IRGC-tied airline likely brought the Wuhan virus to Iran

china-iran-flag

posted by Christopher W. Holton

Foreign Policy magazine has a blockbuster report that sheds light on why Iran has been one of the countries hardest hit by the Wuhan virus.

Not surprisingly, the story reveals double-talk, cover-ups and outright lies on the part of Iranian officials.

But of primary significance perhaps is the fact that the likely culprit is none other than Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the notorious organization that has already been fingered as the Ayatollahs’ chief mechanism for training and equipping jihadist terrorist proxies around the world.

Basically, what happened is that the IRGC-tied Mahan Airlines transported passengers to an from China…including after it was known that the Wuhan virus was an epidemic.

According to the Foreign Policy report, Iran announced the suspension of all flights to and from China on 31 January. But Mahan Air continued to fly to and from China for at least another week, including a flight directly from Wuhan itself.

Moreover, Foreign Policy cites information that indicates Mahan Air flights continued between China and Iran into March!

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/30/mahan-air-iranian-airline-spread-coronavirus-and-lied-about-it/

Wuhan Insanity: The Mullahs Seem Determined to Create as much Misery for the Iranian People as Possible

posted by Christopher W. Holton

Iran has become one of the worst places on earth for the spread of the Wuhan virus.

Unfortunately, unlike most other countries in the world, leaders in Iran have encouraged and even mandated behaviors which are bound to make people sick and spread the illness:

In response to mandatory closures at Iran’s holy shrines where worshipers have been congregating and kissing relics despite the country’s accelerated spread of coronavirus, a religious cleric encouraged more gathering, referring to the World Health Organization as “infidels” and “Jews,” according to a video posted on social media.

Read more at The Foreign Desk…

https://www.foreigndesknews.com/imam-calls-who-infidels-jews-encourages-iranians-to-visit-shrines-despite-coronavirus-spread/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=imam

The Iranians Walk

The Washington Free Beacon is reporting something that the so-called “mainstream” media has chosen to ignore, namely that the Iranians have pulled out of nuclear talks with the P5+1 nations after the US further tightened sanctions on the Islamic Republic, as had been planned for some time.

It will be interesting to say the least to see if the Obama administration “blinks” in order to get the Iranians back to the negotiating table. Up to this point the Iranians have played the Obama administration like a fiddle in the negotiations. Other nations, most notably Red China and Russia, are already moving to ease sanctions on Iran based on the prior announcement of a deal with the Iranians, in return for which the Ayatollahs essentially gave up nothing of note.

It is also very important to note that the $7 billion figure for sanctions relief being thrown around is just the tip of a politico-economic iceberg. Opening up Iran’s oil and gas exports will produce a bonanza many times that figure for the Ayatollahs. Anyone who says any different is either lying or ignorant.

Iranians Pull Out of Nuke Talks

Iranian negotiators abruptly ended nuclear talks with Western powers in Vienna on Friday just a day after the Obama administration announced tighter sanctions on Tehran.

Iran had threatened that new or tighter sanctions would nullify the recently reached Geneva interim deal, which is not yet in effect.

{Snip}///

However, Carney said that the administration continues to oppose new sanctions.

“Let’s be clear also that we continue to oppose passage of new nuclear-related sanctions,” Carney said.

http://freebeacon.com/iranians-pull-out-of-nuke-talks/

 

Why the Iran Nuclear Agreement is NOT Designed as a Distraction from the Obamacare Debacle

There is speculation in the blogosphere and on the airwaves this morning that the timing of the Obama/Kerry/Ayatollahs Agreement was designed to distract Americans from the Obamacare debacle.

This speculation is wrong for two reasons:

1. Look at the timing of the announcement of the agreement with Iran. It was announced late on Saturday night before a short holiday week, hardly the time you’d want to announce something to distract the citizenry from anything. If anything, the timing of the announcement seems to have been designed to cloak the agreement with Iran in hopes that by the time the next news cycle began other news stories would push it down the order.

It was released so late on Saturday night, in fact, that the agendas for the Sunday morning news shows had been set and there wouldn’t be any opportunity for administration officials to be called before the cameras to be questioned about the deal in any depth.

In other words, just the opposite of what a lot of people supposed about the announcement of this horrible deal with Iran, this announcement was designed to be timed so as few people as possible would be paying close attention.

2. The ObamaBomb, as the Center for Security Policy’s Frank Gaffney is calling the agreement with Iran, is as significantly scary in its own way as Obamacare is.

