To: Iran From: France "You guys rock :bowdown:"

kinggovernor · 08-02-2006, 07:34 PM

France Praises Iran's 'Stabilizing Role'
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
August 01, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - The French foreign minister, whose government is positioning itself to play a leading part in Mideast peace efforts, has described Iran as a respected country that plays a stabilizing role in the region.

Philippe Douste-Blazy told a news conference in Beirut Monday that Iran was "a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region."
Hours later, the Frenchmen met with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, at the Iranian Embassy. Tehran's mission in the Lebanese capital has been a key channel for Iran's support for Hizballah, and last week Iran denied reports that Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah had taken refuge inside the building.

The U.S., Israel and several other countries accuse Iran of being the world's leading sponsor of terrorism and the primary backer of Hizballah in Lebanon. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called repeatedly for Israel's annihilation.

Iran also is at odds with the international community over its nuclear programs, with France one of three European countries involved in the standoff.

The French minister's praise for the Islamic regime came on the day Hizballah's representative in Iran told a gathering in Tehran that his organization would put into effect the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's call for the "cancerous tumor" (Israel) to be eliminated.

Abol-Hassan Zo'aiter was quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency as saying Hizballah's resistance against Israel in recent weeks was the greatest victory ever of the "Islamic ummah."

Zo'aiter's threats are not the only ones to be heard in Iran this week. On Sunday, Fars quoted the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, as urging his troops "to keep this sacred hatred of the enemies of Islam alive in our hearts until the time of revenge comes."

"Hizballah and Lebanese people are invincible and this cancerous tumor [Israel] should die," said Safavi, calling on leading Islamic clerics to "clarify the duty of Muslims against Israel."

The 130,000-strong Revolutionary Guards, or Pasdaran, was designated guardian of the Islamic revolution after 1979, and is accused by the State Department of involvement in planning and supporting terrorism. It has particularly close ties to Hizballah, which it helped to establish in 1982.

According to exiled Iranian opposition groups, 13 out of 21 Iranian cabinet ministers, including Mottaki, have backgrounds in the IGRC. Ahmadinejad, the president, is a former senior Pasdaran officer.

Several hundred Revolutionary Guards officers are reported to be advising and fighting alongside Hizballah in the current conflict, although Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a briefing Sunday Iran had not and would not dispatch forces to Lebanon, and again denying the Tehran arms Hizballah.

Israeli security officials say many of the 2,500 missiles Hizballah has fired into northern Israel since July 12 came from Iran, and that Iran also supplied a C-802 missile that damaged an Israeli Navy vessel two weeks ago, and longer-range Zelzal missiles which have yet to be used, but could possibly bring Tel Aviv within range.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli officials were bewildered by Douste-Blazy's remarks about Iran, and quoted one diplomatic source in Jerusalem as asking "what planet is he on?"

Before his departure to Lebanon, the French minister told Le Figaro that there was no need to forbid contacts with the Iranian authorities, although he said President Jacques Chirac had ruled out contacts with the Syrians, Hizballah's other major sponsor.

Mottaki's trip to Beirut was the first public visit to Lebanon by a senior Iranian leader since the Israel-Hizballah conflict began.

Apart from his French counterpart, he also met with Lebanese government leaders, including President Emile Lahoud and Foreign Minister Fauzi Salloukh, whom the Iranian Irna news agency reported had voiced appreciation for "the selfless contributions of the Islamic Republic of Iran" to Lebanon.

Salloukh, a Shi'ite, is close to Hizballah and has argued against the need for the terrorist group to disband, saying it is a "national resistance movement" and not a militia, and thus not covered by U.N. Security Council resolution 1559's requirement for militias to be dismantled.

France, Lebanon and Hizballah

At the U.N. Security Council, France is playing a leading role in diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. It has drafted a resolution calling for the creation of a multinational force and a buffer zone, but only after the fighting stops.

France has strong historical links with Lebanon, a country it administered between 1920 and 1943.

After the Iranian revolution, however, its ties with the small Mediterranean nation were severely strained when Hizballah killed 58 French troops in a series of deadly 1983 bombings that also targeted U.S. Marines and the American Embassy.

Hizballah - and by extension Iran - subsequently carried out terrorist attacks against French targets including the French Embassy in Kuwait and the Marseilles railway station. Late that year, France expelled half a dozen Iranians attached to the embassy in Paris, accusing them of links to terror.

Almost two decades later, Chirac endorsed the presence of Nasrallah at a Francophone summit in Beirut in Oct. 2002.

Nasrallah sat in the front row, among religious leaders, and his participation was hailed in Lebanese media as evidence that for France and the fifty-plus other full and observer members of the bloc, Hizballah was not a terrorist organization.

(The Hizballah leader was invited by the Lebanese president Lahoud, but the country's Al-Safir newspaper pointed out that invitations went through the organizing committee of the French-speaking grouping. There was no record of Chirac - who spoke during the opening session about the need to fight terrorism - protesting his presence. Canada's then prime minister, Jean Chretien, was later criticized at home for giving a speech while Nasrallah sit a few feet away, but pleaded ignorance. Under pressure, Chretien's government outlawed Hizballah two months later.)

