{"id":8930,"date":"2011-01-12T15:57:31","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T23:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8930"},"modified":"2011-01-12T15:57:31","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T23:57:31","slug":"wednesday-iran-talking-points-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/12\/wednesday-iran-talking-points-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 12th, 2011:<\/em><\/p>\n

Tablet Magazine<\/a><\/em>: Hudson Institute<\/a> Visiting Fellow Lee Smith<\/a> writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Arabs are not winning an information war against Israel, nor anything else for that matter. Rather, the stories and lies they tell to delegitimize the Jewish state are part and parcel of the war that they have been waging against themselves, and with stunning success.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In his attack on Arab culture, he groups Iran with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Arabic speaking Middle East\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and observes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Culture is more powerful than technology, and how a society uses any given technology is determined by its culture. This is why no one wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to have a nuclear bomb, but no one has a problem with France\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weapons program.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>: Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council<\/a>, writes that, for Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard-liners, Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Green Movement is still a force to be reckoned with. Berman cites the crackdown on Green Movement leaders and observers, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the Green Movement were truly a spent force, Iranian officials would be far less preoccupied with containing and discrediting its remnants.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He concludes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaders appear to believe otherwise suggests that they understand well what many in the West do not: the Green Movement itself may be on the ropes, but the larger urge for democracy that it represents isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dead. It is simply hibernating.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Commentary<\/a><\/em>: Jonathan Tobin writes on Commentary<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Contentions blog that Roger Cohen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column<\/a>, on the Jewish community in Iran that was published two years ago, was brought about because \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Times <\/em>columnist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motive for trying to soften the image of that openly anti-Semitic government was to undermine support for sanctions or the use of force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tobin cites reports that the Tomb of Mordechai and Esther\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe central characters in the Jewish story of Purim\u00e2\u20ac\u201d in the city of Hamdan has lost its official status as a religious pilgrimage site. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153While we cannot know whether the Iranians will follow through on this threat and actually tear down the tomb or transform it into a center of anti-Jewish hate, it does provide yet another insight into the virulent nature of the attitudes of those in power there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he writes. Tobin concludes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Anyone who thinks that we can live with a nuclear Iran needs to consider the madness of allowing a government that thinks the Purim story should be reversed the power to do just that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 12th, 2011: Tablet Magazine: Hudson Institute Visiting Fellow Lee Smith writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Arabs are not winning an information war against Israel, nor anything else for that matter. Rather, the stories and lies they tell to delegitimize the Jewish state are part and parcel of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8931,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8930\/revisions\/8931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8930"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}