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!
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.
While it is true that Kremlin-backed web sites have published numerous articles about Gabbard, no sober person really believes she is a “Russian asset.” In my opinion the Russians like her because of her positions on U.S. national security, which, if they ever became policy, would essentially open great opportunities for Vladimir Putin to assert Russian influence in the world at America’s expense.
What warrants much more scrutiny are Gabbard’s bizarre, dangerous views on Iran. Her public statements on Iran almost amount to shilling for the Ayatollahs. She clearly admires Iran and she takes a “blame America first” position on relations between Iran and the U.S.
Her expressed knowledge of Iran-U.S. history is superficial at best.
Gabbard: The Ayatollahs’ Favorite Candidate
Her pro-Iran stance, combined with her anti-Semitic support for anti-BDS legislation directed at Israel put her far outside the mainstream of U.S. politics.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing to be outside the mainstream of U.S. politics, but when a politician’s views are so clearly supportive of a sworn enemy of our country, those views merit scrutiny–which is what I aim to do here.
Gabbard makes her views on Iran a feature of her stance on the issues. On her campaign web site she dedicates a page to Iran.
It’s too bad that so much of what she says there just isn’t true.
She starts off by saying she is “against war with Iran.” This is a thinly veiled accusation, frequently made by the Left, against always unnamed people who are supposedly calling for war with Iran. The problem is, no one ever produces evidence of anyone in US policymaking circles calling for going to war with Iran.
What Gabbard is doing here is using scare tactics: “Vote for me because I am against war with Iran, unlike others, who are for war with Iran.”
It’s just flat dishonest.
Another claim that Gabbard makes is that war with Iran would strengthen Al Qaeda. There is just as much evidence that going to war with Iran would weaken Al Qaeda as there is evidence that it would strengthen Iran.
What Gabbard implies by saying war with Iran would strengthen Al Qaeda is that Iran is an enemy of Al Qaeda. That is not true and it never has been.
Gabbard is either ignorant or dishonest on this point.
Gabbard supported the flawed, fraudulent Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA). The JCPOA actually granted Iran a clear path to nuclear weapons, was largely unverifiable and failed to address Iran’s ballistic missile program, and sponsorship of terrorism.
To this day, Gabbard calls for the U.S. to re-enter that deal which Iran has violated and which overtly clears the way for Iran to have nuclear weapons in the future.
This is part of the false choice that Gabbard and those of her ilk deceive the American people into believing they have to make: That false choice is between war with Iran and accepting the flawed JCPOA.
Americans must not buy into such radical Leftist disinformation. It is possible to use American power to deter Iran and bolster our allies in the region. Showing weakness to a regime like that in Tehran encourages aggression. Responding with strength reduces the chances of war. The free world doesn’t have to accept genocidal Ayatollahs armed with nuclear weapons.
Why is Gabbard promoting this false choice?
Gabbard makes an outrageously oversimplified statement about Iran on her web site that shows, at best, a superficial understanding of our history with Iran.
“The history of the United States relationship with Iran is rooted in, and defined by, a decades-long policy of regime change, which began with the CIA-led overthrow of democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq in 1953 in order to keep U.S.-backed Mohammad Reza Shah in power. This ultimately sparked the 1979 Islamic Revolution which grew from strong opposition to years of U.S. interventionist policies in Iran and throughout the region. As Iran’s new anti-U.S. government took power, our threats of intervention grew and Iran started its nuclear program as a direct response to defend against the possibility of another U.S.-led intervention and regime change plot.”
In 1953 the CIA did in fact engineer the overthrow of Mossadeq because he was a Soviet-backed communist. But it is not true that this led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Mossadeq was not an Islamist and the Islamists were not destined to have a role in his regime. The Islamists sought to seize power decades later on their own terms–not to install the regime that Mossadeq would have installed. The two have nothing to do with each other.
