is much safer to criticize Christian values than Muslim values.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/news/world/13394700.htm

BAGHDAD , Iraq -- The Iranian-backed militia the Badr Organization has taken over many of the Iraqi Interior Ministry ' s intelligence activities and infiltrated its elite commando units, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

That ' s enabled the Shiite Muslim militia to use Interior Ministry vehicles and equipment - much of it bought with American money - to carry out revenge attacks against the minority Sunni Muslims, who persecuted the Shiites under Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, current and former Ministry of Interior employees told Knight Ridder.

The officials, some of whom agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity for fear of violent reprisals, said the Interior Ministry had become what amounted to an Iranian fifth column inside the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, running death squads and operating a network of secret prisons.

The militia ' s secret activities threaten to derail U.S.-backed efforts to persuade Sunnis to abandon the violent insurgency and join Shiites and Kurds in Iraq ' s fledgling political process. And by supporting Badr and other Shiite groups, Iran - a member of President Bush ' s "axis of evil" that sponsors international terrorism and is thought to be seeking nuclear weapons and calls for the destruction of Israel - has used the American-led invasion to gain influence in Iraq .

"They ' re putting millions of dollars into the south to influence the elections... it ' s funded primarily through their charity organizations and also Badr and some of these political parties," said Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq . "A lot of their guys (Badr) are going into the police and military."

Current and former ministry officials said the American military hadn ' t interfered with Badr ' s infiltration of the ministry, either because U.S. officials weren ' t fully aware of what was happening or because they didn ' t want to risk arresting militia leaders who had powerful political positions and tens of thousands of followers.

Interior Ministry and Badr officials have denied any involvement in the prisons or death squads, but Gen. Muntadhar Muhi al-Samaraee, a former head of special forces at the Interior Ministry, said the prisons were run by Badr operatives.

"All prisons in the south and most of those in Baghdad are run by the Badr militia," al-Samaraee, a Sunni, said in an interview in Amman , Jordan . Al-Samaraee said he left the country for medical treatment and decided not to return because of death threats. He ' s denied Interior Ministry accusations that he fled to Jordan after stealing a car.

Badr ' s leader, Hadi al-Amari, has denied maintaining ties to Iran, but in a fit of anger during a recent interview with Knight Ridder he admitted as much while striking out against U.S.-backed secular Shiite politician Ayad Allawi.

"Allawi receives money from America , from the CIA, but nobody talks about that. All they talk about is our funding from Iran ," he said, raising his voice. "We are funded by some (Persian) Gulf countries and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We don ' t hide it."

Badr was formed and trained in Iran in cooperation with the Iranian government, and its members staged raids into Iraq during the war between the neighboring countries in the 1980s.

"The Americans use the Interior Ministry commandos as tools to fight the insurgency. They know what Badr is doing and they don ' t care," charged Omar al-Jabouri, a top official with the Iraqi Islamic Party, an influential Sunni group. "The interests of the Americans are the same as Badr."

Sunni groups, including the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Muslim Scholars Association, have cataloged hundreds of instances this year in which men wearing Interior Ministry uniforms arrived in Sunni neighborhoods at night and took men who later were found dead.

Last Thursday, a raid on a detention center near the Interior Ministry building found 13 men who apparently had been tortured and needed medical treatment.

Last month, 169 men, most of them Sunnis, were found in an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad ' s Jadriyah neighborhood. Many of them had been beaten with leather belts and steel rods and made to sit in their own excrement, according to a U.S. military official and an Iraqi who was held at the center. Police officers with knowledge of the jail said Badr ran it.

A Human Rights Ministry official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity said both places were home to clandestine operations run by the Interior Ministry ' s intelligence units.

"We monitor the prisons, but there are so many secret centers that we know nothing about," the official said.

A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad , speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, acknowledged that the torture at the Jadriyah site was carried out by a rogue Interior Ministry intelligence group.

