MicahHalpern.com
Micah Halpern

You can call him a puppet, you can call him a scarecrow. Just don't call Iranian President Ahmadinejad a leader. A leader, by definition, is a policy maker. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by definition, is a policy implementer. He is the front man for the true rulers of Iran, The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the ruling Religious Council. They decree, he makes sure it happens.

The choice of Ahmadinejad as the supreme representative of his country's religious leadership was brilliant, the man is a public relations dream. He has charisma, even charm. He is an anti-intellectual intellectual. He is comfortable in front of the masses and he wears those classic-cut double knit leisure suits. In a religious theocracy like Iran "president" is simply a title given to the agent of the religious leadership, no more and no less. He must be a true believer in the religious mission, as Ahmadinejad is, but he is chosen not for his leadership ability, but quite the opposite, for his penchant for bureaucracy and his ability to put a public face on oftentimes unpopular policy and dictates.

Like a puppet, his strings are pulled and his movements are choreographed from high on up. Yes, the president sits on The Supreme Council but there is no doubt that every decision taken by that Council is informed and directed by The Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. President Ahmadinejad's only independent role is to convey the message that he has been assigned.

Like a scarecrow, he is in place to intimidate Iranians and to frighten the West. The West sees Ahmadinejad as the symbol of a religiously run nation. He presents the image of one who will do anything for the sake of his religious belief. That includes engaging in even the most self destructive of national behaviors, like nuclear proliferation and the demolition of eternal enemy Israel, threats that if ever implemented will certainly force retaliation upon the people of Iran. Ahmadinejad persists with the rhetoric, for his rulers as for him, it is all a question of honor.

The reality is that Ahmadinejad is a unique blend, he is part puppet and part scarecrow. And sometimes, even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad forgets his place in the hierarchy of Iranian rule. Sometimes, Iran's president oversteps the bounds of his mandate. Ahmadinejad has been called on the proverbial carpet several times this year by The Supreme Leader. In January, for example, remarks made by the president asserting that Iran would be engaging in short range missile tests incensed the United States and needed mollification. On these occasions Khamenei is compelled to take the unusual step of publicly clarifying the missed message delivered by his over zealous president. He reminds Ahmadinejad of his true place in Iranian society, reminds him that he is a blacksmith, a working class member of society, not a policy maker and certainly not a religious leader, he is their hired thug.

Iran's biggest fear right now is that pressure from the United States will stimulate a revolution - a people's revolution - from within. That fear is so palpable that once again Khamenei himself has stepped into the public limelight, addressing the people of Iran, ranting and raving against the United States. That fear is so great that this time he is not speaking in place of Ahmadinejad, but alongside him. The Supreme Leader does not trust the puppet to appropriately address this grave new challenge to Iran, does not trust the scarecrow to adequately insinuate the message of fear.

Iran has always held the advantage in psychological warfare. Ahmadinejad would utter outrageous declarations expressly to intimidate his local and international audience and force them to be on the defensive. Now the United States has categorized the Iranian Republic Guard as a terrorist organization and Iranian leadership is ranting and raving as a means of damage control. Ironically, the United States had no inkling that they were pushing such a strong emotional button when the policy decision was made to criticize the Guard.

Until now, the people of Iran assumed that the horror of the Iranian Republic Guard was a safe, dirty little secret. They knew that they lived in fear of and were completely terrorized by their leaders, their police and army but they didn't know that anyone else knew. Now the Iranian people, the street, have a question. "Our religious leadership knew that we were being terrorized and they sponsored it. The United States knows that we are being terrorized and they are speaking out to stop it. Who is the real savior and who is the real Satan?"

Ahmadinejad is facing one of the biggest challenges of his career. If Iranian leadership fails to ward off an insurrection by the people, rest assured that they, themselves, will not accept the blame. The puppet will have his strings cut off, the scarecrow will be beheaded.

Iran Focus

London, Aug. 29 – U.S.-led troops captured a “highly-sought” facilitator of Iranian weapons in a pre-dawn raid in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Tuesday, the Coalition announced.

“Iraqi and Coalition Forces conducted a raid to capture a suspected weapons distributor connected to the Special Groups network. The suspected senior weapons facilitator is responsible for distributing weapons and other forms of lethal aide smuggled from Iran into Iraq”, the Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I) said in a statement.

“The individual is also suspected of distributing explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs. The weapons distributor is also suspected of having direct ties to other senior commanders in militias operating in and around Baghdad”, it said.

“We assess that this capture will degrade the weapons smuggling network”, said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, MNF-I spokesperson. “Coalition Forces will continue their focused operations to interdict Iranian supported terror groups operating in Iraq”.

