interview with Barbara Slavin on US-Iran

Barbara Slavin, senior diplomatic correspondent for USA Today since 1996 and author of the recently published book,Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (St. Martin's Press), writes that,

"Iran and the United States are like a once happily married couple that has gone through a bitter divorce. Harsh words have been exchanged - husband and wife have come to blows and employed others to inflict more punishment. Apologizing is hard and changing behavior even harder. This relationship is unequal, with one side or the other feeling more vulnerable at any given time and afraid the other will take advantage of concessions."

Currently, the public faces of both nations, presidents George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been content to throw rhetorical bombs and raise the diplomatic temperature - increasing the likelihood of war. Indeed, at times it appears that conservative hardliners in both countries are eager for conflict as a means to maintain their respective grips on power.

Using her extensive contacts among the powerful inside Iran and the United States, Slavin documents missed opportunities for reconciliation between both countries during the administrations of the first President Bush as well as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The combination of her remarkable access to people such as Madeline Albright, Condelezza Rice, Iranian reformers like former President Mohammad Khatami, longtime establishment figures such as Ali Rafsanjani, as well as dissidents like Akbar Ganji and everyday citizens, allows Slavin to shed sunlight on a nation most Americans know very little about. She is also the first newspaper reporter from the United States to interview Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

Slavin has accompanied three secretaries of State on their official travels and reported from Iran, Libya, Israel, Egypt, North Korea, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Syria. She is also a regular commentator for U.S. foreign policy on National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting System's Washington Week In Review and C-Span. This month, she joined the U.S. Institute of Peace as a Jennings Randolph fellow, to continue her research on Iran. Slavin also serves as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Slavin agreed to a podcast interview with me about her book, Iran and their turbulent relationship with the United States. Our conversation is just under thirty minutes.

Listen to, "An Interview With Iranian Expert and Journalist Barbara Slavin" in the Intrepid Liberal Journal.#


Published by permission. Thanks, Rob, great work!

no exit: fiasco was their goal

As I've been saying:

It's the Oil

By Jim Holt

Iraq is 'unwinnable', a 'quagmire', a 'fiasco': so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be 'stuck' precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no 'exit strategy'.

Information Clearing House

Hillary abandons her Socks: 2008 deal breaker?

Ouch! Hillary's softer image is clawed over dumped cat is one of the more insidious character attacks you'll want to read. And it uses little Socks, the former White House First Pet, as its amunition while accusing Hillary Clinton of what the article does--cynical and jaded pet use.

Clinton's book, Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets, will now be trotted out like Buddy's ill-fated romp into the street just after his First Dog tenure ended...thus ending the life of a chocolate lab who deserved better.

Was a vast right paw conspiracy behind Buddy's demise? Was Buddy threatening to bark out about the Clinton years?

Socks, that black'n'white kitty who, said Hillary at the time, caused the White House to finally "become a home" was adopted by Bill's personal secretary, Betty Currie. This may represent abuse, but I doubt it--and I have no report of Socks' current mindset, if any, concerning Hillary's plans to move back into the First Feline's former cushy digs. Rrraorrrwwww!

May I suggest that if Hillary's prez-run results in a W-House reinstallment that she consider a different type of First Pet...perhaps a parrot for practicing the agenda's talking points, or a ferret to aid the secret service and intell community for ferreting out the truth which ran into the street years ago.

fatigued with the NeoEmpire?

STOP the NeoConning of America has a few books on the subject, if you're game.

These days I've been reading Michael C. Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon which I recommend highly for its 9/11 Timeline, details on CIA and FBI actions, Paul Wellstone and Danny Casolaro info, PROMIS software details, Iran- Contra scandal/October Surprise 1980, Vince Foster's suiciding, and much more (600+ pp altogether.)

This book is well researched and sourced, yet I could use a more details on writer Danny Casolaro (who got too close to the tentacles) whose death occurred the weekend of a New Moon 17Leo00--the Heart of the Scorpion degree. Tr Ceres was at 1Sco58, the NWO's natal Sun degree...what some would call a coincidence.

Casolaro's murder/assassination (Aug 9/10, 1991) preceded the Great Conjunctions of the New World Order planets, Uranus and Neptune: Feb 2, 1993 (19Cap34), Aug 20, 1993 (18Cap48), and Oct 24, 1993 (18Cap33--the chart I generally use as the NWO's birth chart.)

However, transit North Node (NN) was pointing to 18Cap45 (NWO's Uranus/Neptune Conjunction degree '18Cap') the weekend of Casolaro's death by deep wrist-slashing...a similar mode of death as UK's nuclear expert Dr. David Kelley's mysterious suiciding of July 17, 2003--when tr Chiron (The Wound) was at 14Cap37, conj tr Neptune/Pluto midpoint - at the same degree of tr Neptune during Casolaro's last weekend in Martinsburg, West Virginia. This is 3 degrees past the UK's natal Sun and opposes the US natal Sun, the two players with the most to gain from Dr. Kelley's demise.

(Casolaro checked into the Sheraton Inn "shortly before noon" on Aug 8, 1991, if you'd care to take a look.)

There were other strange deaths around that time meant to discourage interest and cover up sins including that of Jonathan Moyle. And the files of columnist Jack Anderson (Oct 19, 1922--Dec 17, 2005) have been sought by the FBI as part of the AIPAC case on the (shaky) grounds that the info within could "hurt US government interests." Yuh. That excuse isn't transparent in the least, is it?

The full title of Crossing the Rubicon is: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil.

Not comforting, I know, but if we'd been facing the truth years ago, we wouldn't find our nation in such a massive pickle now. I blame Jimmy Carter and all subsequent presidents, how 'bout you? And their neocon pals, of course.

Well, since I'm from Georgia, I can blame Carter if I want to. Did I ever tell you about the time I inadvertently shook hands with him back in the 60s inside a mountain festival tent? Like grasping a lobster's claw, all freckedly and...if only I could forget...