by Gareth Porter
Iran offered in 2003 to accept peace with Israel and cut off material assistance to Palestinian armed groups and to pressure them to halt terrorist attacks within Israel's 1967 borders, according to the secret Iranian proposal to the United States.
The two-page proposal for a broad Iran-U.S. agreement covering all the issues separating the two countries, a copy of which was obtained by IPS, was conveyed to the United States in late April or early May 2003. Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies who provided the document to IPS, says he got it from an Iranian official earlier this year but is not at liberty to reveal the source.
The two-page document contradicts the official line of the George W. Bush administration that Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel and the sponsorship of terrorism in the region.
by Gareth Porter
Iran offered in 2003 to accept peace with Israel and cut off material assistance to Palestinian armed groups and to pressure them to halt terrorist attacks within Israel's 1967 borders, according to the secret Iranian proposal to the United States.
The two-page proposal for a broad Iran-U.S. agreement covering all the issues separating the two countries, a copy of which was obtained by IPS, was conveyed to the United States in late April or early May 2003. Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies who provided the document to IPS, says he got it from an Iranian official earlier this year but is not at liberty to reveal the source.
The two-page document contradicts the official line of the George W. Bush administration that Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel and the sponsorship of terrorism in the region.
Really, revel. That is not the way I read it:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OH, I see.The removal of the regime. And what will replace that regime?
Iran leader urges destruction of 'cancerous' Israel
December 15, 2000
Web posted at: 6:33 AM EST (1133 GMT)
TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) -- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Friday for the destruction of Israel, describing it as a "cancerous tumor" in the Middle East.
"Iran's stance has always been clear on this ugly phenomenon (Israel). We have repeatedly said that this cancerous tumor of a state should be removed from the region," Khamenei told thousands of Muslim worshippers in Tehran.
"The Palestinian issue is not an internal Israeli matter. It involves the interests of the whole Islamic world, including Iran. All should strive to return that piece of land to Islamic hands."
Khamenei offered an alternative solution which he said might be more "internationally acceptable":
"Palestinian refugees should return and Muslims, Christians and Jews could choose a government for themselves, excluding immigrant Jews.
"No one will allow a bunch of thugs, lechers and outcasts from London, America and Moscow to rule over the Palestinians," the ayatollah said in remarks broadcast on state radio.
He praised the 11-week Palestinian uprising against Israel, in which more than 320 people have been killed, mainly Palestinians.
"The new Palestinian generation has learned that struggle is the way to victory, not negotiations," Khamenei said, referring to the deadlocked U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace process.
Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights
******************************************************
Religion rules in Iran. It is clear that not only the "regime" should be changed according to the Ayatollah but, as is stated in the body of the report- "immigrant jews should be excluded".
I wonder if the Iranian thugs have some of the ovens in World War II. That would get rid of those "immigrant Jews, all right!!
How will the Iranian Islamo-Fascists Thugs exclude "the immigrant Jews"?
Will they set up the furnaces like the SS did or will they use the old, slit the throat method?
0 Replies
revel
1
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Sat 27 May, 2006 05:55 am
At one time Jordan was against Israel, they have since accepted peace with Israel. The article you are pointing out is before Iran offered peace to Israel in 2003.
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blueflame1
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Sun 28 May, 2006 01:28 pm
Russia: No Use Of Force Against Iran
AP | May 28 2006
The chief of Russia's security council, Igor Ivanov, said Sunday that Russia opposes any use of force against Iran over its controversial nuclear program, the Iranian state-run television reported.
"Unlike the U.S., Russia believes Iran's nuclear program needs to be resolved only through dialogue. Any use of force will further complicate the issue and will cause tension in the region," Ivanov was quoted as saying by the television.
Ivanov made the comments during a meeting with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.
Ivanov arrived in Tehran late Saturday to discuss Iran's contentious nuclear program, including incentives to be offered as a reward if the Islamic Republic suspends uranium enrichment and possible sanctions if it continues.
His visit took place as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed Iran's nuclear standoff with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the phone, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Ivanov's trip came ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers from six world powers scheduled next week to decide on a package of incentives for Iran to stop enriching uranium.
The five Security Council members - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - plus Germany appeared to have narrowed their differences on a package of rewards or sanctions for Iran during high-level talks in London on Wednesday.
Russia and China have opposed calls by the United States, Britain and France for a resolution that would threaten sanctions and be enforceable by military action if Iran does not give up enriching uranium.
