Iranian Dissident:"We Might as Well Die an Honorable Death"

Here's a brave man.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2ytWL-JxPE

To quote the translator and uploader, Memri.org:

Iranian political activist Heshmatollah Tabarzadi said in a video he uploaded to his Instagram on March 24, 2020 that Iran's main enemy is the coronavirus, and he sharply criticized the way the Iranian regime, which he said is unworthy and irresponsible, has been handling the pandemic. Saying that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is becoming increasingly delusional, Tabarzadi criticized Khamenei's recent statements [here thet are below! D.A.] --

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uJr6KKQtGg

-- that the coronavirus outbreak is part of a joint conspiracy by humans and demons against Iran and that any attempt by the U.S. to give aid to Iran is actually an attempt to spy on it...

Tabarzadi further said that President Hassan Rouhani is even more irresponsible than Khamenei, and he criticized Iran's refusal to accept international aid despite shortages, as well as Iran's recent deportation of a team of doctors from Doctors Without Borders. 

Tabarzadi warned that if Rouhani and Iran's senior officials do not stop their obstinacy, the Iranian people will destroy the presidential palace and bring it down on the heads of these officials. 

Calling on his compatriots to be ready for when the word goes out, he threatened:

"We will track down their address and go there... If we are meant to die in our homes, we might as well die an honorable death."

David Singer On How The USA, Russia & Iran Can Cooperate In Destroying ISIL

Here is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

It is entitled "Obama, Putin And Rouhani Can Do Deal On Destroying ISIL".

Writes David Singer:

President Obama’s sudden about face in deciding to attack ISIL in Syria on 21 September – without express approval of Syria or a resolution of the United Nations Security Council – has provoked a strong response from Russia and Iran – President Assad’s main supporters in his three years struggle to remain in power in Syria.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on 23 September:

"Such actions must be carried out exclusively within the boundaries of international law. That means not formal unilateral 'notification' of strikes but the clearly expressed approval of the government of Syria or the passage of a decision by the United Nations Security Council."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani  reportedly said the US-led airstrikes were illegal and constituted an attack on Syria – while also condemning Islamic State militants as "barbarians."

Their strictures were issued following the admission made to Chuck Todd on Meet The Press by America’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, on 19 September – that training of moderate rebels in Syria would help both US efforts to destroy ISIL as well as the rebels' ongoing struggle against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad:

“But may I add, the training also will service these troops in the same struggle that they've been in since the beginning of this conflict against the Assad regime”

Putin and Rouhani would have been very concerned that the US-led attacks on ISIL in Syria were undertaken with the active support of Jordan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – all members of the “London 11” – whose communique released on 22 October 2013 had declared:

“We agree that when the TGB {Transitional Governing Body – ed] is established, Assad and his close associates with blood on their hands will have no role in Syria. There must be accountability for acts committed during the present conflict.”

It is clear Assad will not be inviting anyone into Syria if there is any suspicion that they are there to preside over his demise. It is equally clear that when someone like the Iranian President calls ISIL “barbarians” – that international action must be taken to eliminate ISIL at the earliest possible opportunity.

Rouhani did not directly condemn the US-led air strikes against ISIL in Syria when addressing the United Nations on 25 September – but issued the following warning:

“I believe if countries claiming leadership of the coalition are seeking to perpetuate their hegemony in the region, they’d be making a strategic mistake. Democracy can’t be delivered in a backpack. It’s not a commodity to be exported from west to east. It needs a foundation” 

Rouhani offered this sage advice:

“Obviously, since the pain is better known by the countries in the region, better they can form coalition, and accept to shoulder the responsibility of leadership to counter violence and terrorism. And if other nations wish to take action against terrorism, they must come to their support.

I warn that if we do not muster all our strengths against extremism and violence today, and fail to entrust the job to the people in the region who can deliver, tomorrow the world will be safe for no one.”

Boris Kalyagin – international journalist and professor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics – told Pravda.Ru on 23 September:

“We believe that no decision related to such major international questions as the struggle against aggressors, particularly terrorist regimes, can be taken without a UN resolution. The United States has repeatedly demonstrated that it takes actions bypassing UN decisions, that's why they want to deprive us of our voice, to feel like masters at the Security Council."