Two others detained during the raid are also suspected of distributing weapons smuggled into Iraq from Iran, the statement said. “One of the buildings searched during the raid produced currency and identification documents confiscated for further analysis and evaluation”, it added.

The Guardian

· US president accuses Tehran of arming militants
· Speech aimed at shoring up support for 'surge'

Ed Pilkington in New York

George Bush yesterday ramped up the war of words between the US and Iran, accusing Tehran of threatening to place the Middle East under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust and revealing that he had authorised US military commanders in Iraq to "confront Tehran's murderous activities".

In a speech designed to shore up US public opinion behind his unpopular strategy in Iraq, the president reserved his strongest words for the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which he accused of openly supporting violent forces within Iraq. Iran, he said, was responsible for training extremist Shia factions in Iraq, supplying them with weapons, including sophisticated roadside bombs. Iran has denied all these accusations.

Mr Bush referred specifically to 240mm rockets which he said were made in Iran this year and smuggled into Iraq.

"Iran has long been a source of trouble in the region," he said." Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust."

The blunt terms in which Mr Bush portrayed the Iranian threat, and his threat of military confrontation with Tehran involving US troops based in Iraq, elevated the tense standoff between Washington and Tehran to a new level.

The speech also contained the implicit desire on Mr Bush's part for regime change, calling for "an Iran whose government is accountable to its people, instead of to leaders who promote terror and pursue the technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons".

Equally menacing words emanated from Tehran yesterday, where Mr Ahmadinejad said US influence in the region was collapsing so fast that a power vacuum would soon be created. "Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap," he said.

Though the Iranian president said he backed the leadership of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, and welcomed the involvement of Saudi Arabia, his offer to occupy the space the Americans might leave behind is unlikely to cool emotions in Washington.

He went on to deride the possibility of the US pursuing military action in Iran, saying it was in no position to do so and claimed that Iran had already acquired enriched nuclear fuels, though they would only be used for peaceful purposes.

In a further cause of tension, Mr Bush accused the Quds force within Iran's revolutionary guards of leading the supply chain to Iraqi extremist groups. As the Guardian revealed earlier this month, the Bush administration is preparing to declare the 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guard Corps a "global terrorist organisation" - a move that would be seen as provocative within Tehran.

According to reports from Baghdad last night, a group of Iranians were detained last night in a raid by US troops on a hotel in the city. Of 10 people arrested, seven were said to be Iranian, including an employee of the Iranian embassy and six members of Iran's electricity ministry in Iraq to discuss contracts for electric power stations. It was not immediately clear why the men had been arrested, or where they had been taken. The US military would only say the action was part of an on-going operation.

Mr Bush's bullish talk of his determination to "take the fight to the enemy" in the carefully choreographed setting of a veterans' convention in Reno, Nevada, was the second of a two-part appeal by him to shore up public support for his flagging strategy on Iraq. In the first speech, made last week, he invoked Vietnam to argue that quitting Iraq now could put the lives of millions of innocent civilians at risk.

Mr Bush yesterday vowed to persevere with his controversial military policy in Iraq, insisting that political and security progress was being made, despite a rising tide of dissent even from high up within his Republican party.

"Our strategy is this: every day we work to protect the American people. We will fight them over there so that we don't have to fight them in the United States of America," he said.

The twin speeches were intended as preparation for a crucial series of debates on Iraq that will dominate Washington for the next few weeks.

In a fortnight the senior general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and American ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, will give two days of testimony in which they are likely to argue that the troop "surge" is having some beneficial impact on security levels, though political progress lags behind.

Under the current policy, US troop numbers in Iraq have risen by 30,000 to about 165,000.

As the climax of these intense hearings, Mr Bush himself will present his latest assessment.

Yesterday's speech was the latest clear indication that he will resist any attempt to change course in the prosecution of the war.

Mr Bush's latest attempt to reassure the American people that the war is moving in the right direction came on another tumultuous day in Iraq.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims attending a Shia festival in Kerbala, 68 miles south-west of Baghdad, were ordered to leave the city after intense fighting broke out, reportedly between warring Shia factions. At least 52 people have been killed since Monday, mostly police officers engaging in the battle.

AN Iranian man caught working illegally at a Midland poultry farm after using a fake registration card to get the job has been jailed for six months.

AJudge at Warwick Crown Court recommended that Sadoohn Waysi, who admitted using a false identity document with intent, should be deported after serving his sentence.

Prosecutor Vicki Lofrese said that Waysi (27) an Iranian Kurd of no fixed address, first tried to get into this country from France in January 2005.

He was returned to France, but managed to get back here in the back of a lorry the following months and claimed asylum.

