The New Yorker has a looong piece on arch-zionist and casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson. In a small scene described therein, the ‘richest Jew in the world’ (his words) talks of someone this blog has taken some interest in:
After Emerson’s presentation, Pooya Dayanim, a Jewish-Iranian democracy activist based in Los Angeles, chatted with Adelson. Recalling their conversation, Dayanim observed that Adelson was dismissive of Reza Pahlevi, the son of the former Shah, who had participated in the Prague conference, because, Adelson said, “he doesn’t want to attack Iran.” According to Dayanim, Adelson referred to another Iranian dissident at the conference, Amir Abbas Fakhravar, whom he said he would like to support, saying, “I like Fakhravar because he says that, if we attack, the Iranian people will be ecstatic.” Dayanim said that when he disputed that assumption Adelson responded, “I really don’t care what happens to Iran. I am for Israel.”
When Richard Perle brought Fakhravar to the U.S. in April 2006, the ‘student leader’ did not speak English and was seen by fellow Iranian exiles as the fraud he is. Now the third riches guy in the U.S. listens to his fantasies of Iranians giving flowers and candies as thank-you for shock and awe.
That’s quite a career step.
Flowers and candy expectations and even more dangerous fantasies about a ‘cakewalk’ are also in a recent pamphlet from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an AIPAC too-dumb-to-think think tank.
It is the master narrative for the TV talking heads and ‘experts’ that will ‘discuss’ how easy the U.S. will win against Iran shortly before that war begins. John Bolton is already explaining that the Arabs will be ‘delighted’ when Teheran gets bombed.
While the U.S. people may not be keen for another war, expect less resistance from Europe than there was against the Iraq war. The propaganda campaign against Iran here in Germany is running at full pace. For a while I had the fantasy that the EU-3 are doing the sanction and negotiation bidding with Iran to stall another U.S. aggression by running out the time of the Bush administration.
But that seems no longer to be the case. The EU foreign police head Solana was in Teheran just ten days ago to deliver a new offer (pdf) of negotiations about ‘incentives’ (there was nothing new in it) if Iran stops enrichment. In May Iran distributed a new proposal (pdf) of its own, offering international industrial partnership in its enrichment facilities.
Despite the possibilities of further talks, without giving Iran time to officially answer the EU-3 proposal and without having issued any response to the Iranian proposal, the EU today put new sanctions on Iran’s biggest national bank and froze Iranian assets.
This step came much too early for being part of a stalling strategy.