Russia and Iran’s ground rules are very clear – if Obama wants to degrade and destroy ISIL he needs to act under the authority of a Security Council Resolution passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

America and Russia dealt with the issue of destroying Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile by navigating Resolution 2118 through the UN Security Council – preventing threatened air strikes by America on Syria to degrade its chemical weapons.

That resolution weakened Assad’s position – but nevertheless Assad understood that was the price he had to pay for Russia and Iran’s continuing support.

Two Security Council Resolutions condemning some activities of ISIL – 2170 and 2178 – have already received American and Russian backing.

They have been inadequate, however, to stop ISIL and the Al-Nusrah Front in their tracks.

Withdrawal of American plans to train moderate rebels to destroy ISIL in Syria whilst assisting them to overthrow Assad – at best a mindless pipe dream – can be ended by America and Russia jointly procuring the passage of a Security Council resolution:

1. Deploring the illegal acquisition by ISIL and the Al-Nusrah Front of parts of the sovereign territory of Syria and Iraq.

2. Condemning their cruel and inhumane conduct in murdering civilians and displacing entire communities in Syria and Iraq

3. Calling on them to surrender control over those parts of Syria and Iraq occupied by them to a duly constituted United Nations Force within 72 hours.

4. Reserving the right to take such further action as it considers fit in the event of non-compliance

Obama, Putin and Rouhani have their problems with other pressing issues – Ukraine and nuclear weapons.

On ISIL and Al-Nusrah Front their national interests are identical.

The UN Security Council stands ready to help them cut a deal.

Reminders Of The Death Culture (includes videos)

Israeli columnist Dror Eytan was obviously seeking no kudos from the Ha'aretz set or the Obama administration when he wrote inter alia  last week:

 'What has the death culture that surrounds us sought to sell in the past hundred years? Look around: there are no Jews in Iraq and no “territories” in Syria, and nevertheless the angels of death gleefully slaughter each other. No science and no industry and no inventions that will benefit humanity. Just death, and it’s wrapped in a thick layer of damned political correctness that has distorted our thought process....

If we don’t realize that the executioners who pack the condemned into cattle trucks and lay them by the dozens or hundreds in ditches and put them to death amid devilish ululations, and if we don’t get that this bunch is operating on our borders, and that its successes encourage our own local death culture, we will have to pay heavier prices in the future.

We must employ full force against the emissaries of the death culture, those who aid them, their military and civilian infrastructure, their sources of funding, their families, their clans, and anyone who knows something but just nods his head and keeps quiet. We know the argument that keeps us emasculated: “It will only increase tension and give an incentive to terror and strengthen the cycle of bloodshed.” Not at all. The culture of death doesn’t need incentives—it kills and murders and kidnaps, because that's what it is....

.... In the eyes of our neighbors and some parts of the world we are all people who stole a land that wasn’t theirs. This blood libel is spread every day by anti-Semites and haters of Israel, as well as by useful idiots among us....

Various conquerors and nomads from the four ends of the earth have arrived in this country. But since we Jews were exiled, no other sovereign entity has sprung up in this land. What would this country be if it weren't for the Jews? What would Jerusalem be without the Jews? The groups of strangers never wanted to compromise with the Jews who survived extermination and came home after a long exile. Even today they refuse to compromise and seek to oust us from the entire country. From Tel Aviv, too.... The fight for Israel is our fight for life....'

American Jewish leaders have expressed firm support for Operation Protective Edge, Israel's current initiative against that antisemitic genocidal Hamas.  As they observe:

'....Millions of Israelis are spending a sleepless night as sirens go off across the country in response to the constant barrage of missiles fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza, targeting the civilian population. No country would or should tolerate such a horrific onslaught as the one emanating from Gaza, which is controlled by the terrorist Hamas organization. The government of Prime Minister Netanyahu has shown great restraint seeking to avoid an all-out war and the civilian casualties that would entail. They have engaged in limited strikes against missile-launchers, storage facilities and manufacturing locations. Hamas has exploited this to expand the scope and range of its rocket attacks.  This puts the lie to the assertion that Hamas has changed and it remains a bloodthirsty terrorist entity. If there is to be any hope of a peaceful resolution of the conflict, it is imperative that President Abbas end the so-called unity government and disassociate in every respect from Hamas....'