While his application was being considered he was issued with a Home Office registration card which specifically said on it 'employment prohibited.'

After his asylum application was turned down Waysi was told to report to the immigration authorities, but failed to do so.

Then in April last year, using a forged registration card which stated that he was entitled to work, Waysi got a job with Summers Poultry at Canks Farm in Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire.

He continued working there until the farm was raided in a joint police and Home Office operation in July this year when Waysi and four other failed asylum-seekers were arrested.

Waysi, who had earned a total of £10,543 while working at the farm, said he had paid £150 for the fake card.

Peter Freeman, defending, said the other four men have already been dealt with and all jailed for six months.

Source:IcBirmingham
__________________

But not any legal or low to support iranian asylum in the united kingdom because the UK support and help iranian govrenment.

The Daily Telegraph

By Henry Samuel in Paris

Nicolas Sarkozy gave warning yesterday that unless the West redoubled its efforts to curb Teheran's nuclear ambitions it could lead to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran".

The French president, in his first major speech on foreign policy, made it clear he intends to apply the same energetic approach to French diplomacy as he has to domestic policy since taking office in May.

From the Middle East to relations with Russia, the president promised a break with France's traditional Gaullist position of "splendid isolation", particularly towards the United States.

Speaking to 180 French ambassadors, Mr Sarkozy said a nuclear-armed Iran would be "unacceptable" and that the only response was to tighten sanctions while being open to talks if Iran suspended nuclear activities.

"This initiative is the only one that can enable us to escape an alternative that I say is catastrophic: the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran," he said, adding that it was the worst crisis facing the world.

He was equally direct on matters elsewhere in the Middle East, promising that France would not allow a "Hamastan" to be created in the Palestinian territories after the takeover of the Gaza Strip by the radical Islamic group Hamas in June.

Last week, Bernard Kouchner made the first visit to Iraq by a French foreign minister since Paris led the opposition to the US-led invasion in 2003.

The trip was part of a wider bid by Mr Sarkozy - seen as far more pro-American than his predecessor Jacques Chirac - to mend fences with Washington after four years of tensions. Yesterday he called for a "clear timetable for the pullout of foreign troops".

However, he made no mention of an embarrassing faux pas by Mr Kouchner, who was forced to apologise yesterday after describing the Iraqi government as "not functioning" and calling for the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to be "replaced".

Claiming he was quoted out of context by Newsweek magazine, Mr Kouchner said yesterday that he had spoken to Mr Maliki, "to whom I apologised this morning and who might be leaving us shortly".

He offered French mediation in forming a government of national unity. Mr Sarkozy described his efforts as "remarkable".

Unlike Mr Chirac, the new French president said he was prepared to hold high-level talks with Syria if it backed French efforts to end the political crisis in Lebanon.

A stern rebuke to Russia came as a shock after more than a decade of indulgence from Mr Chirac. "Russia is imposing its return on the world scene by using its assets, notably oil and gas, with a certain brutality," Mr Sarkozy said. "When one is a great power, one should not be brutal."

He also urged European Union nations to shoulder a greater share of defence spending. At present, Britain, France, Germany and Italy pay for three-quarters of Europe's defence budget, with Britain top of the list.

Mr Sarkozy stuck to his view that Turkey should be given a privileged partnership, not full EU membership, but that negotiations should continue.

He outlined a range of new ideas, such as turning the G8 to the G13 to include emerging giants like China, and setting up a committee of 12 "wise men" to discuss the future shape of Europe. He also called for a UN Security Council meeting on Africa.

Mr Sarkozy's dynamic approach to international affairs has met with approval in France. A poll published yesterday suggested that 75 per cent thought he had boosted France's role in the world after years of decline.

However other European partners, Germany in particular, are less than ecstatic. There was annoyance at Mr Sarkozy taking the credit for freeing six Bulgarian medics from jail in Libya, which European diplomats spent years negotiating.

African leaders were furious last month when he said the continent had turned its back on progress.

The Washington Times

Editorial

By Struan Stevenson

This summer, there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of executions in Iran. Since July, the Iranian state media have reported at least 86 executions. Twenty-one were hanged in public and 58 in prisons nationwide, including 12 hanged simultaneously in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Some 600 victims are on death row in Gohardasht Prison west of Tehran. The regime even admitted some cases of stoning, after years claiming that this barbaric punishment was no longer in force. Oppression by the fascist mullah regime continues at an alarming pace. What makes the situation even more horrific is that the mullahs air their brutality on the state-run television to terrorize an increasingly enraged and discontented citizenry.

