Will the people of Iran rise up and seize their own freedom?

IranÂ’s parliament on Wednesday night agreed to press ahead with plans to introduce fuel rationing in the face of panic and rioting across the country over the proposals.

The protests presented a rare public challenge to Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the president, whose popularity has been based on his pledge to share oil revenues more fairly and cut living costs for ordinary Iranians.

After attending a closed parliamentary session addressed by the interior and oil ministers, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, IranÂ’s parliamentary speaker, said fuel rationing, introduced at midnight on Tuesday, had to continue, to thwart US threats and the possibility of sanctions hitting petrol imports.

Though Iran is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, its lack of refineries means it must import about 40 per cent of its petrol – of which it consumes about 75m litres a day. Iran imported $4.9bn (£2.45bn) of petrol in the year to March 20. This year, however, the government is authorised by parliament to import only $2.5bn.

Sanctions appear to be working to destabilize the regime -- perhaps there will be no need for US intervention to free Iran.

Posted by: Greg at 03:49 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Well, maybe.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces have been spotted by British troops crossing the border into southern Iraq, The Sun tabloid reported on Tuesday.

Britain's defence ministry would not confirm or deny the report, with a spokesman declining to comment on "intelligence matters".

An unidentified intelligence source told the tabloid: "It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran -- but nobody has officially declared it."

"We have hard proof that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have crossed the border to attack us. It is very hard for us to strike back. All we can do is try to defend ourselves. We are badly on the back foot."

The Sun said that radar sightings of Iranian helicopters crossing into the Iraqi desert were confirmed to it by very senior military sources.

Now I've got some question about the veracity of the report -- but if it is true, what will be the response of the Bush Administration? And will the Democrats still advocate unilateral retreat -- or will they instead insist upon petitioning Iran to negotiate the terms of America's surrender?

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Just to remind you folks (especially liberals and apologist for Islamofascism) what real human rights violations look like, courtesy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. These are official photos from the official Iranian government news agencies, which ran these approving of the gross violations of human rights and human dignity they depict.

Masked Muslim moral police force a man wearing clothes deemed un-Islamic to suck on a plastic container Iranians use to wash their bottoms.

Bloodied, beaten, then taken away.

Whipped for wearing a soccer shirt.

Behead all those who wear their hair too long.

Another public beating.

The Iranian morality police arrest the infidel after forcing him to drink from the toilet watering cans hanging around his neck.

Another head busted open in the name of Allah.

And by the way, lest you think that this is not based upon government policy, let me direct you to (of all places) an article from today's New York Times.

Young men wearing T-shirts deemed too tight or haircuts seen as too Western have been paraded bleeding through Tehran’s streets by uniformed police officers who force them to suck on plastic jerrycans, a toilet item Iranians use to wash their bottoms. In case anyone misses the point, it is the official news agency Fars distributing the pictures of what it calls “riffraff.” Far bloodier photographs are circulating on blogs and on the Internet.

The country’s police chief boasted that 150,000 people — a number far larger than usual — were detained in the annual spring sweep against any clothing considered not Islamic. More than 30 women’s rights advocates were arrested in one day in March, according to Human Rights Watch, five of whom have since been sentenced to prison terms of up to four years. They were charged with endangering national security for organizing an Internet campaign to collect more than a million signatures supporting the removal of all laws that discriminate against women.

Eight student leaders at TehranÂ’s Amir Kabir University, the site of one of the few public protests against Mr. Ahmadinejad, disappeared into Evin Prison starting in early May. Student newspapers had published articles suggesting that no humans were infallible, including the Prophet Muhammad and IranÂ’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

I'm curious -- will we hear a peep of condemnation from the Left over this sort of stuff? Will the same folks who condemn the imagined "theocratic" tendencies of American conservatives speak out against the theocracy of the Islamofascists in Iran? Or does this sort of violence constitute "cultural diversity" that should be celebrated? You know, sort of like homicide bombings and honor killings.

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The president of Iran and his senior ministers have long spoken openly about the impending destruction of Israel. So where do they get the moral authority to demand condemnation of Israel for statements about destroying Iran's illegal nuclear program?

The Iranian ambassador to the UN has complained that the UN Security Council has done nothing to stop Israel's ''unlawful and dangerous threats'' against Iran.

On Monday Javad Zarif protested a recent statement from Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz that Israel has not ruled out military action against Iran to disable its nuclear programme.

He also referred to a similar statement that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made in April.

Yiddish has a word for such an action -- chutzpah. Ironic, isn't it, that this Jewish dialect is the source of the only word that adequately describes this move by the terrorist state of Iran?

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1 The Iranian regime is just a total failure and a miserable regime. They:

* fail to deliver economic progress
* detain and torture political dissidents
* practice barbaric cruelty against women
* are religiously oppressive and intolerant
* are pursuing nuclear weapons

They do need to be isolated like we are doing with North Korea.


P.S. To the blog owner, you mention that you are a world history teacher and I personally love world history. Feel free to join my forum.


