Friday, March 23, 2007

Tensions with Iran

In the news today, Britain: Iran seizes 15 sailors, marines by Jim Krane AP 03/23/07; UK sailors captured at gunpoint BBC.com 03/23/07.

Some incident like this could be used as an excuse to initiate an attack by the US and Britain on Iranian nuclear and conventional military targets - though even the pathetic Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara (as journalist Robert Fisk calls his Prime Minister) has been reluctant to join in the hardline threats against Iran.

Reports of such incidents involving Iraq deserve to get a very sketical-minded reading.

The Los Angeles Times also reported on Thursday,
Iran's leader vows to retaliate against any new sanctions by Ramin Mostaghim 03/22/07:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a televised address marking the beginning of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, said Iran would respond in kind to punitive measures and he blamed the country's domestic divisions on foreign powers.

"If they want to threaten us and use force and violence, they should have no doubt that Iranians will use any means necessary to strike a blow against those who assault them," Khamenei, Iran's spiritual, political and military chief, said from the northeastern city of Mashhad, his hometown.

Enemies "seek to drive a wedge between the ranks of the nation, kill the unity of the Iranian people … and make the Iranians preoccupied with internal divisions."

Audience members chanted "Death to America!" several times during the speech.
Ayatollah Khamenei is the top religious official in Iran's theocratic government. His statements on foreign policy and military affairs are far more significant than those by President Ahmadenijad, whose power in military and foreign affairs is relatively limited. Mastaghim also reports:

Khamenei blamed the West for exacerbating the religious and ethnic troubles in the region. "The enemy appears to be making an extensive and well-hidden move throughout the world of Islam aimed at driving a wedge between the nation of Iran and other Muslim nations, exaggerating religious differences and creating a Shiite-Sunni war in any part of the world where it can," he said.
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