BS: Undermining Iran

Subject: BS: Undermining Iran
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 04:53 PM

U.S. exports cigarettes, bras, bull semen to Iran


Story Highlights
U.S. exports to Iran increase tenfold during President Bush's terms in office

Cigarette exports of $158 million were top item sent to Iran

Few who ask permission to trade with Iran are turned down by Treasury Department


   
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. exports to Iran grew more than tenfold during President Bush's years in office even as he accused it of nuclear ambitions and sponsoring terrorists.

America sent more cigarettes to Iran -- at least $158 million worth under Bush -- than any other product.

[You have been asked many times to stop doing copy & paste of the entire article, bb! Future transgressions may get the post deleted. EDIT, and post a link!]

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 05:20 PM

"America sent more cigarettes to Iran -- at least $158 million worth under Bush -- than any other product."

******

"The rules allow sales of agricultural commodities, medicine and a few other categories of goods. The exemptions are designed to help Iranian families even as the United States pressures Iran's leaders."


With help like that, I'm sure the Iranian families will do splendidly.

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: Ed T
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 09:11 PM

Wow, that's a long one.

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 09:26 PM

Seymour Hersh wrote a long article about Bush's plan for Iran in last week's New Yorker.

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: pdq
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 10:07 PM

"America sent more cigarettes to Iran -- at least $158 million worth..."

Brilliant!!!

Now, if we could just export Rap, tuberculosis, Liberalism and venereal disease, we could completely destroy the place!

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 10:12 PM

Bull semen?

And why, pdq, do you wish to export me?? We may not always agree, but geez, I really don't want to go to Iran....

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: pdq
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 10:19 PM

Well, we agree on gun control: use both hands.

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 10:29 PM

Nice to see the genocide of the Iranians being promoted as an option.

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: Stringsinger
Date: 09 Jul 08 - 06:41 PM

Hey Bush may want to bomb Iran but business is business.

Follow the buck after the bomb.

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jul 08 - 06:48 PM

I suppose this is best seen as a form of biological warfare...

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 12:22 AM

pdq - Liberalism in Iran would equate to people who don't want to do everything according to what the Mullahs say, who aren't religious extremists, and who favor western clothing styles and social freedoms.

Are you saying that would be a bad thing? It is Iranian conservatives who are the deadly enemies of American conservatives...and American conservatives are the deadly enemies of just about everybody in the whole rest of the world at this point (but specially of Islamic or Communist conservatives). Conservatives fight wars against other conservatives as a matter of course, because wars are their bread and butter. ;-)

Face it, man. Conservatives in any society are often very dangerous f*ckers. They believe strongly in fighting wars and taking massive retaliation on people by deadly force as the quick solution to everything. They're also big on jails, expanded police powers, execution, torture, all that sort of nice stuff. Kill, kill, kill! It's the conservative way of making us all safe. Just ask Clint Eastwood.

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: DougR
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 01:48 PM

Gee, I wonder what it cost Bush to send that many cigarettes to Iran? Suppose presidents have petty cash funds or do you suppose he paid for it out of his salary? If it was the latter, I'll bet Laura was pretty pissed off.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 01:52 PM

Yes Doug,

Bush's salary is so high that he has 158 million dollars in cigarette money and he'd be a bargain at twice the price.

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 04:46 PM

Tehran's Definite 'Maybe'
By David Ignatius
Thursday, July 10, 2008; Page A15

NEW YORK -- Even in midsummer, Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, wears the three-piece suit of a traditional diplomat. But faithful to the dress code of the Iranian revolution, he doesn't wear a necktie. That mix of symbols is a good snapshot of Iran's hard-and-soft foreign policy these days.

The Iranians are signaling that they want talks with the West -- and hinting that they are ready for a serious dialogue with the Great Satan in Washington. But while they discuss engagement, they remain wary of it. The Iranians are almost coquettish: They like being wooed, and they enjoy being the center of attention, but they aren't quite ready to say yes.

