Because, as we all remember, the Carter years were the high point of US-Iranian relations.

Yeah, I thought you did.

Current U.S. policy toward the regime in Tehran will almost certainly result in an Iran with nuclear weapons. The seemingly clever combination of the use of "sticks" and "carrots," including the frequent official hints of an American military option "remaining on the table," simply intensifies Iran's desire to have its own nuclear arsenal. Alas, such a heavy-handed "sticks" and "carrots" policy may work with donkeys but not with serious countries. The United States would have a better chance of success if the White House abandoned its threats of military action and its calls for regime change.

Tell me – would you buy a Middle East policy from this man?

Posted by: Greg at 10:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Maybe that Iranian nuclear program hasn't been ended after all.

At least that is the opinion of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, in an unusually blunt and detailed report, said Monday that Iran’s suspected research into the development of nuclear weapons remained “a matter of serious concern” and that Iran continued to owe the agency “substantial explanations.”

The nine-page report accused the Iranians of a willful lack of cooperation, particularly in answering allegations that its nuclear program may be intended more for military use than for energy generation.

Part of the agency’s case hinges on 18 documents listed in the report and presented to Iran that, according to Western intelligence agencies, indicate the Iranians have ventured into explosives, uranium processing and a missile warhead design — activities that could be associated with constructing nuclear weapons.

“There are certain parts of their nuclear program where the military seems to have played a role,” said one senior official close to the agency, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic constraints. He added, “We want to understand why.”

The atomic energy agencyÂ’s report highlights the amount of work still to be done before definitive conclusions about the nature of the program can be made, a task that the official associated with the agency said would require months.

So once again it would appear that Iran is flouting the will of the international community by engaging in research that is pointed towards military, not civilian, applications of nuclear technology. It has been the policy of the United States -- and the United Nations -- to stand against such research by the rogue state in an effort to end the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Such an effort needs to continue in the interest of preventing the unstable Iranian regime -- and its unstable leader, Mahmoud the Mad -- from possessing and using nukes.

I wonder -- will this report change the mind of a certain foreign affairs neophyte running for president who has repeatedly said he will meet Mahmoud the Mad without preconditions, even though it will give him immense prestige and strengthen his grip on power in Iran?

Posted by: Greg at 10:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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According to Matrouk al-Faleh, a professor of political science at King Saud University in Riyadh, the Saudi government regularly violates its own laws regarding arrest and imprisonment of its citizens without charges and permitting them access to legal counsel.

On Monday, al-Faleh was arrested without charge and held without access to either his family or a lawyer.

An outspoken critic of the Saudi government who was previously jailed for calling for greater democracy has been arrested, his wife said Tuesday.

Matrouk al-Faleh, a professor of political science at King Saud University in Riyadh, the capital, was detained Monday after he left for work, said his wife, Jamila al-Ukla. Over the past year, Faleh has accused the Interior Ministry of disregarding laws that ban arrests without charge and guarantee the right to counsel.

An Interior Ministry spokesman was unavailable for comment on Faleh's arrest.

This is not the first time he has run afoul of the Saudi government -- he served 18 months for criticizing the political structure of the kingdom and encouraging reforms back in 2004. Even after a royal pardon, al-Faleh remains forbidden to leave the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This arrest amply demonstrates the reason for that prohibition -- it makes it easy to continue the campaign of repression against him. And indeed, the arrest follows his posting of a strong critique of the Saudi government on Sunday, making it quite clear what the arrest is truly about.

Posted by: Greg at 09:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And I'm sure that the church/state separationists in this country are cheering his efforts on as he seeks to intimidate religious leaders and believers in his effort to continue his left-wing dictatorship in Zimbabwe.

The parishioners were lined up for Holy Communion on Sunday when the riot police stormed the stately St. Francis Anglican Church in Harare, ZimbabweÂ’s capital. Helmeted, black-booted officers banged on the pews with their batons as terrified members of the congregation stampeded for the doors, witnesses said.

A policeman swung his stick in vicious arcs, striking matrons, a girl and a grandmother who had bent over to pick up a Bible dropped in the melee. A lone housewife began singing from a hymn in Shona, “We will keep worshiping no matter the trials!” Hundreds of women, many dressed in the Anglican Mothers’ Union uniform of black skirt, white shirt and blue headdress, lifted their voices to join hers.

Beneath their defiance, though, lay raw fear as the country’s ruling party stepped up its campaign of intimidation ahead of a presidential runoff. In a conflict that has penetrated ever deeper into Zimbabwe’s social fabric, the party has focused on a growing roster of groups that elude its direct control — a list that includes the Anglican diocese of Harare, as well as charitable and civic organizations, trade unions, teachers, independent election monitors and the political opposition.

Anglican leaders and parishioners said in interviews that the church was not concerned with politics and that it counted people from both the ruling party and the opposition in its congregations. Yet the ruling party appears to have decided that only Anglicans who follow Nolbert Kunonga — a renegade bishop in Harare who is a staunch ally of President Robert Mugabe — are allowed to hold services.

Over the past three Sundays, the police have interrogated Anglican priests and lay leaders, arrested and beaten parishioners and locked thousands of worshipers out of dozens of churches.

We who follow Christ need to pray for these persecuted brothers and sister.

Just remember -- standing for the truth of Christ in this day and age in many parts of the world is a dangerous today as in the first century. And there are those today who want to make that as true in America and the rest of the Western world as it is in Zimbabwe -- or Saudi Arabia. Just look at Canada if you want an example.

Posted by: Greg at 10:52 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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IÂ’ve received a couple of emails from folks wondering why I havenÂ’t commented upon the humanitarian crisis in Burma. Let me offer a response publicly about why I have been unable to muster the public outrage to comment upon the inhumanity shown by the Burmese government towards the Burmese people.

What we have in Burma (and I refuse to call it by the name imposed by the military dictators) is the natural outcome of any totalitarian dictatorship. The lives of the people are not of interest to the leadership of such regimes – control is. That is why the junta will not allow significant amounts of foreign aid and /or emergency personnel to enter the country – such aid and people would undermine the fragile control they maintain over nation.

And besides – these are the same rulers who have kept their nation’s legitimate elected leader under house arrest for two decades. Why would we expect them to give a tinker’s damn about the people, any more than Stalin cared about the millions who starved under his artificially created food shortages?

Of course, I am concerned by the next humanitarian crisis to face the nation – a second cyclone.

Another powerful storm headed toward Myanmar's cyclone-devastated delta, where so little aid has reached that the U.N. warned on Wednesday of a "second wave of deaths" among an estimated 2 million survivors.

The U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center said there is a good chance that "a significant tropical cyclone" will form within the next 24 hours and head across the Irrawaddy delta area.

The area was pulverized by Cyclone Nargis on May 3, leaving at least 34,273 dead and 27,838 missing, according to the government. The U.N. says the death toll could exceed 100,000. An estimated 2 million survivors of the storm are still in need of emergency aid. But U.N. agencies and other groups have been able to reach only 270,000 people so far.

In other words, there will soon be more dead and injured – and more blood on the hands of the generals who control the nation. And I will continue to weep over them -- filled with sadness that those who misrule their nation do not give a tinker's damn about their lives.

But maybe another such tragedy will lead the people to rise up, and the military to support them.

Posted by: Greg at 09:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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