"It ' s not clear this was an official MOI (Ministry of Interior) organization," the official said. "If you look at the MOI organizational charts, you will not find the Jadriyah bunker."

After Iraq ' s national elections last January, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq , a political party that ' s tied to Badr, took power and installed an official with strong ties to Badr, Bayan Jabr, as the head of the Interior Ministry. The ministry ' s ranks, particularly intelligence and commando units, were quickly stocked with Badr militia members, according to interviews with current and former ministry officials.

"Everybody says you have a Badr guy in the MOI. Well... he was elected," said the senior U.S. military official in Baghdad . "And they say he ' s appointed a bunch of Badr guys. We have a Republican administration in America , and guess what? They ' ve appointed a lot of Republicans. You elected SCIRI, and SCIRI is Badr."

The American officer said it would be up to the Iraqi government to deal with the Badr organization and other militias.

Sunni leaders say the Shiite-controlled government will never police Shiite militias.

There also have been allegations that the militia that ' s loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who also has Iranian support, is responsible for some of the killings. Many of the details of the incidents, however, point more to Badr. For instance, the killers often are reported as traveling in white Toyota Land Cruisers and carrying Glock pistols. Both are common at the Badr headquarters in Baghdad , but not with al-Sadr ' s Mahdi Army fighters, most of whom are poor and travel in beat-up vans and cars.

Asked who was behind the rounding up and killing of Sunnis, Casey said, "I don ' t know that it ' s the quote Badr corps that ' s doing it or the... Mahdi (Army) that ' s doing it, but I have no doubt that people who are associated with those groups are involved."

Although militias are illegal under Iraqi law, Badr has flourished as U.S. forces have declined to crack down.

"It ' s not infiltration. They ' re upfront about it (their militia affiliation) and day to day things are OK, but then there ' s a crisis," Casey said. "What you see happening is that people are... signing up (for the security forces) but their loyalties lie more to a militia leader than a chief of police."

A document obtained by Knight Ridder appears to reveal the existence of an Interior Ministry death squad.

A memo written by an Iraqi general in the ministry operations room and addressed to the minister ' s office says on its subject line: "Names of detainees." It lists 14 men who were taken from Iskan, a Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad , during the early morning hours of Aug. 18. It also marks the time of their detention: 5:15 a.m.

The bodies of the same 14 men were found in the town of Badrah near the Iranian border in early October. Hussein Sayhoud, a doctor at Baghdad ' s main morgue who examined the bodies and signed one of the death certificates, said that most of the men had been killed by single gunshots to their heads.

"I remember when they brought in the whole group," Sayhoud said. "They were so badly decomposed we couldn ' t identify any marks of torture."

The general who signed the Interior Ministry memo, Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, confirmed its authenticity. But despite a heading that reads "Names of the detainees in the Iskan District," Khalaf maintained that insurgents, not Interior Ministry police, had abducted the men.

It ' s unclear, however, why an Interior Ministry general would refer to men who ' d been kidnapped by Sunni insurgents as "detainees" in an official government document, or how the general knew the exact time of the abduction.

Pressed for more details, Khalaf said: "The minister is very upset. He wants to know how such a document slipped out of the ministry."

Col. Joseph DiSalvo, who commands a brigade of the U.S. Army ' s 3rd Infantry Division in eastern Baghdad , where there ' s a heavy Shiite militia presence, said it would be all but impossible for the American military to defeat the militias.

The largest neighborhood in DiSalvo ' s area of operations is Sadr City , home to 2.5 million to 3 million people. It was the site of fierce clashes last year between al-Sadr ' s militia and U.S. forces.

" Sadr City is probably our most secure zone because of the de facto militia presence... the Mahdi militias doing their neighborhood patrols," DiSalvo said. "And you also have Badr patrols where you have SCIRI enclaves."

There ' ve been reports of several instances in DiSalvo ' s area of Sunni men being rounded up by vehicles with Interior Ministry markings, then found murdered.