The evil that characterises Hamas is seen in the following Palestine Media Watch video, which appeared on Al-Aqsa TV yesterday (9 July, and begins

'Zionists, wait and see stabbing attacks everywhere.
Wait for suicide attacks on every bus, café and street':

And then there is this footage showing how Hamas rockets are fired from civilian areas in Gaza, deliberately putting Gazan civilians in danger from Israeli fire:

And here's how Hamas targets its own people by encouraging Gazans to make themselves into human shields, knowing that despite the IDF's best intentions some will inevitably become casualties, and that much of the international community will condemn Israel for a "disproportionate response":

But even as the conflict between Israel and Hamas rages, another threat continues to loom.

Analysts Ali Alfoneh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, at the end of a  most useful pen portrait of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, have this to say:

'Those who argue that Rouhani has abandoned the nuclear ambitions that he has so proudly defended and advanced would be well advised to consider more closely the cleric’s words, deeds, associations, and pride. Most probably Rouhani wants the nuke as much as any officer in the Revolutionary Guard or Saeed Jalili, the one-legged, shrine-loving war veteran who so enjoyed ignoring and belittling European and American diplomats as Ahmadinejad’s nuclear negotiator. Rouhani just wants to be cleverer about how the regime becomes a nuclear state. The deal that he has likely cut with the supreme leader is a variation on what Rouhani believes he tried with the West after the clandestine nuclear program was revealed by an opposition group in 2002: temporary concessions on those things that no longer need further research, no concessions at all in areas requiring further work. To get the sanctions lifted—and Rouhani is convinced that once they start coming down, they are unlikely to go back up—the Islamic Republic should slow its nuclear program without diminishing its capacity to produce a bomb and the ballistic missiles to deliver it. 

This time round, this approach may work with the West. It may not work at home. Although Khamenei has solidly backed Rouhani’s diplomatic offensive, referring to the need for “heroic flexibility” when confronting the enemy, his support is undoubtedly conditional. The supreme leader is surely aware that Rouhani’s nuclear memoir is, among other things, a criticism of his preferred confrontational approach during Ahmadinejad’s presidency. And Khamenei today doesn’t give the impression that he considers 2005-2013 wasted time. For cause: The nuclear program’s greatest technical and industrial advances have been made in the last eight years. True, sanctions have mounted; the supreme leader may believe they were unavoidable. And Rouhani has to worry that the Guard Corps’s longstanding distaste for him and small appetite for concessions may derail his diplomatic efforts to test Western resolve and unity. In addition, the Corps has grown enormously powerful under the sanctions regime because its resources are vast and privileged: As private Iranian businesses have withered and foreign firms have fled, the Guard Corps has moved in. Khamenei has approved or acquiesced to the Guard’s economic expansionism because it is, as it proved in smashing the massive pro-democracy Green Movement in 2009, indispensable to his rule. 

Western observers of Iran often see the antagonism between Rouhani and the Revolutionary Guard Corps primarily as a test of wills over the nuclear program; it isn’t. It’s a struggle about the nature of the regime and the revolution. Rouhani’s politics aren’t reformist; they are revanchist. He wants his class—the first-generation, upper-tier revolutionary managers who made the republic under Rafsanjani—to again have the high ground. He wants educated civilians—primarily clerics—to determine the destiny of the Islamic Revolution, not coarse militiamen who, in his eyes, lost the great war against Saddam Hussein. Rouhani has conspicuously dumped guardsmen from his cabinet and provincial governments. He and his men have publicly attacked the Corps for trying to destroy private enterprise and exposed “private” firms that are really Revolutionary Guard front companies feeding on public finances. It’s unclear, however, whether Rouhani will have any better luck this time confronting the Guard than he did earlier. He may if the supreme leader believes that his praetorians have gone too far. But the odds aren’t in Rouhani’s favor. Khamenei knows—because his praetorians keep publicly reminding him—that the Corps is the guarantor of his rule and the revolution. 

