Although according to a report by Israels Haaretz Service a member of the Saudi royal family - Saudi envoy to the U.K. Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf - has since issued a denial and reiterated Saudi Arabia's rejection of any violation of its territories or airspace, the UK Times Online reported saturday quoting an unnamed U.S. defense source that "In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran."

"To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert. ", continues the Times article.

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The current Gulf tragedy and the dangers of an enthusiastic “Drill, baby, drill!” pattern highlights the issue of how big oil has flexed its mighty muscles in the international political sphere.

Today’s ongoing tragedy involves the same British Petroleum that in 1953 used the CIA in a menacing way to overthrow a popularly elected leader.

Iran had just elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, that nation’s most popular political figure.

The fact that Mossadegh was elected by the will of Iran’s citizens did not deter the efforts of an invigorated CIA that used the Cold War as a pretext to move away from the fact finding agency conceived of by President Harry Truman to an aggressive international political body willing to overthrow nations in contravention of popular national will.

Mossadegh immediately angered the international power cartel with which the CIA actively interlinked. British Petroleum had been garnering the lion’s share of profits from Iran’s wealthy oil deposits.

Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil as a means of obtaining what he deemed to be a fairer portion of that important asset. The nationalization law was passed unanimously by the Iranian Parliament.

Despite the fact that BP was offered considerable compensation by Mossadegh his days were numbered after the nationalization bill was passed.

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Have you wondered why the antiwar movement in America seems to be so co-opted since the 2008 election? Have you wondered why Obama seems unable to move forward with any substantive changes in US Foreign Policy, or make any headway in winding down the middle east wars?

Via Michael Moore:
Seymour Hersh on Obama Being "Dominated"
by the U.S. Military

Seymour Hersh spoke at the 6th Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva on April 24, 2010

REPORTER: You didn't include Obama in your list of liar presidents. I'm wondering if you would include him also?

HERSH: To use a basketball or a football analogy, American football, fourth quarter – he may have a game plan. At this point he's in real trouble. Because the military are dominating him on the important issues of the world: Iraq, Iran, Afghan and Pakistan. And he's following the policies of Bush and Cheney almost to a fare-thee-well. He talks differently. And he's much brighter, he's much more of the world. So one only hopes he has a game plan that will include doing something, but he's in real trouble, in terms of – he's in real trouble.

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Originally published at Asia Times

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual show in Washington would hardly be out of place in a Quentin Tarantino movie; picture a giant hall crammed with 7,500 very powerful people regimented by a very powerful lobby - plus half of the United States Senate and more than a third of the congress - basically calling in unison for Palestinian and Iranian blood.

The AIPAC 2010 show predictably was yet one more "bomb Iran" special; but it was also a call to arms against the Barack Obama administration, as far as the turbo-charging of the illegal colonization of East Jerusalem is concerned.

The administration has reacted to the quarrel with a masterpiece of schizophrenic kabuki (classical Japanese dance-drama) theater. Corporate media insisted there was a deep "crisis" between the unshakeable allies. Nonsense. One just has to look at the facts.

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In part one of his interview with Helen Thomas, longest-serving member of the White House Press Corps, The Real New Network's Paul Jay asks her about her first question for President Obama.

The question, asking President Obama to name all the countries in the Middle-East that have nuclear weapons, was avoided by the President, who claimed to not want to "speculate".

Thomas claims that knowledge of Israeli nukes is very public in DC and Obama's answer shows a lack of credibility. She explains the importance of this question for U.S. policy in the region.

Finally, she confides that she has not been called on by the President since that day, but that if she does, she will ask him whether or not he has found any more information about nukes in the Middle-East since their last encounter.

Real News Network - March 27, 2010

Originally published at Asia Times

Talk about a Via Dolorosa. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is the first Brazilian president to visit Israel officially. Lauded for his charisma, swing and formidable negotiating powers - United States President Barack Obama refers to him as "the man" - little did Lula know that to engage his hosts this week he would have to give the Prophet Abraham a run for his money, no less.