The regime is also training and deploying suicide bombers and insurgents in neighboring Iraq in a bid to foment civil war and deliver Iraq into the clutches of Iran. The mullahs and their 125,000-strong Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) provide the sophisticated roadside bombs (EFPs) that kill and maim allied military personnel. They were Hezbollah's puppet-masters during the recent war with Israel in Lebanon and their support for the militant Palestinian group Hamas has led to the rupture with Fatah and the partition of Palestine. Members of the IRGC's elite force — Quds — even targeted dissidents abroad with kidnappings and assassinations. True to form, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad served as a commander of one of those hit-squads in the 1990s. Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeated his threat to wipe Israel off the map. He is steadily rolling out his nuclear- enrichment program to a point where he will have the means to do so.

Europe's response to Iran has been, to say the least, muted. Apart from occasional squeaks of protest and wrist-slapping resolutions from the European Parliament, the EU-3, consisting of the United Kingdom, Germany and France, have tried in vain to persuade Tehran to halt its quest for nuclear weapons. Led by the United Kingdom, these three EU members have embarked on an appeasement campaign to make Neville Chamberlain blush. Determined to keep the rich petro-dollar contracts flowing, the EU-3 have shamefully turned a blind eye to the mullahs' rampant oppression, executions and terror sponsorship.

Worse still, at the insistence of the mullahs, the United Kingdom demanded that the main Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI), should be proscribed in the United Kingdom and added to the EU"s terror list. At enormous risk to its own supporters in Iran, over 120,000 of whom have been executed in the past 20 years, the People's Mujahedeen has repeatedly provided key intelligence to the West, even including the original identification of Iran's nuclear program. (Were that not enough, the mullahs went as far as demanding that the United Kingdom and the United States bomb PMOI bases during Operation Iraqi Freedom.) As became apparent during the court proceedings before the Proscribed Organizations Appeals Commission in London last month, the United Kingdom assured Tehran that it would oblige.

In December, the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg ruled that the EU's listing of the PMOI was unlawful. The Council of Ministers simply ignored the court and, again at the insistence of the UK, drew up a new terror list which again prominently featured the PMOI. The mullahs have expressed their great appreciation of this craven act of appeasement but continued to ignore calls to stop their nuclear program.

In Washington, President Bush is not so easily fooled. He has decided to place the IRGC on the U.S. terror list. This has, of course, infuriated Tehran and its apologists in Washington, but it will enable the United States to freeze the vast foreign financial assets of the Revolutionary Guards and to target foreign companies doing business with the force.

It was Gen. Douglas MacArthur in his famous valedictory speech to Congress in 1953 who said about those who pursue appeasement: "They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as blackmail, violence becomes the only alternative."

Those who seek to appease the fascist mullahs in Iran should heed this lesson. Instead of blacklisting our natural allies, the PMOI, Europe should follow the example of America and add Iran's terrorist arm to the EU Terror List.

Struan Stevenson is a Conservative MEP for Scotland. He is vice president of the ruling EPP-ED Group in the European Parliament and co-chair of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup.

Reuters
Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN -- Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said she had asked the United Nations to investigate the status of women in Iran and accused Iranian authorities of detaining activists demanding more women's rights. Ebadi, speaking at a press conference on Monday marking the first anniversary of a campaign to gather 1 million signatures in favour of women's rights in the Islamic state, said she had contacted top U.N. human rights official Louise Arbour.

She said about 50 activists had been detained over the last 14 months for involvement in women's rights protests and some of them faced charges of acting against national security. She did not say how many -- if any -- were still being held.

Western diplomats and rights groups say Iran is taking a tougher line against dissent in general, possibly in response to increased international pressure over its disputed nuclear activities, which the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.

The Islamic Republic rejects allegations it discriminates against women, saying it follows sharia law.

Tehran usually reacts dismissively toward criticism from any foreign organisations, including the United Nations.

"I have written a letter to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and complained for the first time, and said this is the situation of women rights in Iran and these are our demands," Ebadi said.

"Please send a special rapporteur to Iran to report on women, to investigate the conditions for women," she said, describing her message to Arbour.

Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work on women's and children's rights.

AWAITING VERDICTS

Campaigners say Iranian women face difficulties in getting a divorce. They also criticise inheritance laws they say are unjust and the fact that a woman's court testimony is worth half that of a man's.

Activists say scores of people were detained at protests for greater women rights in Tehran in June 2006 and in March this year, which authorities had declared illegal.

In April, an Iranian news agency said four campaigners were detained while collecting signatures for the petition demanding equal legal rights with men.

"Unfortunately, about 50 people involved in gatherings demanding equality ... had cases (against them) and were in prison for a while and some of them are waiting for their verdicts now," Ebadi said.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch earlier this year said six women were convicted after taking part in last year's protest.

