No US diplomat was at the table during Ahmadinejad’s speech. Do we know diplomacy or what?

Ahmadinejad: ‘American empire’ nearing its end

(CNN) — In a blistering speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed “a few bullying powers” for creating the world’s problems and said the “American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road.”

And while he insisted Iran’s nuclear activities are peaceful, Ahmadinejad blamed the same powers for seeking to hinder it “by exerting political and economic pressures on Iran, and threatening and pressuring” the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Those powers, meanwhile, are building or maintaining nuclear stockpiles themselves, unchecked by anyone, he said.

The Iranian leader did make some good points about US aggression and smugness. If the tables were turned, we’d probably spend a bit more time listening to what he had to say. And if things keep going the way they are, then it becomes a distinct possibility… unless Unstable/Unable win in November. We can then probably kiss Russia, Iran and our own asses good-bye.

When you vote in someone like Bush to run your country, is there any surprise that Iran, a nation long-labeled “rogue”, is able to take the high road over the U.S.?

We have sunk so low.

Iranian president says no war with US, Israel

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that he sees no possibility of a war between his country and the United States or Israel.

He also predicted Israel would collapse without Iranian action.

“I assure you that there won’t be any war in the future,” Ahmadinejad told a news conference during a visit to Malaysia for a summit of developing Muslim nations.

Looks like Ahmadinejad has us right where he wants us - over a barrel.

Republicans might be slowly turning our great nation into a third-world country, but it doesn’t give Ahmadinejad the right to kick us why we’re down. Calling our currency “paper”, and saying we should be paying more for oil isn’t very nice.

What in the world have we done to make him hate us so much?

Report: Iran’s president says oil prices too low

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran’s hard-line president declared that crude oil prices, now above $115 a barrel, are too low, state media reported Saturday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an oil and gas exhibition in Tehran on Friday that he thought the commodity still had to “discover its real value,” according to the Web site of Iran’s state-run television.

Oil prices have hit all-time highs above $115 a barrel in recent weeks, amid reports that oil and gasoline reserves in the United States were lower than expected and as the dollar sinks to record lows.

There are still people out there who don’t realize that when situations arise that require great care and diplomacy, but aren’t given those considerations, shit like this comes back to bite us on the ass later on.

Shoddy? Since it’s the Bush administration we’re dealing with here, I’m sure Ahmadinejad meant to say ’shitty’. And seeing as how the older report appeared to be pulled out of someone’s ass, that would be quite more fitting.

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday called a U.S. intelligence report that downgraded Iran as a nuclear threat “a declaration of victory” for the Iranian nuclear program.
[...]

During a televised speech made from Ilam province in western Iran, Ahmadinejad said earlier reports from the United States had been based on “shoddy intelligence.”

The Bush administration has for years warned that Iran’s development of nuclear power plants and enriched uranium masked an effort to produce an nuclear bomb.

Top officials have called the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran “unacceptable.”

But in a report released Monday, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran had suspended nuclear weapons work in 2003 and was unlikely to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb until at least 2010. The assessment reverses a 2005 National Intelligence Estimate that found the Islamic Republic was “determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure.”

I think we can relate. Seven years ago, they gave us an election. And all we got out of it was a worthless president!

It’s all starting to make sense though. Sounds like Chimperz wants to put our currency on par with how he feels about our Constitution.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that OPEC’s members have expressed interest in converting their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating U.S. dollar, which he called a “worthless piece of paper.”
[...]

“All participating leaders showed an interest in changing their hard currency reserves to a credible hard currency,” Ahmadinejad said. “Some said producing countries should designate a single hard currency aside from the U.S. dollar … to form the basis of our oil trade.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez echoed this sentiment Sunday on the sidelines of the summit, saying “the empire of the dollar has to end.”

“Don-t you see how the dollar has been in free-fall without a parachute?” Chavez said, calling the euro a better option.

Yeah, everybody’s got a bomb
We could all die any day
But before I’ll let that happen
I’ll dance my life away

Better hurry up with that Mukasey confirmation… Iran’s centrifuge tally has just hit the big 3,000.