"The coalition forces cannot enforce it (the law forbidding militias). We cannot negate the militias. It would be like having a 2 million-man tribe, and all of a sudden saying, ' Tribe, you do not exist, ' " DiSalvo said. "You ' d have to have more manpower than is feasible."

Outside Influence

Hundreds of students gathered, today, in Iranian universities, such as the Tehran College of Technology, in order to protest against the repressive rule in Iran .

Slogans in favor of Freedom, Equality of Genders, Abolition of Political Offenses, Democracy and condemning the Theocratic rule were shouted by students. Many were carrying placards stating the same aspirations.

Security forces were in number around the university and were blocking supporters to reach the students who behind closed doors were pictured and filmed by members of Herrasat (Intelligence) . Minor clashes happened between students and brutal Bassij paramilitary ' students ' who tried to attack several female demonstrators.

While some members of the docile and regime tolerated "Office of Consolidation Unity" (OCU) tried to highjack the protest gathering for their own purpose of promoting some so-called ' redempted ' Islamist elements, the trend of the today ' s actions were showing a sharp radicalization of the students and the net _expression of secularist trend.

It ' s to note that some former brutal Islamists have ' converted ' in Democrat and even Secularist in order to surf on the popular aspirations and to benefit of a same scenario that played in Russia . Former KGB and Soviet Union leaders become suddenly democrats, under the applause of the World Community, in order to save looted interests.

Some OCU elements have recently moved to the US and are being promoted by some American Think Tank institutions or ideologist journalists who are in a desperate quest for a kind of "Iran Solution" from a simple opportunistic point of view.

BRUSSELS -- European Union foreign ministers called on Iran Monday to show greater respect for human rights, saying the situation in Iran was deteriorating and damaging E.U.-Iran ties. The E.U. ministers said they regretted that Iran has failed to hold talks on human rights this year, "despite the E.U. ' s strong and repeated requests."

"Greater respect for human rights in Iran is essential for progress in E.U.- Iran relations," said an annual E.U. review of human rights, adopted by the foreign ministers.

Human rights talks with Tehran were to be held alongside negotiations to draft a free trade pact. However, both have been frozen in the wake of European and U.S. fears that Iran is setting up a nuclear weapons program.

"The deteriorating human rights situation and the absence of action by the Iranian authorities to reform laws and official practices, which allow human rights violations to occur, cast serious doubt" on Iran ' s intentions to respect fundamental freedoms of their citizens, it said.

The E.U. called on Iran to "demonstrate its commitment to human rights and to the (E.U.) dialogue." It said the E.U. remains open to discussing human rights with Iran , adding that otherwise it would back plans for a U.N. resolution on human rights in Iran .

The 25-nation bloc and Tehran are deadlocked over Iran ' s nuclear program and recent comments made by Iran ' s president.

The E.U. last week condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for suggesting Israel be moved to Europe so the continent can make amends for the Holocaust. In late October, he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," comments which also drew swift condemnation by countries around the world.

Iran has vowed to press ahead with enriching uranium and producing nuclear fuel in defiance of E.U. and U.S.-led efforts to stop such moves.

France , Germany and the U.K. , negotiating for the E.U., broke off talks with Tehran originally meant to ease tensions over its nuclear activities. Last month the U.K. offered new negotiations to persuade Tehran to give up its insistence on running its own domestic program of uranium enrichment - a possible pathway to nuclear arms.

Iran continues to insist that its program is aimed at generating electricity.

The U.N. ' s nuclear energy agency has warned Tehran that its nuclear program could be referred to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions against Iran .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051211/wl_mideast_afp/iranmilitaryplane_051211210258

TEHRAN -- Iran ' s outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledged a "serious investigation" into the crash of a decrepit military plane in central Tehran, but nevertheless thanked the 108 dead for their "martyrdom".

His comments came after his defence minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, was the target of an impeachment motion filed by a group of parliament deputies angered over reports the aged C-130 was ordered to fly despite warnings from its pilot.

