50 German firms under investigation for helping Iran's nuke program

Germany, Iran's largest trade partner is investigating scores of companies suspected of aiding Iran's nuclear program:

Officials said 50 German companies may have been involved in the sale dual-use systems and material required for Iran's nuclear project. They said Berlin has determined that the shipments were being used to complete Iran's nuclear energy plant at Bushehr.

"The equipment was ordered by Russia and diverted to Iran," an official said.

I find it hard to believe that the Germans did not know this all along. On the record, Europe claims to be as concerned as America about a nuclear-armed Iran. The record also shows, however, that Europe's biggest countries do a booming business with the Islamic Republic. And so far for the Continentals, manna trumps security.

The European Union--led by Germany, France and Italy--has long been Iran's largest trading partner. Its share of Iran's total imports is about 35%. Even more notable: Its trade with Tehran has expanded since Iran's secret nuclear program was exposed. Between 2003 and 2005, Europe's exports rose 29% to €12.9 billion; machinery, transport equipment and chemicals make up the bulk of the sales. Imports from Iran, predominantly oil, increased 62% to €11.4 billion in that period.

Read more!

Déjà vu

The latest hostage crisis continues to unfold as I expected.

After the failure to secure UN condemnation of Iran’s action, the Times reports that the EU has refused to impose sanctions on Iran. As I've indicated many times in my posts, Iran is EU's client state. The EU is single-handedly responsible for survival and prolongation of the Islamist Iran reign of terror. Germany is Iran's largest trading partner. According to Spiegel online, forty-eight percent of Germans think that the United States is more dangerous than Iran with only 31 percent believing the opposite.

France, Iran's second-largest trading partner wants more pathetic dialogue with a bunch of politically and emotionally immature thugs who can only think of short-term solutions to hold on to power by engineering crisis after crisis since their usurpation of power in 1979.

Contrast this with the confrontational chutzpah of the Islamist Iranians (aka TAZI meaning Raiders in English; this is name given to Isamo/arabs after wiping out Iranian civilization and imposing Islam on Iranians by the sword). As the BBC reports today, Iran's ambassador to Russia has said that the British servicemen could face trial for violating international law. "It is possible that the British soldiers who entered into Iranian waters will go on trial for taking this illegal action," Gholamreza Ansari told Russian television channel Vesti-24.

Given the state of popular opinion (manufactured by disinformation and propaganda) in Iran, what do we think the outcome of such a show trial might be? As that Times piece says: "In Iran tens of thousands of football fans reportedly chanted “Death to England” while tourists burnt an effigy of Mr Blair dressed as a pirate."

In other words, our lack of will has emboldened our enemies beyond the point of considering the release of their hostages. They are now hinting at the possibility of keeping them a lot longer. Sound familiar?! They've done this in 1979 and have gotten away with it absolutely unpunished, so why stop now.

Ahmad Khatami, one of Iran's theocrats views this fiasco this way:

Today, Britain is a failed, isolated power who acts as a middleman for America. If they continue their bullying they will pay a high price. This Iran is a great Islamic and powerful Iran who is standing against America, who is the master of Britain.

Anyone still think the Iranians are intimidated by our (non-existent) "ratcheting up" of rhetoric?

Read more!

Germany: A Sick German Judge Cites Koran in Rejecting Divorce

The NY Times: FRANKFURT, March 22 — A German judge has stirred a storm of protest here by citing the Koran in turning down a German Muslim woman’s request for a fast-track divorce on the ground that her husband beat her.

In a remarkable ruling that underlines the tension between Muslim customs and European laws, the judge, Christa Datz-Winter, said that the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu, in which she said it was common for husbands to beat their wives. The Koran, she wrote, sanctions such physical abuse...

