The Iran Agenda The Real Story of U S Policy and the Middle East Crisis 1st Edition by Reese Erlich ISBN 0977825353 9780977825356

1. In Tehran with Sean Penn

• Why We Hate Them

• The Great Game in the Internet Era

• Visiting the Ghost of Khomeini

• A Wrestler, the Foreign Ministry, and a Cup of Coffee

• The Creeping Dress Codes

• Satellite TV—Now You See It, Now You Don’t

• A Memorable Trip

2. United States Tells Iran: Become a Nuclear Power

• Nukes and Party-Mad Dictators

• Mohamed ElBaradei, the Consummate Inspector

• Is Nuclear Power Islamic?

• Enriching Uranium—a Tough Rock to Crack

• Iran Is Just Five to Ten Years from Making a Bomb, Really

• No Nukes? Not Enough

• So What Would You Do?

3. Iran, Hizbollah, and Israel: The Real Story

• Does Iran Want to Kill the Jews?

• Is Hizbollah a Terrorist Organization?

• Who Won the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War?

4. A Brief History of U.S.-Iranian Relations

• It’s All about Oil (and Geopolitics)

• The Oily British

• Terrorism, the Clergy, and the Coup

• The U.S. Propaganda

• The Shah Gets a Makeover

• The Capitulation

• The 1979 Revolution and Embassy Takeover

• The Revolution Goes Sour

• Never Negotiate with Terrorists?

• The Iran-Contra Affair

• The USS Vincennes Incident

• Support for Terrorism?

• Some Recent History

5. Who Rules Iran?

• Iran’s Political System

• The Bazaar Merchants

• The Bonyads—Revolutionary Foundations

• The Revolutionary Guard

• The Government Bureaucrats

• Alliances Form and Break Apart

• Reformists Triumph in 1997 Presidential Elections

• The Conservative Backlash in the 2005 Elections

• How Much Power Does Ahmadinejad Really Have?

• The Rafsanjani Interview

6. Who Will Be Iran’s Next Ruler?

• The Inheritor of a Three-Thousand-Year Dynasty?

• The Terrorist Threat Replaces Anti-Communism

• Waiting in the Wings but Reluctant to Go on Stage

• U.S. Conservatives Support a Cult

• Monarchists in Tarzana

• Tehrangeles Is Born

• Bending the Truth Beyond Recognition

• Where’s the Money?

7. Iran’s Democratic Opposition

• The Opposition Says the Nukes Issue Is Phony

• A Short History of Opposition Movements

• The Students Rebel

• The Women’s Rights Battle

• Wildcat Strikes and Independent Unions

• NGOs Try to Create Civil Society

• The United States Sponsors Terrorism

• The Impact of U.S. Meddling

8. Iran’s Ethnic Minorities: Rebellion on the Borders

• Iranian but Not Persian

• The Kurds and Their Way

• Iranian Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan

• The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan

• The Komala Compound

• Finding the Party of Free Life

• The United States, PJAK, and MEK

• Kurds Receive Israeli Support

• Azerbaijanis—the Largest and the Least Known

• Arabs in Iran?

• U.S. Conservatives Seek to Use Minorities, but It Won’t Be Easy

9. What the U.S. Media Didn’t Tell You

• Aircraft Carriers for Peace

• The Assumptions of Empire

• The Corporate Owners Call the Shots

• Iran’s Activities in Iraq—a Case Study

• Criticizing Conventional Wisdom in Real Time

• A Fair Response

• Controlling the News

• The Journalistic High Jump

• Bring in the Clowns

• Decoding the Media

10. Learning the Lessons of Iraq

• No Cakewalk in Iraq

• Iran’s Influence in Iraq

• Iran Covers All the Bases

• Military Attack?

• The Results of a U.S. Attack

• Not Just Republicans versus Democrats

• Is There Another Way?