"The government will hold a serious investigation (...), but what is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow," Ahmadinejad said of Tuesday ' s crash victims.

The aged C-130 workhorse -- bought from the United States before the 1979 Islamic revolution and starved of crucial spares -- crashed into the foot of a high-rise housing block after suffering engine failure.

Of the 108 people killed, 68 were journalists travelling on the plane to report on military exercises in the south of the country.

Forty-nine deputies in the Iranian Majlis have backed the impeachment motion. The text of their complaint was not published, but authorities have been under fire over indications the plane had been forced to fly.

Parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel said the motion would be first be examined by parliament ' s legal service, and if deemed presentable would be examined by the assembly on December 18.

According to the official news agency IRNA, the plane did not have a ' black box ' flight recorder although all communications between the plane and the control tower at Mehrabad airport were recorded.

It said a 25 member team made up of armed forces personnel was probing the cause of the disaster.

Iran tells West to be tolerant of Holocaust views

Reuters

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1417838

TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ' s denial of the Holocaust is a matter for academic discussion and the West should be more tolerant of his views, Iran ' s foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

Ahmadinejad last week called the Holocaust a myth and suggested Israel be moved to Germany or Alaska , remarks that sparked international uproar and threaten diplomatic talks with Europe over Iran ' s nuclear programme.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi defended the president ' s remarks, which also drew a rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.

"What the president said is an academic issue. The West ' s reaction shows their continued support for Zionists," Asefi told a weekly news conference.

"Westerners are used to leading a monologue but they should learn to listen to different views," he added.

Some 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945.

Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guardsman who was elected president, also said in October Israel was a "tumour" that must be "wiped off the map."

A statement drafted by European Union leaders described last week ' s Holocaust comment as "wholly unacceptable." The White House termed the remarks "outrageous."

"The EU statement is not based on international diplomatic norms. They should avoid illogical methods," he said.

"Westerners are used to leading a monologue, but they should learn to listen to different views."

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the Holocaust remarks could weigh on European Union efforts to resolve the dispute over Iran ' s nuclear programme.

Britain , Germany and France had tentatively planned to hold talks later this month on the nuclear programme, which the United States and the EU fear is a cover to make nuclear bombs. Iran says it needs it to generate electricity.

When asked whether Ahmadinejad ' s remarks could hinder talks to resolve Iran ' s nuclear stand-off with the West, Asefi said: "We do not make any hasty judgment. But Iran ' s right should be respected. We will never abandon our right to nuclear technology."

Anti-Israel comments are ploy, experts say
BY ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press

TEHRAN , Iran — Remarks by Iran ' s hard-line president that the Holocaust was a myth and Israel should be "wiped off the map" are not just wild comments by a novice leader, but part of a strategy to keep anti-Israel sentiment alive in the Middle East , analysts said Saturday.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose comments have drawn international condemnation and ratcheted up tensions in a volatile region, is also trying to revive the radical fervor of Iran ' s 1979 Islamic Revolution after eight years of rule by a more moderate Iranian government.

"The man is still living in 1979 and believes Iran represents a revolution more than just a state," said Mustafa Alani, director of security studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai . "He believes (verbally) attacking Israel , which was a key principle of the revolution, will serve Iranian interests in the region more than polite, rational policies."

Ahmadinejad, who took office in August, caused an international outcry in October by calling Israel a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the map."

World leaders also condemned him in recent days for calling the Nazi slaughter of Jews during World War II a myth. Ahmadinejad added that if the Holocaust did happen, then Israel should be moved to Europe or North America, rather than making Palestinians suffer by losing their land to atone for crimes committed by Europeans.

Further, Ahmadinejad ' s rejection of U.S. and European calls to curb Iran ' s nuclear program has raised suspicions that Iran is trying to build atomic weapons in violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Despite Tehran ' s repeated insistence that the nuclear program has only the aim of generating electricity, Israeli officials and politicians have openly discussed the possibility of attacking Iran to cripple its nuclear development capabilities.