And even as they talk of diplomacy, the Iranians continue to brandish the weapons of war. The latest example was the test firing yesterday of a Shahab-3 missile, which with its 1,200-mile range is capable of hitting Israel. "Our hands are always on the trigger," said Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hossein Salami.

The mixed messages are especially evident on the nuclear issue, where Mottaki raised hopes last week that the Iranians might respond favorably to a new proposal for negotiations, then in his formal response didn't give a clear, yes-or-no answer. The United States and the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council had proposed a "freeze-for-freeze" deal, in which Iran would agree not to expand its nuclear program in exchange for a freeze on additional U.N. sanctions, as a prelude to negotiations. But in a three-page letter to Javier Solana, the European Union's top diplomat, Mottaki offered only a noncommittal "generic response," according to one person who read the letter.

What course is Iran pursuing? The leaders themselves probably aren't sure. A lively debate is under way in Tehran, with hard-liners arguing that the West is weak and that Iran should refuse any compromises, and a more pragmatic faction contending that now is the time for Iran to come to the table and consolidate its gains.

This debate is surfacing in the Iranian press and in some statements by senior officials, according to an analysis by the "Persia House" group at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton: They note "a widening rift between camps within the governing elite, as well as popular support for compromise."

[You have been asked many times to stop doing copy & paste of the entire article, bb! Future transgressions may get the post deleted. EDIT, and post a link!]

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 10:31 AM

Thomas Friedman suggests, in a long and thoughtful piece on Iran that its position is far more vulnerable and American opportunities far greater than has been suggested. He remarks:

"But let's use our leverage smartly and not exaggerate Iran's strength. Just as I believe that we should drop the reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden — from $50 million to one penny, plus an autographed picture of Dick Cheney — we need to deflate the Iranian mullahs as well. Let them chase us.

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, compares it to bargaining for a Persian carpet in Tehran. "When you go inside the carpet shop, the first thing you are supposed to do is feign disinterest," he explains. "The last thing you want to suggest is 'We are not leaving without that carpet.' 'Well,' the dealer will say, 'if you feel so strongly about it ...' "

The other lesson from the carpet bazaar, says Sadjadpour, "is that there is never a price tag on any carpet. The dealer is not looking for a fixed price, but the highest price he can get — and the Iran price is constantly fluctuating depending on the price of oil." Let's now use that to our advantage.

Barack Hussein Obama would present another challenge for Iran's mullahs. Their whole rationale for being is that they are resisting a hegemonic American power that wants to keep everyone down. Suddenly, next week, Iranians may look up and see that the country their leaders call "The Great Satan" has just elected "a guy whose middle name is the central figure in Shiite Islam — Hussein — and whose last name — Obama — when transliterated into Farsi, means 'He is with us,' " said Sadjadpour.

Iran is ripe for deflating. Its power was inflated by the price of oil and the popularity of its leader, who was cheered simply because he was willing to poke America with a stick. But as a real nation-building enterprise, the Islamic Revolution in Iran has been an abject failure.

"When you ask young Arabs which leaders in the region they most admire," said Sadjadpour, they will usually answer the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. "When you ask them where in the Middle East would you most like to live," he added, "the answer is usually socially open places like Dubai or Beirut. The Islamic Republic of Iran is never in the top 10."

Discussion welcome. I think he is spot on.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 03:02 PM

But faithful to the dress code of the Iranian revolution, he doesn't wear a necktie.

Good grief - the country I live in is evidently packed full of men who are "faithful to the dress code of the Iranian revolution". In fact I don't think I know anyone who isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Undermining Iran
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 04:38 AM

Remember that when you attack the Iranian government (which I assume is what you want to attack) you have to do it in such a way that it doesn't undermine the Iranian opposition. The fundies were on the defensive in 2003 before the Iraq invasion, but that cut their feet from under the reformers, allowing the religious nutcases to rivet their control in place for another few years.

It couldn't possibly be that the religious nutcases in the West would prefer an Iran run by other religious nutcases to a secular, prosperous, liberal Iran, could it?