In the end, he stood his ground. He made no concessions. And unlike United States Vice President Joseph Biden last week, he even managed not to be publicly humiliated by his hosts.

Lula is no stranger to tough neighborhoods. Former bouncer turned hardline politician Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, boycotted Lula's speech at the Knesset (parliament) as well as Lula's meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The reason: Lula did not visit the tomb of Zionism founder Theodor Herzl. But neither did France's President Nicolas Sarkozy or Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi when they visited Israel.

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Today is the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The Dog was 12 years old way back then and remembers his impressions of the time. Without knowing all of the history and politics behind the revolution the impression to a tween was that the Shah was not someone who you could like, but the students around Ayatollah Khomeini were really happy and joyful.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

That impression changed when members of the Revolution stormed our Embassy and took the diplomats there hostage for so long. Being a kid on the cusp of puberty, the Dog’s emotions were easy to swing and jingoism has a dark luster that even adults find hard to resist.

For most of the Dog ’s life, the impressions of Iran and its political system have come from the outside. The view of a country, which underwent a revolution that was religiously based, taints the point that it was a revolution against a monarchy and in favor of a form of democracy. True it is a theocratic democracy and that makes an atheist from the country that which founded the idea of separation of church and state shudder in horror, but it is a democracy none the less.

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What to do when the government shoots at you?

by Diana Sweet, RawStory, January 02, 2010

An amateur video apparently taken with a cell phone has surfaced on YouTube that appears to contradict the Iranian government’s claim that its security forces didn't shoot at protesters last Sunday during demonstrations that left at least eight people dead, including the nephew of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

As first reported by The Los Angeles Times on Saturday, the video not only shows a gunman opening fire on demonstrators - it also gives an eye-opening look at a growing air of defiance by Iranian opposition.

A man in plain clothes is seen and heard opening fire on the crowd as another man can be heard shouting out "Dishonorable Basiji!" blaming a member of Iran's Basij militia for firing the shots.

With shots fired, you would expect the demonstrators to flee and seek cover, but instead, they decide to fight back.

"Attack!" someone in the crowd calls out, and the crowd runs off in pursuit of the gunman as the video, less than a minute in length comes to an end.

Originally published at Asia Times

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from Brazil and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad from Iran. What is this - the new axis of evil? No - Luladinejad is a new axis of business.

As Ahmadinejad was coming from a visit to the Brazilian parliament in Brasilia on Monday, Lula was waiting for him, virtually alone. The embrace by Lula was sudden, spontaneous, extremely warm; it's fair to assume Ahmadinejad was not expecting it. Those who saw it interpreted it as a graphic message.

Ahmadinejad did mean business: he traveled with 200 Iranian businessmen. In the long run, Brazil wants to export to Iran not only meat, grains and sugar, but also trucks and buses. And Iran wants to invest heavily in the oil industry, petrochemicals, agriculture, minerals and real estate. Lula will visit Iran in March or April 2010, also with a business caravan.

Lula and Ahmadinejad signed agreements on energy, trade and agricultural research in the latest round of what is becoming an increasingly warm embrace between Latin America and the Middle East.

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By Bitta Mostofi, November 4, 2009

Today marks the 30th year since the 444 day Iran Hostage Crisis began in 1979. On this day the media traditionally offers us images of Iranians burning American flags and effigies of Uncle Sam. We are reminded of the great chasm of mistrust and misunderstanding that has marked the last three decades of US-Iranian relations.

But, in the past year both Americans and Iranians have asked for something new. Americans have elected a president that promises to pursue diplomacy and Iranians have given birth to a popular democratic movement. So, we should not use this 30th anniversary of the hostage crisis to simply re-live tragedy and tension. Rather, today Americans have an opportunity to honestly reflect on our relationship with Iran and think about how to move forward.

For the past 30 years our government has dealt with Iran through policies of isolation and sanctions.

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