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June 17, 2009

Iranian Regime Lays the Groundwork for a Crackdown

In Tehran, the Revolutionary Guards and Basij are “disappearing” journalists and prominent reformers — probably starting at the bottom and working their way up.  Like Ramin Ahmadi, I see this as a prelude to a violent crackdown. What can we do about this?  I had given serious consideration to President Obama’s first position, which was that by supporting the opposition, we’d be playing into Ahmedinejad’s hands.  Then I read this piece by Dan Senor and Christian Whiton (former Special Assistant...

Categories Iran
June 3, 2009

Axis, Schmaxis

The Wall Street Journal reports more evidence of cooperation between North Korea and Iran: In a 2008 paper published by the Korea Economic Institute, Dr. Christina Lin of Jane’s Information Group noted that “Increased visits to Iran by DPRK nuclear specialists in 2003 reportedly led to a DPRK-Iran agreement for the DPRK to either initiate or accelerate work with Iranians to develop nuclear warheads that could be fitted on the DPRK No-dong missiles that the DPRK and Iran were jointly...

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Proliferation/WMD
March 21, 2009

Iran Still Not Feeling the Whole ‘Hope and Change’ Thing

The idea of an outreach to the Iranian people would have made sense — up to a point — had Obama spoken through the despised mullahs rather than to them. Yet the great irony of Obama’s attempt to connect with Iranians is that it probably convinced them that he’s completely out of touch with their aspirations and reinforced popular notions of America as decadent, weak, and self-absorbed: Khamenei set the bar impossibly high — demanding an overhaul of U.S. foreign...

Categories Iran
May 15, 2008

Today, In Some Parallel Universe

Addressing the Israeli Knesset today, President Bush apparently said some inflammatory things: “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this...

Categories Appeasement/Iran/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
October 20, 2007

Fighting Hard Power With Soft: Sanctions, Iran, and Burma

Burma’s generals, confident that they have reestablished the rule of terror, have just relaxed their  curfews and bans on public assemblies.  It’s exceedingly depressing to write about yet another ongoing atrocity that no one has the courage or vision to really fight, and Burma is another of those atrocities.  If the Administration thinks that modest sanctions like these will end the slaughter, it’s fooling no one: The president directed the government to freeze any U.S.-controlled assets held by 11 senior...

Categories Iran/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized
February 14, 2007

A Bus Bombing Even I Can Like

A car loaded with explosives blew up near a bus carrying members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards in southeastern Iran, killing 18 of them, the state-run news agency reported today. The car stopped in front of the bus near Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan Province, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. It called the attack a terrorist operation and said the car’s occupants fled on motorbikes seconds before the car exploded.  [The Independent; ht Gateway Pundit] The Al-Quds are...

Categories Iran
February 1, 2007

Axis, Schmaxis (6)

North Korea and Iran are cooperating in developing long-range missiles, the deputy director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said yesterday. Army Brig. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly said during a speech that North Korea test fired a long-range Taepodong missile in July, and Iran is working on a space launcher that would help develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could hit the U.S. “Not only North Korea, but Iran has shown some significant developments in their [own] missile systems,” Gen....

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/WMD
January 26, 2007

Scandal

Why on earth has it taken this long to let our soldiers kill the people who are killing them?  Micromanaging their fight against a hostile force transforms the rules of engagement into a suicide pact. The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran’s influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism...

Categories Iran/Terrorism/Iraq
January 25, 2007

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 5

This blog  has previously tracked reports of  nuclear and missile  co-development between Iran and  North  Korea;  London’s Daily  Telegraph is now  reporting a widening expansion of Iranian-North Korean nuclear cooperation. North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year. Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last...

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Terrorism/Iraq/WMD
January 23, 2007

Lebanon on the Altar

Michael Totten reports, and has some pretty shocking pictures, and it’s depressingly doubtful that democracy can survive there. The Cedar Revolution will become a victim of Iranian infanticide and the amivalence of Europe, the United States, and other democracies to support it in its hour of need. The lesson comes through clearly: investing your nation’s survival in the United Nations and its French peacekeepers is like investing your savings in a partnership with that exiled Nigerian general who keeps e-mailing...

Categories "United" Nations/Iran/Islam/Terrorism/Iraq
January 9, 2007

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 17

After North Korea showed up at last month’s disarmament talks just long enough to give the United States the finger, you wouldn’t expect us to go wobbly on our financial measures against North Korea’s financing of WMD’s, counterfeit currency, and other illegal proceeds.  With the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1695 and 1718, those measurements have become requirements.  The good news is that we’re not going wobbly. Treasury, mainly in the physical form of Undersecretary Stuart Levey, has been...

Categories "United" Nations/Axis of Evil/Counterfeiting/Iran/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD
November 6, 2006

Iran Tests North Korean-Made Missiles

Mingi Hyun has cool pics and a YouTube of Iran’s latest missile test.  The  clarity of the photographs is remarkable as the zaniness of the Iranians.  If you observe, you will note something that looks almost like an Mil Mi-8/14/17 flying around, but the dorsal area looks different.  Does anyone know just what the heck that thing  is?  It’s unidentified, it’s flying, and it’s an object.

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Technology/WMD
October 16, 2006

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 4

Iran reacts to U.N.S.C.R. 1718: “Some Western countries have turned the U.N. Security Council into a weapon to impose their hegemony and issue resolutions against countries that oppose them,” Ahmadinejad was quoted by the state-run television as saying Monday. “They use the council for threats and intimidation,” the television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. But Iran “won’t be intimidated,” he said. “Mounting threats and pressures against Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities won’t cause even one iota of hesitation in the will of...

Categories "United" Nations/Axis of Evil/Iran/WMD
August 8, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 3

Two interesting reports from the region this week. One is this report that Japan is considering money laundering sanctions against North Korea, similar to those the United States has used with apparent success. There is also a new report that China, directly confronted by U.S. satellite photos, forced the cancellation of a flight that was to have carried North Korean missile parts to Iran. While I doubt China would sign on to a general boycott or sanctions effort, China is...

Categories Axis of Evil/China/China & Korea/Iran/Japan/Japan & Korea/NK Economics
July 21, 2006

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 3

There is a theory in this city that a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim terrorist group would not dream of establishing an operational relationship with a secular Sunni Muslim terror-supporting tyrant or a fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tyrant. Believers in that theory are going to have real trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that the latter fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tryant’s minions joined a group of pork-eating, soju-swilling aetheist idolator infidels for a night of fireworks on the Fourth of July....

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Terrorism (NK)/Uncategorized/WMD