Women's rights campaigners vowed to press on with the signature campaign, but did not say how many they had collected since it was launched in August last year.

Although women are legally entitled to hold most jobs in Iran, it remains a male-dominated society. Women cannot run for president or become judges but in recent years they have started to work in police and fire departments.

"Many women believe they are equal with men and they want to prove it," said one campaigner. "I believe men agree with us."

VOA News
Editorials Reflecting the Views of the United States Government

Human rights monitors are concerned over the detention of two Azeri-Iranian rights activists by Iranian authorities.

Saleh Kamrani, a noted human rights lawyer, was reportedly arrested in Karaj on August 18th. Mr. Kamrani’s wife, Mina, told Azerbaijan’s Azeri Press Agency that Iranian authorities refused to disclose the reason for his detention. The human rights monitoring group Amnesty International says that Mr. Kamrani “is a prisoner of conscience, detained solely in connection with his legitimate activities as a lawyer and for the peaceful exercise of his internationally recognized rights to freedom of expression and association in support of greater rights for the Iranian-Azerbaijani community.”

Amnesty International says another Azeri-Iranian detained is journalist Sa’id Metinpour. According to Amnesty International, Mr. Metinpour “has reportedly been tortured, apparently to try to force him to make a videotaped ‘confession.’” Mr. Metinpour was arrested in May and has not been allowed to meet with family members or his lawyer.

Fakhteh Zamani, Director of the Association for Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners, says the arrests of Saleh Kamrani and Sa’id Metinpour are part of a continuing campaign of repression by Iranian authorities:

“There is a demand for cultural and linguistic rights among Iranian-Azerbaijanis, including rights to education in their mother tongue. But unfortunately, those who seek to promote Iranian-Azerbaijani cultural identity are viewed with suspicion by Iranian authorities and are arrested, tortured, and sentenced to prison terms.”

In its latest human rights report, the U.S. State Department said Azeri-Iranians report “ethnic and linguistic discrimination, including the banning of the Azeri language in schools, harassing Azeri activists or organizers, and changing Azeri geographic names.” In a written statement, U.S. State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack called on the Iranian government "to improve its human rights situation before more Iranians suffer for attempting to exercise their universal rights and freedoms."

NCRI – According to media reports, more individuals are sentenced to death in Iran for bogus reasons. Reporting from Kermanshah Province, western Iran, state controlled daily Aftab-e Yazd quoted the local commander of the State Security Forces (SSF) as saying that more people are going to be hanged in public in the Province.

By describing dissatisfied youths as “thugs and hooligans,” the Revolutionary Guards Commander Amir Geravand said, “So far a number of thugs and hooligans have been hanged in public and in prisons and in a near future more of these people are going to be hanged in public in different cities across the Province.”

Commander of the SSF in Fars Province, central Iran, expressed his unease on 15-year jail sentences for some of those arrested in a suppressive measure called “Social Security Scheme.” Revolutionary Guard Ali Moayedi stressed that those individuals should had been sentenced to maximum penalty. That is death under the clerical rule in Iran.

Commander of the SSF in Greater Tehran also spoke about further suppressive measures. He said, “We are determined to adopt harsher measures against thugs and hooligan.” In an interview with the state-run daily Jumhouri on August 26, Revolutionary Guard Ahmad-Reza Radan added that women should remain under constant security and judicial pressures.

By Francois Murphy

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday a diplomatic push by the world's powers to rein in Tehran's nuclear programme was the only alternative to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran".

In his first major foreign policy speech, Sarkozy emphasised his existing foreign policy priorities, such as opposing Turkish membership of the European Union and pushing for a new Mediterranean Union that he hopes will include Ankara.

He also presented some new ideas, such as possibly renewing high-level dialogue with Syria and expanding the Group of Eight industrialised nations to include the biggest developing states.

Sarkozy said a nuclear-armed Iran would be unacceptable and that major powers should continue their policy of incrementally increasing sanctions against Tehran while being open to talks if Iran suspended nuclear activities.

"This initiative is the only one that can enable us to escape an alternative that I say is catastrophic: the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran," he said, adding that it was the worst crisis currently facing the world.

Tehran says it only wants to generate electricity but it has yet to convince the world's most powerful countries that it is not secretly pursuing nuclear weapons.

Sarkozy criticised Russia for its dealings on the international stage. "Russia is imposing its return on the world scene by using its assets, notably oil and gas, with a certain brutality," he said.

"When one is a great power, one should not be brutal."