At least theoretically, Obamacare can be undone. The American people can choose to vote new Congressional representatives and a new president in 2016 who have the intention of rolling back or even repealing Obamacare.

That isn’t the case with the agreement with Iran. It is a multilateral capitulation that puts the Ayatollahs firmly on the road to building nuclear bombs. Even if America changed its mind and decided to re-tighten its sanctions against Iran, there is no way that China and Russia would allow such a move to succeed in the UN Security Council. Pandora’s Box has been opened and closing it now won’t do any good.

The American people can elect new leaders who think differently that Obama and Kerry on this, and they will still be powerless to undo what Obama and Kerry have done to the entire western civilization.

The only thing future leaders can do thanks to this agreement is try to prepare for a world in which the foremost state sponsor of Jihadist terrorism–and avowed, sworn enemy of the United States–is a nuclear power. Iran will now be untouchable in much the same way that North Korea became untouchable once Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter facilitated their construction of nuclear weapons through an agreement that fell outside the constitutional requirement for senate ratification.

Once Iran fulfills its dream of becoming a nuclear power, which is perhaps only months away, the world geopolitical landscape will become completely changed forever. Not only will Iran approach superpower status as it weaponizes its ballistic missiles capable of at least hitting all of Europe, but it will increase Iran’s economic power in the world as countries seek to establish ties so as not to be on the bad side of a genocidal regime armed with nuclear weapons. Most significantly, Iran will be able to operate and facilitate its global terror networks under a nuclear umbrella. Never again will striking Iran when a Jihadist organization they sponsor carries out a terrorist attack be an option. You can’t just go bombing a nuclear power, even if that nuclear power is sworn to your (America’s) destruction and has a constitutional mandate to export its Islamic revolution.

Future generations will ask:

How did they ever let it happen?

Chicoms Send Missiles to Iran, Iran Sends Missiles to Jihadis

Chinese MANPAD in use by Iranian forces

Chinese MANPAD in use by Iranian forces

The New York Times of all sources has a report this weekend of Chinese-made MANPAD (Man Portable Air Defense) missiles seized on a Iranian ship headed for Jihadists in Yemen.

This development highlights a few issues:

1. The Red Chinese continue to sell arms to the Iranians, despite sanctions. The Chicoms know that Iran is no threat to them and could care less that Iran supplies arms to terrorists who target the West and others in the Middle East.

2. The Iranians continue to use their petro-wealth to buy arms and they continue to actively send those arms to Jihadists abroad.

The weapons involved are QW-1M surface to air missiles manufactured by a Red Chinese state-owned company. More from the New York Times:

An Iranian dhow seized off the Yemeni coast was carrying sophisticated Chinese antiaircraft missiles, a development that could signal an escalation of Iran’s support to its Middle Eastern proxies, alarming other countries in the region and renewing a diplomatic challenge to the United States.

Among the items aboard the dhow, according to a review of factory markings on weapons and their packing crates, were 10 Chinese heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles, most of them manufactured in 2005.

The missiles were labeled QW-1M and bore stencils suggesting that they had been assembled at a factory represented by the state-ownedChina National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation, sanctioned by the United States for transfers of missile technology to Pakistan and Iran.

The Chinese missiles were part of a larger shipment interdicted by American and Yemeni forces in January, which American and Yemeni officials say was intended for the Houthi rebels in northwestern Yemen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/world/middleeast/seized-arms-off-yemen-raise-alarm-over-iran.html?_r=0

Iran Uses Red China’s High-Tech Trucks to Put Down Protests

The folks over at Wired.com’s Danger Room have posted an interesting article about advanced riot control trucks the Red Chinese have sold to the regime in Tehran to help them put down the opposition protesters there.

The idea that we’re ever going to secure the cooperation of the Chicoms in bringing economic pressure on the Ayatollahs is pure fantasy.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/tehran-uses-chinas-high-tech-trucks-to-squash-protests/#more-22493

The name of the company that manufactures this vehicle is Dalian Eagle Sky Industries, Ltd., a company that has been around since 1952–in other words almost as long as Communist China has been around. In this case, communists embracing capitalism did not make them warm and fuzzy at all…

It appears that Dalian Eagle Sky is not publicly traded, which means that they almost certainly are a subsidiary of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA).

The Red Chinese are profiting from the Iranian regime’s brutality and oppression, not just with these trucks, but with all sorts of weapons contracts and oil and gas projects. Trying to get meaningful economic sanctions against Iran through the UN Security Council is a complete non-starter.