Make no mistake, the 1979 Islamic Revolution was carried out to establish an Islamic state ruled by sharia. Period. From the start the Ayatollahs were hostile to the U.S. and violated international law in invading our embassy in Tehran and taking diplomatic personnel hostage.
Iran went on to become the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism. Successive Democrat and Republican administrations have agreed on this. Not only do the Iranians sponsor Hezbollah, an organization responsible for killing hundred of Americans, they sponsor HAMAS, a Sunni jihadist organization bent on replacing Israel with an Islamic state ruled by sharia. As mentioned previously, Iran has also helped Al Qaeda.
Gabbard: Blaming America First
Claiming that the Iranians started their nuclear program as a result fear of U.S. intervention is false and ignores the article in the Iranian constitution that requires that the Iranians export the Islamic revolution worldwide.
In other words, the Iranians have a stated, constitutional policy of intervention.
Rather than intervening in Iran as Gabbard claims in “Blame America First” fashion, the U.S. has in fact shown incredible restraint in dealing with Iran. Consider some of the atrocities committed by Iran over the years.
Here is a partial list of what the Ayatollahs have done over the past 40 years:
On November 4, 1979, Iranian “students” stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 hostages for 444 days until January 1981.
So, while Tulsi Gabbard portrays the Ayatollahs as victims, the fact is they are perpetrators.
Tulsi Gabbard’s statements on Iran are inaccurate at best, and could be classified as outright dishonesty.
Preventing the Ayatollahs from obtaining nuclear weapons is the most urgent national security imperative today. Should the ayatollahs become armed with nuclear weapons, future generations will ask of us: “How did they ever let it happen?”
If Tulsi Gabbard gets elected president, the answer will be obvious.
The best way to deal with an aggressive opponent is from a position of strength. This does not mean that the U.S. should march irretrievably toward war with Iran. In dealing with Iran, history has shown that weakness emboldens them. In other words, weakness increases the likelihood of war and, doubtless, the Ayatollahs would like nothing more than to see Tulsi Gabbard as president of the United States.
On 1 May, Tucker Carlson of Fox News Channel interviewed retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor on Fox News about Iran’s relations with the U.S.
Macgregor endorsed the horribly flawed Iran nuclear deal and essentially implied that the U.S. is but a puppet for Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Disappointingly, Carlson made no effort to challenge Macgregor’s statements and contributed with some straw man arguments of his own that appeared to back up what Macgregor was saying.
The straw men start to appear at the :45 mark of the 5 minute video below when Carlson asks the question of Macgregor, “Is it in our strategic interests to have a conflict with Iran?”
This implies that the only choice is between accepting the flawed Iran nuclear deal or going to war.
Carlson then essentially accuses U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley of calling for war with Iran, something that she never said. Carlson goes on with this line of reasoning by claiming that “many Republicans in Congress and a lot of Democrats believe that it is essential that the United States goes to war with Iran.”
Carlson is either profoundly confused or he is dishonest. No one in Congress has said or written anything close to approaching that it is essential that we go to war with Iran. Some members of Congress, almost all of them on the Republican side, believe in dealing with Iran from a position of strength, but no one is offering the false choice that is offered in this interview, namely that we either accept the Iran nuclear agreement or we go to war.
At the 1:30 mark Macgregor states clearly that opponents of the Iran nuclear deal seek its demise to clear the way for “direct military confrontation.” Carlson neither questions this statement nor challenges Macgregor that there may be other possibilities besides war.
As an aside, at the 1:58 mark, Macgregor gives total credit to the thawing of relations with North Korea to China, offering no evidence to back that claim up and ignoring the role that President Trump’s single-minded toughness likely played in the whole scenario.
Macgregor’s remark at the 2:32 mark is particularly troubling to those of us in the counterjihad movement because he claims that the Europeans see the threat from “Sunni Islamists” and not Iran.