“We have now reached 3,000 machines,” Ahmadinejad told thousands of Iranians in Birjand in eastern Iran, in a show of defiance of international demands to halt the program believed to be masking the country’s nuclear arms efforts.
[...]

Centrifuges are used in enriching uranium, a process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or material for a warhead.

Associated Press

By Rick Perlstein
Campaign for America’s Future

Here’s a big question that I want to start addressing in upcoming posts: what is conservative rule doing to our nation’s soul? How is it rewiring our hearts and minds? What kind of damage are they doing to the American character? And can we ever recover?

So: what is the American character? Hard to say, of course. But I daresay we know it when we see it. Let me put before you an illustrative example: one week in September of 1959, when, much like one week in September of 2007, American soil supported a visit by what many, if not most Americans agreed was the most evil and dangerous man on the planet.

Nikita Khrushchev disembarked from his plane at Andrews Air Force Base to a 21-gun salute and a receiving line of 63 officials and bureaucrats, ending with President Eisenhower. He rode 13 miles with Ike in an open limousine to his guest quarters across from the White House. Then he met for two hours with Ike and his foreign policy team. Then came a white-tie state dinner. (The Soviets then put one on at the embassy for Ike.) He joshed with the CIA chief about pooling their intelligence data, since it probably all came from the same people-then was ushered upstairs to the East Wing for a leisurely gander at the Eisenhowers’ family quarters.

[...]

Had America suddenly succumbed to a fever of weak-kneed appeasement? Had the general running the country-the man who had faced down Hitler!-proven himself what the John Birch Society claimed he was: a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy?

No. Nikita Khrushchev simply visited a nation that had character. That was mature, well-adjusted. A nation confident we were great. We had our neuroses, to be sure-plenty of them.

But look now what we have lost. Now when a bad guy crosses our threshhold, America becomes a pants-piddling mess.

Iran’s president speaks at a great American university. That university’s president, in the act of introducing his lecture, whines like a baby bereft of his pacifier that his guest is a big meany poopy-head. City Council members, too, and a rabbi, make like ten-year-olds, giving their press conference in front of a sign with his face struck through and the legend “Go To Hell.” Up in Albany, Democratic leader Sheldon Silver treat the students of this great university like ten years olds, threatening to defund Columbia University lest censors like himself prove unable to shut the poor children’s ears to difficult speech. (What, was he worried they’d be convinced, join the jihad?) Then a Republican presidential candidate chimes in-bye, bye, federalism!’saying Washington should starve the school of funds, too. American diplomats used to have the gumption to spar face to face with dreaded foreign leaders. Now they go on cable TV and whine about what a “travesty” it would have been to visit a site which properly should belong to the world. Hundreds of foreign nationals died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 (maybe even some of the Iranian!). Yet we have to systematically repress that-as if our national ego would crack like fine crystal if we were forced to acknowledge the mingling of American blood with that of mere foreigners.

read more HERE

from Media Bistro

Leading off the season premiere of 60 Minutes tonight, Scott Pelley interviewed the president of Iran. The interview occurred Thursday in Tehran, just as the news about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s desire to visit ground zero was breaking here in the U.S. Ahmadinejad will be in New York this week for the U.N. General Assembly.

Toward the end of the segment, the Iranian president joked that the discussion was turning into more of an interrogation than an interview:

Pelley: “but when I ask you a question as direct as ‘will you pledge not to test a nuclear weapon?’ you act…you dance all around the question. You never say ‘yes,’ you never say ‘no.’”

Ahmadinejad: “well, thank you for that. You are like a CIA investigator and…”

Pelley: “I Am Just A Reporter. I Am A Simple, Average American Reporter.”

Ahmadinejad: “This is not Guantanamo Bay. This is not a Baghdad prison. This is not a secret prison in Europe. This is not Abu Ghraib this is Iran. I’m the president of this country!”

By NAHAL TOOSI
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, facing protests and tabloid headlines calling him “evil” and a “madman,” stirred debate Monday about free speech ahead of his appearance at Columbia University.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger has promised to grill Ahmadinejad on subjects such as human rights, the Holocaust and Iran’s disputed nuclear program. The Iranian leader previously has called the Holocaust “a myth” and called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

Bollinger said Monday it was a question of free speech and academic freedom.

