Back in the political Paleolithic era before the advent of George W. Bush on the national scene (a veritable Garden of Eden by some standards), the only news about Iran was that the spirit of reform was burgeoning despite the sclerotic mentality of the mullahs. Hope was on the horizon.
Then came the Antagonizer-in-Chief and his monotone foreign policy in which bullying was the only card in the deck. Iranians did not warmly embrace their new membership in the Axis of Evil, nor were they enamored by the threatening stream of rhetoric that followed. The military takeover of Iraq on their western border also did not serve to sweeten the pot. Perhaps not coincidentally, the conservative, anti-Western forces gained surprising strength in the summer election of 2005, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took over the reins of the country in August.
Since his coming to power, Ahmadinejad has told us that he does not believe the Holocaust ever took place and that he wants Israel erased from the map, its Jewish population moved to someplace in Europe. He has recently banned all Western music from Iran’s media. With these and other of his radical pronouncements, Ahmadinejad has many international observers gnawing at their nails. His avid interest in developing nuclear energy for his nation is well known. The concern is that a darker motive underlies this interest. There is palpable fear in many quarters that Iran, led by the radical and unpredictable Ahmadinejad, will try to enrich uranium on its own soil and develop nuclear weapons.
Russia has offered to allow Iran’s uranium enrichment process to proceed on Russian territory so that only material for atomic power reactors will be developed, which is what Iran claims it wants. In addition, France, Britain, and Germany are working diplomatically with Iran to find a mutually agreeable solution to Iran’s desire to enrich uranium, although recent unilateral American sanctions against Iran are agitating everyone.
It is not difficult to understand why a nation surrounded by Pakistan, Israel, Russia, and India, all nuclear powers, as well as the US military presence in Iraq, would want nukes of its own. Bush’s recent offer to aid India’s nuclear program only exacerbates the seeming unfairness and affront of the situation. Additionally, having nuclear weapons would seem to be an insurance policy against precipitous aggression from a rogue foreign power, not impossible to imagine in today’s world. Nonetheless, Iran’s new president has proven himself radical enough to get much of the world’s hackles up, and most nuclear nations are desperately hoping to keep some kind of leash on the spread of these dangerous weapons.
Although President Ahmadinejad seems steeped in his own ideological fervor for much of 2006 (transiting Pluto square natal Venus), he will clearly feel restrained and frustrated, perhaps by international pressures, from late February through early May, 2006, when Saturn stations square his Sun (4Scorpio54). It is doubtful he will be able to act intemperately during that period. More generally, acts of aggression during 2006 are certainly possible with Pluto squaring Iran’s Mars, but the configurations of 2007 seem far more inflammatory.
By January 2007, Iran’s progressed Mars will oppose natal Pluto (18Libra02) through the spring of 2008. This aspect will be triggered by a quincunx from transiting Uranus at 18 Pisces, from late April through early August 2007 and again in February 2008. This Mars/Pluto/Uranus combination is an incendiary mix, and it runs parallel to aspects in George Bush’s chart which also suggest the potential for aggression. In Bush’s chart, we find progressed Mars moving to conjunct natal Jupiter (18Libra08) from May 2007 through November 2008, also triggered by the same quincunx from transiting Uranus at 18 Pisces in the spring and summer of 2007 and February 2008. The potential for heightened aggression if not open conflict seems very great for this period.
Exactly how these planetary aspects play out will remain to be seen. But on the current trajectory, with two leaders – Bush and Ahmadinejad – both resistant to compromise and ill-suited to diplomacy, we may be on a path toward increasing hostility and aggression. There have been many crossroads along the way where a more nuanced, strategic approach might have paid off. But George Bush only knows one strategy and that is to bully others to enforce his will. Unfortunately, the results are not always what we might hope for in a civilized world.
Nancy Waterman on Jan 8 |
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Great article, Nancy. Sorry to see such turmoil in store for Iran. I hope against hope that it is not a military event. It seems that the Iranian president is as much as and even more of an extremistn than Bush and when you put 2 hardliners together, can compromise occur? On the other hand, will both of these leaders be in power through 2007? That outcome can't be known yet. Meanwhile, does anyone see anything in either leader's chart that points to the ability to comprise and be flexible. I always think of the mutable signs as flexible, so, when the Saturn transits pass, might compromise be more possible.
wv, thanks for posting the Amos Oz piece on Sharon in the last article. I didn't know Amoz Oz started Peace Now. I do know him as a highly admired writer of fiction.
Just chilling. I know it must have been awful to be alone in a room discovering that group of aspects Nancy.
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Think Progress
Abramoff Met With Bush In May 2001
The White House maintains that Bush does not “recall” meeting Abramoff and, if they ever did meet, it was only in passing at a large gathering:
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I said it’s possible that they would have met at a holiday reception or some other widely attended gathering. The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him. Q But he has the special designation as a Pioneer, as Terry was alluding to, raising more than $100,000. And he attended, as you told us, three events, holiday receptions at the White House. How likely is it that the President would not have met him — MR. McCLELLAN: That’s why I said it’s possible. But I just told you what I know at this point, and the President doesn’t recall meeting him and he certainly doesn’t know him. It’s not just possible, it happened.