President Obama is in a peculiar situation: He has hooked his diplomacy onto a cleric who can claim to have been a founding father of Iran’s theocracy and its nuclear-weapons program. Rouhani has arduously and vengefully worked to see the revolution succeed. He treated with the devil (the Reagan administration) to get what the republic desperately needed during the Iran-Iraq war. He appears willing to do so again to ensure the regime’s continuing dominion. Whether or not Rouhani has any intention of trading away his nuclear legacy for a better economy, he’s clearly shown that he was an attentive student to his mentors. President Obama may not appreciate the fact that his Iranian “moderate” is the same “moderate” Oliver North dealt with. Rouhani surely does. Persian humor is built on irony and a mordant appreciation for an unpleasant Middle Eastern truth: Nice guys finish last—if they even finish at all.'

AIPAC has not forgotten what's at stake, issuing this stark warning:

First, The Chill Factor (Is it hitting Obama?); Then, Some Warmth

Middle East analyst Elliott Abrams, writes, of an incident that deserves to become more widely reported:

"President Obama has a full court press under way to stop Congress from passing new sanctions legislation that could–could, not will–impose sanctions on Iran one year from now if negotiations break down or Iran cheats. The idea seems to be that passage of the bill would signal mistrust of Iran, or would break the spell of sincerity being cast at the negotiating table.

But what is Iran doing while the president woos legislators? Laughing at us all. Yesterday, Iran’s foreign minister–one of the reputed moderates in the Rouhani camp–was in Beirut and laid a wreath at the grave of Imad Mughniyeh [1962-2008; read all about him here].

Mughniyeh was the Hezbollah terrorist who had killed more Americans than any other man until the attack on 9/11. Mughniyeh was involved in bombing the Marine barracks in Beirut, the bombings of US embassies, the torture and killing of CIA station chief William Buckley in Beirut, the hijacking of TWA 847 and the murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem–among other acts of terror. He was also indicted in Argentina for the bombing of the Israeli embassy and Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

So what does the urbane Zarif do when in Beirut? He lays a wreath at Mughniyeh’s grave ..."

(Read more here and here)

Having just read Elliot Abrams's article, which sends (as it should) a chill into the pro-Israel heart, I'm grateful to reader Ian G of the the Almond Rod blog, for alerting me to the existence of this video.  It appears on his blog, but I can't resist also posting it here.  As Ian wrote to me:

"This is not a heavily political story. It's quite sunny - literally! But it counters some of the myths, lies and prejudices that have grown up around Israel I think the video is worth watching."

Yes, it is sunny, as warming as the present sweltering heatwave in south-east Australia!

"Congress Should Make It Clear That It Does Not Support This Deal"

I spotted this cartoon on Bruce's blog, and thought it very apt.

Meanwhile, the Washington, DC-based Emergency Committee for Israel has given a short stark warning:

"The Geneva Agreement is a defeat for the United States and the West. It fails to uphold even the minimum demand of repeated U.N. Security Council resolutions that Iran must stop enriching uranium. For the next six months, the centrifuges will not be dismantled and will continue to spin, uranium will be enriched, the 20 percent enriched uranium will stay in Iran, and a reactor designed to produce bomb-ready plutonium will remain just months away from completion. Iran will continue its march to nuclear weapons, with perhaps a brief pause in some parts of the program -- but it will be a pause that refreshes, since Iran will be rewarded right away with significant sanctions relief, with the additional likelihood that the rest of the sanctions regime will begin to crumble.

Congress should make clear that it does not support this deal. Congress should make clear that just because the Obama administration seems to have taken all our options off the table, our allies need not follow us down this futile path of accommodating the Iranian regime's nuclear ambitions. In particular, Congress should make clear the United States will support Israel if Israel decides she must act to prevent a regime dedicated to her destruction from acquiring the means to do so." (Emphasis added]

"Rouhani Is A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing": At The UN, Bibi Netanyahu On The Continuing Iranian Threat (video)

"Hope charts the future, vigilance protects it":

Half an hour's worth of good sense from the wonderful Bibi (hat tip: reader Shirlee)
The full transcript is here, but there's nothing like seeing and hearing the great orator in action!