France has led opposition within the European Union to moves for the 25-nation bloc to outlaw Hizballah and cut off its European sources of funding, as requested by Israel and the U.S.

France Praises Iran's 'Stabilizing Role' -- 08/01/2006

I really thought this was the onion or something like it at first

kinggovernor · 08-02-2006, 07:45 PM

where was ron burgundy for this little gem

motivez · 08-02-2006, 08:16 PM

Must not have been on Yahoo

ballz2wallz · 08-02-2006, 08:17 PM

yeah iran is DEFINITELY not a stabilizing force in the region

kinggovernor · 08-02-2006, 08:18 PM

Originally Posted by motivez

Must not have been on Yahoo

fucking liberal media, but this wasn't covered by any major American news source. I wonder why foxnews didn't pick up the story

Ardentfrost · 08-02-2006, 08:18 PM

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

where was ron burgundy for this little gem

Ron's a liberal douchebag

ballz2wallz · 08-02-2006, 08:19 PM

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

fucking liberal media, but this wasn't covered by any major American news source. I wonder why foxnews didn't pick up the story

they did. o'reilly had condi rice on last night and they mentioned it. she chuckled a bit.

kinggovernor · 08-02-2006, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

they did. o'reilly had condi rice on last night and they mentioned it. she chuckled a bit.

I just knew Bill :rly: would be all over this

Kytro · 08-02-2006, 09:01 PM

France is entitled to it's opinion.

I am not seeing any nations in the reigion being a stablising force.

kinggovernor · 08-02-2006, 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by Kytro

France is entitled to it's opinion.

I am not seeing any nations in the reigion being a stablising force.

Maybe people shouldn't respect "world opinion" so much then

Jordan maybe

Donkey® · 08-02-2006, 11:22 PM

OMG France thinks differently than us!!!!!!!! KILL THEM!!!! TERRORISTS!!!!!

Kytro · 08-02-2006, 11:48 PM

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

Maybe people shouldn't respect "world opinion" so much then

Jordan maybe

World opinion, or the opinion of most nations is one which primarilty serves those nations, or at least thier leaders think it does. To mistake this for right or wrong is not a good idea.

This applies to pretty much all nations, and the US is no execption

kinggovernor · 08-03-2006, 12:18 AM

Originally Posted by Donkey®

OMG France thinks differently than us!!!!!!!! KILL THEM!!!! TERRORISTS!!!!!

Iran

France

makes me reconsider world opinion

kinggovernor · 08-03-2006, 12:20 AM

Originally Posted by Kytro

World opinion, or the opinion of most nations is one which primarilty serves those nations, or at least thier leaders think it does. To mistake this for right or wrong is not a good idea.

This applies to pretty much all nations, and the US is no execption

i totally agree, but many people look at the US going against "world opinion" as a bad thing

Kytro · 08-03-2006, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

i totally agree, but many people look at the US going against "world opinion" as a bad thing

This is true, however I supect it it more opposition to the position of the US and the fact that many people oppose that position to bolster the credibilty.

The credibility, or lack thereof should be based on actual merit.

kinggovernor · 08-03-2006, 12:25 AM

Originally Posted by Kytro

This is true, however I supect it it more opposition to the position of the US and the fact that many people oppose that position to bolster the credibilty.

The credibility, or lack thereof should be based on actual merit.

and I agree totally, I wish our citizens would think that every country is out for their own best interest, not for the good of the world.

Kytro · 08-03-2006, 12:30 AM

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

and I agree totally, I wish our citizens would think that every country is out for their own best interest, not for the good of the world.

Hence why the UN is "useless" to some nations at times.

What nations should be doing is working to towards common goals rather than using it as a tool to mainpulate other nations.

I think the world has a long way to go before it can really work together.

kinggovernor · 08-03-2006, 12:32 AM

Originally Posted by Kytro

Hence why the UN is "useless" to some nations at times.

What nations should be doing is working to towards common goals rather than using it as a tool to mainpulate other nations.

I think the world has a long way to go before it can really work together.

its never going to happen, the moment our or any democratically elected officers begin to attack not in the best interests of their country they will be shit canned

Kytro · 08-03-2006, 01:54 AM

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

its never going to happen, the moment our or any democratically elected officers begin to attack not in the best interests of their country they will be shit canned

Attack or act? Also I suggest they will be shit can if people think they are acting against the nations best interest.

In any case, it probably will happen over time, as technology and knowledge progress.

In the meantime, co-operation does not mean it isn't in a nations best interest.

kinggovernor · 08-03-2006, 07:58 AM

Originally Posted by Kytro

Attack or act? Also I suggest they will be shit can if people think they are acting against the nations best interest.

In any case, it probably will happen over time, as technology and knowledge progress.

In the meantime, co-operation does not mean it isn't in a nations best interest.

act, sorry. Co-operation sometimes is the best plan sometimes it isn't