“It’s extremely important to know who the leaders are of countries that are your adversaries. To watch them to see how they think, to see how they reason or do not reason. To see whether they’re fanatical, or to see whether they are sly,” he told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Ahmadinejad is to speak and answer questions at a Columbia forum Monday, followed by a scheduled address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

The New York Daily News’ front page on Monday read: “THE EVIL HAS LANDED.” The New York Post called Ahmadinejad the “Madman Iran Prez” and a “guest of dishonor.”

read more HERE

By PAT MILTON
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked permission to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site when he comes to New York City next week, but the request was denied, a police official said Wednesday.

The U.S. also has denied a visa to Iran’s United Nations ambassador in Geneva to attend next week’s General Assembly meeting because he was involved in the 1979 U.S. hostage crisis, a U.N. official said.

Ahmadinejad, who is arriving Sunday to address the United Nations’ General Assembly, had asked this month for permission to visit the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, police spokesman Paul Browne said.

The request to enter the fenced-in site was rejected because of ongoing construction there, Browne said.

“Requests for the Iranian president to visit the immediate area would also be opposed by the NYPD on security grounds,” Browne said.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, told reporters Wednesday that the United States would not support Iran’s attempt to use the site for a “photo op.”

read more HERE

By K.T. Arasu
Rueters

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Iran may be dueling with Washington over its nuclear ambitions, but when the country desperately needed corn last month, it turned to the United States.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made no secret of his disdain for U.S. President George W. Bush, calling him a donkey and even Satan, but when millers in Caracas need wheat to make bread, they go shopping for American supplies.

Nations like Iran, Venezuela, Syria and Cuba have icy diplomatic ties with Washington but they do not let politics stand in the way of importing competitively-priced food or feed ingredients from the United States.

The world’s largest exporter of corn, soybeans and wheat, the United States ships its agricultural commodities across the globe, to friends and foes from Spain to Iraq to Sudan.

“They want to make sure they feed their people. They don’t want to screw with that. Politics is politics,” said veteran grains analyst Don Roose of brokerage U.S. Commodities.

“They know they are buying from people they don’t like, but they don’t want a revolt because they can’t feed the people,” he said, adding that tight global supplies of wheat was also pushing some countries to buy from the United States.

read more HERE

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday Iran would never yield to international pressure to suspend its uranium enrichment work.

“Iran will never abandon its peaceful (nuclear) work,” Ahmadinejad told state television. “Our nuclear work is legal and why should we stop it?”

Iran says its nuclear program is meant to generate electricity so it can export more of its oil wealth — not to make bombs, as Western powers suspect after years of Iranian secrecy and evasions.

Two sets of sanctions have been imposed on the Islamic state for defying repeated U.N. resolutions demanding it suspend all nuclear fuel activity.

Ahmadinejad said U.N. resolutions could not prevent the Islamic state from obtaining nuclear technology.

“Let’s say they issue the resolution 300 … what will happen? It should be remembered that Iran is obtaining nuclear technology,” Ahmadinejad said. “They have to eventually accept that.”

In an attempt to avert tougher sanctions, Tehran has agreed to increase its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency to clarify the scope of its nuclear work.

read more here

Journalism has always played a vital role in society. In recent years though we’ve seen (American) journalism become pretty much useless, with lies being reported as facts. Instead of honest reporting, we’re getting biased opinions. It’s a sad place we’ve come to be when we can’t even turn on a TV, or open a newspaper, without wondering whether the reports within are fact-based or spin.

At least with governments, we’ve come to expect a fair amount of untruths. The whole point of journalism is to report on FACTS. TV news programs and newspapers shouldn’t be allowed to use the word ‘news’ if it’s based on some reporter’s opinion!

Where does the truth lie in the following? Your guess is as good as mine.

Iran: No secret arms deal with Syria

Syrian and Iranian Presidents, Bashar Assad, right, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, front.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman on Sunday dismissed as a “media game” recent reports of a secret arms deal with Syria allegedly made in return for an agreement that Damascus would not hold peace talks with Israel.

