DONYA-YE EQTESAD: Many people have written about the issue of gasoline in recent weeks. Hence, it might not be a good idea to write another article on this subject. At any rate, the comments made by different officials, particularly lawmakers, show that they believe the main problem is the high volume of gas importation. This is while it seems that the main problem is the high national consumption rate. If the main problem is importation of gasoline, construction of refineries can help resolve this problem to some extent. Air pollution and traffic congestion are the negative consequences of high consumption of gas.

ABRAR: After the lapse of one week since the savage attacks of the Israeli Army on Lebanon, a conscious mind can examine the adverse effects of this situation more pertinently. All in all, it looks like Israel did not expect the Hezbollah to be capable of retaliating in such a firm manner. Hezbollah’s missile attacks on Israel’s third largest city, Haifa, have badly scared the Israelis, some of whom have even lost hope in the future. The only solution to the Middle East crisis is that Israel completely ceases attacks on south Lebanon. The second step is that both sides take part in negotiations and exchange prisoners of war.

SEDA-YE EDALAT: A group of teachers from different provinces of the country who work on a contractual basis staged a rally in front of Majlis on Sunday to protest at the non-implementation of a Majlis ratification of 2004 regarding their employment status. This protest took place at a time when the incumbent Majlis has also solemnly promised to implement the 2004 ratification. There are presently about 60,000 teachers in the country who work on a contractual basis and who seek permanent employment at the Ministry of Education. Majlis has obliged the government to employ a total of 40,000 of this group of teachers. The government and Majlis should join hands to resolve the problem of these teachers.

ASR-E EQTESAD: One of the attempts aimed at promoting exports in the first decade after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was receiving a guarantee from exporters that they would bring in the revenues gained from selling non-oil products. The main purpose behind this was to prevent escape of capital and also provide sufficient incentives for potential foreign investors to participate in national developmental undertakings. The bottom line is that the government’s export policies need to be revised. The government, above all, should determine whether the current volume of exports helps Iran join the drive for globalization or not.

AFTAB-E YAZD: Secretary and spokesman of the Guardians Council (GC) have made statements regarding the Assembly of Experts elections. If these statements are analyzed more profoundly, then it will become clear that they are contradictory. The council’s secretary, Ahmad Jannati, has actually neglected the comments made by some would-be candidates who have said that they will not take part in the upcoming race or that they will only participate in a conditional manner. He has essentially discouraged several nominees from running in the vital electoral undertaking. This is while the council’s spokesman, Abbasali Kadkhodaei, has said that the council guarantees that no candidate will be disqualified for having factional affiliations. What is noteworthy here is that in the past the officials tried to prepare the ground for the people’s greater presence in different elections every way possible.

Under the pretext of avenging the ’kidnapping’ of one of their soldiersÐ-and, more recently, two moreÐ-the Israelis have unleashed a military assault planned well in advance of the allegedly precipitating incidents.
This is surely one of the most threadbare excuses for a war ever uttered. One wonders how Israel’s spokesmen can say it with a straight face. Soldiers in wartime are captured, not “kidnapped.“ If Hezbollah has “kidnapped“ those two Israeli soldiers, then how do we describe the jailing of thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, on the basis of their alleged sympathy for HamasÐ-now the democratically elected government of Palestine? In any case, it appears, according to this report, that Hezbollah has some Israeli competition when it comes to the business of kidnapping.
The Bush administration is formally committed to the ’roadmap’, which entails the creation of a Palestinian state. Yet the Israelis have done everything possible to undermine Bush’s plan, including obstructing elections. The American response has been appeasement: as Israeli gunboats make short work of Gaza beachgoers, Washington’s response is to demand the unconditional release of captured Israeli soldiers. There is an undertone of disapproval, as Condoleezza Rice urges ’restraint’ by all parties and the president worries that the Lebanese government will be destabilized, yet none of this is allowed to deflect US policymakers from their craven course of kowtowing to the Israelis while they spend our money and earn us plenty more enemies among the world’s billion-plus Muslims.
Israel’s fifth column in America has been enormously successful in ’spinning’ the latest news from the Middle East. Instead of reporting that Israel is invading Lebanon, the ’mainstream’ media avers that Israel has ’entered’ LebanonÐ-as casually as one would enter a room in one’s own house.
The Mearsheimer-Walt thesisÐ-that US foreign policy has been hijacked (kidnapped, if you will) by what they refer to as “the Lobby“Ð-has so far been confirmed by the events of the past few days.
Whether the Bush administration will go all the way with the Israelis, is, however, in some doubt. The alleged triumph of the Republican ’realists’ over the neoconservatives, supposedly symbolized by the ascension of Condi Rice, is counteracted by the Democrats’ complete subservience to the Lobby.
Mearsheimer and Walt explain how we got into this mess, but they don’t give us any answers about how to get out. How do we avoid getting dragged by our Israeli ’allies’ into World War III?
The short answer: stop appeasing IsraelÐ-and start looking out for American interests. The Amen Corner makes no such distinction, but clearly there is one, the most obvious being that we (unlike the Israelis) have no interest fomenting a wider warÐ-especially while our troops are stuck in the middle of it all, lined up like sitting ducks and increasingly on the defensive.
The US must unequivocally condemn the invasion of Lebanon and call for the unconditional withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Lebanese soil. Furthermore, the naval and aerial blockade of Lebanon must end: thousands of tourists and others are pouring into Syria, where they may not be safe for very much longer. This is an intolerable act of war against the whole civilized community, and for the United States government to not only stand by but implicitly condone it is unforgivable. The “war on terrorism“ apparently requires enabling Israeli state terrorism.
As American power and prestige are once again harnessed to Israeli interests, there is little hope that Congress will step into the breach and stop our headlong plunge into World War III. Nor do any of the likely presidential candidates seem willing to take on the War Party when the question of war and peace is put in terms of Israel’s interestsÐ-or, as the Lobby would have it, the Jewish state’s continued survival.
Years of relentless propaganda, countless smear campaigns and a prodigious expenditure of money and human resources led us to this moment: the War Party is launching what amounts to its final offensive, an all-out attack on whatever bastions of human decency and commonsense remain in this hideously war-crazed post-9/11 world.

Justin Raimondo