Monthly archive : "December, 2012"

Kourosh Ziabari - In an act of unequivocal and explicit hostility toward Iran, the United States took the name of Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) off its list of foreign terrorist organizations on Friday, September 28, showing its unconditional support to the sworn enemies of the Iranian nation straight from the shoulder. The U.S. government announced the decision a few days after the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton submitted a file of classified information about the terrorist cult to the Congress. The decision was made under the pretext that MKO has not carried out any terrorist operation over the past 10 years. This controversial announcement which bespeaks of the United States' undeniable animosity with the Iranian people...

  Kourosh Ziabari -  American journalist and author Belen Fernandez said in an interview with Tehran Times that Israel’s deadly offensive into the Gaza Strip from November 14-21 was not a retaliatory operation as claimed by the majority of Western media, but a violation of the truce that had been brokered between Hamas and the Israeli regime by Egypt on the side of Israel and an unjustifiable killing of the Palestinian civilians. “It is literally impossible to categorize Israel’s assault as “retaliation” given that November 10 obviously falls after November 4, when the IDF murdered a mentally unfit Palestinian man, as well as November 8, when the IDF murdered a teenager playing soccer. The fact that there was an...

Kourosh Ziabari - It’s not my words, but I’ve learnt it from tens of foreign tourists, journalists and academicians who have traveled to Iran in the recent years, that Iran is the most misrepresented and misunderstood country in the world. In a concerted and mischievous attempt, the world’s mainstream media have started to pull out all the stops in order to portray Iran a dangerous, abnormal, weird and horrible country which is seeking to develop nuclear weapons in order to annihilate Israel. Iranians are brazenly depicted as fanatics, terrorists and uncivilized people and the whole Iran is shown as an out-of-the-way desert in which no trace of civilization, urban life and modernity can be found. Demonizing and isolating Iran...

Kourosh Ziabari - On Thursday evening, the United Nations general assembly firmly endorsed Palestine’s bid for non-permanent observer membership in the 193-member body, recognizing the old aspiration of the Palestinians who have been yearning for regaining their occupied and stolen homeland for more than 64 years and looking forward to the realization of their inalienable rights throughout the course of these breathtaking years. 138 countries voted in favor of the resolution for Palestine’s observer membership to the UN while only 9 states voted against, showing an increased international solidarity with the cause of the Palestinian nation, especially after the deadly Operation Pillar of Defense which claimed the lives of dozens of...

Kourosh Ziabari - The Washington Post Company-owned American bimonthly magazine “Foreign Policy” published in its December issue the list of world’s top 100 global thinkers. This list is supposed to introduce people who have had the most remarkable influence on the world’s economic, political and social developments. The right-win magazine, which invariably includes in its annual lists of top global thinkers names such as Bill Gates, Paul Krugman, George Soros, Ben Bernanke and one or two Chinese dissidents, this year came up with a striking innovation and named Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as the co-winners of the 13th berth of the top 100 global thinkers! The reason for...

  Kourosh Zibari - American political commentator believes that the United States has been constantly allied with Al-Qaeda and supported it militarily and financially. "Major media have recently had to acknowledge that US-NATO interests are aligned with Al Qaeda in Syria, of course overlooking the fact that the US and Sunni States also recruited and armed these soldiers of fortune. What the Obama administration has sought to do with the alleged murder of Bin Laden in May 2011 is to close the chapter on the old, villainous Al Qaeda and open a chapter on the new and friendly Al Qaeda. This narrative is slowly unfolding, while Americans are instructed on a different bogey to fear, which now appears to be homegrown terrorism," he said...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iranian media reported on Tuesday, December 4 that the naval forces of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have successfully hunted down an American Scan Eagle surveillance drone which had violated Iran’s airspace while on an espionage mission over the Persian Gulf island of Khark on the southern coasts of Iran. The U.S. military officials and people in the Obama administration rushed to categorically refute the claims that Iran has captured the American drone. Immediately after Iran’s English-language Press TV aired an 11-minute footage showing some Iranian commanders inspecting the intact Scan Eagle drone in an undisclosed location in Tehran, the U.S. military officials released statements and denied the...

  Kourosh Ziabari - A German political pundit says China will use its soft power to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis and force it on the U.S., the UK, France, and Germany. “I am also rather confident that China will give the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and other important European governments economic incentives to find a peaceful resolution to the (Syrian) crisis,” Christof Lehmann said in an interview with the Tehran Times on Tuesday. “One could compare it with a soft power carrot and stick strategy where the policy of Turkey ultimately is dependent on decisions which are made in Europe and the USA,” he added. Lehmann went on to say that he is “very confident that a peaceful...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Prominent American political scientist Prof. John J. Mearsheimer believes that as a result of the enormous influence of the Israeli lobby on the U.S. politicians, one can hardly think of rapprochement between Iran and the United States in short-run, but they can move toward reconciliation by recognizing each other’s rights and responsibilities. “What the Americans and Iranians have to do is to reach a compromised agreement, where the Americans would recognize the fact that Iran is allowed to have a nuclear enrichment capability and we should recognize that, and at the same time, Iranians should accept the fact that there have to be limits on this enrichment capability, so that they don’t march up to the...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Linh Dinh is a prominent progressive author and poet, internationally renowned for his outspoken criticism of the domestic and foreign policy of the United States, which he calls criminal and detrimental to the interest of the American people. Born on 1963 in Vietnam, he is the author of two collections of stories and five poetry books. The Vietnamese-American author whose writings frequently appear on CounterPunch, Common Dreams and other publications, has studied painting in the college and runs a photography blog. He has lived in Italy and England and is the editor of two literary anthologies, “Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam” (Seven Stories Press 1996) and “Three Vietnamese Poets”...

  Kourosh Ziabari - A Malaysian political pundit says political and economic institutions in the United States are dominated by Israeli lobbies and this is why Washington cannot adopt an independent and a more balanced foreign policy. “One of the main reasons why the U.S. elite is not able to abandon its patronage and protection of Israel is because of Zionist influence and power in some of the key sectors of American public life,” Dr. Chandra Muzaffar said in an interview, which was conducted earlier this month. “The U.S Congress, Senate and the White House are all beholden, in one way or another, to Zionist funds and Zionist lobbies,” he added. The Malaysian scholar also commented on the global economic crisis,...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Iran’s nuclear program seems to have reached a dead end. Iranian officials have politically invested a lot on the country’s nuclear program, which was initially set in motion 6 decades ago when President Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to help his close friend Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi construct the first nuclear reactors in Iran, and it seems to be embarrassing for the Iranian government to announce out of the blue that they don’t want to pursue nuclear technology anymore, which will give the West a pretext to launch a new psychological war against Tehran and trumpet this victory that it has retreated from its position. And from the other hand, the obdurate United States and its European allies have not...