First of all, there is scant evidence that the Europeans have truly recognized the threat from Sunni Jihad in all its forms. But most importantly, Macgregor (in my opinion purposely) ignores the fact that the threat from Iran to Europe is unique in that Iran has an active, robust ballistic missile program and, clearly, a secret, illicit nuclear weapons program. If that’s not a threat at least on a par with the Sunni Jihadist attacks that are plaguing Europe, I don’t know what is.
The biggest straw man that Carlson set up was creating a whole new standard for terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its citizens…at the 2:40 mark of the interview Carlson states that he does not recall any Shia terror attacks “on our soil.” (Emphasis added)
This certainly appears to be a rather amateurish, contrived softball on the part of Carlson for the benefit of Macgregor’s agenda, because by adding the qualifier “on our soil,” all of the Hezbollah attacks in which U.S. citizens were killed are suddenly erased.
Never before has the threshold for determining whether a Jihadist organization was our enemy been whether or not they have launched attacks within the U.S. I’m not sure what Carlson’s motivation could possibly be for this sleight of hand, but it can only be described as misleading and dishonest.
Until the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, Hezbollah had killed more U.S. citizens than any other terrorist organization. Those attacks go back to the early 1980s when a Hezbollah Islamikaze bomber blew up the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut, Lebanon. A short time later, another Hezbollah Islamikaze bomber killed 241 U.S. Marines, soldiers and sailors in a huge attack. But Hezbollah’s attacks on Americans didn’t end there.
In June 1985, Hezbollah terrorists hijacked TWA Flight 847 and murdered U.S. Navy sailor Robert Stethem.
Also in the 1980s, Hezbollah took several Americans hostage, murdering two, U.S. Marine Colonel William Higgins and CIA officer William Buckley.
Hezbollah continued its terror into the 1990s and has been identified as taking part in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. airmen.
Hezbollah created Unit 3800, whose sole purpose was to support Iraqi Shiite militant groups targeting multinational forces there. According to U.S. intelligence, Unit 3800 sent a small number of personnel to Iraq to train hundreds of fighters in-country, while others were brought to Lebanon for more advanced training. Hezbollah also provided funds and weapons to Iraqi militias, but its most dangerous contribution was in the realm of special operations. According to a 2010 Pentagon report, the group gave these militias “the training, tactics and technology to conduct kidnappings [and] small unit tactical operations,” and to “employ sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs), incorporating lessons learned from operations in Southern Lebanon.”
The most prominent example of how this training helped the militias was probably the January 20, 2007, attack on the Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, which resulted in the deaths of four American soldiers. That well-executed operation was thoroughly planned with the help of the Qods Force and Hezbollah, as determined later through the capture of one of Hezbollah’s best trainers in Iraq, Ali Musa Daqduq. Daqduq was heavily involved in training tactical units of Iraqi Shiites and even took part in some of the operations they conducted. He was also responsible for planning other operations such as the aborted kidnapping of a British soldier, and gave specific instructions to those he trained about the use of IEDs.
While it is true that none of these attacks that killed Americans occurred on U.S. soil, there is no doubt that Hezbollah has a major presence in America. In fact, Hezbollah’s presence in the U.S. was detailed in the excellent book Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on U.S. Soil.
This excellent book details the takedown of Hezbollah cells in Charlotte, North Carolina and Dearborn, Michigan. It provides information on 8 global incidents that show that Hezbollah continues to prepare to target Americans around the world. Moreover, it makes it clear that Hezbollah is Iran’s “primary funnel” for Iran’s support of terrorism.
The idea that Tucker Carlson posits at the 2:55 mark in the 1 May interview that the terror threat is “all Sunni” is flat out wrong. But even if his theory was correct, it wouldn’t necessarily insulate America from terrorist attacks directed from Tehran. Iran has a long history of allying itself with Sunni Jihadists whenever convenient or advantageous.
