Reply #42: BBC report on Iran with Reagan-era official just freaked me out!

[Gloria]

notice the similarity of message re: "out of step" with region....



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BBC report on Iran with Reagan-era official just freaked me out!


Edited on Sat Jun-25-05 03:58 PM by Gloria

I tuned in at around 3 pm on shortwave and heard a report on the Iranian election. They interviewed this guy and when I heard he had been a Reagan official I looked him up....(below)

This is what he said: This election flies in the face of "democracy" which is "sweeping" the region. The turnout was really only 15% and the winner got 60% of that. He expects diplomacy via the EU3 to continue and the US will continue to join in, but it will fail. The US will prepare for air strikes, but won't go ahead with them. The race is on to prevent the Iranian nukes to proceed successfully before regime change. The only way to effect regime change is to take the MEK off the terrorist list and help them overthrow the Iranian regime.

There you have it. My biggest fear is that our illustrious Dems go along with this, including loud-mouth Biden....


http://explore.georgetown.edu/faculty/index.cfm?Action=...
Raymond Tanter
Title(s) Primary title: Visiting Professor
Other titles: Visiting Researcher
Phone
Work: 202-687-8217
Fax: [phone]
Email
Work: [email protected]
Alternate: [email protected]
Location 511 ICC
Office hours W, Noon-1:00 pm
Bio Raymond Tanter served on the senior staff of the National Security Council and as personal representative of the Secretary of Defense to arms control talks in Europe in the Reagan-Bush administration. He teaches Terrorism and Proliferation as well as an introductory course on International Relations in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. Tanter is also Visiting Researcher in the Government Department, conducting academic research on "bounded rationality" in foreign policy decisionmaking. His research compares rational choice and prospect theory as complementary explanations of U.S. decisions regarding Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. He is Adjunct Scholar at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, carrying out policy research on Iran and Iraq. He wrote Classifying Evil: Bush Administration Rhetoric and Policy toward Rogue Regimes and Rogue Regimes: Terrorism and Proliferation, which includes chapters on Iran, Iraq, and freelance terrorists who operate in a borderless world of failed states like Afghanistan. He also coauthored Balancing in the Balkans, as well as Rational Decisionmaking: Israel's Choices.
Web site http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/rt54/Public /
Education
� Ph D (1964) Indiana University, Political Science

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The report before this interview also had comments by others, one of whom thought it was terribe, the other who said it would be difficult to turn back a lot of the reforms and that it probably would be "business as usual" for the most part, but noting the economic situation as the key to why the winner was the mayor.

There was also commentary on how he wants to get rid of the "mafia" that controls the oil wealth (Rafstanjani family) and make production more a domestic focus in terms of the firms doing it rather than multinationals (the ones not banned because of the US sanctions). Comment was that they need to upgrade technology so it won't set them back in terms of production but they won't go "forward."