Timo wrote:I suppose it's pointless pointing out that Allah and Yahweh are the same god! Christians, Jews, and Muslims all believe in and worship the same god. Pat Roberson doesn't know his theology very well.
Dispensationalist Christian Zionists, often described the 'Armageddon lobby', make up the largest voting bloc in the Republican Party and have become a mainstay in US politics. More recently, the Christian Zionist lobby has had a profoundly damaging impact on the Israeli-Palestinian 'peace process' as well as creating a conspiracy of silence regarding Israeli offensives in the occupied Palestinian territories.
... is 'based on dispensationalist theology', which states that we are living in the last dispensation of the Book of Revelation, which essentially means that we are in the end-times. Within this theology, the return of the Messiah is contingent upon a set of events transpiring, and among these, a Jewish State of Israel must be in existence.
BILL MOYERS: Before we go any further, give me a shorthand definition of dispensationalism.
DR. TIMOTHY WEBER: Dispensationalism is a particular way of reading Bible prophecy which divides the Bible into two stories. There's a story about God's earthly people, Israel. And then a story about God's heavenly people, the Church. And the basic premise of dispensationalism is that all Bible prophecies concerning earthly events applies to the Jews. And all of those events will be fulfilled literally in the End Times. So, Israel must be returned to the land. They must stay in the land. Without Israel in the land, there can be none of the other events prophesied in the Bible. There can be no rise of Anti-Christ. There can be no rebuilding of the Temple. There can be no Battle of Armageddon. And there can be no second coming of Jesus Christ. So everything is riding on the Jews, getting them there and keeping them there in the Holy Land.
RABBI MICHAEL LERNER: But I think-- but what you have to add in there is that when this is a step in the process that they see towards the end of end times in which the Jews will be cast down into eternal damnation and to the fires of hell. And only those Jews who convert to Christianity will be okay. And everyone -- all the rest of us so they're welcoming us now -- with open arms and saying, "Oh, we love the Jewish people" But they love the Jewish people literally to death because they they want see those of us who stay Jews burn in hell but not-- not right away. They don't imagine it will happen right away. So there's a staged process. And this is the first stage in the process that will eventually lead either to us converting totally to Christianity or burning in hell. So it's not a really great future for the Jews that those theological people have in mind.
Zarif: The Netanyahu regime ‘should be annihilated’
Dodging some questions, finessing others in extensive TV interview, Iranian foreign minister says Iran has saved Jews three times in its history and threatens nobody
...
Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir
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Why should & how can #Israel be eliminated? Ayatollah Khamenei's answer to 9 key questions.
#HandsOffAlAqsa
3:44 AM - 9 Nov 2014
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http://www.timesofisrael.com/zarif-the-netanyahu-regime-should-be-annihilated/
Kerry tries to reassure Iran's Gulf rivals on nuclear talks
Gulf countries, like Israel and many Western states, fear Iran is using its atomic program to develop a nuclear weapons capability, something Tehran denies.
Saudi Arabia regards Iran as its main regional rival and the two countries back opposing sides in wars and political struggles across the region, often along sectarian lines.
Saudi Arabia and its allies worry that a nuclear accord will not stop Iran from gaining the bomb. They are also concerned it would ease international pressure on Tehran and give it more room to intervene in regional issues.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/kerry-tries-reassure-irans-gulf-rivals-nuclear-talks-144644365.html
Why Arab leaders are telling Obama to listen to Netanyahu
Largely overlooked in all the hubbub of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress about Iran this week is that Arab leaders pretty much agree with him.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2015/0305/Why-Arab-leaders-are-telling-Obama-to-listen-to-Netanyahu
Although Israeli Prime Minister Netenyahu in his speech to Congress painted Iran as a threat to peace, he left out important details concerning the relationship between Iran and the West. There is considerably more to the story.
The uncomfortable fact is that, by any fair measure, Iran has been more sinned against than sinning. To explain, we will need to dip into what George Orwell called the “Memory Hole” and review the momentous events of the 1940’s and 1950’s as well as their far-reaching consequences.
For several years after the Second World War, the U.S. had a positive image with many Iranians. After helping to convince occupying Soviet forces to leave the country, and attempting to mediate an agreement between Iran and Great Britain, the American government was generally well regarded. But these good relations were not to last.
During the summer of 1953 a major crisis developed between Tehran and Washington. At that time Iran was an emerging democracy with elected leaders. Led by the popular Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, it was embroiled in a conflict with the British over oil. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was owned by British interests and supported by the British government. In a grossly unequal colonial-style arrangement, the Iranians were not even allowed to examine the ledgers.
As the dispute with the British intensified, the Iranians finally became determined to nationalize their country’s oil industry. The British responded by freezing Iranian assets, imposing a worldwide embargo on Iran’s oil, and pulling their technicians out of the country. Oil output slowed to a trickle, Iran’s economy went into a tailspin, and unrest grew. Britain’s destabilization efforts were working.
Although the Truman government had been sympathetic to Iran, in 1953 the new Eisenhower administration accepted the British view that the Iranian regime had to go. On July 11th President Eisenhower secretly signed an order to overthrow Iran’s young democracy. The die was cast.
On August 19th the U.S.-orchestrated military coup emerged triumphant, and the exiled monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was installed on the Peacock Throne. A secret history of this CIA operation, written in 1954 by agent and participant Donald Wilber and leaked to the press, leaves no doubt as to the central role played by the United States.
