When Noam Chomsky analyzes US policy he usually doesn't have much to say about Islam in relation to the Middle East. In an extensive interview published today in the Asia Times he speaks just a little about Shia demographics, but leaves all the other Muslim political issues, claims and campaigns untouched. He concentrates instead on comparing US foreign policy with Mafia practices. He's been quoted on Iranian state satellite TV a number of times because they like what he says. Read it here.

According to Amir Taheri, Iran and Syria are waiting for George Bush to leave office, at which time they will be better able to promote their own vision of the Middle East. Read it here.

According to Taheri's analysis, the US has various options short of going to war with Iran. Read it here.

The Guardian reports today that Mosen Rezai's news site has been blocked to Iranian users. Read it here.

Former presidential candidate and IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai's news site Baztab reports in Persian today on a European press interview with Ali Akbar Velayti, who is a former Iranian foreign minister and current foreign affairs consultant to supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Velayati says the recent Tehran conference on the holocaust, which he did not attend, was not intended as a denial of the holocaust, but merely as an occasion to "study the realities."

Velayati also told an interviewer there is still a need to keep the Hezbollah armed in Lebanon because of the Israeli presence in the Cheba Farms border region, and that is why Iran opposes the UN resolution calling for their disarmament.

This interview appears to be part of an attempt by Iran's higher authority to reduce the damage its president is causing with his public comments. Baztab is among the voices in Iran that are publicly critical of President Ahmadinezhad for his inflammatory rhetoric. The site is also complaining that it believes an element of the president's cabinet, the Ministry of Communications, has begun censoring its content.

Le Monde published the French version of the Velayati interview here.

Yes, according to Amir Taheri.

"Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are also undeclared allies of the 6+2 [the Gulf Cooperation Council + Egypt and Jordan] as is Turkey, a full-member of Nato. (The 6+2 states have negotiated a special relationship with Nato). Iran, however, has no allies outside Syria and no prospect of attracting any."

The Globe and Mail reports

Taheri on 9 February in The New York Post:

The battleground where his chances do not appear as good is Washington. The United States today has become home to a veritable industry of defeat - producing books, TV documentaries, research papers, intelligence analyses and feature movies destined for a growing market. Almost every day, some article assuming that the United States has already been defeated in Iraq, and recommend measures to deal with the consequences of defeat. And when the United States does something, it does it Big: The defeat industry is assuming a bewildering scale.

Read it all.

In its current cover story, the Weekly Standard says:

The fact that 25,000 Jews now live in Iran, making it the largest Jewish community in a Muslim country, is not incompatible with the foregoing. The Jews in Iran are made clearly to feel their subordinate Dhimmi status. Thus, they are not allowed to occupy higher positions than Muslims and so are disqualified from the leading ranks in politics and the military. They are not allowed to serve as witnesses in court, and Jewish schools must be managed by Muslims and stay open on the Sabbath. Books in the Hebrew language are forbidden. Up to the present, the regime, which has time and again published anti-Semitic texts and caricatures, has prevented such hate-mongering from resulting in violence against Jews. Nevertheless, the combination of incitement and restraint leaves the Jewish community in a state of permanent insecurity. Today, the Jewish community serves Ahmadinejad not only as an alibi in his power game, but also increasingly as a deterrent: In the event of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, this community would find itself hostage and vulnerable to acts of reprisal.

Read it all here.

At the same time, this article recognizes that Iran is a danger to international stability and offers other ideas how to contain it.

Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kenneth Timmerman, author of Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, is one of the few who believe US policy in Iraq is working. He makes his case here

Human Rights News Report

Tehran's notorious prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi--famous among other things for his role in the death of Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi--along with others in the Islamic Republic, are violating the rights of Iranians who wish to attend conferences abroad to speak about conditions in Iran.

Today Juan Cole mentions this man:

"This story about the Islamic Da'wa (Islamic Call) Party member of parliament, Jamal Jaafar Muhammad, who is alleged to have participated in the 1982 attack on the US consulate in Kuwait, strikes me as very fishy. First of all, that operation was a Da'wa Party operation, ordered by the leadership in exile in Tehran. So how many big expatriate Da'wa Party leaders were *not* implicated in it in some way? The first prime minister of post-Saddam Iraq, Ibrahim Jaafari, was Da'wa and was in Tehran at that point. Did he really not know about this? Nuri al-Maliki was in Damascus and the Da'wa in Syria and Lebanon helped to form the Lebanese Hizbullah."

Juan has more to say about this but in his post he leaves out the main reason this man is a news item. It is not that he is alleged to have participated in the attack on the US consulate in Kuwait. The man who carried out this attack was convicted and sentenced to death in absentia by a Kuwaiti court. Reports on this subject center around the question of whether the Iraqi MP by that name is the same person who was convicted by the Kuwaiti court, or someone else. If he is the same person, he has already been convicted in Kuwait. This goes beyond a mere allegation. If he is the same man he is already subject to prosecution if his immunity as an Iraqi MP is revoked by the Iraqi Parliament. If he is not the same man, there are no allegations and this becomes a case of mistaken identity.

This is one of the best thumbnail overviews I've seen in a long time (but it isn't short).

Read about it here.

Read about it here