Iran has long been the primary sponsor of HAMAS, the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization. Iran has conducted joint training operations with Sudan, which is ruled by the Sunni Jihadist Omar al-Bashir. Finally, and most importantly, despite what Tucker Carlson and Douglas Macgregor would have you believe, Iran has worked extensively with Al Qaeda, as I detailed years ago in an article for National Review:
The shadowy relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda was first revealed in the report issued by the bipartisan, independent 9/11 Commission back in 2004.
In compiling that exhaustive report, the 9/11 Commission interviewed over 1,000 people from at least 10 countries. Among the conclusions that they reached regarding Iran and al-Qaeda:
‐ In late 1991 or early 1992, in meetings held in Sudan, Iran agreed to train al-Qaeda operatives. Not long afterwards, al-Qaeda terrorists traveled to Iran and received training in explosives. Subsequent to this, al-Qaeda terrorists also traveled to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, where they received training from Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
‐Once Osama Bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan and established terrorist training camps there, Iran facilitated the transit of jihadists to al-Qaeda training camps via Iran. Among other things, Iran did not stamp their passports when they passed through Iran on their way to Afghanistan. This made it impossible for countries to know when someone had attended a training camp in Afghanistan because there was no record. This policy particularly benefited Saudi members of al-Qaeda, and the Commission reported that 8 to 10 of the Saudi 9-11 hijackers had transited through Iran.
‐The Commission said that intelligence reports indicated continued contacts between al-Qaeda and Iranian officials after Bin Laden had moved back to Afghanistan and it recommended that the U.S. government further investigate the ties between al-Qaeda and Iran.
Other reports have reinforced the 9/11 Commission’s findings of al-Qaeda/Iran cooperation in Iraq:
‐ In November 2006, England’s Telegraph newspaper reported Western intelligence agencies as saying that Iran was training al-Qaeda operatives in Tehran and also that Iran had “always maintained close relations with al-Qaeda” despite differences between their Shiite and Sunni philosophies.
‐ In January 2007, Eli Lake reported in the New York Sun that U.S. forces had captured documents detailing Iranian activities in Iraq, including the fact that Iran’s infamous Revolutionary Guards Quds Force was working with al-Qaeda there.
‐ In May 2007, as reported by Bill Roggio at The Weekly Standard’s website, coalition forces captured a courier carrying messages from al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders to senior al-Qaeda leaders who have long been in safe haven in Iran, including Osama Bin Laden’s son, Said Bin Laden.
‐ Also in May 2007, England’s Guardian newspaper reported that Iran was secretly forging tieswith al-Qaeda elements in Iraq in an attempt to launch a summer offensive that would prompt Congress to vote for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
‐ In July 2007, the Financial Times reported that “western officials” said that Iranian territory was being used as a base by al-Qaeda for terrorist operations in Iraq.
‐ In October 2007, the Dallas Morning News reported on warnings from Kurds in northern Iraq of Iranian support for an al-Qaeda affiliate, Ansar al-Islam, in their region of Iraq.
‐ In February 2008, Muhamad Abdullah al-Shahwani, the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and Tamir Al-Tamimi, an advisor to the Iraqi Awakening Councils (a key component in the success of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy), told the Iraqi news service, Azzaman, that Iran was targeting the Awakening Councils with al-Qaeda.
Most of the skepticism over Iranian involvement with al-Qaeda has centered around the fact that Iran is ruled by a Shia Islamic theocracy, whereas al-Qaeda is a Sunni Wahhabi Islamic group. Many are under the mistaken belief that Shiites and Sunnis are irreconcilable arch enemies and will never work with each other. This quaint notion flies in the face of reality.
There are at least three other major examples of Iranian cooperation with militant Sunni organizations besides al-Qaeda:
‐ Hamas is a Sunni Palestinian jihadist terrorist organization. Both Hamas and Iran have acknowledged publicly that, at the very least, Iran funds Hamas. The most recent reports out of Israel indicate that Hamas has personnel training in Iran.
