Last month a conference in Warsaw brought together high ranking officials from 60 countries, called to discuss the current chaos in the Middle East, and to zero in on the threat posed to the region by the regime in Tehran.

This year, as Iran observes the 40^th year of its revolution, its geostrategic objectives remain unchanged. But one other constant that has been in place since the fateful day that a triumphant Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini left France for Tehran is Iran’s incessant call for the elimination of Israel.

It didn’t take long for the regime in Tehran to send its message on this subject. I was involved in efforts in 1979 and 1980 to save the lives of Iranian Jewish leaders Habib Elghanian and Albert Danielpour, both of whom were summarily executed because of contact with Israel and Israelis. Among the charges against Elghanian was “friendship with the enemies of God;” against Danielpour it was working to form “the Zionist government in Israel.”

Over these four decades, hardly a day has passed without threats against Israel. The level of vitriol has remained essentially the same over this period, spouted by religious and military leaders at the highest level.

There was former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “As the Imam said, ‘Israel must be wiped off the map,’” delivered in a speech to a “World Without Zionism” conference in 2005.

This past June, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Israel a “cancerous tumor,” which “must be eradicated,” a favorite theme he has used for years. In August Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, in remarks at an Al-Quds Day rally, organized each year as an anti-Israel-fest, said that “the life of the Zionist regime was never in danger as it is now.”

Mohsen Rezaee, who formerly led Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatened last February that Iran would “level Tel Aviv” if Israel attacked Iran. And just a few weeks ago, another Revolutionary Guard commander, Brig. Gen. Yadollah Javani, announced that “we will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa” should the United States attack.

Underscoring its verbal threats, Iran always makes sure to mark the sides of the missiles it tests with the threat “Israel Must Be Wiped Out.”

Iran’s demonization of Israel extends to Jews generally. For years the Iranian regime has sponsored a cartoon contest focused on Holocaust denial. A 2016 winning entry depicted an old-style cash register topped by the gates and tower of a concentration camp. The register drawer, with the words “Shoah Business” on the outside, was filled with cash, with the number 6,000,000 showing just above the drawer. The key to the register, fashioned into a Star of David, contained the words “B’nai B’rith.”

When the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev famously announced that “we will bury you,” at a 1956 gathering of Western ambassadors at the Polish embassy in Moscow, we took him seriously. To us, the Cold War was very much about Soviet nuclear capability and its desire to bring the West down. The West mobilized all its resources to meet the threat, led by NATO and a consensus among the world’s democracies that the Soviet threat must be met.

Today, Israel is the only country to be incessantly threatened with annihilation. There are numerous border disputes in the world between neighbors, and trade wars which flare up and die down. But where in the world, except for Israel, is any country’s major cities threatened with being razed, or its very existence called a “cancerous tumor?”

Some years ago, there was an attempt by leading Western legal figures to bring Iran to the International Court of Justice on the basis of the militant language against Israel, asserting its threats constituted “incitement to genocide.” That effort, which seemed to have stalled, should certainly be reignited.

In his State of the Union speech this year, President Donald J. Trump called out Iran when he said “We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chants ‘Death to America’ and threatens genocide against the Jewish people.” U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley regularly castigated Iran on its threats to Israel.

Yet in the rest of what we used to call the civilized world, most seem not fazed in the least by Iran’s genocidal language. Some dismiss it as rhetoric for home consumption, and some just see it as Iranian bullying-as-usual, or as just “Israel’s problem.”

The United Nations Humans Rights Council will open its new session next week, and the question of the Iranian threats will not be on the agenda. Countries will simply look away, as many did three generations ago when similar language directed then at Jewish communities in Europe went unanswered. Not completely analogous, but close enough to cause us very deep concern.

Can it be that there are no leaders in the international community worthy of the name who will stand behind Israel? Will Israel have to continue to face these existential threats virtually alone?

Those who continue to swear by Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal) are whistling past the graveyard. The list of concerns about Iran is well known: the support for terrorism, the military build-up in Syria, the rockets shipped to Hezbollah, the theft of Lebanon’s sovereignty and the extension of malign influence in Iraq and Yemen.

The Iranian call for the elimination of Israel never seems to make that list. After all that history teaches us, what a verdict that is on the notion of decency and scruples in the international community.

The Warsaw gathering is an important development in the campaign to develop a consensus on the threat to the region, and beyond, from the Iranian regime. The genocidal talk emanating from Tehran should be placed high up on the agenda when these countries meet again. In the meantime, those who continue to cling to the JCPOA at the expense of all else should be ashamed of their indifference to Israel’s continually being on the receiving end of such hatred.

