Headquarters for Iran Regime Change To Be Located In Dubai

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U.S. Office of Middle East Imperialism

U.S. to sharpen focus on Iran
Office of Iran Affairs to 'facilitate change in Iranian policies'

CNN Washington Bureau
Thursday, March 2, 2006; Posted: 2:15 p.m. EST (19:15 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department is creating a special office to deal with foreign policy changes related to Iran and to promote a democratic transition in the Islamic republic, State Department officials said Thursday.

"Certainly this signals the fact that we believe that Iran and Iranian behavior is one of the greatest foreign policy priorities we will be dealing with over the next decade," a State Department official said.

The creation of the Iran office comes on the heels of an announcement last month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of a $75 million State Department initiative to support democracy in Iran through intensified cultural exchanges, increased programs for democratic advocates and expanded broadcasting into the country.

When asked directly whether the office is being created to promote regime change in Iran, the senior official said the office is being created "to facilitate a change in Iranian policies and actions."

Several new positions are being created worldwide for the new Iran office. In addition to beefing up Washington-based staff working on Iran, a regional center will be built in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to focus on neighboring Iran with four new foreign service posts and four local employees to do outreach.

full report: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/02/us.iran/index.html

[Freedom_from_Chains]

1. There not even trying to hide their imperialistic agenda these days

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7. who's gonna stop 'em?

I hope, us . . .

[ncrainbowgrrl]

2. Hmmm,... Dubai... Where have I heard that name lately?

Hmmmm...

:eyes:

[Skink]

5. The Eastern White House.

[Avalux]

3. OMG - I knew it.

This whole thing has been in the works for a very long time; we are but mere annoyances to the imperialists. :banghead:

[neweurope]

6. If that much...

:cry:

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

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13. Baby Bush go home

Irony piles upon infamy as Bush is set to sully the memory of Gandhi. Arundhati Roy* leads the chorus saying No

On his triumphalist tour of this part of the world, where he hopes to wave imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President Bush's itinerary is getting curiouser and curiouser. For his 2 March pit stop in New Delhi, the Indian government tried very hard to have him address our parliament. A not inconsequential number of MPs threatened to heckle him, so Plan One was hastily shelved. Plan Two was that he address the masses from the ramparts of the magnificent Red Fort where the Indian prime minister traditionally delivers his Independence Day address. But the Red Fort, surrounded as it is by the predominantly Muslim population of Old Delhi, was considered a security nightmare. So now we're into Plan Three: President George Bush speaks from Purana Qila, the Old Fort.

Ironic isn't it, that the only safe public space for a man who has recently been so enthusiastic about India's modernity, should be a crumbling medieval fort?

Since the Purana Qila also houses the Delhi zoo -- George Bush's audience will be a few hundred caged animals and an approved list of caged human beings who in India go under the category of "eminent persons". They're mostly rich folk who live in our poor country like captive animals, incarcerated by their own wealth, locked and barred in their gilded cages, protecting themselves from the threat of the vulgar and unruly multitudes whom they have systematically dispossessed over the centuries.

So what's going to happen to George W Bush? Will the gorillas cheer him on? Will the gibbons curl their lips? Will the brow-antlered deer sneer? Will the chimps make rude noises? Will the owls hoot? Will the lions yawn and the giraffes bat their beautiful eyelashes? Will the crocs recognise a kindred soul? Will the quails give thanks that Bush isn't travelling with Dick Cheney, his hunting partner with the notoriously bad aim? Will the CEOs agree?

Oh, and on 2 March Bush will be taken to visit Gandhi's memorial in Rajghat. He's by no means the only war criminal who has been invited by the Indian government to lay flowers at Rajghat. (Only recently we had the Burmese dictator General Than Shwe -- no shrinking violet himself). But when George Bush places flowers on that famous slab of highly polished stone millions of Indians will wince. It will be as though he has poured a pint of blood on the memory of Gandhi.

We really would prefer that he didn't.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/784/in2.htm

[Norquist Nemesis]

4. Can you say $75 million in emergency funding? n/t

[malaise]

8. Would someone anyone stop these lunatics

where is the rest of the world?

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10. Funny how the Europeans are jumping on this, angling to vote for sanctions

Funny how the Europeans are jumping on this, angling to vote for sanctions

And the countries who have business with Iran - Pakistan: oil pipeline, China: $100b oil deal, Venezuela, Russia, are lined up on the other side. This is clearly not about Iran getting nukes.

*business*

[Lerkfish]

9. gee. and when I suggested UAE had strategic importance in the Iran

Invasion in an earlier thread, I got a lot of resistance from some.

just goes to show these guys are not that hard to figure out anymore.

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11. doesn't take much imagination when every excuse for the Dubai deal

coming from the administration stressed Dubai's cooperation in Bush's 'war on terror'.


U.S., UAE Have Sensitive Relationship

Associated Press | February 23, 2006

- Air Force U-2 spy planes and Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft have been based at al-Dhafra air base, along with KC-10 aerial refueling planes. When a U-2 crashed in the UAE last June, killing the Air Force pilot, American officials did not publicly disclose the location "due to host nation sensitivities."

- U.S. sailors and Marines regularly make liberty calls at the port of Jebel Ali, near the UAE's largest city, Dubai.

- The threat to commercial shipping in the Gulf during the "tanker war" between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s was the impetus for the United States to develop closer ties to the UAE. Ties grew much closer after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

The formal basis for the U.S.-UAE military relationship is a defense cooperation agreement signed in 1994. As with most other American allies in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, the presence of American troops in the UAE is either cloaked in a degree of secrecy or de-emphasized out of concern about anti-US sentiment.

The Pentagon will not say how many U.S. troops are based in the UAE.

full article: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,88778,00.html

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12. State Dept.: Iran has itself to blame

WASHINGTON - Iran alone is to blame for the waves of international criticism it is receiving for its nuclear policies, the State Department said Thursday as it rejected a verbal broadside from Iran's senior nuclear negotiator.

"We're talking about a nuclear program characterized by deception and prevarication," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in response to an unusually heated rhetorical assault by the top Iranian negotiator, Ali Larijani.

Larijani spoke in Moscow, where he had gone to discuss a U.S.-backed Russian proposal to transfer Iran's nuclear enrichment activities to Russia to avoid having it contribute to a weapons program in Iran. The U.S. campaign to refer Iran's activities to the U.N. Security Council, Larijani said, "means the destruction of the Russian proposal."

"America is lying," Larijani said, "trying to destroy the Russian proposal."

Asked about the comment, the State Department's Ereli shot back: "If Iran has a problem with the state of affairs and the situation it finds itself in, Iran has only itself to blame."

article: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/breaking_news/14001687.htm

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14. kick