‐ In January 2007, Iran and Sudan, a mostly Sunni nation, exchanged military delegations and subsequently announced a military accord for mutual training, education, and technical cooperation. At the signing ceremony, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, said that Iran’s and Sudan’s mutual enemies were “focused on a strategy of disintegrating the Islamic states by stirring up sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims” and that “the only way to foil the satanic plot is strengthening unity among Muslim nations.”
The Sudanese delegate, Sudanese defense minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein, responded that he appreciated Iran’s role in helping foster solidarity among Muslim nations and said that the Islamic Revolution under leadership of the late Imam Khomeini was the greatest event of the century in the Islamic history, because it opened the way for unity between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
‐ Finally, in November of 2006, a United Nations report included information that Iran had provided the Sunni Islamic Courts in Somalia — a group that has since been linked to al-Qaeda — with “shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, grenade launchers, machine guns, ammunition, medicine, uniforms and other supplies.” The U.N. report also said that Iran may have sought uranium in Somalia.
Virtually nothing that Tucker Carlson and Doug Macgregor passed off as conventional wisdom in their conversation is true.
For example, at the 3:10 mark in the interview, Macgregor points out that the 9/11 terrorists came to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia and North Africa. What he conveniently omits, but which the 9/11 Commission report detailed, was that at least some of those terrorists transited through Iran and were facilitated in their travels by the Iranians:
Iran hosted operational meetings to coordinate activities, facilitate travel by telling its officers not to stamp al Qaeda passports, and even placed surveillance on the hijackers upon return from their training in Iran for a large operation in America to assure confidentiality of the plot was not breached.
At the 3:21 mark of the video, Tucker Carlson creates another straw man when he makes the specious claim that “everyone” is saying the “opposite of what is so clearly true,” namely that the threat is from Sunni Jihad.
I’m not sure who “everyone” is and I am not sure why Tucker Carlson has not been paying attention, but the U.S. has been actively engaged in fighting Sunni Jihadists from Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and Al Shabaab, to name a few, for decades now. While I certainly would not maintain that American policymakers are doing enough to address all aspects of the threat from Sunni Jihad, both violent and civilizational, the problem is most definitely not what Tucker Carlson identifies, that “everyone” is focused on Iran and the Shia threat, which I guess he thinks is non-existent.
At the 3:45 mark of the video, Macgregor makes another inaccurate statement, that Iran’s influence is confined “largely to Syria and Iraq.” This flies in the face of the reality that Iran has, as an article in its shariah-based constitution the requirement that it export the Islamic revolution around the world–and it has done so, not just in Syria and Iraq, but in Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia and, yes, in North America as well. These activities have been well-documented from a variety of sources.
Macgregor then claims that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was solely responsible for Iranian influence in Iraq, as if the Iranians themselves had no hand in the matter. Macgregor elevates “blame America first” to a whole new level with that one.
At 3:57 of the video, Macgregor credits Iran and Russia with defeating the Sunni Jihadists in Syria, completely ignoring the chief role that U.S. forces played in decimating ISIS–in areas of Syria in which the Russians and Iranians had no operations at all. Macgregor then goes on to say that the war in Syria is “effectively over,” something that is not supported by the facts at this time at any rate.
Then Macgregor creates yet another straw man at the 4:08 mark when he says that Israel and Saudi Arabia want America to reverse the “strategic outcomes of the last 15 or 16 years,” something that isn’t possible “without a major war.”
What Saudi Arabia and Israel–and the United States as well–are chiefly focused on is preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Believe it or not, Mr. Carlson and Colonel Macgregor, that is a desirable outcome and opposition to a nuclear-armed Iran is NOT the same as calling for a major war. Nor should it require reversing the “strategic outcomes of the last 15 years.”
The straw man creation truly hits a crescendo at the 4:23 mark when Macgregor shamelessly calls the Iran nuclear agreement the “last obstacle” to war because it “proves we can achieve our strategic aims without going to war.” Carlson does not challenge this statement, much less disagree with it.