Iranian democracy activists — and some conservatives — say Ahmadinejad ' s words are hurting the country, but his anti-Israel rhetoric resonates with militants in the hard-line camp, including Iran ' s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But Khamenei, who has the final say on state matters, has implicitly supported Ahmadinejad, saying armed resistance, not negotiation, is the way to deal with Israel .

Lawmaker Emad Afrouq said the president ' s comments are "part of a strategy" to influence opinion about Israel ' s occupation of Palestinian territories, not to lay the groundwork for war with the Jewish state.

"The bottom line is he wants to keep anti-Israeli sentiments alive," Afrouq said. "He doesn ' t think of military action."

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - U.S.-allied Gulf Arab leaders, alarmed at neighbouring Iran ' s nuclear ambitions, will examine proposals for a nuclear-free zone in the world ' s top oil-producing region when they meet for a summit on Sunday.

Syria ' s standoff with the United Nations over the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri will also top the agenda of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which groups Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.

Rulers began arriving in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi amid tight security for the two-day annual meeting.

The summit hopes to defuse mounting tension in a region already affected by instability in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein and militant attacks by supporters of Osama bin Laden ' s al Qaeda network.

"We trust Iran but we don ' t want to see an Iranian nuclear plant which is closer in distance to our Gulf shores than to Tehran causing us danger and damage," GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman al-Attiya said ahead of the opening on Sunday.

On Saturday, Attiya said he was worried about a nuclear arms race in the region. "I think it is time for an agreement to have the Gulf region free of nuclear weapons. This will no doubt pave the way to urge Israel to submit its (nuclear) facilities (to inspection)," he said.

Israel , which has never admitted it has a nuclear weapons programme, is widely believed to have some 200 nuclear warheads.

Tehran insists its nuclear programme is for energy, but many fear it is seeking to develop atomic weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ' s verbal salvoes at Israel , including his call for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map, have also alarmed.

The GCC will also discuss a violent campaign by al Qaeda against Gulf states and Saudi King Abdullah ' s proposal earlier this year to set up an international center to combat terrorism.

The UAE has been spared militant attacks which have hit neighbouring Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia , Kuwait and Qatar but organizers haven taken no risks, increasing police patrols and cordoning off streets around the summit ' s venue.

The GCC is expected to issue a strongly worded statement urging Damascus to fully cooperate with the U.N. investigation into Hariri ' s death.

"They (leaders) all agree that they don ' t want nuclear weapons in Iran and they don ' t want Syrian intervention in Lebanon but they need to agree on what to do about it," one GCC delegate told Reuters.

GCC delegates said the Sunni-led GCC would also discuss ways to curb what they see as Shi ' ite Iran ' s growing influence in Iraq , where Shi ' ites gained power after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Saudi Arabia has bluntly accused Iran of meddling.

On the economic front, the summit will review steps toward a monetary union, which analysts said needs a political thrust to move to the next phase.

The talks will also cover a GCC-European Union trade agreement under negotiation for 15 years and which Attiya said the bloc hoped to finalize early next year.

GCC members will be asked to turn any bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) into deals for the whole bloc.

The GCC has reluctantly agreed to bilateral FTAs with Washington , even though they infringe on a joint tariff deal, but said trade pacts may not be signed with other states.

CONDITIONAL: The Iranian president, under fire for calling the holocaust a `myth, ' has ordered a stop to all nuclear cooperation if Iran is referred to the UN Security Council

AGENCIES , TEHRAN AND BRUSSELS
Sunday, Dec 18, 2005

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the conditional suspension of the additional protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Fars news agency reported yesterday.

Meanwhile, Iran could face sanctions if it keeps provoking Israel and the West, European leaders warned yesterday even as the Tehran regime ' s interior minister said the Iranian president ' s remarks had been :"misunderstood."