Daniel S. Mariaschin is CEO of B’nai B’rith International.  He directs and supervises programs, activities, and staff around the world. He serves as director of B’nai B’rith’s International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy, coordinating its programs and policies on issues of concern to the Jewish community. Mr. Mariaschin meets with world leaders, seeking to advance human rights, protect the rights of Jewish communities worldwide, and promote better relations with the state of Israel.

Source: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/433249-40-years-of-iranian-threats-against-israel-and-few-pay-any-attention

The post 40 years of Iranian threats against Israel and few pay any attention first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, center, listens to an unidentified pilot during a ceremony to unveil Iran’s newest fighter jet, the Qaher-313, in Tehran, Iran, February 2, 2013 (AP/Mehr News Agency/Younes Khani)

Iran’s defense minister said Saturday that the Islamic Republic was set to unveil a new fighter jet and, despite new US sanctions, will continue developing its missile program.

“Our top priority has been development of our missile program. We are in a good position in this field, but we need to develop it,” Brigadier General Amir Hatami was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency, according to Reuters.

“We will present a plane on National Defense Industry Day, and people will see it fly, and the equipment designed for it,” he added, referring to the August 22 celebrations.

Hatami is believed to have been referring to the Qaher F-313 fighter plane, which Tehran said it began testing last year.

The Qaher is one of several aircraft designs the Iranian military has rolled out since 2007. Tehran has repeatedly claimed to have developed advanced military technologies in recent years, but its claims cannot be independently verified because the country does not release technical details of its arsenals.

In 2013, then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that building the Qaher F-313, or “Dominant” F-313, shows Iran’s will to “conquer scientific peaks.”

Hatami’s announcement came after Iran’s navy on Saturday unveiled its first-ever advanced defense system for its warships, amid rising tensions with the US in the Strait of Hormuz.

Navy Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi told reporters in Tehran the domestically made Kamand system would protect Iran’s naval destroyers against anti-ship cruise missiles.

In remarks carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency, Khanzadi said the Kamand system was based on the American-made Phalanx CIWS, and could destroy any target up to 2 kilometers away.

For the time being, Khanzadi said, the defense system would only be installed on Iranian warships “that carry out missions in deep and distant waters.”

The announcement came two weeks after Iran launched naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz as a show of force while Washington prepared to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

Navy Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi speaks at a Tehran press conference on July 31, 2019. (screen capture: YouTube/PressTV)

Iran routinely operates small boats in the Strait of Hormuz and the surrounding area, and has often threatened to shut down the vital waterway where one third of all oil traded by sea passes.

In recent weeks, President Hassan Rouhani renewed the threat, saying that if US sanctions threatened Iran’s crude oil exports, the rest of the Mideast’s exports would be threatened as well.

Earlier in August, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard confirmed that it had carried out a naval exercise in the Gulf, days before the US re-imposed the economic sanctions that were eased under the 2015-Obama era nuclear deal.

The general overseeing US military operations in the Middle East said Tehran was trying “to use that exercise to send a message to us that as we approach the period of the sanctions here that they had some capabilities.”

The capabilities include ocean mines, explosive boats, coastal defense missiles and radars, US Central Command head General Joseph Votel said.

In May, the US announced it was abandoning the 2015 agreement and reimposing nuclear-related sanctions, threatening global companies with heavy penalties if they continue to operate in Iran.

In a bid to salvage the accord, the EU and European parties to the deal — Britain, France, and Germany — presented a series of economic “guarantees” to Iran last month, but they were deemed “insufficient” by Tehran.

In this photo released by official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani attends a meeting with a group of foreign ministry officials in Tehran, Iran. Sunday, July 22, 2018. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

The sanctions that went into effect earlier in August target US dollar financial transactions, Iran’s automotive sector, and the purchase of commercial planes and metals, including gold. Even stronger sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector and central bank are to be re-imposed in early November.

US President Donald Trump has offered talks on a “more comprehensive deal” but Iran has balked at negotiating under the pressure of sanctions and has instead leaned on its increasingly close ties with fellow US sanctions targets Turkey and Russia.

Agencies contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-says-it-will-unveil-new-fighter-jet-continue-developing-missiles/

The post Iran says it will unveil new fighter jet, continue developing missiles first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

TEHRAN, Iran –  Iran says it has restarted production at a “major” uranium facility involved in its nuclear program, though it still pledges to follow the terms of the country’s landmark atomic deal now under threat after President Donald Trump pulled America out of the accord.

Iranian comments about the Isfahan plant, which produces material needed to make enriched uranium, appear aimed at pressuring Europeans and others to come up with a way to circumvent new American sanctions.

Already, many international organizations are pulling back from promised billion-dollar deals with Tehran and the country’s currency has entered a free-fall against the dollar.