The Texas Observer reports that Abramoff met with Bush on May 9, 2001, with his clients, the Coushatta tribe. (The chairman of the Coushatta tribe initially denied the meeting occured, but subsequently admitted that it did.) Abramoff charged his client 25,000 to arrange the meeting.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/07/abramoff-bush-2001/
http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle_new.asp?ArticleID=13
What does anyone know about Benjamin Netanyahu?
He appears to be the politico to step into the breach of Sharon's demise (if not political, at least physical).
My recollection is that he is EXTREME (a la the PNAC-type 'remaker of the middle east').
Susan, Natanyahu,is very extreme. Very, very extreme.
I may be wrong, but I believe he is a Kibbutz child. And he grew up hating wrapped in the ideals of greater Israel from Lebanon to Egypt. He served for quite a bit on time in the late 80 and early 90's (dates?)as Israel's ambassador to the UN. And, if I am not mistaken, was trying not so long ago to get the world to say "homicide bomber, not suicide bomber."
Now as to Iran. If we can just get the congress to go Democratic or something like that...
Susan, that was me, Beasley, typing Brasley...
Hiccup.
Shy -
I think this whole thing was a way for the cartel to keep tabs on the people who were involved with them in perpetrating and carrying out the attacks of 9/11, as well as members of congress and the news people - all of whom were complicit in 9/11 by their coverup. I believe it was a method to keep the lid on the most heinous act in the history of this country. What better way to ensure silence than by letting the stateside evildoers, lawmakers and the news scribes know that Big Brother was listening to them -and would hold them accountable if they talked about this. When you reflect on how the Dems have just rolled over for the past 4-1/2 years, it makes sense that they've been blackmailed.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0107-29.htm
The Death of Freedom
The rights of ordinary people to speak out against an unjust war and atrocities unleashed in their name are being crushed. Fascism is at the door. Who else will fight it?
by John Pilger
On Christmas Eve, I dropped in on Brian Haw, whose hunched, pacing figure was just visible through the freezing fog. For four and a half years, Brian has camped in Parliament Square with a graphic display of photographs that show the terror and suffering imposed on Iraqi children by British policies. The effectiveness of his action was demonstrated last April when the Blair government banned any expression of opposition within a kilometre of parliament. The high court subsequently ruled that, because his presence preceded the ban, Brian was an exception.
Day after day, night after night, season upon season, he remains a beacon, illuminating the great crime of Iraq and the cowardice of the House of Commons. As we talked, two women brought him a Christmas meal and mulled wine. They thanked him, shook his hand and hurried on. He had never seen them before. "That's typical of the public," he said. A man in a pinstriped suit and tie emerged from the fog, carrying a small wreath. "I intend to place this at the Cenotaph and read out the names of the dead in Iraq," he said to Brian, who cautioned him: "You'll spend the night in the cells, mate." We watched him stride off and lay his wreath. His head bowed, he appeared to be whispering. Thirty years ago, I watched dissidents do something similar outside the walls of the Kremlin.
As the night had covered him, he was lucky. On December 7th, Maya Evans, a vegan chef aged 25, was convicted of breaching the new Serious Organized Crime and Police Act by reading aloud at the Cenotaph the names of 97 British soldiers killed in Iraq. So serious was her crime that it required 14 policemen in two vans to arrest her. She was fined and given a criminal record for the rest of her life.
Freedom is dying.
Eighty-year-old John Catt served with the RAF in the Second World War. Last September, he was stopped by police in Brighton for wearing an "offensive" T-shirt which suggested that Bush and Blair be tried for war crimes. He was arrested under the Terrorism Act and handcuffed, with his arms held behind his back. The official record of the arrest says the "purpose" of searching him was "terrorism" and the "grounds for intervention" were "carrying plackard and T-shirt with anti-Blair info" (sic).
He is awaiting trial.
More...
Uh oh.
Attack Kills 8 in Pakistan; U.S. Missile Is Blamed
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan. 7 - An attack on a residential compound in Pakistan's northern tribal region early Saturday killed eight people and wounded nine, the Pakistani military said Saturday. Local residents said an American helicopter had fired a missile at the compound, but the American military said it had no knowledge of the incident.
Local officials said the attack, an hour or so after midnight, was on the residence of Maulvi Noor Muhammad, a religious leader in Saidgi, near the border with Afghanistan in the North Waziristan tribal area.
Residents including a local elder, Momin Khan, said that they had seen two American helicopters hovering over the compound and that one had fired a missile that destroyed the residence. Witnesses said that two women and a child were among the dead and that nine people had been wounded. A doctor at a hospital in Miramshah said that the survivors were treated there for multiple shrapnel wounds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/international/asia/08pakistan.html
