“Iranian Guard: “miserable” handling of Katrina reveals US vulnerability”

All the nonsense that the neocons and their flunkies in the media and government spread before the Iranian election about the coming "youth revolution" turned out to wrong!!!  Instead, an extreme hardliner connected to the Pasdaran was elected president.  This statement by a Pasdaran spokesman should be taken seriously.

Iran is and has been the major state sponsor of Islamic terrorism, sedition, and violence ever since the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979.  The hostage takers who once virtually ruled Lebanon were a small group of Lebanese and Iranians operating directly under Iranian government control.

You didn’t like the Shah?  Look what you got instead!   Governments are faced continuously with decisions that must be made between unpalatable alternatives.  The Shah was a tyrant?  What do you call the regime that is running Iran now? 

Like all Islamic zealot groups, the Iranian government sees the world in "apocalyptic" terms.  Like AQ, the Islamic Republic seeks a future world in which Islam is a world theocratic state, a universalist "Ummah."

Their negotiations with the Europeans are strictly tactical in nature.  They have no intention of giving up their nuclear program.  I am sure that they find the evident sincerity of European efforts at peace mongering to be amusing.  You can also be sure that they find our more or less unintentional progress in installing a Shia government in Iraq to be evidence of our incomprehension and weakness.

"other countries have the power to turn different parts of America into war-hit zones at any point
of time. …"  FARS

People should not let their dislike and suspicion of the Bush Administration blind them to the danger that is Iran.

Someone else said that Mossadegh was “Premier” not “Prime Minister,” i.e., the chief among the Shah’s ministers. In fact, there is no difference between the two terms and he was the Shah’s Prime Minister, and a politician descended from the previous royal house. He decided that he would rather run the show than be head of government for a young man from the family that had displaced his own. Mossadegh knew that the Persian masses were highly xenophobic and very tired of the presence which the Soviet Union and Britain had established in Iran before and during WW2. Mossadegh was clever enough to wager that he could use anti-Western, and anti-colonial feelings in the country to mobilize opinion to force the constitutional monarch out. He lost his bet.

Khomeini did much the same thing forty years later. He won his bet.

Let’s get the facts straight before discussing a present situation which is based on past history.

“To remain in power Mossadegh knew he would have to continue consolidating his power. Since Iran’s monarch was the only person who constitutionally outranked him, he perceived Iran’s 33-year-old king to be his biggest threat. In August of 1953 Mossadegh attempted to convince the Shah to leave the country. The Shah refused, and formally dismissed the Prime Minister, in accordance with the foreign intelligence plan. Mossdegh refused to quit, however, and when it became apparent that he was going to fight, the Shah, as a precautionary measure foreseen by the British/American plan, flew to Baghdad and on from there to Rome, Italy.

Commentators assumed it was only a matter of time before Mossadegh declared Iran a republic and made himself president. This would have made him the full head of state and given him supreme authority over the nation, something Mossadegh had promised he would never do.

Once again, massive protests broke out across the nation. Anti- and pro-monarchy protestors violently clashed in the streets, leaving almost 300 dead. Funded with money from the U.S. CIA and the British MI6, the pro-monarchy forces quickly gained the upper hand. The military intervened as the pro-Shah tank regiments stormed the capital and bombarded the prime minister’s official residence. Mossadegh surrendered, and was arrested on August 19, 1953.” Wikipedia