But a compromise is emerging that would rule out military action and call for new consultations among the five permanent Security Council members on any further steps against Iran, diplomats said.
Iran has said it will not give up its right to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel as allowed by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory.
The U.S. and some of its allies accuse Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran has denied this, saying its nuclear program is merely to generate electricity.
Iran announced April 11 that it had enriched uranium for the first time, using 164 centrifuges. Enrichment can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or material for a warhead - but tens of thousands of centrifuges are needed to do either on a large scale.
Iran intends to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges by late 2006, and then expand the program to 54,000 centrifuges.
But Iran's media quoted Iran's ambassador to the U.N., Javad Zarif, as saying Sunday that Tehran could limit enrichment as a way to resolve the mounting crisis with the West.
"We will agree to limited enrichment," the daily Etemad Melli, or National Confidence, quoted Zarif as saying.
0 Replies
BernardR
1
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Wed 31 May, 2006 02:34 am
Revel wrote:
At one time Jordan was against Israel, they have since accepted peace with Israel. The article you are pointing out is before Iran offered peace to Israel in 2003.
I am unaware that Iran offered peace to Israel in 2003. Do you have a link?
0 Replies
revel
1
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Wed 31 May, 2006 06:34 am
BernardR wrote:
Revel wrote:
At one time Jordan was against Israel, they have since accepted peace with Israel. The article you are pointing out is before Iran offered peace to Israel in 2003.
I am unaware that Iran offered peace to Israel in 2003. Do you have a link?
Blueflame already left a link but here is another one
Also you can do a google search to find more links.
0 Replies
Brandon9000
1
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Wed 31 May, 2006 07:39 am
revel wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:
blueflame1 wrote:
Iran Proposal to US Offered Peace With Israel
by Gareth Porter
Iran offered in 2003 to accept peace with Israel and cut off material assistance to Palestinian armed groups and to pressure them to halt terrorist attacks within Israel's 1967 borders, according to the secret Iranian proposal to the United States.
The two-page proposal for a broad Iran-U.S. agreement covering all the issues separating the two countries, a copy of which was obtained by IPS, was conveyed to the United States in late April or early May 2003. Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies who provided the document to IPS, says he got it from an Iranian official earlier this year but is not at liberty to reveal the source.
The two-page document contradicts the official line of the George W. Bush administration that Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel and the sponsorship of terrorism in the region.
...The two-page document contradicts the official line of the George W. Bush administration that Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel...
Contradicting:
Quote:
Iran's hard-line president called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and said a new wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state, state-run media reported Wednesday....
as reported at Iran Leader Calls for Israel's Destruction
as already been stated, this statement "wipe Israel off the face of the map" is a mistranslation. If they got one part of the translation wrong, the rest the quotes are suspect as well.
A Goldman Sachs projection that oil prices could top $100 a barrel in the event of a major supply disruption could be conservative in the current tight market, said a senior executive with the investment bank.
Other energy experts told an energy forum late on Saturday in Kuwait that global oil market fundamentals point to generally higher energy prices as demand growth outstrips new supply.
"We thought that maybe somewhere within $50 to $70 (oil price) we might get the economic damage and that it would take a major, not a minor, disruption to get to the $105 number," said Arjun Murti, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs.
"If we truly did have a major outage in a major exporting country then $105 will prove conservative," Murti added at the National Bank of Kuwait energy forum.
Murti said when Goldman Sachs issued a projected range of $50 to $105 a barrel in March 2005, actual prices hovered around $55 a barrel. Oil prices in New York and London traded above $70 Friday.
Katherine Spector, head of energy research for JP Morgan Securities, said market fundamentals point to petroleum prices reverting to a higher mean in coming years. "The world is running out of easy barrels of crude production," she said, adding that marginal costs of production are rising.
Both Spector and Murti said one factor that the oil markets will remain focused on for the rest of this year would be the US hurricane season after Katrina caused big disruptions last year to refining capacity on the US Gulf Coast.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had shown "energy markets are highly susceptible to a supply shock," Murti noted.
Spector said another severe hurricane season predicted for this year was bullish for oil and products prices as are changes to US diesel and gasoline specifications this year. But she said among factors that are bearish for the market are relatively comfortable global oil inventories.
Asian demand
Other delegates told the forum that global oil market fundamentals pointed to the possibility of higher prices given that global oil demand is robust and tends to grow every year, especially due to firm demand from China and India.
