Is the Iranian government interested in finding peaceful solutions to the standoff with the West?

Its own internal politics don’t seem to bear this out. Speaking on the recent opposition movement, a representative of Iran’s supreme leader said recently that it would be worth it to kill 75,000 Iranians for the regime to survive. This is grim, but unsurprising. The regime’s founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, himself said, “Those who say Islam should not kill don’t understand [it]. Killing is a great [divine] gift that appears [to man]. A religion that does not include [provisions for] killing and massacre is incomplete.”

In light of this, it should come as little surprise that in the early ‘80s Tehran hosted a fountain of faux blood, ostensibly as a way of intimidating its enemies. Radio Free Europe recently translated an Iranian blog about this infamous fountain.

In the early years of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, a pond with several sections was built near an area dedicated to martyrs at the Beheshte Zahra graveyard in Tehran. Its fountain spurted blood. It became known as the “Pond of Blood.” Obviously, it was not actual blood but only red coloring mixed in the water.

The fame of this pond even reached overseas, to the point that foreign journalists would strive to take pictures of it.

Once, the Iranian daily “Etelaat” published a special issue about the war with a picture of the fountain on the cover, with a caption consisting of a saying by Imam Khomeini: “All in all, our revolution was a blessing.”

The publication of that picture with that caption provoked the rage of the Hizbullahi fellows and protests began. The forces of the Revolutionary Guards were sent to the newspaper’s offices to arrest and punish those behind the publication. In the end, the matter was solved by the dismissal of a few “Etelaat” employees and an apology from the head of the newspaper.

The construction of the pond, which had a symbolic and propaganda value, proved to be more painful to the families of the martyrs than to Iran’s enemies. Hence, the bloody water was removed and now normal water flows in it.

There may still be peaceful avenues available to resolve this crisis, including sanctions against the regime’s primary supports and support for the opposition movement. But, it may not be reasonable to assume that a regime which considers it rational to kill thousands of its own people, and which celebrates death, would be quick to compromise with a West it may view with even greater enmity than an opposition movement.

Blog translation copyright (c) 2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.  You can view the article here.

Check out this important film that sheds light onto what happens when radicals infiltrate our own university campuses.

It often starts with groups like the Muslim Students Association (MSA) which was highlighted in the film The Third Jihad that features anti-Semitic speakers on campus. On this site, we have also highlighted Code Pink, whose activities are often questionable. Code Pink is a big supporter of Israel Apartheid Week as is the MSA and other organizations. These organizations might wear masks and appear “safe” but underneath many of them have roots that are connected to radical Islam.

This just in: The story of honor killing that took in Arizona is now unraveling. This is what happened: A father ran down his own daughter, Noor Almaleki, with his car because she was acting “too westernized.” He then fled the country but luckily was caught.

Now the Arizona Republic is reporting that he will not face the death penalty.

Is this because they disagree with the death penalty? NO! It is because they don’t want to appear racist! However, don’t they realize that they are treating him differently because he IS a Muslim?

“The decision not to seek the death penalty comes after Almaleki’s attorney, Billy Little, a public defender, asked a judge to take special precautions to ensure the County Attorney’s Office wouldn’t wrongly seek the death penalty because Almaleki is a Muslim. “An open process provides some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs,” Little wrote, referring to County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ Christian faith….”

He admitted that he killed his daughter because she had disgraced his family. So why is he not pleading guilty. We need to find out what would have happened to a man who killed his daughter in cold blood who was not a Muslim. If Arizona would have granted him the death penalty than this murderer deserves equal punishment!

Learn more about the threat that radical Islam poses to women’s rights here.

The Third Jihad on Netflix

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In today’s Washington Post

U.N. nuclear inspectors, citing evidence of an apparently ongoing effort by Iran to obtain new technologies, publicly suggested for the first time Thursday that the country is actively seeking to develop a weapons capability.

According to the IAEA report, experiments related to nuclear explosives continued beyond 2004—which contradicts U.S. intelligence claims that such activities ceased in 2003.

Iran has amassed upwards of two tons of enriched uranium—sufficient for an atomic bomb. Using centrifuges at the Natanz facility, the material could be enriched to weapons grade quality within a year and a half.

You can read the Washington Post story here.

The IAEA report can be viewed here.

The recent case of Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who murdered one soldier and injured another at a Little Rock military recruiting center last year, reflects several trends in the growing danger of extremism on American soil.

The New York Times reports that Mr. Muhammed—née Carlos Bledsoe–was born a Baptist. Shortly after beginning college, he converted to Sunni Islam and dropped out of school. He became increasingly devout, and was active in Nashville’s Somali community where he began wearing Arab-style clothing, gave up alcohol, and changed his name.

He eventually went to Yemen to study Arabic. He overstayed his visa, was deported, and ended up in a U.S. prison.