Macgregor clearly believes that the Iran nuclear agreement will achieve America’s strategic aims.
Only if those aims include Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, evidently.
Below, please find an example of one of the worst media interviews dealing with U.S. national security that you are likely to ever view. I would expect something like this from MSNBC, not Fox News. Watching it, I learned a lot about Tucker Carlson that I didn’t want to believe.
United Nations M-113 armored personnel carriers and transports participating in Iranian military pass in review.
Can there be a greater indictment of the United Nations? Is this the organization that the world is depending upon to watch over Iran’s nuclear program?
If you or a family member attend Brooklyn College, Fordham University or City University of New York, there are three professors that you should avoid at all costs:
• Alex Vitae
• Heather Gautney
• John Hammond
These three geniuses are featured in an Iranian state-controlled media video segment at a conference in Tehran about the radical leftist Occupy Wall Street movement.
It’s a shame, but the Left in America as it exists today will conference with terrorists, genocidal monsters and outright enemies of liberty to promote their seditious agenda. No where is this more true than on our college campuses.
Your blogger gave a speech on the Muslim Brotherhood in America to a group near Baton Rouge, LA two years ago. A professor at LSU criticized my speech and defended the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate opposition movement. When I checked his CV, it turns out that he had been a visiting professor at the University of Tehran for 3 consecutive summers in recent years.
Clearly the regime in Tehran is running a successful influence campaign on US college campuses, even public university campuses, where they are essentially on the taxpayers’ payroll. The ayatollahs are finding willing fellow travelers and useful idiots in the form of American college professors who are filling the minds of America’s youth with subversive hogwash.
When you click on the link below to view this 2-minute video from Iran’s Press TV via the excellent MEMRI service, pay particular attention to Heather Gautney of Fordham. Notice that she is wearing a head scarf. We are 100% certain that this is not part of Heather’s normal attire. She is willing to bow to Iran’s Shariah law and make herself look like the hypocrite that she is in order to commiserate with those who chant “Death to America.”
These three professors are disgraceful. What they are doing is no different than a visiting delegation heading to Nazi Germany in 1938–except we arguably know MORE about Iran’s evil activities than we had yet realized about Nazi Germany in 1938…
US Professors Attend an Occupy Wall Street Conference in Tehran
Turkey is Islamist and is spiraling toward becoming an outlaw state itself. In ten years, people will be asking how Turkey was ever allowed to remain a member of Turkey. One of the manifestations of this is continuing flirtations with the world’s foremost sponsor of Jihadist terrorism: Iran.
For evidence, see the report below from Iranian state-controlled media:
Turkish premier voices support for Iran nuclear position
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has voiced his country’s unwavering support for Iran’s nuclear energy program in a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“The government and nation of Turkey has always clearly supported the nuclear positions of the Islamic republic of Iran, and will continue to firmly follow the same policy in the future,” Erdogan said during the meeting in Tehran on Thursday.
For his part, Ahmadinejad praised Turkey for its “clear and frank” stance on the issue, saying Tehran and Ankara have historically propped up each other on global matters.
“Iran and Turkey have stood by each other on most of the international scenes and have always independently and seriously confronted the imperialism of Westerners and arrogant powers,” the Iranian president said.
“The arrogant powers never want countries like Iran and Turkey to progress and become powers on the global stage. Thus, we have to be vigilant in the face of their plots,” Ahmadinejad added.
During a Wednesday meeting with Iran’s Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani, Erdogan expressed his country’s readiness to improve ties with Tehran in all fields, particularly in economic and trade sectors.
No one should be allowed to harm the friendly ties between Iran and Turkey, he said.
The Turkish premier arrived in Iran’s capital of Tehran on Wednesday, heading a high-ranking politico-economic delegation on an official two-day visit for talks with senior Iranian officials.
The US, Israel and some of their allies have accused Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program.
