Articles like this would be comical if they weren’t about such a deadly topic—the threatened extermination of a people or country. Is CNN willing to accept the Regime’s repeated disclaimers that it is not working on a nuclear bomb? If so, they shouldn’t run this story. If they are unsure, CNN needs to ask why would Israel (or someone) risk retaliation by killing this important nuclear scientist? If not, CNN needs to fully explore Iran’s program. Last, as CNN continues to examine its reporting, the reader is drawn to the last line in the article—“There are just over 40 days until Biden can begin to negotiate, and during which diplomacy’s adversaries can stop talks dead.” What?! Here, and from the context of the article, CNN (this is not an op-ed) is saying that the U.S. and Iran neither want diplomacy. CNN needs to ponder the actions of both the U.S. and Iran—is it CNN’s position that both the current Administration and Iran are equally bad actors? See “As Iran mulls retaliation for nuclear scientist’s death, a riddle remains. What exactly was he working on?,” Nick Paton Walsh, Jo Shelley, Ramin Mostaghim, and Scott McWhinnie, CNN, December 7, 2020.
It is not normal for a country to snatch one of its citizens (who has dual citizenship) and hold them hostage, waiting to see what she can be traded for. And this is an elderly woman. “I don’t know what Iran wants’: Mariam Claren’s fight to free her mother,” Patrick Wintour, Guardian, December 7, 2020.
Gives new meaning to the term habeas corpus. “An official at the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday denied the rumor about the top leader’s health, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.” But the Leader has not been seen publicly. And this is a Chinese source—remember the disappearance for weeks by NK Leader Kim? The Chinese do. See “Iran’s top leader office denies rumors about bad health,” Xinhua, December 7, 2020.
“Why does the Iranian regime keep taking foreigners hostage as political leverage? The simple answer is that this tactic always works. Starting from the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in 1979, the regime has inevitably got something in return for releasing captive foreigners, be it some form of financial gain, repatriation of Iranian prisoners detained overseas or other political concessions from foreign governments. Inevitably, too, these swaps have been described as “diplomacy.” But when the old hostages are sent home, the regime simply arrests new ones to replenish its stock of political pawns. The vicious circle is repeated. The irony here is that the regime’s hostage-taking is in fact a manifestation of its anti-diplomacy orientation. The Islamic Republic, from its formation in 1979, has consistently defied international norms, and frequently rejected the use of diplomacy and dialog as means of mitigating its differences with other countries. This is because of its revolutionary outlook and a unique, divine-sanctioned sense of hubris. No other state actor in the contemporary world has so frequently encouraged or tolerated the seizure and ransacking of foreign diplomatic representations. These are gross violations of the most basic diplomatic principles, but they are perfectly justifiable in the regime’s rhetoric of “revolution” and “quashing the global arrogance.”” See this well-reasoned article by Wang Xiyue, Ph.D. candidate in history at Princeton and an incoming Jeane Kirkpatrick fellow at American Enterprise Institute in D.C.—he was imprisoned in Iran from Aug. 7, 2016, to Dec. 7, 2019—at “Don’t Let Iran Get Away With Hostage-Taking,” Wang Xiyue, op-ed, Bloomberg, December 7, 2020.
About 10 ships so far announced in the media. “The ‘Biggest Ever’ Flotilla Of Iranian Tankers Is En Route To Venezuela,” OilPrice.com, December 7, 2020.
He’s aiming to win friends, not enemies? FM spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh sure knows how to wow the Saudis and the Europeans. See “Iran Dismisses Saudi Call for Inclusion in Nuclear Talks,” Naharnet, December 7, 2020.