This is beyond sick. Can you imagine a German judge approving of wife battering just because a sick ideology deceptively wrapped in religion sanctions violence against women? What's happening to humanity? What if someone comes up with a religion that sanctions murdering people at random and it is clearly stated in their holy book? Would anyone in their right mind take this religion seriously or allow this to happen in their society? This case is emblematic of the stupidity in the Western world. No sane German, will applaud this "respecting other cultures" gone wild. The judge should be impeached. I'm so infuriated at this moment that I just need to go out and get some fresh air...

Read more!

"Not Possible to Modernize Islam"

INTERVIEW WITH FOUNDER OF "COUNCIL OF EX-MUSLIMS"

Human rights activists have formed a "Central Council of Ex-Muslims in Germany" to help women renounce the Islamic faith if they feel oppressed by its laws. Its Iranian-born founder Mina Ahadi, under police protection after receiving death threats, talks to DER SPIEGEL about its goals.

An Iranian human rights activist living in Germany has formed a "Central Council of ex-Muslims in Germany" with 40 others and has received anonymous death threats after declaring she wants to help people to leave the religion if they so desire.

Iranian-born Mina Ahadi, 50, said she set up the group to highlight the difficulties of renouncing the Islamic faith which she believes to be misogynist. She wants the group to form a counterweight to Muslim organisations that she says don't adequately represent Germany's secular-minded Muslim immigrants.

Ahadi has been put under police protection in recent days. Renouncing Islam can carry the death penalty in a number of countries including Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and Mauritania. In other countries people who turn their backs on the faith aren't punished by courts, but they are often ostracized by family and friends. It's a difficult subject among Muslim communities in Europe too.

Ahadi said she wants the new organization to help women who feel oppressed by the rules of the faith to find a way out. The Council will hold a news conference in Berlin on Wednesday to outline its goals.

DER SPIEGEL spoke to Ahadi.

SPIEGEL: Together with 29 other immigrants from Muslim countries you have declared that you have renounced Islam. The campaign is similar to one launched in the 1970s by women who declared publicly that they had had abortions. What is your purpose?

Ahadi: I haven't been a Muslim for 30 years. I'm also critical of Islam in Germany and of the way the German government deals with the issue of Islam. Many Muslim organisations like the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD) or Milli Görüs engage in politics or interfere in people's everyday lives. They were invited to the conference on Islam (hosted by the government in Berlin last year). But their aims are hostile to women and to people in general."

(snip)

SPIEGEL: Won't your campaign just harden the battle lines?

Ahadi: I don't think it's possible to modernize Islam. We want to form a counterweight to the Muslim organisations. The fact that we're doing this under police protection shows how necessary our initiative is.

...Theres is more

Read more!

Europe and the mullahs

1979 Khomeini's Return from Exile Courtesy of France


I had argued a few month ago that EU is duplictious on the issue of nuclear standoff with Iran because they have no incentive in stopping their client state being a threat to the US and use that as a leverage in trade and economic negotiations. We should have never outsourced one of the most important National Security and Strategic issues we face today to the Europeans. Finally, Wall Street Journal agrees with me.

The Wall Street Journal:

Europe claims to be as concerned as America about a nuclear-armed Iran. The record also shows, however, that Europe's biggest countries do a booming business with the Islamic Republic. And so far for the Continentals, manna trumps security.

The European Union -- led by Germany, France and Italy -- has long been Iran's largest trading partner. Its share of Iran's total imports is about 35%. Even more notable: Its trade with Tehran has expanded since Iran's secret nuclear program was exposed. Between 2003 and 2005, Europe's exports rose 29% to €12.9 billion; machinery, transport equipment and chemicals make up the bulk of the sales. Imports from Iran, predominantly oil, increased 62% to €11.4 billion in that period.In the absence of an official embargo against Tehran, private EU companies have sought commercial opportunities in Iran. But the real story here is that these businesses are subsidized by European taxpayers. Government-backed export guarantees have fueled the expansion in trade. That, in turn, has boosted Iran's economy and -- indirectly by filling government coffers with revenues -- its nuclear program. The German record stands out.