(W.E.B. Du Bois on that forum)

Posted by: politics forum at Tue Jun 19 05:41:35 2007 (NAnQu)

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My guess is no -- at least not until Hamas returns to its primary mission of murdering Jews in the name of Allah.

Hamas gunmen consolidated their hold over large swaths of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after attacking military posts controlled by the rival Fatah movement, whose own fighters responded with a daylight raid in the West Bank, broadening the civil strife.

At least 21 Palestinians were killed Wednesday across Gaza, driving up the four-day death toll to at least 63 in factional violence that both Palestinian parties described as civil war.

The Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing that has begun referring to Fatah as the "Jew American Army," gave the Fatah-dominated Palestinian National Forces across northern Gaza until Friday evening to surrender their weapons and turn over their posts. The Hamas tactic, which has included broadcasting inaccurate claims from minarets that Fatah posts have fallen, has proved highly effective in prompting outgunned Fatah fighters to flee.

At least one battalion of the Palestinian National Forces was reported to have run out of ammunition and others may be approaching the end of supplies. Israeli officials have warned for months that Hamas has been stockpiling ammunition, small arms and explosives.

Personally, I think anything that results in more dead terrorists is a good thing for the world.

But there is some hope that the average Palestinian may recognize that the continuous blood-letting of the last several days is a bad thing.

Scores of Palestinians demonstrated in the streets of Gaza City calling for an end to the violence, to no apparent effect.

Now if only they recognize that an end to the murder of Israelis is in their best interest as well, perhaps we will get some peace in the region .

Oh, and just a little reminder about the hateful nature of the Terrorstinian factions doing the fighting.

Among yesterday's dead was a 14-year-old boy and three women, all killed in a Hamas attack on a Fatah security officer's home.

"They're firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We're not Jews," the brother of Jamal Abu Jediyan, a Fatah commander, pleaded during a live telephone conversation with a Palestinian radio station.

Minutes later both men were dragged into the streets and riddled with bullets.

After all -- killing Jews is what these (so-called) people are all about.

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While I can understand the need and the desire to keep anyone affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood out of power, this is not the way to do it.

Egyptian security forces barred voters from entering polling centers in opposition areas Monday during the first national elections since the U.S.-backed government of President Hosni Mubarak pushed through constitutional changes that analysts say were intended to keep the Muslim Brotherhood from power.

In Awseem, a dusty town north of Cairo that is a Brotherhood stronghold, security officers lined up behind chest-high plastic riot shields to block all entrances to a locked polling place. Officers clenching automatic rifles alongside a row of police wagons effectively sealed off another voting site.

Residents in other towns around Egypt on Monday complained of police turning them from the polls and occasionally beating them. One person was killed in election-related violence, the Associated Press reported.

In areas loyal to Mubarak's National Democratic Party, voters surged into polling sites. In Bortos, also north of Cairo, a girl of 15 said she cast a ballot for the NDP, and children who appeared much younger than the voting age of 18 waved fingers stained with the pink ink used to mark ballots and boasted that they had voted.

Given other infringements on civil liberties in Egypt (restrictions on the rights of the Copts, prosecution of anti-government bloggers), this goes a long way to show just how unacceptable the Mubarak regime really is. Are we really improving the situation in the region by backing such a farcical election?

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Who'd have expected this?

The highlight of President BushÂ’s European tour may well be his visit on Sunday to this tiny country, one of the few places left where he can bask in unabashed pro-American sentiment without a protester in sight.

Americans here are greeted with a refreshing adoration that feels as though it comes from another time.

“Albania is for sure the most pro-American country in Europe, maybe even in the world,” said Edi Rama, Tirana’s mayor and leader of the opposition Socialists. “Nowhere else can you find such respect and hospitality for the president of the United States. Even in Michigan, he wouldn’t be as welcome.”

Much of the pro-American sentiment stems from the time of Woodrow Wilson and his efforts to ensure that Albania would be an independent country. But I personally suspect that the Albanians, who suffered under what may have been the most oppressive regime behind the Iron Curtain, probably recognize that the US really is still the beacon of liberty for the world.

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One does have to wonder why the Israelis don't dispatch a Mossad team to take out this Hitler-wannabe.

Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said the world would witness the destruction of Israel soon, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Ahmadinejad said last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah showed for the first time that the ''hegemony of the occupier regime (Israel) had collapsed, and the Lebanese nation pushed the button to begin counting the days until the destruction of the Zionist regime,'' IRNA quoted him as saying.

''God willing, in the near future we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime,'' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying during a speech to foreign guests mostly from African, Arab and neighboring countries who attended ceremonies marking the 18th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who is known as the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

This man has repeatedly said he wants to "wipe Israel off the map" and is developing the nuclear weapons to do so. Seems to me that the time has long-since passed to move beyond sanctions ad diplomacy to deal with the problem -- especially given Iranian support of terrorist cells in Ira.

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