The US and the EU have used this pretext to impose sanctions against Iran, while Tel Aviv has issued threats of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Washington has repeatedly threatened Iran with “all options” on the table.
The Islamic Republic has strongly refuted Western allegations regarding its nuclear energy program, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is entitled to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful objectives.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Uruguayan Agriculture Minister Tabaré Agerre announced his country’s readiness to supply rice to Iran in exchange for oil.
“If Iran is willing to barter oil for rice we will do it and we will take out currency from (the operation),” said Agriculture Minister Tabare Aguerre.
Uruguay is a key exporter of rice in Latin America and the seventh largest supplier in the world.
Before the US sanctions against Iran were put in place Iran was the largest consumer of rice from Uruguay. The United States has warned that it could slap sanctions on countries that buy crude from Iran.
Uruguay’s enthusiasm and readiness for new forms of oil deals with Iran in defiance of the United States’ extraterritorial laws is more interesting when remembering that the country is viewed as a US ally in Latin America.
Uruguay exported 90,000 tons of rice to Iran in 2011.
Since taking office in 2005, President Ahmadinejad has expanded Iran’s cooperation with many Latin American states, including Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Brazil.
The strong and rapidly growing ties between Iran and Latin America have raised eyebrows in the US and its western allies since Tehran and Latin nations have forged an alliance against the imperialist and colonialist powers and are striving hard to reinvigorate their relations with the other independent countries which pursue a line of policy independent from the US.
In January, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went on a four-leg tour of Latin America, where he expressed his pleasure in seeing the common positions of Iran and Latin American states on different international issues.
Addressing a press conference upon his arrival from the tour, Ahmadinejad stated that the Islamic Republic is on the same front with most Latin American countries in the campaign against hegemony and injustice.
He lauded the close ties between the two sides, and noted, “Iran’s relations with Latin America are very good, expansive, and strategic, and the country’s interactions and transactions with all the countries of this region are increasing and deepening.”
The tour of Latin America took the Iranian president to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador, where all the countries’ leaders reiterated their support for Iran’s right to access peaceful nuclear technology and defended Tehran against the threats and pressures exerted by the US-led West.
Iran has done a raft of deals in Latin America nations ranging from housing construction agreements with Venezuela to financing for Cuba’s purchases of Iranian-made train cars.
Catholic.org has published a truly horrible article on the conflict between Iran and Israel: Israeli War with Iran May Be More Costly Than Believed.
In that article, the author makes specious assertions about what the Israeli government is telling its people and advises naively that Israel and the West can negotiate with the Iranian regime in good faith to find a peaceful settlement.
Has the person who wrote this article calculated the possible cost of a nuclear armed gang of Mullahs in Tehran? And if war with Iran is costly now, what would the cost be once Iran goes nuclear? Does anyone with a serious view really believe that it is possible to negotiate in good faith with the Ayatollahs after all these years?
To lump the democratically elected government in Israel with the despotic, terrorist regime in Iran as being equally “devil may care,” as the author explicitly states in the article, is totally irresponsible.
The article falsely asserts that the Israeli government is telling people that they have little to fear from a war with Iran. That is a total fabrication. No one in Israel has any illusions about war; they’ve lived it non-stop for decades, in all its forms, and no one is telling anyone that there is nothing to fear. On the other hand, the Israelis know that they have MORE to fear from a NUCLEAR Iran.
As a Catholic I am ashamed that this article appears on Catholic.org. Given the church’s shameful record in facilitating Nazi war criminals making their escape after World War II, it is highly disturbing to me to find an article on Catholic.org essentially equating the two sides-Israel and Iran–with one another.
Finally, when making up your own minds about whether or not Israel or other nations need to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, consider that Iran considers Israel the Little Satan. America is the Great Satan. Iran has a national holiday called “Death to America Day.” Maybe that’s why they armed, trained and supplied Jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan who killed US GIs. I for one am not comfortable with an Iran armed with atomic bombs.
Iran Bulletin 