Thursday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 2.9.2005:

The US and Brits discuss how to promote a regime change in Iran!

• ABC News reported that American and British diplomats held talks this week on ways to promote democracy in Iran. FINALLY!!!

The US wants to send a message to Iran.

• Zaman.com reported that the US administration wants Turkey to send a warning to Iran.

Shah's son sends his own message to the Iranian people.

• RezaPahlavi.org published Reza Pahlavi's communique regarding Iran's nuclear crisis, in which he warns of the danger the Iranian leaders have put the country and called for unity and a new government in Iran.

Apparently, Iranian leaders don't like Western leaders.

• Mehran Riazaty reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi, said: "The statements of certain western officials show that contrary to their absurd claims, westerners are disqualified, and impetuous, lacking any cultural background."
• Iran Focus reported that the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have said: “Merkel in her childish dreams imagines herself as Hitler and ... she can give orders to the world and free countries.”

The cartoon unrest is staged, Western leaders point out.

• SMCCDI reported that 300 Bassij threw Molotov cocktails and pieces of rocks at the Danish embassy in Tehran for the second consecutive day but these organized rallies are designed to shift the focus of the world's attention away from the struggle of Iranians who are seeking freedom.
• Radio Free Europe reported that the United States has condemned an Iranian newspaper's plan to hold a contest for cartoons about the Holocaust.
• Reuters reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes and the world ought to call them on it."
  
• Reuters reported that an Iranian newspaper's call for Holocaust cartoons is an attempt to drag Israel into a conflict between Europe and the Muslim world.
  
• Amir Taheri, The Wall Street Journal exposed many of the myths repeated by the media to explain the Islamic reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed. A must read.

Straw & Blair: Play good cop, bad cop.

• Bob Roberts, Mirror reported that Tony Blair yesterday refused to rule out a British military invasion of Iran, saying: "You can never say never."
• Channel4 News reported that Jack Straw has played down suggestions that military action against Iran is unavoidable.

New evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

• The Washington Post reported that Iranian engineers have completed sophisticated drawings of a deep subterranean shaft designed for an underground atomic test.
  

American's take the Iran threat seriously.

• Yahoo News reported that the Pew Research Center conducted a poll in which he said: "two of three [Americans] saying Iran's nuclear program represents a major threat."

Tehran Bus Strike Update. Still ignored by the MSM.

• Workers-Iran.org reported that about 200 workers have thus far been released following the mass arrests on January 28th, that none of the 200 released workers have been able to return to their jobs and hundreds others are still in prison.

Still more unrest in Tehran.

• SMCCDI reported some sporadic but violent clashes in the North Tehran, started bt zealous militiamen who were angered, by the lack of attention of tens of young Iranians for the Shia ritual of Moharam.

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• The Wall Street Journal argued that despite many commentators arguing that a pre-emptive air attack against Iran's nuclear installations is unfeasible, the chance of success are in fact rather good.
• Eli Lake, The New York Sun reported that a former special investigator for the Pentagon during the Iraq war said he found four sealed underground bunkers in southern Iraq that he is sure contain stocks of chemical and biological weapons.
• And finally, Slater Bakhtavar, Tocqevillian argued that a new anti-Christ has emerged from the land of Ancient Persia who may gain the means to commit mass genocide if the West continues to ignore the demands of the Iranian people for a free democratic society.