Mohammad Ali Hosseini refused to provide confirmation of the deal and questioned how the media would know about it if it was confidential.

“This is a media game,” said Hosseini during his weekly news briefing. “It is not confirmed.”

The Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported Saturday that Iran would provide $1 billion to Syria for advanced weapons procurement and would assist the country with nuclear research and the development of chemical weapons, with the understanding that Damascus would not negotiate peace with Israel.

The deal was allegedly signed Thursday when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Syria, said the newspaper. Israeli media later rebroadcast the report.
[...]

Both countries face U.S. accusations of fueling violence in Iraq and supporting Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrilla group, which Washington labels a terrorist organization. They are also accused of supporting militant anti-Israeli Palestinian groups, like Hamas.

Article at Yahoo! News

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
from The New York Times

Iran is in the throes of one of its most ferocious crackdowns on dissent in years, with the government focusing on labor leaders, universities, the press, women’s rights advocates, a former nuclear negotiator and Iranian-Americans, three of whom have been in prison for more than six weeks.

The shift is occurring against the backdrop of an economy so stressed that although Iran is the world’s second-largest oil exporter, it is on the verge of rationing gasoline. At the same time, the nuclear standoff with the West threatens to bring new sanctions.

The hard-line administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, analysts say, faces rising pressure for failing to deliver on promises of greater prosperity from soaring oil revenue. It has been using American support for a change in government as well as a possible military attack as the pretext to hound his opposition and its sympathizers.

Some analysts describe it as a “cultural revolution,” an attempt to roll back the clock to the time of the 1979 revolution, when the newly formed Islamic republic combined religious zeal and anti-imperialist rhetoric to try to assert itself as a regional leader.

Equally noteworthy is how little has been permitted to be discussed in the Iranian news media. Instead, attention has been strategically focused on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s political enemies, like the former president, Mohammad Khatami, and the controversy over whether he violated Islamic morals by deliberately shaking hands with an unfamiliar woman after he gave a speech in Rome.

Mr. Khatami, the lost hope of Iran’s reform movement, felt compelled to rebut the accusation because such a handshake is religiously suspect, but contended that the crowd seeking to congratulate him for his speech was so tumultuous that he could not distinguish between the hands of men and women. Naturally a video clip emerged, showing the cleric in his typical gregarious style bounding over to the first woman who addressed him on the orderly sidewalk, shaking her hand and chatting amicably.

read more at THE NEW YORK TIMES

By Lily Galili, Haaretz Correspondent
from Haaretz.com (link below)

Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the last shah of Iran, suggests taking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to annihilate Israel very seriously. However, he suggests refraining from military action against his country.

That’s not what scares the regime there,” he explains. “What scares it are the opponents from within, who should be strengthened. An attack from outside could give this regime carte blanche to do anything, and even lead to a nationalist awakening that would bring into its camp people who do not belong to it now.”

Pahlavi spoke with Haaretz at a gathering in Prague of dissidents from 17 countries that was sponsored by the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center. For the past 19 years he has lived in Washington, where he married a woman of Iranian descent and fathered three daughters. He operates from the exile he entered at age 19 like a bench player who practices determinedly for the moment when he is called to step back onto the court. Two years ago he even went on a hunger strike to demand the release of political prisoners, even though he cannot escape the fact that during his father’s reign there were many political prisoners in Iran.

I am not saying there were no mistakes made under the previous regime,” he says. “But you have to remember the context of that time. Those were the days of the Cold War, and there was in Iran a sense that the Soviet Union wanted to turn us into its satellite. I can understand why the public went along with the revolution, but I also know that no one wished for the tragic result of today.”

Iranian exiles, who come from polar opposite groups, have a complicated attitude toward the Shah’s son, and their interests truly overlap only in the desire to overthrow the current regime.

Asked whether he supports a return of the monarchy, Pahlavi replies diplomatically. “The people will decide,” he says. “One of the options is indeed a parliamentary monarchy. That suits the character of our people. In heterogeneous societies, the monarchy is a symbol of unity”.

read more at HAARETZ.COM