Mr. Muhammad told his father that while in prison he met Islamic radicals who told him that the American government had forsaken him. “We are your real brothers,” they said…

Read more…

One of France’s most popular fast food chains has made a controversial decision to remove pork from its menu at eight locations. These locations are now halal.

Perhaps this was a wise business decision and it is simply a case of wanting to appeal to a wider audience, or perhaps they were threatened.

One customer stated “I don’t understand, why can’t they sell halal burgers and bacon burgers at the same time?” asked Delphine, 26.

Is this move a move of respect, an interest to make more money or is it conforming out of fear? It is possible it is a move out of respect for the majority of inhabitants of the local communities, but it is an important sign of the growing population changes of France.

Learn more about the population threat of radical Islam here.

The Los Angeles Times reported last week on a push by two California officials to divest from Iran.

[They] are pushing insurers and the state’s two major pension funds to sell more than $6 billion worth of holdings in companies doing business in Iran. Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is expected Wednesday to ask hundreds of state-licensed insurance companies to pull money out of 50 foreign-owned corporations he said are involved in Iran’s nuclear, military and energy sectors.

The push follows moves by the Treasury Department to impose sanctions as a way of forcing the regime to curb its nuclear program. The sanctions have largely targeted the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Doha last week that the U.S. feared the IRGC was gradually seizing control of the state, with the potential to transform it into a military dictatorship.

According to RAND the IRGC

[controls] an array of subsidiary companies that have penetrated virtually every sector of the Iranian market—from construction and real estate to laser eye surgery and automobile manufacturing. Reportedly, the IRGC also operates illicit smuggling networks that constitute a vast shadow economy.

Tactics like sanctions and divestment are not failsafe mechanisms, as the regime has found ways to disguise some of its business dealings. Nevertheless, they are important resources to help curb the nuclear threat, when applied to Iranian business interests, as well as when applied to any company doing business with the regime.

You can read the Los Angeles Times article here.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted yesterday that the regime has succeeded in enriching uranium to a level of 20%, and that his country now possessed the ability to enrich it to weapons grade levels.

Although he has also said they do not believe in making nuclear bombs, MEMRI reports that “the conservative daily Kayhan, which is close to [supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, even stated in a February 9 editorial… that the minute Iran enriches uranium to 20%, the West will not be able to stop it from advancing further. At that point, Iran will not agree to stop at 20%, and the negotiations will be over enrichment to a higher level.”

How long could it take to enrich to weapons grade? Enrichment gets exponentially easier the further you go, meaning that once you get to 20%, it’s only a short leap to finish the job.

While it can’t be proven that their goal is WMDs, there are many worrying signs about the actual intent of the program.

Nuclear weapons cannot be allowed into the hands of the largest state sponsor of terror in the world. This cannot afford to be entertained as a legitimate possibility. Among the options currently being pursued to stop the regime are sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps which props up the government. Additionally, United Against a Nuclear Iran is directly going after companies that do business with Iran, as another way of pressuring the regime.

Iran has announced it plans on further enriching its uranium stockpile. As the LA Times reports

Any move by Iran to produce a 20%-enriched nuclear fuel supply could provoke Western nations and Israel, which allege that Tehran ultimately plans to build atomic bombs. Uranium enriched at the current 3.5% level can fuel civilian power plants; moves toward enriching it beyond 20% could suggest a goal of making weapons.

There are a number of very worrisome issues with Iran’s nuclear program. First, there’s no need for the Iranians to enrich fuel for civilian energy purposes, since the fuel for the Busehr reactor is being provided by the Russians. Also, although the Iranian regime would say mastering nuclear enrichment may be a matter of national pride, it doesn’t make fiscal sense for the second largest oil producer in the Middle-East to be developing an extraordinarily expensive nuclear program—compounded by the brutal economic difficulties the country finds itself in.

Regarding Iranian claims that the purpose of 20% enriched uranium is for use in a medical reactor, the LA Times reports, “only France and Argentina have the facilities to turn the material into the fuel plates for the reactor.” Unless some agreement can be reached with these countries, Iran would be left with a stockpile of useless material.

While getting to 3.5% enrichment is a major technological feat, enriching to 20% “would be going most of the rest of the way to weapon-grade uranium,” as David Albright, an official with Washington’s Institute for Science and International Security, told the Associated Press. On top of this, it was reported months ago that Iran possessed enough uranium—if further enriched— to make a nuclear bomb.

Former CIA director Jim Woolsey said in a 2007 hearing before the House

“The traces of highly-enriched (not just fuelgrade) uranium, their deception, their heavy water plant and other indicators brand their program as one designed to develop nuclear weapons even in the absence of considering their rhetoric about destroying Israel and ending the world”

You can read the LA Times article here.