Maine Owl

Have we learned from Iraq after all?

These are the answers to Sunday's matching quiz:
1. B; 2. C; 3. D; 4. A

Click HERE to see the background and discussion below.

Now, for a nightmare headline--that is if you are a U.S. or Israeli reactionary who was hoping the "September surprise" enrichment plant "revelations" would leverage a more damaging attack on the Iranian population:

Iran agrees to open up uranium enrichment plant to inspection
Provisional deal offers hope of defusing crisis
Julian Borger in Geneva | guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 October 2009 20.39 BST

Iran agreed in principle today to export much of its stock of enriched uranium for processing and to open its newly-revealed enrichment plant to UN inspections within a fortnight.

The agreements, struck at negotiations in Geneva with six major powers, represented the most significant progress in talks with Tehran in over three years, and offered hope that the nuclear crisis could be defused, at least temporarily.

Western officials cautioned that the preliminary agreements could unravel in negotiations over the details. But if the deals were completed, it would push back the looming threat of further sanctions and possible military action.

Of course this news reads a little different from U.S.-based sources: "Obama: Iran Must Follow Through on Nuke Promises."

Maybe this does make Obama look a bit more rational and able to manage disparate global interests than the Republicans, especially last year's losers, as Rachel Maddow pointed out HERE. Maybe Obama is playing a clever game to defuse the more bloodthirsty elements occupying Washington and Jerusalem.

But somehow I don't think the threat of U.S.-approved violence against the Iranian people is over. It appears the Iranians have played a card the Americans did not expect they would--the agreed to outsource uranium enrichment. This was a proposal floated as early as the 2004 presidential campaign by the Democrats. I've written about this before, back when John Edwards still was a viable candidate:

On the essential aspects of "militarism and oil-driven expansionism," it seems to me quite clear that calls to "negotiate" with Iran ring hollow. Walking a tightrope while recognizing that very few in America, especially in Democratic primaries, are particularly in a mood to jump into a bigger war, Edwards appeared to be conciliatory in a recent interview with Ezra Klein of The American Prospect. The trouble is, there is really no aspect of US imperial policy in the Middle East that possibly could be conceded in a negotiation with Iran, and Edwards failed to offer such.

In that Klein interview, Edwards explains what America would “give” Iran. They would be allowed to have a nuclear fuel cycle, controlled by Washington. Presumably Iran would be also be allowed to pay its oh-so-“hard” oil $ in exchange for these benefits brought to it by the elite technocratic contracting entities in the multinational Nuclear Suppliers Group. Also, Iran would get economic "help," presumably from a dose of neoliberal medicine. If I were Iranian, that deal would be totally a non-starter.

I may have been proven wrong here. I hope so, if it means that an attack on Iran and the counter measures Iran would almost certainly take do not happen. But unfortunately I'm not quite ready to believe the forces lined up against Iran are going to stand down just yet.

The first answer today will be a freebie. Your free question is, Which world leader has declared that Iran must "come clean" on its nuclear program after the existence of a small, long-known-about underground enrichment facility was "revealed" on Friday?

Of course the answer is President Barack Obama who Friday in Pittsburgh at a G-20 meeting news conference said,

When we meet with them on October 1st, they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice.

Doesn't that sound somehow familiar? If you've been paying attention for the last couple of decades, it should! So for your quiz today, please give the letter of the person or persons below who said (or wrote) each of the following. (Note: A certain country name has been replaced by "[they]" so as not to reveal too much about the answer.):

1. ____ "So, they have to come clean. They wanted to come clean, OK? They could not come fully clean, then they'll have to declare things they don't want to give. So, they give partial documentation in a hurry. There were some notes, there were some documents they shouldn't have, if they wanted, if they were serious, they shouldn't have."


2. ____ "[Have they] come clean at last?"


3. ____ "We asked for a declaration of all of his WMD come clean. He refused to do that. He’s, again, continued to do everything he could to thwart the inspectors. I'm hard-put to specify what it is he could do with credibility at this stage that would alter the outcome. He's always had the option of coming clean, of complying with the resolution, of giving up all of his weapons of mass destruction, ..."


4. ____ "I do feel that there's still reason to believe that he is hiding and has not come totally clean. ... And I am anticipating a unanimous view that we've got to keep our eyes wide open and not be lulled by some letter or some very belated offering ...."

Please pick from these choices:

A. George H. W. Bush
B. Khidhir Hamza
C. David Albright and Robert Kelley
D. Richard Bruce Cheney

Please post your answers in a comment. Solutions will be given in a couple of days.

What kind of country allows an election to be stolen?