GARETH PORTER, porter.gareth50 at gmail.com
Porter is an investigative journalist and historian specializing in U.S. national security policy. He just wrote the piece: “A Dangerous Game on Iran.” He said today: “There are clearly drumbeats for war in U.S. media coverage of Iran, largely fueled by the Israeli propaganda blast suggesting an array of Iranian assassination attempts with no discernible factual basis. The indications are that there will be a new round of negotiations with Iran relatively soon. What’s being ignored is the fact that Iran was ready to negotiate with the United States on a fuel swap deal that would reduce its stock of enriched uranium and indicated it would cease its enrichment to 20 percent if the Western countries assured it of a supply of fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor. The U.S. should take advantage of that offer.”
MUHAMMAD SAHIMI, moe@usc.edu,
Sahimi is a professor at the University of Southern California and lead political columnist for the website PBS/Frontline/Tehran Bureau. He said today: “The attempts to assassinate Israeli diplomats are presumably a blowback by Iran against Israel’s covert war against Iran. Israel has been the culprit behind the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, has supported Iranian terrorist groups to carry out terrorist operations in Iran and is suspected of having a hand in several explosions in important Iranian military and civilian facilities. At the same time, the Israel lobby in the U.S. has been the primary force for imposing tougher sanctions on Iran…”
See Juan Cole: “Indian Investigators do not Suspect Iran in Israel Embassy Blast.”