Edward Morse, executive adviser with Hess Energy Trading Co., said that between 1965 and 2004, total Asian oil demand has risen 620 percent while world oil demand was up by 158 percent.
"Asian energy demand growth, especially oil demand, has been truly extraordinary," Morse said, adding that most analysts believe incremental Asian demand growth drives the market.
On the supply side, spare capacity is gone, traditional areas of oil production are mature and areas with growth are geopolitically or demographically challenged, Murti noted.
"We believe that oil markets are in the early stages of what we are calling a multi-year 'super-spike' period," Murti added.
Murti said total non-OPEC crude supply has grown in recent years mostly due to Russia, but excluding Russia the supply from producers that are outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has been essentially flat in recent years.
"Effective production capacity - that what actually can come out of the ground today - is pretty close to zero," he said. "Our point is not that the OPEC countries are running out of oil. But the question is, are we to believe that real-time production capacity is going to grow, year in and year out, to match economic growth?"
Source: Reuters
Story from Thanh Nien News
Published: 29 May, 2006, 10:12:36 (GMT+7)
Copyright Thanh Nien News
U.S., China, Russia, EU-3 Agree on Iran Incentives (Update1)
June 1 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S., China, Russia and three European powers have agreed on ``far-reaching proposals'' in an attempt to persuade Iran to curtail its nuclear program, Britain's top diplomat said in Vienna.
``We believe that they offer Iran the chance to reach a negotiated agreement based on cooperation,'' U.K. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told reporters late today, speaking on behalf of the six governments. ``We are prepared to resume negotiations should Iran resume suspension of all enrichment and reprocessing activities as required by'' United Nations nuclear inspectors.
The U.S. yesterday offered to join France, Britain and Germany in direct talks with Iran if the Iranian government stops enriching uranium, a technical step that can lead to building a bomb.
Iran risks economic and political isolation in an international confrontation over its nuclear aims.
Possible punitive action in the UN Security Council would be halted if Iran cooperates, Beckett said. A U.S. official said yesterday that sanctions targeted at Iranian government officials and organizations, rather than the Iranian people, were one possible punishment.
Beckett didn't offer any details of what incentives Iran's leadership will be offered. Iran may be extended European help in building a commercial nuclear reactor, officials close to the International Atomic Energy Agency said two weeks ago.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other ministers flanked Beckett as she delivered the joint statement at the British Embassy in Vienna.
Beckett said the governments had agreed that if Iran failed to halt uranium enrichment, ``further steps'' would be taken in the Security Council.
0 Replies
BernardR
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Thu 1 Jun, 2006 11:10 pm
xingu's post, under the section--Asian demand---shows clearly why China is adamantly opposed to harsh actions against Iran. The Chinese are very dependent on oil from Iran.
It is also quite clear that any military action, which might block the strait of Hormus and make it impossible for most of the Middle Eastern Oil to be delivered to anyone, would cause a world wide depression.
The Iranians, of course, would bear most of the blame for the fallout.
Europe and Asia understand the stakes involved and now back the idea of "direct talks".
Some intelligence analysts believe that Iran's actions are quite different from those of other countries which have developed Nuclear Weapons. Other countries have not repeatedly boasted--WE are developing nuclear weapons--we are developing nuclear weapons---those other countries went ahead and developed nuclear weapons and the first clue to their development was often a "Nuclear Test" in the new developing country.
Iran appears as if it using the "threat" of development of Nuclear Weapons in order to obtain concessions from Europe and the West.
We shall see when the talks are in progress.
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Asherman
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Fri 2 Jun, 2006 09:31 am
Actually, Bernard, Iran's use of its nuclear program to blackmail and threaten as a negotiation gambit closely follows the DPRK model. Iran and the DPRK are allies, though their vision of the world is almost 360 degrees out of sync. Both heave isolated themselves from the world community, and both are dictatorships are paranoid, at least on the surface.
In many ways Iran is the more dangerous of the two. The DPRK is smaller with fewer resources, and it's isolation has little effect outside the region. Iran, on the other hand has a larger more prosperous population and has rich resources. Iran's oil reserves are an important world resource, and Iran sits at the crossroads of much of the world's maritime traffic in and around the Gulf. The DPRK's expansionist dreams seem to extend no further than the tip of the Korean Peninsula, but Iran's Islamic goal is to extend their form of Islam over the entire human race. The DPRK will sell military hardware and munitions to anyone with hard cash, but transferring their nuclear hardware is not easy and they have no location to conduct nuclear testing. The DPRK is one of the most important sources for Iranian military materiel. Neither have large, or even good naval power, but Iran's location make her Navy a threat to merchant ships. Iran quietly supports radical Islamic movements around the world, provides supplies across its borders into Afghanistan, Iraq, and possibly into Chechnia. The DPRK is ruled by a man who is the modern equivalent of Caligula. Iran is ruled by an "elected" government whose whole power rests with a small number of Clerics with dreams of world domination.