What comes next likely will resemble Iran’s response to previous confrontation with the West over its contested atomic program.

___

A PLANT REOPENS

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said in a statement late Wednesday that it reopened a plant that converts yellowcake, a uranium powder, into uranium hexafluoride gas. That gas is what scientists put inside of centrifuges to make enriched uranium that can be used in nuclear power plants or in atomic bombs. Iran long has said its program is peaceful, though the West and the United Nations point to work Iran did years earlier that could be used to weaponize its program.

The “production plant at Isfahan UCF Complex has been practically inactive since 2009 because of the lack of yellowcake in the country,” the organization said in its statement. That marks an Iranian acknowledgement of something it denied back in 2009 — that it had exhausted its sole supply of yellowcake, which came under a deal that Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi made with apartheid South Africa in the 1970s.

Since the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran has purchased yellowcake from Kazakhstan and Russia, as well as mined its own domestically. The accord allows for that, but limits Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 3.67 percent, enough to use in a nuclear power plant but far lower than the 90 percent needed for an atomic weapon.

___

TENSIONS OVER TRUMP

Since Trump’s decision to pull America from the nuclear deal, Iran has sought to pressure other nations to stick with it. Iranian officials — from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on down — have vowed to boost the country’s uranium enrichment capacity. The moves they have outlined would not violate the accord, but would allow Iran to quickly ramp up enrichment if the agreement unravels.

Officials also have appeared in state media video and pictures at Isfahan with advanced IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges labeled in English in the background. Those models are all believed to produce three to five times more enriched uranium in a year than the IR-1s that Iran is allowed to use under the deal, according to Western anti-proliferation experts.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran also released a video Thursday showing the first drum of yellowcake being put through the reopened facility, located 410 kilometers (255 miles) south of Tehran, as dramatic music played in the background.

“It is important that the resumption of the Isfahan UCF … provides for the fulfillment and execution of the supreme leader’s order to prepare for an increase in enrichment capacity,” the organization said in its statement late Wednesday.

___

WHAT COULD HAPPEN NEXT

Trump’s hard line, as well as the United States ordering its allies to stop buying Iranian crude oil, only increases the change of the wider nuclear deal collapsing. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that Iran’s “ambitions for wastefully expanding its nuclear program … only add to the suffering of the people of Iran.”

A guide for what happens next likely can be seen in how Iran initially handled its nuclear confrontation with the West. In 2005, Iran acknowledged converting yellowcake into uranium tetrafluoride, a step below the uranium hexafluoride needed for centrifuges. While allowed under the terms of a then-European deal, it came as negotiations with Tehran had become deadlocked.

Iran a short time later removed U.N. seals from equipment to produce uranium hexafluoride, again stopping as negotiations with the West continued. But by February 2006, hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered uranium enrichment to resume in earnest.

“Iran’s decision to master nuclear technology and the production of nuclear fuel is irreversible,” Ahmadinejad would say, putting his country on a collision course with the West that saw crippling sanctions imposed.

For now, Iran remains governed by President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate with Iran’s theocracy whose administration brokered the deal. However, Rouhani has faced increasing criticism from hard-liners, some of whom have openly called for the country to be run by military officials.

Final say on the nuclear program, however, rests with Khamenei.

“In the face of the excessive demands of the opposite side, a courageous move must be made,” Khamenei said in May.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/06/28/ap-explains-iran-reopens-uranium-plant-in-its-latest-gamble.html

The post AP Explains: Iran reopens uranium plant in its latest gamble first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The protesters rallied for days in Iran, chanting against government corruption and demanding justice.

That was last year, when depositors who lost their savings in the collapse of major government-run credit union took to the streets, shouting “Death to (Valiullah) Seif,” Iran’s Central Bank governor.

In the past 10 days, there were new protests, the largest in Iran since its 2009 disputed presidential election, fueled by young people angry over their bleak prospects. This time, they shouted slogans against President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a figure seen as subordinate only to God by hard-liners.

The new unrest appears to be waning, but anger over the economy persists. The protests in dozens of towns and cities also showed that a sector of the public was willing to openly call for the removal of Iran’s system of rule by clerics — frustrated not just by the economy but also by concern over Iran’s foreign wars and general direction.

That sentiment likely extends beyond those who took to the streets. But the protests also showed the constraints on discontent. Fear of reprisals probably kept some people away from the protests, but so did worry over chaos that might result from unrest and hope that gains could still be made within the system.

ECONOMIC WOES

The collapse last year of the Caspian Credit Institute, which promised depositors returns often seen in Ponzi schemes, showed the economic desperation faced by many in Iran. Retirees unable to make ends meet on their pensions can be found driving many of the taxis crowding Tehran’s roads. Universities turn out students with no hope of employment in their fields, while those lucky enough to have work often have a second or even a third job.

