Ismail Salami

Ali Ardashir Larijani is an Iranian philosopher, politician
and the chairman of the Iranian parliament. (Wikipedia)
Larijani said on Wednesday that the "fabricated allegations"
aimed to divert attention from Arab uprisings that Iran says
are inspired by its own Islamic revolution that toppled the
Shah in 1979. "[O]ur neighbours in the region are very well
aware that America is using this story to ruin our relationship
with Saudi Arabia." (Al Jazeera)

In a 'united against Iran campaign,' the US government has accused Tehran of orchestrating an assassination plot against the Saudi envoy in Washington, a move which is to be seen as part of a US stratagem to carry on with its plan of demonizing and isolating the Islamic Republic of Iran.

US Vice President Joe Biden said on "The Early Show" on Wednesday that "It's critically important that we unite the world in the isolation of and dealing with the Iranians. That's the surest way to be able to get results."

Obviously, the US officials will use the fabricated occasion to press for new international sanctions as they say that Iranian agents have sought to hire a purported member of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi envoy on American soil.

Regardless of the impertinence and hollowness of the claim, one should not disregard the influence of the powerful Zionist lobby in the new mudslinging plan which is, as Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani puts it, a 'tactless and childish game.”

To add more fuel to Iranophobia, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on other countries to work together against what is becoming a clearer and clearer threat" from Iran and said, “This really, in the minds of many diplomats and government officials, crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for.”

Washington, once again, went on a labeling spree and called Iran “the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.”

There is well-grounded speculation that the new move is meant to stir up dissension in the region so that the US may bolster its waning influence among the Middle Eastern countries as Iran wields a great amount of political muscle in the region. In other words, the US will then be in a position to fish in troubled waters.

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Le Monde diplomatique

« Ils n’étaient que quelques-uns.
Ils furent foule soudain.
Ceci est de tous les temps. »

Alors que des dizaines de milliers d’Américains manifestent leur exaspération et leur colère, nul ne sait encore si « Occuper Wall Street » constitue un moment de la politique américaine ou la promesse d’un mouvement qui la transformera.

Le rapprochement avec le Tea Party n’est pas absurde, même si les deux démarches semblent s’opposer: «Occuper Wall Street» met en cause la domination du capital et l’impuissance de l’Etat ; le Tea Party impute la crise économique à l’Etat et aux impôts. Ces deux mouvements antagonistes ont néanmoins en commun une profonde défiance à l’encontre du système politique, de l’establishment. La présidence de M. George W. Bush avait dégoûté une partie de la droite américaine du Parti républicain, jugé trop interventionniste, y compris en matière économique et sociale, et donc trop dépensier, trop étatiste. Là, avec « Occuper Wall Street », l’amertume et la colère suscitées par les tergiversations de M. Barack Obama, son centrisme, ses complaisances envers la finance, ont convaincu nombre des ses anciens électeurs que le système politique était non récupérable car contrôlé, quel que soit le parti au pouvoir, par le 1 % d’Américains les plus riches.

A l’évidence, ce dernier mouvement tire son inspiration des révoltes arabes, des manifestations espagnoles de la Puerta del Sol, des mouvements étudiants chiliens, des rassemblements israéliens contre la vie chère. Dans chacun de ces cas, les protestataires désespèrent de leur système politique, que celui-ci soit dictatorial, autoritaire ou d’apparence démocratique mais soumis au poids de l’argent. Ils n’acceptent pas que la crise économique et sociale épargne de manière ostentatoire les banques et les catégories sociales les plus privilégiées, jugées solidairement responsables de son déclenchement et de son aggravation.

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Bill Van Auken

This file photo shows Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the
United States Adel al-Jubeir speaks to the media at the
Mideast Peace Conference in 2007. (Reuters/Jason Reed)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented to the Associated Press: “The idea that they would attempt to go to a Mexican drug cartel to solicit murder-for-hire to kill the Saudi ambassador, nobody could make that up, right?” — That is precisely the question raised by the entire affair.

