[Marxism] Russia says Iran poses no threat

[Pat Costello <pt_costello@xxxxxxxxx>]

Russia says Iran poses no threat
20:21   |       16/ 08/ 2007    

BISHKEK, August 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russia sees no
threat
emanating from Iran, the "rogue state" the United
States is
building its missile shield in Europe against, the
Russian
foreign minister said Thursday.

The U.S. announced in January plans to place a radar
and a
host of interceptor missiles in Poland and the Czech
Republic to fend off what Washington sees as a growing
missile threat from "rogue states," including Iran.

"In analyzing the Iranian leader's statement and the
quite
precise information at our disposal, we can see no
such
long-term threat," Sergei Lavrov told the media on the
sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) underway in the Kyrgyz capital,
Bishkek.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said earlier
Thursday
that the deployment of a U.S. missile shield in Europe
threatened not only Iran but also the whole of
Eurasia.

Asked when Russian and U.S. experts would hold a
second
round of consultations on the proposed U.S. missile
shield,
the minister said: "In September."

Lavrov also said that although Russia and China had
not yet
considered cooperation in missile defense, the two
countries "share a vision of how to provide security."
"We
and China are analyzing the U.S. global missile
defense
plans targeting Europe and the East," the diplomat
said.

The SCO, a regional group largely seen as a
counterweight
to U.S. influence in Asia, comprises Russia, China,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and
has
Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia as observers.

Former CIA officer says U.S ready to strike Iran
within 6
months

10:03   |       22/ 08/ 2007    

WASHINGTON, August 22 (RIA Novosti) - The United
States
could deliver a military strike against Iran within
the
next six months, a former CIA officer told Fox News.

In an interview Tuesday the U.S. TV channel asked
Robert
Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the
Middle
East, whether the U.S. was preparing for military
action
against Iran, citing Baer's column for Time Magazine
on
August 18, where he suggested that Washington
officials
expect an attack within the next six months.

"I've taken an informal poll inside the government,"
Baer
told Fox. "The feeling is we will hit the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC]."

He said the George W. Bush administration is convinced
"that the Iranians are interfering in Iraq and the
rest of
the Gulf," but what his sources anticipate is "not
exactly
a war."

"We won't see American troops cross the border," said
Baer.
"If this is going to happen, it is going to happen
very
quickly and it is going to surprise a lot of people."

There were recent reports that Washington would put
Iran's
Islamic Revolutionary Guard - the largest branch of
Iran's
military, separate from the rest of the army - on the
terrorism list.

Baer said the U.S. military suspects that the
Revolutionary
Guard is the main supplier of sophisticated improvised
explosive devices (IEDs) to insurgents killing
coalition
forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He also said there is a belief among neo-conservative
elements in the Bush administration that the
Revolutionary
Guard is an obstacle to democratic and a friendly
Iran.

"IRGC IED's are a casus belli for this administration.
There will be an attack on Iran," Baer quoted an
anonymous
White House source as saying.

However, the U.S. government has consistently denied
rumors
of preparations for military action against Iran.

Whitehouse Spokeswoman Dana Perino said on August 15:
"All
of our efforts are focused on the diplomatic actions
that
we are working through, in terms of the United Nations
Security Council."

"Military action is not being contemplated," she told
a
news conference at Crawford Middle School, Texas.

The results of a recent poll among 108 prominent U.S.
political and military experts conducted by the Center
for
American Progress, a U.S. policy research think tank,
also
differ from the forecast provided by Baer's sources.

According to the survey, 89% of U.S. experts said
there
would be no preemptive military strike on Iran and its
nuclear facilities, and 65% said they were certain
that
George W. Bush would authorize an attack on Tehran
during
his remaining time in the office.

Robert Baer is an intelligence columnist for Time
Magazine
and the author of See No Evil, an account of CIA
anti-terrorism field work, and more recently a
political
thriller, Blow the House Down.


       
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