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BernardR
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Sat 3 Jun, 2006 12:50 am
As usual, Mr. Asherman, your posts are models of reason and insight. Some intelligence analyists have commented that most countries that have developed Nuclear Weapons have done it in secrecy until they had their test.
Iran reminds one of a small boy threatening in order to get his way.
You make a comment that I have not seen often-a very important comment--The Iranians want to extend their form of Islam over all of the human race--exactly. I believe that the Islamic Scholar, Bernard Lewis, made this very point when he explained that the fringe elements in Islam wish to restore the Caliphate and have it rule over the entire world. This may seem bizarre to the rest of the world, but a militancy fueled by a faith which says that Allah commands you to either convert or conquer the rest of humanity, is indeed highly troublesome to say the least. It is a mind set which permits of no negotiations. I do hope that the EU, Russia, India and China understands the true nature of the problem.
0 Replies
Steve 41oo
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Sun 4 Jun, 2006 09:42 am
Asherman wrote:
.. but Iran's Islamic goal is to extend their form of Islam over the entire human race. ... Iran is ruled by an "elected" government whose whole power rests with a small number of Clerics with dreams of world domination.
Do you really believe this Ash? Isnt it more likely they just want to be left alone to develop in their own way without threats or bullying from us, always so keen to get our grubby little hands on middle eastern oil?
If Iran really was bent on world domination, I really think we would know this by now.
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Asherman
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Sun 4 Jun, 2006 07:38 pm
Well, Steve, the fanatical Islamic Movement and its leaders haven't exactly been secretive in their stated goals. Why shouldn't we believe them when they call for the utter destruction of Western Civilization? The United States and Israel get most of their attention, but that doesn't mean that they hate the French, or any other non-Muslim, any less. They've declared their war to be a Holy Crusade that because it's in the Name of Allah, must result in victory for Islam ... no matter what the odds. They are sending young men daily to die killing infidels; that's a sure ticket to paradise, and apparently they have a fair number of takers.
I believe that the 9/11 Operations Teams intended to kill as many infidels as possible, to rally support for a religious war against Western humanistic values, and to demonstrate how powerful they can be. Why do you think that radical Islamic terrorists have been involved in killing operations? Do you really believe that if Israel ceased to exist, that Islamic terrorism would cease? If the United States withdrew entirely within its own borders, do you think that would satisfy the zealots of the Muslim world? Giving in to the demands of any blackmailer or extortionist only validates their notion of superiority and increases their demands.
A while ago the strong hold of Islamic Terrorism was Afghanistan. Now its Iran, with Syria as a henchman. The philosophical foundations for this group of organized criminals are the conservative religious schools paid for by the Saudi Government (using U.S. dollars, we might add). The enemy is prepared to wage a long war, a war of terror and fear. They haven't the slightest compunction against murdering other Muslims, or lying to achieve some small advantage. After all, Allah is on their side and all the rest of us are representatives of Evil. They are "virtuous", we are decadent, promiscuous, worldly and believe that human progress toward a better world is possible. Their reply is that only in the absolute submission to Allah and his sacred words in the Koran has value. For this they would like to return the whole world to the 8th or 9th century CE.
If they prefer a martyr's paradise to the 21st century, fine let's help them to it. If they believe that a dogmatic cleric is a better source of justice to an accused criminal than Anglo-American Law, then let them be judged by our own religious zealots and either beheaded or stoned to death. The thing is, that most Muslims don't subscribe to the franatical views of the religious rulers of Iran, or the Mullah's who preach the destruction of the current Saudi government.
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BernardR
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 01:57 am
Mr.Asherman- I can add nothing to your most excellent and insightful post except to say that you must be familiar with the writings of Bernard Lewis( the US Authority on Islam). I would respectfully suggest that Steve look up some of Professor Lewis's writings which clearly define the FRINGE elements in Islam who do indeed believe that it is their duty to worship Allah by either converting or killing the rest of the people in the world.