In its 2004 annual report on export guarantees, Berlin's Economics Ministry dedicated a special section to Iran that captures its giddy excitement about business with Tehran."Federal Government export credit guarantees played a crucial role for German exports to Iran; the volume of coverage of Iranian buyers rose by a factor of almost 3.5 to some €2.3 billion compared to the previous year," the report said. "The Federal Government thus insured something like 65% of total German exports to the country. Iran lies second in the league of countries with the highest coverage in 2004, hot on the heels of China."Iran tops Germany's list of countries with the largest outstanding export guarantees, totaling €5.5 billion.

France's export guarantees to Iran amount to about €1 billion. Italy's come to €4.5 billion, accounting for 20% of Rome's overall guarantee portfolio. Little Austria had, at the end of 2005, €800 million of its exports to Iran covered by guarantees.The Europeans aren't simply facilitating business between private companies. The vast majority of Iranian industry is state-controlled, while even private companies have been known to act as fronts for the country's nuclear program. EU taxpayers underwrite trade and investment that would otherwise be deterred by the risks of doing business with a rogue regime.It's also hard not to see a connection between Europe's commercial interests and its lenient diplomacy.

The U.N.'s December sanctions resolution orders countries to freeze the assets of only 10 specific companies and 12 individuals with ties to Iran's nuclear program. Europe's governments continue to resist U.S. calls for financial sanctions, and the German Chamber of Commerce recently estimated that tougher economic sanctions would cost 10,000 German jobs.As if on cue, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier last week detected in Tehran a "new ambition" to resume talks. The last time the Europeans promoted such diplomatic negotiations, Iran won two more years to get closer to its goal of becoming a nuclear power. In 2004, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily, then-Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told Iranians to consider Europe a "protective shield" against U.S. pressure. The EU continues to provide a shield for its business interests in Iran, and thus a lifeline to a regime that is unpopular at home and sponsors terror abroad.

Read more!

Future of European-Iranian Relations

Joschka Fischeris, former foreign minister of Germany and a visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University sends the Jihadist Islamic Republic occuyping Iran the most sobering warning and assessment to date:

Europe developed the balance of power system after our religious wars in 1648. And we experienced its benefits and its nightmares over the centuries and finally its definitive collapse in two world wars between 1914 and 1945. My country challenged this European system twice in the first half of the twentieth century. At the beginning of the last century, Germany was the leading power of Europe, but we made the wrong decisions and ended in a complete disaster. What was our strategic mistake? We followed hegemonial aspirations that relied on military might and prestige, and we miscalculated the anti-hegemonial instincts of Europe. And twice we underestimated the strategic potential, the power, and the political will and decisiveness of the United States. Otto von Bismarck, perhaps the greatest German statesman of the nineteenth century, defined Germany’s role in his century as either “hammer or anvil.” In the second half of the twentieth century, it turned out that he was completely wrong, because this had never been a serious alternative. A new European system based on a peaceful balance of interests, common European institutions in the framework of the EU, and guaranteed security, produced by NATO and the transatlantic alliance, completely changed the course of German and European history for the better.

Ladies and gentlemen, It seems to me that today Iran is confronted with the question of whether your country will follow hegemonial aspirations or become a driving force for peace, stability, and progress in the Middle East. Iran cooperated with the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, based on its national interest. The result was not very promising from an Iranian point of view, I agree. But the situation has changed for the better, as the common offer reflects. And if we can move forward in the nuclear area to reach agreement, I believe that the implications of such progress will be positive and far-reaching. And I strongly believe that a “Grand Bargain” is achievable, that is, a nuclear and a regional security agreement in exchange for full economic, technological, and scientific cooperation; full political normalization; and security guaranties. But all depends now on the decision of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A policy of nuclearization, of confrontation with the UN, and of destabilization of the Middle East will lead us into a dark tunnel, in which I can see no light on the other side.

Read the whole article in full by clicking here. It's long but worth the read.

Read more!