Persicus Maximus

Western leaders on Thursday rejected proposals by Iranian nuclear negotiators to alleviate concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, while Iran rejected an incentive package from the six world powers. Iran and the P5+1 - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – are in Baghdad for talks about Iran’s nuclear program. While an agreement has not yet been reached, negotiations reportedly “did not appear in danger of collapse.” The Western offer calls on Tehran to halt the production of 20 percent enriched uranium, which is the highest grade produced by Iran and used for the country’s lone medical research reactor. In exchange, the world powers offered benefits, including delivery of the medical isotopes Iran is creating with the 20 percent enriched uranium, some spare parts for civilian airliners that are needed in Iran, among other things. But Western leaders rejected Iranian request for an immediate easing of harsh economic sanctions in return for promises t...

Today, the MEK is campaigning to be taken off the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations – and they’re on the brink of success. Wall Street Journal : “ Senior U.S. officials said on Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has yet to make any final decision on the MeK’s status. But they said the State Department was looking favorably at delisting MeK if it continued cooperating by vacating a former paramilitary base inside Iraq, called Camp Ashraf, which the group had used to stage cross-border strikes into Iran.” What the article fails to mention is that those “cross border strikes into Iran” took place during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, when the MEK enjoyed the patronage of Saddam Hussein: MEK cadre fought on the Iraqi side during that conflict. They also were useful to Saddam in repressing internal enemies of the regime: after the 1991 Gulf war, MEK fighters were used by Saddam to crush uprisings in the south and in Iraqi Kurdistan. Maryam Rajavi told her f...

The latest wrinkle in the War Party’s propaganda campaign aimed at Iran is a drawing – yes, you read that correctly – of an alleged nuclear weapons development project at the Parchin military facility. An Associated Press “exclusive ” describes this new “evidence” of Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions: “ A drawing based on information from inside an Iranian military site shows an explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that U.N. inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted there…. The computer-generated drawing was provided to The Associated Press by an official of a country tracking Iran’s nuclear program who said it proves the structure exists, despite Tehran’s refusal to acknowledge it.” The article goes on to say that “the image is based on information from a person who had seen the chamber at the Parchin military site” –Scouts honor , cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die. This sort of “proof” wouldn’t fool a child – but then again, it isn’t mea...

In some countries, they arrest the president, occupy government offices and TV stations and annul the constitution. They then publish Communique No. 1, explaining the dire need to save the nation from perdition and promising democracy, elections etc. In other countries, they do it more quietly. They just inform the elected leaders that, if they don’t desist from their disastrous policies, the officers will make their views public and precipitate their downfall. Such officers are generally called a "junta", the Spanish word for "committee" used by South American generals. Their method is usually called a "putsch", a German-Swiss term for a sudden blow. (Yes, the Swiss actually had revolts some 170 years ago.) What almost all such coups have in common is that their instigators thrive on the demagoguery of war. The politicians are invariably accused of cowardice in face of the enemy, failure to defend national honor, and such. Not in Israel. In Israe...

For all the talk of the United States' long-standing hegemony in the oil-rich Persian Gulf, its military superiority is not without shortfalls that, in turn, show significant flaws in its ability to maintain a "credible military threat" against Iran, the stand that nowadays complements its coercive diplomacy vis-a-vis Iran's nuclear program. With the next round of talks between Iran and the "P5+1" (also known as the "Iran Six", the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - plus Germany) nations scheduled in Iraq on May 23, Washington has skillfully combined the carrot of softening its "red line" by reportedly considering the option of tolerating Iran's low-enriched uranium program, with the "long stick" of adding new layers of military threats aimed at convincing Tehran to be beware that, should the Baghdad talks fail, the wrath of Uncle Sam is...