The White House announced Wednesday that it is imposing a new round of economic sanctions against Iran, while Vice President Joseph Biden warned that “nothing has been taken off the table” in regard to Washington’s response to an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, suggesting the possibility of military strikes.

Among the new targets of US sanctions is Mahan Air, Iran’s first privately owned airline, which flies to 12 countries. US officials claimed that the airline was involved in “secretly ferrying” members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Washington has seized upon the alleged plot to attempt to terrorize the American people, issuing a global travel warning against unspecified threats supposedly emanating from Iran while cautioning that attacks within the US itself are also possible.

The supposed terrorist plot was announced to the public by US Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday in Washington. The Justice Department’s case involves a wildly unlikely scenario involving a failed Iranian-American used car dealer from Texas, Manssor Arbabsiar, traveling to Mexico and attempting to enlist the feared drug cartel Los Zetas in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir, by blowing him up in an unnamed Washington restaurant. The other relevant plot twist is the fact that the supposed representative of Los Zetas contacted by Arbabsiar happened to be a confidential informant for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

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Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Sirte must go down in history as one of the world's epic tales of heroism and bravery, the tremendous resistance of a handful of courageous and resolute warriors standing fast against the hordes of sheer evil, cowards cowering behind a relentless and inhuman NATO bombing campaign, strafing civilians and soldiers alike in support of terrorists.

The lesson from Sirte must go down in the annals of the collective identity of humankind as a classic and historic tale of resilience and virtue and determination, the fight to survive against the most tremendous odds - a handful of loyalists and Libyan Patriots standing fast against marauding gangs of cowards and traitors, foreign mercenaries, looters, rapists, murderers, torturers and terrorists which the TNC have revealed themselves to be throughout months of horrific human rights outrages.

The lesson from Sirte is an example in quite how low an evil invasion force - NATO - can become, for several reasons. How it can use military hardware to strafe anything that moves, how it can bomb civilian structures, how it can mow down Libyan heroes defending their homeland against foreigners and defending their homes and families against terrorists and rapists. It also shows up the connivance between NATO and Islamist terrorists (yet again visible since Afghanistan, since Kosovo, since Iraq) and it shows the callous cold-blooded disregard for human life demonstrated by a faceless and grey organization which thinks nothing of signing up desperate young men from across the Arab world, and beyond, and sending them to their deaths for a sign-on fee of 10,000 USD.

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Melanie Butler

A lot has changed since we started occupying Wall Street 24 days ago. Voices take much longer to echo through the masses of bodies in Liberty Plaza, requiring two or three layers of repetition via the people’s microphone. The kitchen staff, once limited largely to serving the now-famous “occu-pie” pizzas (99% cheese, 1% pepperoni) lovingly designed by Libretto’s, are now cooking full-balanced, vegan meals, composting the scraps, and washing the dishes through an on-site grey-water system. The once-quaint library that started out as a few rejects from someone’s bookshelf is now a full-blown, catalogued institution with sections ranging from anarchism to acupuncture. Celebrities are coming down for the second, third, and fourth visit not to make speeches, but to see how things are evolving.

When Eve Ensler came down for a repeat visit on Saturday night she asked if I could gather some people together to talk after the General Assembly. She and Naomi Klein sat with us on the concrete for the entire General Assembly, patiently listening to over two hours of working group report-backs, announcements, and general housekeeping. When we finally gathered on the steps by the library, Eve asked for ideas on how she could best support us. “Use your voice to say what you see,” said one woman. “Tell people we’re not a bunch of patchouli-wearing hippies doing hula hoops and dancing in a circle.” As everyone laughed, she quickly added, “there is that, and it’s beautiful, but there’s also real process, there’s real community.” “I have to say, more than I’ve seen anywhere” Eve said, nodding. Eve asked us to tell her what brought us here. One woman said she had just wandered over to see what was happening: “I’ve been trying to leave for the past four hours. Every step I take there’s something amazing happening.” As other people shared their stories a plan evolved to bring these “stories from the heart of the park” to a wider audience.

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