The US-Iran agreement, albeit temporary, may well be the diplomatic coup of the decade, or indeed the biggest peaceful shifting of the tectonic plates since the last World War in the most dangerous area on the planet. But it is as well, for future reference, to identify the specific mechanisms which allowed this breakthrough to […]
Posts Tagged ‘Iran’
Has Ed Miliband given the world a chance for peace?
Sep 27th, 2013 by Andy Newman.It is worth recalling the words of Ed Miliband about Syria in his recent conference speech The other week I faced [a] decision about whether the country should go to war. The biggest decision any leader faces, the biggest decision any Parliament faces, the biggest decision any party faces. All of us were horrified by […]
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Assange: no superhero
Aug 23rd, 2012 by Lucy Reese.Julian Assange. I won’t say that I don’t think the work he did with WikiLeaks was totally awesome and incredibly important, yet as I’ve argued before, I have many reservations towards Assange the person – or rather the persona he projects to the world. Possibly this is because I was slightly underwhelmed when I saw […]
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The case against a US strike on Iran
Apr 23rd, 2012 by David Osler.As John McCain’s painfully unfunny rewrite of the lyrics to Beach Boys’ hit Barbara Ann demonstrates, at least the former Republican presidential contender can see the lighter side of mounting a US airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Fortunately for the rest of the world, Barack Obama has not only shown no inclination to ‘bomb bomb Iran’, […]
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Iran and the bomb: containment is an option
Mar 6th, 2012 by David Osler.Benjamin Netanyahu is not much given to obfuscation. His speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday night made it quite clear to Tehran – and anyone else listening in – that he will do whatever it takes to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Despite the carefully inserted disclaimers, numerous passages can only […]
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Why this demonising and continuing provocation of Iran?
Jan 12th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Another Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated yesterday by a magnetic bomb placed on his car, the fifth such incident in the last 2 years. This part of a covert war with Iran now under way including: (1) cyber warfare (the Stuxnet virus that shut down a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges); (2) the killing of […]
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The rights and wrongs of Jewish ambassadors and Paul Flynn
Dec 1st, 2011 by Jon Lansman.John Mann, chair of the All-party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, has said that Paul Flynn MP should “start preparing for his retirement” for, allegedly, suggesting that Matthew Gould is an inappropriate British ambassador to Israel because he is Jewish. If Paul Flynn did say that, which we doubt, it would indeed be a serious matter. It […]
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Who believes what Ministers and spooks say about Nuclear Iran?
Nov 4th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Here we go again. We’re being told yet again – as well as several times over the last few years – that Iran is about to produce a nuclear weapon and must be stopped at all costs by bombing their nuclear facilities. What is asserted to be new this time is that, firstly, the International […]
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Now Iran is in his sights. Why does anyone still take Tony Blair seriously?
Sep 12th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.It simply beggars belief that there are some in the British media who still take Tony Blair even vaguely seriously. On Friday, we were treated to two ‘exclusives’ featuring Blair on the front pages of The Times and the the Daily Mirror. All this in the same week that we learned that Blair had agreed […]
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Why the IMF loves Ahmadinejad
Jun 24th, 2011 by David Osler.The Farsi edition of ‘The Shock Doctrine’ has just picked up a literary award in Iran, reportedly on the basis of the quality of translation. Obviously I cannot judge how elegantly Naomi Klein’s prose was rendered into that language, but I can’t help noticing that the content of the volume is timely in that country right now.