Energy disputes between Russia and neighbours such as Belarus and Ukraine have raised doubts in Europe about Moscow's reliability as a gas exporter. It supplies Europe, via its neighbours, with around a quarter of its gas demands.

Sarkozy had warm words for the United States, saying friendship between the two countries was important. But he said he felt free to disagree with American policies, highlighting what he called a lack of leadership on the environment.

FRANCO-SYRIAN DIALOGUE

Breaking with the policy of his predecessor Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy said he was prepared to hold high-level talks with Syria if it backed French efforts aimed at ending the political crisis in Lebanon. "If Damascus committed itself to this path, then the conditions for a Franco-Syrian dialogue would be in place."

But he stuck to his predecessor's stance in demanding that a timeline be drawn up for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Sarkozy said the only option for Turkey's accession talks with the European Union was a form of privileged partnership short of EU membership, and said he wanted a Mediterranean Union to take shape next year.

Turkey has said that project should not be an alternative to Ankara joining the European Union.

Sarkozy proposed setting up a "committee of wise men" to consider the future of Europe, including the Turkish question.

He criticised Beijing's management of its currency, which he says is too low and gives it an unfair advantage on export markets. He said China and other developing powers Mexico, South Africa, Brazil and India should eventually join the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations to become the G13.

(Additional reporting by Anna Willard, Jean-Baptiste Vey, Elizabeth Pineau and Kerstin Gehmlich)

Four sentenced to death

NCRI - Mullahs’ regime hanged two prisoners whose names were not disclosed in the southeastern city of Zahedan, the state-run radio reported this morning.

Yesterday, two prisoners identified as Ali Qalandari and Rasul Gord was hanged in the northwestern city of Naqadeh.

The Iranian regime publicly hanged three prisoners identified as Mahmoud Moqimi, Mohammad Sharei and Davoud Sharei in the town of Saveh in the central Markazi province, the official news agency IRNA reported on August 19. The hangings prompted public outrage.

The website of state television on August 16 reported the hanging of a prisoner not identified by the regime in the provincial capital of Zahedan.

Four other prisoners will be sent to gallows by the regime identified as Amir H., Ali and Aboulfazl, the state-run daily Javan reported on Monday.

Formation of new suppressive organs such as “Special Security Court,” along with a new wave of brutal public crackdown on youths is the sign of a desperate regime facing the popular uprisings. The mullahs are planning to hang political prisoners together with common criminals to escape its serious international consequences.

The Iranian Resistance drew the attention of the UN Secretary General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Council and all international human rights organizations to the new wave of executions and called for designation of a Special Rapporteur to constantly monitor human rights in Iran.

An alleged secret Iranian war plan outlines aggressive military operations in coordination with the Turkish army to capture Kurdish land in northern Iraq to create a buffer zone, Kurdish sources close to the PKK says. The primary objective is to sabotage a possible blitz by American ground troops into Iran. The information was disclosed by a dissident Iranian military official.

The Iranian pretext for the offensive into southern Kurdistan will be to root out and destroy PKK forces along the border with eastern [Iranian] Kurdistan.

“Iran has since last year tested the territorial integrity of Iraq and the KRG with incursions into south Kurdistan. The areas along Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq bordering Iran have been shelled by Iranian artillery and raiders have conducted one-day operations several kilometers into what is officially Iraqi territory. The Iraqi and American silence has encouraged them and they’re continuing to push the limits,” a PKK-source told DozaMe.org.

The Iraqi and American silence has embroiled KRG who has sent Iran several diplomatic notes warning them against any military adventure in southern Kurdistan [northern Iraq].

THE PLAN

The operations will start with an offensive against PKK’s military units, but the real aim will be to capture border areas to push a possible American front further from the official Iranian border.
Turkey will give air support to Iranian ground troops with attack helicopters. The Turkish helicopters will lift and land in Urmiye. A small number of Turkish special forces consisting of privates and NCO’s will act as tactical support, advising invading Iranian troops. Turkish officers will remain in Operational HQ’s on Iranian soil coordinating the Turkish troops embedded into the Iranian army. Turkish troops will wear Iranian uniforms or Kurdish pro-Iranian paramilitary uniforms.
Any support to Iranian troops, open or covert, by the Kurdish PUK will be rewarded by Iran. Iran will then hand over PKK-controlled areas such as Asos, Martyr Harun, Martyr Ayhan and Qandil to the PUK. It is not known whether PUK has accepted or declined the offer.
Coinciding with the Iranian incursion, Turkey will conduct enormous military operations against PKK forces in the border provinces of Hakkari, Van and Sirnak.

DozaMe.org

Iranian authorities hanged a man in public in the southern province of Fars, state media reported on Wednesday.