Ahmadinejad aggravated already simmering tensions with the West this week by calling the Holocaust a "myth," a statement that came two months after he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

European leaders said Ahmadinejad ' s remarks were the latest "provocative political moves" from Tehran since May.

"These comments are wholly unacceptable and have no place in civilized political debate," the leaders said in a summit statement yesterday.

In a written order to Vice-President Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh, who is also head of the country ' s Atomic Energy Organization, Ahmadinejad called for the implementing of the recently approved law to suspend all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA if the Iranian nuclear case is referred to the UN Security Council.

The Iranian parliament last month approved a bill urging the government to suspend the IAEA additional protocol conditionally.

According to the bill, the government will be urged to limit or even stop IAEA inspection of Iranian nuclear sites if Tehran is referred to the Security Council.

Ahmadinejad said last Wednesday that there should be no doubts whatsoever that the government will not retreat one inch from realizing the legitimate right of the Iranian nation to have nuclear technology.

EU leaders warned Tehran they would review diplomatic options for possible sanctions against Iran .

The condemnation came as Iran prepares to resume talks on Wednesday with European envoys over its nuclear program, which the EU and US fear is intended to build atomic weapons. Envoys from Britain , Germany and France are trying to get Tehran to halt uranium enrichment.

"I haven ' t seen any evidence that Iran is interested in a deal that is going to be acceptable to an international community that is extremely skeptical of what the Iranians are up to," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington .

Rice predicted that the US would have enough votes at the UN Security Council to impose international sanctions against Iran but hinted that she was waiting for other nations to join such an effort.

EU leaders warned that the bloc was losing patience in mediating the standoff. "The window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely."

The leaders said they were "gravely concerned at Iran ' s failure to build confidence that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful."

On Ahmadinejad ' s comments regarding the Holocaust, Iran ' s interior minister insisted on Friday that the West had "misunderstood" what the Iranian president was saying.

Ahmadinejad "wanted to say that if others harmed the Jewish community and created problems for the Jewish community, they have to pay the price themselves," Mostafa Pourmohammadi said in Athens , Greece . "People like the Palestinian people or other nations should not pay the price," he said.

"A historical incident has occurred. Correct or not correct. We don ' t want to launch research or carry out historical investigation about it," Pourmohammadi said.

In Berlin , German lawmakers unanimously condemned the Iranian president ' s remarks, calling them "completely unacceptable."

Denying the Holocaust is a crime in Germany , a country sensitive about its Nazi past and the genocide that killed more than 6 million Jews during World War II.

"What the Iranian president has said about the state of Israel is completely unacceptable," Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said Friday at the EU.

But Iran continued its verbal assault against Israel , with the defense minister saying in Tehran that any Israeli attack would provoke a "destructive" response.

Israeli defense officials say they have not ruled out a military strike against Iran if it carries on further toward obtaining some nuclear weapons.

President called Holocaust a ' myth ' to reinforce regime, win support from Arab nations, experts say
By Douglas Birch
BALTIMORE SUN

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a "myth" this week, he wasn ' t only embracing one of the key tenets of modern anti-Semitism.

Experts say his harsh rhetoric was also an effort to signal that Iran , not al-Qaida, is the leading force behind militant Islam.

And by appealing to Muslims worldwide, he aimed to bolster his regime at home and win support from Arab nations against the West.

Although Iranian clerics and politicians have previously questioned the existence of Nazi death camps, the experts noted, Ahmadinejad is the country ' s first chief of state to do so publicly.

"If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything," Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast on state television.

"But if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream."

His remarks were "unacceptable" to anyone with hopes for peace in the Middle East, said Sanam Vakil, a scholar of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University ' s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington , D.C.

But the remarks also were unsurprising, given Ahmadinejad ' s political aims and the increasing embrace by militant Islam of European-style anti-Semitism.

"This is no aberration," Vakil said. "He is definitely trying to make a statement."