Had the Shah been a benevolent ruler, the image of the U.S. in Iran might not have become so tarnished, but benevolent he was not. And to make matters worse–much worse–American and Israeli intelligence agents organized SAVAK, the Shah’s personal secret security force. Before long, Iran developed into a full-blown police state complete with thousands of informers, censorship, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and widespread torture and assassination. Of course, none of this was a secret to the Shah’s many U.S. advisers.
According to the Harvard Human Rights Journal, many of SAVAK’s 15,000 full-time agents were “trained in the United States and Israel where they learned ‘scientific’ methods to prevent unwanted deaths from ‘brute force’.” Electrified chairs fitted with metal masks were used “to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim.” Another historian called the Shah’s methods of torture “horrendous,” and “equal to the worst ever devised.”
Aiming to terrorize an entire population, SAVAK repression was both extreme and widespread. Few Iranian families were spared, and among the victims were family members of the Shiite clerics who would later overthrow the Shah’s regime in 1979, and spark the seizure and hostage-taking crisis at the U.S. embassy.
An honest assessment of these events would lead to an understanding of why the United States government is loathed by so many Iranians. They are fully aware of American complicity with the Shah’s twenty-five year reign of terror. Although the Clinton administration did offer a partial apology, the admission never made it into the consciousness of the American people, nor into the perspective of the main stream media.
Its time for a new direction in US-Iranian relations. Whatever one may think about the government of Iran, tne Iranian people do not deserve to be subjected to the collective punishment of illegal economic sanctions. The U.S. trade embargo against Iran should be lifted. The issue of weapons of mass destruction can only be resolved in the context of recognizing that Iran has legitimate, real, and rational security concerns including Sunni extremism.
For its part, Iran also needs to make changes. Its government must show far more respect for the rights of dissidents and demonstrators. All political prisoners should be released, and press censorship end.
A judicious mix of honest atonement by both sides, along with other confidence-building measures, can lay the foundation for a new and mutually beneficial relationship between Iran and the West.
But above all, Americans need to acknowledge that the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 was a dark chapter in the history of the United States, and resolve that it not be repeated.
kanon wrote:Most would agree that the Republican/Bush administration middle east policy was a stunning success, vaulting the U.S. to new heights of prestige and influence.
The "leftists" who called BS on the WMDs and the Iraq-AQ connection, and predicted that your wars would destabilize the ME.Sixstrings wrote:The same leftists that decried American wars in the ME. Now Iran is on the march. And the other side is worse, ISIS. The same Left is silent on it all, as usual.
Just personally -- I'm not listening to any leftists anymore, about foreign policy.
Sixstrings wrote:kanon wrote:Most would agree that the Republican/Bush administration middle east policy was a stunning success, vaulting the U.S. to new heights of prestige and influence.
So Iran starts taking over the middle east instead -- and leftists fall over themselves to support Iran.
Withnail wrote:The last time Iran attacked another country was before the United States existed.
They are not attacking Syria or Iraq.Plantagenet wrote:Withnail wrote:The last time Iran attacked another country was before the United States existed.
As usual you don't know what you are talking about.
Iranian troops are fighting in both Syria and Iraq right now.
Just personally -- I'm not listening to any leftists anymore, about foreign policy.
All they ever are is anti-American.
Iranian official calls on West to scrap nuclear arms before any missile talks
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran will not negotiate over its ballistic missiles until the United States and Europe dismantle nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, a top Iranian military official said on Saturday.
Separately, Iran confirmed that the Iranian foreign minister had met his former U.S. counterpart John Kerry on the sidelines of a Munich meeting last month. The New Yorker magazine earlier reported that Kerry had urged Tehran not to abandon a 2015 nuclear deal, despite tensions with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
While Iran has accepted curbs on its nuclear work - which it says is for purely peaceful purposes - it has repeatedly refused to discuss its missile program, something the United States and European countries have called for.
“The condition for negotiating Iran’s missiles is the destruction of the nuclear weapons and long-range missiles of the United States and Europe,” Iranian Armed Forces spokesman Masoud Jazayeri was quoted by the state news agency IRNA as saying.
Iran says its missile program is defensive, and that it is not related to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers which led to the lifting of sanctions against the country.
European powers and Iran have started talks over Tehran’s role in the Middle East and will meet again this month in Italy as part of efforts to prove to Trump that they are meeting his concerns over the 2015 nuclear deal.
On Friday, the New Yorker reported that during a meeting, which it said was attended by others involved in the nuclear deal, “Kerry quietly urged the Iranians not to abandon the deal or violate its terms - whatever the Trump Administration does”.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi, quoted by IRNA, said that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif “has always met on the sidelines of such international summits with attending personalities and elites ... in the framework of preserving Iranian interests”.
Zarif had met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference with “John Kerry and Ernest Moniz, foreign and energy ministers of the previous U.S. government, who have a critical attitude towards Trump Administration policies”, Qasemi said.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Saudi Arabia and its close allies Abu Dhabi and Kuwait hold almost all the spare capacity that could respond quickly to a reduction in Iranian exports.
U.S. shale producers could also increase their output but it would take time and their light crude is not a good substitute for heavier Iranian oil.
Russian firms may also hold spare capacity and could certainly increase output over a 12-month horizon. Their crude is a close equivalent to Iranian grades.
The United States and Saudi Arabia appear to have reached a high-level political understanding in which the United States will intensify pressure on Iran in exchange for Saudi Arabia agreeing to help avoid a spike in oil prices.
The existence of an understanding was confirmed by the U.S. Treasury Secretary who told reporters on Tuesday that “we have had conversations with various parties ... that would be willing to increase oil supply”.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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