Banks remain saddled with bad loans, a warning repeatedly sounded by the International Monetary Fund. Some of this stretches back to the days of nuclear sanctions, while others find themselves mired in the murky finances of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which is estimated to control a third of the total economy.

Inflation, initially brought under control by Rouhani, has slipped back into double digits, according to recent figures. He cut some subsidies offered by his hard-line predecessor, the Holocaust-questioning populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Those subsidies benefited rural and poor voters in the provinces, the same people who appear to have taken to the streets in the recent protests, initially sparked by food prices.

The government likely will offer either subsidized food prices or new cash handouts to soothe anger in the provinces, although how that comes about remains to be seen. But the unrest has had one benefit: It has helped boost global oil prices to over $60 a barrel, providing desperately needed hard currency to the OPEC-member nation.

BATTLEFIELD SUCCESS

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran has expanded its presence across the Middle East as a counter to the American bases that dot the Arab Gulf countries surrounding it. The U.S. military accused Iran of training insurgents in Iraq who targeted its troops with roadside bombs, and Tehran has powerful influence over Iraq’s Shiite-led government.

The rise of the Islamic State group, as well as the Syrian civil war, threatened Iran’s allies, and it responded by sending the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds expeditionary force into both Iraq and Syria.

In Iraq, Iranian advisers turned Shiite militias into a powerful ground force against IS extremists.

In Syria, President Bashar Assad appeared to be on the ropes until Iran fully entered the conflict. He held onto his presidency with Quds force generals leading foreign fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well Iranian-supported Hezbollah guerrillas from Lebanon.

In Yemen, the U.S. and other Western powers accused Tehran of supplying Shiite rebels with ballistic missile technology.

Protesters denounced the money going to support these groups rather than helping people in Iran.

But the success abroad also is used by the state to drum up support. Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani has been elevated to a folk hero among some Iranians. An assault in June by the Islamic State group targeting Tehran — a rare terrorist attack in the Iranian capital — also galvanized support by the public, which fears a return of the bombings and unrest that immediately followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranians also see the aftermath of wars in the region as serving to protect the Islamic Republic’s Shiite-dominated government.

NEW ERA LOOMS

Approaching the 40th anniversary of the revolution, Iran increasingly will consider who follows the 78-year-old Khamenei, who underwent prostate surgery in 2014. Among those under consideration is Rouhani, himself a cleric. Both the U.S. and analysts studying Iran say hard-liners initially fomented the economic protests to put pressure on Rouhani but quickly lost control of them.

Iranian law bars Rouhani from seeking a third term, so Iran’s 2021 presidential election will see a wide-open field. Hard-liners at one point called for an earlier presidential election, saying Rouhani’s policies had failed, although that bid went nowhere.

The economic resentment seen in recent days could prompt the rise of another Ahmadinejad-style hard-line populist — if Iran’s clerical leadership allows such a candidacy.

It’s hard to tell right now who emerged stronger after the protests — Rouhani or his hard-line opponents.

Each tried to wield anger over the economy against the other. Weeks before the protests, Rouhani publicly complained that large parts of the government budget went to religious institutions, largely seen as power bases of the hard-liners, seeking to deflect blame over the economy. From the other side, it is widely believed that the hard-liners were the ones who initially stoked the protests to embarrass Rouhani, only to see the demonstrations turn against the entire ruling establishment.

PROTESTS WANE, ANGER REMAINS

Authorities managed to stifle the protests in part by blocking access to the messaging app Telegram, through which demonstrators organized the rallies and shared images from the streets. The Revolutionary Guard’s volunteer Basiji force also was deployed and police have arrested hundreds; more than 20 protesters were killed, although security forces did not engage in the level of bloodshed that followed the 2009 protests.

Both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they supported the protesters, without apparently providing any aid. The protests quickly raised the hopes of those abroad who want to see an end to the Islamic Republic.

But for now, that won’t be happening. Instead, Iran’s ruling system faces a future of grappling with the effects of economic woes that have proven to be unpredictable and potentially volatile.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Jon Gambrell, an Associated Press reporter since 2006, has covered the Middle East from Cairo and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, since 2013. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap . His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz .

EDITOR’S NOTE _ Jon Gambrell, an Associated Press reporter since 2006, has covered the Middle East from Cairo and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, since 2013.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/analysis-iran-protests-show-danger-of-economic-woes/2018/01/08/dc795e96-f49a-11e7-9af7-a50bc3300042_story.html

The post Analysis: Iran protests show danger of economic woes first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Iran holds pro-government rallies to counter protests first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post What’s Behind Iran’s Protests? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.