State-run media in many Islamic nations regularly broadcast insults and slanders against Jews.

The Frenchman Roger Garaudy, a former communist and convert to Islam, has been lauded throughout the Middle East for his books attacking what he considers the "myths" of the Jewish state, including the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler ' s Mein Kampf is a best-seller in Turkey .

Efforts to rewrite the history of the Nazis ' treatment of the Jews are not harmless, members of the American Jewish community warn.

"Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism are completely linked," said Amy Berkowitz Caplan, director of the Holocaust Awareness Institute at the University of Denver .

"Where there is a rise in anti-Semitism, there is a rise in Holocaust denial. We often hear about this, and we write this off. The reality is, if we continue doing that, it shows we ' ve learned nothing from the Holocaust."

Columnist Jonathan Freedland, this week in The Guardian in London , said rejecting the Holocaust is more than just historical blindness.

"It is a stance that seeks to deny Jews their history, their suffering, almost their very being," he wrote.

"Like denying that African-Americans were ever slaves, it is a move made by those who wish only harm."

Marius Deeb, who teaches courses on Islam and politics at Hopkins ' School of Advanced International Studies , said Muslims who reject co-existence with Israel have increasingly embraced "racists, neo-Nazis" or whoever criticizes the Jewish state, regardless of their other views.

"There is a tremendous, powerful anti-Semitism" in the Muslim world, he said. "And this is an _expression of it, unfortunately."

It might be tempting, experts said, to dismiss the Iranian leader as simply ill-informed. As mayor of Tehran , Ahmadinejad ran for president on a platform of economic reform and political populism.

But both Vakil and Deeb said Ahmadinejad probably hopes his comments will prop up public support for his government.

From Iranian hard-liners ' perspective, "Making statements like this is good, because it makes the West critical of Iran ," Deeb said.

"Then they can say, ' You see what happens? They are always attacking us. ' It mobilizes people. It generates support, particularly for the radicals."

The Bush administration and many other Western governments suspect that Iran , despite its denials, is trying to build nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad, Vakil said, has worked hard since his election in June to bridge the historic divide between Persian-speaking, predominantly Shiite Iran and the nation ' s Arabic-speaking, Sunni neighbors to the west and south.

His aim, she said, appears to be to enlist the support of the Arab states in Iran ' s resistance to International Atomic Energy Agency controls.

"He is trying to be more Palestinian than the Palestinians, more Arab than the Arabs, to break down the separation between Persians and Arabs," she said.

WASHINGTON -- Faced with an increasingly hard line from Iran, the United States and Europe have stepped up planning for tougher diplomatic action should Tehran follow through on threats to resume critical nuclear activities, according to U.S. officials and European diplomats.

The U.S. and its European allies are seeking agreement among themselves on precisely when Iran ' s nuclear program will have progressed to the point that the matter should be taken to the U.N. Security Council and what kinds of sanctions might be pursued there, the officials and diplomats said.

Tehran insists it only aims to produce civilian nuclear energy. Allies say the program is to produce weapons.

Russia , which is building Iran ' s nuclear power plant at Bushehr in southern Iran , remains a serious impediment. The United States fears that weapons grade plutonium could be extracted from the Bushehr reactor once it goes on line.

The United States and major European nations -- Britain , France and Germany -- have long threatened to bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

But negotiations appear at an impasse and new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has alarmed the world with aggressive calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

"Increasingly, we feel the Iranians are just not interested in any sort of privately negotiated solution to this problem, that what they are interested in is a political confrontation over it," one European diplomat told Reuters.

Under the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed, member states are guaranteed the right to develop a full nuclear fuel cycle but are banned from making weapons.

The Bush administration is under growing pressure from Congress and pro-Israel groups to soften its stance towards Tehran . They want the nuclear issue referred to the U.N. Security Council, where sanctions could be imposed.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph, who oversees nonproliferation issues, was in Europe this week for meetings that included discussions on Iran .