The man, identified as Qoliollah Q., was hanged in public on Wednesday in the provincial capital Shiraz, the official news agency IRNA said.

He was accused of murder.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has developed a 2,000-pound (900-kg) "smart bomb", official media quoted a Defence Ministry statement as saying on Wednesday, in the latest announcement from Tehran about progress regarding military hardware.

The guided bomb, named Qased (Messenger), was developed by specialists within the ministry and is now operational, IRNA news agency said, adding it could be dropped from F-4 and F-5 jets.

Iran still uses planes, such as the F-5, supplied by the United States to the government of the former shah of Iran, who was a close U.S. ally. Mohammad Reza Shah was ousted in the 1979 Islamic revolution, after which Washington cut ties with Tehran.

The two countries are embroiled in a deepening standoff over Iran's nuclear programme, which the West suspects is aimed at making atom bombs, a charge Iran denies.

Iran often says it has built new arms or upgraded weapons but rarely gives enough details for analysts to determine their capabilities. Although much of Iran's weaponry is outmoded, analysts say Iran has become proficient at modifying such arms.

Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said last year Iran had designed the Qased bomb but that it had yet to be tested. He said only a limited number of countries possessed the technology of "smart and guided weaponry".

The United States says it would prefer a diplomatic solution to the nuclear row, but has not ruled out military action. Iran has threatened to hit back at U.S. regional interests if attacked.

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran,  Authorities hanged two men on Tuesday in the south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchistan, state media reported.

The two unnamed men were hanged in a prison in the provincial capital Zahedan.

They were accused of drug trafficking.

Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on bogus charges such as armed robbery and drug smuggling.

Sistan-va-Baluchistan Province is home to Baluchis, a predominantly Sunni Muslim ethnic minority.

Iran has witnessed escalating unrest since 2006 in areas populated by Baluchis, who complain of discriminatory and repressive policies by the theocratic regime.

Since 2006, Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in the restive province in what many Baluchis believe is a response to a spate of attacks by dissidents on government and security officials.

Reuters
Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD -- Washington's envoy to Iraq warned Americans on Thursday that pulling U.S. troops out of the country could open the door to a "major Iranian advance" that would threaten U.S. interests in the region. Ambassador Ryan Crocker also accused Tehran of seeking to weaken the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government so that it could "by one means or another control it". Iran has denied U.S. charges that it is arming and training Shi'ite militias in Iraq.

Crocker and the top U.S. general in Iraq, General David Petraeus are due to present a pivotal report to Congress in September on progress on the military and political fronts and make recommendations on the way forward.

Opinion polls suggest most Americans have turned against the four-year war and Democrats in Congress want President George W. Bush to start pulling out U.S. troops as soon as possible. Bush, however, has resisted such calls.

"If the leadership wants to go a different way, I have an obligation to talk a little bit about what the consequences of pulling in a different direction would be," Crocker told Reuters in an interview in his office in Baghdad's Green Zone.

"One area of clear concern is Iran. The Iranians aren't going anywhere. I have significant concerns that a coalition withdrawal would lead to a major Iranian advance. And we need to consider what the consequences of that would be."

The two long-time foes are locked in a stand-off over Iran's nuclear program. Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Crocker has met his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad three times to discuss U.S. concerns that Iran is fuelling violence in Iraq, despite Tehran's public support for Iraq's government.

"Based on what I see on the ground, I think they are seeking a state that they can, by one means or another, control, weakened to the point that Tehran can set its agenda," he said.

Tehran was seeking "greater influence, greater pressure on the government", said the veteran diplomat, a fluent Arabic speaker who has spent most of his career in the Middle East.

MOVIE REEL

Bush sent 30,000 extra troops to Iraq earlier this year to try to halt sectarian violence between majority Shi'ite Muslims and minority Sunni Arabs and buy time for Iraq's divided political leaders to agree a real power-sharing deal.

While Petraeus will look at the success of the U.S. military build-up, Crocker has the arguably more difficult task of reporting on the almost negligible political progress that has been made towards reconciling Iraq's warring groups.

With the Bush administration often accused of not giving much thought about what do in Iraq after it invaded in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein, Crocker said he was anxious to spell out the consequences of pulling out U.S. troops.

"If we decide that we tried, we're tired, we want to bring the troops home, then what? The movie does not stop the day that coalition forces leave Iraq. It keeps on running. We need to consider what reels two, three, four and five might look like."

Crocker said he was in daily contact with Petraeus but had not yet begun to draft his report, which is due to be presented on September 15 and is seen by many as a watershed moment in the war that could trigger a change in U.S. policy.

"I have come to find here in Iraq that a month is a long span of time," he said.

