{"id":2194,"date":"2020-12-07T11:50:34","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T17:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/?p=2194"},"modified":"2020-12-08T16:04:59","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T22:04:59","slug":"2194","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/2020\/12\/07\/2194\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Articles like this would be comical if they weren\u2019t about such a deadly topic\u2014the threatened extermination of a people or country.\u00a0 Is CNN willing to accept the Regime\u2019s repeated disclaimers that it is not working on a nuclear bomb?\u00a0 If so, they shouldn\u2019t run this story.\u00a0 If they are unsure, CNN needs to ask why would Israel (or someone) risk retaliation by killing this important nuclear scientist?\u00a0 If not, CNN needs to fully explore Iran\u2019s program.\u00a0 Last, as CNN continues to examine its reporting, the reader is drawn to the last line in the article\u2014\u201cThere are just over 40 days until Biden can begin to negotiate, and during which diplomacy\u2019s adversaries can stop talks dead.\u201d\u00a0 What?!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 CNN needs to ponder the actions of both the U.S. and Iran\u2014is it CNN\u2019s position that both the current Administration and Iran are equally bad actors?\u00a0 See \u201cAs Iran mulls retaliation for nuclear scientist’s death, a riddle remains. What exactly was he working on?,\u201d<\/a> Nick Paton Walsh, Jo Shelley, Ramin Mostaghim, and Scott McWhinnie, CNN, December 7, 2020.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 And this is an elderly woman.\u00a0 \u201cI don’t know what Iran wants’: Mariam Claren’s fight to free her mother,”<\/a>\u00a0Patrick Wintour, Guardian, December 7, 2020.<\/p>\n

Gives new meaning to the term habeas corpus.\u00a0 \u201cAn 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.\u201d\u00a0 But the Leader has not been seen publicly.\u00a0 And this is a Chinese source\u2014remember the disappearance for weeks by NK Leader Kim?\u00a0 The Chinese do.\u00a0 See \u201cIran\u2019s top leader office denies rumors about bad health,\u201d<\/a> Xinhua, December 7, 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy 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 \u201cdiplomacy.\u201d 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\u2019s 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\u2019s rhetoric of \u201crevolution\u201d and \u201cquashing the global arrogance.\u201d\u201d\u00a0 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.\u2014he was imprisoned in Iran from Aug. 7, 2016, to Dec. 7, 2019\u2014at \u201cDon\u2019t Let Iran Get Away With Hostage-Taking,\u201d<\/a> Wang Xiyue, op-ed, Bloomberg, December 7, 2020.<\/p>\n

About 10 ships so far announced in the media.\u00a0 \u201cThe ‘Biggest Ever’ Flotilla Of Iranian Tankers Is En Route To Venezuela,\u201d<\/a> OilPrice.com, December 7, 2020.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s aiming to win friends, not enemies?\u00a0 FM spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh sure knows how to wow the Saudis and the Europeans.\u00a0 See \u201cIran Dismisses Saudi Call for Inclusion in Nuclear Talks,\u201d<\/a> Naharnet, December 7, 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Articles like this would be comical if they weren\u2019t about such a deadly topic\u2014the threatened extermination of a people or country.\u00a0 Is CNN willing to accept the Regime\u2019s repeated disclaimers that it is not working on a nuclear bomb?\u00a0 If so, they shouldn\u2019t run this story.\u00a0 If they are unsure, CNN needs to ask why … <\/p>\n

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