U.S. and European experts are to meet Iran next week to see if negotiations can resume, but the outlook is pessimistic.

"I think there are a lot of different pieces moving towards an interesting point on Iran , especially the nuclear piece," a U.S. official said.

A pro-Israel advocate said administration officials "are considering harder approaches. Things are moving on a faster track."

A second European diplomat said while there was a U.S. trend to "toughen the position" on Iran , some Europeans preferred to keeping trying to draw Russia into a unified position.

Efforts to halt Iran ' s nuclear program would suffer if the issue was moved to the Security Council and the council was too divided to take action, some analysts said.

U.S. officials say if the Security Council discussed Iran ' s nuclear program, sanctions would not be imposed immediately, while the council tried other diplomatic pressures.

WHERE IS THE ' RED LINE ' ?

Also under discussion is what the United States and other states would consider their "red line" -- the point at which Iran has crossed into a dangerous activity that cannot be tolerated.

"We cannot achieve anything until we are certain we see things the same way," the second European diplomat said.

Iran froze work at its Isfahan nuclear facility in late 2004 under a deal with Britain , France and Germany but resumed uranium conversion in August 2005.

Tehran has threatened to go further and begin uranium enrichment, the most sensitive part of the nuclear cycle. The United States , Britain , France and Germany generally agree any further steps would be unacceptable but Russia is more lenient, officials said.

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/12/c21022a3-c991-412b-ab62-ba8467b5432c.html

European Union leaders have formally condemned Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad ' s remarks on Israel , and warned that time is running out for a diplomatic solution on the Iranian nuclear issue. In a statement adopted early today at the end of a summit in Brussels , Belgium , the leaders of the 25 EU member states condemned as "wholly unacceptable" Ahmadninejad ' s call for the eradication of Israel and his denial of the World War II Holocaust of Jews.

The statement called on Iran to join the international consensus on the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The statement also said the EU is gravely concerned over Iran ' s failure to build confidence that the Iranian nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. It said the EU continues to work towards a diplomatic solution, but that the window of opportunity for such a solution will not remain open indefinitely.

EU and Iranian representatives are due to hold their next meeting on the nuclear issue on 21 December in Vienna , Austria .

LONDON, December 18 (IranMania) - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, voiced Iran ' s concern over the increasing human rights violations of the US and Islamophobia in the West, IRNA said.

In a letter to the UN secretary-general submitted by Iran ' s Permanent Mission to the UN, Mottaki criticized the US for its hidden prisons established all over the world, particularly in European states, and its use of torture in the interrogation of prisoners in such prisons, particularly terrorist suspects, as well as the increase in Islamophobia and mistreatment of Muslims in the West.

Mottaki, in his letter, also called on Annan to appoint a special envoy to investigate cases of human rights violations by the United States such as the reported hidden prisons established in particular countries and the use of torture in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba .

"Reports recently received on US hidden prisons in some European states and the use of torture and other violations of human rights in prisons in Western states cause concern.

"Today, human rights guaranteed under the most fundamental international regulations including prevention of torture are being violated systematically under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

These moves violate Article 6 and 7 of the UN Charter guaranteeing political and civil rights.

"The Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons are now regarded as symbols of the US Administration ' s gross neglect of human rights.

Currently, hundreds of people of different nationalities are kept at Guantanamo Bay in inhuman conditions and the US is adding insult to injury by preventing UN human rights reporters from having access to these prisons to look into their situation," Mottaki said in his letter.

The minister pointed to harsh measures against Muslims and religious minorities in Western states, saying these include statements derogatory to Islam and Muslims, attacks on mosques and long-term detentions without charges.

"The recent summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), in its final statement, strongly condemned the rise in Islamophobia in the world as an evidence of racism and discrimination being practiced in violation of human rights." Mottaki ended his letter with a call on Annan and UN human rights bodies to put an end to these violations.

Outside Influence

Iran tells West to be tolerant of Holocaust views

Reuters

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1417838