He said the U.S. military buildup, which has succeeded in reducing sectarian violence, and new alliances formed with Sunni Arab sheikhs that have pacified volatile Anbar province had brought Maliki's government to a cross-roads.

"This is the best chance they have had since the beginning of 2006. It is an opportunity to really start turning things around in this country. But they are going to have to move in a decisive, considered and comprehensive way."

Iraq's leaders have been meeting this week to try to find common ground and break the political logjam that has paralyzed decision-making, lost him nearly a score of ministers, and stalled agreement on key laws that Washington sees as crucial to national reconciliation.

The Associated Press
Barry Schweid

WASHINGTON -- An elite Iranian force likely to be designated a foreign terrorist organization by the Bush administration has close links to Iran's nuclear program and operates most of its surface-to-surface missiles, a leading analyst says.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, established during the 1979 Iranian revolution, has evolved into a powerful and influential organization that is believed to have custody over most or all of Iran's chemical, biological and radiological weapons, Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says in a study to be published in late September.

The force has some 125,000 men, and has exported thousands of rockets to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and shipped arms to various Palestinian movements, including the Palestinian Authority, Cordesman writes in ``Iran's Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities.''

Some 5,000 of the group are assigned to unconventional warfare missions as well as special Quds, or Jerusalem, forces for operations overseas. They support the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and on the West Bank and Shiites in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Cordesman, a former director of intelligence assessments at the Pentagon.

Links to al-Qaida and other Sunni extremist groups have not been ``convincingly confirmed,'' he said.

The Bush administration appears to be moving toward designating the guard corps as a foreign terrorist organization. That would enhance a tougher line toward Iran.

``We are confronting Iranian behavior across a variety of different fronts, on a number of different, quote-unquote, 'battlefields,' if you will,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said this week.

His reference to ``battlefields'' attracted notice.

Political directors of key U.N. Security Council nations have been discussing what to do in light of Iran's continued refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Two resolutions imposing sanctions have failed to stop Tehran's reprocessing activities.

The United States is seeking tougher punishment at the United Nations, while some other nations want to wait for a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

If the revolutionary guards are designated as a terrorist group the United States could freeze U.S.-based assets of companies connected to the guards. Also, the listing would give the United States a club to pressure foreign companies into suspending business with firms linked to the guards - or risk being seen as supporting terror.

While some guard units are trained for covert missions, most of the forces are lightly equipped infantry trained for internal security missions, Cordesman said.

The guards are the center of Iran's effort to develop warfare tactics in case of a U.S. invasion and could be contemplating sending units into countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to attack U.S. forces, he said.

There are other paramilitary, internal security and intelligence forces in Iran, and leadership is fragmented, the analyst said. But, he said, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps holds control of several of them.

Iranian and Turkish forces on Thursday shelled two northern Iraqi border cities in the Kurdish autonomous region, official Kurdish sources reported. Targeted in the attack were the bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has been fighting the Turkish government and the Party for Freedom and Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) from Iran, the sources said.

Kurdish villages in the northern province of Arbil were bombed in the morning by Turkish forces, starting fires on agricultural lands and houses in two villages, an official source from the Kurdish Pershmerga said, without providing details of casualties.

Similarly, an intense Iranian strike in the province of Sulaimaniya caused terror among residents of a number of villages as well as significant property damage, local officials said.

The State Security Forces (SSF) opened fire on a car at the entry point to the city of Baneh in the Iranian Kurdistan on Sunday, killing three and wounding another one seriously.

Outraged by the heinous crime, the local residents took to the streets in protest and clashed with the suppressive forces.

The SSF attacked the angry crowd wounding a number of local residents and arresting many others. In defiance, the demonstrators torched the SSF station.

Fearing the spread of protest the regime called in reinforcements from nearby towns. The clashes and unrest continued until late evening.

IRAQ-JORDAN BORDER: In the barren, wind-swept plain between Jordan and Iraq, nearly 200 Iranian Kurds struggle to survive with little shelter and international help, holding out hope of resettlement in the West. The UN relief agency has told the Kurds- half of them children- that their only option is to move to Kurdish-controlled parts of Iraq. So far the Kurds have refused, remaining in this barren moonscape under a broiling sun in summer and bone-numbing cold in winter. "We are refugees, but we are depri
ved of all refugee rights," said Ismail Karimi. "Aren't we human? Aren't our children human?

Their plight began in January 2005 when hundreds of Iranian Kurds left a refugee camp near Ramadi after attacks by Sunni insurgents. They had lived in the camp since fleeing Iran soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution because of their opposition to the new regime. The Kurds hoped to seek refuge in Jorda