"This regime is an authoritarian regime and it's a terrorist regime," warns John Bolton, the former American ambassador to Iran, last month against Hassan Rouhani's "charm offensive".
Nuclear weapons in the hands of the mullahs are not only a threat to the whole world, he argues,  but to the prople of Iran, he says, since possession of such weapons will make the mullahs much harder to dislodge.  "Rouhani wrote that playbook ... and is simply turning the same pages."
Therefore, "American policy ... has to be regime change in Iran."  (See that video here)

"Rouhani's True Face Has Been Revealed Earlier Than Expected"

Yesterday, being the last Friday of Ramadan, the Ayatollah Khomeini-initiated annual grotesquery called Al Quds Day took place: this account by a plummy-voiced news anchor on Iran's propaganda channel Press TV gives brief footage (making it seem less vitriolic towards Israel than it actually is) of its marking in several cities around the world this year.

According to the following video report, at the Al Quds Day rally in Teheran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's successor as Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, called for "the elimination of the insult to all humanity that is Israel":

Reports the New York Times:

'Iran’s president-elect touched off an international uproar on Friday with disputed comments about Israel, engendering a furious rejoinder from the Israeli prime minister that illustrated the wide gap between the two countries, fed by decades of hostility, even as the new Iranian leader has signaled his wish to pursue a more conciliatory approach in world affairs.The comments from the president-elect, Hassan Rouhani, came two days before he officially takes office, plunging him into what amounted to his first international test over Israel, one of the most vexing topics for an Iranian politician.

Attending an annual pro-Palestinian holiday in Iran known as Al Quds Day, a reference to the Arabic name for Jerusalem and an occasion in which Iranians march and shout “Death to Israel,” Mr. Rouhani told state television that “a sore has been sitting on the body of the Islamic world for many years,” a reference to Israel.

At least three Iranian news agencies appeared to misquote him as saying: the “Zionist regime is a sore which must be removed.” Later in the day they posted corrections.

Mr. Rouhani, who has sought to portray himself as a moderate, did not use the most inflammatory anti-Israeli invective sometimes heard from other Iranian leaders, most notably Mr. Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called Israel a cancerous tumor, a virus and an aberration that should be expunged from history.

Nevertheless, the initial news agency translation of Mr. Rouhani’s comments from the state television videotape infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. He has previously described Mr. Rouhani as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” whose surprising June 14 election victory was unlikely to change Iran’s policies, particularly regarding what Israel views as an Iranian determination to become a nuclear weapons power.

“Rouhani’s true face has been revealed earlier than expected,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement. “Even if they will now rush to deny his remarks, this is what the man thinks and this is the plan of the Iranian regime. These remarks by President Rouhani must rouse the world from the illusion that part of it has been caught up in since the Iranian elections.

The president there has changed, but the goal of the regime has not: to achieve nuclear weapons in order to threaten Israel, the Middle East and the peace and security of the entire world. A country that threatens the destruction of the state of Israel must not be allowed to possess weapons of mass destruction.”

When told later that the original translation had been wrong, and that the videotape showed Mr. Rouhani had in fact not referred directly to Israel or said anything about removing the “sore,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office was unmoved and seemingly uninterested in nuance. “We stand by what we say,” said his spokesman, Mark Regev. “The remarks attributed to him we think, we are sure, that represents his true outlook.”....'

Read more here

"A Master Of Taqiyya ... I Don't See Him ... As A Dove, I See Him ... As A Fox": Dore Gold On Hassan Rouhani (video)

In the course of an address regarding Israel and a changing Middle East (in which, inter alia, he suggests that the rift between Israel and the Palestinians might be at present "unbridgeable" and stresses the need for a clear appreciation of what constitutes defensible borders, warning that withdrawal from the Jordan Valley would be a "national disaster") Dore Gold gives his assessment of Iran's new president ("a master of Taqiyya, Islam's doctrine of deception..."):

For his remarks in their general context see below:

Hat tip: reader Ian